Stark's War (13 page)

Murphy looked puzzled. "What's a lark?"

"It's a bird, stupid," Gomez snorted derisively. "What kind of Earthworm doesn't know what a bird is?"

"Hey, I know what a bird is. I just never heard of any lark." Murphy looked doubly insulted. "And I'm no Earthworm. I've been up here as long as you—"

Stark cut him off. "Fine, Murph, you're a rock-eater. Now shut up." He turned back to Mendoza. "Flanders, huh? A battlefield? What was that, some big show?"

Mendoza nodded. "Oh, yes, Sergeant, real big. Millions of soldiers, in the Belgium part of Euro. Brits, mostly, fighting Germans. They took hundreds of thousands of casualties in a few days crawling through mud to seize a few hundred yards of territory."

Gomez frowned. "Millions of soldiers? Hundreds of thousands killed and wounded? Where'd they get those kinds of numbers? And how'd they lose so many without their generals getting canned? The folks back home don't like too many body bags coming downrange."

"It was a different world back then, Corporal." Mendoza looked doubly uncomfortable at having to elaborate. "Most of the armies weren't volunteer, they were conscripted, made to serve, though the Brits I think all volunteered. They thought the survival of their state and their way of life and, well, everything depended on winning. So they joined their militaries, and back home people were willing to accept many casualties because they thought it was important, too."

The Squad members looked back at him with puzzled expressions. "Wars sure were different back then," Billings remarked. "They actually forced civs to join the mil and fight their wars themselves? How'd the civs ever vote for that?"

"I don't know," Mendoza admitted.

"Yeah, but didn't they get any vid of the fighting?" Gomez wondered. "Sure, they wouldn't have the almost real-time stuff like we got, but I know vid's been around a long time."

"Vid? Well, there wasn't any. Not like we know it. There's some old film, but it wasn't anything like today. You couldn't use the cameras on a battlefield, so hardly anyone knew how bad the slaughter was."

"But how'd they pay for it?" Murphy demanded, with a guilty glance toward Stark as he realized he'd spoken again. "I mean, with no vid? Where'd they get enough money for a big war?"

"Taxes." Mendoza left the single word hanging.

"Taxes?" Gomez bore the expression of a woman who thought she'd been made a fool. "Enough taxes to support a big war? Bull. Corporations cut deals and make sure the laws say they don't pay nothing. The civs don't pay, either. The politicians been telling them for so long that they can have everything they want without paying for it that they all believe it now. You know that. Back home they won't even pay for enough cops to keep the lowers from stealing their Social Security checks. Why the hell would they pay for a war that they were forced to fight in?"

Mendoza glared back, momentarily and uncharacteristically defiant. "Don't ask me. Civs were different back then. Maybe civs had a sense of duty in those days, like we do now. Maybe civs didn't know any better then, didn't know they could vote for someone else to do the dirty work and vote not to pay for it besides. Or maybe they really thought it was important, so they were willing to fight themselves and pay the taxes."

Stark shook his head in wonder. "What the hell war in what the hell world was this?" Probably something they'd covered in history back in Stark's high school, but maybe not. High school had been a long time ago, feeling as ancient as the old wars Mendoza spoke of. Stark had slept his way through most of the classes, but vaguely recalled wondering why the United States always seemed to be fighting somewhere right now even though their history classes never mentioned any wars in the past.

"Our world, Sergeant," Mendoza stated, "not that long ago. Early twentieth century, like I said. It was called World War One. Well, not at the time, because there hadn't been a Second World War yet. At the time, they called it the Great War."

"Doesn't sound so great to me," Gomez noted sourly.

"They meant 'great' as in 'big,' Corporal," Mendoza explained.

"No vid?" That was Hoxely, angrily gesturing toward the nearest monitor. "So it was the corporations, right? They made money off it, somehow, right?"

"I don't think so. Not like now. After the war, there was a lot of complaints about war profiteers, but I don't think that was the real reason."

"War profiteers?" Stark questioned. "That's some corporation that makes money out of selling weapons and stuff?"

"Yes, Sergeant."

"And the civs thought that was bad back then?"

"Yes, Sergeant. They thought their political leaders had sold out to the profiteers."

Around of bitter laughter erupted. "Good thing those civs ain't around now!" Billings hooted. "They'd be real unhappy."

"You serious, Mendo?" Hoxely wondered. "Civs paid major bucks for a war they had to fight in, they didn't want corporations making money off the mil contracts, and they worried about politicians selling out to the corporations like it wasn't routine? That's just too weird. The world never could've worked that way."

"Pyotr, I'm not putting you on." Mendoza looked unaccountably tired and spoke slowly. "That's the way they thought. A lot of them died because they believed in that. It didn't make sense then, just like it doesn't make sense now. Like here, but different. That's history, it's always like here, but different." A dark pause fell over the bunker at the sudden shift in the conversation, from the follies of ancient fighting to their own situation.

"Yeah, different." Gomez looked sharply toward Mendoza. "No birds here, right? Who cares? A bunch of civs died back on the World so long ago they didn't even have vid, and so what if they all got major screwed 'cause they were stupid? We're here now, protecting 'corporate assets' for the tycoons and their bought-and-paid-for politicians, our commanders would let us all get blown away if they could get promotions out of it, and the civs don't care how much we get screwed as long as we fight their battles and show them some entertainment on vid. Big surprise, Mendo. Nobody ever looks out for grunts but other grunts. Right, Sarge?"

"Right." Gomez had jumped in while Stark had still been thinking through his own answer. Normally that might irritate him for throwing his own thoughts off, but Gomez had nailed the issue to the wall better than he could have. Not a good idea to think too much, not when every day held the chance for sudden death, and every memory recalled friends they'd never see again this side of Heaven or Hell. Fate sucked, and the odds against every grunt sucked, and you had to know that to protect yourself, but you couldn't think about it too often. Otherwise you'd get sloppy and make mistakes, maybe fatal mistakes, or sometimes grunts would just put a round through their own heads to try to stop the fear.

"Right," Stark repeated aloud, giving extra force to the word. "That's all that counts out here. You know the score, and you know the only people you can count on are the people in this bunker and the other bunkers along the line. You rock apes look out for each other, or Gomez and I'll personally break heads. Nobody,
nobody,
is going to take you down while I'm in charge."

He hadn't meant to say the last, but it came out of somewhere deep and hung there, and it was right because he felt it was true, and the faces that had sagged a moment before tightened up to familiar patterns.
Poor bastards trust me. Hope to Christ I don't ever let them down.

He turned back to Mendoza. "Don't think so much, Mendo. You'll never make Lieutenant if you keep it up."

Laughter from the bunker broke the remaining tension as Mendoza half smiled, nodded shyly, and turned back to his sentry watch, where all the screens looked at the world through different eyes, each displaying a different reality based on their vision of what mattered.

Stark had long ago learned there was usually a trade-off for knowledge. Ignorance makes it easy to be confident you know the truth about everything. Stark had watched the firm certainties of the world he'd once been sure of fall apart by bits and pieces over the years under the pressure of experience. Sometimes the pieces he lost were awfully large. A sizable chunk still lay on a grass-covered hill in a small country back on Earth, but other pieces had fallen away in less terrible moments.

A long time ago, maybe three weeks in the past, the unit had been on rest and recreation. That was the drill. One month on line, a week off for R&R, then refresher training and start over. But the first day of R&R was always the best. First beer, first semiopen spaces, first chance to relax tense muscles accustomed to always subconsciously expecting the worst. You could walk through corridors wider than a single arm span, drink a beer, or just be alone for a little while. Civs would never, Stark often thought, really appreciate how great those things could be.

For soldiers who wanted to seriously unwind, there was the Outer City, a rough circle of cheap bars, cheap hotels, and cheap hookers that spread out past the official borders of New Plymouth. Soldiers on leave who headed for off-base entertainment never made it as far as the clean, neat, and expensive city America's corporations had planted up here in expectation of huge profits down the line. Stark had been in the Out-City before, and would be there again, but this night he and Vic Reynolds had been unwinding together at a mil facility, without the high-pressure relaxation offered in the Out-City's rough pleasure spots.

Stark drank his first beer in one long gulp, shuddering as the cold liquid hit his gut. "Damn it."

Vic raised one eyebrow over the rim of her own beer. "Anything in particular?"

"Yeah." Stark ripped the top off a second beer and took another drink. "You know something? The only thing worse than being shot at is watching your friends get shot at and not being able to help."

"You got a point there." Vic's ironic chuckle came out as a humorless hiss. "Operation Offside probably looked brilliant on a big map at the Pentagon."

"Huh. Well, it was a disaster in practice."

"True. But then big disasters tend to attract big crowds.

I'm sure the ratings were great. Some general probably got a medal."

"Don't get me started." High-ranking officers cycled through Lunar Command so fast nobody bothered to learn their names, then headed home with shiny new medals pinned to their chests. Stark focused on the ribbons above Vic's left breast. "Speaking of medals, you ever gonna tell me how you earned that Silver Star?"

"Same way I earned the Purple Heart."

"I know it was before I met you."

"Duh, Ethan. If it had happened while we were serving together you'd know all about it, wouldn't you?" Vic shrugged, dropping her empty to grab another beer. "It's ancient history."

"Maybe it is, but I'm still curious."

"Fine. I'll make you a deal. You tell me about your past and I'll tell you about mine."

Stark glowered back. "No deal."

"Why not?" Vic questioned archly. "You brought up the subject."

"I don't wear my past on my chest for people to wonder about."

"No, you keep yours locked in your head except when it makes your mouth say the wrong things to officers." Vic took a long drink. "Or do something slightly crazy."

"I didn't ask for a psych eval. I just asked about your damn medal."

"What's the matter? You want one of your own? You can have this one." Vic picked at her left breast as if pulling the ribbon free.

"If I wanted medals I'd be an officer."

"That's it," Vic said with a laugh. "I got my medal when I was an officer, but they had to bust me to Sergeant when they found out I had a heart and a brain." She hoisted her beer. "And then they gave me booze so I'd have courage."

"Very funny," Stark observed. "Fine. Be that way." Reynolds chuckled again, this time with a trace of humor, as Stark stared around the Enlisted Club, an outlandishly large space that might have measured fifteen meters across. 3-D vids mounted on the rough rock walls created the impression of picture windows looking out on World scenes. That night they showed some sort of forest, maybe even in the Northwest, where he'd grown up. The natural-living-green wooded scenes clashed incongruously with the peeling and faded green-shades-painted rock walls around them. Supposed to be restful, the psychs said, but Stark always thought it just looked like green rock. Overhead, raw metal strung with glaring lights provided the usual ceiling for a lunar dwelling. Over that metal, Stark knew, a few meters of Moon gravel and dust lay as insulation and protection. Humans had spent thousands of years climbing out of caves and building technology so they could reach the Moon and live in caves again.

"So, why'd you join, Ethan?" Vic Reynolds's question caught him by surprise.

Stark frowned, trying to focus in on a past blurred by fourteen years' time and three recent beers. "That's another history question."

"So it is," Vic agreed, unabashed. "Why'd you join the mil?"

"Hell, I dunno. Why's anyone join? Temporary insanity."

Reynolds laughed obligingly. "Seriously. You just do the family tradition thing, or did you have some deeper reason? You never talk about growing up. Your old man was mil, right? What units?"

Stark laughed back at the absurdity of the suggestion. "Mil? My old man? Not even. Fish farmer in Washington State. He hated the mil. Thought I was some kind of idiot for joining."

"Really?" Reynolds peered closely at him. "So your mother was civ, too?"

"Absolutely. A clerk at one of those chain department stores." They were always at work, it seemed, something self-absorbed teenager Ethan Stark had actually resented even as he casually accepted the things their work paid for. "So what?"

"So what?" Vic repeated. "Ethan, nearly every grunt and every officer in the mil comes from a mil family living on a mil fort or base. You know that. I didn't even meet civs until I was a teenager. You're pretty damn unusual."

"Yeah. A lot of people tell me that."

"You know what I mean." Reynolds stared at Stark, shaking her head. "So why'd a dyed-in-the-wool civ join the mil?"