Stark's Command Read Online Free Page B

hanging while I try to do this damn job? Is that right?"
    "Stark, we've got our butts on the line here."
    "What the hell do you think I'm doin'? Looking at the damn scenery? I'm goin' out there. I'm goin' on the line. And I'm gonna hold that line. Because you gave me a job to do, and I'm gonna do it. So who the hell's gonna screw me? Who's gonna leave my backside hangin' out? You, Carmen? How about you, Jones? Or maybe Truen?"
    A moment's silence as the APC swerved around obstacles, rocking Stark in his harness though his eyes stayed fixed on the command display. "We ain't gonna screw you, Stark," an answer finally came. "We just, you know . . ."
    "No, I don't know. This is a battle. The enemy's in front of you. Kill 'em if they come at you, and they'll stop coming. That idea too complicated for anybody?" Silence, maybe embarrassed, maybe defiant. "So, you gonna fight? You gonna hold? You gonna back me up?" Stark demanded.
    "Yeah. We put you out there. We'll watch your flanks. Give 'em hell, Stark."
    "Thanks." He'd meant it to come out at least half-sarcastic, but relief made it sincere. A moment later, the APC braked gently, coming to a carefully controlled stop. Stark waited, fuming at the delay until the vehicle finally halted, then popped his harness and the access hatch in one motion. With the ease of long practice in low gravity, he shoved off surfaces with hands and feet to drive himself out and down instead of depending on the Moon's gentle pull for impetus. "Get the APC back about ten meters," he ordered the driver. "Have the gunner cover the ridge, but don't fire without my say-so."
    "Uh, sir, mobile command center-configured armored personnel carriers don't have any armament."
    "You don't have a gun? Nothing?"
    "No, sir. All the command and control gear takes up too much space."
    "Oh, for . . . never mind. Get that damned thing back ten meters and try to look threatening." Stark stood on the surface, the unnamed ridge rising before him, blasted black rock merging into endless black sky lit with a trillion trillion tiny lights that offered neither heat nor comfort. On the other side of the ridge, panic-stricken soldiers were streaming his way. Behind him, a battalion of soldiers was rushing toward this spot. But here, now, everything around sat quiet, still, and empty. Shut out the frantic messages filling comm circuits, look past the HUD crawling with enemy and friendly unit symbols, ignore the APC resting a short distance back, and Stark might be alone on the surface, the only human on the otherwise dead lunar landscape. Just like that first human here, the guy who made the speech about everybody cooperating to share the Moon. Too bad all the other countries thought we meant it and came up here to get their share. Too bad our greedy corporations couldn't be happy with owning everything on Earth and had to tell their bought-and-paid-for politicians to order us up here to take it all back, so we end up fighting an endless war that we can't win and refuse to lose no matter how much we bleed. Yeah, too bad that for every human who wants to cooperate in building something there's usually two willing to cooperate to destroy it. Far above, the blue-white marble of Earth beckoned, gazing down serenely at the organized violence its children had brought from their home. You ever feel a little guilty, Mother Earth? Inflicting your offspring on other planets? Hell, you ought to. Maybe if you'd treated the human race nicer when we were growing up we'd have turned out better.
    Stark's original intention had been to take a position on top of the ridge, giving him maximum visibility to help rally his panicked soldiers. But some instinct held him here, on the reverse slope, while he watched the symbols crawl his way from both directions. Off to his right, where the widest open gap lay, a field of jagged rocks littered the terrain. On his left, a smaller gap beckoned, but off the direct line-of-retreat of Stark's fleeing