Stark's Crusade (11 page)

"I just had to swallow some words," she replied. "They didn't taste too good."

"I know the feeling. Okay, the past is past. Let's look ahead. First priority after we get the prisoners secured is to do a full review of every critical installation, military and civilian, inside this perimeter and make sure they're all adequately defended."

"I agree. I'll put Bev Manley on it."

"Bev? She's admin, not combat."

"Yes, but she's extremely thorough and will look at everything with fresh eyes. Bev will identify any weak spots."

Stark rubbed his eyes. "Yeah. You're right. We also need to tell Sergeant Gordasa we've had a couple of new shuttles with state-of-the-art concealment gear delivered to us courtesy of the government. Maybe they'll help us smuggle stuff through the blockade."

"I doubt it. The government will know how to defeat its own gear."

"I guess so. Well, maybe they'll come in handy against some of the other people we're fighting up here." Stark shook his head, abruptly aware of the shortness of his interrupted night's sleep. "I need coffee something fierce."

A nearby watchstander jumped to his feet. "I'll get it, sir."

"No, you won't. You'll sit at that watchstation and do the job you're being paid for." He looked out across the entire command center. "You all did good. Good handling the detection, the alert, and everything else. Thanks." Stark stood, glancing over at Vic. "You want some coffee, too?"

"Please. If there's none ready, just bring me back a handful of coffee grounds to chew on."

"I might do that for myself, too." He paused, his eyes drawn by a monitor that displayed an outside view, the Earth hanging in brilliant color against the blackness that surrounded it. "Maybe this latest failed attack will make the government change its mind about defeating us, maybe get them negotiating seriously. You think?"

"Stranger things have happened," Vic sighed. "Are you sure you don't want to try to grab another hour's sleep before the day officially begins?"

"Nah. I got work to do."

"Breaking news, The United Nations, no less, has declared Sergeant Ethan Stark and his followers to be international outlaws." Stacey Yurivan grinned at the other members of Stark's staff as she tapped the display before her. "All member states are authorized to use force against us."

Sergeant Gordasa scratched the side of his head. "They can do that?"

"Apparently, especially if the U.S. of A. is leaning on everybody and promising them major goodies." Yurivan smirked at Stark, who sat, arms crossed, leaning back in his chair with a deliberately detached expression. "I guess your noble initiative of hanging our asses out so we can inspire the citizens back home with our idealism hasn't impressed the government."

"It's impressed them enough to bring about this step," Vic pointed out. "I can't imagine what kind of effort it took to get the UN to come down on us."

Yurivan smiled a little wider. "Established governments anywhere don't care much for revolutionaries, Reynolds. Especially revolutionaries with noble motives. That's just the thing to scare professional politicians."

"Good. That's the point. Anything that scares the system and attracts support for us from the little guys is a good thing."

"The problem with little guys is they don't have enough big guns. Speaking of which, as I just reported, we're now at war with every country on Earth. That must be some kind of record."

Bev Manley nodded agreement. "I for one am proud. And with Ethan Stark leading us, this might be just the beginning. We may yet encounter an alien species and end up at war with them, too."

Stark shook his head with feigned exasperation as his staff laughed. "With people like you working for me, any kind of disaster is possible. Now, if you apes are done with your stand-up routines, we got business." He glowered at the table's surface for a moment, his face settling into grim lines, before looking up again. "We've finally got some info on how the Pentagon plans on taking us down."

Manley cocked a questioning eyebrow. "They've figured out how to do that without enough trigger-pulling enlisted soldiers?" She glanced at Vic Reynolds for confirmation, but Vic shook her head to indicate lack of knowledge, then focused back on Stark.

"Yeah. They think they've figured that out."

Lamont shrugged. "Why the gloom? I thought they were hiring foreign mercs for that. We can take them. We have taken them. Just like that raid on the power plant. Easy."

"There wasn't a lot of 'easy' involved in stopping that raid. But, yeah, we've stopped everything they've thrown at us so far. I guess sometimes even the brass in the Pentagon can figure out something isn't working if it fails often enough. After we trashed that last batch of mercs trying to set up shop nearby, they settled on another idea." Stark held up a data coin, turning it slightly between thumb and forefinger. "I got this. Don't ask how." Yurivan's smile vanished. "Don't worry, Stace. I know covert collection is your job. I'm not bypassing you. Not on purpose. Somebody sent me this for their own reasons, and that's all I know. Understand?" Everyone nodded, their expressions now a mix of curious and concerned. Stark popped the coin into his unit, holding it so no one else could see the screen even though it showed nothing but a shadowy figure.

The figure on the screen began speaking as if the words were being reluctantly forced out, his or her voice concealed by security recording protocols that randomly shifted tone, timing, and accents. It protected the speaker from identification, but almost guaranteed a headache to anyone listening for long. "Ethan Stark, you're doing too damn good up there. You've beat everything and everybody up real bad, and now the brass back here can't even dream up fantasies on how to knock you apes down. So they're doin' somethin' so stupid I had to warn you." There was a deep breath, audible to the listeners, then the speaker continued. "They're gonna employ metal-heads. The assembly lines are workin' on 'em right now. Officially the things are called Joint Autonomous Battle Robotic Weaponized Combatants. Even that name's heavily classified, but we're calling 'em Jabberwocks, anyway. From JABRWCs, see? I guess that name fits 'cause they gotta be ugly."

Another deep breath. "I know, you figure you'll take them out like usual by cutting the electronic umbilical, but like I said, the brass are being real stupid. I got it for certain that these metal-heads are designed to operate without a link. Think about that. Especially with all the civs you're protecting up there. It stinks. I don't want any part of it, even if sending you this warning means if I'm caught, we'll get to share the same firing squad." A brief pause, then the words came in a rush. "The shorter this is, the more likely it'll get through. Besides, I don't got much more detail. You'll have to work with what you've got. Beat these things, Stark." The screen blanked.

"Who was that?" Gordasa asked in the hush that followed.

"I'm not sure. Maybe a friend of mine," Stark stated, removing the coin and repocketing it. "He or she took a helluva risk sending me this."

"Metal-heads." Vic let the phrase hang alone for a long moment. "They're actually constructing robotic combatants to attack us?"

Stark nodded. "You heard what he said. Jabberwocks. What's that mean?"

"'Beware the Jabberwock, my son,'" Bev Manley quoted, "'the jaws that bite, the claws that snatch.' It's from one of the Alice stories. At least we apparently don't have to worry about frumious bandersnatchi," she added.

Stark fixed her with a glare. "I got enough problems without adding new ones. Whatever the hell a bandersnatchi is."

"I think that should be 'bandersnatchi are,'" Manley suggested, then winced as Stark's glare intensified.

Gordasa looked around as if seeking enlightenment. "I don't understand. What was that talk about links and electronic umbilicals?"

Vic moved her forefingers apart on the table surface. "Control mechanisms, Gordo. The bright boys and girls in combat systems development have been trying to build unmanned weapons for who knows how many decades. They never worked, though, because the unmanned weapons always needed a comm link for a human operator to provide the brains for the weapon."

"Artificial intelligence couldn't handle it?"

Stark snorted. "Hell, Gordo, AI still can't even handle supply without human oversight, can it? The systems can never see past their programming. Combat's too unpredictable, calls for too much imagination. It overloads any metal brains they've ever built. Besides, even when the weapon's able to function on its own, you still need to monitor it, get status reports, and stop it from doing something stupid because its little metal brain misreads a line of code."

"Exactly," Vic agreed. "So they've always needed a human calling the shots, or at least looking over the metal-head's shoulder, which meant a comm link. Problem is, the enemy could just jam the link, and then you've got an unmanned weapon with a very limited brain, just sort of running amuck."

"Or," Stacey Yurivan added, "if the enemy was really on the ball they'd copy the link and send in a stronger version."

Sergeant Gordasa nodded in understanding. "Which would allow them to take over the weapon and use it themselves, right? So why not just design a weapon that could fight along predictable lines without a link?"

"Because," Yurivan continued with a smile, "anything that can be programmed can be reprogrammed. Figure out how to insert the new programming, maybe over the air, maybe as a worm, and it takes over the metal-head. Bingo, the enemy's got a bunch of new combat mechs and you've got a big problem, especially if you can't reestablish control because there ain't no link!"

"So why not tell the metal-heads to ignore new programming?"

Stacey's grin seemed almost demonic. "Sure. You could do that. Design an AI that can reject its own programming. Then you arm it. Sound like a good idea to you?"

Gordasa paled. "Dios. It could override all its inhibits. Kill anything and anybody. Is that what the Pentagon is doing now? No wonder Stark's friend was worried about the civs up here."

"Yeah," Stark agreed. "All the old attempts at building metal-heads at least had fail-safes that kept them from going crazy and slaughtering anything that moved or breathed. But if these, uh, Jabberwocks are made to work without links, we can't count on any functional fail-safe mechanisms. And taking 'em over or stopping 'em won't be as simple as messing with their links. So, people, what are we going to do about it? How we gonna beat these Jabberwocks? Any ideas?"

Bev Manley scowled. "There's always a back door, Ethan. I learned that in Administration. Some way to get into a system. I don't care how they design it."

"Probably. I'm not a hacker, but I've worked with enough of 'em. It sounds like they're trying to lock that back door real tight, though."

Vic's eyes narrowed. "If they're really trying to cut the link, it means one of two things. Either they're creating a Frankenstein's monster and handing it heavy weaponry, or they're building in fail-safe mechanisms."

"The link
is
the fail-safe," Stark insisted. "Nothing else would ensure they could exercise direct control or disable the metal-heads if necessary, right?"

Lamont raised a finger. "Unless the people building these things have convinced the brass they don't need a link, that their latest software or hardwire AI inhibits can do the job. I've run into that with automated systems on my tanks. You don't need a human in the loop, the weapon geeks tell me, because the system can think fine by itself. Only it never can, and we end up nursemaiding it along with everything else."

"Exactly," Vic agreed. "So why would the Pentagon believe it this time?"

"Because they want to! Contractors are always telling the brass they've got a weapon that will cost a buck a copy, require zero maintenance, launch itself, and home in on evil. Then it ends up costing a buck an atom, breaks every time somebody looks at it, and has to be carried to the target by some ground ape. Anybody here think the Pentagon wouldn't buy something that didn't really work as advertised?"

Silence settled around the table for a moment, then Vic nodded. "That's a very good point." She looked over at Stark. "We need to assume we have to develop an ability to kill these things fast and clean."

"Even though they'll be fast and mean," Lamont pointed out. "You know how hard it can be to nail an automated target. They're just faster than us. And you gotta assume redundant critical functions, so one hit won't take 'em down."

"Depends what kind of hit it is, doesn't it?" Yurivan questioned, smiling again.

"You got an idea, Stace?" Stark demanded.

"Maybe. I'm an expert on messing with people's minds, right? So maybe I'm thinking of a new way to mess with a metal-head's mind. Maybe. Gotta check with some people."

"Do it." Stark glared around the table. "Do it careful. Nobody breathes a word about how we found this out." He focused on Chief Wiseman, sitting silent so far. "Any chance at all we can intercept the shuttles carrying these things and knock 'em out before they get here?"

Wiseman made a face. "There's always a chance. Decent chance? No, I don't think so. There's convoys coming in all the time. How do we know which one's have the Jabberwocks? Even if we could find out which convoy to hit, priority cargo like that would be protected by so much firepower my shuttles would be vaporized before we got into range, so even a kamikaze mission wouldn't likely succeed." She glanced around at the other staff members, then back at Stark. "We could lob rocks at 'em, of course. Crater the landing site."

"Rocks," Vic stated. "You mean big rocks."

"Yeah. Flippin' big rocks. Dig a few new craters and put on a fireworks show for the folks back on Earth."

Vic shook her head, looking to Stark for backup. "If we escalate to using weapons of mass destruction here, then the people we're fighting may assume we'd use the same against Earth. And if they believe that, they'll drop enough rocks, nukes, and null-bombs on us to turn this whole part of the Moon into a crater that'll make Tycho look tiny."