Stark's Crusade (19 page)

His father smiled. "That was the big question in my mind, and in the minds of a lot of other people back home. What's this Stark guy have in mind? And I didn't know, son. I knew the boy who left home a long time ago, but I wasn't sure how he'd changed. Now, I know. I'll make sure a lot of other people know, too."

Vic chuckled. "It sounds like the government's plan to use you against Ethan is going to backfire."

"It does, doesn't it, Ms. Reynolds? Serves them right."

"Uh, Dad," Stark advised. "That should be sergeant. Sergeant Reynolds."

"I'm sorry! I just have trouble seeing such a nice, young lady as being in the same line of work as you. Uh, that is—"

"Don't worry, Dad. I know what you meant."

"Me, too," Vic stated. " 'Nice, young lady,' huh? You've got a real perceptive father, Ethan."

"Sure. He just thinks that because he's never seen you lead a squad of ground apes as you shred an enemy force into little quivering pieces."

"A girl has a right to have some fun in life, Ethan." Vic checked the time on the nearest display. "I think we need to let you go, Mr. Stark. I'll escort you back to the landing field so you can catch that shuttle when the official delegation leaves."

Stark shook his head. "Vic, Cheryl Sarafina's waiting at Sentry Post One to take him back to the shuttle. I oughta go along—"

"No, you don't." She pointed a firm finger his way. "You don't go near an official shuttle that's packing who knows what possible weapons. I'm not offering our enemies that attractive and valuable a target. Now say good-bye to your father."

"Yessir," Stark grumbled. "Sorry, Dad. Vic's right."

"She sounds a lot like your mother."

"Don't say that. I'm really glad I could see you. Say hi to Mom, and tell her I really hope she's well soon. I hope everything works out so I can get down there again. Someday."

"I think if anybody can make that happen, it will be you. If not, at least you tried. Good luck." They shook hands again, then his father was gone. Stark sat for a long time afterward, sipping the cold, bitter coffee before him, until Vic returned and sat down again.

She glanced over at the monitor he'd activated, displaying a view of barren lunar landscape without signs of human activity. Dead rocks. No air. Dust. "You seem depressed. That view isn't going to help things."

"No, but it's not hurting, either. I've been thinking. Something came up while you were a hostage of those mutineers. I meant to ask you about it right away but then forgot."

"So ask."

"The civ scientist who developed those special rounds for taking out the Jabberwocks. He had an implant that tied him in to his lab's net. That seemed to spook a lot of people, including Stacey Yurivan, and she don't spook easy." Stark stopped speaking as he watched Vic's face seem to ice over. "Obviously it ain't something you like, either. What's the deal? Why does talk of implants make everyone act like they've been snakebit?"

She turned her head enough to frown in his direction, then gazed back out over the dead lunar landscape again. "I guess you wouldn't know. Not with being raised as a civ. Everybody in the mil does, but it happened a generation ago, and I don't expect civs ever heard much about it. Classified forever, you know. But it's the sort of horror story mil kids learn and don't forget."

Vic's tone held less warmth than the emptiness outside on the surface, causing Stark to shiver involuntarily. "What was it?"

The reply was a long time coming, then Reynolds spoke with flat, emotionless words. "They created a special experimental unit. All the latest super gizmos to enhance everything. Implants in all the best places. Infrared sensors in the eyes, stuff to speed up reaction time, stuff to keep the heart pumping fast and furious, stuff to boost muscle strength, stuff to fix injuries from inside real fast. Super soldiers. They really kicked butt the first couple of times they went out. Then the opposition figured out what they were up against and cooked up countermeasures."

Vic's words halted again. "Countermeasures?" Stark prodded.

"Yes. Anything that can be programmed can be reprogrammed, right? I remember we talked about that during the meeting where we heard about the Jabberwocks. Well, every implant has instructions programmed or hardwired in that tell it how to do its job."

"Like the metal-heads."

"Like the metal-heads. So the opposition manufactured nanobots. Lots of them. They're cheap. Some were designed to open holes through suit filters to let other nanos in. The guys with the implants breathed in the others. Some nanos reprogrammed implants. Some fused with the hardwired stuff and took them over."

Stark shivered again. "No."

"Yes. They died in different ways, depending on which nano viruses activated first. Some of the soldiers went blind, then their hearts stopped. Some had their nervous systems short out."

"Jesus." The single word encompassed a prayer for long-dead soldiers who'd never had a chance. Stark took a deep breath as Vic stopped speaking once more. "They all die that way?"

"Not all of them. A few further back realized what was happening. Knew they were doomed. They killed every one of their stricken fellows they could target, then they turned their weapons on themselves."

"Oh, my God." Stark shuddered, trying to block the image from his mind. "No wonder. So how come our use of nanobots seems to be new to a lot of people?"

"I imagine because people stopped using targetable implants. And our armor is self-contained, you'll notice, so the nanos used back then couldn't enter through any filters. The technology to fire them into a target and keep them functioning didn't exist earlier, either. So people stopped using them, and thinking about them. Until now."

"Vic, pardon me for asking, but you seem to take this harder than the others. Like it's personal. Did you—?"

"Don't go there, Ethan."

"Okay." He stared at the wall helplessly, knowing he didn't have the words he needed. "Uh, so why don't civs have implants?"

"I thought a civ would know." She shifted her head to gaze at him. "But I bet the reason got suppressed to avoid copycat problems."

"I dunno. Like I said, I never thought about implants that much. Or heard much about them."

"No one's encouraged to think about them. In the case of civs, it was the Joker Virus. That happened well before the nanobot massacre. I read about it in a classified study. Basically, way back when a lot of science types had implants that allowed direct comms between their brains and the net. Remote programming and stuff. But that junk has to work two ways if it's going to work at all. Some psycho hacker with a grudge against college professors put together a computer virus inspired by his favorite comic book character. It ran through the comm link and added a subprogram to their brain implants that started sending commands into part of their brains. All the profs started laughing so hard they spasmed to death. There'd been hacker games with viruses before, like one that made people with implants act like they were drunk, but nothing like the Joker Virus. After that, nobody wanted implants. Police and emergency personnel even had their communication implants removed. Those were only for back-and-forth communications, but everybody started worrying you could mess up brains with sound pulses or something." She stared toward the view of lunar emptiness. "So, now you know."

"You keep telling me things I don't really want to know. One of these days I'll figure out I should stop asking."

"Maybe. I'm not holding my breath until then."

"Thanks." Stark brooded along with her for a while, his thoughts cascading randomly. "Vic, you think we'll ever build something we can't destroy or turn into a weapon? Something humans won't figure out a way to mess up?"

"No. That would mean we were better at creating things than we were at destroying them. As far as I can tell humans are just too damn good at destroying things for that to ever happen."

"You know, people wonder why, if there's aliens from other stars out there, they haven't contacted us. Maybe the aliens are afraid."

"You might have something there. Humans might be the hands-down best at destroying things." She paused. "I guess it's good to be the best at something, but that's not the 'something' I would have picked."

"Me, neither." Stark reached a decision, leaning toward the vid screen and keying in a command. The ugly, blasted lunar landscape vanished, replaced by a green meadow, dotted with flowers and framed by trees lit by an unseen sun. In the foreground, a multitude of cute, fluffy bunny rabbits frolicked.

"What in the hell is this?" Vic demanded. "It's revolting."

"Nah, it's cute."

"I
hate
cute. Can't I be moody in peace?"

"No. Either snap out of it, or I'll make you watch the bunnies."

"Sadist." Vic suddenly started laughing. "You realize that the next time you're moping around I'm going to call up this same scene."

"No, you won't. I have it locked under my own access code."

"You planned this? Ethan Stark, I swear I'll get even."

"You can try." He gripped her hand for a moment. "You're always telling me not to live in the past. That's good advice."

"I know. And thank you. But I'll get even anyway."

Stark stared at his message queue, dreading one from medical tagged for his personal attention. He almost avoided looking at it, then noticed the incongruous presence of a smiley emoticon at the end of the originator line. The message turned out to be extremely brief, just three words, yet it held more meaning for Stark than all the novels he had ever read.
"Private Murphy's awake."
It only took a second for Stark to recover from his shock and head for medical.

Even though it was past normal working hours, the tired-eyed medic was waiting for him, a ghost of a smile on her face. She wagged her head toward Murphy's bed. "Miracles happen. You owe one to the Big Guy upstairs."

"I owe that Big Guy a lot more than one. Can I see Murphy?"

"Sure. He's healthy. He's been healthy. But he's probably still a little disoriented, and he's definitely weak from lying in bed so long. There's only so much passive exercise you can accomplish on a body. So take it slow."

"Got it. Thanks, Doc. Thanks more than I can say."

"I didn't do it, Sergeant. Your boy there did. Thank him." Stark walked quietly to the bed, but his footsteps were still noticeable. Murphy turned his head to look, smiling when he saw Stark coming.

Stark sat carefully next to the bed, studying Murphy's face. The soldier appeared to have aged, the seemingly perpetual boyish curves in his face somehow now flattened into the harsher planes and angles of maturity. His smile, too, wasn't quite the same. It seemed slightly restrained, as if Murphy had seen too much to ever give in to simple joy again. "Hey, Murph. Welcome back."

"Hey, Sarge." Murphy's voice sounded rusty from disuse. "They tell me you came by a lot when I was out of it."

"I visited a few times. Not often enough, but, you know, there's been a lot goin' on."

"Yeah, Sarge. I understand. I guess I had everyone worried."

Stark nodded, smiling. "You sure did. You've overslept before, Murph, but never that bad."

"Hah! Same old Sarge, huh?"

"Mostly. I've got a few more scars, inside and out. Just like you, I expect." Stark left the last sentence hanging, offering Murphy an opening if he wanted to talk about his experience.

He did. Murphy licked his lips nervously, then glanced upward. "I did a lot of thinking, Sarge, when I was out of it. A lot of talking."

"Talking? Who'd you talk to, Murph?"

"Her. Mostly."

Stark fought to keep his face fixed in a calm expression. "You mean Robin?" Murphy's civ girlfriend, killed in the raid on Stark's headquarters, which had also nearly killed Murphy himself.

"Yeah, Sarge. I know she's dead. I did my best to save her, but I guess that wasn't good enough."

"Murph, you personally nailed a whole group of those raiders. You did more than anyone could have imagined doing."

Murphy looked embarrassed by the praise. "I wanted revenge, Sarge. I wanted to get even. At first, I was like, gonna kill 'em all once I woke up. She told me that was wrong."

Stark nodded.

"And she was right. Any idiot can pick up a gun and try to kill people. Oh, sure, some people are real good at it, but it don't prove nothin'. Right, Sarge?"

"Not if you're killing just to kill."

"Right, Sarge," Murphy repeated. "So I'm gonna do different. I'm gonna spend the rest of my life tryin' to save people. Like you, Sarge. I never realized before, all the risks you took for us. How hard you worked to keep us alive. I wanna do the same."

"That's nice, Murph." Stark hesitated, looking down for a moment, then gazed back up at Murphy's anxious face. "It's a real good thing to wanna do with your life. But it's hard, Murph. Real hard, sometimes. Takes you places you don't wanna go. Makes you do things you don't wanna do."

"Like you, Sarge? But that's the point, ain't it? Doin' what you wanna do is the easy way. She told me, make it matter. Make it mean somethin'. I'm gonna do that, Sarge."

Stark stared back wordlessly, remembering his own past, the dead scattered across the surface of both the Earth and her Moon. His unit dying on Patterson's Knoll, Corporal Kate Stein among them, ordering him to safety with her last breaths. His own vow to save others the same fate. And now Murph had his own Patterson's Knoll to carry around inside judging his every action.
It ain't fair to the kid. He wasn't the greatest soldier under the sun, but he was a good kid. Now the kid's gone, I think. But I can't change his mind. Not gonna try. I know how it is. Only thing I can do is keep watching him and help him handle it.
"That's a real good goal in life, Murph."

"Sarge? Last I knew, the squad needed a new corporal, what with Gomez moving up. Can I apply for that?"

Stark blinked in disbelief. "Sure you can."

"Of course, Corporal Gomez, I don't think she'll want me. But I'll show her I can do it, Sarge. I'll work as long as I have to, to convince her I can do that job. Not as good as you and her, but I can do it."