The Last Run: A Novella

THE LAST RUN

An
Earthfall
Novella

by Stephen Knight

Copyright © 2013 by Stephen Knight

Kindle Edition

Table of Contents

Title Page

The Last Run

Excerpt from Earthfall

About the Author

“Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

“S
O, ARE YOU ALL PACKED UP?”

Scott Mulligan looked up from his office workstation at the thin, flat-faced man standing in the doorway. The Scowl, aka First Sergeant Bob Randell, leaned against the doorframe and slid his hands inside the pockets of his multicam combat uniform. And, per usual, Randell was scowling at him. It had taken Mulligan a while to get used to Randell’s perpetual scowl. The truth was, Randell was an all-around good guy, and a born practical joker. He wasn’t really scowling, at least not most of the time; it was just how he
looked
. It certainly got most face-to-face meetings off on the wrong foot, but in the end Harmony Base’s cadre of enlisted troops had come to love the base’s First Shirt. Eventually, Randell’s good nature had won Mulligan over as well. More importantly, Randell had proved himself to be a fantastic right hand man when it came to representing the troops, and that was what had impressed Mulligan the most. Even if The Scowl was a traditional infantryman.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Mulligan asked.

Randell’s perpetual scowl deepened. “Heard you put your papers in,” he said.

“Wow, that was quick—I only did it yesterday. Where’d you hear that?”

“Base NCO telegraph. You think I’d miss something like that? Thought you were gunning for a CSM slot with one of the groups.”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t happen,” Mulligan said. “Another guy got the Group job. Leaves me with a choice of a staff job at the Swick, Special Forces Command, USASOC, or maybe a Civil Affairs unit. All pretty good postings, but I want to stay operational. I’ve been sitting on my ass out here in the middle of nowhere for three years, and I’m tired of the same old, same old.”

“What, would Group be that much different?”

Mulligan snorted. “Dude, being the command sergeant major of an entire Special Forces group is
entirely
different. I wouldn’t be in the field all that often, but I’d definitely be able to shape some things, and that would be my ticket to Valhalla.”

Randell looked suitably unimpressed. “Well, I can see why they didn’t choose you. SF stands for ‘Slow and Fat,’ right? I’m afraid you scream epic fail in both categories, big man. When’s your separation date?”

“End of the month from Harmony. Another month and a half on terminal leave, then I’m history.”

“No shit. Well, hell, Scott. That’s a bummer, but I get it. So you need help packing up, or what?”

“Look pal, do I appear to need a couple of steamer trunks and a pack of porters?” Mulligan waved around his small office. Other than the well-worn desk, less-than-comfortable chair, a single visitor’s chair, and a credenza behind him, the office was the epitome of Spartan. Randell slowly looked around the room, as if inspecting every nook, crevice, and cranny in the gray-walled space. Finally, he turned back to Mulligan.

“Well, how many paper clips are in that desk of yours? A big guy like you should be able to lift at least one or two boxes, but if you need help, I can pull some guys in here to get you squared away, Sergeant Major.”

“I wouldn’t want you to waste your time on something so trivial, First Sergeant Randell. Now where’s my fucking coffee, sweetheart?”

Randell snorted and stepped into the office. He slipped into the lone visitor’s chair and leaned forward, placing his elbows on Mulligan’s desk. “You know, Scotty, this place is going to suck when you leave.”

“This place
already
sucks, man. You know that.”

“The hell it does. Ever since you arrived, you’ve had the Old Man eating out of your hand. And most of the command staff, too. That Special Forces juju you wield is mighty stuff.”

Mulligan shrugged. “Ah, there’s nothing to Benchley. He’s like me, on the graveyard tour.”

Randell looked perplexed. “How do you mean?”

“He got passed over,” Mulligan said.

Randell leaned back, apparently surprised by the newsflash. “No kidding? How’d you find that out?”

“He told me when I threw in my papers. He beat me by a week.”

“Wow. You know, we talk a lot of smack about him, but I always thought Benchley was a pretty good guy, for a general officer. So the Army’s showing him the door, huh?”

“Up or out,” Mulligan said. He paused for a moment. “I guess it’s kind of the same for me. I wanted Group, but the Army found other faces for the spaces. After that, I pretty much decided to pull the pin. But Benchley’s got a lot on the ball, he’ll land on his feet if that’s what he wants to do.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m sure he’ll be okay, but if there was a guy who deserved a third star, it’s him.”

Mulligan spread his hands. “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” he said. “So what can I do for you, Bobby?”

“Nothing, just slacking off. I figure since you’re leaving, I might as well cool my heels and act like the usual malingerer, just to make a definite impression on your replacement. Who is…?”

“Mike Lerner. An
aviation
guy, of all things.”

“This just keeps getting better and better. Don’t know him. Is he one of those silk scarf dilettantes from the 160
^th
, maybe?”

Mulligan chuckled. “Please. From the 227
^th
, if I recall properly. Thirty-plus years of service, another dinosaur coming to the graveyard.”

“Gosh, I didn’t know Harmony had such star power. As in, it kills stars.”

Mulligan looked around the office. “We’re the future of mankind, Bobby. Now that things are heating up with the ‘new’ Russia again, the Army’s suddenly sending its rejects here. I guess it makes sense to someone.”

“Hey, thanks for the vote of confidence. But of course, you’re apparently one of us poor rejects.”

Mulligan shook his head. “I asked for the posting, sweet cheeks.”

Randell cracked up, guffawing loudly. “You
asked
to come to Harmony Base?”

“Yeah. I thought the Army was serious when it said it had a super-secret installation that would serve as the launching point for rebuilding the country if things ever hit the fan. Big budgets, big mission, big opportunities. It was like I was seven years old and watching all the ‘Be All You Can Be’ commercial breaks during
Buck Rogers
.”

“You fell for that shit?”

Mulligan nodded. “Believe that?”

Randell threw back his head and laughed again.

***

M
AJOR
G
ENERAL
M
ARTIN
B
ENCHLEY
walked down the hallway, his attention more-or-less fixed on his tablet. For once, he wasn’t using it to check base functions or schedule another staff meeting. This time, he had an eye on the news feed. Things were heating up in Europe, with a resurgent Russia puffing out its chest and throwing its weight around the continent. Benchley had been a young officer during the latter part of the Cold War—he had gotten his butter bar in 1986, in Reagan’s new, improved Army—and he was intimately aware of how adversarial the Russians could be. But after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the nation’s retreat into economic shambles, Benchley had joined the rest of the world and pretty much forgot about Russia. There were other things to worry about—the Chinese, the terrorists in the Middle East, and what he personally viewed as a creeping socialism that was beginning to take root in the United States. But when Russia started to get its act together, Benchley realized that he and many of his fellow officers had overlooked something critical: yes, the Soviet Union was as cold and moldy as a corpse in the mausoleum, but the remains of the Russian leadership was frankly pissed as all hell that their nation, once an international player like no other, had suddenly found itself to be just another floundering medium power up to its neck in water. And one that couldn’t swim, at that.

The grievousness of the nation’s meteoric descent from grace had galvanized the Russians, especially after the epic failure of Boris Yeltsin to do anything to haul the nation out of the bottom of the smoking crater it had left when it finally hit bottom. They became a major contestant in the energy show, scoring high marks by finally developing the rumored Siberian oil fields which led to a few border skirmishes with the happy People’s Republic of China, now an energy-starved colossus, its people withering away beneath the triple threat of pollution, fast-acting epidemics, and the legacy of the one child policy, which had bequeathed China with a lopsided society that had far too many men and not enough women. But the border fracases did little to deter Russia, and the Chinese weren’t keen on sending two million troops into Siberia to try and take the Russian bounty as their own. The fact that the new Russian president had vowed to turn Beijing into a pile of glowing cinders had probably caused the Chinese to reconsider such a venture.

And Russia continued to flex its muscles. It spread out into the Arctic, a generally worthless piece of real estate unless one included force projection against the United States and Europe. The US Navy had a real problem with that, and the result had been one downed Russian reconnaissance aircraft and one sunken American cruiser. While those incidents should have introduced a major pause on both sides, only the US seemed taken aback. The Russians merely continued to fortify their holdings by placing long-distance surveillance stations on the ice floes. While these drifting surveillance stations were probably of little strategic importance, they did have the added effect of reinforcing Russia’s claims to a large part of the Arctic Circle, a claim the Americans and for certain the Canadians and Norwegians weren’t particularly interested in contesting…especially since blood had already been shed.

But it was the events further south that had prompted Russia to leap back into Europe with both boots. The Ukraine had finally elected to join NATO, despite Russian protestations against such an act. The expansion of NATO was something that never failed to rile the Russians, and their new leadership was no exception. After weeks of heated rhetoric between Russia and Ukraine, NATO had indelicately decided to make matters even worse: it formally announced a study to be commissioned to examine extending a Membership Action Plan to the Ukraine.

And there was the spark that lit the fuse.

Within two days, Russian forcibly annexed Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in an audacious action that involved the relocation of military personnel and matériel that left the world stunned. Most suitably impressed were the Ukranians, of course, who didn’t stand a chance against the Russian onslaught, which finally exhibited all the tenets of the feared Offensive Maneuver Group doctrine the former Soviets had touted in the 1980s. Severely alarmed but nevertheless shocked into almost complete ineffectiveness was NATO. Even with the US suddenly leaping to its feet as if spring-loaded, the vast majority of NATO’s members couldn’t get their acts together and operate in a cohesive fashion. Outside of Britain and, surprisingly, France, not one of the European nations was willing to raise a gun against the Russian incursion. The Russians finally halted their advance outside the Ukranian city of Dnipropetrovs’k, and despite some rather dedicated resistance from the Ukranian military, it was clear that the Russians had made their point. Ukraine joining NATO was not to be tolerated, in any fashion.

And just to underscore the point, the Russian army invaded another NATO hopeful, Georgia, a week later. Like a lot of folks who wore military uniforms, Benchley thought the Russians had gone way too far, but it was up to the politicians to do something about it. The President was lukewarm toward direct intervention, even though both Georgia and the Ukraine had been nominal allies, and the majority leaders in Congress apparently felt the same way. Though there were some rather colorful invectives being hurled about between several of the fair statesman—including one Republican who out and out called the President a coward—it was fairly clear to Benchley that inaction would be the watchword of the day. In the meantime, all American forces in Europe went on full alert, and POMCUS stocks were being readied and stood up for combat operations on the European continent for the first time ever, to Benchley’s recollection. The only other concrete deterrent that had been established was by the Navy. They had launched virtually the entirety of their submarine assets, including nuclear missile boats. That had been made very public, and even though it was definitely an operational security no-no to discuss the nation’s nuclear status, the intended recipient had gotten the message loud and clear. And the Russians had responded by pulling their rotting boomers back into commission and sending them back to sea to counter “American hegemony.”