Stark's Command Read Free

symbols stood fixed on a piece of terrain shaped like a lopsided oval. "Vic, somebody's holding on this side, too. Thank God."
    "Yes," she confirmed. "Mango Hill's holding."
    "But that's just a low elevation. The enemy's gotta be pushing them."
    "Ethan, look at the unit ID." Vic snapped the suggestion as if she knew he wouldn't like the information it provided.
    He didn't. "Oh, Christ." Third Squad. First Platoon. Bravo Company. Second Battalion. First Brigade. His old Squad. The twelve soldiers he'd personally trained and led for years. His Squad until decades of poor leadership by their officers, culminating in the unthinking slaughter ordered during General Meecham's ill-considered offensive, had led the senior enlisted to finally mutiny; until those senior enlisted had elected Sergeant Ethan Stark to command them, so that he had to leave the Squad where his heart still lay. That same Squad, those same soldiers, had rotated back onto the line in the last few days and were now holding a position that had become the linchpin of the American line. Holding where the enemy was certain to hurl full force in an attempt to continue the unraveling of the American front. "Anita," he called.
    "Sí, Sargento." Corporal Gomez sounded absurdly cheerful.
    Scanning her display, Stark could see the bunker combat systems shifting in a rapid blur to slam rounds at enemy targets as fast as they winked into existence on the local sensor net. A lot of targets probing, pushing, trying to work their way close enough to the bunker to pinpoint its sensors and weapon hard points. In one corner of the view from Gomez's command seat, Stark could see Private Mendoza hunched forward at his control station, an occasional quick gesture changing the bunker system priorities to concentrate on different targets or sectors. "You've gotta hold," Stark stated. "Right there. I can't trust anybody else to stand and fight right now."
    "We gonna fight, Sargento. No problema."
    " They're gonna hit you, hit you bad, but you gotta hold," Stark repeated.
    " Sí '. Nobody's leaving this hill. They're pushing us now, but we're pushing back plenty hard. You see? We ain't gonna run like those Earthworms." Stark called up a different direct vid feed, seeing through the eyes of another one of his old Squad members as Private Chen fired from a pit outside the bunker. Shadowy shapes moved among the scattered rocks, flickers of motion amid the solid black shadows and glaring white light overlying the dead gray of the lunar landscape. Chen fired coolly, steadily, as his Tac pinpointed target kill-points. His Heads-Up Display jittered as enemy jamming tried to confuse aiming and detection of targets, the symbology altering in a constant wild jig as combat systems tried to sort out real targets from false. Minor vibrations jarred the Tac display as a nearby chain-gun mount pumped out staccato streams of shells. So easy to be there, focusing on the moment, on one target at a time in the familiar routine of a leader responsible for one small group of soldiers. So hard to be back here, instead, worrying about thousands.
    "Let me know if it gets too hot," Stark ordered, breaking the link to resurface in the Command Center.
    Vic was watching him, eyes hard. "Ethan, they're going to catch hell."
    "I know that. They're gonna catch hell because I can count on them to stand there and take it. That's the way it works, right? The ones who can take it and do the job, no matter how rough, always end up getting handed that job." He ran one hand through his hair, staring at the sector display once again where enemy forces were pushing deeper inside the American lines. "That's a big flippin' hole." New symbols appeared, heavy shells arcing in from the American rear to burst within the area where enemy forces were thrusting forward. "Grace is right. The artillery's not gonna stop them."
    "That's not Grace's fault. He has to guess where the enemy will be and where our own troops will be. He's always