Stark's War Read Online Free PDF

in?"
    "No digging in. The brass don't want anything damaged in case we have to trade back some of what we just grabbed."
    "Fine. When the counterattack comes, we'll just surrender quietly."
    Vic grinned. "There's no counterattack in the offing, Ethan. It appears we're the only mil on the Moon right now."
    "You think it's going to stay that way?"
    "I don't know. It takes a while to get here, though, so you can sleep easy tonight."
    "Maybe," Stark half-agreed, visibly uncomfortable.
    Vic shook her head. "What's eating you, Ethan? Lighten up. Combat's over."
    "Combat hasn't happened yet," Stark disagreed. "I'll lighten up when we're back home in garrison."
    "Suit yourself." Vic mustered another smile. "My Squad occupied the supervisors' housing for this area. Civ bosses live good, Ethan."
    "Figures. So where's the Lieutenant going to stay?"
    "Here." Vic somehow kept smiling.
    Stark smiled back this time. "Ain't that nice? A few months, maybe, with the Lieutenant breathing down your neck twenty-four hours a day. Have fun, Sergeant Reynolds."
    "I will. But don't worry. I don't relax too much when I'm on the line, Ethan."
    "You're not a new recruit, Vic. Sorry if I sounded like I thought you were. Hell, you're better than me." Stark chewed his lower lip, eyes hooded in thought. "I don't like this idea of not digging in. Do the brass really think the guys we took this stuff from are just going to accept it?"
    "Apparently. Or settle for us handing back a little."
    "Vic, we've fought against some of the people whose property we just grabbed, and alongside some of the others."
    "Technically, by act of Congress, Ethan, it's our property. We just took possession."
    "Sure. The corporations back home who own our politicians don't like the idea of all these First, Second, and Third World types getting their hands on all the goodies up here."
    "They're the only goodies left, Ethan. We've got all the goodies back on Earth sewed up. There's advantages to being the only superpower. If you play it smart, you can stay the only one."
    Stark grimaced. "Sure. Like I said, Vic, we know these people. They're tired of being held down so we can stay on top, and they're not going to take this quiet and peaceful."
    Vic shrugged in reply. "Not our call, Ethan. Careful, you sound like a Third World symp."
    "I'm just tired of being ordered to fight and die just so some big shots can get a little richer. Pax America, hell. There's nothing pax about getting ordered into combat everywhere on Earth and now on this godforsaken hunk of rock."
    "I thought you liked your accommodations," Vic teased.
    "Nothing wrong with the rooms. I just don't like where they're located."
    "Wrong sector?"
    "Wrong planet. Or Moon, or whatever. Vic, this is one ugly place. There's nothing living out there. It's dead. Totally dead."
    "You better hope so. Would you be happier if a hostile battalion of mechanized infantry was outside your front door?"
    "Very funny." Stark shivered, cold despite the calm efficiency of his battle armor's thermostat. "Vic, there's no grass or anything. Just rocks."
    "I thought you didn't like grass, though you've never said why."
    "I don't. But I like dead less." Stark fought down another shudder. "It doesn't help that it's such a big change. You know, from Earth, especially our last operation. I didn't like it there, but I like it here less."
     
    Five months before, they'd been on a peace-enforcement op on an island where the indigs didn't appreciate the efforts of outsiders to keep them from killing each other. An island crawling with so much life you had to fight your way through the vegetation and hope the assorted poisonous creatures that lived in it wouldn't also get in the way. So much life that losing a few pieces of it here and there didn't seem to matter one way or the other.
    "History can be a terrible burden," Mendoza had observed, and that particular island had enough history to bury any trace of common sense. The one thing the locals were able