"I had my reasons."
"I know." Vic ignored Stark's reaction, speaking crisply, her words clear and smooth in the hush of the hospital room. "Patterson's Knoll. You were there."
"How'd you find out?"
"I looked it up, on a hunch. Worst disaster in recent American military history. About a decade ago. Two companies of U.S. soldiers, trapped on an open hill and cut to pieces because no one could get to them in time. Only three soldiers managed to escape during the night before the position got overrun the next day. You were one of them, Ethan. Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Stark studied the white-painted wall before his face as if it held some special significance. "Never talk about it."
"So I noticed." Vic's hand reached out, turning Stark's head with carefully precise force to face her again. "So that's your demon. You never really left that hilltop, did you, Ethan? Part of you is still there, on that grassy knoll."
Stark tried to escape her eyes, but his head was held steady in Vic's grip. "I left a lot of friends up there, Vic. They died. I didn't."
"Fate works that way."
"There had to be a
reason"'
Stark insisted. "I survived for a reason, and maybe that reason was just to make sure it never happened to anybody else. Maybe I lived so I can make sure other soldiers don't have to die the same way."
"And maybe it was all chance. The luck of the draw."
"Dammit, Vic, it had to mean something!" Stark was trembling, he realized, as a hundred points of pain sprang into being where his body had been battered by projectiles meant to kill. The bedside med monitor hummed louder, as if disapproving, and began dosing more drugs into Stark's intravenous feeds. His pain fell away, along with the agitation, not really gone, but somewhere behind a wall where they could rage without hurting him. "It had to mean something," he repeated.
Vic stared down somberly.
"Now
do you want to talk about it?"
"I dunno."
"Ethan, I've been in nasty battles. Plenty of them."
"Not like that one."
"And it was a long time ago."
"No." Stark shook his head, eyes staring into the distance. "No. It's every night, Vic. Every night." He looked back at her, eyes slightly unfocused from the combination of medications and memories. "They hit us all day, raking us with small arms, dropping artillery and mortars on the knoll. Couldn't dig in 'cause there was rock right under the surface. Nothing to hide behind, nothing but the grass. Grass cut by shrapnel and spattered with blood and trampled into the dirt." He fell silent for a moment.
"Were you hit?" Vic prodded gently.
"Me?" Stark questioned, then shuddered. "No. Private Ethan Stark didn't get hit. I'll never know why. I was so damned young, and so damned scared and so damned tired I couldn't even hold my rifle anymore and I just hugged the dirt and stared at the damned grass and prayed. Finally it got dark. New Moon, thank God, so it really was dark. They couldn't see us anymore. And I couldn't see all the bodies around me. They were my friends, Vic."
"I know. Why didn't the enemy come up on the knoll and finish you off?"
"Scared of us. Even though they'd kicked our butts all day, they were still scared of going up against us in the dark. That's what Kate guessed."
"Kate?"
"Yeah. Corporal Kate Stein. Big sister, I called her. She called me little brother. Kept me alive, taught me how to fight smart." Stark blinked rapidly for a moment. "My armor had died already. Power supply exhausted. I pulled it off, went looking for anybody else still alive, and found her."
"She'd survived, too?"
"Sorta." Stark gulped at the memory. "Lost both legs. Only her suit's med kit had kept her alive until then."
Oh, Christ, Kate. I'll get you out. I promise. Carry you. Carry you all the way.
No. Get out of here. You and anybody else who can still move.
I won't leave you. I won't. I'm staying with you and the other wounded.
No you ain't, little brother. Waste of your life. Mine's gone. Forget it. Save yours.
I'm not leaving you for them!
Won't be alive when they get here, bro. Got a grenade handy, though, just in case.
No. No. Look, there's got to be relief coming.
Relief?
Her bitter cough had been weak and wet.
Get real. They've jammed our calls for help, they've got antiair enough to hold offevac assets, and all our stupid, worthless officers who hung us out to dry on this hill are dead. Any relief that's coming won't get here in time.
There's got to be another way.
Sometimes the only other ways are worse. Get out of here, Ethan. I didn't teach you to fight so you could die for nothing, and staying here would be worse than useless.
I. . .
Go. You can't save me. Save someone else someday.
I will.
"Ethan?" Vic leaned close again, one hand on his cheek. "You there?"
"Yeah."
"What happened? To you and Stein?"
"She couldn't be helped. Couldn't be moved. She had a grenade, though." Vic nodded, face grim. "Told me to get the hell out of there." Stark smiled, so suddenly that Vic frowned in surprise. "You know what else she told me? To unload my weapon before I tried to sneak through the enemy line."
"Unload your weapon? Why?"
"'Cause if you've got a loaded weapon, and you get scared, you'll shoot," Stark explained. "And that would mean they'd be all over me. But if my weapon was empty, I'd hide instead and maybe save my butt."
Vic nodded again, this time judiciously. "Good advice. I take it you followed it."
"Uh-huh. We had a hard time getting down off the knoll into the vegetation, those of us who could still move. We made sure all the survivors who couldn't move had weapons first, though. The enemy spotted our movement, but some of us made it to the tree line. God, it was dark, Vic. Never seen anything so black, even up here. Couldn't see the enemy until you fell over them. Couldn't move without worrying about tripping over stuff you couldn't see. Longest night of my life."
"But they didn't spot you."
"Almost. Almost. Kate saved me, Vic. Twice, they were so close I tried to fire, but I couldn't because my weapon wasn't loaded. I was still cursing her each time when they turned away. Some other guys, I heard them open up. They died real fast." He paused. "It was almost morning when I heard heavy artillery again. They hit the knoll really hard. Then there was a lot of small-arms fire. Grenades. It didn't last long." Another pause. "I kept moving, fast as I could. A few hours later I sorta fell into the arms of an American patrol coming up the trail."
"A relief force? That close?"
"Not close enough and not strong enough." Stark closed his eyes briefly. "I told them what had happened. They didn't want to believe me, thought I was a deserter, but soon two other survivors got picked up by other patrols and told the same story. Thanks to the warning, that 'relief force' was able to retreat fast enough to save itself."
Vic leaned back, biting her lower lip. "At least we kicked butt later. I've talked to people who were in on the retaliatory strikes."
"Yeah, we kicked butt," Stark agreed, his tone acid. "But all the butt-kicking in the world couldn't bring the dead back, could it?"
"No," Vic nodded.
"Nothin' else I could do. Nothin' else anybody could do. Not by then."
"What else could you have done earlier, Ethan?"
"I could've stayed, Vic. Up on the knoll, with the ones who couldn't move."
"Until you all died together at dawn? Now
that
wouldn't have meant anything, Ethan. I'm glad you listened to Kate Stein."
Stark lay silent for a moment. "I'm still listening."
"Good. Save your sacrifices for when they matter."
"Like holding off the pursuit across the dust plain so our Platoon could escape, you mean?" Stark needled in sudden triumph.
Vic glared at him. "Dying in place wasn't the plan. You were supposed to delay them and then run."
"There wasn't any plan, and I had to hold them long enough to keep you safe."
"I don't need you playing hero to keep me safe! I want you alive and watching out for your Squad. You're a helluva lot more valuable to everyone that way. Remember that, and remember nobody was supposed to go back to haul your nearly lifeless carcass to safety."
Stark tried a shrug, wincing as a body cast halted the movement. "I knew
you'd
come back."
"Then you must think I'm as stupid as you are." Vic stood, shaking her head. "Ethan, we can't afford to lose you. I'm not telling you to forget the past, but don't let it rule you. Be more careful." She dug in one pocket, pulling forth a packet that she pitched onto Stark's chest in a dreamy low-gravity trajectory. "Your very own Silver Star, along with four Purple Hearts for our heroic Sergeant Stark. Got that, Ethan? Four Purple Hearts. You get one, you're lucky. You get two, you should be dead. You get three, you usually are dead. You got four, Ethan. Next time you're getting shot at, for Pete's sake, try to duck." Vic strode out, letting Stark's privacy curtain drop slowly shut, some of its creases holding their own against Luna's weak tug. Stark lay still, staring up at the cracked sky over his bed.
Sanchez stopped by later, a brief nod, the barest flicker of a smile turning up the edges of his mouth for a moment as he asked, "You okay?"
"Okay as can be expected."
Another brief nod. "Your Squad's fine. Gomez, she's keeping them in line. You got a good Corporal there."
"I know." Stark tried to reach out a hand, halting in frustration as his body cast limited the movement. "Thanks for keeping an eye on them, Sanch."
"Least I could do." Sanchez started to leave, pausing briefly on the way out. "Thanks for holding them off."
"No problem."
Sanchez might have quirked another smile as he left, but Stark couldn't be sure.
There weren't many other visitors as the days of healing turned into weeks. Even with the best medical technology, the human body required a certain amount of time to fix the sort of damage the best weapons technology could inflict. Stark knew only senior enlisted or officers were allowed to visit the medical wards, and both Vic and Sanch had their own Squads to watch over while the war continued its apparently endless course. One day, however, some unexpected visitors stopped by, bringing a fair share of confusion and concern in their wake.
The first person in the room carried what appeared to be a considerable chip on his shoulders along with a pair of Colonel's eagles. He nailed Stark with a disapproving glance, then lifted his sheet to check the body cast. "Is this as straight as you can lay?"
"Yes, sir."
The Colonel obviously didn't care for that answer, poking at the cast a couple of times. "Well, try to look military, for God's sake."
Stark kept his face expressionless and his mouth closed, though both took considerable effort. He was still cycling through replies he would have liked to have given when the curtain parted again to reveal another Colonel accompanying several men and women in civ clothes.
No. They
are
civs. What the hell?
"This is Stark," the first Colonel announced coldly.
"That's
Sergeant
Stark, sir," Stark replied in equally frosty tones.
"Sergeant Stark," the Colonel grated out with a look that promised dire consequences. Stark simply gazed back until the Colonel looked away.
An awkward silence followed while Stark wondered what the purpose of the visit could be. "You were injured in battle?" one of the civilians finally asked.
Stark glanced toward the second Colonel, who nodded to indicate he could reply to the question, though her sour expression indicated she liked this even less than the first Colonel did. "That's right."
A female civ came closer, peering at his face. Not that Stark minded, since the woman had a nice face of her own and he could peer back to his heart's content. "You must have been hurt very badly," she finally offered.
"Yeah." Stark, never inclined to discuss physical ailments with anyone, found himself even more reticent than usual with these civs.
Her eyes strayed to the flat panel at the foot of the bed displaying Stark's vital signs. "You'll be all right? All your injuries will heal?"
"That's what they tell me."
The civ bit her lip, looking back toward the other civs in apparent uncertainty. Another civ, male and about Stark's age, nodded politely. "Can you tell us how it happened?"
The female Colonel stared ahead as if not willing to be involved in the conversation while she spoke in sharp tones. "Sergeant Stark conducted a delaying action against enemy forces while his Platoon retrograded to American lines following a successful operation against part of the enemy industrial complex."
The civs all looked puzzled, as if the Colonel had spoken in another tongue, while Stark fought down another urge to verbally abuse a high-ranking officer.
Retrograded? What the hell's wrong with calling it a retreat?
A momentary vision of bullets flaying the rock around his lonely outpost while he had held off the enemy flashed through his mind.
And why does this rear-area waste-of-human-flesh Colonel have to make the whole action sound like no big deal?
Stark tried to shrug, finding the habitual motion blocked by the cast he still wore. "I did my job. I guess you saw it on vid." The last almost came out as a harsh accusation, Stark catching the words as he issued to change them to a bland statement.
The civs all seemed surprised. "We don't see the military vid," the woman who'd spoken to Stark first explained. "It's not broadcast here."
"It's not?" Startled, Stark looked toward the Colonels for confirmation.
The male Colonel nodded once. "Security. We can't risk the enemy deriving information on current operations from the military vid."
Then why the hell do you show the mil vid on Earth where the enemy can watch it just as easily as the civs there can?
A growing unease filled Stark, born of these unusual civ visitors, the clearly disapproving demeanor of the Colonels, and the feeling of having suddenly been dropped into the middle of some civ-mil issue he didn't understand and that seemed likely to cause him troubles he didn't need.