Meecham shook his head. "That's the price of victory, the burden of command, something people like you will never understand."
Stark clenched a fist, then lowered it slowly with an expression of contempt. "That's enough. Save your speeches for the civs on Earth."
"Speeches?" Meecham favored Stark with a special look, as if ostentatiously memorizing his face. "What is it you want me to tell the citizens of the United States, Sergeant?"
"I don't know. I'm no politician."
"Neither am I! I'm a soldier, one who still believes in honor, in loyalty, in—"
"Shut up!" Stark took a step closer, so his face was only inches from the General's. He felt his body shaking with repressed rage and fought it down. "You're no soldier. You're a politician, one who just happens to wear stars instead of a civ suit. You're loyal to nothing except your own career. What do you think the military's about? Lording it over us like you think you're some damn god whose decisions can't ever be wrong, let alone questioned? Playing games with other officers to see who can get the commands with the most prestige and impress the civ politicians? Talking about your big responsibilities but always blaming someone else whenever something goes wrong? Collecting medals for all the places you've been and not for anything special, let alone courageous, you've ever done? Treating the soldiers under your command like we're nothing but symbols on your worthless command-and-control systems?" Stark spun on his heel to walk out. "I'd kill you myself, right now, but you're not worth the trouble."
"You'd better be prepared for trouble," Meecham declared, flushing purple with rage. "You'd better be prepared to fight for yourselves, even if you're willing to disregard your oaths to fight for others!"
Stark stopped, then turned to face General Meecham again, shaking his head. "Our oaths? General, we'd fight for our oaths, to defend the Constitution of the United States. We'd even fight to defend the people of the United States, the civs who let us be sent to fight but won't pay the necessary costs, and so get to watch us die in places they'd never go. We'd even fight to protect the spineless politicians who give speeches about our noble sacrifices but never show any real desire to share those sacrifices. Maybe, maybe we'd even fight for the corporations who think having us fight and die is just one more way to increase profits. Yeah, we'd fight for all that, and die for it all, if we had to, because that's who we are. But you know what, General? We're sick and tired of fighting and dying for the likes of you." Stark exited, slamming the door behind him.
"Didn't go well, huh?" Vic Reynolds sketched a smile.
Stark glared, trying to get his emotions back under control. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Trying to help you." She nodded toward the door of the holding cell. "Good job in there. I didn't know you could speak that well."
"What are you talking about? How do you know what I said in there?"
Vic sighed in resignation. "Ethan, a certain amount of naiveté is touching, but get a grip. That's a security cell. It's bugged."
"Oh." Stark slapped his forehead. "I should've realized that. So why'd you listen in?"
"Me and every other Sergeant, you mean?"
This time Stark's jaw dropped. "Every . . . ?"
Jill Tanaka came up beside Stark and patted his shoulder. "People wanted to see how you handled Meecham."
"The hell. They didn't trust me, did they? They thought I'd cut a deal."
Vic took Stark's other arm, shaking her head. "Very few thought that, but everyone figured Meecham would make a try and we wanted to see what you did, to prove a point to everyone."
"Right." Stark started walking away. "I'm tired."
"Can't rest yet," Vic advised, holding on. "We got a meeting."
"Who's got a meeting?"
"All the Sergeants. There's something important to decide." She pulled Stark along as Tanaka led the way into corridors even more elaborate than the standard at headquarters, walls lined with art and display cases.
"Hey, Vic," Stark asked as they walked, "Meecham must have known that cell was bugged. Why'd he make his offer knowing everyone could listen?"
She shrugged. "Maybe he figured you wouldn't turn it down right off and it'd sow mistrust. Or maybe he thought you'd deactivate the bug before seeing him."
"Oh." Stark scratched behind one ear. "I wouldn't have thought of that."
"No, you wouldn't have, Ethan." Tanaka reached an ornate door that automatically slid open at their approach, revealing a large, plush room beyond, a room dominated by a large table made not of cheap lunar metal or polished stone but of hideously expensive wood brought up from Earth. More wood paneled the walls, gleaming soft gold under polish. Most of the seats around the table were already occupied by other Sergeants, many of whom Stark knew by name or by sight. Vic led Stark to one of the last empty chairs, near the head of the table, then sat beside him.
"We've got two issues that won't wait," Reynolds announced. "Every Sergeant who isn't physically here is linked in so we can make decisions, and we've got to make them."
"So what are these issues?" someone demanded over the link.
"Number one," Vic stated calmly, "what do we do with the officers?"
"Shoot 'em," a voice in the room called. "Stand them up against a wall and shoot every one of the bastards." A rumble of agreement immediately erupted.
"No!" Stark's voice boomed through the room, cutting off the buzz of conversation. "Think about that. You're soldiers, right? Think about that," he repeated, pitching his voice lower so that the other Sergeants had to concentrate to hear him. "You wanna shoot defenseless people? We could do that. Then what?"
"What's your point, Stark?" Stacey Yurivan demanded from her seat.
"First of all, some of them don't deserve it." Stark hunched forward slightly to stare at the others, swiveling his gaze around the table like a turret-mounted main gun. "A lot of officers went forward with Third Division. Some officers have gone into battle alongside us. Sure, that's the junior officers, but where are you going to draw the line if you start killing them in cold blood? You shoot all of them and you're no better than the worst of them are."
Stark took a deep breath, feeling the hostility in the room and somehow that of the linked-in Sergeants as well. "More importantly, much more importantly, if you decide to purge our officers, you're heading straight to hell. I promise. A military needs officers, needs people in charge. Just because the ones we've got locked up are worthless doesn't mean we don't need better ones. Shoot these, and anybody else who's in charge will always know they could get the same treatment, even if it's you and me. They'll be scared, and wondering constantly when they'll be purged for whatever reason. You want untrustworthy officers? You want units running around without anyone in authority to keep things under control? You want to establish a precedent that enlisted can kill their superiors just because they don't like them? Think about it. Don't create something worse than we had. Don't start a cycle of terror. It'll eat us all before it runs its course."
His words hit home. Anger dissolved into uncertainty as Sergeants exchanged glances. "Very good points, but there's another factor," Vic noted in the silence.
"What's that?"
"A lot of the soldiers up here have people back home. Family. Right now, they're hostages for the authorities on Earth. But if we have a lot of hostages of our own to trade for them, we might get all those families up here safe."
A thin Sergeant nodded rapidly. "Right. Damn right. Good thinking."
Grace, far down the table, raised a fist. "Okay, we can do that with the rest. But I want to personally kill Meecham for wasting the lives of my brother and thousands of others."
Stark stood slowly. "I've lost plenty of friends, Grace, but I've been lucky enough not to lose a brother, so I can't preach to you as an equal on that. But killing Meecham would be doing him a favor." A murmur of comment arose. "I mean it. Right now, he's lost his battle, lost the troops the United States has depended on for decades to defend its own territory, lost control of the rest of us up here, and lost the lunar colony, if we hold it. He's toast. We send him back and they'll eat him alive, the brass in the Pentagon and the civs and the politicians and all the corporations whose assets are now ours if we need them."
Yurivan grinned with delight. "Generals always get high-ranking jobs at corporations when they retire. I don't think Meecham's gonna get one."
Stark nodded. "Hell, there's even a chance the authorities back on Earth will shoot him instead of locking him in a small, cold cell in Leavenworth for life. Either way he's gotten a payback, and our hands are clean."
"Let's do it," Tanaka declared. "Vote. Anybody object?"
Grace scowled but remained silent. No one else spoke. "Then that's what we'll do. Hold the whole bunch for bargaining chips. So, what's your second big issue, Reynolds?"
"Who's in charge?" Vic asked.
"We are."
"What?" Reynolds questioned. "We are? So this army's going to be a democracy now? We vote on everything? Which units go on the line? What punishment a junior enlisted gets for a court-martial offense? What soldier goes out on patrol? Whether we provide fire support to a sector, and how much? Anybody think that'll work?"
Silence greeted her words, along with a lot more scowls. "So what do we do?" a linked Sergeant demanded.
"We choose a boss."
Stark stood again, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. "That's not enough, Vic. We don't need a boss. We need a commander. We need someone who's in charge. Without question. Without that, we're not mil."
"I've had enough commanders," someone groused.
"No," Yurivan agreed with visible reluctance. "Stark's right. We lose discipline, and we're damn close to that in the ranks, and there'll be hell to pay."
"I'll concede that, too," the thin Sergeant added, "but if that commander is going to function, he or she will have to have real authority, as Stark said. Who do we appoint to that job?"
"Somebody with good tactical smarts," Stark suggested. "Like Vic, here."
The thin Sergeant shook his head. "Even if Reynolds wasn't your friend, I'd still disagree. Commanders can get tactical smarts from their subordinates, if they listen. No, what we need in a commander is somebody who realizes those stars on their shoulders are a reminder of their responsibilities, and not just a symbol of all their privileges. Somebody who isn't going to stab us in the back as soon as they get the power. Somebody who's a good leader, and who won't forget us and the rest of the troops."
"Somebody we can trust, you mean?" Yurivan questioned. "Somebody we know isn't out for themselves?" She swung an arm to point toward Stark, grinning wickedly. "There's your commander, then."
"The hell!" Stark denied furiously. "That's not why I talked about this! I don't want the job!"
"That makes you qualified," somebody noted.
"I'm not qualified. I'm just a squad leader. I can't command a division or more worth of soldiers."
"I think you could," Sergeant Manley noted. "With the help of specialists like me. That's why commanders have staffs."
"Thanks a lot." Stark glared around the table. "I'm not asking for the job, I don't want the job, and I can't do the job."
"Vote," Tanaka announced implacably. "We can work out the details later. I want a commander to hold things together starting now, before our Corporals and Privates decide they can run amok without anybody officially in charge."
"Absolutely," Manley stated. "We've got Stark nominated."
"I do not agree to that!" Stark insisted.
"Are you saying you won't take the job if we appoint you to it? You'll reject the responsibility?"
"I.. ." Stark bit his lip. "I can't say that. You know that. I don't reject responsibility."
"Fine. Any other nominees? Come on, people."
"What about Maria Vasquez in Third Battalion, Second Brigade?"
"I don't want it, either," Vasquez hurried to announce.
"There's Smith in Second Battalion, First Brigade."
"Which Smith?"
"Richard. Richard T. Smith."
"No way," Smith chimed in. "Leave me out of this. Most people don't know who I am."
"Same here," Vasquez added. "The new commander has to have a Name with a capital N so people will believe in him or her, right?"
"Right," Manley agreed. "That brings us back to Stark."
"Do you people think I'm the Second Coming of Christ or something?" Stark demanded.
"Hell, no," Yurivan observed. "But you'll do until He shows up."
"Let's vote," Manley stated. "Motion is to appoint Ethan Stark commander of the entire force up here, with all the authority normally vested in a commanding officer."
"With the understanding," the thin Sergeant added, "that he will continue to consult with us whenever appropriate. You agree to that, Stark?"
"If I'm gonna be in charge, I'm damn well gonna be in charge," Stark declared. "But talking to you guys and listening to what you have to say? I'd want you to take me down if I stopped doing that."
"Fine. Anybody object to the motion?" A long period of silence stretched. "Guess you're our new commander, Stark. What do you want to be called?"
"Sergeant."
A chuckle ran around the room. "That can stay your honorary title," Manley noted. "For now, let's call him Commander. Better get used to the idea of General, though, Ethan."
"That's going to take one hell of a lot of getting used to," Stark grumped.
"Congratulations, Ethan." Vic offered her hand with a broad smile.
"Thanks so very much," Stark smiled back. "Hey, you know what I'm gonna need now? I'm gonna need a chief of staff."
Vic's smile shaded to alarm. "Now, Ethan, there's a lot of other—"
"One with good sources and tactical smarts," Stark continued. "Congratulations to you. And you, Manley. You said I needed somebody like you for the administrative junk."
Yurivan stood dramatically. "I'm getting out of here before Stark taps me for a job, too."