Eathfall (Novella 1): The Last Run

  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

  “So, 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 160th, maybe?”

  Mulligan chuckled. “Please. From the 227th, 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.

  ***

  Major General Martin Benchley 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 to
gether, 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.”

  After all that, Benchley had expected Stop-Loss to be initiated, the program whereby the military suspended all retirements and leaves in order to maximize the number of personnel it could throw at a burgeoning threat. But again, even that small step hadn’t been taken.

  Which means I guess I still get to retire, he thought, as he walked down the narrow corridor that led to the briefing room, mostly unaware of the soldiers and civilians who stepped out of his way as he marched down the passageway. The world’s going to hell, our major allies stand at the outer boundary of an attacking force, and the Army still thinks my retirement is a good thing. What a bag of dicks.

  He knew where his career had gone off the rails. Shortly after getting his second star, he had gone through a severely acrimonious divorce with his wife of twenty-seven years. She’d always hated the Army, hated the structure, hated all the moving around (though if he had been posted to places like France or Hawaii or Italy, she probably wouldn’t have complained all that much), and she literally despised that her husband, despite his rank, could still be ordered around like a second lieutenant fresh out of OCS. In the end, Benchley shouldn’t have been surprised. His wife, Elinore, had come from wealthy, well-heeled San Francisco stock, and her dim view of the military had only been scarcely suppressed. They’d had a son, with whom Benchley’s relations were still good, but he and Elinore had barely managed to make it without one of them winding up dead. The divorce had taken an incredible toll on him, and Benchley had turned to the bottle for solace. While he was never drunk on duty, his fellow officers and staff certainly noticed the change—one couldn’t go on a bender with Johnny Walker Black Label and not suffer from it. His performance was never impaired in a substantial way, but it had taken two talks from superior officers for him to get some help. And that had apparently been one talk too many. Somewhere in Benchley’s personnel file, there was a red flag that stood between him and a third star. Those who reviewed officers in the promotable zone had obviously noticed it, and the Army’s Human Resources Command at Fort Knox, Kentucky had elected to take the opportunity to release him. The Army didn’t need reformed drunks in its ranks of general officers, even though Benchley personally knew four other officers who had track records worse than his. But those individuals had spent their time ingratiating themselves with their superiors, whereas Benchley had focused on the missions he was given and completing them to the best of his ability. And he had completed them, usually under time and budget allocations, despite the personal cost. But at the end of the day, the Army wasn’t interested in results, it was more interested in appearances. Exactly the sort of thing he had been told never mattered. Excellence was rewarded, he had been promised by every commander he’d ever had. Nothing matters, except that you bleed green when you get cut. Choose the Army, and you’ll never be left out in the cold.

  Until word got out that you liked to get your drink on because your bitch of a wife was tryin
g to take you to the cleaners.

  So fuck the Army.

  Benchley entered the briefing room at eleven hundred on the dot. The command sergeant major, ever vigilant, proclaimed, “Room, attention!” and the assemblage there rose to its collective feet and came to attention.

  “Have a seat, folks,” Benchley said in response, and the assemblage returned to its original seated position. Except for the chief engineer, Jeremy Andrews; he had thrown out his back a day earlier, and he was still struggling to rise when Benchley released the meeting attendees to their seats. He slowly lowered himself back into his chair with a barely suppressed sigh.

  “Jeremy, how’re you feeling?” Benchley asked. Even though Andrews was a civilian, he still had a simulated rank of major and was afforded the usual respect such a position commanded. It was to his credit that he tried to follow protocol by standing when Benchley entered, but the general saw no point in forcing the man’s pain to increase.

  “I’m getting along, sir,” Andrews said, smiling beneath his neatly-trimmed dark beard. But his blue eyes showed the real truth, and Benchley shook his head.

  “Next time, remain seated until you’re fully able to rise,” Benchley said. “Really, there’s no need for you to blow out a disc on my account. All right?”

  “Uh, if you say so, General,” Andrews said, obviously uncomfortable at being singled out for special treatment.

  “You threw out your back repairing a water pump in the Core, right? I consider that as being injured on duty, so don’t be embarrassed to remain in your chair during ceremonial greetings and stuff like that. In fact, even if you are embarrassed to be the only guy sitting down when a superior walks into the same room as you, don’t get off your butt. Clear?”

  “Clear, sir,” Andrews said.

  “All right, let’s get started. Colonel, who’s the official scribe?” Benchley turned to Corinne Baxter, a thick-set black woman sitting to his left. Usually, the spot would be occupied by the deputy commander, a brigadier general named Ernsthausen, but Ernie had been called to Washington for budget meetings. That should have been Benchley’s cross to bear, but with his duty period slowly drawing to a close, echelons above reality apparently felt more comfortable dealing with Harmony’s DCG. While it was something of a minor slight, Benchley felt no additional animosity toward the Army for it. Any opportunity to avoid Washington was a gift from the gods of war. As such, Baxter, the base chief of staff, would fill in for Ernsthausen during his absence.