Near Falkirk, Alkalurops

          Prefecture IX, Republic of the Spheres

          3 April 3134, Local Spring

                                                                  ONE

          Grace O’Mally loosened the straps on her harness, rested her elbows on the front of Pirate, her MiningMech, and focused her binoculars. A quick sweep of the Gleann Mor valley in front of her showed none of the raiders she feared.

          The chatter on net was scary. Usually, Grace ignored Net gossip, but Allabad, the capital, had dropped off net a week ago with no explanation. Then hysterical postings and phone calls started showing up about BattleMechs stomping through houses, tanks shooting up shops and strange troops hijacking Mechs ... followed by silence from that town. It was unbelievable! Still, the net blackout was cutting a wide swath aimed right at her hometown ... Falkirk.

          Last evening, her friend Gordon Frazier, Kilkinny’s mayor, not two hours drive south, slapped up a hasty e-note that BattleMechs and a whole lot of other armed stuff was coming up the south road from Amarillo. Grace had called Gordon, but both voice and data link were now dead. It looked like Falkirk was alone in the world and someone was coming to swipe Pirate.

          Last night’s town meeting in Falkirk had been the shortest since Grace was elected mayor. Some were for running, but most agreed. “Alkalurops takes care of itself.” The vote was to fight. That didn’t surprise Grace. For much of the week Mick’s Mech Maintenance Mavens had been adding armor to the six local Mechs and jury rigging weapons like the six hunting rifles now turned into the Gatling gun strapped to Pirate’s right arm. John Shepherd, the local gunsmith, had special loaded high-power, steel-jacketed shells for the Gatling.

           Grace shook her head as if to clear it from a bad dream. Since she was a kid, her mom had told her how ancient Ireland once trembled at the name of Grace O’Mally, the pirate woman. Grace had even named her MiningMech Pirate “‘cause he stole metal and hydrocarbons from the ground.” But real pirates! She’d never expected anything like this in the Republic of the Spheres.

          She also hadn’t expected the HPG interstellar Com Grid to go down. In an out-of-the-way planet like Alkalurops, it just meant the news talkies spent more time on local stuff. Even when the Co-op started paying less for metal and carbon, it seemed like a small price to pay for being left alone.

          Grace swept her binoculars over the Gleann Mor valley slowly, almost lovingly. This was her home, she’d grown up here, like her mom and her mom before her going back almost to the first landers. The valley hadn’t changed much in all that time. It showed red and brown where the alien plants still held on. Green where Terran plants were slowly replacing them. In the spring air, the yellow of Scotch Broom outlined the road from the south and patches everywhere. The Cragnorm Mountain range, only ten or fifteen klicks away this far north, showed Scotch Broom as well as the purple of heather. Behind Grace, the foothills of the Galty Range would show the same hues if she twisted in her cockpit to look. Instead, she glanced north, up the valley to where the gray of Falkirk’s stone houses and stores stood in the lee of Wilson Craig. Around it were the large green circles of irrigated land, growing Terran wheat and corn, barley and oats they sold outside the valley. Small gardens around the houses provided all the vegetables they needed. Falkirk was comfortably independent. Or had been last week.

          Now Falkirk needed help; two days ago Grace sent out a call to all the small holdings in the mountains or towns beyond. She was more than grateful for the signs of digging beside the road in front of where she stood. Yesterday, Chato Bluewater had led in two dozen Navajos from the White River valley on the other side of the still snow-capped Hebrides Range. Now they worked at a job Grace only halfway understood.

          Yesterday, while Pirate was in the shop having the Gatling rigged, the Navajo, aided by anyone willing to pitch in, had dug, strung line and done other strange things. Grace watched and scratched her head. “How do you stop a Mech with a rope?”

          Chato smiled softly at the question. “You fight the white man way. We’ll follow the warpath with the spirit of Coyote. Let’s see whose path the MechWarriors wish they hadn’t crossed.”

          Grace had never heard him use words like “white man” before. Then again, she’d never been on the “warpath” with him. A bit uncomfortable, she answered with “They’re not warriors, just raiders. And I’m not a white man, I’m a Irish-Scot woman.”

          “You are the mayor of Falkirk. That’s enough to make you a white man for me,” Chato said, then laughed as Grace shot back.

          “Only on Thursday evenings during the town meeting.

          But Chato quickly grew serious. “You are the one these hard-headed miners accept as their war leader. Put on war paint, chief, and let’s see how good your braves are.”

          Grace left grumbling; she’d never worn makeup in her life.

          “Dust on the horizon,” Dan McClod said, bringing her back to the present. His AgMech stood to her left since it now leaned a bit to its left, favoring a field burner now hanging from that arm. Normally, they used the burner to clear the alien local vegetation before putting a field to producing Terran food and fiber. Now the burner had a high-speed pump and the hump of a five hundred gallon feed tank towered over Dan’s open cockpit. Grace had heard that BattleMechs tended to heat up. Dan’s burner would help that along ... big time.

          Grace turned the binoculars back south and leaned far forward. Below her, Pirate’s gyros protested her off-balanced weight adding to the new front armor. Grace dropped her right hand back into the cockpit and used the joystick to edge the drill bit on Pirate’s right arm out to balance her against the fifteen-meter-tall granite pinnacle she hid behind.

          She returned her attention to the main road; yep, there was a dust cloud out there now. The road was straight, usually five klicks or more from the foothills. But below Grace a dry ravine forced it closer to the foothills. A spring gully washer would have put the road under three meters of raging water, but there hadn’t been a thunderstorm for more than a week. At least the dust gave warning even if the dry ground made it easier for the raiders to bounce around off-road.

          Grace pulled Chato’s mirror from around her neck, aimed it at the valley and gave the Navaho a warning flash. Someone stood from among the brush and cheat grass and waved a shirt back.

          Now Grace cinched in her own harness. A quick check showed her new style neurohelmet was in place and none of her cooling lines were kinked. She brought Pirate’s engine up from a fuel-saving idle to ready power. Working the pedals with care, she spun him around on his left heel to face the other Mechs and fifty men and women with rifles and Mick’s improvised rocket-firing tubes he called bazookas for some reason.

          Projecting her voice like her father had taught her years ago to carry to the crew two stories below and the Mech pilots with idling engines, she shouted “What do you say we spread out some.” Even shouting, she made sure it come across as a suggestion. Chato might call her Falkirk’s war chief but this bunch were not soldiers. That they followed her suggestions more often than not made her their leader. If she shot her mouth off too much, they’d pick a new mayor.

          “Sounds like a plan,” Wilson, owners of about half the irrigation circles around Falkirk, said. He closed up the newest AgMech in town, its paint now marred from Mick welding additional armor to its front. As Wilson lead the way to a pile of rocks a klick south, his son followed, piloting a similarly up-armored AgMech that wasn’t all that much older than Pirate. The Wilson’s rifle cabinet had been emptied to provide the barrels for the Gatling guns that both Mech Mods carried. A dozen tenant farmers with gopher guns and two rocket launchers trailed them.

          McCallester, who had never forgiven Grace for beating him out of the mayor’s job when his old man died, nodded to Brady and those two troublemakers plodded a klick north with most of their own mine workers. Their Mechs’ engines struggled even as they waddled; both men had insisted Mick weld armor to the front and back of their century-old machines.

          That left Grace with Dan’s AgMech and its flame thrower along with a score of town craftsmen and merchants, armed with whatever was handy. Most rifles were hardly used except for plunking at rabbits and gophers during the annual sharpshooter’s competition at the Highland Games. Shooting was never much to brag about. It was always late in the day, after the racing and throwing the caber ... and way too much drinking. Grace didn’t consider mixing drinks with loaded guns all that safe, but the schedule was sacred, unchanged for hundreds of years.

          Everyone was sober today, even McDougall who’d never met a glass he didn’t love more than his poor wife.

          “Keep down,” Grace shouted. “They’re coming up the road. We’ll take them where it curves right into us.”

          “And won’t that be a surprise for them,” Dan grinned through the faceplate of his bulky helmet. The others laughed. Grace closed up Pirate’s cockpit and spun the Mech again in place.

          We better surprise’em. Otherwise, we’re toast, Grace thought

                                                                   * * *

          The concrete road supported Captain Loren J. Hanson Koshi comfortably. It had been a good walk this morning. He’d set an easy pace; after a week, he didn’t want to break anything the last day. Word from his X. O. was the jump ship had loaded the loot from Alkalurops and was ready to jump to the secondary pick-up point. The mission here was snatch, grab and raise scatter hell. The Colonel made it clear he didn’t think that should cost the Roughriders any major casualties. So far it hadn’t.

          L. J.’s targeting acquisition screen flashed, letting him know it had found what he’d expected. He tightened his straps as he checked his cooling lines. No problem. Keying his mike he announced. “Looks like the locals have got themselves an ambush up ahead where the road runs close to the foothills.

          “Nice of them to come out to meet us,” Sergeant Godfrey chortled. “Think they baked a cake?”

          L. J. frowned; Sergeant Godfrey had a big mouth, but he did know how to put his Condor Hover Tank petal to the metal ... and this was Hanson’s Roughriders.

          Not L. J.’s Roughriders. Great Grampa Hanson had commanded when the Roughriders made their name. L. J. was just a distant great-grandkid by a daughter that chose medicine over Mechs. Grandma was still a great Doc when it came to patching up the occasional casualty, but L. J. had earned his commission with sweat and hard work. This was his first independent command. No doubt the Roughrider HQ staff was wondering what he’d bring back.

          So far he’d captured just one BattleMech to go with ninety or so late model IndustrialMechs. Even with the client claiming half, Maintenance should be able to turn out some decent Mech Mods. After the long peace, they would be welcome additions.

          L. J. eyed his Acquisition screen. Six IndustrialMechs were scattered on the ridge above the bend in the road along with enough metal for three or four dozen hunting rifles. They’d probably run after the first volley. Was it worth a fight this far from the pick-up point with half his ammo expended?

          “Top Kick.”

          “Sir,” Sergeant Major Tanuso answered immediately.

          “On my order, take the hover bike team and investigate the town. There’s nothing past it but mountains, so it’s as far as we go. If you spot any decent looking Mechs, acquire them. If not, raise scatter hell and fall back on me.”

          “Yessir. Corporal Mavy, with me.”

          “Yes, Sergeant Major.”

          “The rest of you, this may be a hastily improvised ambush but the only decent Mechs in town could be up there. Let’s see if any are worth painting in Roughrider colors. Keep your eyes open and your fields of fire covered.

          “Ye-ha,” Godfrey chortled, “Let’s put the spurs to’em.” His hover tank surged ahead.

          “Take it down, Roughrider,” L. J. growled and the hover tank on point slowed to keep pace with the measured tread of L. J.’s Koshi. “No need taking unnecessary heat into a Mech fight.” L. J. wanted to get as close as he could, see if the IndustrialMechs were worth a fight, before he got into one.

          As “Yes, sirs” answered him, L. J. studied the ground ahead. The road was ditched on both sides. Dry now, but the green along the verge showed there had been water. The ground was rolling, giving plenty of dead ground. The bushes were short, mixed with clumped grass. Few places to hide there. Ahead rose foothills covered in purple and green, cut here and there by tree-lined creeks or sharply banked gullies. That might limit a pursuit. Then again, maybe it would help him cut off a prize. Rocks and boulders jutted up to protect shooters. So far this planet had only produced slug throwers fit for killing small furry things. They hardly scratched a BattleMech’s paint.

          Don’t get cocky, kid. L. J. reminded himself. A cake walk was nice, but cakes could hold surprises. Approaching the curve, L. J. spotted three fairly new Mechs and ordered Top Kick off. “Sergeant, just tap the town if there’s nothing worth taking. We may have some gear here for you.”

          “Yessir,” came back fast.

          That left L. J. with just his own Koshi, a Spider, and Godfrey’s Condor tank, with two scout rigs to fill in the intervals between the three. Time to get this battle going.

          “I make our opposition as six IndustrialMechs and a few dozen infantry. Godfrey, you bear to the right and see what you can do to those two. Webrunner, you have the left pair. I’ll take the middle ones. Scouts, look for crunchies trying to cause trouble and stand-by to take down any Mechs we disable. We got them outnumbered two to six. Let’s do it by the numbers. Roughriders,” he ended.

          “Roughriders,” came back in an enthusiastic shout. He pitied the poor dumb slobs up the hill, thinking that a Mech with a claw or drill gave them any chance against real BattleMechs piloted by MechWarriors.

          “Advance on the enemy to the left, Now,” L. J. ordered and throttled up his BattleMech. Beside him his team spread out; the Spider’s long steps ate up the distance to his targets. Beneath his Koshi’s feet, brush crumbled. Foot pads sank a good ten centimeters into the hard dirt under the light BattleMech’s weight. It was good to be loose; L. J. echoed Godfrey’s yell.

                                                                   * * *

          “Damn,” Grace breathed softly. “So much for surprise,” she said into her mike. “Here they come.”

          “How’d they spot us?” came on Falkirk’s public channel.

          “You clomping around raising dust would warn a blind Brit.”

          “I’m out of here.”

          Grace had to stop that. “Start running and they’ll shoot you in the back. Stay down. Hold your fire,” she ordered. Then realized she was issuing orders and tasted the surprise. Well, this is a battle. Somebody had to give orders. Real orders, not polite suggestions. She glanced around. Surprise of surprises, people were doing what she’d told them, huddling in place. Maybe these eejits could tell a good idea when they heard it.

          For a better view, she raised Pirate from his squat behind solid granite. The raiders were about three klicks out. A hover tank with a horribly long gun cut through the tall grass, heading for her left, sending dirt and rocks flying as it made S turns. A tall Mech with small wings trotted at the Wilsons. A shorter, ugly thing with scads of rocket launchers on its elbows was headed straight for her.

          Someone with McCallester fired off one of Mick’s Bazookas. The tank in front of them vanished in a sheet of smoke and flame. There was a ragged cheer cut short as they realized the tank had fired off a salvo of its own rockets. The tank was already out of the smoke cloud and gunning for the foothills when the rockets started hitting. One smashed into the boulder Brady was hiding behind. The rock shattered, sending shards in all directions. The miner’s Mech fell back on its ass. Count on Brady for slapstick. McCallester brought up the rocket thrower on the left arm of his MiningMech and fired. The rocket went wild, corkscrewing for parts unknown.

          Grace held her breath, expecting the next salvo from the tank to shred both Mechs – but the tank suddenly lost interest.

          A Navajo appeared as if from nowhere and tossed a satchel charge at the tank. The explosion blew the tank sideways, but didn’t seem to phase it. The tank’s minigun cut a slash in the valley floor as it went for its attacker, but the Navajo had vanished back into the ground and another was up, shooting a rabbit rifle at the tank. Even at this distance, Grace heard the shot ricochet off the rocket launcher. Damn, even the missile boxes are armored. Don’t those things have any weak spots!

          Before the tank could draw a good bead on that tormentor, others were up, shooting, maybe running a few steps, shooting again, then vanishing. Other shots came from nowhere, like a rocket round that went straight but fell short a few meters.

          The tank charged in a shower of dirt and dry grass just as Grace spotted a pattern. Had the tank driver seen what was being done to him? A Navajo would appearing, attack and disappear as another one, a bit further to the right jumped up, got a shot off and drew it further toward Falkirk. That was the last thing Gracie wanted. That thing’s miniguns couldn’t be let loose among the homes of her friends. Some folks, old, or sick, or just too damn set in their ways, had refused to flee to the hills.

          Grace tapped the throttle and edged Pirate around the boulder that hid her. The attack on the tank seemed to hold the ugly Mech’s attention. Maybe she could do something the raiders would remember. MiningMechs often needed knee joints replaced; maybe BattleMechs had the same weakness. She toggled her Gatling gun to full power. Mick said a light squeeze would send a few rounds out. “Good for ranging, me girl. When you got’em where you want’em, squeeze that trigger hard and that gun will cut them a new one, yes she will, a nice big new one.”

          Gracie nudged the joystick until her cross-hairs were right on the BattleMech’s knee, squeezed off a few rounds ... and watched as they cut the grass behind the BattleMech.

          “Damn!” Grace grumbled as she walked the stream of high power 7.6 millimeter rounds into her target.

                                                                   * * *

          “Damn it, Godfrey,” L. J. snapped, “don’t play with them, boot them in the ass.” How often had his uncle growled that at Loren as he learned the fighting trade. “Long, noisy fights are for lovers or vids, boy. You’re a fighting man. Get in there. Do what you came for. Get out.” Now L. J. watched his sergeant’s enthusiasm for the chase turn into a wild slalom. If he did any damage to the gnats that bit at him, no bodies were evident.

          L. J. turned his Mech to face Godfrey, the better to give him a blistering dressing down. At that moment, the dirt and scud flying from the blowers that held his tank on a thin cushion of air took on more substance. For a second L. J. thought he was seeing rocks and chunks of earth flying out from under the tank.

          Then he recognized the truth.

          The tank had charged into a section of the valley that wasn’t there. What looked like solid ground a second ago, vanished as the hover turbines sent woven grass mats flying. The tank hung in thin air for a second, like some cartoon critter Loren might have laughed at when he was four.

          But this was not a cartoon and L. J. was a detachment commander and a hover tank may hover a few centimeters above the ground but it doesn’t hover over the middle of a deep gully. The tank’s nose dropped. It smashed head-on into the dirt bank ahead of it, then flipped over, coming to rest with a groan of tearing metal and ripping armor. For a moment longer the blowers kept working, sending a cloud of dirt shooting into the sky as if to mark for all to see the resting place of this armored marvel.

          “Damn,” L. J. breathed. They’d never get that tank out without a retriever, and this detachment was budgeted on a shoestring. Maintenance truck yes. Retriever... not on your life. “Damn,” he repeated softly.

          And felt the thud of bullets hammering into his Mech’s knee.

          “Damn!” he growled, turning his attention back where it belonged. Slugs ricocheted wildly, but here and there, a tiny bit of armor went with them. That Mech Mod on his front had some sort of multi-barrel gun, and while it’s slugs might be tiny, it was enthusiastically sending them his way. Slightly off to the right of that tormentor, a second Mech Mod with an infrared signature stood up. Then things really got hot.

          A river of fire curved toward L. J. It fell short; not even showing on his temp readout. He started to chuckle at these poor joker’s attempts ... then swallowed it.

          The fire might be short, but it landed in a clump of those green shrubs with yellow flowers – and they caught fire like an open gas tank. The morning calm was gone; the wind now drove the fire right at him. Maybe it’s time to be somewhere else. L. J. turned away from Sergeant Godfrey’s mess, snapped off four salvos of SRMs to encourage the locals to mind their own business and aimed himself at a bit of good level ground well away from the yellow and green fire hazzard.

          It was a good jump, right up until the landing.

          His entire Mech groaned as the gyros struggled to stand on just his left leg. He overrode the gyros and let his Mech settle, left leg bent almost double, right leg deep in a hole that woven mats had concealed a moment ago.

          L. J. tapped his mike. “All hands, watch your footing. This plain is pockmarked with traps.”

          “Now he tells me,” came Godfrey’s dry drawl.

          L. J. ignored him and concentrated on his own problem. The enemy right was running; Godfrey’s shots had put fear in them. Webrunner was herding the left up the hill. Still they were making good use of folds in the land and stopping to return fire with single shot SRMs and two of those dinky mini-guns.

          L. J. snapped off another volley of SRMs in the general direction of the center of his opposition and got his leg out of the hole. Limping off to the right, he eyed his tormentors.

          His first salvo made gravel out of the rock that mini-gun hid behind. The fire-throwing Mech and the infantry were bugging out but still firing as they backpedaled. The mini-gun slashed out at him from behind a new and larger outcropping. Without thought, his hand worked the joystick to center the cross-hairs where he wanted them. Fast as he could punch them out, he salvoed three of his four SRMs quad packs, holding back the last one for two seconds on the chance the first three might blow a hole through to his target.

          For a moment, L. J. thought he might have gotten the joker, but as the dust begun to settle his BattleMech’s damaged left leg was taking fire again from another boulder. He sidestepped to the right. When that didn’t throw the mini-gun off, he mashed out another full salvo at the guy, turned in place and throttled up to quickly cover the quarter klick back to where a fold in the land hid his leg. That guy sure is a leg man!

          L. J. snapped off another volley. Damn, this is becoming a meat-grinding attrition fight. That’s not why I’m here.

          “Captain, town is empty except for an old gray hair that waved a bible at me and lectured me on the evils of my life.”

          “You shoot her?” Godfrey asked. The sergeant would have.

          “I asked her for a date Friday night,” Top Kick sniffed. “A woman with fire like that is worth more than the gilded cats you hang with any night. I see you need some help, sergeant,” the Top Kick finished, taking skin off Godfrey with that observation.

          “I am in a bigger hole than usual,” Godfrey admitted.

          “I’ve warned you that fooling with married women could leave you walking home. Have a mind to leave you right here.”

          “Would make it hard to catch the Jump ship at recall.”

          “Would cost you some stripes,” the Top Kick said as he brought his hover bike to a stop at the rim of the gully that had eaten the Hover tank.

          L. J. cut the banter off. “Top Kick, help our darling gift to femininity while Webrunner and I keep the locals busy.”

          “You do that, sir, and I’ll see what we can do here.”

          L. J. turned back to his battle. His problems were now further up the hills. Normally, a stern chase was a long chase, and while his BattleMech could outrun IndustrialMechs, these folks did know the territory. Then again, they were tasting battle for the first time and the hills were cut with gullies. Maybe he could canalize this bunch if they weren’t careful how they retreated. “Webrunner, you’ve got the left pretty much in reverse. I want you to edge over toward me. Let’s see if there’s a way to cut off that mini-gun.”

          “Will, do, Captain.”

                                                                   * * *

          Grace was in reverse. Reverse was all in a day’s work for a miner. For a fighter, it didn’t look nearly so good.

          The rifle crews fled up the ridge; they’d learned to dash from one clump of cover to another. Even the slow learners caught on after they got shards of rocket in their backsides. Dan was being more careful now as his Mech picked its way from cover to cover. For a bloody disaster, it didn’t look too bad. Winning hadn’t been on Grace’s mind for a couple of hours. A glance back showed the sun damnably low over the Cragnorm hills. Pirate’s clock showed less than an hour since sunrise.

          Grace put Pirate’s engine in the red as she charged from a rock outcropping to a dry wash behind a knoll with a shrugging evergreen perched on it. The engine screamed, but she got all the horsepower Pirate’s builder put in him, as well as the extra Mick had souped him up to. She fired a burst at the ugly BattleMech, more to let it know someone was still fighting than to issue any kind of a challenge. She got lots of rockets for her effort. One shredded the tree, showering her with burning splinters. Rich with turpentine, some stuck to Pirate as they burned. She worked the edge of her drill bit to brush the bigger chips off. When the next salvo was aimed at Dan, she zig-zag jogged to a large boulder. She saved her ammo this run, and hoped the damn cuss in the valley would ignore her.

          And it came to Grace. Except for the terror of maybe being blown to bits in the next second, fighting was just hard grunt work. Harder than any day mining, even breaking ground for a new shaft. Damn. Just let me get out of here and I’ll leave this to the Knights of The Republic and all the other nuts who like this.

          “Ah, Gracie, I think we have a problem. Look at the Wilsons,” Dan said, voice straining over the radio. That team had also been retreating up the ridge. They were still running, but edging south as well. The tall BattleMech now was almost even with Grace. Maybe that meant nothing. Then again, only MacGilly’s Gulch stood between Grace and the hunter. Course, that gulch was plenty deep, not the kind of thing you jumped.

          Unless you could jump like that thing in the valley had.

          And why else put wings on the tall BattleMech. Oh damn!

          The tall BattleMech gave the Wilsons a short laser burst. Another miss. Then it paused. “What’s it doing,” Dan asked after he made a short run from one boulder to another higher up.

          Grace studied the taller Mech, then glanced at the short one below her. It had been quiet for a while. Low on ammo? What could make one of those damn killing machines slow down.

          “Cooling?” she guessed.

          “Cooling what? Speaking of cooling, I could sure use a cool one about now.”

          “Cooling themselves, maybe before they do something that will really heat them up,” Grace said, not liking the sound of her words. “BattleMechs can overheat. You’ve seen it in the vids. Why do you think you’re carrying that field burner?”

          “Oh, right. I forgot.”

          “Get a move on. Run. God only knows what they’re gonna do next, and she ain’t exactly talking to me these days.” Grace slammed the throttle forward, broke cover and headed for a fold in the ridge that would hide her from both Mechs. She fired off a burst at the tall Mech across from her. It fell short.

          Grace was back to cover before anything new came her way. It wasn’t her imagination, both Mechs were looking at her now. Grace broke cover, maxing Pirate out galloping for a boulder. She checked; her rifles were well up the ridge. The lack of attention made them bolder runners. McCallester and Brady’s Mechs were way out ahead of their folks, but all were out of range of the two BattleMechs still herding Grace like sheep dogs.

          Well, Falkirk wasn’t burning, she had accomplished that much. Now if she could just get out of this alive.

          Halfway to another fold in the ridge, Grace spotted glare out of the corner of her eye. The tall Mech was up in the air, now falling to a landing on this side of MacGilly’s Gulch. The other Mech was racing towards her, quickly cutting in half the distance Grace had managed to squeeze out between them. Grace paused, caught the descending Mech in the sights of her Gatling gun and fired. A few rounds sparked fire as they ricocheted off, but it didn’t even phase the BattleMech’s flight.

          The running BattleMech lofted a barrage of rockets her way.

          Grace slammed Pirate’s throttle forward, but didn’t take two steps before rockets smacked down around her. At least two hit Pirate, bouncing Grace’s head off the cockpit side. Her vision grayed; the ringing in her ears didn’t cover the screaming of gyros as they struggled to keep her upright. She tried a step forward. No go. A plate of Mick’s armor was off and wedged between Pirate’s middle and the ground. Grace activated her drill and applied it to the dangling slab as she staggered left.

          Rocks sizzled as a laser slashed through where she’d been.

          Below her, the ugly BattleMech disappeared in the smoke of another salvo. Grace twisted in place, still working on the armor, then staggered back as another pair of rockets smashed into Pirate. One spent itself on the busted plate, the other smashed her drill, but also knocked the dangling plate free.

          A stream of fire flew high over Grace’s head. Dan had turned back and was taking on the tall Mech. It fell short, only burning some heather. A moment later, Dan sent fire down the hill at the ugly BattleMech.

          At least the smoke hid Grace as she nursed Pirate to an outcropping. Half his instruments were dead. Two cylinders weren’t firing; the engine gages were a horror. Her Gatling gun hadn’t been much good. Now Pirate couldn’t run. “Dan, pull back,” Grace shouted on circuit, “I’ll cover you.”

          “Gracie, I can’t leave you.”

          “You stay here and they grab two Mechs. You go and they get maybe one. I’ll cover you and then bust out of Pirate and run for it. They’re after the Mech. They won’t waste time on me.”

          “You keep covering us, when will you bust out?”

          “Soon, if you get a move on.”

          “I’m pulling back Grace, but I don’t like this.” Dan shot off two more rivers of fire, one toward each BattleMech, then disappeared in a shallow draw only to reappear as his AgMech hot footed it from one bit of cover to another.

          Grace kept Pirate upright, but one leg was grinding as she moved. She edged around the outcropping, keeping it between her and the tall Mech. It was the other one she wanted dead.

          As she peeked around the rock, she found the short Mech ... right where it had been. It wasn’t moving in for the kill! It stood tall, scanning the hills behind Grace. She worked the pedals, trying to turn Pirate, but the gyros screamed and nothing happened. She wanted that Mech. She juggled the joystick until her sights were dead on it, then waited for it to come.

                                                                   * * *

          “Captain, you see them.”

          “Roger, Webrunner, I see them,” L. J. said, keeping disappoint out of his voice. Twelve Mechs moved over the crest of the ridge ahead of them. The distance was too far for him to make out their types and equipment, but if they’d been modified like the ones he’d been fighting, they might be able to take him and Webrunner in their damaged state. Well, his damaged state. He looked at his ammo levels. Not much left.

          Pick-up would be at the mouth of this valley. He had to expect some fight might be left in the locals. For a moment longer he considered continuing his pursuit of that troublesome MiningMech, but he had no way of knowing just how badly he’d damaged him. It was time to cut his losses.

          “Task Team, fall back to the U in the road. Top Kick, could you do anything with the mess Godfrey made of his tank?”

          “Nosir. It’s wedged in there real fine.”

          “Render it unusable,” L. J. ordered, keeping his voice even, disappointment out, exhaustion not present. “A commander leads,” Uncle said. “And a real leader never lets anyone know things are going bad. Because when things are really bad, that’s when your men and women need leadership the most.”

          L. J. would show the Roughriders he knew how to lead.

                                                   Near Falkirk, Alkalurops

                                       Prefecture IX, Republic of the Spheres

                                                 3 April 3134, Local Spring

                                                                 TWO

          Grace lay beside the battered hull of Pirate. The clear sky above her had never seemed such pure blue. A flowering sprig of Scotch Bloom smelled heavenly, almost overpowering the stink of burned carbon armor and residue of exploded rockets.

          She was alive! She hadn’t been splattered all over the hill by rockets or lasers. She’d escaped and would live to see tomorrow. It was heady stuff. Especially if she didn’t think too much about how she didn’t deserve it. Luck. All Luck.

          Mick’s flatbed truck seemed to bounce from rock to rock, engine struggling as he approached her. He backed up to Pirate, got out to take a good look, then gave a low whistle. “Well, that extra armor kept you alive.”

          “Just barely. He’s all knocked around inside.”

          “Shock. Yeah,” the short, round dwarf of a mechanic said. “We build MiningMechs to take the normal wear you jockeys put on them, not the crap a rocket does. Help me get the crane swung out so we can lay your Pirate out. I want a look at that tank your Navajo friends caught.”

          The ride down was no faster than the climb up. Gravity and Pirate’s weight urged the truck to go wild, pick up momentum and leave them all dead at the foot of the hill. Mick was a maestro on the brake and gears.

          Chato’s sun-tanned and lined face had a big grin on it as they drove up. A dozen other Navaho, dressed like him in plaid shirt and work jeans gathered around the tank, now upright.

          “Looks in pretty good shape,” Mick said as he joined Chato.

          “They tried to burn it,” Chato said, pointing, palm open, at a still smoldering area of the canyon floor. “This contraption was upside down and they couldn’t get their charges to stay put. They tossed grenades into the underside. That’s a mess.”

          A younger version of Chato, raven hair held back in four rather than the older man’s two braids, popped his head out of the tank. “Uncle Chato, you have to look at this. They have sensors in here I never even dreamed of.”

          “And if Joseph hasn’t dreamed of them, I didn’t think a human could make them,” the Navajo said, offering Mick and Grace the chance to take the first look inside the tank.

          The mechanic shook his head. “It’s the engine I’ll be wanting to tear apart. Never could understand electric stuff.”

          Grace and Chato squatted down around the hatch and the youngster settled back into the belly of the monster. Wrapped around his seat were gadgets, leaving just enough room for one man to sit. “Will you look at this, uncle,” the young man chattered happily. “Their infrared scope. It’s measured in kilometers, not meters. Coyote grant me one wish, let whatever sensor feeds that thing be working. I have to see it work.”

          “So they knew we were waiting for them,” Grace said bitterly. “Knew just when to attack us.”

          “So it seems,” Chato said. “We’ll need to study this war pony a lot more.”

          “Lot of stuff to study,” Mick said from where he’d pried open the engine compartment.

          “I’d like to see how things are in Falkirk,” Grace said. Hours later, she’d wondered why she hurried back. Her return became a town meeting right there on Main Avenue. Meetings were bad enough when she could table something that had been talked to death. A point she was grateful for. There were no deaths among the fighters or in Falkirk, thanks to old Auntie Maydell. She seemed to have singlehandedly, well, single sharp-tonguedly talked an old soldier into leaving the town alone.

          But there were plenty of close calls to talk about; close calls that got closer the more times they were talked about. As much as she hated it, she’d better call a town meeting right away while memories of the day’s terror was still gut puking fresh and before the truth vanished beneath thick layers of varnish.

          The meeting went long. All of the empty heads wanted to talk and Grace had to let them. The rules for town meetings had never included a way to shush anyone. But the yammering served to show the divide in town. There were those who figured the militia should have put up a better fight – few of whom had been on the hill with Grace. Now there were a lot more who were all for running for the hills if this ever happened again. That number now included about half the militia.

          Grace took note of the quiet ones. No surprise, Chato held his own tongue, as well as Jobe Kang. Jobe led the dozen worker Mechs from the Donga River Valley; their arrival from the west appeared to be what turned the raiders around. The Navaho with his long braids sat next to the bald African miner. They eyed the goings on, but, like Grace, said nothing.

          Wilson sat in silence next to his son. The boy started to stand up a few times, demand the floor, but the elder farmer kept a restraining hand on his son’s leg. So the boy studied the yammering of the town meeting and the quiet man beside him, eyes darting, like a minnow trying to figure out where the food was ... and where the hook lurked. The boy was learning good.

          A couple of the townsmen sat together. Hong Ho, his eyes often closed in meditation, told Grace nothing about what the owner of the town’s sole hardware outlet was thinking. Robert Laird sat beside his Buddhist friend, keeping just as quiet even if he did tend to fidget in his seat. But when the town’s grain operator and green grocer spoke, lots of folks listened.

          Grace mulled the day over and over as she let words slip over her, holding on to few of them. Still there were ones worth keeping. “Damn, I don’t want to do that again.” “We should have been able to do better.” And “What was it about those BattleMechs?” “Where was the Legate’s BattleMech” came often but since no one knew the answer to that, it settled nothing.

          When Grace began to feel something solid growing in her gut ... and patience growing thin, she rose and shouted into the racket of a five-sided argument. “I don’t know about anyone else’s bladder, but mine says it’s time for a break.”

          There was a stampede for the facilities. Despite her claimed need, Grace stayed in her place. As Wilson, Ho, Laird, Chato and Jobe gathered around her table, Mick joined them.

          “You got that tank into your shop?” Grace asked.

          “Yep. Chato’s boy has juice flowing to its innards.”

          “It as dangerous as it looks?” she said.

          “Worse if you ask me. That thing can damn near see you coming before you think of going. Magsan to beat the band. Infrared to tell your temperature. Real bad stuff.”

          “Not if it serves you,” Chato said simply.

          “But it served us up like fish on a platter,” Wilson said. “A bunch of optimists who never fought anything worse than a cranky engine or a bad headwind.”

          Folks around Grace looked at each other and nodded.

          “Gracie,” Wilson said, “I never want to go through that again. Least wise not as dumb as I was today. I know how to raise cows. I’m damn good at farming this red dirt around here. I don’t know crap about fighting Mechs.”

          “Me neither,” echoed around the circle.

          Grace took a deep breath and tried to pull out from deep inside her what had been taking shape. “I’m not much in favor of running every time the net says bo. Running for the hills and hoping there’s something to come back to is no way for real people to live.” She said, eyeing the group. Only frowns met that. “Now if I don’t know how to do something, I usually put out a call for someone who does. Pay them to either do it for me or teach me how. Seems to me that we need someone who can teach us a thing or two about fighting.”

          That brought a long pause, punctuated as a fist fight in the back of the hall that Aunt Maydell broke up. Grace was glad for the help; the future of Falkirk hung on the handful around her.

          “When I need something we don’t make here,” Ho said slowly, “I buy the best I can afford from where it is available.”

          “I don’t like strangers showing up and pushing me around,” Wilson said. “My family was here during the old wars. People from off planet tried to take us on and we bloodied their noses. If I have a vote, I say we do the same. And if we don’t know how, I say hire folks to show us the way.”

          “That’s the way I see it, too,” Grace said. “They came. We did what we could, and that was damn poor. I say we go to the Legate and demand he train us to do what the people of Alkalurops have always done, defend ourselves. And if the Legate is as dead as I think he is, we find someone who can,” Grace said.

          “That could cost money,” Ho pointed out.

          “Would you rather pay for a defense or try to bribe the raiders, cause next time I wouldn’t bet on Aunt Maydell talking them down. The next raiders’ll demand our money or our Mechs,” Grace finished. Her listeners frowned, but nodded.

          “Better to fight than give up, and if we fight, I mean to fight a damn sight better next time,” Wilson said. “I’ll put up ten percent of my profits from last year to pay someone to teach me how to knock the next raiders on their asses.”

          “Me too,” came from the rest in the circle. Grace sighed. Now all she had to do was get the rest of Falkirk to go along.

Outside Kilkinny, Alkalurops

13 April 3134                                             * * *

          A nudge brought Grace awake. “You’ll want to see this,” Chato said. With deep regret, Grace opened her eyes. Chato had volunteered to drive the jeep Wilson donated to take the local reps to the capital at Allabad. Something had to be going on at the capital and Falkirk was damned if those fancy pants in the big city would ignore the working stiffs that paid the taxes. Or that the large mining corps would ignore the small mining groups that made up the other half of the planet’s gross production. So Grace went straight from a gut wrenching town hall meeting that had adopted her plan for defense to a night ride down gravel roads that might end in a raider road block.

          Blinking sleep away, her eyes met rosy dawn. The morning sky was all that looked good. In the field beside the road, three burned out jeeps still sent up smoke and made the morning stink. A half-burned body manned a machine gun on one of them. The side of the road showed bodies lined up in a careful row, a single blanket covering the faces. “I guess you were luckier than you realized,” Jobe said from the back seat.

          “Looks that way,” Grace agreed.

          “Should I stop?” Chato asked. Ahead, a young man was waving his arm slowly, as if it weighed a quarter ton. There was a red bandage wrapped around the light armor of his other arm.

          “Stop,” Grace ordered and leaned out of the rig as it broke to a halt. “What happened here? Who’s in charge?”

          “The raiders side stepped the North Constabulary when they came through Kilkinny headed north, so we figured to catch’em on their way back south, Ma’am,” the young man said, leaning heavily on the hood of their jeep. “I guess you’d say I’m in charge. Lieutenant Hicks, ma’am. I hate to do this, but I got wounded to transport. I have to commandeer your rig.”

          “Hicks, I’m the mayor of Falkirk and these two men represent the Donga and White River valleys. We’re on our way to Allabad, but we’ll be glad to carry as many of your wounded as we can.”

          The young man took a while before he nodded agreement. Grace remembered yesterday and respected the year or ten the guy had spent in battle. “We’ll do it your way, ma’am. Sergeant, get the two stretchers laid across the back. You mind if my walking wounded ride your fender?”

          “How many survivors you have?” Grace asked.

          “Too few,” the haunted officer answered. “I’ll walk the rest back in.” Grace counted four tired people beside the man and his sergeant. “You take the six that are shot up into Kilkinny. There’s a clinic this side of town.”

          “I know it,” Grace said. “We’ll take good care of your people. Chato, let’s go.”

          “I’ll get us there as fast as I can, war band chief.”

          Grace eyed the wreckage as they pulled away. No one had stripped the dead or wounded of their body armor. What type of raid was this? Dropping the wounded off at Kilkinny didn’t keep them from reach Amarillo before noon. The largest town in the Gleann Mor Valley gave Grace the best of news. The raider’s jump ship had blasted off from south of there that morning loaded with the last of them. It also showed how selective the raiders were. Old Mechs still went about their business. Only Mechs ten years old or less had been hijacked and walked aboard the jump ship.

          As they hurried south, the land changed. Once they came off the caprock, fields was greener and more rolling, broken with more streams. Only occasionally was a farm house shot up. Rarely did a town show bullet holes. Dublin Town was another case study. Like so many of the large towns on Alkalurops, it sheltered in a deep canyon from the seasonal high winds. Grace was driving as they took the road down. No surprise, the IndustrialMech dealerships on the outskirts had old Mechs in for repairs, but no new rigs. But the communication towers were still standing; the power lines still hanging.

          The next morning as they drove out of Dublin Town, Grace found the network had come back to life; news was full of wild stories. Government house had been burned to the grown; the Governor and Legate were dead. Grace made a quick call to her mother to tell her the trip was going fine, then turned the phone over to Jobe and Chato to call their wives.

          As the men talked, Grace mused on what her pirate name-sake would have taken. Her list included a lot of gear that was still up and working on Alkalurops. When Grace voiced her thoughts, Jobe offered “Maybe their DropShip couldn’t take it all.”

          “Why go raiding with a small boat for the loot?” she asked. Neither man had an answer.

          Late that afternoon, they drove off the plains and into the canyon that protected Allabad. The large transmission tower by the road was undisturbed. The largest city on Alkalurops didn’t look that bad either. Stretched along the walls of a long canyon that protected it from the high winds of the flat country above, the city now filled most of the canyon with wide rows of thick adobe businesses and homes. The long, shallow lake that had first drawn people to Allabad had been narrowed and deepened so that new buildings could be built on the old flood plain.

          Except for that, nothing much had changed since Grace’s mom and pop brought her here some twenty years back so Pop could get his first MiningMech, the first MiningMech in the Gleann Mor valley. And Pop had pointed out buildings that had been pointed out by his own grandpa. Grace spotted the old market, its low walls stretching for several blocks north of the central plaza this side of the Alhambra river. There was the clock tower of the Guild Master’s Hall, though the hall had grown several new wings. This was what Grace loved about life on Alkalurops. It had been, was and would be the same.

          Except now raiders dropped in. They were something new she did not want to repeat.

          Grace called the hostel she stayed at whenever business brought her to Allabad; it was open. She ordered a room for herself; Jobe and Chato would share one. Then she called Angus Throckmorton, a family connection at the guild that went back to grandpa’s time. She wondered if he’d remember her, but his voice showed only familiar warmth as he took her call. He was actually eager to meet her and her friends. “You know the Inn I took your father to the last time he was here. Could you meet me there in an hour?” Grace promised she would and he rang off.

          “What Inn is that?” Chato asked.

          “The Red Erin Inn,” she said. “Should be easy to spot.”

          “Strange he didn’t name it. Be a shame if you got lost.”

          “I remember the place,” Grace shot back, then spotted the look the two men were exchanging. She settled back into the passenger seat. “Yes, it is strange he didn’t say it on net.”

          Which made for a long hour.

          Even more surprising, Angus was at the Red Erin before them. Grace hardly spoke his name before the tall, pony-tailed barkeep led her across a wood-beamed great room, to a dark corner where Angus waited. A big friendly bear of a man now gone to gray, he made to rise, but she settled beside him and gave him a hug.

          “Lass, you’re looking more beautiful every day.”

          She tried to return the favor, but Angus had aged in the five years since she’d last seen him. Up close she realized his plaid coat hung on him. His knuckles were red and swollen, his eyes sunk back into dark bags. “You’re,” she stammered, then caught herself. “How bad was it here?”

          “A good dark one for the lady, here,” Angus said, ordering drinks. Grace let Angus order for her; he knew the local brews. Jobe ordered a lighter ale; Chato asked for coffee.

          Only after the barkeep retreated did Grace repeat her question. “It’s been bad?”

          “Strange it’s been, lass. Very strange.”

          “The raiders hit Falkirk. Didn’t take much. The militia got knocked around some.”

          “You lose anyone close ta ya?” Angus asked.

          “A few wounded. None too bad to brag. How was it here?”

          “Strange and then some,” he said and fell silent again as their drinks came. Grace wondered if she’d have to start the conversation all over again, but Angus went on as she took her first pull on her pint. A good brew.

          “The raiders came in claiming to be a regular commercial DropShip. My friends at the port tell me ships to Alkalurops never keep to a schedule. Anyway, they sat down around midnight a week ago. They tore through the place, but not so fast the alarm wasn’t raised.”

          “Then where was the Legate? The Governor?” Jobe put in.

          “You tell me and we’ll both be knowing it,” Angus said, shaking his head and taking another long pull on his drink. “I’ve heard that the raiders blew them away without so much as a by your leave. There’s also a story the two rushed out to the port in a car and got stomped flat. I also heard from the lass who’s the Legate’s housekeeper. She found him in bed, throat slit. I can tell you which one I’m believing. The maid it is.”

          “The raiders got to him before the alarm?” Grace said, then shook her head. That’s not possible.

          “The poor man’s throat was slit before the raider’s ship ever touched down, I’m thinking,” Angus said, looking around as if someone with a knife might be looking to slit his throat, too.

          “What happened to the Central Constabulary?” Grace asked.

          “They got smashed by the raiders like they weren’t even there. Not much of a fight at all, at all.”

          “We saw the North Cons on our way here. Not much left.”

          “That would be no surprise.”

          “So the raiders went through here pretty thoroughly,” Chato said. “Strange, not much sign of looting.”

          “Cause there was none of that, or not much of it,” Angus roared, then paused to shake his head. “The raiders emptied the Legate’s quarters of his Ryoken II and any spare gear that was handy. They hit the Mech dealerships and hijacked the new stuff and such that was nearly new. Gun dealers too. They set up a base camp at the port, warned us not to come near it and then those raiding parties took off like the thieves they were. We’d see Mechs stomping back under guard of a few gun bikes and stuff.

          “Some of the men here abouts tried a night raid, turn about being only fair. It didn’t work.” That required another pull on the pint. “Ugly thing. Lad just wounded a mite said they were on them before they were halfway to the port. Damn machines landed on them, scarred them witless and shot them up as they ran. Mechs that fly. My grandda told me what it was like during the old wars, but didn’t say anything about flying Mechs.”

          “We faced a pair of those. If Jobe here hadn’t shown up, they might have jumped all over me,” Grace said, trying to make sense of what she was hearing, what she’d seen. “So they left things pretty much as they are.”

          “Except for burning down Government House, you could say we got off lightly, now couldn’t you,” Angus said to his beer as if trying to persuade himself. “Yes, I guess we did.”

          “But what were the raiders trying to do?” Chato said, swirling his coffee slowly in its mug.

          “Banshee take me if I can guess that,” Angus exploded. “It’s the not knowing what’s going on across The Republic that can drive a man to walk out thirsty on a hot, dry day.”

          “Your Mick did a pretty good job of turning some of your MiningMechs into more heavily armored Mechs,” Jobe pointed out.

          “Right, so maybe someone else is turning worker Mechs into fighting Mechs?” Grace said, then took a long pull on her beer.

          “Things have been peaceful for a long time. Not a lot of BattleMechs around,” Chato said as if he’d mined each word one letter at a time.

          “And if you wanted to grow an army in a hurry and cheap ....” Grace let the words hang there.

          “Steal them from an out of the way planet,” Jobe said.

          “But don’t do too much damage. Let folks get back on their feet quickly, maybe even order new Mechs,” Angus said emptying his beer. “I need another drink on that thought. Lien, me boy, where are you hiding, and me with a throat all dusty.”

          The barkeep, no more a boy than Grace was a lass, showed up quickly. “You drinking your dinner again, Angus, or you want something to put in that thin gut of yours?”

          “Refills for all, and now that you remind me, some of that delicious lamb stew for us that you sometimes have hereabouts.”

          “Only every night,” the barkeep muttered as he turned away.

          “So you don’t think this was a one time thing?” Grace said, getting them back to the thoughts pounding around in her brain.

          “Even if this hard bunch doesn’t come back, with us deaf and dumb as a post, other hard men will be looking around for things to grab. And even if we don’t get back on our feet, if the whole Sphere goes to hell, what are leavings now will be a prince’s ransom next year. And the year after, they may be stealing food out of our mouths. Ah, the bad old days are nothing to remember, lass. Not a life to live again, not at all, at all.”

          “And us with no Legates or Knights to call upon,” Grace said, letting Angus’s brogue slip off her own tongue.

          “Aye, lassie, and us with only our own two hands.” A brimming pint clanked onto the table, so Angus naturally took a long swig to wash those thoughts away.

          Grace noticed that Jobe was going slow on his first pint, and settled for a sip of her own. “With Government House in ashes, what are we doing for a government?” she asked.

          “The bureaucrats are back in business at a hotel down the street from the ruins. A bunch of big town mayors are gathering tomorrow at the Guild Hall to see what they can make of matters,” Angus said as the lamb stew arrived. “Mind you, no small towns like Falkirk, but no rule says who gets a say, either. Word is they mean to elect a new Governor. Pro Tem, or some such.”

          Grace put her beer down and attacked her stew. Angus could drown his troubles if that was all he could think to do. It looked like tomorrow she and her friends would have work to do.

Allabad, Alkalurops

14 April, 3134                                            * * *

          The plaque on the Guild Hall’s bell tower claimed the thick adobe walls had stood for eight hundred years, keeping out tornados and torrential floods from upstream hurricanes. It did not say how often the roof tiles had been replaced. Today, roof and walls kept the heat of the day out. This war, unlike the old, had not shattered the stain glass windows. The new louver system followed the sun, letting light in enough for business without over heating the hall. This morning’s heat came from men and women talking, talking and talking some more.

          Grace, Chato and Jobe arrived early, but not early enough to get seats around the tables that had been pushed together to make one long “I” of a table. Not bothered by that, Grace and Chato scrounged up a table of their own and added it to the head table, forcing one side of tables to back off. That left room at the foot for another table, which lead to someone else pulling a third over and adding it to the other side of the head table. Early arrivals frowned as they again had to move the long section of tables back but they did not muster a protest. Thus, the table grew until it ended up a square with twice as many people around it as someone had intended.

          Beside Grace, the three mayors from Little London, Lothran, and Banya, the three largest towns outside Allabad looked none too happy at developments. In the old days before Devlin Stone required a planet to have one central seat of government headed by a Governor, Alkalurops had gotten along with a Counsel of Elders drawn from towns and major guilds. Now that the Governor was dead, folks were falling back on the old ways and even the mayors of the three largest cities did not dare go against it.

          Garry McGuire, a short man of eminent demean and the mayor of Little London applied a solid looking gavel to a wooden plaque. This relics from the days of elders and meetings had been momentarily removed from the display case that had held it for the last fifty years. The hall fell silent.

          Dev Coughlin, dapper in Terran fashions six years out of date even before the HPG went down, and mayor of Lothran, rose to his feet from his seat between Grace and Garry. “I rise from among you to nominate Garry McGuire as Governor, pro tem of our planet, until such time as The Republic appoints a replacement for the fondly remembered, late Kristen LeSat.”

          The hall rumbled with talk. Garry McGuire graveled them to order as the mayor of Banya half rose from the seat on his left to shout. “I second Garry McGuire’s name and call for a vote.”

          “Guess I know what they were doing last night,” Grace whispered to Chato, but Jobe was standing.

          His deep base voice carried easily through the babble. “I rise from among you to place in nomination the name of Grace O’Mally, mayor of Falkirk, for Governor.”

          Before Grace could react, Jobe was back into his seat, his face a wide grin of white teeth against ebony skin. Chato shot to his feet. “I second Grace O’Mally’s name.”

          “He can’t do that,” Dev Coughlin shouted.

          “Yes he can,” Grace shouted back. She was none too sure she liked what was being done to her, but both men were recognized heads of their respective areas, just as empowered as any mayor to sit and act in this counsel.

          “And I stand to nominate Billy O’Leary,” came from down the tables. That started a nomination frenzy that lasted the better part of a half hour and only ended when most everyone had either nominated someone, seconded someone or been placed in nomination.

          When there was no one left to nominate and the entire hall was babbling among themselves, Grace stood up. She’d never thought much of her flaming red hair, but it often drew men’s attention. It did today; the hall fell moderately quiet.

          “We seem to have no lack of nominees. What we do lack is procedures for electing a Governor, or Prime Elder or whatever it is we intend to do. I ask one question. Do we allow a simple plurality to decide the vote, or should we require a majority?”

          It took a few seconds for the full impact of her words to dawn on the hall. Divided as they were among so many, someone with five or six votes might have more than the rest. Those pushing for a quick vote shut up; the hall fell silent.

          “Will the fine lady from Falkirk, is it, yield the floor she has so admirable brought to silence?” Dev Coughlin asked.

          “For a question only.” Grace had once found a real book on the rules of order for official meetings. It had been helpful – as something to pound on the table to get quiet at Falkirk town meetings even if she couldn’t follow its. Maybe today she could.

          “I recognize that everyone is important to our planet’s economy, but how can the vote of one mayor from a small town like Falkirk have the same weight as that of someone representing a city a hundred times larger. Shouldn’t we apportion votes on a one man, one vote basis?” Dev smiled at his two friends.

          “No,” Grace snapped. “Not even if you modify your proposal to be one man or woman one vote.” Dev had the good humor to flinch as his error. Grace went on. “We have not had a full census in fifty years since Stone decided we’d have the Governor he appointed. Without a certified census, we can’t tell who represents how many. Does that answer your question?”

          Dev’s smile faded under her temper. “No it does not. We have to represent the people who sent us. We all know I stand for two or three hundred times as many people as you do. We can’t do a simple one mayor, one vote. It’s not fair.”

          “That’s not a question, Dev,” someone shouted from halfway down the tables. “Quit arguing with the woman or Gus and me’ll throw you out.” The murmur in the hall was going Grace’s way; There were a lot more small town majors than large ones. That had been one of the main problems of the old Counsel of Elders, according to what grandpa told Grace. Stone resolved the problem before Alkalurops ever did.

          “May I raise for a question, ma’am?”

          This time the speaker was from down the table. A man stood; his gray suit that had been Terran business fashion before the HPG went down; the gray at his temple didn’t help Grace guess his age. “Sir, I don’t know how to recognize you,” Grace said, intent on not yielding the floor quite so quickly this time.

          “I am Theobald Chizhezki, local manager for Kimberly-Somtog Minerals and Metallurgy, my associate here,” he said, indicating a thin, balding man beside him, “is Thomas Pennypage, General Manager for Howard-Kennicutt Extraction operations. We were sent here by the Industrial Trade Group. The Group employs over four percent of your planet’s work force, either full time, contract or floating temps. A good estimate of people who live off the Stones we pay in salary is a quarter of everyone here. Even you independent miners benefit from the spare parts warehoused because we want them here when we need them. How large do you think the selection would be at your local Mech or truck dealership if we didn’t buy half of what they import each year.”

          “I hear a speech coming on,” came from someone at the foot of the table. “If I don’t hear a question soon, I’m going to show you what us independent miners can do on our own.”

          “Let the man ask a question,” Grace said. Like every independent miner, Grace had her own opinion about how much the majors helped or hindered the little guy. Still, Alkalurops was in enough trouble without alienating a big chunk of its economy.

          “My question is this. Things have changed a lot since the last time Alkalurops set its own government. I’m not against trying anything. God knows when we’ll hear from The Republic again. But shouldn’t businesses who employ more men and woman than any entity you represent also be included in this counsel?”

          As he finished, the room broke into an uproar.

          A short round man in Earth fashions just as fine as Mr. Chizhezki’s, though a smear of white power on the side of his black hair gave away his position as head of the Bakers Guild, was on his feet shouting along with half a dozen other guild masters at the tables across from the mining reps. On the fifth try, Grace made out his words. “We represent Alkalurops businessmen and workers, not ...” Grace provided “someone off planet.” The new deposits opened up in the west had all ended up in the hands of the conglomerates, something a lot of the old families suspected was the result of having a Governor appointed from off planet. Then again, maybe the new deposits did need the concentrated extraction techniques that only the big companies had. That was a good argument for several cold winter nights.

          Garry McGuire leaned past Dev to say, “You want to keep the floor just now, Gracie. Looks to me like we’ve got a long talk about who fits in this room and how we’re going to do our business before we get back to voting.”

          Grace didn’t want to establish any precedent, but at least on this one point, she was prepared to let Garry carry the fire. “You take it. But I want the floor back before we move to any votes for boss type around here.”

          “You’ll get it,” Garry said. Grace didn’t like the look he gave Dev, but when Garry started hammering away with his gavel, the noise in the room did go down to a dull roar.

          Garry stood, which brought the racket down a few more decibel. “The kind lady from up north has agreed to give up the floor while we get around to organizing ourselves. From the looks of things, we really don’t know who should be here and how we should operate. Kind of hard to put somebody in charge, when we don’t know what he’s in charge of, or supposed to do,” he said, grinning at a couple of his buddies in the corner of the square away from Grace. They dutifully laughed as if he was a vid comic and that got the room laughing with him.

          Grace didn’t hear anything to laugh about for the rest of the day. The one saving grace came from the front of the hall where a couple of the sidewalk hawkers from the square outside brought their drink and food carts inside and set up shop. Grace was the only one in her trio with Stones, so she went for drinks ... and found a lot of other folks doing the same.

          “You did a real fine job there. What’s your name again, young lady,” an elderly woman asked. Grace answered and found herself sharing her thoughts with the woman, then a couple of men joined in. In whispers they reached a fairly quick conclusion on how they’d run things. Grace delivered drinks to Jobe and Chato, told them what was happening in the front and left them at the table, keeping an eye on that circus while she circulated around the other end of the hall, feeling people out, taking her own reading of what these people wanted. It wasn’t that different from a town meeting, just bigger, noisier ... and under someone else’s control. An hour lunch lasted three. Grace had no complaint; she was one of the last back, just ahead of Garry, Dev and the two mining managers. As the sun fell below the rim of the canyon, Garry gaveled the meeting into an early recess, and Grace found herself juggling multiple dinner meetings.

          Over suppers, consensus built among the small towns that everyone should vote, even the representatives of off planet corporations. But every member of the counsel had to have the same single vote ... and decisions should be by consensus, seventy-five percent of the vote or better.

          It was well past midnight before Grace got to sleep, but she felt good. Alkalurops had some mighty fine people.

          Next morning, Grace was just walking up to the Guild Hall when the roar of a DropShip coming in shook the quiet morning. Grace wasn’t the only one who did a frantic net check. The ship grounding was the regular one the raider had faked. It was late but real. At her elbow, Jobe frowned. “You’d think the raiders would have stripped the port bare. Used landing radars, radios, have to be easy to sell. Sloppy raiders if you ask me.”

          “Well, unless a lot of people rethought what we talked about last night, we ought to get a lot done today,” Grace said, opening the Guild Hall door for the men.

          But when enough people are gathered together, nothing comes quickly. Saying “everyone votes,” didn’t seem to say all there was. Hank Pintagras, mayor of Calgeron was first on his feet that morning. “Do the guild representatives in Allabad speak for all the guilds,” he asked in a high, shrill voice, “or do we require the guilds to set in place an election process so each guild can make sure their speaker represents them?”

          Grace tried to suppress a groan. The master of Calgeron’s Mech Sales and Service Guild was notorious for disagreeing with anyone and everyone at the drop of a welding torch. For the next hour the discussion wandered all over the map, with Allabad’s Master Baker unwilling to grant anything at all to the “sticks.” Grace leaned back and studied the ceiling.

          “We can’t let this bunch stampede in circles,” Chato said. “I’ll keep an eye on the table yammering. Could you get me a cup of tea, Grace, and talk to folks. Patch what we did last night up.” Grace went; but how often on the drive home from a meeting did she think of a good reasons not to vote the way she had.

          She’d bought a cup of coffee for Jobe and a mug of tea for Chato, and was in a good position to see the man who walked into the Guild Hall at ten sharp.

          Taller than most, his expensive dark suit highlighted the lines of his thin frame. His white hair was combed back over his head, giving him a regal bearing, heightened by his aquiline nose. His feet didn’t so much walk as move him smoothly along. Grace saw that she wasn’t the only one whose eyes were drawn to the stranger, yet he ignored everyone and nothing. His head moved slowly from side to side, taking in everything, missing nothing, but acknowledging no one.

          “I think our schedule for today just changed,” Grace whispered to Jobe.

          “I don’t like the feel of that man,” the black one answered.

          “Neither do I, but he is a player.”

          “But for whom? Whatever he wants, we will not be able to ignore him.” Jobe followed Grace to their seats.

          The stranger walked straight to the mining company managers. They formally exchanged introductions. This morning, the hall had floated on a bubble of talk that almost drowned out the person speaking. Now it settled slowly into silence as more and more heads turned to the new arrival. The speaker who had been shouting to be heard suddenly realized he was bellowing into a silent hall. “That pretty much says it all.” He muttered lamely and sank into his chair.

          Garry McGuire nodded, then turned to the standing man. “I don’t think we know you.”

          “I would suspect as much. However, I am prepared to correct that oversight.” The stranger seemed to toy with words the way a cat might toy with a cornered mouse.

          “Would you please introduce yourself?’ Garry asked.

          “It would be my pleasure. I would also like to present a solution to the problems that appear to plague you, if I may?” hardly sounded like a question. But Garry nodded; the man went on. “I am Alfred Santorini, at your service,” he said with a tiny nod. “I see this planet also has been hit upon by raiders.”

          “Also,” Grace said, a comment echoed around the hall.

          “Yes, you are not alone in these desperate times,” Mr. Santorini went on. “Since The Republic of the Spheres has doubly failed in its duty to provide for common communications and the public defense, violent elements have risen up and moved against many planets. Some planets are lucky enough to have powerful patrons to protect them from these latter day wolves. Others have been stripped down to the dirt by repeated bloody raids. From what I saw on my drive from the spaceport, you have gotten off relatively lightly. Was this you first experience with the new vandals?”

          “Yes it was,” Garry answered. “Would it be too much for me to ask what brought you to Alkalurops?”

          “No, not at all,” Mr. Santorini said. “Would you mind if I took a seat?” A man on the far side of the businessmen yielded his chair. Mr. Santorini allowed him to position it before he settled on it with maybe less of a regal flair than an ancient king. Never having seen a king, Grace could only guess at the effect, and note the goose bumps that went up her spine. There was a power about this man. What she could not decide was whether it was for good or ill.

          “I am in the employ of Lenzo Computing Industries of Nusakan. I suspect we are familiar to you. No doubt many of you use our hardware and software in your homes and businesses. With the growing unpleasantness wracking the Sphere, my corporation is looking for a new home for its central office. Such a move would impact several hundred thousand of our employees and would provide jobs for millions more on the planet we chose for our headquarters.” He smiled at Garry. Grace could almost hear the mayor of Little London calculating incentives his town could offer Santorini. And dreaming of a name change. Greater London!

          Oh crap.

          It took Grace about five seconds to do the math. As usual for Alkalurops, it was just about at full employment. Of course, for them, full employment usually allowed for either the wife or husband to concentrate on raising the kids or both of them swapping off around the job so one or the other could do volunteer work. You needed a lot less government when folks did what needed doing without being told or finding a way to pay for what they should do for themselves. Pirate had ditched many a mile of road or cleaned them out after a bad flood. Wilson had a grader that divided its time between his roads and public ones.

          The only way Alkalurops could absorb millions of more workers was to either let in emigrants or dig them out of their own population. And that meant two workers from each family.

          Which would probably be necessary for a family to survive. What with all the new mouths to feed and house and provide cars for, the price of everything was going to skyrocket.

          “Isn’t progress a wonderful thing to observe in action,” Jobe said, rolling his eyes to the sky. Around her, Grace could see people working it out themselves. Some saw profits and smiled. Others counted the cost like her and scowled.

          Santorini paused for a moment to sip from a cup of water at his elbow. A perfect pause for all concerned. As he put the glass down, he cleared his throat. When he continued, his voice was pitched to fill every corner of the hall. Even the food service providers were silent as they listened.

          “But at the moment, I believe the matter most urgent for your attention is the special relationship between me, or rather my corporation and a group of freedom fighters.”

          He let that word hang there for a moment. “Those with business connections on Skye know that its transfer from the Lyran Commonwealth to The Republic left many unsatisfied.” That was news to Grace and she did have business connections on Skye. She glanced at Gordon from Kilkinny and a few other friends. Their faces were pretty well frozen in neutral. Maybe a slight furrow of the brow hinted that this was not going down well.

          “Into the silence of the HPG links, Landgrave Jasek Kelswa-Steiner has raised his flag to correct that wrong by the Republic. People from Skye and all over the Republic have flocked to his standard, that of the ancient Stormhammer, and Nusakan has provided him a base for his operations. Not by chance, his presence has given us the kind of shield that other, less guarded, have come to envy. If I chose Alkalurops as the new base for LCI, you can rest assured that the Landgrave will see that you are fully protected from further depredations.”

          “Assuming we don’t get hit by whoever is trying to hit the Landgrave,” Grace said into the silence.

          “The Stormhammers are most competent at protecting their interests,” the businessman snapped.

          “Where have we heard that before?” came from somewhere down the table.

          Grace had no intention of letting this get away from her; she stood. “And what is the price of this protection. Is the Landgrave willing to do this out of the kindness of his heart? Is this company you work for,” Grace tried to emphasis this point, one Santorini seemed to treat most cavalierly, “so important to the Landgrave that he protects it purely for the natural benefits, or is there more to the relationship.”

          The offworlder waved his hand diffidently. “I’m sure something can be worked out to everyone’s convenience.”

          “What does it cost to have the Stormhammers protect us?” Grace demanded. “In plain language, please.”

          Now Santorini stood up, unwinding himself from his chair like a man only slightly bothered by a nat. “What has your own poor protection just cost you. Is there a single good Mech left on any lot in town?” He shot his glance at the guild master who mumbled a quick negative.

          “How many of you lost IndustrialMechs off your fields, out of your businesses, mines?” Lots of nods around the table. “Are they easily replaced?” The head shakes were near frantic.

          “Defense against the raiders and scavengers roaming space is not cheap. The Stormhammers ask for a donation of thirty percent of your net offworld trade. For that, they give you the security essential if you are to have any trade at all.”

          “Thirty percent!” came out in one breath around the table.

          “You bought into the fairy tale that the Republic could keep you safe for a pittance: one Governor, one Legate and a few trembling constabulary jokes. What has it gotten you? Cleaned out, that’s what. You want safety. It is not free. Do you want to be alive, in business next year, the year after, or do you want to be a pile of bones, picked clean by any roving band that happens by? The choice is yours. Now, if you don’t mind, I have business with the Industrial Trade Group.”

          The three men stood, nodded curtly to the room and left, the heels of their shoes beating a confident cadence on the tiles.

          “You certainly queered that deal, woman,” Dev snapped. “Now he’ll probably jack the price up to forty percent.”

          Garry hammered the gavel. The room stayed quiet. “Gracie O’Mally, are you prepared to speak for the small holders and small towns,” the mayor of Little London demanded.

          Grace glanced around the table. Some nodded; others seemed less willing to let her talk for them. No surprise there. “I’ll start talking and see how long it is before someone sees the need to correct me.” At the top of their lungs, no doubt.

          “You have a counter proposal to Mr. Santorini’s offer?”

          Grace rested her hands on the table and leaned into the room as she might against the wind of a spring hurricane. “For eight hundred years we’ve walked this planet. There’s not a lot of us,” she said, standing tall. “You all know why. The air stinks, or so offworlders tell us. It’s too hot and dry they tell us, except when a hurricane’s blowing or one of the thunderstorms is dropping hail and maybe a tornado.” That brought a familiar chuckle from around the table.

          “But it’s our land. The land our parents mined or farmed before us. This is the land folks raise their kids on as we choose. Now this guy comes in here and says he may buy us out and load us up with lots of strangers. He promises a wonderful business boom, but oh, by the way, you’ll have to pay for some goons to protect you from some other goons.

          “Damn it, we’ve faced attackers before. Our great-great a couple of times greats stood up to them, drove them off and people learned that attacking Alkalurops was not a good idea. Even the drunk-on-heaven Jihad freaks didn’t come here.”

          She turned slowly, letting her eyes make contact with the people scattered around the tables. “We may not have much, but we protect it. We protect it. Not some hireling. Not somebody with a bone to pick with someone else who just might come over here to pick that bone ... and end up picking our bones.

          “Alkalurops takes care of its own. We don’t ask anyone to take care of us and we sure don’t take care of anyone else. I say take this offworld proposal and stuff it up his offworld ass.” The room erupted in cheers, just as Grace hoped it would. She stood there, enjoying for a moment the rush that comes from knowing she was doing right and a slew of people agreed with her. It was a good five minutes before Garry even tried to hammer the room to silence. But he did hammer, and she waved down the ruckus, and the room went back to quiet.

          “I guess that shows a pretty solid majority supporting you,” Garry said. “Can I ask a few questions about your proposal?”

          “Yes,” Grace said.

          “Make damn sure they’re questions,” came from down the table, “or we may just march up there and give her that gavel,” got the hall rumbling. Grace waved them to quiet and most did.

          “Thank you, Grace,” Garry said and sounded like he meant it. “My question is how do we defend ourselves. Our Legate’s dead. Most ranking Constabulary officers didn’t survive the raid.”

          “We got our butts kicked,” came from the foot of the table.

          “Not to put too fine a point on it,” Garry said, “but we did get our butts kicked. I haven’t heard. How did the militia do around Falkirk? Did you call it out?”

          “I led it,” Grace said, “and we got our butts kicked.”

          “I’m sorry to hear that. I thought that with you saying we defend ourselves that you might have been more successful.”

          “No, Garry,” Grace admitted. “If there hadn’t been a hill to our rear, we’d have been massacred like everyone else. We were lucky.”

          “So, you planning on all of us getting lucky like you next time,” Dev shot at her.

          Garry shushed his friend, but then looked at Grace. “He does have a point. How are we supposed to defend ourselves?”

          Grace took a second to organize her thoughts, but the experience of talking Falkirk’s town meeting through this had been solid preparation. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I need something ... equipment, skills, whatever ... I hire it. We haven’t needed fighting skills, so we don’t have any. There are those who do. I say we hire them. Hire them to teach us how to take care of ourselves and to fight side by side with us.”

          “You think you can do that?” came from Garry. A sincere question this time.

          “I was on my way to the Merc camps on Galatea when I stopped in here. Falkirk is for sending a team to Galatea. Have them look over the mercenary units there and hire a cadre to train us and fight along side us.”

          “I don’t know if that’s the way the mercs work?” Garry said.

          “Maybe they didn’t before, but then, we didn’t used to have raiders dropping in. Times are changing. I’ll find mercs ready to change with the times and train us to do for ourselves.”

          “Aren’t BattleMechs different from our IndustrialMechs?” came from the guild master for Sales and Service.

          “Yes. We captured a hover tank at Falkirk,” Grace began.

          “You captured a hover tank,” ran through the hall. At her side even Garry muttered it.

          “Yes, the Navajo set traps,” she said, indicating Chato beside her, “and caught a hover tank. The thing had armor tougher than anything we have, and it had sensors that go way beyond what any of us had ever seen. Nobody said taking care of ourselves was simple or easy. But it’s something we’ve been doing for ourselves for hundreds of years. Let’s not stop now.”

          Garry nodded, then spoke into the quiet. “Not to sound unwilling, but I have to ask you the same question you asked Mr. Santorini. What will this cost us?”

          “And to quote him, this doesn’t come cheap. The major land owners around Falkirk promised to ante-up ten percent of last years profits.” And so began the hard part. Negotiations took the rest of the day and most of the night, but next morning when Grace checked out of the hostel and drive out to the space port with Chato and Jobe, she felt good. Not everyone had anted up, but a lot of money would be coming in.

          As they turned toward the port after the long climb up West Canyon Road, Wilson buzzed her on net. “Can you meet me at that hamburger joint along Spaceport road?” so they did.

          “You didn’t think I was going to let one of my trucks sit in the parking lot for the months you were gone?” he said, as Jobe parked the rig next to where Wilson stood with his son.

          “I couldn’t see you paying the bill for that,” Grace shot back as she got out. “I figured I’d see you before I left.”

          “And you were going off planet with just the change in your pocket” Wilson said, raising an eyebrow. “How you set for cash?”

          Grace wasn’t broke, but she had been wondering how her credit would hold up on a long trip, what with the HPG breakdown. “I should be able to get by,” she told him.

          “Good, then maybe you won’t have to use this,” he said, producing a smart card. “This is paid in advance and issued by the First Bank of Galatea. My old man set up a couple of these on planets we did business with. I don’t think he trusted the HPG. Me, I figured he was just old fashion. This ought to cover the personal bills for all three of you.”

          “I can’t take that,” Grace said.

          “I hope you don’t say that to everything I brought,” Wilson said, “cause not all of it’s mine. Here’s a gift from the folks along the Donga River.” He pulling out a small bag and tossed it to Jobe who emptied it into his hand. A small fortune in cut diamonds poured out.

          “Good Lord,” Grace said.

          “Very good,” Jobe said. “I will thank my senior wife for doing as she promised she would.”

          “Huh,” Grace got out.

          “Ghome said she would get donations so we could pay soldiers to defend us, soldiers to protect us,” the black man smiled. “She told me that before I left. I told her it would not be necessary. We warriors could stand against mere raiders. You can see what she thinks of me.”

          “Sounded more like she wants you home,” Grace said.

          “That could not be Ghome. Maybe Bhana, my second wife, but not Ghome.”

          “What do you have from White River?” Chato asked. A second sack spilled jade, turquoise and emeralds. “Good, very good. My sister did not let us be shamed among the others.”

          “Was I the only one that didn’t plan on buying mercs until I got my butt kicked,” Grace asked the sky.

          “Include me in that fine company,” Wilson said.

          “It’s been a long time,” Jobe said, “since you Irish, you Scots went roaming on Terra, but still you walk as if nothing can defeat you. Some of us remember what it was like to be among your defeated. Now we fight side by side, but sometimes it is better to remember that you can lose. It that not so, Chato?”

          “We still sing the old songs around the winter campfires. You stay inside and watch your videos too much.”

          Wilson shook his head. “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, there’s also Navajo and Donga River jewelry in the truck, enough to fill a strong box. I’ve collected money from folks around Falkirk, enough to help with the first few months of the contract. I’m buying a major chunk of the hydrocarbons in the cargo of this DropShip. Even if the credit system is bonkers, you won’t be without some serious cash once this cargo is sold on Galatea.”

          “Thanks for the help.”

          “I’ve been following the goings on at the Guild House for the last two days. I’d say I had the easy job. Take care, out there among all those offworlders.”

          “Strange how that goes, Wil. You go to some other planet and it’s full of offworlders.”

          “Chato, Jobe, Grace, you all take care.” Wilson said, offering his hand. His son stood beside him, a newer copy of what life was like on Alkalurops. This is worth fighting for, Grace told herself. I will find a way to defend what is ours.

                                            Steerage Class Accommodations

                                                   DropShip Star of Dyev

                                         en route from Alkalurops to Galatea

                                                            8 April 3134

                                                                THREE

          The Star of Dyev was the kind of tramp DropShip that bothered stopping at planets like Alkalurops. Engines for getting places, holds for cargo, crew quarters and maybe some spare rooms for passengers. This one had one room; Grace would share tight quarters for the trip with Jobe and Chato.

          “Too bad I did not bring my second wife,” Jobe said. “This could have been a fun time.”

          “I thought your second wife was the one that talked too much and argued even more,” Grace said.

          “Yes, she does that. But she can be very nice when she chooses to be,” he sighed.

          Chato handed him a reader. “I downloaded everything on Alkalurops about Mechs, battles, the old wars. Most of it is political commentary, but there are a few schematics and tech readouts. Maybe, if we put our heads together, we can make sense of what they wrote about the battles.”

          “Warriors who survive battles have nothing but boasts,” Jobe said.

          “At least they survived a battle,” Chato pointed out.

          “Gentlemen, we’re stuck in this tin can for the next month, let’s not kill each other too early. I understand the crew has set up a pool on who dies first and how soon.”

          “That is inconsiderate of them,” Jobe said.

          “I thought you would bet on anything,” Chato said.

          “Yes. That is what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of them not to offer us a chance to join the pool.”

          “Read your reader.” Grace said, ducking into her bed.

          Lift off was noisy and heavy. The trip out was at a solid one gee acceleration. That was fine, but the company! What was it with men; they made the room unbearable! At first she was joking about the betting pool, but after two weeks, she was ready to start one and ask the crew to come up with great ways for her two allies to kill each other. Grace took to long walks in the cargo hold to read about war and avoid the warring men.

          But the readers left her more frustrated. Most histories were just glosses. Someone did this. Someone else did that. Someone won because of this other, which left Grace wondering if the battle leader really controlled what caused them to win. Other stories buried the reader so deep inside a great man’s BattleMech that Grace could not tell what was going on. She’d pushed a MiningMech most of her adult life; Jobe had done the same for either an Ag or MiningMech as well. But neither of them could figure out what these MechWarriors were doing. Was driving a BattleMech all that different from driving Pirate? Or was it the writer of the tale that knew nothing. Or maybe it was knowing when to put grazing fire on the right target. And what the hell was grazing fire?

          It was like she was trying to understand mining operations by reading one of the journals she subscribed to. Yes, she learned a lot from them, but if Pop hadn’t spent years teaching her everything he knew and her mom hadn’t insisted she sit her young butt down and learn all the basic stuff, most of it would go right over her head ... like this was doing.

          “Who can teach me the basics?” she asked the huge gray hydrocarbon tank she was sitting under. It had no answer.

                                                                   * * *

          Space sick, Grace watched on the mess deck screen as the Star of Dyev buried itself in a docking hole of the Jump Ship Brandon’s Leviathan. They were thirty-seven days out from Allabad. Twenty-eight days climbing to this jump point at one gee, then twiddling their weightless thumbs for nine days waiting for a jump ship to come by. Jump ships running between important points like Terra or Skye kept to schedules. Ships to out-of-the way places like Alkalurops maintained a looser schedule. This one had been delayed four jumps back waiting for a business deal to go down. The story around the Dyev was that the Big Lug would be back on schedule in another nine jumps. Until then, DropShips could just drift and passengers puke. Maybe the reputed stink of Alkalurops’ air wasn’t the only reason big companies went elsewhere. If LCI moved its headquarters here, that might change. And that would probably lead to a whole lot of changes.

          Grace didn’t much care for all that change.

          Nine days later the Big Lug’s jump sail was recharged and Grace was up on all the news of the sphere. She knew who had divorced who on what thrilling vid. She knew what important people had been found sleeping in the wrong bed. Oh, and there seemed to have been a big fight on Terra. Specifics on that one would have required paying for some talking head’s opinion. Grace saved her money; that even ancient Terra was the scene of fighting said all she needed to know. It was bad all over. Sick of waiting, if not sick of weightlessness, on schedule Grace and company were in their tiny room, waiting for the jump.

          A knock at the door was followed a second later by a spacer sailing his weightless body in. “Cap’n wants you to take some sleeping pills. Jump sickness can be a real mess. People who sleep through it are better off,” he said handing pills all around and a bulb of water.

          Chato and Jobe dutifully took their meds, being guys with that uncontrollable urge to obey authority or start a fight. Grace smiled nicely, palmed the pill and took a long swig of water. As a rule, she did not take any pill until she read the full list of possible side effects. But being a woman, she knew how to smile and let a man think he had won.

          Besides, she’d heard that Jumps gave the best hallucinations this side of banned drugs. Be nice to see them legally.

          Grace kept her eyes closed as the countdown to jump reached zero. Beside her, the men snored noisily as she’d discovered they always did. She felt a lurch, got a minor aurora show on the inside of her eyelids, and seemed to be pushed against the restraints holding her to the bunk. Nothing much else. She wondered who she talked to about getting her money back.

          There was a jiggle at the room’s lock and the door opened on its noisy hinges. Grace started to look, but something about the way the hairs were standing up on the back of her neck told her that laying still was the better option. Sneakers scraped on a wall as someone pushed off. She heard a thump as that same someone hit the locker in her room. When keys started jiggling in that lock she slit her eyes open. The spacer who had given them the pills was going through her underwear drawer. He raised up the sack of diamonds with a happy sigh.

          “What the hell are you doing?” Grace demanded.

          “Huh,” was the only answer she got as the guy grabbed the other sack and pushed off for the door. Grace hit the quick release on her bed harness and lunged for him. He batted her away and she bounced off the wall screaming, “Stop, thief.”

          The boys slept through it all. “Sleeping pill in a pigs eye,” Grace said as she steadied herself ... and discovered her inner ear really had taken a couple of rolls during the jump. Reeling, she pushed for the door, spotted the spacer headed aft, shouted “Stop, Thief. Somebody get that spacer!” and took of after him not nearly as fast as she wanted to.

          Her pursuit consisted of bouncing from one side of the hall or as the spacers called it passageway to the other wall, or bulkhead. Damn, why did every guild have to have its own set of words for the same stuff. “Stop. Thief,” meant the same thing everywhere, so she shouted it again as the guy went through the bulkhead at the end of the hall, closed the hatch and dogged it.

          “What’s all this ruckus,” asked the speaker above the hatch.

          “That spacer just stole my diamond collection,” Grace yelled, stumbling up to the hatch and starting to work it.

          “What spacer?”

          “The one the captain sent to give us sleeping pills.”

          “I did no such thing,” came in a new voice. “What spacer did this.”

          “I don’t know. He didn’t have a name on his shirt,” Grace said, bracing herself and pulling the hatch open. A heavy wrench sailed through the hatch, missing her by at least half a centimeter. “He also just tried to kill me,” she added.

          “Ship’s Mastered Arms, take anyone not essential to moving ship and settle this. Where’s all this happening?”

          Grace glanced around – speaker but no camera. She read the numbers off the hatch to the captain.

          “He’s heading into the cargo holes,” the captain said.

          “And I’m following,” Grace said, picking up the wrench.

          “It’s dangerous in there, young woman.”

          Lord, another old man. “I jogged around in there on the way up here. I probably know the Dyev’s cargo holes as well as anyone.” And she was there and they weren’t. She went.

          Jogging in a vast space full of pipes, machinery and thin walkways was one thing. Coasting from one hand hold to another while searching for a man who tried to bash her brains out was something else entirely. Grace went cautiously.

          A computer voice began announcing so many minutes until the ship put on acceleration. “That’s weight for you ground types,” a man’s voice added.

          The thief moved fast, but he was noisy. Grace could hear him inside the space of huge tank ends, ice-caked compressors and pipe after pipe, some hot, some cold, most dangerous. She went as quickly as caution allowed, searching for one hand hold before launching from another. The chase could kill her as dead as the hunted. Ahead of her, the man quit making noise. Grace paused at her last hand-hold.

          Behind her, five men complained about their assignment as they moved with the fast efficiency of experience in micro gee. A man with an award winning beer gut and two chevrons with crossed pistols on his collar caught up with Grace.

          “You the woman what lost her jewels?”

          The men behind him snickered at the joke.

          “If your captain doesn’t want to pay out a small fortune, you’re the men who are going to find them,” Grace smiled back, showing teeth and the hard face she used when a new work crew wondered why they were taking orders from a woman.

          “Yes ma’am,” the guy in charge answered, not looking her in the eye. “Abe, you and Bo cover the right. Den and Jess take the left. This nice woman and I will cover the walkway.”

          “Okay,” “Yeah,” and a “yes, sir” from the youngest followed as the men split up.

          “He got quiet about the time you fellows started chattering along this metal sidewalk,” Grace said, intentionally calling things what she wanted.

          “How far ahead was he?” the mastered arms asked pulling a sonic stunner from his back pocket.

          “Hard to tell.” Grace glanced around at the huge spheres that held liquid gas or chilled oil. “I’d say about two bays further up. Don’t you have a pistol?”

          “Woman, no one in their right mind uses a slug thrower in here. Some of those tanks have liquid gas at a thousand pressures. You ding one of them and this whole bay would be filled with gas slush in what, ten seconds. You’d be an icicle before you could turn around.”

          “He know that?” Grace said, nodding toward the thief ahead.

          “If it’s the mess boy what I think it is, no, but I checked his bag when he comes off leave and there weren’t no pistol.”

          “Seen any sleeping pills?”

          The man glanced away. “The Star of Dyev’s a drug free ship. We don’t keep men who do drugs.”

          But for the right price, you’ll look the other way, won’t you, Grace didn’t say.

          “There he goes,” someone below them shouted, and the thief broke from behind an ice covered compressor going hand over hand long the metal walkway. Now four men howled at his heels.

          “That’s Iav,” the mastered arms shouted. “Iav, give it up. We’ve got you.”

          The boy kept going. Grace made a note of the 38 that was written above the compressor the kid had hidden behind. He might have ditched the diamonds. She pushed off in chase right about the time the computer voice said “Acceleration in zero minutes,” and went crashing down as one gee came back on the ship.

          The spacers found her yelp of pain hilarious. Her one consolation was that Iav ahead of them did no better.

          But for five minutes more the boy fled further aft. “Boy, you ain’t going into reactor country, not if you ever want kids, you ain’t,” the mastered arms started taunting. The thief hooked a right and they found him huddled behind a compressor, trembling from exhaustion. Maybe from fear.

          “Come on out, boy. You got no place else to run.”

          “You were supposed to be asleep,” the young man whined. “The other guys were.”

          “I don’t follow instructions very well,” Grace said gently. “Toss the diamonds out and I’ll talk to the captain for you.” Grace really didn’t mind what happened to the kid once she got her trading stock back.

          A shot rang out. More like a pop, but there was no missing the slug’s wind as it shot past Grace’s ear too damn close.

          “What the hell,” the mastered arms yelled.

          The young thief was looking down at the bag of jewels he was in the process of throwing to Grace. His eyes grew wide as he took in the hole in his chest and fell back against a pressure vessel before collapsing on the steel walkway. The sacks of jewels fell from his hands to clatter as they fell through to the machinery below. Grace could hear the small tinkle of free jewels escaping from the sacks. She had a hunt ahead of her. Wonder how many of the diamonds will end up in other hands?

          Turning, Grace faced the shooter. The mastered arms face was purple, his mouth was open, but no words were coming out.

          “Hello. Mr. Santee is it?” Grace said, intentionally mangling the name.

          “Alfred Santorini,” he corrected her. “At your service.”

          “You seem to have shot an unarmed man,” Grace said.

          “I thought he was about to throw explosives at us,” the business man said with almost enough sincerity to convince a well bribed judge.

          “I’ll get the boys hunting for what he dropped, ma’am,” the mastered arms said, apparently more than happy to leave this conversation.

          “I posted an inventory, complete with photos of each jewel, with the purser when I came aboard. The diamonds are also numbered. You might mention that to your crew.”

          “Right about the diamonds,” he said. Which said nothing about the jade, turquoise and emeralds. But with luck she’d at least cut her loses.

          “I didn’t know you were aboard,” Grace said, turning her attention to the man who shot the one person who might explain how a kid so dumb he tried to run in a DropShip had come up with the idea of the theft and the drugs to pull it off.

          “I came aboard at the last moment. Since my business proposal did not appear to meet your planet’s needs, it seemed senseless to waste any more of my time there.”

          “And I never saw you in the mess?”

          “I rented the captain’s cabin on the Dyev,” Santorini said diffidently, “the better to get some work done on this enforced break. I take my meals in my cabin.”

          “That poor young man wouldn’t happen to be the one who brought you your meals?” Grace said, nodding at the body being bagged by the purser.

          “I really wouldn’t know. A mess steward is hardly the type of person I bother myself with. Do you know the name of the last waitress who touched your life?”

          Grace ignored the question as she leaned over the rail, watching as spacers used hand vacuums to scour the equipment for wayward jewels. The business man did not offer an explanation as to how he came to join in the chase for the thief. No doubt he would have just as empty an alibi. Grace wasn’t sure she could stomach anymore of his transparent lies.

          “Are you going to Galatea?” she asked his retreating back.

          “I have no business there.” He paused for a moment to glace back. “I will transfer to another jump ship immediately for transport to Nusakan. Your mad idea has cost me time and money. I have no more to waste on a back water like Alkalurops. There are many other planets standing in line for an offer so fine as mine. I wish you luck finding mercs willing to help you.”

          “And I wish you the same luck,” Grace said, keeping her face straight. For a moment the mask he wore wavered, for a moment Grace thought she might get a look inside the man, but he turned away and quickly made his way out.

          The mastered arms presented Grace with the two sacks the thief had dropped as he died. Both were about half the weight she remembered. “Keep hunting, there’s a lot down there.”

          An hour later, the mastered arms stood by as each of the hand vacs was emptied in Grace’s presence. The diamond sack now felt over three quarters of its former weight. The other sack was a bit lighter than that. “We’ll keep looking, ma’am. The kid could have dropped some as he ran.”

          “Possibly,” Grace agreed, then opened the emerald sack. “Would you take your pick, sir. You’ve lead a good hunt and deserve a reward.”

          “Why, thank you, ma’am. There’s no call for this.”

          “Yes, but you have helped me and I pay for what people give me. Take your pick and I will register you as the owner with the captain.” He didn’t quibble with her twice, but picked the largest emerald in the sack. Grace didn’t bat an eyelash. He probably had no idea he’d passed up several more perfect stones for that less valuable one.

          “And line up your work crew. Each one gets a stone from me.” That didn’t take very long, and Grace noticed two fellows that seemed a bit shamed face at her largess. She was not surprised when the mastered arms presented her with a dozen more diamonds “That seem to have gotten hung up in the hand vacs.”

          Two hours later, the guys came out of their enforced sleep begging for water. “Land and Sky, I don’t want to do another jump like that,” Chato breathed.

          “You won’t. Next time you skip the drugs,” Grace said and brought them up to date.

          “Dead,” Jobe said, “And that one walks among us.”

          “Or stays in the captain’s cabin, busy with planning,” Grace corrected.

          “May his plans keep him far away from us.” Chato said.

          Nine days later, the Dyev grounded at Galaport. Grace had hidden the free jewels in the seams of her clothing ... mom had always insisted sewing would come in handy. Jobe converted the strong box to a back pack; the rest of their gear was packed in two duffles Grace and Chato could handle.

          This port was large, busy, dirty and noisy. Grace led the way, Jobe behind her. Chato followed, keeping an eye on Jobe’s backpack. As they rode an underground walkway toward the central terminal, Grace tried to catch her bearing. She’d never seen so many people in so small a place. Everyone was going every which way but seemed to know what they were doing. Electric trucks, Mech loaders, people mixed themselves up in a dance where one misstep could leave someone a puddle on the floor.

          “This place smells bad,” Jobe said. The blend of ozone, oil, sweat and other things Grace could not describe left her wondering how anyone could say Alkalurops’ air smelled bad. They passed a men’s room that was backed up and gushing water and worst smells.

          “Bad, and not just the smell,” Grace said. The place needed paint. Tiles were off the walls. The driveway beside the slidewalk had pot holes in it and the slidewalk moved in fits and starts enough to make her stomach queasy.

          “If I never leave Blue River again, it will be too soon,” Chato muttered. “This headman business is not what my sister told me it would be.”

          “You should tell your women what to do, not let them tell you,” Jobe shot back.

          “And you think you are running the Donga River valley, not your wives, huh,” the Navaho said, the slightest hint of a smile curling his lips. “Tell me again why you are here with us and not with one of your willing wives.”

          Grace let the men retreat from the strange into their familiar banter. The end of the slidewalk dropped them at the main terminal. She hefted her duffle and made herself a promise not to be run over by bigger traffic. There wasn’t a risk. While the slideway ended in an immense room with a glass ceiling that made it hard to see where the dirty glass ended and a dusty sky began, heavy traffic took an underpass to the floors below.

          Grace began the long walk to where EXIT flashed over doors. Around her were men and women, hard of muscle, hard of face, booted and dressed in shades of tan and green. They talked in clipped sentences and the words “rally point” ended most of them.

          “Light Horse, fall in here,” came in a voice that carried through the babble. It wasn’t so much force but a hard edge to the words that let them cut through every other sound.

          Around her, several people stopped, turned to face the order and marched in step for it. Not all.

          “No, man, ya don’t what to be one of those horse’s asses,” someone around Grace said. “There’s bound to be a highlander recruiter around after that big fight on Terra.”

          “Oh, so I’m going to war in a skirt. No thanks.”

          “Ya like to live dangerously, don’t ya boy.”

          “I like to ride where I’m going. There’s the recruiting sergeant for the 21^st Centauri Lancers. That’s the man for me.” The two paused to argue and Grace lost the rest of the debate. Now the vast room began to make sense. Along the wall behind her were ticketing agents for standard lines and others whose ships and destinations were hand lettered in. In front of her were small groups of men and women, eyeing a couple of dozen others, some with banners, guide ons if she guessed right from her reading. Some she recognized. The plaid of the Highlanders, their recruiters in kilts were impossible to miss. Similarly, the axe of Bannson’s Raiders was unmistakable. Others were harder to place, or their emblem too stylized to recognize. What was clear was they wanted fighters and they were none too picky.

          One man caught Grace’s eye. Standing alone, tall and in flowing, if somewhat tattered robes, he watched the crowd with his right hand resting on the pummel of the long sword that hung from his left hip. Other than the slight turning of his head from side to side, he did not move for the entire time Grace studied him. Most gave him a wide berth. One man stomped up to him, bowed at the waist, then took station behind him without a word spoken. Now the two of them stood like statues, studying the crowd ... one with sword. The other without.

          “That one looks like a hard case,” Jobe muttered.

          “Anyone have a plan for us?” Chato asked.

          “I’m thinking,” Grace said as they came to the end of the recruiters where two men in tan uniforms stood in that kind of relaxed stance only powerful men can do. They talked to each other, but the taller and older one’s eyes missed nothing. He cracked a smile as he took in Grace and her trio.

          “Only the best make it this far,” he said, extending a hand.

          “We haven’t made up our minds,” Grace said taking it. It was a firm handshake, maybe a bit of a test. She squeezed his just a tad more than he squeezed hers. Unlike some insecure men, he didn’t turn it into a contest to see if he had a tighter grip than a woman. She liked that.

          “Well, you’ve come to the Roughriders, one of the best, and longest surviving Merc units in the sphere. We train hard, we fight rough and we win every time.”

          “That sounds like a good unit,” Jobe said.

          “To join.” Grace added quickly, smiling back at the men to keep them from saying more.

          “I’m Sergeant Major Tanuso, this is Staff Sergeant Godfrey formerly of armor, now of our infantry,” he said as if rubbing an extra dash of salt in a fresh wound, “and he will take you to our van while I see if there are any more topnotch candidates among the DropShips today.”

          “Yes, sir, Sergeant Major, Sir,” the staff sergeant said as he lead the three away. Out of earshot he added. “And I’ll be grinding you crunchies into the dust just as soon as I earn a tank back.”

          “You prefer armor to infantry?” Jobe said.

          “I prefer riding to walking,” he answered.

          “It is also good to walk good earth,” Chato said.

          “Not when arti is digging it up and throwing it in your face,” the sergeant grinned. “And you,” he said to Grace.

          “Mechs, I believe.”

          “Any experience?”

          “Industrial,” Grace said. “Me and Jobe both.”

          “It’s a big jump from those low powered Indi walkers to real BattleMechs, though we’ve got a few Mech Mods ourselves.”

          Grace said nothing. The van was in the middle of the parking lot, baking under the distant sun. Grace was sweating before she got there, and found the van a bake oven. “I’ll get the air conditioning going,” the sergeant said, starting the engines. “Nothing too good for a Roughrider recruit, I mean candidate.” Leaving Grace to suspect once they were a ways from the port nothing was what a recruit would get.

          The Sergeant Major showed up a half hour later with four more “candidates” that Grace would not have taken on as mining apprentices. They looked tough, but they had that brittleness that she’d come to notice in “tough” men. They set up a chatter in the middle of the van that covered a low question from Jobe.

          “What are we doing here?”

          “We want to look at mercs. This ought to get us out where we can look at some. You want to pay for the privilege?”

          “You Scots are cheap. Hope this doesn’t cause any trouble.”

          “At Ease, back there,” the Sergeant Major growled. “If I want to hear something from you, I’ll tell you what to say. And Sergeant, turn off that damn air conditioning. You trying to turn these men into weenies?”

          “No, sir, Sergeant Major, sir.”

          The tough men shut up and everyone started to sweat. Grace glanced out the window. Yep, they were leaving the city and heading out into country still barren from the last war. Maybe the last three wars. Okay, tough guys, let’s see if any of you want to get out and walk back. Nope, the guys stayed quiet as pink nosed bunnies, hiding in the tall grass.

          The arrival at camp was easy to spot; guards waved them through an arch announcing Hanson’s Roughriders, the Toughest of the Best. They parked at the Recruit Barracks, a whitewashed adobe building. The Staff Sergeant was quickly out of the van, yelling at the recruits, no candidates now, to get off their duffs and start moving like they wanted to be Roughriders. The boys tumbled over themselves trying to get out fastest. Chato waited until the door wasn’t blocked, them moved with smooth speed to exit, Jobe right behind him, and Grace on his tail.

          “What took you so long,” the staff sergeant bellowed. “Give me fifty.” The boys dropped.

          Jobe stepped forward. “I’ll give you fifty more than you can do,” he challenged the staff sergeant.

          The Sergeant Major stood like a statue, his arms behind his back, only his eyes moving. Grace joined him.

          “You want to be a MechWarrior,” he said through tight lips.

          “I’ve fought my Mech, Sergeant Major. May I clarify. I am Grace O’Mally of Alkalurops and I am here to hire mercs.”

          “Alkalurops,” the staff sergeant echoed.

          “You heard the man, Sergeant Godfrey,” Sergeant Major growled. “He’ll give you fifty more push-ups than you give him. Assume the position. And who told you tourists to stop and gawk. You will give the staff sergeant one push up for every one he gives this potential employer.” The kids groaned but went back to bending and raising as Jobe and the staff sergeant did their guy thing. God I’m glad I wasn’t born with one of those things between my legs, Grace thought for only the millionth time.

          The Sergeant Major watched the proceedings, sweat darkening his tan uniform. Grace and Chato stood beside him, sweating as well. After the count reached three hundred and two of the “tough” guys had collapsed on their faces, the Sergeant Major removed a com device from his belt. “Major Hanson, we have three potential clients at the recruit barracks. I thought you might want to deal with them. They’re from Alkalurops.”