Angus apologized. "All were lifted by the raiders, and we haven't got any replacements."

Grace glanced back at Ben. He didn't seem surprised or bothered by this slowdown. Angus' 'puter beeped, and he answered it. The old man's happy smile morphed to a frown, then his eyes grew round and his breath came fast. "It's my man at the port. There's a new JumpShip in-system!" he gasped.

"Commercial?" Grace asked.

"No, no . . ." Angus listened for a second longer. "It didn't use the main point. It jumped into the nearest La Grange point around Vesuvius. It'll be here in two weeks."

"d.a.m.n," Grace said, "that's got to be a raider. I need to get back to the Guild Hall."

"Use my car," Angus offered.

"We will gas the trucks and extend their leases," Ben said. "Then we will get them moving for Falkirk."

"You don't think the mayors will fight?" Grace asked.

"I have found that dreams offer guidance, not road maps. Still, I would not depend too much on your a.s.sembly."

Sven got to his feet. "I'd like to take some of this man's machines along with us if I could."

"You planning on shipping everything to Falkirk?" the young owner asked, a catch in his voice. Grace nodded.

"I got a wife and kids, ma'am. Everybody says we got off easy last time. It didn't feel all that easy. One of my workers was in that attack on the s.p.a.ceport. He left a widow and three kids. My Mara took them in. I don't want no one having to take in Mara and my daughters. You see?"

"I do," Grace said. "Sven, how much of his gear do you want?"

"All of it if we can get trucks to carry it."

"I know a guy with three trucks," the young man said. "I'll get them over here. Can folks around Falkirk put up three new families?"

"We'll make room," Grace said. "I know Mick will be dancing a jig at getting all these tools to play with."

"Then let's get moving, crew," Sven said.

Back at the Guild Hall, Grace found the news had preceded her. The council was already in an uproar; several chairs were empty. More small-town mayors left as Grace entered. "They ain't gonna do nothin'," one told Grace in pa.s.sing. And nothing was what they did for the next hour. The big-town mayors rejected any fight that put their people in the middle of it.

Grace settled beside Chato and listened. As best she could tell, the debate centered on what kind of milk and cookies to offer the raiders. As more of the small-town mayors left, Grace stood to demand a vote on fighting. For ten minutes she stood, while Garry did his best not to notice her. Fuming, Grace stomped out. With luck, she and her Mech Warriors might make the Gleann Mor Valley too tough a nut for the raiders to crack.

8.

Falkirk, Alkalurops Prefecture IX, The Republic of the Sphere 7 August 3134; local summer.

Grace's caravan pulled into Falkirk after thirty-two hours of straight driving. Grace put a sleeping four-year-old aside and climbed down from a truck's cab. She tried to get the kinks out of her back as she crossed the dirt parking lot to Mick's main shop. The morning was hot, but the scent of Scotch broom carried from the bushes along the verge of the road. It smelled like home.

"This place stinks," Danny said as he dismounted a truck.

Grace ignored that as Mick came out to see what all the noise was. He took one look at seven flatbed trucks loaded with machine tools and whistled. "Gonna need more s.p.a.ce."

"Mick, I want you to meet a friend I've made. Sven, come over here." The BattleMech mechanic stumbled over, rubbing sleep from his eyes and life back into his legs. The men eyed each other like two roosters, then went off to play "stump the genius" over the tool h.o.a.rd.That should keep them busy for the day, Grace figured.

Jobe borrowed a jeep and raced for the Donga River Valley, "to see my second wife," he said. Chato's nephew was there, the hovertank fully operational and available to give Chato a ride home.

Grace filled in Wilson, Ho and Laird over lunch. She had to stop several times to let them absorb things.

Wilson shook his head after she told him theDyev 's cargo had not helped her cash problem. "This Santorini, he was on theDyev and tried to have someone steal the diamonds. He probably queered the transfer of funds to you on Galatea. A real pain, huh?"

No one disagreed with that.

Grace finished with how the MechWarriors had signed for a pittance. "They deserve more, but that's what they agreed to."

"Not what one normally hears about mercs," Ho said, patting his round belly. "Do you trust them?"

"Yes," Grace said, with no hesitation. "Most are as straight up as you and me. True, they didn't fit in where they were and probably won't fit in here. But right now we need them. Syn, well, she's a case all her own. Don't let her in a card game, or let your wife see you with her," Grace advised. "Sven's a genius and knows it. I hope he and Mick get along because we need 'em both."

"Wasn't there another? Betsy?" Laird said.

"Betsy Ross. She stayed behind in Allabad to find answers. I sure hope she can."

"So we fight," Wilson said.

Grace took a deep breath. "That's the way I see it."

"Maybe the next raiders won't get this far," Ho said.

Laird agreed. "There are all those 'Mechs over at the big corporate mines. That would be the place to go next."

Wilson snorted. "If Santorini is behind this, he's already cut a deal with the corporations. We little guys are the ones that have to look out. And we'll have to do it alone."

"Then you think all this is no accident," Grace said.

"Anyone disagree?" Wilson asked. No one did. "I say we fight, but I think we'll be surprised at who we end up fighting."

The town meeting went long, but the people of Falkirk were for a fight if one came their way. When the hands went up for the vote, Grace checked the eyes. Many were looking around furtively. They were ready to fight, but no one looked forward to it.

The next day the Net reported that efforts to raise the DropShip got no reply. Talking heads offered thoughts, fears, hopes, doubt. No one really knew anything. Grace ignored the Net.

She had plenty to do. Jobe returned with two dozen 'Mechs from the entire Donga River Valley as well as trucks, and men in the trucks to form the infantry. Chato returned, too. More Navajos were crossing the mountains to join him every day. No one could tell another the path for his feet, but where a man like Chato led, many followed. They made superb engineers.

But with Betsy gone, who'd train the infantry? "No problem," Ben a.s.sured her. "It will be a while before there are any 'Mechs to train in. Danny, Victoria, Sean and I can organize an infantry school of some quality."

"Yeah, Biddy could show them how to march by a pub without stopping." Danny laughed at his own joke, but got serious when all three glared at him. "All right, I can show them how to march, too."

"You can't just order these men around," Grace said. "They have to know why you need them to do what you tell them."

"Sean will be perfect for that," Victoria said as the young man reddened. "He knows battles. He can show your militia where good men made the difference."

So that gave a purpose to the men and women who drove up from the valley and even from the plains, but that didn't put a roof over their heads. Grandpa had had a large family, but Grace had found his house rather s.p.a.cious for just Mother and her. It absorbed the mercs. Wilson's bunkhouse took in the early-arrival volunteers, and other folks around town found room for the families who came with their would-be warriors. Tents in a wash above town where trees took the worst heat off the day handled others.

Constabulary Lieutenant Hicks brought in a dozen men, rigged a crane, and unloaded battle armor from a flatbed truck. Grace slapped him on the back. "You're looking a lot better than the last time I saw you."

The lieutenant flashed her a rueful smile. "You know, after that last raid, I was going to take up chicken farming, but the warehouse behind the shop had these boxes gathering dust for more years than I can remember. I figured I'd check on them as I left. Turns out we have twelve sets of Gnome battle armor. A note from the Legate five back told our commander to use these if he thought his men had time to master them. Guess my boss wanted us out giving tickets rather than learning 'em." He turned to Ben, stood to attention, and saluted. "Sir, can you train my men to use this gear?"

"With a glad heart," Ben said.

"There're a few other Constabulary posts finding stuff in their inventory that dead captains didn't want to mess with and the raiders missed. I'm just the first; there'll be more."

And there were. Of course, that meant more men and families to feed. Mother and Auntie Maydell took charge, but still Grace wasn't left with time on her hands. Others saw to that. One afternoon Sven came out from Mick's shop. "I have something for you."

"Problem?" Grace asked.Why would this man want to show me a problem? If he can't solve it, I sure can't.

"We've been taking 'Mechs apart. We're about to put them back together. Thought you'd like to see what'll make your Pirate a real cutthroat." Grace followed Mick into the shade of the shop. It smelled of burnt plastic, hot metal and men's sweat-not a bad perfume to attract a mining woman.

Mick joined Sven, a proud grin on his face. "You gonna show the mayor what we can do." Thank G.o.d, St. Peter and St. Patrick the two fellows. .h.i.t it off. Grace didn't want to think what would have happened if they had pulled at cross-purposes.

"Here's the cha.s.sis, stripped to the buff. I hope we're not offending a young lady's fine sensibilities."

Mick grinned.

Grace made a show of looking around. "Don't see any ladies. Never met one in Falkirk. Just us hardworking miners with dirty fingernails," she said, waving a hand at them.

"I'm using that fine carbon filament Sven brought to wrap the legs, arms and thorax. It doesn't add much weight and should nearly double the load they can carry."

"The engines are a given," Sven said with a nod to the good word Mick had given him, "but your man here is a prince among motor men when it comes to jacking up the output. These engines will be putting out a good twenty percent above advertised horsepower. Thirty percent for short bursts."

"It's all in the injectors. What's making 'em fighting machines is the armor this old scoundrel lifted from some blind man," Mick said, pounding the other man on the shoulder.

"It's easy to get this old rig to spew out composite armor," Sven said. "The new armor-repair kits work only on the Armstrong stuff they use for IndiMechs. This old press was made from an even older design, when IndiMechs were new. It remembers where it came from. We run the outer armor through. Aligned crystal steel is ACS whether it's for an IndustrialMech or BattleMech. That fine young man you recruited at Allabad was kind enough to donate the ceramic-fiber spinning mill he used to repair b.u.mpers. It gives us everything we need for some serious ferro-fibrous armor."

"And I had plenty of artificial diamond monofilament," Mick chortled. "What do you think I use to retip all the drills you miners bring me to sharpen? The cubic boron nitride composite looked to be the show stopper, but Ho had a ton of the stuff. He uses it to insulate freezers. We have to melt it out of the honeycomb matrix, but it works fine."

"One run through the autoclave makes the outer skin. The next run makes the inner protective layer. A third run binds the two together. Not quite as solid as you get from the factories, but d.a.m.n better than any other stuff." Sven finished, and both men grinned like a pair of well-fed cats.

"Great," Grace said, "but can the 'Mechs take the weight? Mick, didn't we about max out Pirate's gyros when we added that armor? Brady landing on his a.s.s was funny, but his own gyros had as much to do with that as the rocket that just missed him."

The guys looked at each other. "We can't make bigger gyros," Sven said, as though he was admitting to not having the right screwdriver, "so we're doubling up on them. The raiders took all the 'Mechs around Allabad, but they didn't hit the spare parts all that bad. Mick got the word out, and we're due for a truckload of gyros that'll let us put two sets in every 'Mech."

"And the good part is, I got one hundred and twenty days to pay for them. With luck, we'll be converting these 'Mechs back to workers by the time the suppliers want their bill paid," Mick crowed.

"They're charging you!" Grace exploded.

Mick just shrugged. Grace had the feeling she'd taken the hook in bait and switch. "About those gyros . . ." she said.

The guys eyed each other. "Well, there's a reason there's only one set of gyros," Mick said. "You get two sets and they can argue with each other, end up working against each other. Anyway, in the spin-up checklist, we've addedSYNCHRONIZE GYROS ."

"And if you take a knock or a hard hit, the gyros can go out of sync, so you may have to resync them.

Nothing we can do about that," Sven said, scuffing the toe of his boot on the floor.

"That's why we insist that only the smart ones operate the 'Mechs," Grace said, then took the guys off the hook. "Okay, we've got good armor, but I'd kind of like to do something nasty to the raiders.

Throwing dirt clods isn't the fun it used to be when I was ten and trying to get even with the boys."

"Oh, you haven't heard," Sven said.

"No, she hasn't heard," Mick agreed.

"What haven't I heard?"

"We've got two things up our sleeves," Mick said. "Sven here brought in everything we need to make a nifty thirty-millimeter Gatling gun. Not as fancy as an autocannon, but something we can make here.

Johnny Shepherd, our gunsmith, came up with a caseless sh.e.l.l that feeds real nice and lets us keep the machinery pretty simple."

"Caseless, no bra.s.s," Grace said, trying to think fast.

"Yeah, we don't got a lot of bra.s.s," Mick said.

Grace frowned. "But if you're using glue or something to hold the propellant together . . ."

"It kind of gums up the works," Sven agreed. "Gatlings are pretty forgiving, but we'll have to clean 'em good after a fight."

This whole lash-up was one compromise after another, but Mick was still grinning. "A painter drove in yesterday. Brought a whole load of paint with him."

"So now we can paint the 'Mechs?"

"Yes, but not with his stuff. His aluminum powders are going straight into the explosives mill," Sven said.

"I don't think the girl understands you," Mick said.

"Aluminum is great for sheeting," Sven said. "In a fine powder, it gives paint that silver look that lasts and lasts. But aluminum powder makes great rocket propellant, too. Mix it with the stuff coming out of the Kilkenny fertilizer plant, and we've got power for medium-range rockets. The painter knows a chemist with a magnesium supply. I think we'll have everything we need for shaped charges on our rockets. I know you look at every new joe who walks in as another mouth to feed, but some are bringing in the know-how we need to equip a d.a.m.n fine army, ma'am."

Three days before the DropShip was due, Grace called a supper meeting at her home for her leadership crew. To the seven mercs, she added Wilson, Ho, Laird and Mick. Chato and Jobe saw to their own interests. The composition wasn't exactly representative, but at least there was no bickering over rules.

They knew why they were here. With luck, they'd all agree on what they were going to do.

Done with one of Mother's great meals and ready to move to business, Grace turned to Wilson. "Did you bring them?"

"Signed, sealed and attested to. All registered at the courthouse," he said, handing Grace a folder.

Grace stood, and let her eyes rest on each of the six MechWarriors at her table. "All of you were kind enough to sign on to train us. To fight with us. I want to personally thank you for that." The muttering around the table told her it was nothing, just their job. Ben eyed her quietly.

"We, the people of Falkirk, want to thank you. We have a saying: 'Words are cheap. Land is forever.'