1

Near Falkirk, Alkalurops

Prefecture IX, The Republic of the Sphere

3 April 3134; local spring

Grace O’Malley loosened the straps on her harness, rested her elbows on the open cockpit of “Pirate,” her MiningMech, and focused her binoculars. A quick sweep of the Gleann Mor Valley before her showed no sign of the raiders whose arrival she dreaded.

Lately the chatter on the Net had been scary. Usually, Grace ignored Net gossip, but Allabad, the capital of Alkalurops, had dropped off-Net a week ago with no explanation. Then hysterical postings and phone calls started pouring in about BattleMechs stomping through houses, tanks shooting up shops, and off-world troops hijacking ’Mechs—followed by that town dropping off the Net. Now the Net blackout was about to overwhelm Grace’s hometown of Falkirk.

The evening before, her friend Gordon Frazier, mayor of Kilkenny, not two hours’ drive south, slapped up a hasty e-note that BattleMechs and a whole lot of other armor were coming up the south road from Amarillo. Grace had called Gordon, but by then both voice and data links were dead. It looked as though Falkirk was on its own and raiders were coming to swipe Pirate.

Last night’s town meeting in Falkirk had been the shortest since Grace had been elected mayor. Some citizens 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 Gatling gun made of six hunting rifles that was now strapped to Pirate’s right arm. John Shepherd, the local gunsmith, had specially loaded them with high-powered, steel-jacketed shells.

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

She also hadn’t expected the HPG interstellar com grid to go down two years ago. On an out-of-the-way planet like Alkalurops, that meant the news talkies spent more time on local chitchat. But even with trade disrupted and metals and coal fetching below-market prices, it seemed like a small price to pay for being left alone.

Once again Grace swept her binoculars over the Gleann Mor Valley, this time slowly, almost lovingly. This was her home. She’d grown up here, like her mother and grandmother before her, going back almost to the firstlanders. The valley hadn’t changed much in all that time. It showed red and brown where native plants still held on, and green where Terran plants were slowly replacing them. In the spring air, the yellow of Scotch broom outlined the road from the south and sprang up in patches elsewhere. The mountains of the Cragnorm Range, only ten or fifteen klicks away, 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 buildings stood in the lee of Wilson Crag. Around the cliff were the large green circles of irrigated land, growing the Terran wheat, corn, barley, and oats that were sold outside the valley. Small gardens adjoining the houses provided all the vegetables the inhabitants needed. Falkirk was comfortably independent—or had been last week.

Now Falkirk needed help, so two days ago Grace sent out a call to all the small holdings in the mountains and 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 were working on a defense strategy that Chato had assured Grace would work, although she wasn’t sure what it was.

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?” she called out.

Chato smiled softly at the question. “You fight the white man’s 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 Scotch-Irish woman.”

“You are the mayor of Falkirk. That’s enough to make you a white man to me,” Chato said.

He laughed as Grace shot back, “Only on Thursday evenings during the town meetings.”

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

Grace made grumbling noises at him—she’d never worn makeup in her life. With her creamy complexion set off by flaming red hair, she didn’t really need it.

“Dust on the horizon.” The voice of Dan McLeod snapped her back to attention. He was in his AgroMech, to her left, his machine listing a bit with the weight of the field burner now hanging from its left arm. Normally, the burner was used to clear native vegetation to prepare a field for Terran crops. Now the burner was equipped with a high-speed pump, and the hump of a two-kiloliter feed tank towered over Dan’s open cockpit. Grace had heard that BattleMechs tended to heat up in combat. Dan’s burner would help that along, big time.

Grace turned her binoculars south and leaned far forward. In the cockpit, Pirate’s gyros protested her off-balance 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 was hiding behind.

She returned her attention to the main road. Yep, she could see a dust cloud out there now. The road was straight, generally five klicks or more from the mountains, 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 a mirror from around her neck and aimed it at the valley to give Chato a warning flash. Someone emerged from among the brush and cheat-grass and waved a shirt back.

Now Grace cinched her harness. A quick check showed her 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 the improvised rocket-firing tubes Mick called bazookas.

Projecting her voice as her father had taught her years ago, to carry to the crew two stories below and the ’Mech pilots with idling engines, Grace shouted, “What do you say we spread out some?” Even shouting, she made sure her words came 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,” said Jim Wilson, owner of about half the irrigation circles around Falkirk. He closed up the newest AgroMech in town, its paint now marred from the additional armor welded to its front. As Wilson led the way to a pile of rocks a klick south, his son followed, piloting a similarly up-armored AgroMech that wasn’t all that much older than Pirate. The Wilsons’ 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.

Owen McCallester, who had never forgiven Grace for beating him out of the mayor’s job when his old man died, nodded to Dennis Brady, and the 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 AgroMech and its flamethrower, along with a score of town craftspeople and merchants, armed with whatever was handy. Most rifles had hardly been used except for plunking at rabbits and gophers during the annual sharpshooting competition at the Highland Games. The shooting was never much to brag about. The competition was always late in the day, after the racing and tossing the caber and way too much drinking. Grace didn’t consider mixing drinks and loaded guns all that safe, but the schedule was sacred, unchanged for hundreds of years.

Everyone was sober today, even Greg 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 said, grinning through the faceplate of his bulky helmet. The others laughed. Grace closed Pirate’s cockpit and spun the ’Mech into position.

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

 

The concrete road supported Captain Loren J. Hanson’s Koshi comfortably. The advance had gone well this morning. He’d set an easy pace because after a week he didn’t want to break anything on the last day. Word from his XO—his executive officer and second in command—was that the JumpShip had loaded the loot from Allabad and was ready to jump to the secondary pickup point. The mission here was snatch, grab and raise scatter-hell. The Colonel had 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 harness 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 Jack 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 Multipurpose Tank’s pedal to the metal, and this was Hanson’s Roughriders.

Not L. J.’s Roughriders. Great-grandpa Hanson had commanded when the Roughriders made their name. L. J. was just a distant great-grandkid by a daughter who’d chosen medicine over ’Mechs. Grandma was still a fine 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 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. The locals would probably run after the first volley. With half his ammo expended, was it worth a fight this far from the pickup point?

“Topkick.”

“Sir,” Sergeant Major Vincent Tanuso responded immediately.

“On my order, take the hoverbike 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.”

“Yes, sir. 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.”

“Yee-haw!” Godfrey whooped. “Let’s put the spurs to ’em.” His hovertank surged ahead.

“Take it down, Roughrider,” L. J. growled, and the hovertank 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, to see if the IndustrialMechs were worth a fight before he got into one.

L. J. studied the ground ahead. The road was lined with ditches on both sides. They were dry now, but the green along the verge showed there had been water. The landscape was rolling, giving plenty of dead ground. The bushes were low, 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 the terrain would help him cut off a prize. Rocks and boulders jutted up to protect shooters. So far this planet had produced only 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 cakewalk was nice, but cakes could hold surprises. Approaching the curve, L. J. spotted three fairly new ’Mechs and ordered his topkick off. “Sergeant, just tap the town if there’s nothing worth taking. We may have some gear here for you.”

“Yes, sir,” 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 the intervals between the three. Time to get this battle going.

“I make our opposition as six IndustrialMechs and a few dozen infantry. Godfrey, 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’ve 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 strides eating up the distance to the target. Beneath his Koshi’s feet, brush crumbled. Footpads 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 over 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 she 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 hovertank with a horrifyingly 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. A ragged cheer was cut short as they realized the tank had fired 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 faze 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 its 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 realized what was being done to him? A Navajo would appear, attack, and disappear as another one, a bit farther to the left, jumped up, got a shot off, and drew the tank farther toward Falkirk. That was the last thing Grace wanted. The tank’s miniguns couldn’t be let loose among the homes of her friends. Some folks—old, 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, so 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.”

Grace nudged the joystick until her crosshairs 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-powered 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? 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 crud flying from the blowers that held the 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 realized the truth.

The tank had charged into a section of the valley that wasn’t there. What had 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 hovertank may hover a few centimeters above the ground but not 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 screech 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.

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

“Damn!” he repeated, 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 multibarrel gun, and while its 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 jokers’ attempts, then swallowed it.

The fire might have landed short, but it hit a clump of those green shrubs with yellow flowers, and they caught fire like an open gas tank. The morning calm was gone, and 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 short-range missiles 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 hazard.

The jump was good, right up until the landing.

His entire ’Mech groaned as the gyros struggled to balance him 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 earlier.

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, the locals were making good use of folds in the land, and stopping to return fire with single-shot SRMs and two of those dinky miniguns.

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 the minigun was hiding behind. The fire-throwing ’Mech and the infantry were retreating but still firing as they backpedaled. The minigun slashed out at him from behind a new and larger outcropping. Without thinking, his hand worked the joystick to center the crosshairs where he wanted them. Fast as he could punch them out, he salvoed three of his four SRM quad-packs, reserving the fourth in case the first three blew 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 minigun off, he mashed out another full salvo at his attacker, 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 a gray-haired old lady who waved a Bible at me and lectured me on the evils of my life,” Sergeant Tanuso reported.

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

“I asked her for a date Friday night,” Topkick shot back. “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 topkick 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 JumpShip at recall.”

“Would cost you some stripes,” the topkick said as he brought his hoverbike to a stop at the rim of the gully that had eaten the hovertank.

L. J. cut off the banter. “Topkick, 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 the battle. His problems were now farther up the hills. Normally a stern chase was a long chase, and while his BattleMech could easily 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 cannibalize 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 minigun.”

“Will do, Captain.”

 

Grace was in reverse. Reverse was all in a day’s work for a miner, but for a fighter, it was hardly the road to success.

The rifle crews fled up the ridge, having 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.

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

Then it came to her. Except for the terror of possibly being blown to bits in the next second, fighting was just grunt work—harder than any day mining, even breaking ground for a new shaft. She offered a silent prayer: 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 it.

“Uh, Gracie, I think we have a problem. Look at the Wilsons,” Dan said, his voice straining over the radio. That team had also been retreating up the ridge. They were still running, but edging south as well. The taller BattleMech was now almost even with Grace. Maybe that meant nothing. Then again, only MacGilly’s Gulch stood between Grace and the hunter. Of 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 taller BattleMech? Oh, damn! It gave the Wilsons a short laser burst. Another miss. Then it paused. “What’s it doing?” Dan asked after he made a short move from one boulder to another higher up.

Grace studied the taller ’Mech, then glanced at the shorter one below her. It had been quiet for a while. Low on ammo? What else could make one of those 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. 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, but it fell short.

Grace was back to cover before anything new came her way. It wasn’t her imagination—both ’Mechs were facing her now. Grace broke cover, maxing out Pirate, galloping for a boulder. She checked; her rifles were well up the ridge. Not being attacked made them bolder runners. McCallester’s 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 sheepdogs.

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 taller ’Mech was up in the air, now falling to a landing on her side of MacGilly’s Gulch. The other ’Mech was racing toward her, quickly cutting in half the distance Grace had managed to put 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 they didn’t even slow the BattleMech’s flight.

The running BattleMech lofted a barrage of rockets her way.

Grace slammed Pirate’s throttle forward, but she hadn’t taken two steps before rockets smacked down around her. At least two hit Pirate, bouncing Grace’s head off the side of the cockpit. Her vision grayed, and 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 just 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 struck 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 taller ’Mech. The fire fell short, burning only some heather. A moment later Dan sent fire down the hill at the shorter, 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, and the engine gauges were a horror. Her Gatling gun hadn’t been much good, and now Pirate couldn’t move quickly. “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.”

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

“Soon, if you move it.”

“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 AgroMech hotfooted it from one bit of cover to another.

Grace kept Pirate upright, but one leg was grinding as he moved. She edged around the outcropping, keeping it between her and the taller ’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 jiggled 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.

Twelve ’Mechs were moving 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.

Pickup would be at the mouth of this valley. He had to expect that 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. Topkick, can you do anything with the mess Godfrey made of his tank?”

“No, sir. 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.