“It’s getting on toward noon. Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Ship’s breakfast was a while back,” Grace told him.

“Why don’t I take you for lunch at the Officers’ Club?” That seemed to go over fine with her and the men in back.

“Sir, if you could just drop me off at HQ,” Topkick said, “you could pick me up after lunch.”

“That would be fine, Sergeant Major.”

L. J. dropped him off, waited until he was halfway up the path outlined with white-painted rocks, then said, “Oops, I should have mentioned something to him. Just a moment.”

A soft “Sergeant Major” got Tanuso to pause. “Print me out a cost sheet for a battalion. Add a fifty-percent surcharge, but don’t let it show up on the sheet.”

“Understood, sir. We don’t want to encourage them.”

“You got it, Sergeant Major.”

As L. J. returned, the three cut short their conversation. “Isn’t the sergeant allowed to eat with us?” Grace asked.

“The Officers’ Club is open to me and my guests. Sergeant Major could be just as much of a guest as you will be. However, the regiment has a long tradition of officers dining with noncoms only under specific circumstances. Tradition is often what holds a regiment together. For Sergeant Major to share a meal with me today Just Is Not Done.”

“I think I understand traditions,” Grace said with an unreadable smile.

At the club, Grace asked him to order for them—none objected to T-bone steaks, baked potatoes and mixed vegetables. During the meal Grace talked of Galatea’s hot weather and the ugliness of the war-ravaged land. Only when they were finished eating did she bring up her strong desire that Alkalurops avoid anything that might leave her planet similarly ravaged.

“Defense, yes, we need that. But we don’t want to become a target like Galatea. Yet at the same time, we don’t want to become a victim,” Grace said, putting down her water glass. “In past wars, we defended ourselves. Today, defense seems to be a bit harder than it was for earlier generations.”

L. J. studied the last of his steak. “Have you had some recent experience in defense?” For the next five minutes he listened as she gave him her view of the battle from the modified MiningMech that had opposed him. A woman mine owner was giving me all that grief! He kept that thought off his face as the Navajo, Chato Bluewater, described preparing the traps that caught his hovertank and damn near broke his Koshi’s leg. Maybe the Roughriders should pay more attention to combat engineers, he thought as he nodded to Chato. Then Grace explained what they had learned from the hovertank, which was not quite as disabled as he had been told.

“Yes,” he said, nodding as Grace ended her story, “our sensors are calibrated to detect heat, metal concentrations and electronic activity kilometers ahead of our scouts. You can understand how much a professional military unit wants to avoid a trap.”

“And how much a militia needs such ambushes if they are to have any chance of withstanding such attacks,” Grace answered.

L. J. waved for the check, signed it over to the regiment’s account and thought furiously. He still wasn’t sure what kind of contract this woman wanted. Until he figured out what she meant by militia, a general introduction to what a professional merc unit brought to the battlefield seemed in order. With luck, he’d put enough fear of the Lord into this redheaded Fury that she’d fold her tent, give up any hope of fighting mercs, and meet the next batch of raiders with milk and cookies.

“Let me show you our ’Mech practice grounds. Even though only a select few command BattleMechs, we introduce all our infantry to them. You never can tell when you’ll come across the occasional recruit with a natural knack for ’Mechs. Also, any infantry may be called up to close assault and capture disabled ’Mechs. We have mock-ups for assault practice, but they’ll give you a feel for what you were facing. You don’t know how lucky you were to have a mountain to—” L. J. bit off the “run away to,” and chose a more professional “retrograde up.” He had not seen this woman’s temper and suspected it might be easier to dissuade her if he did not get her hackles up.

“We met some troops without our luck,” Grace said as she settled into his jeep. The two men loaded themselves and their backpack into the rear. “Strange. The raiders didn’t stop to strip the bodies of personal armor. I would think that they would,” she said. “What’s your professional opinion?”

“I’m not trained as a raider, ma’am,” he replied, which was true. For the Alkalurops mission he’d had to develop his own procedures. That was one of the reasons he’d gotten the job. “None of us know anything about this kind of op,” the Colonel had told L. J. when he got the assignment. “Why don’t you see if you can figure it out.”

L. J. chose his words carefully. Now was no time to show too much knowledge of this raid. “From what you say, I would guess it was thrown together at the last moment. Used low-quality personnel”—Godfrey, for example—“who were quite inexperienced with this sort of thing. With the HPG down, there are many reports of lawlessness. Pirates and bandits who were small stuff in better times now try their hand at bigger prizes. Planets with no professional force can’t stop them.”

“Fortunately, they didn’t have enough backup or spare time to really strip us down,” Grace muttered. “What I can’t figure out is how they killed the Legate.”

“I was wondering about that,” L. J. risked. “You didn’t mention him in your battle critique. Why didn’t he fight?” L. J. had wondered about that when his client’s last report assured him that the Legate would not interfere with the raid.

“Because he was bleeding out in bed,” the large black man, Jobe Kang, said, “his throat cut before the raiders’ DropShip touched down. Somebody on Alkalurops was helping things along, killing him and the Governor.”

“Oh,” L. J. said, and forced his face into neutral as he drove them to the training field. His regiment had not contracted for murder. All he had was a faceless client’s promise that the local government would not interfere with the raid. Remind me not to do business with that man again, L. J. said to himself. Killing a man in compliance with a contract entered into by his colonel was occasionally unavoidable when two BattleMechs met. Slitting a man’s throat in bed—that was not something L. J. wanted to be associated with.

In the shade of the hangar, it was almost cool. “What ’Mech would you like to have a go at?” L. J. asked, pointing Grace at a dozen ’Mechs or mock-ups connected by supports and scaffolding.

“That short one,” she said, pointing to a Koshi hulk. “If I wasn’t fighting that one, I was fighting its sister.”

“Very likely,” L. J. said, taking her up two flights of stairs to the scaffolding that allowed access to the cockpits. “The Koshi is a light unit, good for scouting, and one of the less expensive to acquire or operate.” There was a step down to the platform around its cockpit. “This unit is a hulk, so you’re not feeling the heat one of these fusion power plants gives off. Your MiningMech uses a low-powered internal combustion engine, doesn’t it?” The woman flinched at that observation.

“I never thought Pirate was low-powered, but is this for real?” she said, examining the painted wooden power readout. “What are these other things?”

L. J. knew a Koshi cockpit in the dark and blindfolded. “That power readout is a replica, but its values are real.” He pointed out and named the targeting computer and the ammo supply gauge. Grace whistled in awe at the number of reloads. L. J. casually dismissed the sensor suit with, “These may not be what spotted you. The benefit of a combined-arms force is that we blend the strengths of ’Mechs, armor and infantry, using each for what it does best.”