Grace swallowed hard, maybe more than a bit intimidated. “This monster was enough to keep me and another AgroMech running up the nearest hill. You train people to capture this thing. How could a single person do that?”

L. J. considered his options, and chose to apply the full power of the truth. “One person can’t, but a team is another matter. See that hatch just above the knee?” Grace nodded. “It’s locked and armored, but a close shot from a high-powered nine-millimeter slug can blast it open. Inside are the control wires for the lower legs. Yank them and the machine isn’t going anywhere. Work your way up higher to that hatch on the back—the lower one. Blow it open and you can disconnect the controls to the missile launchers. Now he can’t run and he can’t shoot. Slap a sticky bomb on the back and give him a call on the emergency channel. If he doesn’t pop the cockpit and come out, you blow the reactor and he’s a very dead MechWarrior.”

Grace shook her head. “Assuming his friends don’t shoot you down while you’re doing any of that.”

L. J. chuckled. “That is the usual problem in an assault.” While the redhead mulled that over, L. J. continued to overload her. “Would you like to refight your battle?” Few MechWarriors ever passed up a chance to go over a victory or a loss.

“I’ve heard you have simulators. Do you have one that could redo my battle?” Grace asked distractedly.

“Right this way.” She was taking it hook, line and sinker.

He ushered her and her companions into the air-conditioned cool of the sim-lab. Inside, dozens of troopers were going about their business in the hushed tones usually reserved for a cathedral. L. J. waved at a line of gray boxes perched on stilts. Some were jerking about as if shaking drinks for a thirsty giant. “If you wanted to really refight your skirmish, we could strap you into those simulators. You’ll feel everything you felt in the fight. Walk, jump, knock-down. All of it.”

Grace shivered. “Did that once. Not hot to do it again.”

“Everything?” Chato put in. “Heat from the reactor?”

“Of course,” L. J. said. “Half the time I go by how hot my toes feel—hardly spare a glance at the systems temp.” Turning back to the woman. “If you prefer, we can go over the battle on the holotable.”

“That sounds better.”

Most of the tables were occupied with ’Mech trainees reviewing their performance, or lack thereof. L. J. guided his guests to one that was free. “We do not have topo maps of Alkalurops in our training system.” But if you looked in my personal computer… “Not exactly a place we expect to operate on.”

“Use a flat plain with foothills rising off it,” Grace said.

L. J. did, and a ghostly landscape appeared. She added a road with the familiar bend, then a couple of gullies running up the hill. Quickly she described his deployment. He ordered up the units she described and their ethereal images drove or marched across the map. Her own forces intrigued him. Two slightly modified AgroMechs to his left. Two probably over-armored MiningMechs to his right, and one MiningMech and an AgroMech with a hopped-up field burner in front of him. “We don’t have computer images of these IndustrialMechs—certainly not ones with your irregular modifications,” he told her. What he did not say was that his regiment’s computer support contractor was busy remedying that deficiency and expected to make a small fortune if it could get that module to market first. He finished the deployment with a sprinkling of irregular infantry for her.

“Not a bad formation,” he told her, meaning it. For an amateur it was a good start. “Then what happened?”

She described the crazy action on his right. L. J. was careful to do nothing she did not tell him, to add nothing to her battle critique. She got the tank’s movements wrong; he went along until Chato corrected her. “So you tricked a tank driver into doing a nosedive into a gully just as his fire completely disrupted your left flank,” L. J. noted.

“I guess so,” Grace said, gnawing on her lower lip. “I was afraid the short ’Mech was going to chase after the miners on my left. That was when I tried to damage his leg and found out I really couldn’t. Then things got bad when he noticed me,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes went vague as if focused on something far away and unpleasant. Not long past, either. And her dreams were probably lousy with this battle. Amateurs didn’t know how to process the experience of battle. Too bad for her.

“Would you like to run the battle through the way it went, or maybe modify it? What if the tank had not been ditched?”

“No thank you, Major,” Grace said. “I think you’ve shown me enough. While I might have had com links with all my people, still, they moved individually, and usually in retreat… or what did you call it? Retrograde.”

“Correct.”

“But the raiders moved as one, just the way their commander told them. Or would have, if Chato and Coyote had not thrown a wrench into their plan.”

“Too true. Once your left broke, the tank would have swung around and pinched off the two center ’Mechs. Then the raiders would have had their pick of either of the other two pairs. Probably the ones on your left. I suspect those two would have just popped their cockpits and started running if they thought the raiders were after them.”

“Right. McCallester and Brady are out of their depth organizing anything beyond a barroom brawl.” Grace sighed.

“That is why mercs train recruits for a year. We want them to know in their sleep what to do when I issue an order. And they will do it, in their sleep or scared to death. This is also why, Ms. O’Malley, my colonel would be most unwilling to mix his Roughriders with local militia. Our troops have to know they can trust the man on their right, the woman on their left. If we can’t, we become no better than your showed-up-today militia or these raiders,” he said, waving a hand dismissively at the effort that had won him his promotion.

“If we contracted to defend your planet, we would defend it. I doubt my colonel would accept a contract for less than one battalion plus a training cadre. That cadre would train your local troops, but they would train them our way—day and night for a year. I’m sorry, but we do not work with militias. We like to win, ma’am. Spread too thin, we’d be in the same mess you were in: waiting for someone stronger to come along and collect our gear.”

The Sergeant Major appeared at his elbow, a piece of paper in one hand. L. J. glanced at it. Right. A battalion-sized task force: one company of ’Mechs, one of armor, two of infantry. Under the HQ company were platoon-sized elements of engineers, medical, supply, maintenance, communications and a section each of tube artillery and long-range missiles. There was a total cost for the battalion as well as individual prices for each unit.

“Very good, Sergeant Major. Ms. O’Malley, this is the unit I would suggest for defending a planet of your size from raiders. And the cost breakdown.” He passed the paper to the redhead.