“What we do, we will decide for ourselves,” Garry snapped, hammering his gavel. Dev was on his feet and quickly recognized.

“Grace O’Malley, we sent you out to find someone to defend us, not maniacs who would turn our streets into bombs. We’ve spent generations building up our property. Nuts from off-planet can’t just walk in here and tell us to turn it all into a wild shooting gallery. We won’t make our planet into someplace not worth raiding by making it someplace not worth living.”

“That’s not what she said!” Grace shouted, jumping up.

“We all heard it,” Dev shouted back as Garry whacked away with his gavel.

“Some places—maybe Allabad—might need to be fought for inch by inch,” Grace shouted, “but if we beat them back where they land, they’ll never get to the rest of us.”

“Right—never get to out-of-the-way places like Falkirk,” Dev shot back.

“Would everyone quit shouting!” Garry screamed as he gave up on his gavel and joined in the verbal slugfest.

“That woman is crazy,” Dev shouted. “Both of them!”

“Get out of here, Grace. It’s clear you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head,” Garry ordered. Two men at what Grace still thought of as her table stood, strong arms out, threatening. Betsy gave them a hard look that froze them in their tracks.

“I suggest you two ladies take a break to regain your composure,” Chato whispered. “I’ll stay here.”

“There’s nothing more to say,” Betsy said.

“No, you slapped them in the face with it fast,” Ben said.

“You know a better way?”

“No,” Ben said. “Not with the little amount of time these people have to decide their fate.”

“Little time?” Grace said as Ben led them from the hall and signaled for a cab.

Betsy shook her head. “It’s time for me to go my way and you to go yours.” She turned to Grace. “There are too many questions about who is doing what here. Let me hunt down a few answers while Ben helps you get ready for what’s coming as sure as grass grows.” Before Grace could argue, Betsy was gone and Ben was helping Grace into a cab, whose driver demanded to know where she wanted to go.

Flustered, Grace called Angus. “I’ve leased a warehouse from an optimistic young mechanic who opened a major IndiMech repair facility just before so many of the local ’Mechs disappeared.” He gave Grace an address in the district along the river, and she and Ben were there in ten minutes.

A large sheet-metal-and-pole building offered room to park four flatbed trucks and their loads. A fellow of maybe thirty extended a hand to Grace. “I appreciate the rental,” he said. “I really like working with your man Sven. He knows his machines. He’s got a few of mine humming like I’ve never heard them before.”

Grace found Angus at Sven’s elbow, the mechanic half under a drill press. Not far away, Sean was tweaking the programming of the control ’puter. Danny and George were prowling the building, examining other tools and figuring where to place their own. “I haven’t managed to rent a ’Mech loader,” 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.”

“Damn,” 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 assembly.”

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 spaceport. 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 passing. 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.

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 space.”

“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 hoard. 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 the Dyev’s cargo had not helped her cash problem. “This Santorini, he was on the Dyev 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.”