“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 shell that feeds real nice and lets us keep the machinery pretty simple.”

“Caseless, no brass,” Grace said, trying to think fast.

“Yeah, we don’t got a lot of brass,” 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 damn 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.’ So I’m not going to say a lot, just give these to you.” She walked around the table, placing before each warrior a deed for six hundred and forty acres of prime foothill land. “If you want to farm, there’s good bottom land and water on each of these. Wil, there is water, isn’t there?”

“I checked each plot,” Wilson said. “There’s enough water there to support a good herd. If not, bring that deed back to me and I’ll personally swap it for any square mile of land I have.”

“There’s also solid rock under the hills above your farmland. There’s no way to tell, but most every hill around here has some valuable minerals in it. As for petrocarbons, you’ll just have to take your chances with the rest of us.”

Grace paused back at her chair. “I know you are warriors, and land may not mean the same to you that it does to me. But this is the best that I have to give you… this land that we stand on… and my thanks.”

Ben stood as Grace took her chair. He glanced at his comrades, then spoke to the townspeople. “Times have been strange for us. We trained in the art of war, but lived in a time that did not demand greatness from us. When the fighting came, no one wanted us. I thank you, Grace, for giving us a chance to show our skills. And I thank you for giving us this land, the land of your ancestors. Now we stand with you, on land that is yours and ours. Thank you.”

The others said thank you, though Grace doubted Danny was interested in land that lacked a pub. Probably none of them ever thought of more ground than the six-foot plot they would be buried in. Well, times were changing for all of them. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, Grace thought, and cleared her throat.

“Getting down to business: Are we anywhere close to ready?” Around the table, heads shook slowly. “They’re good men and women,” Danny said, “but they’re good men and women who’ve spent less than two weeks learning how to soldier.”

Ben leaned forward. “The Navajos have shown them how to dig, and Sean has told them why a shovel is the infantry’s best friend. Most know to hold their first shot until it counts. Beyond that, I don’t know. They don’t know the men to their right or the women to their left nearly well enough. When the first one runs, the next one may run, too,” he said. “How is our ammunition?”

Sven pursed his lips. “Not as bad as I feared. The chemist is a miracle worker. We’ll have high-explosive antiarmor shells for the rocket grenades and tungsten penetrators for the thirty-millimeter guns. Any ’Mechs meet our infantry, they’ll know we are there. Medium-range rockets for the ’Mechs and the gun trucks. One load, no more. I’ve got Gatlings enough to go around, thirty-millimeter for the ’Mech MODs, twenty-millimeter for the gun trucks. And don’t shoot it all off the first time a blade of grass bends, you warrior types. There’s not a lot more ammo where that comes from.”

“So the raiders show up tomorrow, and we are not ready,” Grace said in summation.

“You didn’t really think it would be different,” Syn said, lounging in her chair. The ex–Bannson’s Raider wore a brightly colored wisp of cloth she’d bought from a Donga River merchant. Jobe eyed her as though he wanted to make her his third wife, or at least tonight’s wife. The eyes she threw his way were full of yes.

There was a knock at the door, and Angus ducked his head in. “I thought I’d find you here. Have you been monitoring the Net?”

“Not since it quit saying anything helpful,” Grace said.

“The inbound ship broke its silence. It wants all town mayors to meet the ship on landing. It rattled off a list of fifty. You were right there in the O’s.”

“Were Jobe and Chato included?”

The old lawyer paused for a second. “I don’t think so.”

“Why do I not feel offended at that?” Jobe said with a toothy smile. “Grace, you cannot go. This smells like a white man’s plot to get all his enemies in one place and kill them.”

“Jobe, you have to quit assuming everything is a white man’s trick to get at everyone else. As young Sean can tell you, the English white man was using it on his Irish and Scottish cousins long before he knew there was anyone else to beat up.”

“I’ll take your word for it, Grace,” Chato said, “but I agree with Jobe. This does not look like a place you want to be.”

“She could wear battle armor,” Sean said.

Grace shook her head. “That’s not the image I want to project.”

“I agree,” Ben said. “Go gracefully or not at all.”

“I am going. If the rest are greeting the raiders with drinks and munchies, I don’t want to stand out like a grenade among the chicken wings,” Grace said, smiling at her own joke. “Let’s play it the raiders’ way for now since we aren’t ready to waltz into the spaceport and start the fight.