But Santorini hadn’t funded them for that.

“It’s going to miss,” Mallary said. L. J. nodded. The missile was well short of the road. If anything, it was going to hit the grain elevator. Huge complex, must be a block long.

Something niggled at the back of his brain. Grain silos. They exploded if people weren’t careful about the dust in them. “Oh my God. Everyone down!” L. J. shouted, and pushed Mallary to the floor just as the elevator blew with a force that probably exceeded anything the planet had seen. He landed atop Mallary as the steeple tried to launch itself into orbit. Failing that, it swayed back and forth beneath them.

When the swinging slowed, L. J. rolled off Mallary. He tried to get up, but either his legs were still shaking or the tower was. It took him a moment to work his way up to his knees. “You okay?” he asked Mallary.

She took his offered hand. “Wasn’t quite what I’d fantasized, but for a first time, you weren’t too bad.” She managed a grin as she got to her knees.

“It was good for me, too,” he told her, risking putting his weight on a broken railing to pull himself up. Mallary put her hand on the table leg in front of her, then thought differently and took his offered hand to stand up.

The operator had grabbed for his radio when L. J. shouted the warning. He was still holding on to it, but the table had been upended, and the left side had come down hard on his groin.

The Chief pulled the table away, then knelt down. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, sir,” the man said, but there was blood on his lips. “Hurts a bit.”

“We need a medic up here,” L. J. shouted to his command van.

“On her way,” a sergeant shouted as a blonde with a first-aid box raced into the church. She was beside the radio operator a minute later.

“A few steps will need watching on the way down,” was her only comment about the trip up. She took over caring for the radio operator as L. J. gently removed the equipment from his bloodstained hands. Mallary righted the table, and the Chief again spread out the map.

L. J. checked the radio, found it still on A’s allotted command frequency and called Art. “XO, you there?”

“Yes, but I’ll never enjoy the smell of a bakery again,” he said. “We’ve got wheat and corn burying half the company. We’ve got hovertanks on their backs like turtles. We’re digging troops out as fast as we can.” From the sound of heavy breathing, Art was doing that while talking. “Is anything else headed our way?”

“I’m up a church steeple in the center of town. I can’t see past the smoke in your sector.”

“Fourth Platoon, get an observation post on the other side of that damn river,” came as a distant shout over the radio. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything. We’re kind of busy, sir.”

“Stay busy. The Aid Station is still en route. I’ll have them join you as soon as possible,” L. J. said. Then he called the company support column under the Adjutant.

“Eddie, A Company is bleeding from an explosion.”

“We saw the cloud. For a second I wondered if there was a Blakist around here throwing atomics.”

“No, just more dual use of civilian stuff,” L. J. growled. “They need your medics and supplies, and I need the artillery. Someone’s shooting at us with long-range stuff sighted on preselected targets.”

“They haven’t done that before.”

“First time for everything.”

“We’ll put on all the speed this road will allow.”

“See you soon,” L. J. said, and switched frequencies. D Company was flashing. “Hanson.”

“Chang here, sir. They’ve got quite a demonstration going on the west side. I make it a dozen ’Mechs on the next ridge. They’ve got infantry. Some I can see. A whole lot I can’t. Gun trucks with machine guns and grenade launchers. I’d say they’re at battalion strength at least. I’m digging in to defend, sir, but if they start spreading out, they can overreach both my flanks.”

L. J. stared off to the west trying to see what at least one ridge hid from him. Could these guys maneuver? If Chang hit them, would they fire and fall back? Maybe trip over themselves? Hell, Chang was only outnumbered three to one; he should be able to take a bunch of green civilians.

L. J. started to click the radio, then remembered this might be the group that had at least one attack, maybe two under their belts. Sure, they’d only chewed up Black and Reds, but they’d taken fire and still chewed them up.

“Chang, probe ’em. See if you can make them do something. Charge. Retreat. Something.”

“I’ll get back to you, sir. What was that big bang?”

“A Company is up to its ears in popcorn,” L. J. said.

“Okay, sir. Excuse me for asking. I was just curious,” said the man, who didn’t believe the answer he got and wasn’t going to push his CO. L. J. didn’t have time to set the record straight. C Company was flashing. He changed frequencies.

“Sir, there are an awful lot of bad guys on my front. Right now they’re not doing much more than looking at us look at them, but ’Mechs keep walking over a ridge and walking back. There could be four of them, there could be forty.”

“How are they armed?”

“Damned if I know, sir. We haven’t exchanged fire yet, but those look like large-caliber multibarrel machine guns and something that gives off an IR signature.”

“They had one of them in Falkirk when I fought them. Field burner or something.”

“It’s the ‘something’ that I worry about. What was that racket back in town, sir?”

“Grain elevator exploded. Buried A Company in hot corn.”

“Grain elevators do tend to explode if you don’t treat them with respect.”

“A missile hit didn’t meet with this one’s idea of respect. D is on your left facing a battalion-sized force. I’ve got Chang probing it. You up to probing the force on your front?”

“No reason why not. We’ve got them where we want them and outnumbered one to three. I’ll do a bit of tapping, see if they run like they’ve been doing.”

L. J. wouldn’t bet on that, but a commander did not share negative comments with his subordinates. “Go for it.”

George Stillwell grinned to himself. The Roughriders were coming out. He would have made the same mistake. No company of mercs could back down from a battalion-strength bunch of rabble. Problem was, the Falkirk militia weren’t rabble—not after what George and the other MechWarriors had put them through.

Standing in the front seat of a gun truck, he signaled to the rest of his platoon. “Follow me.” He could have had the Condor tank they’d captured, but he’d always argued that it wasn’t the fancy toys, but the guts of the guys behind the guns that mattered—not that all of the folks behind the guns following him were guys. It made for an interesting team.

His gun truck bounced over brush and rocks as it shot forward, three more swinging out in rough echelon as they zigged and zagged behind him. Gunners hung on to their 20mm Gatling guns attached to the roll bars on the enemy side of the trucks. Missileers steadied their single launchers on the same bar to the right. Stillwell pointed his driver at the far right of the troops advancing from Kilkenny. “Swing wide of that Centurion. It has several ways of ruining our day.”

The driver did. The Centurion tracked them as they crossed right to left across its front, then burned sagebrush behind Stillwell’s truck with its extended-range medium laser. It and a Demon medium tank adjusted their course to confront Stillwell’s team. Infantry squads in Gnome and Cavalier battle armor spread out around them.

“Good deployment,” Stillwell breathed. If he wasn’t careful, they’d cut him off and up. “But I’m just here to do some raiding and scaring,” he said, and reached for the mike. “Task Force George, see if we got their range.”

Behind him, 20mm rounds reached out for the Roughrider team. Some hit, but only at extreme range. No damage.