Patriot’s Stand

by Mike Moscoe

  “So what now?” the reporter asked.

  “I have twenty-four hours to come up with the money or get off the land. But I can’t sell! Not with a thirty percent sales tax! I couldn’t raise the money even if I tried.”

  “So you’ll be moving?”

  “Over my dead body,” Robert said, glaring at the camera.

  “So there you have it from Robert Carey’s own mouth. And he’s not alone in facing this—not at all,” the camera panned down the mansions of Landers Row, where the wealthy families of Alkalurops kept their town residences. “Every owner here can tell you the same story. One did agree to sell,” the reporter said. “But the offer was withdrawn and passed to the tax collector anyway. This is Clyde Hinman. I’ll be here tomorrow morning, live, when the twenty-four hours expire.”

  “That was a rerun of yesterday’s story,” Chato said.

  “What happens this morning?” Grace asked.

  “You’d have to be on Landers Row to know. Seems the reporter didn’t show for work this morning. He shot himself last night. Suicide, the Special Police reported.”

  “What does the coroner’s office say?”

  “Body was sent for cremation immediately. Seems the Special Police can do that,” Jobe said.

  Grace went to the sink and slowly washed her coffee cup—a ritual her father did many times as he thought about things that needed hard thinking. “Santorini doesn’t just want LCI to move its headquarters here. He wants to own most of the planet when LCI arrives,” she said slowly.

  “The better to profit from the sales of land to LCI’s boss men and hangers-on,” Jobe said. “Isn’t that how a lot of old wealthy got started?”

  “I’ll remind you, Jobe, Irish and Scots had plenty of experience on the receiving end—and with Black and Tans, who seem to be wearing Black and Red hereabout.”

  Chato eyed the vid. “How far will Santorini’s grasp reach—both in places like Allabad and out to places like Falkirk?”

  “If we worry only about our own backyard,” Grace said, “there will be few to help us when the Black and Reds knock on our door. If we’re going to do something, we need to do it together.” Grace put down her coffee cup. “Let’s get Ben and the mercs.”

  Ben was deep in calisthenics, leading both his mercs and the militia who would be fighting with them. That included a young woman from Kilkenny who had taken over Pirate since she’d had more time to practice than Grace.

  Grace waited until Ben came out of his exercise-induced trance. He and the other six quickly joined the three mayors, other MOD warriors keeping a respectful distance but not leaving, either. Grace filled them in on the extortion under way and the cost to the reporter who covered it.

  “What are the networks saying about this?” Ben asked.

  “Most have switched to old romance vids, no guns.”

  “Smart cookies, didn’t need that message twice,” Syn said.

  “Are the Roughriders in on this?” Grace asked.

  “No,” Ben said with finality. “That is why Santorini moved them out of the major towns. No, he is rooting his tyranny where the money is. The Roughriders will be detailed to keep people like us from molesting Santorini’s own while they fleece the sheep. I do not remember the last time a merc ended up with this mission. It is not something we like to think about.”

  “So what do we do now?” Grace asked.

  Ben turned to his warriors. “We train harder. Now we know the face of our enemy. We know the evil he nurtures in his heart. We know why we must fight. And when we fight, we must win.”

  The students left quickly, quietly, with purpose in their steps and anger stiffening their backs. Good, Grace thought. You’re going to need all that, and a hell of a lot of skill if you’re to survive a battle with the Roughriders and live to fight our real enemy, the Black and Reds.

  “Any word from Betsy?” Grace whispered.

  “You will be the first to know when there is,” Ben said.

  “I’d sure like to know what Santorini’s up to,” Grace said.

  “You think he knows what he’s doing?” Syn said, laughing and shrugging her shoulders. How she kept her boobs inside that low-cut bodysuit was a clear violation of the law of gravity.

  “You don’t think he knows?” Grace said.

  “Probably can’t tell from minute to minute,” Syn said, walking off. “Maybe I could help him make up his mind.”

  “I would not let that woman help any man make up his mind unless I knew how her mind was set,” Grace said, eyes following Syn. Then she turned to Ben. “I want to talk to Hanson. He needs to make up his mind. Maybe, if we talk, we can settle part of this mess before it goes horribly bad.”

  “Grace, that is the miner in you talking. You look to the bottom line of your profit and loss and think you can agree to most anything that is mutually profitable.”

  “It’s always worked before.”

  “But now you are talking to a Roughrider under contract. His primary concern has little to do with profit and everything to do with honorably fulfilling that contract.”

  “How do you honorably fulfill a contract to a tyrant?”

  “That is a problem I imagine Hanson is sweating out right about now,” Ben said with a thin smile.

  L. J. hated sitting in tribunals. If a merc broke the law, terminate his contract and let the local police handle the rest. But today he sat in a tribunal with his XO fidgeting uncomfortably, and Mallary’s face a mask. The prisoner was a mess: both eyes were blackened, a broken nose had been taped by the surgeon, and his arms above the handcuffs showed the yellow and blue of further beatings. Two female MPs stood at parade rest at the prisoner’s elbows.

  “Branson Quantrail, be glad your squadmates interrupted you,” L. J. growled, “or I’d be forming the battalion for a rogue’s parade, and before sunset today you’d have taken fifty lashes and swung by the neck until you were dead. Do you understand me, mister?” The man had raised his eyes when L. J. named him. Now he was squinting at the floor again.

  “Yes, sir,” he slurred from a badly cut and bruised mouth.

  “If you had molested that civilian—‘penetration, no matter how slight,” ’ L. J. quoted from the regs, “I would not have the option to let you live. If what you are about to face can be called living.” Quantrail’s not-quite-so-drunken squadmates had found him, pants down to his knees, knife at the throat of a terrified young woman, and had the presence of mind to pull Corporal Quantrail off the girl. She had fled screaming but, upon a request from the regiment, had presented herself for examination. Luckily for Quantrail, she was still a virgin.

  L. J. turned to the adjutant, who flipped on the recorder for the verdict. “I find you guilty of attempted rape and sentence you to ninety days in the stockade on bread and water, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and reduction in pay to recruit. You will present yourself for one hour of punishment parade with a one hundred and fifty pound pack at 0600, 1200 and 1900 hours each day. You will spend one hour double-timing around the post accompanied by an MP with a walking stick.” That should guarantee all hands got a good look at him once, maybe twice a day. The women MPs were known for their liberal application of the walking stick if the punishment pace slowed. Quantrail would end his enlistment a reminder to all that Roughriders stood for more than mob rule.

  “Upon the completion of your ninety-day sentence, you will be discharged immediately and locally. So you can talk this over with the girl and her family using whatever they bring to the ‘little talk.’ Guards, get this sack of shit out of my sight.” The MPs, easily as tall and muscled as their prisoner, hustled him off. That was one man in a world of hurt.

  Problem was, this entire battalion was in just as bad a hurt and getting in deeper every second. L. J. turned to his adjutant. “Eddie, see that all hands are read the following order: ‘You are mercenaries, heirs to a proud tradition. As mercenaries, you live under and live by the rules of war. There is no place in those rules for misbehav
ior. What belongs to the civilians of this planet is theirs. If you drink it, you pay for it. If you break it, you pay for it. If it is not offered in free exchange to you, you do not take it unless authorized by your commanding officer. The regiment will not long remember what we do here, but the regiment will never forget if we return without our honor.” ’ L. J. turned to the Sergeant Major. “Did I miss anything?”

  “That about covers it, sir.”

  “Captain, see that this is read to all personnel at morning formation. Inform the officers that if I have to flog a trooper, his officer will be strung up right beside him, taking lash for lash, fifty in all, and wishing I would hang him, too.” L. J. slowly took in his staff. These were tough orders, but their situation would allow nothing less. No one questioned him.

  “That will be done, Major,” Eddie said.

  “Very good.” L. J. glanced around the room, now vacant except for his XO, ops, adjutant and Topkick. “We have problems. I want ideas—ideas far beyond any book written.”

  “I don’t think the regiment has ever been a tyrant’s enforcer,” Arthur St. George said.

  “XO, we are not a tyrant’s enforcer,” L. J. shot back. “His damned Special Police are doing the enforcing just fine for him. We are stuck out here, keeping the locals from doing what any enraged citizenry would do—throw the bums out. It is not the same thing, and I don’t want our troops to even think it is the same thing. We can’t let our troops see their hands covered with the same sewage Santorini’s swimming in. If they do, we lose all discipline. And without that, ladies and gentlemen, we’re no better than civilians.”

  The staff looked at one another for a long minute, absorbed all he’d said, examined what he saw for the battalion and their own careers. None much appreciated the view.

  Topkick responded first. “Usual answer for problems like these, sir, is to keep the troops busy. Make sure they’re too bushed to get in trouble.”

  “Most of them are working twelve-hour watches already,” Eddie put in. “After we terminated the locals, just guarding the compounds is taking most of our troops’ time.”

  “Keep them away from the locals,” Art said as if reading a textbook’s checklist. He shook his head. “Hardly need to do that. Since the Oktoberfest, the locals are damn standoffish, right, Mallary?” The ops officer scowled but nodded her agreement.

  “Not a lot of patrolling going on,” L. J. said, leafing through his ’puter reports. “What are the locals up to?”

  “Don’t know, sir,” Mallary answered. “I don’t know what anyone is up to. The Net’s only playing old vids, no local news. I can’t ask our client to report who his bully boys are thumping. The battalion is deaf, dumb and blind, sir.”

  “A great way to get massacred,” Art said before L. J. could.

  L. J. glanced at a map of his command, scattered over twelve towns. Once that wide deployment had given him control over the ground he walked, and recruiting fields with which to grow his battalion. Now security was eating his lunch, leaving him few troops for patrols outside his own perimeter fence.

  “Mallary, if you were to concentrate the battalion down from the scatter-hell we’re in right now, what would you abandon? Where would you center our force?”

  She tapped her hand computer, and a map filled the table. “The new mining claims centered on New York and New Pittsburgh are not under our client’s control. I would ignore them as sources of trouble.”

  “So would I,” L. J. said.

  “That leaves this area,” she said, indicating a large expanse centered on Dublin Town. “Allabad is south of us, but there’s not a lot south of it. Too hot I hear.”

  “This whole planet is too hot,” Eddie moaned.

  “Little London, Lothran and Banya are south of us. But I suspect you knew that when you picked your new headquarters,” she said with a pleased smile at spotting what her boss was up to.

  “Due north is the Gleann Mor Valley—lovely, I’m told, this time of year with Scotch broom, thistle, and heather in bloom. Explain why a lot of ’Mechs have taken to walking its hills.”

  That surprised the other staff but not L. J. “When did they start their perambulating about in the open?”

  “Two days ago. Our awe-inspiring client confiscated all that expensive housing that morning. Gray ’Mechs started drilling in full view that afternoon.”

  “Think our fearless Leader got the intended message?”

  “If he did, it didn’t keep him next day from confiscating what was valuable in the other four towns his toads took over. Nobody’ll accuse him of being the compassionate, caring type,” Mallary said.

  “Not me, anyway. What kind of ’Mech force is up north?”

  “I counted thirty-nine gray ’Mech MODs, several dozen gray gun trucks led by a hovertank, sir, and lots of infantry. And there’s a surprise, sir—a dozen or more battle suits.”

  “Surprises, surprises,” L. J. said. “Firepower?”

  “Only a guess, sir. Our satellite’s not the best. At full power, it’s doing well to make out the battle suits. What they’re carrying is anybody’s guess.”

  “Can’t be too bad,” Art said. “The only BattleMech this planet had a year ago was the Legate’s ’Mech, and our Leader is running around in that for kicks.”

  “Captain, how do you get minerals out of rock?”

  Art stiffened. “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, there are a hell of a lot of miners out there who do. And there are a hell of a lot of people on this planet getting madder by the minute at the man we are contracted to fight for. Don’t you think you ought to know a bit more about what they can throw at you before you’re fighting them?”

  L. J. knew you didn’t reprimand an officer in public. He knew it, but damn it felt good to let someone feel the temper he spent his days keeping on tight rein.

  “Miners use explosives,” Mallary said in her best schoolteacher voice. “Their ’Mechs carry superhard-ened drills and rock cutters. Hand to hand, an unmodified MiningMech can be a hazard to any BattleMech we have. If they’re modified to project the explosives miners have in inventory, we could be facing a major force.”

  “You got that right in one,” L. J. said.

  His ’puter chimed “Incoming call,” but the screen stayed blank. “I’d like to get together with you, talk about old times,” a woman’s voice said. He recognized it as Grace’s. “The hills we climbed, the fun we had jumping around,” she finished.

  L. J. frowned. “Or staying one jump ahead of each other.”

  “Your memories are different from mine. If you can make it, meet me on Main Street, Dublin Town. Say, in an hour.”

  “You in a hurry?” L. J. wondered if a trap was already set.

  “Time flies when you don’t know what’s coming next.”

  “What comes next could be a bullet in my back if I walk down Main Street just now.” Mallary nodded at that.

  “I didn’t know mercs were so interested in dying in bed.”

  That was not encouraging. But L. J. had almost asked Grace for a meeting when they’d met at the port. They did need to talk. “I’ll see you,” L. J. said, cut the connection, and nodded at the Sergeant Major. “Draw a jeep. You’re driving.”

  “Weapons load?” Topkick asked.

  “Sidearms.” Most thought them short-ranged, but L. J. had seen the Sergeant Major drill a man-sized target at very long range.

  “Be careful, sir,” Mallary said as L. J. went out the door. Coming from her, it sounded sincere.

  Main Street in Dublin Town wound along MacGilli-on’s Brook, which in summer was a muddy trickle. L. J. had Topkick drop him off at the courthouse at the foot of the street. “Sir, that road winds a bit. I won’t have a line of sight on you for half of it,” the Sergeant Major said as he braked to a halt.

  “We all take our risks,” L. J. said, dismounting the jeep, checking his 9-millimeter sidearm, and settling it loose in the holster.

  The walk up Main Street
was long. The buildings were adobe, washed in pastels that took some getting used to but matched the flowers growing in boxes under every window. A low bluff to the west offered protection against the prevailing winds. The people he saw smiled and waved at each other and became cold as three-day dead when they saw him. A young man and an old lady looked ready to give him a piece of their minds, but others with them talked them away. He was five long blocks from the courthouse when he spotted a certain redhead seated on a stone bench beside the brook. She was feeding a goose and its goslings. “Mind if I join you?” he asked.

  “It’s a free country . . . or was,” Grace said, and flashed him a sad smile that made him want to fight to the death for Alkalurops’ freedom. “And your Sergeant Major won’t have any trouble keeping you in sight,” she finished.

  “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s the nervous type,” L. J. said, taking a seat. Grace offered him half her corn, and he took it. “I’d prefer to have my forty mercs back.”

  “Only twenty were really yours, and I’d gladly have you march all that’s yours into your DropShip. Lot of sadness in life, isn’t there? For now, they’re safe in my personal custody.”

  “In Falkirk where the gray ’Mech MODs drill?”

  “Actually, not there, but I’m glad you noticed our little demonstration. Ben told me you should know that what you saw was only one echelon. There’s more,” she told him. All sincerity.

  “Or there might not be,” L. J. said. “Part of the fog of what I won’t call war. You know you’re in a deadly game.”

  She looked away. “Last night a couple in Allabad were walking home from supper. Black and Reds stopped them. Beat the man to a pulp and gang-raped the woman.” She watched him from the corner of her eye as she threw a few kernels to the goose.

  “I’m sorry,” L. J. said.

  “Two days ago people started getting offers from the Black and Reds to buy their businesses, their homes, for maybe a penny on the stone of what they’re worth.”

  “I thought they were jacking up the prices?”