Decision at Thunder Rift

by William H. Keith

  The soldier consulted his wristcomp. "One hundred eighty-two prisoners, Lord."

  Singh nodded and tried to keep from covering his nose and mouth to block the stink. These prisoners, many of them skilled workers, were soon to be slaves, sold among labor-hungry worlds with crumbling technologies. For now, they were a source of sometimes useful information as well as a major problem in logistics. His expedition's food supplies were limited to what was left aboard the DropShip and what little had been raided from the agrodomes north of Sarghad. If they did not quickly find more food, their prisoners would have to be shot — and hang the waste. Singh believed the primary mission had to take priority over minor economic concerns.

  The guard returned, leading a shambling, ragged man with a face bruised and caked with dirt and dried blood.

  "Captain Tor! How are you? Have you decided to tell us what we want to know yet?"

  "I can't tell you anything." He spoke carefully through swollen lips. The beatings had produced great, puffy bruises about his eyes and mouth.

  "Oh, but you can tell us a great deal, like why you were snooping about the spaceport perimeter and what you know about mercenary activities in Sarghad. You'd be saving yourself so much trouble by telling us what we want to know."

  Tor was shivering, his arms folded tightly in front of his body, but he managed to snap, "Go to hell!" As he was wearing only the rags of his tunic and light trousers, the cold was doing the work of a torturer's knife.

  Singh frowned. "I've offered you money. I've offered you your freedom. I'm afraid all I have to offer now is a quick death."

  "You murdered my men."

  "Ah... the three crewmen aboard the DropShip. That was a tragedy, I admit It's always a tragedy when skilled workers must be killed. But you made that necessary, my friend, by escaping in the first place."

  "You were going to kill me anyway." Anger flashed for a moment over Tor's cold-numbed face. "You didn't have to kill them!"

  "My dear Captain, you don't think I wanted to have them killed, do you? We prize men trained for starship work, especially a man like you, who is skilled in interstellar navigation. We are not barbarians!"

  Tor's eyes closed, his lips trembling. "Whatever you say."

  "But this mission is highly secret, Captain. So secret, I don't believe you appreciate its importance. If you did, I would have your throat slit now. When you escaped, we had to take steps to insure that no more of your people on Trellwan escaped. The rest of your crew aboard the freighter are still in good health, of course. At least, for now."

  "More threats?"

  "I don't threaten, Captain." He reached out and pulled Tor's head up by the hair, looking into the man's glazed eyes. "Now, let's begin again. You were in the city for a time."

  Tor's voice was weak, barely audible.

  "What was that? Come, come, Captain. I'm getting cold standing here talking to you."

  "Yes... I was in S-Sarghad."

  "And you are a military man?"

  "I am a trader. I pilot a starship."

  "Ah, but you know as well as I that the most important commerce between the stars today are the arms and armor of military units. You must have some grounding in the military arts."

  Tor remained silent, and Singh continued. "What sign did you see in Sarghad of a mercenary cadre?"

  "I d-d-don't understand."

  "Outsiders, Captain... offworlders. A military unit... perhaps training the locals to fight."

  "I didn't see anything like that... no."

  Singh believed the man was telling the truth. He also knew this particular method of questioning could not go on for long. Tor would reveal no information after being frozen to death. Singh gestured to the guard, who swung Tor around and led him back into the warmer prisoner's quarters.

  Though Tor might not know about it, Sarghad was definitely getting help from somewhere. Singh would have to learn the source of that help before it seriously compromised the Plan. Not only would he need to learn of it, but the mercenaries would have to be eliminated once and for all.

  * * * *

  The wind grew colder as the long dark of Firstnight dragged on. A cadre of experienced troops, including both Militia and Guards, had been gathered, trained, and drilled, and they, in turn, had been set to training and drilling the volunteers who would make up the main body of the unit King Jeverid himself attended the unit's first mustering ceremony, and it was he who bestowed upon them their name: First Trellwan Lancers.

  Grayson could not help but compare his new unit with his old. The Lancers were raw and ungainly, with neither the precise snap and polish of a well-trained unit nor the easy professionalism and camaraderie of an experienced one. Carlyle's Commandos had had both the polish and the professionalism. As a boy, Grayson had admired the absolute precision of the unit's response to parade-ground orders, the snap-crack of two hundred boots clicking into place at the same instant He'd admired too that bond of absolute trust betwen each man and his squad mates, and each man and the officers and NCOs above him.

  This lot was eager, Grayson decided, but that was almost all he could say for them. All were volunteers from either the Militia or the Guards, and many had years of experience, including combat experience. But they were not yet a unit in the sense of belonging and working well together.

  The bitter rivalry between Guards and Militia continued within the ranks. In one of his first decisions, Grayson directed his sergeants not to separate the services into different companies, but to form squads and platoons without regard to the men's original affiliation. If the Lancers were to have any identity of their own or any of the pride that identity would encourage, they would have to start thinking of themselves as Lancers rather than as Guards or Militia. There were eighteen fistfights during the first standard week and three knifings. The fact that each man still wore his original green or brown uniform, with only a blue armband to distinguish him as a Lancer, didn't help.

  Grayson was learning that there was far more to organizing a 'Mech Lance than teaching thumb-fingered recruits how to pilot a BattleMech. The details of the unit's T.O. & E. threatened to drown him in extra work hours and a deluge of paperwork. The T.O. & E — the Lancer's Table of Organization and Equipment—make or break the fledging unit, and Grayson was becoming aware of the importance of staff paperwork in a way he never had been. Always before he had wondered why his father's staff included a small army of civilian secretaries and military orderlies, and why one of the Lance staff officers, Lieutenant Hanesly, had been designated as personnel officer. Now he knew why a personnel officer was needed for a 120-man company.

  Grayson's days had been one fifteen-hour work period after another, with short naps grabbed on the cot behind the office in Sarghad's armory building that had been set aside for his use. Mara had called him repeatedly on the small visor installed in the office, but he had lost count of the standard days since he'd seen her. There was simply too much to do.

  A BattleMech Lance is much more than four ‘Mechs and the men who con them. T.O.'s generally list only the pilots and Techs assigned to a particular unit, but, in fact, even a small scout Lance requires a platoon-sized body of support crew.

  First and foremost in the Trellwan Lancer's make-up was the infantry, the groundpounders Grayson was training to take on the enemy 'Mechs. Not all 'Mech units had foot soldiers attached to them, however. Carlyle's Commandos had had ground troops because it was a garrison force, and there were garrison duties that would have been impractical for a ten-meter-tall 'Mech. The Lancers were to be ground troops trained in anti-Mech warfare with 'Mechs for support, which reversed the usual role for a combat BattleMech unit.

  The idea had been General Varney's. Grayson's skill during the Battle of Sarghad had proven to the Military Council that ground troops could be used against 'Mechs. Grayson's ten years of training supported the idea. Ground forces could face 'Mechs and win, but it took a remarkable blend of skill, training, and courage to do so. This combination did not o
ccur naturally even in elite units. Grayson faced a daunting task, and he still questioned his ability to carry it out.

  The Lancers' T.O. called for two combat platoons of 60 men each. Though there were more than enough volunteers available, so far Grayson had only two short platoons of 40 each, scarcely more than a pair of platoon sections. After some work and several false starts, he had decided that the experienced sergeants on his team were able to handle no more than those 80 men. Untrained and leaderless soldiers would be far worse than no help at all.

  Also in training were 35 men with various degrees of technical and mechanical training. This was the beginning of what Grayson hoped would be a 60-man technical platoon, astechs able to work under the direction of the Lance's Techs to keep the BattleMechs armed, patched, and functioning.

  Finally, there were five men in training as MechWarriors. They were under Grayson's direct command and he worked with them for hours each day, familiarizing them with the Locust's controls and drilling them in tactics and procedure. One of them, a young Trell named Yarin showed an intuitive sense of balance and motion that might produce a MechWarrior — in about ten years. Grayson thought this part of the program was worse than useless. It would take years to bring these five up to any kind of proficiency in 'Mech operations, so it seemed absurd to spend so much time training new pilots when the unit had but a single light 'Mech on its rolls. But Grayson's own orders from the Military Council were clear on that point. What good was a 'Mech unit without MechWarriors?

  His work was made easier by two experienced sergeants... Sergeant Ramage from the Militia, who had fought Hendrik's raiders as a private ten years before, and a Guards Corporal named Brooke, whom he had promoted upon learning the man had worked in a machineshop before joining the army. Another Militia sergeant named Larressen had no combat experience, but he seemed sharp, intelligent, and unafraid of speaking his views. Ramage and Larressen became platoon leaders for platoons A and B, while Brooke was placed in charge of the Tech platoon.

  With three good men in the topkick slots, Grayson had hoped that the Lance would begin to run itself. That did not prove to be the case. The single worst problem he faced was equipment procurement. Quite simply, there was either no equipment to procure or else the available material was tied up in bureaucratic red tape and inter-department squabbling.

  The lists of what he needed were endless: portable power generators, tools ranging from laser cutters to microwrenches, portable and desktop computers and access to the military data files, visors and portable communications units, weapons for the combat platoons and ammo to go with them, portable and stationary lights, gantries and 'Mech repair cocoons, power feed cable, 'Mech spare parts ranging from servoactuator relay circuits and a portable laser to a new head and cockpit assembly for the captured Wasp. HE also needed food, drinking water and wash water, quarters and mattresses for over one hundred men, vehicles...

  Vehicles! Those were the special responsibility of the technical section, which was expected to procure, maintain, and service them. He needed HVTs and weapons carriers — ground effect HVWCs as well as the slower, heavier, tracked or wheeled vehicles. Unfortunately, there were only two sources of military vehicles in Sarghad, the Militia and the Royal Guard. Neither unit was prepared to release even one scout hovercraft to the newly-formed Lancers without guarantees that the unit would become the private elite of either the Militia or the Guard. Grayson wasted days just going through the mountain of official requisitions for service hovercraft and HTs before he realized that what he was fighting was not bureaucratic stupidly, but inter-service politics. There was, Grayson learned, intense and bitter rivalry between the Royal Guards and the Militia.

  Trellwan's human population was divided among three cities — Sarghad, Gath, and Tremain — plus a scattering of homesteads, agrodome collectives, and mining sites that stretched along perhaps a third of the equator. Sarghad was the largest city, by far, and the center of the planetary government Each city was the center of a Militia military district, with a resident regiment to serve as tax collectors, fire department, garbage collectors, and police on a world where there was little need on a day-to-day basis for a standing army.

  The Royal Guard, on the other hand, was based in Sarghad in a modern barracks beneath the Palace Grounds. Their function was purely military and primarily cosmetic on a world with a single government. They served as escorts for the King, staged parades and military reviews, and generally worked to create the image that there was indeed a monarchy in Sarghad, one rich and powerful enough to provide his private guard with attractive green uniforms. Though they claimed to be an elite force and though the Guard received the lion's share of military appropriations and equipment from the various government councils, Grayson had seen little evidence yet that they were any good as fighting soldiers.

  They had the vehicles Grayson needed, and they wouldn't release them until he could assure them that the First Trellwan Lancers would be designated as a part of the Royal Guard.

  The Militia, in turn, controlled such essentials as distribution of water and communications within the city. They provided these services only grudgingly, while awaiting word that the Lancers would be designated as a branch of the Militia.

  Grayson began his attack on the situation by giving the vehicle problem to Lieutenant Nolem, who was obviously a spy for the Guard staff command. By assigning him full-time to the task of acquiring eight hover transports, Grayson kept the Lieutenant out of his hair while keeping his need on the desk of the requisition and supply officer at Guard HQ. Perhaps if the clamor was raised long enough, loud enough...

  He won cooperation from the Militia by pointing out that his two combat platoon sergeants were both Militia, and that, while he had to go along with His Majesty's original idea that the Lancers should be drawn from both services, surely his choice of fighting sergeants was proof of where his loyalties really lay. That won him a steady supply of food and water, installation of half of the visors he needed, and the loan of one aging HVT for running errands throughout the city.

  Perhaps most ironic was the problem of his own uniform. Grayson had been decked out in Guard full dress for the ceremony at the Palace Reception Hall, but had never been issued any other uniforms or personal equipment. Guard uniform regulations required that he always wear the Crimson Star with full dress, which fact Lieutenant Nolem had tactfully pointed out to him when Grayson arrived for work without the heavy starburst. Though he was beginning to feel a proper popinjay in the elaborate green and gold, his requests for uniform requisitions went unanswered. At least, Nolem did not protest when he refused to wear his dress sword to work.

  With all that, his biggest worry was personnel. Volunteers were numerous, but painfully few were skilled as machinists, electronics techs, robotics experts, weapons handlers and armorers, mechanics, and so on. On the other hand, the troops being formed into the unit's pair of combat platoons had experience, but little equipment. Half of them were drilling with lengths of pipe. When they had been transferred to the Lancers, they'd been ordered to turn in their weapons, and so only a few had brought guns with them. There was only a handful of shoulder-fired missile launchers, heavy weapons autofire weapons, armor-piercing shells and missile warheads, plastic explosives or j detonators, or fitted body armor, and no man-portable lasers at all.

  Even when well-equipped and supplied, ground troops are woefully inadequate against an attacking BattleMech. If the Trellwan Lancers were to accomplish anything, they would have to assemble a working BattleMech Lance. He had five men in training as MechWarriors, but so far he'd had little success. Learning to pilot one of the battle machines was an agonizing and drawn-out process. Anyone could strap himself into the cockpit and move the machine's arms and legs, but it took a whole new way of thinking to control the automatic movements through the computer-linked neural helmet, and without that link, the best and strongest 'Mech in the galaxy was just so much inanimate metal and spare parts.

  He to
ok a major step toward solving the personnel problem when he brought Lori — now Staff Sergeant Lori Kalmar — aboard as senior Tech. She could answer technical questions and showed a flair for diagnosing 'Mech problems on scant information. Though there was no way to repair the damaged Wasp without procuring a complete new head and cockpit assembly, she was able to ready the 'Mech for combat in every other regard. Somehow, she even managed to rig up test circuits and relays that allowed the 'Mech to be handled (in clumsy fashion) by remote control. That meant it could serve as a mobile target for the five apprentice MechWarriors training under Grayson. They could practice dry-run tracking and weapons locks aboard the Locust, without Grayson's having to try to rig a simulator.

  Then a new trouble surfaced. Despite her obvious skill, many of the new astechs in the technical section refused to work for Lori Kalmar. She was, after all, from Hendrik's bandit confederacy. Her people, they contended, had killed many Trells in raids and skirmishes across the better part of a century, and she was certainly not to be trusted now. Add to that, she was a woman in the male-dominated Trellwan culture. Women held few positions of real power, were never found in either military branch other than as secretaries or clerical assistants, and there was the continuing unspoken tradition that the place for woman was at home, raising children. A young, pretty woman giving orders to men on the job was simply not taken seriously.

  That problem would never go away entirely, though Lori had made some progress on her own. Once, after she gave an order to an astech, he simply ignored her. Though she repeated the command, the man responded with a leer and a suggestion about what he'd like to do instead. But warrior apprentices on Sigurd were well trained in the martial disciplines. They learned not only how to pilot a 'Mech, but how to use firearms, sticks, knives, and bare hands to deadly effect The insubordinate astech woke up to find himself a guest in Sarghad's hospital, where he was being treated for a broken jaw. From that time on, Sergeant Kalmar found her orders greeted with considerably greater enthusiasm.