by Mike Moscoe
The only way Alkalurops could absorb millions more workers was to either let in immigrants or dig them out of their own population. That meant two workers from each family, which would probably be necessary for a family to survive. What with all the new mouths to feed and house and provide cars for, the price of everything was going to skyrocket.
“Isn’t progress a wonderful thing to observe in action?” Jobe said, rolling his eyes. Around her, Grace could see people working it out for themselves. Some saw profits and smiled. Others, like her, counted the cost and scowled.
Santorini paused for a moment to sip from a cup of water at his elbow. A perfect pause for all concerned. As he put the cup down, he cleared his throat. When he continued, his voice was pitched to fill every corner of the hall. Even the food hawkers fell silent.
“At the moment, however, I believe the matter most urgent for your attention is the special relationship between me—or rather my corporation—and a group of freedom fighters.”
He let the words hang in the air for a moment. “Those with business connections on Skye know that its transfer from the Lyran Commonwealth to The Republic left many unsatisfied.” That was news to Grace, and she did have business connections on Skye. She glanced at Gordon Frazier from Kilkenny and a few other friends. Their faces were pretty well frozen in neutral. Maybe a slight furrow of the brow hinted that this was not going down well.
“Into the silence of the HPG links, Landgrave Jasek Kelswa-Steiner has raised his flag to correct that wrong by The Republic. People from Skye and all over The Republic have flocked to his standard, that of the ancient Stormhammer, and Nusakan has provided him a base for his operations. Not by chance, his presence has given us the kind of shield that other, less guarded worlds have come to envy. If I choose Alkalurops as the new base for LCI, be assured that the Landgrave will fully protect you from further depredations.”
“Assuming we don’t get hit by whoever is trying to hit the Landgrave,” Grace said into the silence.
“The Stormhammers are most competent at protecting their interests,” Santorini snapped.
“Where have we heard that before?” came from somewhere down the table.
Grace had no intention of letting this get away from her. She stood and spoke. “And what is the price of this protection? Is the Landgrave willing to do this out of the kindness of his heart? Is this company you work for”—Grace emphasized this point, one that she felt Santorini had skimmed over—“so important to the Landgrave that he protects it purely for the natural benefits, or is there more to the relationship?”
The off-worlder dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “I’m sure something can be worked out to everyone’s convenience.”
“What will it cost to have the Stormhammers protect us?” Grace demanded. “In plain language, please.”
Now Santorini stood up, unwinding himself from his chair like a man bothered by a gnat. “What has your own poor protection just cost you? Is there a single good ’Mech left on any lot in town?” As he shot his glance around the table, Grace heard the Sales and Service Guild master mumble a quick negative.
“How many of you lost IndustrialMechs off your fields, out of your businesses, your mines?” Many nods around the table. “Are they easily replaced?” The head-shakes were near frantic.
“Defense against the raiders and scavengers roaming space is not cheap. The Stormhammers ask for a donation of thirty percent of your net off-world trade. For that, they give you the security that is essential if you are to have any trade at all.”
“Thirty percent?!” came out in one breath around the table.
“You bought into the fairy tale that The Republic could keep you safe for a pittance: one Governor, one Legate, and a few trembling Constabulary jokes. What has it gotten you? Cleaned out, that’s what. You want safety, but it is not free. Do you want to be alive and in business next year? The year after? Or do you want to be a pile of bones, picked clean by any roving band that happens by? The choice is yours. Now, if you don’t mind, I have business with the Industrial Trade Group.”
Santorini and the mining company managers stood, nodded curtly to the room, and left, the heels of their shoes beating a confident cadence on the tiles.
“You certainly queered that deal, woman,” Dev snapped. “Now he’ll probably jack the price up to forty percent.”
Garry hammered the gavel, and the room stayed quiet. “Grace O’Malley, are you prepared to speak for the small-holders and small towns?” the mayor of Little London demanded.
Grace glanced around the table. Some nodded, while others seemed less willing to let her talk for them. No surprise there. “I’ll start talking and see how long it is before someone sees the need to correct me.” At the top of their lungs, no doubt.
“You have a counterproposal to Mr. Santorini’s offer?”
Grace rested her hands on the table and leaned into the room as she might against the wind of a spring hurricane. “For eight hundred years we’ve walked this planet. There’s aren’t a lot of us,” she said, standing tall. “You all know why. The air stinks, or so off-worlders tell us. It’s too hot and dry, they tell us, except when a hurricane’s blowing or a thunderstorm is dropping hail and maybe a tornado.” That brought a familiar chuckle from around the table.
“But it’s our land. The land our parents mined or farmed before us. This is the land we raise our kids on as we choose. Now this guy comes in here and offers to buy us out and load us up with a lot of strangers. He promises a wonderful business boom, but, oh, by the way, you’ll have to pay for some goons to protect you from some other goons.
“Damn it, we’ve faced attackers before. Our great-great-greats stood up to them and drove them off—and people learned that attacking Alkalurops was not a good idea. Even the drunk-on-heaven Jihad freaks didn’t come here.”
She turned slowly, letting her eyes make contact with the people scattered around the tables. “We may not have much, but we protect it. We protect it. Not some hireling. Not somebody with a bone to pick with someone else who just might come over here to pick that bone—and end up picking our bones.
“Alkalurops takes care of its own. We don’t ask anyone to take care of us, and we sure don’t take care of anyone else. I say take this off-world proposal and stuff it up his off-world ass.” The room erupted in cheers, just as Grace had hoped it would. She stood there, enjoying for a moment the rush that came from knowing she was doing right and a slew of people agreed with her. It was a good five minutes before Garry even tried to hammer the room to silence. But as he did hammer, she waved down the ruckus, and the room went back to quiet.
“I guess that shows a pretty solid majority supporting you,” Garry said. “Can I ask a few questions about your proposal?”
“Yes,” Grace said.
“Make damn sure they’re questions,” came from down the table, “or we may just march up there and give her that gavel.” That got the hall rumbling. Grace waved them to quiet, and most did.
“Thank you, Grace,” Garry said, sounding as though he meant it. “My question is, how do we defend ourselves? Our Legate’s dead. Most ranking Constabulary officers didn’t survive the raid.”
“We got our butts kicked,” came from the foot of the table.
“Not to put too fine a point on it,” Garry said, “but we did get our butts kicked. I haven’t heard—how did the militia do around Falkirk? Did you call it out?”
“I led it,” Grace said, “and we got our butts kicked.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I thought that with you saying we should defend ourselves, you might have been more successful.”
“No, Garry,” Grace admitted. “If there hadn’t been a hill to our rear, we’d have been massacred like everyone else. We were lucky.”
“So, are you planning on all of us getting lucky like you next time?” Dev shot at her.
Garry shushed his friend, but then looked at Grace. “He does have a point. How are we supposed to
defend ourselves?”
Grace took a moment to organize her thoughts, but the experience of talking Falkirk’s town meeting through this had been solid preparation. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I need something I don’t have—equipment, skills, whatever—I hire it. We haven’t needed fighting skills, so we don’t have any. There are those who do. I say we hire them. Hire them to teach us how to take care of ourselves, and to fight side by side with us.”
“You think you can do that?” asked Garry. A sincere question this time.
“I was on my way to the merc camps on Galatea when I stopped in here. Falkirk is for sending a team to Galatea. Have them look over the mercenary units there and hire a cadre to train us and fight alongside us.”
“I don’t know if that’s the way the mercs work,” Garry said.
“Maybe they didn’t before, but then, we didn’t used to have raiders dropping in. Times are changing. I’ll find mercs who are ready to change with the times and train us to protect ourselves.”
“Aren’t BattleMechs different from our IndustrialMechs?” came from the Guild Master for ’Mech Sales and Service.
“Yes. We captured a hovertank at Falkirk,” Grace began.
“You captured a hovertank,” ran through the hall. At her side even Garry muttered it.
“Yes, the Navajo set traps,” she said, indicating Chato beside her, “and caught a hovertank. The thing had armor tougher than anything we have, and it had sensors that go way beyond what any of us had ever seen. Nobody said taking care of ourselves was simple or easy. But we’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. Let’s not stop now.”
Garry nodded, then spoke into the quiet. “Not to sound unwilling, but I have to ask you the same question you asked Mr. Santorini. What will this cost us?”
“And to quote him, this doesn’t come cheap. The major land owners around Falkirk promised to ante up ten percent of last year’s profits.”
And so began the hard part. Negotiations took the rest of the day and most of the night, but the next morning, when Grace, Chato and Jobe checked out of the hostel and drove out to the spaceport, she felt good. Not everyone had anted up, but a lot of money would be coming in.
As they turned toward the port after the long climb up West Canyon Road, Jim Wilson buzzed her on the Net. “Can you meet me at that hamburger joint along Spaceport Road?” he requested.
“You didn’t think I was going to let one of my trucks sit in the parking lot for the months you were gone?” he said as Jobe parked the rig next to where Wilson stood with his son.
“I couldn’t see you paying the bill for that,” Grace shot back as she got out. “I figured I’d see you before I left.”
“And you were going off-planet with just the change in your pocket?” Wilson said, raising an eyebrow. “How are you set for cash?”
Grace wasn’t broke, but she had been wondering how her credit would hold up on a long trip, what with the HPG breakdown.
“I should be able to get by,” she told him.
“Good, then maybe you won’t have to use this,” he said, producing a smart card. “This is paid in advance and issued by the First Bank of Galatea. My old man set up a couple of these on planets we did business with. I don’t think he trusted the HPG. Me, I figured he was just old-fashioned. This ought to cover the personal bills for all three of you.”
“I can’t take that,” Grace said.
“I hope you don’t say that to everything I brought,” Wilson said, “’cause not all of it’s mine. Here’s a gift from the folks along the Donga River.” He pulled out a small bag and tossed it to Jobe, who emptied it into his hand. A small fortune in cut diamonds poured out.
“Good lord,” Grace said.
“Very good,” Jobe said. “I will thank my senior wife for doing as she promised she would.”
“Huh?” Grace got out.
“Ghome said she would get donations so we could pay soldiers to defend us, soldiers to protect us.” Jobe smiled. “She told me that before I left. I told her it would not be necessary. We warriors could stand against mere raiders. You can see what she thinks of me.”
“Sound more like she wants you home,” Grace said.
“That would not be Ghome. Maybe Bhana, my second wife, but not Ghome.”
“What do you have from White River?” Chato asked. A second sack spilled jade, turquoise and emeralds. “Good; very good. My sister did not let us be shamed among the others.”
“Was I the only one who didn’t plan on buying mercs until I got my butt kicked?” Grace asked the sky.
“Include me in that fine company,” Wilson said.
“It’s been a long time,” Jobe said, “since you Irish, you Scots, went roaming on Terra, but still you walk as if nothing can defeat you. Some of us remember what it was like to be among your defeated. Now we fight side by side, but sometimes it is better to remember that you can lose. Is that not so, Chato?”
“We still sing the old songs around the winter campfires. You stay inside and watch your vids too much.”
Wilson shook his head. “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, there’s also Navajo and Donga River jewelry in the truck, enough to fill a strongbox. I’ve collected money from folks around Falkirk—enough to help with the first few months of the contract. I’m buying a major chunk of the hydrocarbons in the cargo of this DropShip. Even if the credit system is bonkers, you won’t be without some serious cash once this cargo is sold on Galatea.”
“Thanks for the help.”
“I’ve been following the goings-on at the Guild Hall for the last two days. I’d say I had the easy job. Take care out there among all those off-worlders.”
“Strange how that works, Jim,” said Grace. “You go to some other planet and it’s full of off-worlders.”
“Chato, Jobe, Grace, you all take care,” Wilson said, offering his hand. His son stood beside him, a newer copy of what life was like on Alkalurops.
This is worth fighting for, Grace told herself. I will find a way to defend what is ours.
3
Steerage-Class Accommodations
DropShip Star of Dyev
En route from Alkalurops to Galatea
18 April 3134
The Star of Dyev was the kind of tramp DropShip that bothered to stop at planets like Alkalurops. Tramp ships had cargo holds, crew quarters and maybe some spare cabins for passengers. Star of Dyev had only one spare, so Grace would have to share tight quarters with Jobe and Chato.
“Too bad I did not bring my second wife,” Jobe said. “This could have been a fun time.”
“I thought your second wife was the one who talked too much and argued even more,” Grace said.
“Yes, she does that. But she can be very nice when she chooses to be,” he recalled with a sigh.
Chato handed him a reader. “I downloaded everything about ’Mechs, battles and the old wars on Alkalurops. Most of it is political commentary, but there are a few schematics and tech readouts. Maybe if we put our heads together, we can make sense of what’s been written.”
“Warriors who survive battles have nothing but boasts,” Jobe said.
“At least they survived,” Chato pointed out.
“Gentlemen, we’re stuck in this tin can for the next month,” Grace reminded them. “Let’s not kill one another too early. I understand the crew has set up a pool on who dies first and how soon.”
“That is inconsiderate of them,” Jobe said.
“I thought you would bet on anything,” Chato said.
“Yes. That is what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of them not to offer us a chance to join the pool.”
“Scan your reader,” Grace said, ducking into her bunk.
Liftoff was noisy and heavy. The trip out was at a solid 1G acceleration. That was fine, but the company! What was it with men? They made the cabin unbearable! At first she joked about the betting pool, but after two weeks, she was ready to start her own by asking the crew to come up with cre
ative new ways for her two companions to kill each other. Grace took to long walks in the cargo hold to read about war and avoid the warring men.
But the information in the reader left her more frustrated. Most of the histories were just glosses: Someone did this; someone else did that; someone won because of this other factor, which left Grace wondering if battle leaders really controlled what caused them to win. Other accounts about a great man’s BattleMech were so technically detailed that Grace could not tell what was going on. She’d pushed a MiningMech most of her adult life, and Jobe had done the same for either an Agro or MiningMech as well, but neither of them could figure out how these MechWarriors handled their machines. Was driving a BattleMech all that different from driving Pirate?
Grace felt as if she was trying to understand mining operations by reading one of the journals she subscribed to. Yes, she learned a lot from them, but if Pop hadn’t spent years teaching her everything he knew and her mom hadn’t insisted she sit her young butt down and learn all the basic stuff, most of it would have gone right over her head, the way this was.
“Who can teach me the basics?” she asked the huge gray hydrocarbon tank she was sitting under. It had no answer.
Spacesick, Grace watched on the mess deck screen as the Star of Dyev buried itself in a docking collar of the JumpShip Brandon’s Leviathan, also known as “Big Lug.” They were thirty-seven days out from Allabad: twenty-eight days climbing to this jump point at 1G, then twiddling their weightless thumbs for nine days waiting for a JumpShip to come by. JumpShips running between important points like Terra or Skye kept to schedules. Ships to out-of-the-way places like Alkalurops maintained a looser schedule. This one had been delayed four jumps back, waiting for a business deal to go down. The story around the Dyev was that the Big Lug would be back on schedule in another nine jumps. Until then DropShips could just drift and passengers puke. Maybe the reputed stink of Alkalurops’ air wasn’t the only reason big companies went elsewhere; the erratic JumpShip schedule was a real deterrent. If LCI moved its headquarters here, that might change. And that would probably lead to a whole lot of other changes.