“Wasn’t there another? Betsy?” Laird said.

“Betsy Ross. She stayed behind in Allabad to find answers. I sure hope she can.”

“So we fight,” Wilson said.

Grace took a deep breath. “That’s the way I see it.”

“Maybe the next raiders won’t get this far,” Ho said.

Laird agreed. “There are all those ’Mechs over at the big corporate mines. That would be the place to go next.”

Wilson snorted. “If Santorini is behind this, he’s already cut a deal with the corporations. We little guys are the ones that have to look out. And we’ll have to do it alone.”

“Then you think all this is no accident,” Grace said.

“Anyone disagree?” Wilson asked. No one did. “I say we fight, but I think we’ll be surprised at who we end up fighting.”

The town meeting went long, but the people of Falkirk were for a fight if one came their way. When the hands went up for the vote, Grace checked the eyes. Many were looking around furtively. They were ready to fight, but no one looked forward to it.

The next day the Net reported that efforts to raise the DropShip got no reply. Talking heads offered thoughts, fears, hopes, doubt. No one really knew anything. Grace ignored the Net.

She had plenty to do. Jobe returned with two dozen ’Mechs from the entire Donga River Valley as well as trucks, and men in the trucks to form the infantry. Chato returned, too. More Navajos were crossing the mountains to join him every day. No one could tell another the path for his feet, but where a man like Chato led, many followed. They made superb engineers.

But with Betsy gone, who’d train the infantry? “No problem,” Ben assured her. “It will be a while before there are any ’Mechs to train in. Danny, Victoria, Sean and I can organize an infantry school of some quality.”

“Yeah, Biddy could show them how to march by a pub without stopping.” Danny laughed at his own joke, but got serious when all three glared at him. “All right, I can show them how to march, too.”

“You can’t just order these men around,” Grace said. “They have to know why you need them to do what you tell them.”

“Sean will be perfect for that,” Victoria said as the young man reddened. “He knows battles. He can show your militia where good men made the difference.”

So that gave a purpose to the men and women who drove up from the valley and even from the plains, but that didn’t put a roof over their heads. Grandpa had had a large family, but Grace had found his house rather spacious for just Mother and her. It absorbed the mercs. Wilson’s bunkhouse took in the early-arrival volunteers, and other folks around town found room for the families who came with their would-be warriors. Tents in a wash above town where trees took the worst heat off the day handled others.

Constabulary Lieutenant Hicks brought in a dozen men, rigged a crane, and unloaded battle armor from a flatbed truck. Grace slapped him on the back. “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

The lieutenant flashed her a rueful smile. “You know, after that last raid, I was going to take up chicken farming, but the warehouse behind the shop had these boxes gathering dust for more years than I can remember. I figured I’d check on them as I left. Turns out we have twelve sets of Gnome battle armor. A note from the Legate five back told our commander to use these if he thought his men had time to master them. Guess my boss wanted us out giving tickets rather than learning ’em.” He turned to Ben, stood to attention, and saluted. “Sir, can you train my men to use this gear?”

“With a glad heart,” Ben said.

“There’re a few other Constabulary posts finding stuff in their inventory that dead captains didn’t want to mess with and the raiders missed. I’m just the first; there’ll be more.”

And there were. Of course, that meant more men and families to feed. Mother and Auntie Maydell took charge, but still Grace wasn’t left with time on her hands. Others saw to that. One afternoon Sven came out from Mick’s shop. “I have something for you.”

“Problem?” Grace asked. Why would this man want to show me a problem? If he can’t solve it, I sure can’t.

“We’ve been taking ’Mechs apart. We’re about to put them back together. Thought you’d like to see what’ll make your Pirate a real cutthroat.” Grace followed Mick into the shade of the shop. It smelled of burnt plastic, hot metal and men’s sweat—not a bad perfume to attract a mining woman.

Mick joined Sven, a proud grin on his face. “You gonna show the mayor what we can do.” Thank God, St. Peter and St. Patrick the two fellows hit it off. Grace didn’t want to think what would have happened if they had pulled at cross-purposes.

“Here’s the chassis, stripped to the buff. I hope we’re not offending a young lady’s fine sensibilities.” Mick grinned.

Grace made a show of looking around. “Don’t see any ladies. Never met one in Falkirk. Just us hardworking miners with dirty fingernails,” she said, waving a hand at them.

“I’m using that fine carbon filament Sven brought to wrap the legs, arms and thorax. It doesn’t add much weight and should nearly double the load they can carry.”

“The engines are a given,” Sven said with a nod to the good word Mick had given him, “but your man here is a prince among motor men when it comes to jacking up the output. These engines will be putting out a good twenty percent above advertised horsepower. Thirty percent for short bursts.”

“It’s all in the injectors. What’s making ’em fighting machines is the armor this old scoundrel lifted from some blind man,” Mick said, pounding the other man on the shoulder.

“It’s easy to get this old rig to spew out composite armor,” Sven said. “The new armor-repair kits work only on the Armstrong stuff they use for IndiMechs. This old press was made from an even older design, when IndiMechs were new. It remembers where it came from. We run the outer armor through. Aligned crystal steel is ACS whether it’s for an IndustrialMech or BattleMech. That fine young man you recruited at Allabad was kind enough to donate the ceramic-fiber spinning mill he used to repair bumpers. It gives us everything we need for some serious ferro-fibrous armor.”

“And I had plenty of artificial diamond monofilament,” Mick chortled. “What do you think I use to retip all the drills you miners bring me to sharpen? The cubic boron nitride composite looked to be the show stopper, but Ho had a ton of the stuff. He uses it to insulate freezers. We have to melt it out of the honeycomb matrix, but it works fine.”

“One run through the autoclave makes the outer skin. The next run makes the inner protective layer. A third run binds the two together. Not quite as solid as you get from the factories, but damn better than any other stuff.” Sven finished, and both men grinned like a pair of well-fed cats.

“Great,” Grace said, “but can the ’Mechs take the weight? Mick, didn’t we about max out Pirate’s gyros when we added that armor? Brady landing on his ass was funny, but his own gyros had as much to do with that as the rocket that just missed him.”

The guys looked at each other. “We can’t make bigger gyros,” Sven said, as though he was admitting to not having the right screwdriver, “so we’re doubling up on them. The raiders took all the ’Mechs around Allabad, but they didn’t hit the spare parts all that bad. Mick got the word out, and we’re due for a truckload of gyros that’ll let us put two sets in every ’Mech.”

“And the good part is, I got one hundred and twenty days to pay for them. With luck, we’ll be converting these ’Mechs back to workers by the time the suppliers want their bill paid,” Mick crowed.

“They’re charging you!” Grace exploded.

Mick just shrugged. Grace had the feeling she’d taken the hook in bait and switch. “About those gyros…” she said.

The guys eyed each other. “Well, there’s a reason there’s only one set of gyros,” Mick said. “You get two sets and they can argue with each other, end up working against each other. Anyway, in the spin-up checklist, we’ve addedSYNCHRONIZE GYROS .”