“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 “But the offer was withdrawn and passed to the tax collector anyway.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 misbehavior. 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?”