Grace sat in Pirate as she had since noon, when the first reports started coming in of Roughriders approaching Kilkenny. Her ’Mech almost touched the ceiling of Flaherty’s Dance Emporium. How Ben had gotten the big Atlas to damn near sit under its not-tall-enough roof was something she did not want to know. A half-dozen ’Mechs MODs stood waiting along the dance floor, like some gargantuan line dance. At the back end of the hall, infantry held in place the section of wall they’d blown out to get the ’Mechs in. At the other end of the hall, Betsy and more infantry made ready to blow another hole. Two blocks away stood the steeple Grace had used to plan this new battle.

Betsy reported that Hanson was up in the steeple now. May St. Peter, St. Patrick and St. Michael keep him from using it as well as Grace hoped she had. Reports from lookouts scattered around town and brought by messengers through the sewers said that the fighting outside Kilkenny was not going the Roughriders’ way. Except for that, Grace was deaf, dumb and blind.

Atop his Atlas, Ben stirred from his nap. “It is time,” he called to Grace.

“Time to move out,” she called to the other ’Mechs. The room hummed with electronics and began to fill with smoke as engines coughed to life. Grace made sure her neurohelmet was in place, then checked her cooling vest. She followed the new checklist, but her two gyros stuttered and did not sync. She let them spin for a minute, then shut them down and restarted them. This time they synced. “Watch them,” the gal who’d had Pirate told Grace. “If you take a hard step or knock into a building, the gyros go crazy. I’ve gotten to where I can restart them real fast.”

Grace was probably nowhere near as fast, but this was her fight and Grace would fight it herself. She tapped her radio. “Form two lances. Back four go out the back way and support us as planned. You two behind me, follow Ben. Understood?” They answered in the affirmative. Grace crossed herself. “Let’s go.”

There was a soft explosion as Betsy blew out the east wall of Flaherty’s place. Beside her, two guards kept a short balding man on a tight chain. Betsy gave the ’Mechs a jaunty thumbs-up as they strode forth into what Grace hoped would be the decisive battle for Alkalurops.

Two blocks away a command van stood just outside the Congregational Church. Troopers in Roughrider tan looked up in surprise. Grace gave the van a short burst, but thirty-millimeter tungsten penetrators do not just flatten tires and blow out a radiator. The undercarriage of the command van was shredded. Behind the van a familiar-looking Koshi and an Arbalest got moving just as Ben sent an SRM volley at the two.

Grace quickly moved to the left side of the street, Ben began to lumber down the center, and the other two ’Mechs took the right. The Roughrider ’Mechs backed up, zigzagging in a random fashion to complicate the big Atlas’ firing solutions. Ben squeezed off SRM volleys at random intervals, but only one struck a glancing blow to the Koshi.

The Koshi returned fire, sending rockets at the Atlas. One miss bounced Grace off the building beside her, and her gyros lost sync. Stalled, she managed to restart the pair and get moving just before the Arbalest burned the place she’d been standing with a laser burst.

Grace fired a short burst, sending sparks and shards of armor flying from both ’Mechs, to tell Ben she was still in the fight. The Roughriders concentrated on the Atlas as they backed up, failing to notice the four ’Mech MODs behind them until a barrage of rockets exploded around them. The Arbalest spun even as it danced right. Grace had a good guess what messages were flying between those two. If she was going to keep them from jumping out of this, she had to act now.

She mashed herLOUDSPEAKER button. “This is Grace O’Malley, Alkalurops Defense Forces Commanding Officer,” echoed off the walls of the two story buildings around them. “I wish to talk to Major Loren Hanson of the Roughriders.”

“This is Major Hanson,” blared back at her. “I am not prepared to discuss my surrender with you.”

“That’s fine, because I wish to discuss my surrender.”

“Your surrender?”

“Yes.”

“Is this some kind of trick?”

“I am a miner, Major, not a murderer. I wish to end this killing. If the only way I can is to discuss my surrender, that is what I will do. Haven’t I earned the right to talk surrender terms?”

“You have done that,” he said as the cockpit of his Koshi opened. “You could write a book on Fabian tactics.”

“Why write a book that others would just use against me?” Grace said as she opened Pirate’s cockpit. “My infantry leader has some data files she thinks you might like to review.”

“You mean my maid, Betty Rose?”

“A gal takes whatever job she can,” came with a laugh from behind Grace. Betsy was advancing along the sidewalk, machine pistol in one hand, a large ’puter in the other. Behind her trailed two guards with a very reluctant Field Marshal.

“I recognize the guy behind you,” the Major said.

“I thought you would,” Betsy called up to him. “Want to come down here and ask him a few questions? I think you’ll find him both entertaining and possibly lifesaving.”

16

Allabad, Alkalurops

Prefecture IX, The Republic of the Sphere

2 September 3134; local late summer

Grace was hot, filthy and tightly chained. Not her idea of a good time, but Santorini had sent very specific instructions on how he wanted his prisoners decked out for his victory parade. Hanson had obeyed. Hanson had obeyed every order Santorini had issued since the collapse of the opposition.

That included pictures of Kilkenny’s lampposts strung with corpses. Fortunately, Fetterman had old photos he had not sent Santorini, so the demand had been met without too much trouble.

Grace staggered in chains down Landers Row in Allabad, toward the Guild Hall, renamed the Leader’s Chancellery. In the brick-paved plaza in front of the clock tower, Santorini waited in full uniform, more shining silver than black serge. Imperious, he sat atop his Ryoken II, cockpit open to the slight breeze. Some poor lackey had been hooked to the outside of the BattleMech, sixteen meters up, to hold a parasol lest the morning sun that had now cleared the canyon wall above Allabad beat down uncomfortably upon the Leader. The scene was like some ancient vid of rajahs and elephants and slaves.

Grace struggled to keep such thoughts from her face.

“Take a good look at what happens to anyone stupid enough to cross your Leader.” Santorini’s voice boomed from an oversized speaker mounted on the chest of the Ryoken II. Up and down Landers Row, other speakers blared the same. Not surprisingly, the Net was back up and carrying this spectacle. Grace was counting on that. “Look at what everyone can expect who gets in the way of the future of my worlds.”

Worlds, now, Grace thought. This guy really is on a trip.

“You sure this was part of your dream?” Ben whispered from beside Grace. Jobe and Chato struggled along on her other side. Behind them, Victoria and Danny shuffled in step, heads defiantly high. It was probably the first time in their lives that those two Highlanders had been together on anything. Sven worried Grace. Pale as new snow, he stumbled along, helped by Betsy and George Stillwell. Grace had been willing to let Sven skip the prisoners’ walk, but he’d insisted. It was Syn Bakai who refused to risk breaking a nail, so Hanson had reported her killed while attempting to escape. Her lovely body was lashed to one of the following tanks, per Santorini’s orders. Grace hoped Syn had forgotten her sunblock and burned tomato red.