“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?”
“That about covers it, sir.”
“Captain, see that this is read to all personnel at morning formation. Inform the officers that if I have to flog a trooper, his officer will be strung up right beside him, taking lash for lash, fifty in all, and wishing I would hang him, too.” L. J. slowly took in his staff. These were tough orders, but their situation would allow nothing less. No one questioned him.
“That will be done, Major,” Eddie said.
“Very good.” L. J. glanced around the room, now vacant except for his XO, ops, adjutant and Topkick. “We have problems. I want ideas—ideas far beyond any book written.”
“I don’t think the regiment has ever been a tyrant’s enforcer,” Arthur St. George said.
“XO, we are not a tyrant’s enforcer,” L. J. shot back. “His damned Special Police are doing the enforcing just fine for him. We are stuck out here, keeping the locals from doing what any enraged citizenry would do—throw the bums out. It is not the same thing, and I don’t want our troops to even think it is the same thing. We can’t let our troops see their hands covered with the same sewage Santorini’s swimming in. If they do, we lose all discipline. And without that, ladies and gentlemen, we’re no better than civilians.”
The staff looked at one another for a long minute, absorbed all he’d said, examined what he saw for the battalion and their own careers. None much appreciated the view.
Topkick responded first. “Usual answer for problems like these, sir, is to keep the troops busy. Make sure they’re too bushed to get in trouble.”
“Most of them are working twelve-hour watches already,” Eddie put in. “After we terminated the locals, just guarding the compounds is taking most of our troops’ time.”
“Keep them away from the locals,” Art said as if reading a textbook’s checklist. He shook his head. “Hardly need to do that. Since the Oktoberfest, the locals are damn standoffish, right, Mallary?” The ops officer scowled but nodded her agreement.
“Not a lot of patrolling going on,” L. J. said, leafing through his ’puter reports. “What are the locals up to?”
“Don’t know, sir,” Mallary answered. “I don’t know what anyone is up to. The Net’s only playing old vids, no local news. I can’t ask our client to report who his bully boys are thumping. The battalion is deaf, dumb and blind, sir.”
“A great way to get massacred,” Art said before L. J. could.
L. J. glanced at a map of his command, scattered over twelve towns. Once that wide deployment had given him control over the ground he walked, and recruiting fields with which to grow his battalion. Now security was eating his lunch, leaving him few troops for patrols outside his own perimeter fence.
“Mallary, if you were to concentrate the battalion down from the scatter-hell we’re in right now, what would you abandon? Where would you center our force?”
She tapped her hand computer, and a map filled the table. “The new mining claims centered on New York and New Pittsburgh are not under our client’s control. I would ignore them as sources of trouble.”
“So would I,” L. J. said.
“That leaves this area,” she said, indicating a large expanse centered on Dublin Town. “Allabad is south of us, but there’s not a lot south of it. Too hot I hear.”
“This whole planet is too hot,” Eddie moaned.
“Little London, Lothran and Banya are south of us. But I suspect you knew that when you picked your new headquarters,” she said with a pleased smile at spotting what her boss was up to.
“Due north is the Gleann Mor Valley—lovely, I’m told, this time of year with Scotch broom, thistle, and heather in bloom. Explain why a lot of ’Mechs have taken to walking its hills.”
That surprised the other staff but not L. J. “When did they start their perambulating about in the open?”
“Two days ago. Our awe-inspiring client confiscated all that expensive housing that morning. Gray ’Mechs started drilling in full view that afternoon.”
“Think our fearless Leader got the intended message?”
“If he did, it didn’t keep him next day from confiscating what was valuable in the other four towns his toads took over. Nobody’ll accuse him of being the compassionate, caring type,” Mallary said.
“Not me, anyway. What kind of ’Mech force is up north?”
“I counted thirty-nine gray ’Mech MODs, several dozen gray gun trucks led by a hovertank, sir, and lots of infantry. And there’s a surprise, sir—a dozen or more battle suits.”
“Surprises, surprises,” L. J. said. “Firepower?”
“Only a guess, sir. Our satellite’s not the best. At full power, it’s doing well to make out the battle suits. What they’re carrying is anybody’s guess.”
“Can’t be too bad,” Art said. “The only BattleMech this planet had a year ago was the Legate’s ’Mech, and our Leader is running around in that for kicks.”
“Captain, how do you get minerals out of rock?”