“Farmers are withholding produce from market. I require you to conduct a sweep of land around Allabad and bring the farmers and their produce trucks in at gunpoint. If they resist, kill the first few. The rest will follow.”
L. J. gave Betsy another mark for quality intel. “That’d be quite an operation, sir.” About equal to killing the goose that laid the golden egg, but L. J. didn’t say that. “Unfortunately, it is not covered by our contract.”
“Not covered!”
“Our contract is to seize and hold this planet. We seized it rather faster than expected and held it for the month while you were in transit. You relieved us from holding the area around Allabad and other cities. You will have to use your own police to do that, sir.”
L. J. considered suggesting he lower the tax rate on food sold at the market since it was pretty clear food was making it through back channels to other food providers. If the man couldn’t figure out why meat was not on his own table, L. J. certainly wouldn’t be the one to paint him a picture. Messengers for guys like Santorini tended to get killed for carrying what otherwise looked like useful bits of information.
It didn’t matter. His com went dead immediately. “I don’t think our Leader is happy,” he told Mallary.
“Then he’ll be even less happy when he finds out what I just did while you were on the phone.”
“Which was?”
“A patrol inside Lothran was attacked by boys throwing rocks. I told the patrol to withdraw.”
“Good order for today. Eddie, get in here, we’re redeploying the battalion,” he shouted. “One company here in Dublin Town and the others here, here and here,” he said, tapping small towns in an arc between Dublin and the mouth of the Gleann Mor Valley.
“That our threat axis?” Mallary asked.
“It’s the only real threat we face.” Eddie ducked his head in L. J.’s office and listened to the new deployment. “Again, I want to remove everything with the regiment’s stamp, seal or brand on it. Leave nothing behind.”
“And you want it all done yesterday. I understand, sir.”
“No.” L. J. smiled. “I don’t think you do, Captain. You see, while a unit is redeploying, it loses some of its ability to react to new orders. Its commander might even have to tell his client he was temporarily unable to perform a requested mission, if you take my meaning, Captain.”
“Moving could be considered a reason to temporarily not do some things that you might not want to do,” Eddie said.
“No, no, no,” L. J. said as if to a particularly slow child. “The regiment is always ready to execute its orders. That is our tradition. It’s just that in a redeployment, it might have to complete one order before doing another. And since we must be very meticulous about this move…”
“Yes, sir. Understood, sir. The battalion will always be ready for orders, sir, and I am about to set a new record for redeployment—just not one I’ll mention on my next résumé.”
“I think we misunderstand each other perfectly,” L. J. said.
“Major,” Mallary said once Eddie was gone, “in your next command, if you need an ops officer, I sure hope you’ll skip my name.”
“Mallary, my friend, unless we’re careful, all of our names will be entered on the rolls of the regiment with a little note to ‘pick this one last.’”
Grace had a new intelligence source, thanks to a couple of Jobe’s boys. They had rigged a search on the Net—not the public side that was about as exciting as cold potatoes, but the personal side with its notes and letters. It painted an ugly picture.
The Black and Reds were spreading out from their five main towns, demanding that farmers sell them produce, crops and meat at a discount to cover the cost of taxes. That amounted to near confiscation, but since it was at gunpoint, objections were limited to notes and mail among farmers.
The Black and Reds were still buying homes, businesses, farms—anything they wanted. Those who resisted didn’t go to jail; now they just died right there in front of their families. Sales resistance dropped to nil even as the mail got hotter and hotter. At least the people who were bought out were allowed to live in their homes and run their businesses. The thugs had a big appetite but didn’t seem to know what to do with what they stole.
Unfortunately, they knew what to do with women.
Alkalurops had never made a cult of a girl’s virginity, but here girls decided. Grace could still hear Ma’s instructions. “When you make up your mind, I know I won’t be able to stop you, but don’t let a boy be making up your mind for you. You decide. You call the shots.”
Now Black and Reds were calling the shots.
In Lothran the new rules ended in a shoot-out between a family and the Black and Reds. The boys couldn’t stop the police squad that took their sister, but they knew the town and how to use their gopher rifles. From first reports, it looked as if the boys were winning, almost a dozen Black and Reds down and screaming for medics. Then the ’Mechs stomped in.
The boys were dead, their father and mother as well. The sister was found with her throat slit. To keep Lothran from thinking about doing this twice, the ’Mechs shot up and trampled the eight blocks where the shoot-out took place.
Not all of it, though. The Black and Reds had bought up a house here, a business there. They stood among the rubble.
Alkalurops was a powder keg, waiting for the spark.
Two days later the spark came.
A gun truck of Black and Reds was out making sure farmers got their produce to the now government-owned packing plants. They must have been getting plenty careless. They didn’t fire a shot when a farmer and his two sons nailed them with their AgroMechs. The farmer shredded the Black and Reds. Shredded them down to blood and scraps.
Now the farmer was running north with his sons, their wives and children, trying to make it to the Gleann Mor Valley. Grace hoped they would. She hoped and she feared.
If they made it, the war would surely start.
L. J. found a note on his ’puter that morning from Betty. He enjoyed her chatty rundown on life in the big city. The woman couldn’t seem to shake her small-town amazement at what went on. “But the B and R types have sure put a lid on the nightlife—not that a maid has much free time at night, but it’s gotten so a girl can’t walk the streets. Mr. Santorini gave me a pass that he says will make anybody who stops me let me go. Mr. Santorini is such a nice man.” Betty had to be the only person on the planet who thought so.
The cook had plenty of food, but Betty said the meats were the absolute worst she’d ever seen. Why was L. J. not surprised?
“I hear the B and R are recruiting at the local jails.” That confirmed L. J.’s own suspicion. “A B and R field marshal confiscated a gaggle of ’Mechs from all kinds of places and ordered a couple of the local ’Mech service and repair centers to come up with a plan to hang lasers on them. The repair guys tried telling him the dinky engines on a worker ’Mech can’t power a laser, but he just got mad, pulled out his knife, and shouted threats. They got real agreeable and said they’d have a plan for him in three months. He said six weeks and that was that.”
L. J. doubted those mechanics were half as good as the ones the redhead had up in her valley. He also wondered how many of them were heading there. Hang a laser on an internal-combustion-powered ’Mech?! Maybe a laser pointer for a really big briefing. So the Leader was increasing his troops and his ’Mechs. Well, he’d need all the help he could get, because in three months L. J. and his battalion were out of here. L. J. printed the note and took it down to Intelligence. Mallary was away, which gave L. J. an excuse to talk to the Chief Warrant Officer, who really ran Intelligence. A mustang, he’d risen through the ranks. It was said he could smell bad intel. L. J. needed that nose.