“However, as we gain confidence and experience, we’ll fight longer and fall back shorter. Here—“she slammed her fist down on Falkirk—“here is where we make our stand.”
“Our last stand,” someone whispered.
“A patriot’s stand,” Grace shot back. “Ho will stay here. The women and bigger kids from up in the hills will take over Falkirk once we’re gone. They’ve got a lot of digging to do. When we get back, you’ll find their sweat and blisters have made this land ready for a fight.”
Grace let her eyes travel around the table, taking each person in for a moment, then going to the next. “Battle-tested and true, here we will make a fight. A fight that no one will forget, so long as Alkalurops spins among the stars.”
13
In and Around Nazareth, Alkalurops
Prefecture IX, The Republic of the Sphere
22 August 3134; local summer
Benjork Lone Cat led the ’Mechs and gun trucks of his task force south as quickly as he dared push trainees. Aware that the farmers were fleeing north, hounded by Black and Reds, the militia responded like pros. Only twenty hours later Benjork strode up the dusty, wide road into Nazareth. As Sean oversaw refueling the ’Mechs and rigs, Benjork dismounted and turned to the half-dozen men lounging in front of the town’s one store.
Feet up on the porch rail, chairs pushed back, they tried to ignore the gray MilitiaMechs that loomed over their one-story town, but they nodded to Benjork as he introduced himself and asked if they had seen the hunted farmers.
“They ain’t been here. May not make it if them Black and Reds have any say—not that I know nothing about this, you understand,” said a man with boots of tooled leather.
“They will likely travel this road, quiaff?”
The men looked at one another, then shook their heads. “Nope,” “Not likely,” “Wouldn’t do it if I was them,” came back at him. He waited for silence to fall, then asked a new question.
“What road would you travel to Falkirk?”
“You come from there?” one asked.
“I fight with Grace O’Malley,” Ben answered.
“We don’t much want to fight with anybody,” the one with the fancy boots said, letting his chair come down hard. “You see, them Special Police are hanging anybody they think might know anything about them farmers. They’re stringing ’em up to signs, power poles, windmills, by God. Stringing them up like they had all the rope in the world.”
“They string up a man, then go looking for his woman and kids,” another man added.
“We don’t need to know nothing about this fight. It’s not ours, so you’d like to get your gas and get out of here,” Fancy Boots said, standing and leading his cronies inside.
Benjork thanked them for their time and returned to his ’Mech. It was fueled, as were all the rigs. He offered Wilson’s smart card to the young man who had watched them pump the gas.
“Your money’s no good here,” a voice came from behind Benjork. He turned. One of the men from the store was sauntering their way. “Ken, don’t touch that card,” he told the boy, who frowned but returned the card.
“Best we say that you took the gas at gunpoint. Hell, you got enough guns, don’t you?”
“That is not our intention.”
“But it’s a story that will keep Ken there from dancing from his sign. The Black and Reds really want those farmers.”
“I can well imagine. But if they are not this far—”
“They will be. Not by any road that sends ’em through towns where people can see ’em. Someone’s bound to report ’em. No, they’re traveling the back roads. I can think of a few I’d use.”
“You would show me, quiaff?” Benjork reached for a map.
“White Hair, I don’t know maps. Don’t know the names of most of the roads I been driving since I was knee-high, but I’ll take you there,” he said, climbing into a dilapidated truck that might once have been red. “My Elly died last winter, and my kids are all moved away. If a guy like me can’t do this, nobody can. So you follow me if you can keep up.” And he gunned out of town in a cloud of dust and oil.
It took no orders to get the militia troops moving; they’d heard the man. Their eagerness as they piled into the gun trucks told him they believed every word. Benjork mounted up and led his team at a trot into the red truck’s dust.
The old man raced with wild abandon over gravel roads and dirt tracks that were hardly more than wheel ruts. They passed ranches and homesteads, some looking more abandoned than lived in. The truck bounced over bumps and rocks Benjork feared might be too much for the hovertrucks.
After a while, the Lone Cat wondered if the truck was leading them on a wild chase after nightmares. Then the truck braked to a halt, sliding sideways as it did. The old man was out, gazing at a low butte not much taller than Benjork’s ’Mech.
Benjork raised his ’Mech’s arm to signal his battle team to a halt, then paced off the distance to where the butte ended in a ridge of eroding yellow dirt. With all the rolling terrain around Falkirk, Ben had had a periscope installed in his MiningMech MOD. Now he raised it.
In the next valley a battle raged.
The farmers had abandoned half a dozen trucks in front of a large outcropping of red rocks three kilometers away. They shot from its cover. Behind the rocks, one green and two yellow AgroMechs stood, stained with dust and rocket fragments. Their scythes spun slowly at the ready.
Black and Red infantry were strung out along a dry wash, half a klick to the left, riflemen and rocket launchers keeping up a desultory fire, giving Ben the feeling that this was the middle of a long and not all that successful battle.
In the broken ground between wash and red rocks, a burned-out Black and Red ’Mech MOD lay, still smoking. Its chest was blown in. Benjork guessed the farmers had explosives and knew how to use them. He thought for a moment on how a satchel charge might be delivered and shook his head. Desperate men did desperate things.
Two klicks behind the rifle line towered a dozen ’Mech MODs, some Black and Red, others still Agro green or Industrial gray. Most sported a single machine gun. One had a twenty-millimeter autocannon. Several showed recent damage. Well back from them and out of SRM range, a Black and Red Black Hawk squatted like a toad. It fired a pair of long-range lasers randomly, rarely hitting the rock pile.
Someone had a nice ’Mech they did not know how to use. Used properly, that Black Hawk could take out Benjork’s entire troop. “To you, I will send my best,” he whispered.
Then he studied the terrain. The wash twisted and turned as it made its way around the harder rock outcroppings of the eroded butte. A red-and-yellow streaked pinnacle shot up to his left. That should hide ’Mechs on an approach march. He activated his magscan and breathed a small sigh of relief. All that red in the rocks was iron. The magscan was hosed. Surprise was possible.
Benjork returned to his battle group, dismounted, and faced the old rancher. “I am grateful for your help. You have led me to my battle. You may go now. May you have blessed dreams for your service.”
“I got a rifle in my pickup. Them farmers are just like me. Don’t see how I can come this far and drive away,” the man said. Returning to his rig, he pulled a scoped weapon from its scabbard with easy grace.
“You are welcome within our ranks,” Benjork told him. Among his team, dust covers came off rocket launchers. Machine guns were lovingly checked. Maintenance crews climbed over the gray ’Mech MODs under the watchful eyes of their militia pilots, making last-minute checks on rocket launchers and Gatling guns. He had to remind himself that these were green recruits. Their purposeful strides and hard eyes would do any warrior proud who knew what he faced and ran to meet it.