
The evening before, her friend Gordon Frazier, mayor of Kilkenny, not two hours’ drive south, slapped
up a hasty e-note that BattleMechs and a whole lot of other armor were coming up the south road from
Amarillo. Grace had called Gordon, but by then both voice and data links were dead. It looked as
though Falkirk was on its own and raiders were coming to swipe Pirate.
Last night’s town meeting in Falkirk had been the shortest since Grace had been elected mayor. Some
citizens were for running, but most agreed: “Alkalurops takes care of itself.” The vote was to fight. That
didn’t surprise Grace. For much of the week, Mick’s ’Mech Maintenance Mavens had been adding
armor to the six local ’Mechs and jury-rigging weapons like the Gatling gun made of six hunting rifles that
was now strapped to Pirate’s right arm. John Shepherd, the local gunsmith, had specially loaded them
with high-powered, steel-jacketed shells.
Grace shook her head as if to clear it of a bad dream. Since she was a kid, her mom had told her how
ancient Ireland once trembled at the name of Grace O’Malley, the pirate woman. Grace had even named
her MiningMech Pirate “because he steals metal and hydrocarbons from the ground.” But real pirates!
She’d hoped never to face anything like this in The Republic of the Sphere.
She also hadn’t expected the HPG interstellar com grid to go down two years ago. On an
out-of-the-way planet like Alkalurops, that meant the news talkies spent more time on local chitchat. But
even with trade disrupted and metals and coal fetching below-market prices, it seemed like a small price
to pay for being left alone.
Once again Grace swept her binoculars over the Gleann Mor Valley, this time slowly, almost lovingly.
This was her home. She’d grown up here, like her mother and grandmother before her, going back
almost to the firstlanders. The valley hadn’t changed much in all that time. It showed red and brown
where native plants still held on, and green where Terran plants were slowly replacing them. In the spring
air, the yellow of Scotch broom outlined the road from the south and sprang up in patches elsewhere.
The mountains of the Cragnorm Range, only ten or fifteen klicks away, showed Scotch broom as well as
the purple of heather. Behind Grace, the foothills of the Galty Range would show the same hues if she
twisted in her cockpit to look. Instead she glanced north, up the valley to where the gray of Falkirk’s
stone buildings stood in the lee of Wilson Crag. Around the cliff were the large green circles of irrigated
land, growing the Terran wheat, corn, barley, and oats that were sold outside the valley. Small gardens
adjoining the houses provided all the vegetables the inhabitants needed. Falkirk was comfortably
independent—or had been last week.
Now Falkirk needed help, so two days ago Grace sent out a call to all the small holdings in the
mountains and towns beyond. She was more than grateful for the signs of digging beside the road in front
of where she stood. Yesterday Chato Bluewater had led in two dozen Navajos from the White River
Valley, on the other side of the still snow-capped Hebrides Range. Now they were working on a defense
strategy that Chato had assured Grace would work, although she wasn’t sure what it was.
Yesterday, while Pirate was in the shop having the Gatling rigged, the Navajo, aided by anyone willing to
pitch in, had dug, strung line, and done other strange things. Grace watched and scratched her head.
“How do you stop a ’Mech with a rope?” she called out.
Chato smiled softly at the question. “You fight the white man’s way. We’ll follow the warpath with the
spirit of Coyote. Let’s see whose path the MechWarriors wish they hadn’t crossed.”
Grace had never heard him use words like “white man” before. Then again, she’d never been on the
“warpath” with him. A bit uncomfortable, she answered with “They’re not warriors, just raiders. And I’m
not a white man, I’m a Scotch-Irish woman.”
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