During the seven-standard day period known in Sarghad as the Summer Storm, people stayed indoors in a holiday commanded by the weather. To venture outdoors would have meant wading knee-deep in yellow mud while becoming soaked to the skin, at best. At worst, to leave the shelter of Sarghad's buildings on some errand usually meant being struck dead by lightning or head-sized hailstones. The wind from the east blew steadily across the city toward the Nerge. Even during those periods when the sun was still above the horizon, the landscape was plunged into complete and unrelieved darkness, save for the lightning that flashed brilliantly against the sky.
With the driving rain a constant rattle against sealed windows and eaves, with the wind thumping against outer walls like something alive, Grayson set up his headquarters in the city Armory, a squat and dismal ferrocrete block building with a warehouse interior in the mechanic's District across the Hub from the Palace Grounds. Seated there at an old desk salvaged from some government office and using an old, black plastic compad tied into the Military Records Library in the District Headquarters Annex, he began his job of recruiting and training Trellwan's first BattleMech Lance.
His assistants were Sergeant Ramage of the Militia and Lieutenant Nolem of the Guards, both of whom held the tide of Adjutant. Their primary job was to take all the military theory and training that Grayson could put into words and writing, organize it, and then teach it to the men and women who were selected for Trellwan's anti-'Mech unit. Grayson's little team had been given the rest of Firstnight, another fourteen standard days, to organize the unit General Adel wanted it ready for combat by the end of the Secondnight storms, which gave them just about one local year of 45 days to do the job.
* * * *
"Sergeant, I don't think you understand the precariousness of your position." Lieutenant Nolem's flat, nasal voice became even more grating when he was being unpleasant.
"Sir!" retorted Ramage. "My understanding of the line of command is that the Militia troops in the special unit will be accountable to Militia HQ through Lance Command. General Varney would never have consented to placing Militia personnel under the direct command of the Guard!"
"And I, Sergeant, question whether you have any understanding of the line of command at all! The Guard clearly takes precedence over the Militia in the special unit as it does in all military matters. You meddling Militiamen..."
"Gentlemen, please!" Grayson sat between the two, fingers working at his temples. He was tired and couldn't think of much else except getting back to the officers' quarters General Varney had arranged for him. There was so much to be done, but he was beginning to regret ever hearing of a Trellwan special unit
"If you two don't stop bickering, you can forget about the generals. You'll have to answer to the new government!"
Nolem raised a querying eyebrow. "What new government?"
"The one the bandits are going to establish in the Palace if you don't drop the petty quarrels over pecking-order and help me get some work done!"
"Really, Lieutenant. My position here..."
Grayson's voice was weary but firm. "Your position here is subject to MY approval, Lieutenant, do you understand?"
"You don't rank me, youngster!" Nolem was all of four standard years older than Grayson.
"I'll bloody well rank you if I have to prove it by tossing you out in the rain!" Grayson's fist came down on the stack of requisition forms on the desk. "I was put in charge of the unit, so just because your friend Adel slipped you in to pull rank on Sergeant Ramage doesn't mean I'm going to let you get away with it!"
Nolem bristled. Grayson decided the only way to break through the man's stubborness was to change the subject.
"Now, what's the status of the damaged Wasp?”He demanded.
The question took Nolem by surprise. "Ah... uh..."
"We still don't have a Tech who can supervise repairs."
"But what's the 'Mech's status?"
"Uh... the head's smashed."
"I know that, Lieutenant. I smashed it. Can it be repaired?"
"The officer in charge says we'll need a trained Tech to tell us one way or the other." He shrugged. "We don't have much in the way of spare parts for 'Mechs, either. I gather the supply officers are having to dismantle second-line weapons carriers just to get scrap armor to plug the holes in the torso."
Grayson sagged back in the chair. "Maybe I can get down there next period and have a look." Mech Warriors knew as much about a 'Mech's workings as did Techs. But the time... God, the time!
"You have a meeting with the Military Council next period," Ramage reminded him.
"Damn, you're right. I..." Grayson paused, thoughtful.
"Sir?"
"There is an alternative... possibly."
Ramage looked at Nolem questioningly, then at Grayson. "I don't think there's a qualified Tech on the planet. Not this side of the Castle, at any rate, and I don't think THEY'RE going to lend us one!"
He was not about to discuss his wild inspiration with these two. Nolem would resist the idea, he knew, and even Ramage was certainly doubling as a spy for the Militia staff. He wanted to spring this idea on the generals himself.
Three periods later, Grayson descended the cold stone steps of the Military District Headquarters. It was still raining outside. He'd made the trip from the Armory in a GEV, skimming over the treacherous mud. The water pooled on the stone floor as he handed his compad to the brown-uniformed corporal sitting behind the desk at the bottom of the stairs.
The corporal entered a code into the terminal on his desk, then leaned back to await clearance. "Wet out, Sir?"
"A bit. Getting colder, too." By the middle of Firstnight, the temperature outside had dropped nearly to freezing. The week-long Near Passage storms acted as a gigantic heat sink for the planet, and during the long, long night following Periasteron, the heat of the Passage was rapidly dissipated. Soon the storm winds would die, and it would begin snowing in the mountains.
Grayson thought of Thunder Rift. The ice would all be gone now, the waterfall dried up. When the ice roof was gone, you could see stars up through the rift from the shore of the cavern floor lake, even during daylight.
"Clearance, sir. You can go through." The corporal operated a control, and steel bars slid to one side.
"Thank you," Grayson said, and entered the long, dimly lit passageway. The cell he was looking for was at the end of the hall.
Lori Kalmar sat on the bench in her cell, leaning back against the wall with knees tucked beneath her chin, staring at the opposite wall. She was wearing a long-tailed fatigue shirt and trousers someone had given her, but still had the light slippers she'd worn aboard her 'Mech. Tall, long-legged, and slender, the girl was quite attractive, Grayson thought, but her expression was sullen and bitter.
Grayson approached the bars of her cell and spoke her name.
Kalmar's eye flicked across him, then back to the wall. "Oh," she said dully. "It's you." Though there were dark circles under her eyes, the girl's hair was carefully brushed, so blond it looked almost silver in the pale light
"Are you O.K.? Are you being treated all right?"
"Why should you care?" she snapped.
What she didn't know was that Grayson had been feeling guilty about the Locust'spilot ever since he'd turned her over to the Militia headquarters. After all, he had promised that she would not be hurt The last he'd heard, she was being put through interrogation. From what he'd been able to learn, the Militia's questioning methods were more psychological and chemical than physical. The Guards, on the other hand, were rumored to take positive pleasure in inventive and enthusiastic physical interrogation, and that was what had triggered Grayson's own panic when he'd faced the sentries at Mara's house. But interrogation in any form was brutal, leaving the prisoner exhausted, haggard, and feeling very much alone.