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"You were going to kill me anyway." Anger flashed for a moment over Tor's cold-numbed face. "You didn't have to kill them!"
"My dear Captain, you don't think I wanted to have them killed, do you? We prize men trained for starship work, especially a man like you, who is skilled in interstellar navigation. We are not barbarians!"
Tor's eyes closed, his lips trembling. "Whatever you say."
"But this mission is highly secret, Captain. So secret, I don't believe you appreciate its importance. If you did, I would have your throat slit now. When you escaped, we had to take steps to insure that no more of your people on Trellwan escaped. The rest of your crew aboard the freighter are still in good health, of course. At least, for now."
"More threats?"
"I don't threaten, Captain." He reached out and pulled Tor's head up by the hair, looking into the man's glazed eyes. "Now, let's begin again. You were in the city for a time."
Tor's voice was weak, barely audible.
"What was that? Come, come, Captain. I'm getting cold standing here talking to you."
"Yes... I was in S-Sarghad."
"And you are a military man?"
"I am a trader. I pilot a starship."
"Ah, but you know as well as I that the most important commerce between the stars today are the arms and armor of military units. You must have some grounding in the military arts."
Tor remained silent, and Singh continued. "What sign did you see in Sarghad of a mercenary cadre?"
"I d-d-don't understand."
"Outsiders, Captain... offworlders. A military unit... perhaps training the locals to fight."
"I didn't see anything like that... no."
Singh believed the man was telling the truth. He also knew this particular method of questioning could not go on for long. Tor would reveal no information after being frozen to death. Singh gestured to the guard, who swung Tor around and led him back into the warmer prisoner's quarters.
Though Tor might not know about it, Sarghad was definitely getting help from somewhere. Singh would have to learn the source of that help before it seriously compromised the Plan. Not only would he need to learn of it, but the mercenaries would have to be eliminated once and for all.
* * * *
The wind grew colder as the long dark of Firstnight dragged on. A cadre of experienced troops, including both Militia and Guards, had been gathered, trained, and drilled, and they, in turn, had been set to training and drilling the volunteers who would make up the main body of the unit King Jeverid himself attended the unit's first mustering ceremony, and it was he who bestowed upon them their name: First Trellwan Lancers.
Grayson could not help but compare his new unit with his old. The Lancers were raw and ungainly, with neither the precise snap and polish of a well-trained unit nor the easy professionalism and camaraderie of an experienced one. Carlyle's Commandos had had both the polish and the professionalism. As a boy, Grayson had admired the absolute precision of the unit's response to parade-ground orders, the snap-crack of two hundred boots clicking into place at the same instant He'd admired too that bond of absolute trust betwen each man and his squad mates, and each man and the officers and NCOs above him.
This lot was eager, Grayson decided, but that was almost all he could say for them. All were volunteers from either the Militia or the Guards, and many had years of experience, including combat experience. But they were not yet a unitin the sense of belonging and working well together.
The bitter rivalry between Guards and Militia continued within the ranks. In one of his first decisions, Grayson directed his sergeants not to separate the services into different companies, but to form squads and platoons without regard to the men's original affiliation. If the Lancers were to have any identity of their own or any of the pride that identity would encourage, they would have to start thinking of themselves as Lancers rather than as Guards or Militia. There were eighteen fistfights during the first standard week and three knifings. The fact that each man still wore his original green or brown uniform, with only a blue armband to distinguish him as a Lancer, didn't help.
Grayson was learning that there was far more to organizing a 'Mech Lance than teaching thumb-fingered recruits how to pilot a BattleMech. The details of the unit's T.O. & E. threatened to drown him in extra work hours and a deluge of paperwork. The T.O. & E — the Lancer's Table of Organization and Equipment—make or break the fledging unit, and Grayson was becoming aware of the importance of staff paperwork in a way he never had been. Always before he had wondered why his father's staff included a small army of civilian secretaries and military orderlies, and why one of the Lance staff officers, Lieutenant Hanesly, had been designated as perso
Grayson's days had been one fifteen-hour work period after another, with short naps grabbed on the cot behind the office in Sarghad's armory building that had been set aside for his use. Mara had called him repeatedly on the small visor installed in the office, but he had lost count of the standard days since he'd seen her. There was simply too much to do.
A BattleMech Lance is much more than four ‘Mechs and the men who con them. T.O.'s generally list only the pilots and Techs assigned to a particular unit, but, in fact, even a small scout Lance requires a platoon-sized body of support crew.
First and foremost in the Trellwan Lancer's make-up was the infantry, the groundpounders Grayson was training to take on the enemy 'Mechs. Not all 'Mech units had foot soldiers attached to them, however. Carlyle's Commandos had had ground troops because it was a garrison force, and there were garrison duties that would have been impractical for a ten-meter-tall 'Mech. The Lancers were to be ground troops trained in anti-Mech warfare with 'Mechs for support, which reversed the usual role for a combat BattleMech unit.
The idea had been General Varney's. Grayson's skill during the Battle of Sarghad had proven to the Military Council that ground troops could be used against 'Mechs. Grayson's ten years of training supported the idea. Ground forces couldface 'Mechs and win, but it took a remarkable blend of skill, training, and courage to do so. This combination did not occur naturally even in elite units. Grayson faced a daunting task, and he still questioned his ability to carry it out.
The Lancers' T.O. called for two combat platoons of 60 men each. Though there were more than enough volunteers available, so far Grayson had only two short platoons of 40 each, scarcely more than a pair of platoon sections. After some work and several false starts, he had decided that the experienced sergeants on his team were able to handle no more than those 80 men. Untrained and leaderless soldiers would be far worse than no help at all.
Also in training were 35 men with various degrees of technical and mechanical training. This was the begi
Finally, there were five men in training as MechWarriors. They were under Grayson's direct command and he worked with them for hours each day, familiarizing them with the Locust'scontrols and drilling them in tactics and procedure. One of them, a young Trell named Yarin showed an intuitive sense of balance and motion that might produce a MechWarrior — in about ten years. Grayson thought this part of the program was worse than useless. It would take years to bring these five up to any kind of proficiency in 'Mech operations, so it seemed absurd to spend so much time training new pilots when the unit had but a single light 'Mech on its rolls. But Grayson's own orders from the Military Council were clear on that point. What good was a 'Mech unit without MechWarriors?