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His work was made easier by two experienced sergeants... Sergeant Ramage from the Militia, who had fought Hendrik's raiders as a private ten years before, and a Guards Corporal named Brooke, whom he had promoted upon learning the man had worked in a machineshop before joining the army. Another Militia sergeant named Larressen had no combat experience, but he seemed sharp, intelligent, and unafraid of speaking his views. Ramage and Larressen became platoon leaders for platoons A and B, while Brooke was placed in charge of the Tech platoon.
With three good men in the topkick slots, Grayson had hoped that the Lance would begin to run itself. That did not prove to be the case. The single worst problem he faced was equipment procurement. Quite simply, there was either no equipment to procure or else the available material was tied up in bureaucratic red tape and inter-department squabbling.
The lists of what he needed were endless: portable power generators, tools ranging from laser cutters to microwrenches, portable and desktop computers and access to the military data files, visors and portable communications units, weapons for the combat platoons and ammo to go with them, portable and stationary lights, gantries and 'Mech repair cocoons, power feed cable, 'Mech spare parts ranging from servoactuator relay circuits and a portable laser to a new head and cockpit assembly for the captured Wasp.HE also needed food, drinking water and wash water, quarters and mattresses for over one hundred men, vehicles...
Vehicles! Those were the special responsibility of the technical section, which was expected to procure, maintain, and service them. He needed HVTs and weapons carriers — ground effect HVWCs as well as the slower, heavier, tracked or wheeled vehicles. Unfortunately, there were only two sources of military vehicles in Sarghad, the Militia and the Royal Guard. Neither unit was prepared to release even one scout hovercraft to the newly-formed Lancers without guarantees that the unit would become the private elite of either the Militia or the Guard. Grayson wasted days just going through the mountain of official requisitions for service hovercraft and HTs before he realized that what he was fighting was not bureaucratic stupidly, but inter-service politics. There was, Grayson learned, intense and bitter rivalry between the Royal Guards and the Militia.
Trellwan's human population was divided among three cities — Sarghad, Gath, and Tremain — plus a scattering of homesteads, agrodome collectives, and mining sites that stretched along perhaps a third of the equator. Sarghad was the largest city, by far, and the center of the planetary government Each city was the center of a Militia military district, with a resident regiment to serve as tax collectors, fire department, garbage collectors, and police on a world where there was little need on a day-to-day basis for a standing army.
The Royal Guard, on the other hand, was based in Sarghad in a modern barracks beneath the Palace Grounds. Their function was purely military and primarily cosmetic on a world with a single government. They served as escorts for the King, staged parades and military reviews, and generally worked to create the image that there was indeed a monarchy in Sarghad, one rich and powerful enough to provide his private guard with attractive green uniforms. Though they claimed to be an elite force and though the Guard received the lion's share of military appropriations and equipment from the various government councils, Grayson had seen little evidence yet that they were any good as fighting soldiers.
They had the vehicles Grayson needed, and they wouldn't release them until he could assure them that the First Trellwan Lancers would be designated as a part of the Royal Guard.
The Militia, in turn, controlled such essentials as distribution of water and communications within the city. They provided these services only grudgingly, while awaiting word that the Lancers would be designated as a branch of the Militia.
Grayson began his attack on the situation by giving the vehicle problem to Lieutenant Nolem, who was obviously a spy for the Guard staff command. By assigning him full-time to the task of acquiring eight hover transports, Grayson kept the Lieutenant out of his hair while keeping his need on the desk of the requisition and supply officer at Guard HQ. Perhaps if the clamor was raised long enough, loud enough...
He won cooperation from the Militia by pointing out that his two combat platoon sergeants were both Militia, and that, while he had to go along with His Majesty's original idea that the Lancers should be drawn from both services, surely his choice of fighting sergeants was proof of where his loyalties really lay. That won him a steady supply of food and water, installation of half of the visors he needed, and the loan of one aging HVT for ru
Perhaps most ironic was the problem of his own uniform. Grayson had been decked out in Guard full dress for the ceremony at the Palace Reception Hall, but had never been issued any other uniforms or personal equipment. Guard uniform regulations required that he always wear the Crimson Star with full dress, which fact Lieutenant Nolem had tactfully pointed out to him when Grayson arrived for work without the heavy starburst. Though he was begi
With all that, his biggest worry was perso
Even when well-equipped and supplied, ground troops are woefully inadequate against an attacking BattleMech. If the Trellwan Lancers were to accomplish anything, they would have to assemble a working BattleMech Lance. He had five men in training as MechWarriors, but so far he'd had little success. Learning to pilot one of the battle machines was an agonizing and drawn-out process. Anyone could strap himself into the cockpit and move the machine's arms and legs, but it took a whole new way of thinking to control the automatic movements through the computer-linked neural helmet, and without that link, the best and strongest 'Mech in the galaxy was just so much inanimate metal and spare parts.
He took a major step toward solving the perso
Then a new trouble surfaced. Despite her obvious skill, many of the new astechs in the technical section refused to work for Lori Kalmar. She was, after all, from Hendrik's bandit confederacy. Her people, they contended, had killed many Trells in raids and skirmishes across the better part of a century, and she was certainly not to be trusted now. Add to that, she was a woman in the male-dominated Trellwan culture. Women held few positions of real power, were never found in either military branch other than as secretaries or clerical assistants, and there was the continuing unspoken tradition that the place for woman was at home, raising children. A young, pretty woman giving orders to men on the job was simply not taken seriously.