Chapter 3

With a twinkle in his eye Sgt. Major Jackson looked up. "You want to see me, boy?"

I didn't rise to the bait. Ever since I stood up to him over the Wee Darling we have gotten along much better than the usual Top Kick and PFC. "If the Sergeant Major could find it in his heart to spare a few moments for a lowly PFC."

"Private First Class my ass! You act more like a General First Class. Sit down Mick. Don't see you much any more, you haven't come up with any more crazy schemes lately. What can I do for you?"

"Top, have you eaten in the mess hall lately? I don't mean the NCO/Officers section, you have a different cook. I mean over with the grunts? That food is garbage. I know all soldiers complain about the food but it is bad. I don't understand why unless it's the cook. I know both kitchens draw food from the same place because I've seen it but no NCO would eat what we're forced to eat. So, I've come to extend an invitation to you to dine this evening with the lowly enlisted men. You might save a few men from dying of food poisoning and the cook from being roasted in one of his own ovens."

"It's really that bad? I've heard some grumbling but just put it down as the normal complaint about the food. You may mark your date book young sir. The Sergeant Major shall pass among you lowly grunts and partake of your repast this evening. And Mick..." this without the friendly banter, "I may just bring a guest with me."

Ten minutes after evening chow had started two men cut in line. The only difference between their uniforms and our uniforms was the black anodized metal rank insignias on their collars. The serving line was situated with a large shield so the servers couldn't see who they was serving. In this way they couldn't play favorites. The two men passed down the line taking a serving at each position. They didn't even wait to be seated. First one then the other sampled the offerings while standing at the end of the line. Together they upended their trays and then dropped them to the floor with the meal they had held. Metal trays clatter quite a bit when dropped on a ferrocrete floor. They hadn't quit making noise when the door at the end of the serving line was jerked open from the inside and the Mess Sergeant came storming out. He was rather surprised when he saw the cause of the disturbance was none other than the Company Sergeant Major and the Company Commander.

It was suddenly very quiet in the chow hall. The men had no difficulty hearing what was said.

"You are relieved of duty, Sergeant. You are demoted to the rank of private. You will report to the Sgt. Major at 0730 hrs in the morning in full utilities and will be given a new assignment at that time. You may go... no strike that, you Will go!"

The two leaders watched the ex mess sergeant leave the building. Captain Sawyer then turned to the mess hall in general.

"Men, I apologize. Each new assignment brings on its own special problems. I've been paying more attention to these problems than I have to your well being. The food will get better, has to, can't get any worse can it?" A sprinkling of laughter answered his question. "I expect your best and you expect to be taken care of. I'll make certain in the future I live up to my part better."

As he and the sergeant-major turned to walk away the room exploded with cheers, clapping and whistles.

The problems that Captain Sawyer spoke of were simple. We had taken a one year contract to garrison and train on a small mining planet in the Periphery. It was a desert planet by the name of Roebuck, hot, dry and dirty. Winds were constantly blowing sand into areas not designed for sand. Our maintenance was much greater than normal and the Captain was working with the Techs to come up with a means to overcome much of the problems. There was another Mech company, a light Battalion, stationed here also and he had gone as far as contacting them to see how they had overcome the problems, if they had. The sands were creating higher maintenance costs which meant less profit on our contract. Profit was what kept us in parts, ammo and repairs. We needed them to be as high as possible.

The food got much better fast. Things fell into a routine and routines can be deadly. I was assigned to a Scout Lance and when things got so completely boring I went to the Lance leader with some suggestions. The Lance leader took them to the Captain who approved them. The Scout Lance then set out to ambush the Fire Lance.

It really wasn't as crazy as it sounds. For training purposes the outage of the lasers can be reduced so they will make a splash on the target. The combat computer on the Mech reads the splash and depending on the location, amount of 'damage' and the 'severity' of the hit, will disable that part of the Mech. A 'kill' will disable the entire Mech. The beauty of the system is that the Mech can be placed in training mode by remote. You don't even know you're in a training situation until you see your hits bounce off your target or you fire missiles and nothing happens but the computer displays a hit.

Our ambush was successful. We 'killed' two and badly crippled a third Mech of theirs to one 'kill' and one 'moderate to medium' damaged on our side. Fire Lance bought the drinks that night as we rubbed it in, they had been twice as heavy as us.

Of course the Fire Lance had to have their revenge and we were expecting it, so our patrols were a lot more alert. To heck with Pirates or Raiders, we didn't want to buy drinks for Fire Lance or Assault Lance.

A week later Fire did a hit and run on Assault and that night drank free booze. We took out the sentries and 'blew-up' the infantry motor pool. Later we successfully ambushed one of the Fire Lances of the other Mech unit. Our Captain met with their Major and got us permission. We had to flash word to our headquarters who alerted their headquarters who turned their Mechs to training mode. That was a bit touchy. If they spotted us ahead of time and fired live it would hurt. We couldn't turn to training mode earlier just in case there happened on to a real enemy.

It was an interesting battle. These weren't our friends. We didn't know how they would react, what tactics they would employ or anything. Much more like the real thing than before.

I raised up behind a Phoenix Hawk and put four shots into the rear torsos. I took out the right side which disabled the heavy laser, a medium laser and a machine gun. It had more armor than I did but now for weapons it only had a medium and a mg. I was faster, could out jump it and was better armed. I just couldn't finish it off. I splashed armor every where it had armor. It kept weaving, ducking and jumping. I'd have a beautiful shot set up and when I fired it wasn't there. Finally a second head shot 'killed' the pilot when he ducked into my shot and it froze. I had been catching a flash of color and with the Mech frozen I could see it clearly. On the outside of the left knee was a pink shield with six kill markers. I had taken out an Ace! Not bad for someone who had never been in real combat.

I had received only one splash to the chest so I wasn't injured. When I turned from my opponent two more P. Hawks were 'down' and the fourth was withdrawing.

That evening Major Martine, the Battalion Commander and Captain Tor, the Company Commander came into our club. Riding in wheelbarrows being pushed by these two ranking officers were our Commander and the Sgt. Major. Amid much hooting and laughter the wheelbarrows were halted and their passengers carefully unloaded. Beaming hugely Capt. Sawyer raised his hands for a little silence. "Guys and Gals, this was our side bet. I want to thank you all for the nice ride and say how happy I am that we won. Besides, there's a lot more of them to laugh than there is of us if we had lost and had to push them into their club."

After the renewed laughter, hooting, whistles and clapping calmed down the Captain brought Scout Lance forward. One by one he introduced us and named our Mechs. After shaking each of our hands Major Martine introduced each of their Fire Lance pilots. It didn't tell me a lot as they were all four P. Hawk drivers.

There was a total of fifteen or twenty people from Martine's Marauders who had come over and it soon developed into a real party. What with all the work at home, the Academy, the job as an Ammo transport driver and learning Mech repair as well as building or rebuilding my Mech I was sorely lacking in one area. Social skills. I had never learned how to party. I had been on dates and such but I liked to DO things not talk about them. I had never developed the art of small talk. I didn't really know how to talk to females. Heck get past Mechs, tactics or fighting and I didn't know how to talk to males.

I soon radiated to a small table in the quietest corner of the club and sat watching. I nursed my one drink as I had early patrol the next day. This had been my day off and the ambush was my way of having fun. Soon a small, dark haired female asked to join me.

"You're Leofa, aren't you? Did I say it right?" she asked.

"Close", I said standing. "Lee-OF-ah. It's a Scottish name. Originally it was a non-title. It meant the youngest son of a titled noble. Someone decided to keep it as a name. I'm sorry, I don't remember yours."

"Franks, Marci Franks," she answered offering her hand.

"Hello Marci Franks. I'm Michael Fitzhugh Leofa. Mick to most people," I replied as I took her hand. "Please join me. May I get you something to drink?"

"No. It's my treat. We lost, remember?" She sat and signaled for a waiter.

"Just coffee for me, I have early patrol."

"So do I. It was decided we needed more training so we have early patrol and training in the afternoon. You people didn't do us any favors. I want you to know we will get even," she said smiling. When she smiled her eyes lit up like small suns. You could tell it was an open, friendly smile.

"I'm sorry about that but your people didn't stand a chance."

"Oh, you're that good," she said with just a touch of frost in her voice.

"Come on, power down. This is a mining planet. They only mine the heavy metals or the things with the largest return for their money. With all the metals here your MAGs (Magnetic Anomaly Detectors) don't work properly. As hot as this desert world is InfraReds don't work as well as normal either. We stayed still and your motion detectors had nothing to grab on to. We picked the time and the place so all the advantages were on our side. Yes, we're good. Add to it all of those advantages we had and as I said your people didn't stand a chance," I explained patiently. I didn't want this attractive female pissed at me.