Quote:

But he was too busy to worry for long. Once his own unit was scheduled for loading, he found himself in a running, three-sided battle with the Dragon's Field Technical Officer and the Chief of Procurement.

A JM6 JagerMech in Company C, 1st Batallion of the 17th Avalon Hussars, died right on the landing field in the shadow of the Union DropShip it was preparing to board. An old, old fault in a leg servounit finally shorted an actuator circuit board too often patched instead of replaced.

The leg locked, freezing the 'Mech in place and blocking access to the DropShip's number one hold.

Though replacing a circuit board is not particularly difficult, the repair meant removing the JagerMech's leg at the knee, a procedure that required a field repair gantry or a full maintenance facility, at least. The 17th's field gantries were already broken down and stored, and Procurement refused to provide a new circuit board unless the crippled 'Mech could be brought to the maintenance center some two hundred meters across the field. A request for a deployed field gantry was refused: why should that gear be broken out when maintenance blocks were open just across the field?

Unfortunately, the base Field Technical Services Division could spare no transports for the three hours' work needed to lower the 'Mech onto a flatbed crawler and carry it across to Maintenance. Proper authorization to redetail a transport and crew had to come from the base commandant, and he was at an official briefing with His Grace the Duke and would not be available until that evening—or possibly tomorrow. So sorry, they said, but we are really very busy and could you call back later? Or you might check with the Logistical Staff at Pallos, eighty klicks from here. They might have a transport, and if you could get authorization...

Meanwhile, the other three 'Mechs of the JagerMech's lance were scheduled to board through the blocked hatch, and the entire loading schedule was falling behind. After two hours of fruitless tail-chasing, Ardan arrived at the only possible solution. He had the two heaviest of the waiting 'Mechs drag the crippled, sixty-five-ton JM6 across the field to the maintenance center and leave it there, laid carefully and squarely across the accessway leading to the building's underground VIP garage.

If the major in charge of the Technical Services Division wanted to get home for supper that evening, the 'Mech would have to be repaired that afternoon, transport or no transport.

It was, and loading proceeded almost on schedule.

As boost time approached, the scene became even more chaotic and hectic. The port facilities of Dragon's Field were a hive of activity focused on the squat shapes of the DropShips—Unions and Overlords, mostly—resting in their blast pits surrounded by the lacelike traceries of loading gantries and crane supports. Somehow, hundreds of tons of food, water, munitions, and spare parts had to be directed from storehouses around the planet to the proper ship at the proper time.

The physics of mass and mass distribution were unforgiving of the schedules and problems of ship supply officers. If each ton of supplies was not positioned precisely, the ship would not respond as expected when the captain later tried to cut in a control jet to vector clear of incoming missiles or to maneuver through a turbulent atmosphere. Worse, if those tons of supplies were not stored in the proper order, ground troops queuing up to draw ammo might be told that their supplies lay somewhere on the far side of 400 tons of dried meat and a case of JagerMech leg actuator circuits.