With all that, his biggest worry was personnel. Volunteers were numerous, but painfully few were skilled as machinists, electronics techs, robotics experts, weapons handlers and armorers, mechanics, and so on. On the other hand, the troops being formed into the unit's pair of combat platoons had experience, but little equipment. Half of them were drilling with lengths of pipe. When they had been transferred to the Lancers, they'd been ordered to turn in their weapons, and so only a few had brought guns with them. There was only a handful of shoulder-fired missile launchers, heavy weapons autofire weapons, armor-piercing shells and missile warheads, plastic explosives or j detonators, or fitted body armor, and no man-portable lasers at all.
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 personnel problem when he brought Lori now Staff Sergeant Lori Kalmar aboard as senior Tech. She could answer technical questions and showed a flair for diagnosing 'Mech problems on scant information. Though there was no way to repair the damaged Wasp without procuring a complete new head and cockpit assembly, she was able to ready the 'Mech for combat in every other regard. Somehow, she even managed to rig up test circuits and relays that allowed the 'Mech to be handled (in clumsy fashion) by remote control. That meant it could serve as a mobile target for the five apprentice MechWarriors training under Grayson. They could practice dry-run tracking and weapons locks aboard the Locust, without Grayson's having to try to rig a simulator.
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.
That problem would never go away entirely, though Lori had made some progress on her own. Once, after she gave an order to an astech, he simply ignored her. Though she repeated the command, the man responded with a leer and a suggestion about what he'd like to do instead. But warrior apprentices on Sigurd were well trained in the martial disciplines. They learned not only how to pilot a 'Mech, but how to use firearms, sticks, knives, and bare hands to deadly effect The insubordinate astech woke up to find himself a guest in Sarghad's hospital, where he was being treated for a broken jaw. From that time on, Sergeant Kalmar found her orders greeted with considerably greater enthusiasm.
* * * *
Grayson was dismayed by the fact that there were no spare parts to repair machines that broke down, little oil to lubricate machinery, and the computer programs used to coordinate schedules and duty rosters and muster lists were hopelessly inadequate. A team detailed to salvage diamond monofilament wire from junked sections of boron nitride armor plate was stalled by a lack of the proper chemicals for the extraction process.
He grew short on sleep, became impatient, and drove the unit harder. Morale sagged, and five men were placed on report for fighting in one period alone. Seven enlisted men simply walked away from the barracks during another period and never returned. No one stopped them at the door because the man on sentry duty was one of the seven. When troops restricted to the post routinely showed up for work drunk or failed to show at all, Grayson had to detail three of his junior NCOs just to patrol the area for hidden caches of alcohol.
Then, a new difficulty arose with Lori. If the Lancers were to have any chance of operating against offworld forces, they needed more than the single Locust operational. The first step would be capturing the other Wasp. If necessary, they would have to destroy it and use its head to replace the shattered one on the Wasp now in the Lancers' possession. Lori had been troubled when Grayson had asked her about the man who would likely be piloting the Wasp they intended to capture or kill.