The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume 3

by David Drake

“—and with the hogs. We’re here to dictate the end of the war on such terms as seem good to our principals.”

  The UC senators walked between the combat cars with as much hesitation as the Solace delegation had shown. One of them was coughing. The air reeked of smoke and ozone, so familiar to Huber that he hadn’t thought about it till he watched the civilians’ grimaces and shallow breaths.

  A woman of thirty wearing battledress of an unfamiliar pattern entered the laager with the UC civilians. She nodded to Hammer, then stood at parade rest and watched the by-play with eyes that were never still.

  “Masters and mistresses,” Hammer said. His tone was even, but Huber noticed he gripped his breastplate fiercely enough to mottle his knuckles. “You politicians probably know each other—”

  The delegations exchanged wary glances, even faint nods. They had more in common with one another than they did with the soldiers and war material surrounding them.

  “—and you know Mister Lindeyar—”

  The Nonesuch official looked around the gathering, his face without expression.

  “—but you may not know Mistress Dozier, who’s the Bonding Authority representative with responsibilities for the contracts here on Plattner’s World.”

  The woman in battledress said, “Good day. I’m here solely as an observer, of course. My organization has no interest in the negotiations between principals except to see that all parties adhere to the contracts which we oversee.”

  The second starship was in its final approach. Hammer raised his hand in bar. President Rihorta started speaking anyway, but the overwhelming CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE penetrated even his self-absorption after a moment.

  When the sound and dazzling corona died away, Sigmund Lindeyar said, “Rather than draw these proceedings out unnecessarily, I’m going to take charge now. Nonesuch has been subsidizing the mercenaries which the Outer States have hired for this conflict. In fact some eighty percent of the charges have come from our coffers—”

  “What!” said President Rihorta. “But you’ve been insisting we raise port duties to upgrade the facilities!”

  “You traitorous scum,” Colonel Priamedes said in a quiet voice, stepping toward Lindeyar. Daphne tried to stop him. Huber placed himself in front of the Solace officer and held till weakness and Daphne’s efforts forced Priamedes back.

  His knees started to buckle. Huber caught him and shifted around to his right side, continuing to support Priamedes while Daphne held her father’s other arm.

  “I’m scarcely a traitor, Colonel,” Lindeyar said with a chuckle. He fluffed the lapel of his jacket. “I’ve been quite successful in advancing the interests of my nation . . . which is Nonesuch, you will recall.”

  The UC delegates were whispering among themselves. Lindeyar fixed them with his cold eyes and said, “Now as for you gentlemen—”

  The word was a sneer.

  “—the first thing you need to know is that my government has withdrawn its financial support. I’ve already informed the Bonding Authority—”

  Mistress Dozier nodded agreement.

  “—that as of this moment, Nonesuch will no longer pay the wages of the mercenaries employed on Plattner’s World. Therefore unless the UC and its local partners are capable of paying those charges by themselves, the war is over and all the mercenaries will go home immediately. Can you pay, gentlemen?”

  The four UC senators gaped at Lindeyar. Minister Graciano said, “Good Lord, man, of course we can’t. But why would we want to? We’ve won. This is what we’ve been hoping for all along!”

  “Mister Lindeyar,” Major Pritchard said, “there was discussion about transferring the contract of Hammer’s Regiment to Nonesuch directly.”

  Lindeyar met the unspoken question with a wintry smile. “Was there?” he said. “Perhaps there was. In the event, however, my government has decided to depend on its national forces for defense of its new concession here on Plattner’s World.”

  The third starship landed near the two which had arrived minutes before. Huber couldn’t see the ships from where he stood, but while everyone waited for the roar to quiet he shifted the upper right quadrant of his faceshield to the view from an H Company tank on the north side of Port Plattner.

  Hatches on the first ship began to open as soon as the third touched down. The crew had been waiting till that moment. As close as the vessels were to one another, there might have been danger if the first-landed had begun disembarking previously.

  The first personnel out were ship’s crewmen, adjusting the ramps with hydraulic jacks. Starship personnel were used to the agonizing disorientation of interstellar travel. They had the same splitting headaches, the same blurred vision, and the same nausea as those who traveled less often, but they’d learned to work through the pain.

  The noise died away. As Huber cut his remote to return to Lindeyar’s response, he saw huge tanks on caterpillar treads starting to roll out of the starship.

  “That’s right, you’ve won, gentlemen,” Lindeyar said with dripping disdain. “Go home and tell your people about your victory. Celebrate!”

  He swung his blond, handsome head about the circle like a wolf surveying the henhouse he’s just entered. “As for you, Mister President and your fellows, our terms are simple: Port Plattner is now an extraterritorial division of the Polity of Nonesuch. Port controls and fees are no longer your concern. If you choose to argue the matter, then we’ll take over the administration of all Solace.”

  He pointed his left arm to the north, fingers outstretched, though he didn’t turn his head away from the Solace delegation. “There’s a division of the Nonesuch National Guard on the ground already. We can bring more troops in if we have to, but given the condition of your forces that obviously won’t be necessary. And if you’re thinking of mercenaries—I’m afraid you’ve overextended your off-planet credit already. Now that you no longer hold Port Plattner, Solace is bankrupt. The money you’ve placed with the Bonding Authority will just cover repatriation of the units already contracted to you, and the Authority won’t approve any further hires.”

  All eyes turned to Mistress Dozier. She shrugged and said without emphasis, “The Authority isn’t in the business of making moral judgments. We’re employed—”

  Her face hardened.

  “—by all parties, let me remind you, to enforce contracts, nothing more. Mister Lindeyar has correctly stated the situation insofar as the Bonding Authority is concerned.”

  Colonel Priamedes’ head lolled on Huber’s shoulder. “Papa?” Daphne whispered urgently.

  Huber touched the colonel’s throat with an index and middle finger; his pulse was strong. Priamedes hadn’t recovered from the knocks he’d taken at Northern Star Farms, and the present events were simply more than his system could handle without shutting down.

  Huber’s leg didn’t hurt anymore; the adrenaline surging through him was the best medicine for pain. He didn’t know how long he could keep this up, but for the time being he could do his job— whatever that job turned out to be. He eyed Sigmund Lindeyar without expression.

  “I don’t have to explain this to Colonel Hammer,” Lindeyar said, “but for the rest of you I’ll point out that any mercenary unit which works without a paid contract becomes an outlaw in the eyes of the Bonding Authority. Civilization can’t survive with bands of mad dogs roving from planet to planet without rules.”

  Hammer began to laugh so hard that his loose breastplate flapped back and forth. He said, “Oh, what a principled gentleman you are, Master Lindeyar!” and then bent over again in another spasm of mirth.

  “On behalf of the Colonel,” Major Pritchard said as the delegates of both sides stared at Hammer in disbelief, “I can assure you that Hammer’s Regiment is scrupulously careful to operate within the constraints of the Bonding Authority. We aren’t vigilantes who imagine that it’s our duty to impose justice. . . .”

  Pritchard swept the politicians with a gaze as contemptuous as that of Lindeyar a few mome
nts earlier. He went on, “And if we were, we’d be hard put to find an employer who could meet our standards, wouldn’t we?”

  Lindeyar seemed more disconcerted by Hammer’s laughter than he might have been by anger. He looked at the bodyguards standing by the aircar he’d arrived in: all three had their hands in plain sight. When he followed their gaze back, he saw Deseau’s tribarrel aimed at them. Frenchie grinned down and pointed his right index finger at Lindeyar’s face like a pistol.

  In a careful voice, Lindeyar said, “Of course, Colonel Hammer, your troops’ performance on Plattner’s World won’t go unnoticed, particularly the brilliant stroke by which you captured the port here. I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty finding employment in the near future.”

  Hammer straightened. The laughter was gone; he gave Lindeyar a look of cold appraisal.

  “I worry about a lot of things, Mr. Lindeyar,” he said. “It’s my job to worry; I’m in charge. But I’ve never had to worry about somebody hiring us. My Slammers are the best there is, and the whole universe knew it before we came here to Plattner’s World.”

  Lindeyar nodded, licking his lips. “Yes, of course,” he said. He cleared his throat before going on, “Since there’s no need to conclude the formalities at this moment, I’ll be off to other matters which require my attention. President Rihorta, I’ll be in touch with you regarding the wording of your government’s concession of Port Plattner.”

  He backed away from the circle, smiling fitfully each time his eyes met those of one of the Slammers. His hip bumped Foghorn’s skirt; he turned with a shocked expression, then walked at an increasing pace to his aircar.

  Colonel Priamedes was able to support his own weight again. Huber released him and stepped aside, though Daphne kept hold of her father’s other arm.

  “I guess you people have things you’d better be about as well,” Hammer said, surveying the delegations. All the civilians seemed to be on the verge of collapse; Priamedes, whose difficulties were merely physical, had gotten his color back and now stood straight. “Go on and do them.”

  He focused on Minister Graciano. “You and I’ll talk regarding financial arrangements tomorrow. Mistress Dozier, you’ll be present?”

  “Yes, of course,” the Bonding Authority representative said.

  Lindeyar’s aircar lifted and curved toward the ships disgorging a Nonesuch armored division. Huber’d left his 2-cm weapon in Fencing Master, so all he had was the pistol on his equipment belt. He’d never been much good with a pistol; but if he fired in the direction of the aircar, Frenchie would swat it out of the air in blazing fragments.

  That’d be a violation of the contract, of course. The Colonel would have him executed immediately as the only way to prevent

  the Regiment from being outlawed and disbanded.

  We’re not in the business of dispensing justice. . . .

  The delegations started moving away toward their own vehicles. Daphne Priamedes said, “It’s over for us, now—Solace and the Outer States as well now that Nonesuch has the port. ‘Woe to the conquered.’ That’s how it’s always been.”

  Arne Huber thought about Sergeant Jellicoe, about Flame Farter’s two crewmen and all the other troopers he’d lost here on Plattner’s World. He watched the aircar landing among the disembarking Nonesuch soldiers and said aloud, “Yeah, I suppose. But it’s not just to the conquered, sometimes.”

  Arne Huber stood on the berm against which Fencing Master nestled bow-on, surveying the landscape. It’d been a field of spring wheat before the engineers gouged Firebase One out of it two days ago and moved a third of the Regiment’s combat elements into it.

  Huber hadn’t been a farmer; he’d seen no magic in the original flat expanse of green shoots stretching to the hills ten kilometers away. He was willing to grant that it’d been more attractive than this scraped yellow wasteland, though.

  Deseau crawled carefully out of the plenum chamber. He was a small man, but battle and the hard run had left him stiff. You could hurt yourself on sharp, rusty metal when your muscles don’t work the way you expect them to. He stepped away from the access port before he dusted his trousers with his hands; Padova followed him out. He grinned at Huber and said, “Funny to be on Plattner’s World and not be skating in mud, ain’t it, El-Tee?”

  A dirigible slinging three pallets of howitzer ammunition was crawling upwind to the cargo pad. The big airships didn’t overfly the firebase: they dropped their loads outside the berm, from where trucks with troopers driving hauled the material the short remainder of the way.

  “Hadn’t really thought about it, Frenchie,” Huber said. His eyes were on the dirigible, but he wasn’t really thinking about that either. “I can’t say I like the dust here in the highlands a lot better.”

  “Hey, Learoyd?” Deseau called to the trooper in the fighting compartment. “Slide into the front, will you, and run up Port Two?”

  Learoyd didn’t work in the plenum chamber unless he had to. He was too big for the hatches even when he was fit, and now his right arm was in a surface cast to keep him from rubbing off the medication that the Medicomp had applied when things settled down enough for the support equipment and personnel to arrive from Base Alpha. A fresh set of barrels for the 2-cm automatics had arrived, so Learoyd was working on the tribarrels while the other crewmen realigned the nacelle that’d taken a knock from the dense rootball of a tree Fencing Master had driven over.

  “I’ll do it,” said Padova, mounting the bow with a hop and a grab for the first handhold on the hull proper. Rita’d settled in during the run and the three days of quiet following Port Plattner; now she was a member of Fencing Master’s crew, not just a skilled driver.

  “Any word about when we might be moving out, El-Tee?” Deseau asked, shielding his eyes with his hand as he looked up at Huber. “I mean, we’re off the clock, right? Paying for our own time.”

  A dotted line of dirigibles stretched to the southern horizon: Huber could see at least a dozen airships at once. There’d been a solid stream of airships transferring supplies and material from the UC ever since the Regiment pulled twenty kilometers back and set up three firebases equidistant from Port Plattner. They’d leave in a single giant transport from Port Plattner rather than in dribs and drabs from makeshift starports in the UC, so Huber supposed it made sense. Not that anybody cared what he thought.

  “So far as anybody’s told me, Frenchie,” he said, “we’re going to stay here till we’ve all grown long white beards. I don’t expect that’s what’ll happen, but your guess is as good as mine.”

  Padova switched on the portside fans and ran them up together. Huber cocked his head, listening with a critical ear for any imbalance in the harmonics. So far as he could tell, the nacelles were tuned as sweetly as if they’d just been blueprinted in the factory.

  “El-Tee?” called Learoyd. He pointed to Fencing Master’s port wing gun, slewing incrementally under the control of gunnery computer. “There’s something coming.”

  Huber looked south again, noticing this time that two enclosed aircars were approaching fast below the dirigibles. His eyes narrowed: the cars’ IFF must have been responding correctly or else the tribarrels on air defense would’ve shot them out of the sky a minute ago, but the drivers were taking a chance anyway. Even with the war over . . .

  “Hey, what d’ye have?” Deseau said. He couldn’t see what was happening from ground level, but he’d noticed Learoyd’s and Huber’s interest. Instead of immediately jumping onto the plenum chamber to see for himself, he first latched the access port closed so that Fencing Master would be able to maneuver again.

  The aircars came over the berm twenty meters up, braking to a hover with a slickness that showed the drivers were expert. They set down in front of the TOC, between two of Battery Alpha’s dug-in howitzers; dust skittered, dancing away to the west.

  Huber jumped from the berm to the plenum chamber, his boots clanging. He climbed into the fighting compartment just as Deseau did; both m
en reflexively checked their tribarrels. Learoyd locked down the third barrel on his gun and slipped the adjustment wrench into its pouch on his belt.

  “What d’ye think, El-Tee?” Deseau asked. “Did that bastard Lindeyar have second thoughts about terminating our contract?”

  “None of them are Lindeyar,” Learoyd said. “They’re the other politicians’ cars.”

  Fencing Master’s tribarrels couldn’t bear on the aircars because they were straight behind them, and anyway you didn’t point a gun across a firebase unless you wanted to lose your rank. Frenchie was holding his 2-cm weapon in the crook of his arm, and Learoyd unclipped his sub-machine gun from the bracket on the inside of the armor.

  The limousines’ doors opened. Huber recognized Minister Graciano and his three colleagues, and the woman in battledress getting out of the front was Mistress Dozier. From the other aircar came President Rihorta and another member of the Solace delegation. The man accompanying those two was a stranger.

  Aloud Huber said, “I don’t know who the tall guy is. He’s off-planet, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen a hat like that—”

  It was more of a turban; the stranger donned and adjusted it carefully before proceeding with the others toward the ramp down to the TOC.

  “—on Plattner’s World before.”

  “That’s the Colonel waiting in the entrance for ’em,” Deseau said. “I swear it is!”

  “What do we do now, El-Tee?” Learoyd said. He knew the situation’d changed. He wasn’t worried, just looking for direction from somebody smarter than he was.

  “We wait for orders, trooper,” Huber said. He pursed his lips, then added, “And while we’re waiting, I think we’ve got room here to stow another case of tribarrel ammo. Let’s see if the quartermaster can help us out.”

  Huber’s mind registered motion—a streak of light across the purple-black sky. He opened his mouth to shout a warning over the squadron net, then realized it was a shooting star rather than incoming artillery.

  Padova stood on the plenum chamber where she could quickly slide down the driver’s hatch. She looked into the fighting compartment and shook her head. “How can Frenchie sleep?” she muttered.