The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 1 (hammer's slammers)

by David Drake

  With the tanks in position, the remainder of the battalion came over the hill and headed for the river. Thirty-odd air-cushion armored personnel carriers made up the bulk of the unit. Each APC mounted an automatic cannon in a small turret and could carry up to sixteen troops in addition to its own crew.

  To Lamartiere's surprise there was an air-cushion jeep in the middle of the column. It pulled out of line almost at once and vanished behind an outcrop too slight to hide a vehicle of any size.

  A lightly loaded air-cushion vehicle can sail across water because its weight is spread evenly over the whole surface beneath the plenum chamber. Government APCs carried too high a density of armor and payload for that. They sank, but where the bottom was as shallow and firm as it was here they could pogo across without flooding their fans. Even so, the Lystra was dangerously high. Only a crisis could induce a battalion to force the crossing now instead of waiting for the load of melting snow to recede for another week.

  Rather than driving straight into the water as Lamartiere expected, the APCs formed three lines abreast well short of the bank. Their turret guns nervously searched the hills across the river, and troops pointed personal weapons from the open hatches in the vehicles' top decks.

  Four more tanks closed the battalion's line of march. They drove past their fellows in overwatch positions to halt at the river's edge. A pair of crewmen got out of each vehicle and erected a breathing tube over the engine vents. While they worked, the third crew member closed the coil gun's muzzle with a tompion.

  The crews got back in their waterproofed tanks and drove slowly into the river. The initial drop-off brought water foaming over the tops of the big wheels, but the slope lessened. The vehicles were nearly at the Lystra's midpoint before their turrets went completely under, leaving only the snorkel tubes and occasionally the raised muzzle of a coil gun to mark their progress.

  The first rank of APCs bounded into the river with a roar and wall of spray like that at the base of a waterfall. They had waited so that their boisterous passage didn't swamp the tanks while the latter were still in deep water.

  "Here we go," Lamartiere warned Clargue. He fed power to the fans and lifted Hoodoo several meters higher up the swale, exposing her turret and main gun to view of the government forces.

  The tanks across the river fired before Hoodoo came to rest. Two shells landed ringing hammer blows against the turret and a third exploded just short, flinging half a tonne of dirt over the bow slope. If Lamartiere had been looking out of his hatch, the blasts would have decapitated him.

  The government vehicles had fired HE, not armor-piercing shot. That meant they hadn't really expected to meet the Slammers' tank here. They must be terrified already . . .

  Lamartiere laid the pipper on the gun mantle of the tank on the left. He was too busy to be frightened now.

  Befayt's guerrillas and the APCs were firing wildly. Government automatic weapons stitched the night together with golden tracers. Rebel coil guns showed only puffs of fluorescent mist, the ionized vestiges of the projectiles' driving bands.

  Lamartiere tapped his trigger while his left index finger clicked the radios on and off. Light more brilliant than the shell bursts lit Hoodoo's turret. Remnants of the copper leads bled blue-green across the flash of aluminized slurry. Simultaneously the tribarrel's bolt struck at the base of the target's electromotive gun, cratering the armor and stripping insulation from the tube's windings.

  "Another charge!" Lamartiere screamed.

  The guerrillas were concentrating on tank snorkels and the APCs which had entered the stream. A line of bullets tore out the side of an APC's skirts. The vehicle rolled over on its back, spilling soldiers through the open hatches. The weight of their gear sucked them down.

  The government tanks fired again. The tank Lamartiere had damaged dissolved in a sizzling short circuit. The current meant to accelerate a kilo of tungsten to 4000 kph instead ate metal. Everything flammable in the interior ignited, including the flesh of the crew.

  The other three rounds missed Hoodoo. The gunners had switched to AP, but in their haste they'd forgotten to correct for the much flatter trajectory of the high-velocity shot.

  "Ready!" Clargue called. Lamartiere hit the second tank exactly where he'd nailed the first. A 2cm bolt couldn't penetrate the government tanks' frontal armor, but accurately used it put paid to their armament. This time, the hatches flew open and the crew bailed out as soon as the bolt hit.

  The government command vehicles carried hoop antennas that set them apart from the ordinary APCs. A guerrilla hit one with a shoulder-launched buzzbomb. The shaped-charge warhead sent a line of white fire through the interior and triggered a secondary explosion that blew the turret off.

  In his triumph the rebel forgot the obvious. He reloaded and rose again from the same location. At least a dozen automatic cannon chewed him to a fiery memory.

  Lamartiere laid his pipper on the third target. He didn't have time to shoot: the crew was already abandoning their untouched vehicle.

  The APCs of the first wave were mostly bogged in the Lystra, though one had managed to wallow back to dry land with riddled skirts. An air-cushion vehicle could move with a leaking plenum chamber, but the fans shed their blades if they tried to push water.

  Three of the fording tanks were only ripples on the surface of the river. The fourth had started to climb the south bank. Its bow and turret were clear, but the engine compartment was still under water when rebels had shot the breathing tube away. The bodies of the three crewmen lay halfway out of their hatches.

  Lamartiere settled his pipper on the last of the overwatching tanks. The government driver backed and turned sharply, trying to retreat the way he had come. Lamartiere hit the vehicle in the middle of the flank, blowing the thin armor into the capacitor compartment. This time the short circuit was progressive rather than instantaneous as with the first victim, but the tank's ultimate destruction was no less complete.

  The surviving APCs roared up the north slope of the valley, going back the way they'd come. Some of them had reversed their turrets and were spraying cannon shells southward, but they no longer made a pretense of aiming. Several vehicles stood empty, though without magnification Lamartiere couldn't see any signs of damage.

  There were a dozen brush fires on the south side of the river, and almost that many burning vehicles on the north. It had been a massacre.

  Guerrillas sniped at soldiers who were still moving, but some of Befayt's people were already splashing into the water to gather loot from the nearest tank. There was a cable bridge slung underwater a kilometer upstream. Organized parties of guerrillas would cross to sweep the northern bank in a few hours.

  The jeep Lamartiere had forgotten suddenly accelerated out of cover, heading uphill. Lamartiere slapped his pipper on it for magnification rather than in a real attempt to shoot.

  The vehicle jinked left and vanished before he could have shot. He was almost sure from the brief glimpse that the two figures aboard were wearing Slammers' uniforms.

  Lamartiere heard the tribarrel whine under the AI's guidance. It began firing short bursts: the artillery in Ariege was shelling again. The gunners hadn't had enough warning to support the crossing with the concentrations they must have prepared in case of rebel resistance.

  "They could have crushed us, Doctor," Lamartiere said in wonder. "They could have gone right through except they panicked. We won because we frightened them, not because we beat them."

  "In my proper profession," Clargue said, "a cure is a cure. I don't see a distinction between the psychological effect of a placebo and the biological effect of a real drug—so long as the beneficial effect occurs."

  He paused before adding, "I find it difficult to view this destruction as beneficial, but I suppose it's better than the same thing happening to Pamiers."

  The last of the surviving APCs had crossed the ridge to safety, leaving behind a pall of dust and the wreckage of their fellows. The tribarrel continued to
fire. The gunners no longer had the site under observation, but they were making noise for much the same reason as savages beat drums when the sun vanishes in eclipse.

  "I'm going back to Pamiers," Lamartiere said. He was extraordinarily tired. "There's some damage to the skirts—" rips from fragments of the shells that hit the turret in the first salvo "—that needs to be repaired. Then we have to get out of here."

  Franciscus jumped onto the bow slope. Lamartiere hadn't seen him approaching; there'd been more on his mind than his immediate surroundings.

  "We won!" the colonel shouted. "By God, the Council'll know who to give charge of the war to now! We won't stop in Brione, we'll take Carcassone!"

  The cupola hatch was open because Dr. Clargue had been throwing the flash charges out of it. Franciscus climbed up and said, "I'll ride inside on the way back."

  Lamartiere heard the hatch thump closed. Franciscus shouted in anger.

  Lamartiere drove Hoodoo up and onto the road. Neither he nor the doctor spoke on the way back to Pamiers.

  Lamartiere shut off the fans in the center of Pamiers. He opened his hatch.

  Franciscus looked down at him. He wasn't wearing a shirt so the bomb-heavy bandoliers wobbled across the curly hair of his chest. He hadn't been around when Befayt provided the reminder about blasting caps and radios. Lamartiere didn't comment.

  Despite the consciously heroic pose, the colonel looked vaguely unsure of himself. Being closed out of Hoodoo on the drive back had caused him to consider Lamartiere as something more than a pawn for the colonel to play. He asked, "Why didn't you put us under cover?"

  "Because all it covers now," Lamartiere said as he got out, "is our sensors' ability to see any shells the Synod sends over. They know from the drone where we were hiding, so it's a fixed target for them. This way Hoodoo protects herself."

  Of course there were only thirty-seven rounds left in the tribarrel's loading tube. Maybe Dr. Clargue would be able to find the transfer command in the respite he and Hoodoo—and Denis Lamartiere, for all Lamartiere felt a failure—had won. But the first order of business was to repair the tank and get out of here.

  Lamartiere slid down the bow and walked toward the pit where Pelissier had his workshop. Civilians ran to the tank, some of them carrying lanterns. They cheered and waved yellow Mosite flags. Lamartiere tried to smile as he brushed his way through them.

  A child handed him a garland of red windflowers. Lamartiere took it, but the streaming blooms made him think of blood in water. The Lystra's current would have carried the carnage kilometers downstream by now. . . .

  Franciscus stood, using the tank as a podium. He began to tell the story of the battle in a loud, triumphant voice. Lamartiere didn't look back.

  Pelissier had been only a teenager when he lost both legs in a mine accident. Since that time he'd served as Pamiers' machinist, living in an increasingly ornate house during peacetime and at the entrance of a disused mine since rebellion had destroyed the village.

  Pelissier had a chair mounted on a four-wheeled tray. The seat raised and lowered, and there was an electric motor to drive him if required. For the most part, the cripple trundled himself around his immediate vicinity by hand. He never went far from his dwelling.

  Pelissier and his old mother doffed their caps as Lamartiere approached. "So," the machinist said. "I congratulate you. But you have learned that no matter how powerful a machine may seem to be, it still can break. That is so?"

  "I worked in the depot at Brione, Pelissier," Lamartiere said. "I never doubted that tanks break. Now I need you to weld patches over holes in the skirts so that I can get Hoodoo away from here. Otherwise she'll draw worse down on you."

  Madame Pelissier spat. Her son looked past Lamartiere toward the ruined houses and said, "Worse? But no matter. Can I get within the chamber? The patches should be made from inside. That way pressure will hold them tighter."

  "There's access ports in the skirts," Lamartiere said. He knew better than to suggest the cripple would be unable to use an opening made for a man with legs.

  Pelissier nodded. "Bring your great machine up here, then, so that we don't have to move the welder through this wasteland."

  He spun his tray back toward the entrance and his equipment. Over his shoulder he said, "I cannot fight them myself, Lamartiere. But to help you, that I can do."

  Lamartiere walked back toward Hoodoo. He'd have to move the crowd away before he started the fans: pebbles slung under the skirts could put a child's eye out.

  He still held the garland. He was staring at the flowers, wondering how he could decently rid himself of an object that made him feel queasy, when he realized that Father Renaud was standing in his path.

  Lamartiere stopped and bowed. "I'm sorry, Father," he said. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

  "You have much on your mind," Renaud said. "I wouldn't bother you merely to offer praise."

  The priest's lips quirked in a tiny smile. "Glory is in God's hands, not mine, but I have no doubt that She will mete out a full measure to you, Denis."

  Renaud's face sobered into its usual waxlike placidity. "I know I'm thought to be hard," he continued. "Perhaps I am. But I feel the loss of every member of my flock, even those I know are seated with God in heaven. You have my sincere sympathy for the loss of your sister."

  "Loss?" said Lamartiere. He wasn't sure what he'd just heard. "Celine is . . .?"

  Father Renaud blinked. He looked honestly shocked for the first time in the year Lamartiere had known him. "You didn't know?" he said. "Oh, my poor child. Celine drove the truck into the gate so that you could escape from Brione. I think she did it as much for your sake as for God's, but God will receive her in Her arms nonetheless."

  Lamartiere hung the garland around his neck. Some child had picked the flowers as the only gift she could offer the man she thought had saved her. It would please that child to see him wearing them.

  "I see," Lamartiere said. He heard his voice catch, but his mind was detached, dispassionate. "Celine wasn't the sort to refuse when called to duty, Father. She would have sacrificed herself as quickly for faith alone as for me. As I would very willingly have sacrificed myself for her."

  He bowed and stepped past Renaud.

  "Denis?" Renaud called. "If there is anything I can offer. . . ?"

  "Your faith needs Hoodoo in working order, Father," Lamartiere said without looking around. "I'm going to go take care of that now."

  Hundreds of civilians crowded around the tank; the vast metal bulk dwarfed them. The superweapon, the machine that would win the war. . . .

  "Let me through!" Lamartiere said. People stepped aside when they saw who was speaking. "I have to get the tank repaired immediately. Everyone get back to the tunnels!"

  Franciscus stood on Hoodoo's turret. He called something; Lamartiere couldn't hear him over the crowd noise. The colonel was everything a military hero needed to be: trim, armed to the teeth, and willing to sacrifice anything to achieve his ends.

  Dr. Clargue sat nearby on a man-sized lump of tailings, rubbing his temples. He looked as tired as Lamartiere felt.

  Lamartiere climbed up Hoodoo's bow slope. "Doctor," he called. "Get everyone out of here. It's very dangerous to be here!"

  "Lamartiere!" Franciscus said. "I want you to teach me how to operate the guns. We can start right now, while the repairs are being done."

  "Yes, all right," said Lamartiere, slipping into the driver's compartment. He threw the switch closing the cupola hatch before Franciscus could get in.

  "Sorry, wrong button," he called over the colonel's angry shout. "Just a moment. Let me start the fans and I'll open it."

  He didn't want Franciscus inside Hoodoo's turret. Lamartiere still owed something to the rebellion; and Celine had, after all, sacrificed herself for the purpose of stealing the tank.

  The civilians were drifting away, but some were still too close. Lamartiere revved the fans with the blades flat. They made a piercing whine as unpleasant as fin
gernails on a blackboard.

  Children shrieked, holding their hands over their ears. They and their mothers scampered away. Clargue chivied them with a fierceness that suggested he guessed what was about to happen.

  Franciscus shouted, "You idiot, what are you trying to do?"

  Lamartiere looked up at the man on the turret. "Good-bye, Colonel," he said. "Give my love to Celine if you meet her."

  He closed the driver's hatch over himself. He wasn't doing this for Celine, because Celine was already dead; but perhaps he was doing it so that Colonel Franciscus wouldn't create any more Celines.

  Lamartiere switched on Hoodoo's radios. The simultaneous blast of the six bombs on Franciscus' bandoliers barely made the tank shudder.

  M2A4 TANK

  THE IRRESISTIBLE FORCE

  Lamartiere sat in the driver's compartment of the supertank Hoodoo, which he'd stolen from Hammer's Slammers as the mercenaries left Ambiorix for Beresford and another contract. The tank's 20cm main gun could smash mountains; the fully automatic 2cm tribarrel in the cupola defended her against incoming artillery as well as packing a sizable punch in its own right. She was the most powerful weapon within twenty light-years.

  In theory, at least. Hoodoo's practical value to the sputtering remnants of the Mosite Rebellion would have to wait until Lamartiere and Dr. Clargue figured out how to transfer ammunition from the tank's storage magazines in the hull to the ready magazines in the turret.

  "The reconnaissance drone has turned east," Clargue said over the intercom. "The AI predicts it's completed its search pattern, but I suppose we should wait a short time to be sure."

  "Right," Lamartiere said, wondering if he'd fall asleep if he closed his eyes for a moment. "We'll wait."

  Even with Hoodoo at rest in a narrow gorge, her internal systems and the hum of the idling drive fans made her noisy. It would have been difficult to shout directly through the narrow passage between the fighting compartment and the driver's position in the bow. The Slammers would have used commo helmets to cut off the ambient noise, but Lamartiere hadn't bothered with frills the night he drove Hoodoo out of the spaceport at Brione.