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

by David Drake

  Some of the sounds were unfamiliar. With a sudden leap of his heart, Lamartiere realized that the rhythmic shoop-shoop-shoop from deep in the hull must be ammunition rising from the storage magazines.

  Out of nervousness he coarsened blade pitch too fast. The fans threatened to bog, but Lamartiere rolled back on the adjustment in time. Adding power with his right handgrip and pitch with the left, he brought Hoodoo to hover in place.

  The driver's compartment felt more comfortable to him without a gunnery display in the center of the lower screen. He'd regularly driven tanks during the months he'd worked as one of the Slammers' Local Service Personnel, but he'd never seen a gunnery display until Dr. Clargue went over Hoodoo's systems in Pamiers.

  Dozens of Ralliers were blazing away at Hoodoo with rifles and submachine guns, a dangerous waste of ammunition. Somebody with a better notion of utility jumped down from his APC and ran forward, swinging a satchel charge for a side-armed throw. A bullet ricocheting from the tank tore his face away as he released the satchel.

  The bomb flew toward Hoodoo in a high arc. A section of self-defense strip fired, making the tank ring. Tungsten pellets shredded the satchel into tatters of cloth and explosive, flinging it back the way it had come. It didn't detonate.

  Lamartiere eased his control yoke forward and twisted left to move the tank away from the shrine. There were too many civilians nearby. Shots that couldn't damage Hoodoo would kill and maim people who'd only looked for peace.

  The APCs were driving away. Ralliers who'd gotten out to finish off Maury's men on foot ran along behind the vehicles, shouting and waving their arms. One of the gunners depressed his cannon as his APC turned, intending to rake Hoodoo's skirts. If the plenum chamber was holed badly enough, the tank's fans couldn't build enough pressure to lift her off the ground.

  Blue-green light sparkled on the APCs turret as a dozen bolts from Hoodoo's 2cm weapon hit it. The tribarrel's rotation was an additional whirr in the symphony of the tank at work. In the driver's compartment, the plasma discharges were scarcely louder than peanuts cracking.

  The turret flew apart like steam puffed into a stiff breeze. The APC's armor was a sandwich of ceramic within high-maraging steel: the steel burned white while glassy knives of the core ripped in all directions. The torso of a Rallier trying to climb back aboard the vehicle vanished in bloody spray.

  Lamartiere crawled through the chaos. The ground in front of the shrine was littered with bodies and debris. Residents who'd been caught in the fighting lay intermixed with Maury's gang. Some of them might still be alive.

  Above Lamartiere the tribarrel spat short bursts. Sergeant Heth was picking off dismounted Ralliers instead of firing at the fleeing vehicles. Some of de Laburat's men turned to run for shelter in the rocks when they saw the APCs weren't going to stop for them. None of them made it, and the ones who threw themselves down to feign death didn't survive either.

  It was easy to tell dead Ralliers from those shamming. At short range a 2cm bolt tore a human body apart. When several hit the same target, the result was indistinguishable from a bomb blast.

  Lamartiere drove over the wreckage of a truck that had been hit by an antitank missile. Lubricant and the synthetic rubber tires burned with low, smoky flames. Hoodoo's skirt plowed a path through the skeletal frame, whipping the blaze higher with the downdraft from the plenum chamber.

  The main gun fired.

  The tribarrel had so little effect inside the tank that Lamartiere was merely aware that Heth was shooting. The 20cm weapon's discharge rocked Hoodoo backward despite the inertia of her 170 tonnes. Air clapped to fill the vacuum which the jolt of plasma had burned through its heart. Lamartiere shouted in surprise.

  The leading APC, by now nearly a kilometer distant, burst as though a volcano had erupted beneath it. The bolt transferred its megajoules of energy to the vehicle, vaporizing even the ceramic armor. A fireball forty meters in diameter bloomed where the APC had been; bits of solid matter sprayed out of it, none of them bigger than a man's thumbnail.

  The gun cycled, ejecting the spent round into the fighting compartment. Heat and stinking fumes flooded Hoodoo's interior even though the ventilation fans switched to high speed. Lamartiere's eyes were watering and the back of his throat burned.

  "Thought I'd wait till we were clear of the civilians," Sergeant Heth explained over the intercom in a conversational voice. "Sidescatter from the big gun can blister bare skin if you're anywhere nearby."

  He fired the 20cm weapon again. This time the clang and the way the tank bucked weren't a surprise to Lamartiere, though his head wobbled back and forth in response to the hull's motion.

  The second APC was making a skidding turn to avoid running through the flaming ruin that had exploded before it. The cyan bolt hit the vehicle at a slant, perfectly centered, and devoured it as completely as its fellow. The fire-ball dimmed to a ghost of its initial fury, but brush ignited by debris ignited hundreds of meters away.

  The last Rallier vehicle fled at over 100 kph despite the broken terrain. It was drawing away because Hoodoo's mass took so long to accelerate despite the tank's higher top speed. Lamartiere concentrated on driving, avoiding knobs of rock too heavy to smash through and crevices that would spill air from the plenum chamber and ground Hoodoo shriekingly.

  He heard the turret gimbal onto its target. A Rallier stood on the deck of the APC and jumped. The man hit the ground and bounced high, limbs fl ailing in rubbery curves. He'd broken every bone in his body and was obviously dead.

  But then, so were his fellows.

  The main gun slammed. The third APC vanished in a smear of fire across the desert floor. The sun was high enough to pale the flames, but the pall of black smoke drifted west with the breeze.

  "Go back to the fort, kid," Heth ordered. "Stegner's heading there in our jeep."

  The mercenary chuckled, then started coughing. The ozone and matrix residue from the main gun burned his throat also. "We planned that Steg'd set off some fireworks on the hills. While everybody was looking that way I'd hop into Hoodoo. The locals made a better job of fireworks than we ever thought of, didn't they? Bloody near did for me, I'll tell the world!"

  Lamartiere braked the tank with the caution its mass demanded. Unlike the driver of a wheeled vehicle, he didn't have the friction of tires against the ground to slow him unless he dumped air from the plenum chamber and deliberately skidded the skirt.

  There was no need now for haste. Lamartiere wasn't in a hurry to face what came next.

  He opened his hatch, thinking the draft would clear fumes from the tanks interior faster than the filtered ventilation system. The hatch rolled shut again an instant later; Sergeant Heth had used the commander's override.

  "Not just yet, kid," he said. "The guy in charge of this lot, de Laburat . . . Did you ever meet him?"

  "Yes," Lamartiere said. "I'd sooner trust a weasel."

  "Yeah, that's the guy," the mercenary said. "But he's a smart sonuvabitch. He saw the way things were going before any of his people did. He bailed out and ran into the rocks right away. I didn't have the ready magazines charged yet, so I couldn't do anything about it."

  "You mean de Laburat got away?" Lamartiere said in horror.

  The main gun fired. The unexpected CLANG/jerk! whipsawed Lamartiere's head again. Fumes seeped through the narrow passage from the fighting compartment, but both hatches opened before he had time to sneeze. The wind of Hoodoo's forward motion scoured Lamartiere's station.

  This time the bolt had struck at the base of the cliff a hundred meters west of the shrine. Rock shattered in a blue-green flash.

  The slope bulged, then slid downward with a roar. A plume of pulverized rock settled slowly, displaying an enormous cavity in the cliff. Below the crater was a pile of irregular blocks which in some cases were larger than a man. The mass was still shifting internally, giving it the look of organic life.

  Civilians who'd been returning from the orchard, some of them running to check on l
oved ones, flattened again to the ground. They had no way of telling what had just happened.

  "He got away for a while," Heth said with satisfaction."But then he stuck his head up outa the crevice where he was hiding to see what was going on. He didn't get a very long view, did he?"

  Heth's laughter changed again to coughing, though with a cheerful undercurrent. Because the fumes escaped via the cupola, the turret took longer to clear than the driver's compartment.

  Father Blenis was on the battlements, standing as straight in his robes as age would permit him. He was alone. He hadn't flinched when the 20cm gun fired, even though he was closer to the bolt's crashing impact than any of the other civilians.

  A jeep was racing across the desert from the foothills to the east, trailing a pennant of ruddy dust. Lamartiere wondered if Heth was armed. Probably not. The gangs searched the provisions truck, so one or the other of them would have confiscated any weapon the mercenary had tried to bring with him.

  It didn't matter. Lamartiere had run as far as he was going to. The tank he'd stolen with such high hopes had brought disaster to everyone around him.

  Hoodoo was nearing Maury's vehicles. Black smoke still poured out of the carcasses. Lamartiere swung his fan nacelles vertical, lifting the tank for an instant to spill air from the plenum chamber. Hoodoo pogoed, touching several times as she slowed. The impacts were too gentle to damage the skirts.

  They nosed through the gap they'd plowed in pursuit of the Ralliers. Lamartiere drove carefully; there were civilians moving behind the smoke. He didn't see anyone holding a weapon, though there were plenty of guns strewn across the ground. Dr. Clargue squatted near the walls, bandaging a child's leg.

  "Sir?" Lamartiere asked.

  "I'm no fucking officer, kid," Heth said, at least half-serious. "Anyway, 'Sarge' was good enough when you were an LSP at the base, wasn't it?"

  "That was a long time ago, Sarge," Lamartiere said. Five calendar days, and a lifetime. "Anyway, I was wondering what the command was to transfer ammo to the ready magazines. Dr. Clargue's searched the data banks up, down, and crosswise and he can't find it. Couldn't find it."

  Heth laughed himself into another fit of coughing. "Oh, blood and martyrs, was that the problem? Steg and me knew there must be something going on why you didn't use the main gun, but we couldn't on our lives figure out what it was!"

  Lamartiere nestled the tank against the shrine. He shut down the fans. The jeep with Trooper Stegner was still a minute or two distant. "Well, what was it then?" he said sharply. There were worse things happening than Heth laughing at him, but it was still irritating.

  The sergeant had cocked the turret to the side; the 20cm barrel was no longer glowing, but heat waves still distorted the air above the iridium. He climbed out of the cupola and slid down beside the driver's hatch. Lamartiere raised his seat, but for the moment he was too exhausted to get out of the vehicle.

  "Hey, simmer down," Heth said. "I'm just laughing because of how lucky we were. Not that I'm not going to have some explaining to do about why Hoodoo's late joining the regiment on Beresford, but at least you didn't turn Carcassone inside out with the main gun."

  The jeep wound between a pair of truck chassis. The open flames had died down, though the wreckage still smoldered. Stegner, a tall man with wispy hair and a face like a rabbit's, waved to them.

  "Transfer isn't a software process," Heth went on. "It's hardwired. There's a thumb switch on the firing lever. To recharge the ready magazines you roll it up for the tribarrel and down for the main gun."

  "Oh," Lamartiere said. "Yeah, that explains why the doctor couldn't find the command."

  He put a boot on the seat and lifted himself out of the compartment. Heth steadied him till he'd settled on the open hatch.

  "Kid," the sergeant said. "There's maybe three million parts in one of these suckers. How were you supposed to know what every one of them is, and you not even through proper training?"

  He patted Hoodoo with an affectionate hand. "You did plenty good enough with what you had. I watched you chew up that mechanized battalion at the Lystra, remember? I'll tell the world!"

  The sergeant's torso was badly scraped besides being half-covered in oil, but apart from occasionally rubbing his elbow he showed no signs of discomfort. Lamartiere's chest hurt badly, particularly where the mob gun had recoiled into his ribs when he fired, but he thought the damage was probably limited to bruising.

  "Did you see the holes in the skirt, Sarge?" Stegner called as he stood scowling at Hoodoo's flank. "Must be about a hundred of 'em. Nothing very big but I don't want to drive back to Brione with her mushing like a pig."

  "She sagged left," Lamartiere said. "I had to tilt the nacelles to keep her straight, but it wasn't as bad as the damage we took at the Lystra."

  "Probably the warhead that flipped my truck over on me," Heth said judiciously. "Well, we can use the truck's bed for patching. Do they have a welder here, kid?"

  Half the residents had returned to the shrine. They were crying in amazement and horror at the carnage. Many others still hid among the stone shelters of the orchard, waiting to be sure that it was safe to show themselves. Lamartiere couldn't blame them for their fear.

  "I doubt it," he said. He thought for a moment. "There's mastic, though. I saw some where they're tiling the chapel entryway. It'll work for a patch on the inside of the skirts, since air pressure tightens the seal."

  "Yeah, that'll work," said Stegner approvingly. He walked to the overturned truck and kicked it, judging the thickness of the body metal by the sound.

  "Sergeant Heth," Lamartiere said, looking at the stone wall of the shrine. "Are you going to hand me over to the government, or . . .?"

  He turned and gestured toward the body of the old man Maury's thugs had shot as a warning to Dr. Clargue—a few moments before they and all their fellows died also.

  "Hey, we don't work for the government of Ambiorix anymore, kid," Heth said. "The only reason Steg and me are still on the planet is we really didn't want to explain to Colonel Hammer how we managed to lose one of his tanks. Do you have any idea what one of these costs?"

  He patted Hoodoo again.

  Marie's body lay at the foot of the wall. Her upturned face was peaceful and unmarked, but there was a splotch of blood on her upper chest. Lamartiere supposed a stray bullet had hit her. There'd been enough of them flying around.

  "I know what it costs," he said. "I know what it cost these people."

  "Yeah, that's so," Heth agreed. "And I'm not arguing with you. But you might remind yourself that things may be a little better for the folks here now that the gangs are out of the way. I don't say it will, mind you; but it may be."

  He spat accurately onto the corpse of one of Maury's men; the one who'd held the hostage for his partner to shoot, Lamartiere thought.

  "I don't work for the government, like I told you," Heth said quietly. "But sometimes I do things on my own personal account. War isn't a business where there's a lot of obvious good guys, but sometimes the bad guys are pretty easy to spot."

  Lamartiere put a hand on Heth's shoulder so that the mercenary would look him straight in the eye. "Sergeant," Lamartiere said, "am I free to go? Is that what you're telling me?"

  Heth shrugged. "Sure, if you want to," he said. "But Steg and me was hoping you might like to join the Slammers. The colonel's always looking for recruits."

  Stegner morosely rubbed a dimple in the hull surrounded by a halo of bright radial scratches. A high-explosive shell had burst there against the armor. "If we bring you along," he said, "maybe we can get a few of these extra dings passed off as training accidents, you know?"

  "And you might like to be someplace there wasn't a price on your head," Heth said, rubbing the armor with his thumb. "Nobody at the port's going to think twice if there's three of us boarding a ship for Beresford along with Hoodoo, here."

  Lamartiere looked toward the battlements. Father Blenis knelt in prayer. A pair of young women, one of t
hem holding an infant, were with him. At the base of the wall three laymen and a Brother worked with focused desperation to jury-rig a platform in place of the shattered basket.

  "I guess I don't have a choice," Lamartiere said.

  Trooper Stegner looked up from the side of the tank. "Sure you got a choice," he said in a hard, angry voice. Lamartiere had thought of the trooper as a little slow, but invariably good-humored. "There's always a choice. I coulda stayed on Spruill sniping at Macauleys till one of the Macauleys nailed me!"

  "For me," said Sergeant Heth, "the problem was her father and brothers. I decided that joining the Slammers was better than the rest of my life married to Anna Carausio."

  He smiled faintly in reminiscence. "I still think I was right, but who knows, hey?"

  Lamartiere nodded. "Yeah, who knows?" he said.

  He looked at Marie's silent body. Maybe she was in the arms of God; maybe Celine was there, too, and all the others who'd died since Denis Lamartiere stole a tank. It would be nice to believe that.

  Lamartiere didn't believe in much of anything nowadays; certainly not in the Mosite Rebellion as a cause to get other people killed in. But one thing he did believe.

  "Ambiorix'll be a better place if I'm off-planet," he said to the mercenaries. "And just maybe I'll be better off, too. I'll join if you'll have me."

  Heth stuck out his hand for Lamartiere to shake. "Welcome aboard, kid," he said.

  Stegner kicked Hoodoo's skirt. "Now let's get this poor bitch patched up so we get the hell out of here, shall we?"

  WHITE MICE COMBAT CAR

  A DEATH IN PEACETIME

  The brothel was too upscale to have an armored street entrance, but the doorman was a wall of solid muscle beneath a frock coat in the latest style. He frowned when the nondescript aircar hummed to a halt in front of the door.

  Four hard-looking men got out. Hesitating only long enough to press the button warning those upstairs to keep an eye on the closed-circuit screen, the doorman stepped into the street. "I'm sorry, gentlemen," he said, "but we're closed tonight for a private party. Perhaps—"