The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

The night was bright and welcoming. Muzzle flashes erupted from the slim trees fringing the stream 400 meters to Wager's front.Short bursts without tracers. He set his visor for persistent display—prob'ly a way to do that with the main screens, too, but who the cop cared?—to hold the aiming point in his vision while he aligned the sights of the cupola tribarrel with them.

The first flash of another burst merged with the crackling impact of Wager's powergun. There wasn't a second shot fromthatConsie.

Wager walked his fire down the course of the stream, shattering slender tree trunks and igniting what had been lush grass an instant before the ravening cyan bolts released their energy. The tank still wasn't steady, but Wager'd shot on the move before. He knewhisjob.

A missile exploded, fuel and warhead together, gouging a chunk out of the creekbank where the tribarrel had found it before its crew could align it to fire.

Hans Wager's job was to kill people.

The helmeted Slammers trooper—with twenty kilos of body armor plus a laden equipment belt gripped in his left arm—caught the handle near the top of the car's shield, put his right foot in the step cut into the flare of the plenum chamber skirt, and swung himself into the vehicle.

Suilin's skin was still prickling from the hideous, sky-devouring flash/crash!

that had stunned him a moment before. He'd thought a bomb had gone off, but it was a tank shooting because it happened again. He'd pissed his pants, and that bothered him more than the way Fritzi was splashed across the front of his uniform.

Suilin grabbed the handle the way the soldier had. The metal's buzzing vibration startled him; but it was the fans, of course, not a short circuit to electrocute him. He put his foot on the step and jumped as he'd seen the soldier do. Hehadto get over the side of the armor which would protect him once he was there.

His chest banged the hard iridium, knocking the breath out of him. His left hand scrabbled for purchase, but he didn't have enough strength to—

The trooper Suilin had followed to the combat car leaned over and grabbed the reporter's shoulder. He jerked Suilin aboard with an ease that proved it was as much a knack as pure strength—

But the fellowwasstrong, and Dick Suilin was out of shape for this work. He didn't belong here, and now he was going to die in this fire-struck night . . . .