The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

The stern curtsied as Holman finally tilted two of her fan nacelles to direct their thrust to the rear. Charlie Three-zero slid forward, then hopped up as the skirts gouged the top of the berm like a cookie cutter in soft dough.

The tank sailed off the front of the berm and dropped like the iridium anvil she was as soon as her skirts lost their temporary ground effect.They hit squarely, ramming the steel skirts ten centimeters into the ground and racking Wager front and back against the coaming.

Somehow Holman managed to keep a semblance of control. The tank's bow slewed right—and Charlie Three-zero roared off counterclockwise, in pursuit of the other two members of their platoon.

They continued to bounce every ten meters or so. Their skirts grounded, rose till there was more than a hand's breadth clearance beneath the skirts—and spilled pressure in another hop.

But they were back in the war.

The reason Warrant Leader Ortnahme fired into the rockpile 300 meters to their front was that the overgrown mound—a dump for plowed-up stones before the government took over the area from Camp Progress—was a likely hiding place for Consie troops.

The reason Ortnahme fired the main gun instead of the tribarrel was that he'd never had an excuse to dothatbefore in his twenty-three years as a soldier.

His screens damped automatically to keep from being overloaded, but the blue flash was reflected onto Ortnahme through the open hatch as

Herman's Whorebucked with the recoil.

The rockpile blew apart in gobbets of molten quartz and blazing vegetation. There was no sign of Consies.

Via! but it felt good!

Simkins was keeping them a hundred meters outside Sparrow's

Deathdealer, the way the acting platoon leader had ordered. Simkins had moved his share of tanks in the course of maintenance work, but before now, he'd never had to drive one as fast as twenty kph. He was doing a good job, but—

"Simkins!" he ordered. "Don'tjink around them bloody bushes like they was the landscaping at headquarters. Just drive over 'em!"

But the kid was doing fine. The Lord

onlyknew where the third tank with its newbie crew had gotten to.

The air above the Yokels' high berm crackled with hints of cyan, the way invisible lightning backlighted clouds during a summer storm. The Red team was finding somebody to mix with.

The tanks might as well be practicing night driving techniques. The Consies that'd hit this end of the encampment must all be dead or runnin' as fast as they could to save their miserable—

WHANG!