The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

He bore down harder. The motor protested; bits of the brush tickled the face shield of his helmet. He'd decided to wear his commo helmet this morning instead of his usual shop visor, because—

Via, why not admit it? Because he'd really wished he'd had the helmet the night before. He couldn't change the past, couldn't have all his gear handy backthenwhen he needed it; but he could sure as hell have it on him now for a security blanket.

There was a 1cm pistol in Ortnahme's hip pocket as well. He'd never seen the face of the Consie who'd chased him with the bomb, but today the bastard leered at Ortnahme from every shadow in the camp.

The singer moaned something exceptionally dismal. Ortnahme backed off his multitool, now that he had a sufficient section of channel cleared. He reached for a meter-long strip charge.

Simkins, who should've been buffing the channels while the warrant leader bolted in charges, had disappeared minutes after they'd parkedHerman's Whoreback in her old slot against the berm. The kid'd done a bloody good job during the firefight—but that didn't mean he'd stopped being a bloody maintenance tech. Ortnahme was going to burn him a new asshole as soon as—

"Mr. Ortnahme?" Simkins said. "Look what I got!"

The warrant leader turned,already shouting."Simkins,where in the name of all that's holy have—"

He paused. "Via, Simkins," he said. "Where did you get that?"

Simkins was carrying a tribarrel, still in its packing crate.

"Tommy Dill at Logistics, sir," the technician answered brightly. "Ah, Mr. Ortnahme? It's off the books, you know. We set a little charge on the warehouse roof, so Tommy can claim a mortar shell combat-lossed the gun."

Just like that was the only question Ortnahme wanted to ask.

Though it was sure-helloneof 'em, that was God's truth.

"Kid," the warrant leader said calmly, more or less. "What in the bloody hell do you think you're gonna do with that gun?"

From the way Simkins straightened,"more or less"wasn't as close to "calmly" as Ortnahme had thought.

"Sir!"the technician said."I'm gonna mount it on the bow. So I got something to shoot, ah . . . you know, the next time."

The kid glanced up at the blaring recorder. He was holding the tribarrel with no sign of how much the thing weighed. He wouldn't have been able to do that before Warrant Leader Ortnahme started running his balls off to teach him his job.

Ortnahme opened his mouth. He didn't know which part of the stupid idea to savage first.