The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

Gale fired his tribarrel overFlamethrower's stern. Bolts danced off the left guardrail and streaked through the ambush scene. Their cyan purity glared even in the heart of the kerosene pyre which consumed the trucks and their cargo. The bolts vanished only when they touched something solid.

Flamethrower

was the last vehicle in the column. Suilin turned also and hosed the fire-shot darkness, praying that there would be no wobbling muzzle flashes to answer as a Consie rifleman rakedFlamethroweras he had the car ahead of them.

They slid past the further abutments at fifty kph. There'd been a blockhouse there, but it lay in steaming ruins licked by rare red tongues of flame. A truck burned brightly, well down the steep embankment supporting the approach to the bridge.

On its side, between

Flamethrowerand the truck, lay a tipped-over bus. A Consie gunman silhouetted by the truck, aimed at Suilin from a bus window.

Liquid nitrogen sprayed into the chambers of Suilin's tribarrel as it cycled, kicking out the spent cases and cooling the glowing iridium of the chamber before the next round was loaded. The gas was a hot kiss blowing back across the reporter's hands as he horsed his weapon onto the unexpected threat. The tribarrel was heavy despite being perfectly balanced on its gimbals, and it swung with glacial torpor.

"

Not that—" screamed Suilin's headset. Two-cm bolts ripped across the undercarriage of the bus, bright flashes that blew fuel lines, air lines, hydraulic lines into blazing tangles and opened holes the size of tureens in the sheet metal.

The line of bolts missed by millimeters the man whose raised hand had been shadowed into a weapon by the flames behind him. The civilian fell back into the interior of the bus.

No-no-no—

Suilin's screams didn't help any more than formal prayers would have done if he'd had leisure to form them.

When it first ignited, the ruptured fuel tank engulfed the rear half of the bus. The flames had sped all the way to the front of the vehicle before any of the flailing figures managed to crawl free.

Somebody patted the reporter's forearms; gently at first, but then with enough force to detach his death grip from the tribarrel.

" S'okay, turtle," a voice said. "All okay. Don't mean nothin'."

Suilin opened his eyes. He'd flipped up his visor, or one of the mercenaries had raised it for him. Cooter was holding his forearms, while Gale watched the reporter with obvious concern. He wasn't sure which of the veterans had been speaking.