The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“Two negative,” from the logistics officer, breathing heavily with the exertion of his climb to the roof of the L’Escorial building.

“Three nega—Five negative,” Niko Daun stepping on Margulies’ report, but they were both clear and that was what mattered.

“Six negative,” said Sergeant Johann Vierziger, by pay grade the lowest-ranking member of the survey team. “And it is time that we act, Matthew. Out.”

“Negative!” Bob Barbour snapped. The command was as unexpected as seeing a nun aim a rocket launcher. “This is Four. I’ll tell you when I’m ready, but do nothing till then. Four out.”

“Roger that,” Coke said, crouching at the corner of the building. He wasn’t sure what the intelligence officer had in mind, but he knew Bob well enough now to trust his judgment. Hell, he trusted every member of his team. “One out.”

The town of Potosi was locked and unlighted. Civilians huddled beneath furniture, praying that their homes would be spared by the heavy weapons that could shatter walls and bring down upper stories in an avalanche of brick and timber.

On Coke’s faceshield, the image of Stella Guzman stepped through the curtain of dust. Her combs gleamed in the glaring lights. She stood like a wraith. The ruin of her fortress wound a shroud about her.

“Luria!” she cried. Her eyes stared straight before her, as though she were unaware of her lover’s corpse at her feet. “I will wait for you in Hell, Luria. You’ll join me this night! Do you hear me? You’ll join me this night!”

Pepe’s assistants were still reloading the fireflies’ magazines. The youngest Luria let his controller hang at his belt and rose to face the Widow. “Why, Stella!” he called. “How shameless! Making an assignation and your lover’s body still—”

He drew a pistol and pointed it. From the purple highlights it was indeed Vierziger’s weapon.

“—warm!”

“I’ll wait for you in—”

Pepe shot her in the face. The Widow turned. Luria continued shooting as the body spun onto the rubble and bounced. The Widow’s hand was outstretched toward Peres, but their dead fingers did not touch.

The last of the fireflies rose from the hands of the attendant servicing it. The six deadly constructs wove a violet corona above the L’Escorial leadership.

“Now,” the intelligence officer said. “But don’t harm the fireflies, they’re mine. Four out.”

Pepe Luria noticed that his constellation of fireflies moved without his ordering them to do so. He reacted instantly, diving to cover under one of the armored cars flanking him.

“Take them!” said Major Matthew Coke, and the darkness ignited.

Vierziger fired his 2-cm weapon into the side of the vehicle. Even at a range of nearly 500 meters, the powerful charge turned a chunk of steel armor into vapor and white flame rupturing outward.

Molten and gaseous metal sprayed Pepe beneath the opposite car. Luria jumped up screaming, his hair and clothing afire. Vierziger’s second bolt blew his head off in a cyan flash.

Sten Moden launched a missile. The roof of L’Escorial headquarters reflected some of the backblast straight up, so the building itself appeared to have exploded in red flames.

Before the launcher operator fired, he locked a missile on by snapping an image with his guidance laser, then designated it as a point or object target. In the latter case—a maneuvering armored vehicle, for example—the missile guided itself to the target without updates from the operator.

The missiles had a ten-kilometer range, or even farther if they were launched from a level higher than the chosen target. Here, at half a klick, unburned rocket fuel added to the already cataclysmic effect of the powerful warhead.

An armored car disintegrated in a flash so bright that it seemed to shine through the steel. A red-orange mushroom mounted a hundred meters in the air, raining debris. The blast stove in the side of the car nearest the target vehicle and set it afire. The spray of fragments killed scores of L’Escorial gunmen, shredding some of them from knee height upward.

Matthew Coke chose targets—anybody moving on the street this night—and spun them down with short bursts. Margulies fired her 2-cm weapon from a door alcove five meters ahead of Coke, and Vierziger’s weapons slapped with mechanical precision from the alley west of L’Escorial headquarters.

On targets so distant, a sub-machine gun’s 1-cm bolts were near the low end of their effectiveness. Coke preferred an automatic weapon to the wallop of a 2-cm powergun, particularly at the short ranges he expected before this night was over. He could have carried weapons of both styles, as Vierziger did, but when he got tired he might have grabbed the wrong ammo for the gun he was trying to reload. Even the most experienced veteran could screw up that way….

Part of Coke’s mind wondered if Johann Vierziger ever screwed up. Not when it involved killing something, he supposed.