The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“The Heliodorans,” Johann Vierziger said toward the landscape rumbling past the back of the van, “aren’t good enough to hit the floor with their hats. Though numbers count for something.”

Coke grimaced. “Bob,” he said, “will my helmet raise them, or do we need to put up a beam?”

“You’ll do better if you’re out of the van,” replied the intelligence officer. “But if they’ve got their antenna array extended, and I’m sure they do, they’ll pick it up anyway.”

“Pull off—” Coke began. Margulies swung the wheel and braked before he got to: “—the road, Mary.”

Coke was out the door before the vehicle had come to a complete halt. The immediate area had been cleared around a shack now tumbled to moss and ruin. The van’s other doors opened as suddenly as Coke’s, the guns of his team facing the chance of attack. Even Margulies was scarcely a heartbeat slower than her commander in jumping from the vehicle she drove.

“—FDF Cantilucca. Over,” as Coke switched on the transmission from orbit again.

“Survey team commander to FDF vessel Obadiah,” Coke said. “We’re glad to hear from you, boys, because we’ve got the Heliodorus Regiment looking for our scalps. Can you drop a boat to pick us up? The Heliodorans have secured the spaceport. Over.”

Margulies had shut down the diesel when she stopped. Either she didn’t choose to run further, or she was more optimistic about chances of restarting the beast in a hurry than Coke was. Metal pinged as the engine cooled.

“Obadiah to FDF Cantilucca,” the helmet responded. “You bet we’ll drop a boat. Hold what you’ve got, troopers. Help is coming in figures one-five minutes. Obadiah out.”

“Well I’ll be hanged!” Niko Daun said in pleased amazement.

“That depends on whether the extraction boat reaches us before Madame Yarnell does, kid,” Moden said, but the big logistics officer was smiling also as he pointed his missile launcher back down the road toward dawn and the Heliodorus Regiment.

“Thirteen point six,” Bob Barbour said with satisfaction. “Minutes, that is.”

The intelligence officer’s hearing must have been that much better than that of his commander, because it was another five or six seconds before Coke heard the first whisper of the vessel’s landing motors.

Pilar stood beside him, a hand on his hip beneath the edge of his body armor. She didn’t have armor of her own. Via, he should have grabbed Vierziger’s suit for her since the sergeant wasn’t using it. They brought every other cursed thing from Hathaway House when they—

Niko Daun looked up, toward the sound of the incoming boat. Coke, suddenly fearful that Pilar would follow the direction of Daun’s gaze, shot his hand over her unprotected eyes. “His visor will darken automatically,” Coke said.

Pilar pulled his hand down with a firm motion. “I’ve worked in spaceports for twelve years, Matthew,” she said. “I know that plasma exhausts can be dangerous to my eyesight.”

In a slightly sharper tone she added, “And I’m not fragile.”

She squeezed him to take the edge off the rebuke. He remembered that in previous times of crisis she clutched her crucifix. She no longer wore that symbol.

“Sorry,” he muttered, meaning more than his conscious mind really wanted to dwell on.

“Blood and martyrs, sir!” Niko said. “It’s not a boat, it’s the whole ship! They’re coming straight in and there’s no port here!”

“Class III?” Coke snapped to Vierziger as the penny dropped.

The little gunman smiled, though his eyes continued their ceaseless quest for a threat—or a target, it was all the same thing. He was holding a sub-machine gun now.

“That’s right, Matthew,” Vierziger agreed. “The Obadiah’s a battalion-capacity combat lander. She’s got pontoon outriggers, so she doesn’t require a stabilized surface to set down. And armor, in case the landing zone’s hot.”

The transport swept overhead at a steep angle. The roar and glare of her engines were mind-numbing,. Foliage at the tips of trees beneath her track curled and yellowed.

The vessel’s exhaust was a rainbow flag waved at Madame Yarnell and the Heliodorans, some ten klicks to the west. Either the Obadiah’s commander expected to lift again before anyone could react, or—

Or the commander didn’t care what a regiment of light infantry might attempt. The Obadiah was coming in with her landing doors open. The troops she carried were ready to un-ass the vessel as soon as the skids touched, or maybe a hair sooner.

“Bloody hell!” Mary Margulies shouted over the landing roar.

“She’s coming in loaded! She’s coming in with troops!”

The Obadiah landed a hundred meters away, like a bomb going off in the forest. Her exhaust and armored belly plates cleared their own LZ. Dirt and shattered trees flew away from the shock. Coke caressed Pilar’s head closer to his chest to protect her from the falling debris.