The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

Huber’s mind kept playing back the moment Fencing Master had lurched into position above the canal so he could rake it with his tribarrel. In his memory there was only equipment and empty uniforms in the sun-struck channel. No men at all …

“You’ve got me, Frenchie,” Huber said. He should’ve noticed that himself.

A Company—the White Mice, though Huber didn’t know where the name came from—was the Regiment’s field police, under the command of Major Joachim Steuben. The White Mice weren’t all murderous sociopaths; but Major Steuben was, and the troopers of A Company who still had consciences didn’t let them get in the way of carrying out the orders Steuben gave.

“Officers to the command car ASAP,” a female voice ordered without bothering to identify herself. “All units shut down, maintaining sensor watch and normal guard rosters. Regiment Three-three out.”

Huber felt his face freeze. Regiment Three-three was the signalman for the Slammers’ S-3, the operations officer. What was Major Pritchard doing out here?

Though his presence explained why the White Mice were escorting the convoy, that was for sure.

Resupply was aboard six air-cushion trucks. They could keep up with the combat vehicles on any terrain, but their only armor was thin plating around the cab. Besides them the convoy included two combat cars for escort and two recovery vehicles—wrenchmobiles— which could lift a crippled car in the bed between their fore and aft nacelles. For this run the beds had been screened with woven-wire fencing, so that the twenty A Company infantrymen aboard each wouldn’t bounce out no matter how rough the ride.

The last member of the convoy was a command vehicle. Its high, thinly armored box replaced the fighting compartment and held more signal and sensor equipment than would fit in a standard combat car. It backed between Fencing Master and the tank to Huber’s left, then shut down; the rear wall lowered to form a ramp with a whine of hydraulic pumps.

“Well, you don’t got far to go, El-Tee,” Deseau said judiciously. He rubbed his neck again. “What d’ye suppose is going on?”

“I’ll let you know,” Huber said as he swung his legs out of the fighting compartment and stood for a moment on the bulge of the plenum chamber. He gripped the frame of the bustle rack left-handed, then slid down the steel skirt with the skill of long practice.

His right hand held a sub-machine gun, the butt resting on his pelvis. It fired the same 1-cm charges as the Slammers’ pistols, but it was fully automatic.

Deseau sounded like he didn’t expect to like the answer his lieutenant came back with. That was fair, because Huber didn’t think he was going to like it either.

Captain Sangrela, looking older than Huber remembered him being at the start of the operation, had just shaken hands with Pritchard at the bottom of the ramp. Mitzi Trogon, built like one of her tanks and at least as hard, was climbing down from Dinkybob on the other side of the command track from Fencing Master. She was a good officer to serve with—if you were able to do your job to her standards.

“Lieutenant Myers’s on the way from the prisoner guard in the farm buildings,” Sangrela explained to Pritchard as Huber joined them. The buzz of a skimmer was faintly audible, wavering with the breeze but seeming to come closer. “I moved us half a klick out before laagering for the night so we wouldn’t have hostiles in the middle of us if they got loose or some curst thing.”

This was the first time Huber had seen Major Danny Pritchard in the field; body armor made the S-3 seem bigger than he did addressing the Regiment from a podium. His normal expression was a smile, so he looked younger than his probable real age of thirty-eight or so standard years. He’d come up through the ranks, and the pistol he wore over his clamshell in a shoulder rig wasn’t just for show.

A woman wearing a jumpsuit uniform of a style Huber hadn’t seen before—it wasn’t United Cities garb, and it sure wasn’t Slammers—had arrived in the car with Pritchard but now waited at the top of the ramp. She responded to Huber’s grin with a guarded nod. She was trimly attractive, very alert, and—if Arne Huber was any judge of people—plenty tough as well.

Pritchard looked to his right and said, “Good to see you again, Mitzi,” in a cheerful voice. Turning to Huber he went on, warmly enough but with the touch of reserve proper between near strangers, “Lieutenant Huber? Good to meet you.”

Lieutenant Myers’ skimmer buzzed to a halt beside them, kicking dirt over everybody’s feet. Sangrela glared at the infantry platoon leader who now acted as the task force’s executive officer.

“Sorry,” Myers muttered as he got to his feet. He was a lanky, nervous man who seemed to do his job all right but never would let well enough alone. “I was, I mean—”

“Can it, Lieutenant!” Sangrela said in a tone Huber wouldn’t have wanted anyone using to him. To Pritchard he continued apologetically, “Sir, all my officers are now present.”