The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“Sir …” Huber said. He was willing to tell the truth, but right in this moment he wasn’t sure what the truth was. “Sir, I figure to stay with F-3 and do a good job until a captaincy opens up in one of the line companies. Or I buy the farm, of course. And after that, we’ll see.”

Pritchard laughed again. Huber thought there was wistfulness in the sound along with the humor, but he didn’t know the S-3 well enough to judge his moods. “Let’s go back to your car and get you settled in,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Huber said, turning obediently. “But you said there were two things, sir?”

“Hey, there you are, El-Tee!” Sergeant Deseau bellowed as he saw Huber reentering the haze of light. “Come look what the cat dragged in! It’s Tranter, and he says he’s back with us for the operation!”

“I saw from the after-action review that you were going to need a replacement driver,” Pritchard said in a low voice. “You’ve worked with Sergeant Tranter before and I believe you found him a satisfactory driver—”

“Frenchie says he’s the best driver he ever served with,” Huber said. “I say that too, but Frenchie’s got a hell of a lot more experience than I do.”

“—so I had him transferred from Logistics Section to F-3.”

Huber strode forward to greet the red-haired sergeant he knew from his brief stint in Log Section. Suddenly remembering where he was—and who he’d just turned his back on—he stopped and faced the major again.

“Sorry, sir,” he muttered. “I—I mean, I’ve been sweating making the run tomorrow short a crewman, and there was no way I was going to have Costunna on my car or in my platoon. I was …Well, thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“Colonel Hammer and I are asking you and the rest of the task force to do a difficult job, Lieutenant,” Major Danny Pritchard said. This time his smile was simple and genuine. “I hope you can depend on us to do whatever we can to help you.”

He clasped Huber’s right hand and added, “Now, go give your troopers a pep talk and then get some rest. It’s going to be your last chance to do that for a bloody long time.”

Unless I buy the farm, Huber repeated mentally; but he didn’t worry near as much about dying as he had about carrying out tomorrow’s operation with his car a crewman short.

The Command and Control module housed in the box welded to Huber’s gun mount projected ten holographic beads above Fencing Master’s fighting compartment. Call-Sign Sierra—the four tanks, four combat cars, and two recovery vehicles of Task Force Sangrela—was ready to roll.

If Huber’d wanted to go up an increment, the display would’ve added separate dots for the vehicle crews, the infantry platoon, and the air-cushion jeep carrying the task force commander with additional signals and sensor equipment. He didn’t need that now, though he’d raise the sensitivity when the scout section—one car and a fire-team of infantry on skimmers—moved out ahead.

Huber gestured to the display and said over the two-way link he’d set with Captain Orichos’ borrowed commo helmet, “We’re on track, Captain. Another two minutes.”

Sergeant Tranter ran up his fans, keeping the blade incidence fine so that they didn’t develop any lift. Huber heard the note change minusculely as the driver adjusted settings, bringing the replacement nacelle into perfect balance with the other seven.

Sergeant Deseau nodded approvingly, chopping the lip of the armor with his hand and then pointing forward to indicate the driver’s compartment. Trooper Learoyd didn’t react. He usually didn’t react, except to do his job; which he did very well, though Huber had met cocker spaniels he guessed had greater intellectual capacity than Learoyd.

The fighting compartment was crowded with Orichos sharing the space with the three men of the combat crew, but Via! it was always crowded. A slim woman who wasn’t wearing body armor—her choice, and Huber thought it was a bad one—didn’t take up as much room as the cooler of beer they’d strapped onto the back of the bustle rack when they took her aboard. They weren’t using overhead cover for the combat cars here on Plattner’s World because they were generally operating in heavy forest.

“Wouldn’t your helmet show that information?” Orichos asked, tapping the side of the one Huber had borrowed for her from a mechanic when he learned she’d be traveling in his car. She didn’t need it so much for communications as for the sound damping it provided. A run like the one planned would jelly the brains of anybody making it without protection from all the shrieks, hums, and roars they’d get in an open combat car.

“Sierra Six to Sierra,” Captain Sangrela. “White Section—” the scouts “—move out. Over.”

The lead car, Foghorn, was already off the ground on fan thrust. Its driver nudged his control yoke forward, sending the thirty-tonne vehicle toward the northwest in a billow of dust. Foghorn’s skirts plowed a broad path through the young corn.