The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

Huber’d put his right wing gunner on the first sensor watch of the run because he hadn’t expected anything to show up so early. He’d manually notched out Fencing Master and the other vehicles in the column during the run from Northern Star, so that they wouldn’t hide the more distant, hostile, signals. Unlike a quicker mind, Learoyd’s wouldn’t be lulled into daydreams by the minute changes in pearly emptiness that was probably all that he’d see in the display, but Huber feared that Learoyd might not notice subtleties that really had meaning.

Except that the trooper’d done just that. Huber frowned at the display in dawning comprehension, then said, “Sierra Six, this is Fox Three-six. We’ve got an aircar, probably a small one, following us about a kilometer back. I figure if it was just civilian sightseers, they’d be, well, in sight. Over.”

“Roger, Three-six,” Captain Sangrela said. “We leave a broad enough track that the Volunteers figure they can follow us without coming so close we spot them. Good work, Huber. I’ll drop off a fire team to take care of it. Six out.”

“Three-six out,” Huber said. “Break. Blue Section, some infantry’s staying behind to clean off our tail. Don’t run ’em over, and get ready to back ’em up when the music starts. Three-six out.”

“We gonna get a chance to pop somebody, El-Tee?” Deseau asked, turning hopefully to meet Huber’s eyes.

“Not a chance, Frenchie,” Huber said. “But we’re going to follow the drill anyway.”

A thought struck him and he went on, “Captain Orichos? Is there any chance that a Gendarmery aircar is trailing the column? If there is, tell me now. You won’t get a second chance.”

Orichos frowned. “One of ours?” she said. “Not unless somebody’s disregarded my clear instructions. And if that’s happened, Lieutenant—”

She smiled. Frenchie Deseau couldn’t have bettered the cruel surmise in her expression.

“—then the sort of lesson I assume you propose will bring the survivors to a better appreciation of the authority granted me by the Assembly.”

Huber nodded and returned his attention to his tribarrel’s sector forward. He didn’t have a problem with ruthlessness, but he found disquieting the gusto with which people like the Gendarmery captain did what was necessary.

“Three-six, watch the pedestrians!” Nagano warned from Foghorn fifty meters ahead. Four infantrymen had hopped their skimmers off one of the maintenance vehicles; now they were positioning themselves behind treeboles where they’d have good fields of fire for their 2-cm weapons as soon as the aircar came in sight above the water. Huber nodded in salute, but the infantrymen were wholly focused on what was about to happen.

The ambush team had shut down their skimmers immediately upon hitting the ground. The Volunteers weren’t likely to have sensors that’d pick up a skimmer’s small fans more than a stone’s throw away, but regimental training emphasized that you didn’t assume any more than you had to. Plenty of stuff that you couldn’t control was going to go wrong, so you made doubly sure on the rest.

“How long, Lieutenant?” Orichos asked. Not what: how long. She was a sharp one, no mistake.

“About a minute and a half,” Huber explained. “We’re traveling at about forty kph in this salad—”

He gestured to the soft vegetation just outside the track, where the previous vehicles hadn’t ground it to green slime.

“—and our Volunteer friends back there’ll be holding to the same speed. The last thing they want’s to fly up on our tail.”

He smiled. Which was just what they were about to do.

Orichos nodded and turned to watch the route behind Fencing Master. There wasn’t anything to see but mud and muddy water, of course. Sight distances close to the ground were at most a hundred meters in the few places the river flowed straight, and generally much less where vegetation arched over the curving banks.

Huber imported to the lower left quadrant of his faceshield the view from the sergeant commanding the ambush team; it wouldn’t interfere with his sight picture in the unlikely event that Fencing Master ran into trouble. After a moment’s hesitation, he touched Orichos’ shoulder. When she turned, he linked their helmets as he had while Floosie raked incoming shells from the sky. Orichos nodded appreciatively.

It took ten seconds longer than Huber’d estimated before an open aircar with four men aboard loitered into sight. Sangrela had chosen the ambush site well: the car slowed, dipping beneath a branch draped with air plants which crossed the river only three meters above the purling surface.

The lift fans flung a rainbow of spray through the sunlight, momentarily blinding the two men in the front. As the car started to rise again, three cyan bolts hit the driver, vaporizing his torso, and a fourth took off the head of the gunman in the passenger seat.