The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume 3

by David Drake

  That wasn’t a serious danger. Huber took a last view of the firebase as Fencing Master returned to the forest’s concealment. Scores of fires within the compound silhouetted the furrowed berm. Another explosion flung sparks a hundred meters into the sky.

  Huber took a deep breath and almost choked. Struggling not to vomit in reaction to the adrenaline that had burned through his body for the past several minutes, he said, “Red element, this is Highball Six. Blue element will rendezvous as planned in—”

  His AI prompted him with a time display on the upper left quadrant of his faceshield.

  “—three, that’s figures three, minutes. Six out.”

  Deseau had his tribarrel’s receiver open to chip at the buildup of matrix material. It was a wonder that Huber’s gun hadn’t jammed also: its iridium barrels still glowed yellow. They’d been white hot when Fencing Master crossed the berm.

  Frenchie glanced back. “Not bad, El-Tee,” he said over the intercom. “About time we showed ’em who’s boss!”

  Another explosion rocked the night. Solace forces around Benjamin weren’t going to be worrying any time soon about the breakout from the city.

  But there was a long road still ahead, for the Slammers and especially for Task Force Huber. . . .

  Sergeant Nagano in Foghorn led the column. Huber’d decided to run without a scouting element a kilometer in the lead. He was more afraid that Solace units would stumble onto Task Force Huber by accident than he was of driving into hostiles with their signatures masked against the Slammers’ sensors.

  Even with the drivers trying to keep minimum separations, the line of twenty-seven vehicles stretched nearly half a klick back through the forest. A single aircar flying between Solace positions could see the column and end the secrecy that was their greatest protection.

  Deseau slept curled up on the floor of the fighting compartment. The surest mark of a veteran was that he could sleep any time, any place. On Estoril Huber had awakened one night only when the level of cold rainwater in his bunker had risen to his nose and he started to drown. Soldiering was a hell of a life, a Hell of a life, and Arne Huber and every other trooper in the Regiment was a volunteer.

  Learoyd braced his right boot on an ammo box to raise his crotch over the coaming of the fighting compartment, then emptied his bladder into the night. He stepped down again, sealing his fly, and said, “Is Frenchie going to take the next shift driving, El-Tee, or d’ye want me to do it?”

  He’d spoken directly instead of using the intercom that might’ve awakened Deseau. Fencing Master was driving between the massive trees at a steady, moderate pace, and experienced troopers could hear one another over the intake noise.

  Bert Learoyd sometimes made Huber think of a social insect: he seemed to have almost no intellectual capacity, but through rote learning alone he’d become capable of quite complex activities. It was bad to wake up your buddies unnecessarily, so Learoyd didn’t do that.

  “I’ll put Deseau in next,” Huber said aloud. Frenchie was too active to be a good driver; he kept overcorrecting, second-guessing himself. Learoyd didn’t have Padova’s genius for anticipating the terrain, but his stolid temperament was well suited to controlling a thirty-tonne vehicle in tight quarters. “He’ll be all right on this stretch; it’s pretty open.”

  Pretty open compared to much of the forest on Plattner’s World, but light amplification didn’t make driving a combat car at night through the woods a piece of cake. Huber’d been hoping to raise the column’s speed to forty kph, but that didn’t seem likely now that the whole task force was assembled. The combat cars might be able to make it, but the hogs’ high center of gravity made them dangerously unstable while running cross-country. As for the recovery vehicle, it was a full meter wider than the cars whose drivers were choosing the route.

  Another thought struck Huber. “Learoyd?” he said. “Have you seen Padova manning a gun? In action, I mean—I know she’s checked out in training.”

  Learoyd shrugged. “She’s okay,” he said, flicking regular glances toward his side of the car just in case there was something besides treeboles there. “She was on nightwatch when them wog sappers tried to creep up on us a couple weeks ago. She didn’t freeze up or something.”

  Good enough. On this run there’d be no halts except to change drivers. There was no way of telling who’d be in the fighting compartment if the task force ran into hostiles—as they surely would, later if not sooner. The best driver in the Regiment was a liability if she panicked when she needed to be shooting.

  “El-Tee?” Learoyd said. He was talkative tonight; by his standards, that is. “What’s going to happen back at Benjamin when we’re not there? The wogs’ll waltz right in, won’t they?”

  “There’s enough other mercs in the garrison to hold the place,” Huber said. “The Poplar Regiment and Bartel’s Armor, they’re troops as good as anything Solace has close by.”

  He grimaced. Benjamin was all right, sure, but Solace hadn’t been making a real effort on the UC administrative capital yet. Jonesburg and Simpliche were in serious danger even before the Slammers there abandoned the defenses they’d been stiffening to run north at the same time Task Force Huber did.

  “Look, Learoyd, we’ve got to hope for the best,” he said. “Chances are Solace Command’s going to take a while to figure out what’s going on. With luck they still think we withdrew back into Benjamin instead of breaking out.”

  Learoyd shrugged. “I just wondered, El-Tee,” he said. “I don’t think them other lots’re worth much, but if you do . . .”

  The trouble was, Huber didn’t.

  He suddenly laughed and clapped Learoyd on the shoulder. “What I think, trooper,” he said, “is that everybody in Task Force Huber does his job as well as you’ve always done yours, then we’re going to come through this just fine. The other guys, they have to take care of themselves.”

  He realized as he spoke that he was more or less echoing Colonel Hammer. Well, he didn’t guess the Colonel had lied to the Regiment, and the Lord knew Huber wasn’t lying to Learoyd either.

  And because of that, just maybe the Slammers were going to pull this off after all.

  According to the topo display, the Salamanca River was shallow at present though it regularly flooded its valley when the rains came in autumn. Huber hadn’t expected much difficulty in crossing it until Lieutenant Messeman—F-2 was in front for the moment—radioed, “Six, this is Fox Two-six. Take a look at these sensor inputs from—”

  Huber was already bringing up the data transmitted from Messeman’s lead car.

  “—my Two-five unit. Over.”

  “This is Six!” Huber said. He couldn’t fully understand the data without a little time to digest it, but it was bloody obvious that Task Force Huber wasn’t crossing at the ford Central had picked for its planned route. “All Highball units, halt in place!”

  Learoyd obeyed the orders literally: instead of canting all eight nacelles forward for dynamic braking, he feathered the fan blades to drop their thrust to zero. Gravity slammed Fencing Master down, chopping the skirts into the soil like a giant cookie cutter.

  The car hopped forward, grounded again, and skidded to a complete stop in a cascade of dust and grit. They’d halted within five meters of the point Learoyd got the order.

  Huber’d braced himself on his gun pintle when he realized what was about to happen. He swore viciously and he glanced astern to see if Flame Farter, the next car back, was going to slam into them. It didn’t, partly from the driver’s skill and partly because he angled his bow into a stand of saplings growing up in place of a giant tree that’d fallen a few years previous.

  I’m the bloody fool who said “Halt in place,” Huber thought. It’s nobody’s fault but my own.

  “Highball,” he resumed aloud, “keep a low profile. There’s an enemy battalion on the other side of the bluffs across the river we were going to cross. They don’t act like they know we’re here—this is just bad luck. We’l
l head southwest, that’s upstream—”

  His hand controller drew a line on the terrain display of his Command and Control box, transmitting it automatically to the helmets of his troopers.

  “—and cross—”

  The C&C box provided Huber with both a graphic and a tabular description of the hostiles arriving on the other side of the river. The data base identified them as an elite unit of the Solace Militia, the 1st Cavalry Squadron, fully professional and equipped with nearly a hundred air-cushion armored vehicles mounting powerguns.

  Instead of driving overland, Solace Command had airlifted the squadron to a landing zone in the valley paralleling the Salamanca to the northwest. The terrain made the location safe from sniping by the Slammers’ tanks, and it was as close to the fighting as a dirigible could approach.

  “—seven klicks down, there’s another ford there, and we’re on our way again. Fox Three-zero leads until further notice. Six out.”

  If Task Force Huber had arrived six hours sooner, they’d have been past before the Solace squadron landed; two hours later they’d have fought a meeting engagement as the hostile vehicles—which mounted twin 3-cm powerguns as well as carrying an infantry fire team in the rear compartment—came over the bluffs on the south side of the river. As it was, it just meant the Slammers had to detour and add an hour or so to their travel time.

  Flame Farter lifted and started to reverse in its own length. Deseau—who was blower captain, commanding Fencing Master while Huber’s duties were for the whole task force—said over the intercom, “Turn us around, Learoyd. We’re following Three-zero up the river, now.”

  Padova slapped the receiver of the right wing gun in frustration. She was a slight, dark woman and smart enough to be an officer some day if she learned to curb her impatience. Padova thought Learoyd should’ve understood Huber’s unit order as meaning he should rotate Fencing Master . . . and so he should’ve, but—

  Before Huber could speak, Deseau took Padova by the arm and turned her so they were facing. Both were short, but Frenchie had an hourglass figure and the shoulders of a wrestler.

  “I’ll tell you, Padova . . .” he said, shouting over the howl as the fans accelerated under load instead of using the intercom. “When you can make headshots every time at five klicks downrange, then maybe you’ll be ready to give Bert lessons on being a soldier. Got it, trooper?”

  Padova glanced at Huber, perhaps expecting support. Huber gave the driver a hard grin and said, “Saves me telling you the same thing. You’re good at your job, but you’re still the newbie in this car.”

  Padova forced a smile and turned her palms up; Frenchie nodded and let her go. A first-rate driver, and apparently smart enough to learn . . .

  Huber went back to the display as the combat car shifted beneath him. Fencing Master was another world, one he didn’t have to worry about right at the moment.

  He had plenty of other worries. Reversing the order of march put three ammunition haulers immediately behind the two combat cars in the lead. He’d interspersed F-3’s remaining three cars among the artillery vehicles, with all of F-2 in the lead to deal with trouble in the most likely direction. He could reorganize the order of march, but first they had to get away from the Solace cavalry.

  The problem wasn’t anybody’s fault. This Solace deployment must’ve been planned weeks in the past, but the dirigibles wouldn’t’ve lifted off until after the reconnaissance satellites went down at the start of the breakout. Central couldn’t have extrapolated the appearance of an armored cavalry squadron across Task Force Huber’s line of march. It’d been close, but close only counts in horseshoes—

  “Bloody hell, Six!” Lieutenant Messeman shouted over the command channel. “There’s a couple aircars coming over! They’re going to spot us sure!”

  —and hand grenades.

  Huber opened his mouth to order the task force to hold its fire; the Slammers’ discipline was good enough that his troops would probably have obeyed, though the gunners with a clear shot at the aircars would’ve cursed him.

  But secrecy was screwed regardless. Unless the Solace scouts were stone blind, they weren’t going to miss a company’s worth of thirty- and forty-tonne armored vehicles on the route they’d been sent to reconnoiter.

  “All Highball elements!” Huber ordered. “Slap ’em down as soon as you can get both at the same time! All Fox units, form below the ridgeline—”

  His controller drew another line across the terrain map.

  “—in line abreast, five meter intervals between cars, and wait for the command to attack. Fox Two-six has the right flank. India elements—”

  The infantry platoon under Sergeant Marano, and Lord help them if the influx of rear-echelon troopers weren’t up to the job.

  “—on your skimmers and prepare to follow the cars over the ridge.”

  Fencing Master grounded again, not as hard because they weren’t scrubbing off the inertia of thirty kph this time. Huber was barely aware they’d halted, but from the corner of his eye he saw Padova climb out of the fighting compartment. A moment later Learoyd clambered in and seized the grips of his tribarrel. Frenchie was giving the orders Huber would’ve wanted if he’d had time to think about car Three-six at this juncture.

  Tribarrels, at least a dozen of them, snarled from the head of the column. Huber couldn’t see the targets from where he was, but an orange flash briefly filled interstices in the foliage to the north. The aircars were chemically powered, and the multiple plasma bolts had atomized their fuel cells into bombs.

  The C&C box had converted Huber’s orders to a graphic of routes and positions for the nine combat cars. Huber could’ve overruled the computer but there was no reason to. He’d planned to put Fencing Master on the left end of the line, but that would mean changing position with Flame Farter when there wasn’t much room or time for either one. Sergeant Coolidge and his crew could handle the flank.

  Fencing Master was moving again without the bobbling usual when a combat car lifted from the ground. That was good, but having Learoyd on the right wing was better yet. . . .

  “X-Ray elements—”

  The vehicles seconded to the task force from Regimental Command: the artillery, transport, maintenance, and engineers that the line elements were escorting.

  “—hold what you got, we’ll be back for you.”

  Huber drew a deep breath and raised his head from the holographic display. Fencing Master was passing to the left of an ammo hauler with about the thickness of the paint to spare. Huber would’ve liked more clearance, but he wasn’t going to second-guess Padova.

  “Troopers,” Huber resumed, his eyes on the trees jolting past, “on the command the combat cars are going over the hill to shoot up all the hostiles we can in thirty seconds. We’re going to make it look like we’re trying to force the crossing, but we’ll pull back, I repeat, pull back in thirty seconds. The infantry follows the cars over the ridge line ten seconds later but grounds and conceals itself on the downslope instead of withdrawing.”

  Lord, Lord. . . . He was counting on the hostiles being fooled by a fake withdrawal, counting on them not spotting the infantry ambush, counting on not losing every car in the task force in the initial attack which had to look real if this had a prayer of working.

  And there was no choice.

  “When the wogs’re moving up from the river,” Huber continued aloud, “the bypassed India elements will hit their flanks and rear, then Fox comes back over the hill and finishes the job. It’ll be a turkey shoot, troopers! Six out.”

  Huber rubbed his face with both hands. The trouble was that these turkeys would be shooting back.

  The combat cars were just below the crest of the reverse slope but still out of sight from across the river. The Solace sensors weren’t good enough to pinpoint them, although the Slammers weren’t making any real effort to suppress their signatures. They couldn’t, not and balance on a twenty-degree slope.

  Mercenaries wouldn’t’ve tri
ed to use aircars to scout against the Slammers, but the Solace Militia hadn’t yet come to terms with what it meant when the other side had powerguns and sensors good enough to tell them exactly when you were going to come in sight. The Solace scout crossed the river three klicks upstream, then rose above the forested hills to see what Task Force Huber was doing.

  Flame Farter’s forward tribarrel snarled out six shots, every one of them a hit. The scout disintegrated like sugar dropped into flashing cyan water. It didn’t explode in the air, but a fiery mushroom rose over the trees where the wreckage landed.

  Frenchie muttered something, to himself or Learoyd. Solace gunners across the Salamanca opened fire, raking the ridgeline and the tops of the trees growing on the southern side. A pair of 3-cm bolts hit the thick trunk to Fencing Master’s immediate right, shearing it ten meters above the ground. The blasts showered flaming splinters which drew smoke trails behind them. The Solace vehicles mounted high-intensity weapons, slow-firing compared to the Slammers’ tribarrels but round for round far more powerful.

  The upper three-quarters of the treebole toppled downslope and hit with a crash, igniting the undergrowth. Despite recent rains, there’d be a major forest fire on this side of the river shortly. That didn’t matter to Huber, because shortly he and his troopers would either be well north of here or dead.

  Learoyd took one hand from his tribarrel’s grips and brushed burning debris from the other arm and shoulder. His face had no more expression than a Buddha’s.

  “Fox elements . . .” said Huber, his eyes on the C&C display. Three Solace armored cars started down the slope toward the river, moving cautiously instead of trying to outrace the bolts that might come slashing toward them. A dozen similar vehicles were settled on the ridge behind them to overwatch. Their twin guns ripped and snarled, blasting only trees and rocky soil because the Slammers were still sheltered by the high ground.

  All the troopers in the task force could watch the situation map on their helmet displays if they wanted to. Most of them wouldn’t, avoiding distractions that didn’t have much to do with their jobs. Knowing too much is a handicap when instant decisions mean life or death. Their AIs would pick targets for them and they’d hose those targets with their tribarrels; that’s all that would matter in the next minute and a half.