The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 1

"Amazing," Befayt said with a gratified smile. "Guess we'll be giving the Synod's dogs back some of what they been feeding us, right?"

"If we're given a chance to get the tank in working order, yes, we will!" Lamartiere said. To cover his outburst he immediately went on, "Say, Captain, I'd been meaning to ask you: Do you know where my sister Celine's gone? I thought she might be here to, you know, say hello when I arrived."

"She was until about a week ago," Befayt said, relaxing deliberately. The captain didn't want a pointless confrontation either. "Then she got a message and went back with the supply trucks to Goncourt. You might check with Franciscus when he comes back from there tonight."

"Yes, I'll do that," Lamartiere said. The only good thing about the past hours of failure were that Colonel Franciscus had gone on to Goncourt to confer with Father Renaud instead of staying to watch Lamartiere.

"Guess I'll get out of your way," Befayt said with a tight control that showed she knew she'd been unwelcome. She wasn't the sort to let that affect her unduly, but it wasn't something that anybody liked to feel. "Celine seemed chirpy as a cricket when I last saw her, though."

She braced her hands on the edges of the hatch.

"Here, let me raise the seat," said Lamartiere. He touched the button on the side of the cushion. It was hydraulic, not electrical, and worked off an accumulator driven directly by Number Four fan. "I know I shouldn't worry about her, but we're all each other has since—"

As the seat whined upward, Lamartiere saw the flat box attached to the base plate. It had a hinged cover.

"Clargue!" he shouted. "I found it! There's a breaker box on the bottom of the seat!"

He flipped the cover open. The seat had halted at midcolumn when Lamartiere took his finger off the control. Befayt, excited though uncertain about what was going on, squatted on the cushion and tried to look underneath without getting in the way.

Lamartiere aimed his handlight at the interior of the box. There was a triple row of circuit breakers. All of them were in the On position.

"Turn them one at a time!" Dr. Clargue said. "We don't want a surge to damage the equipment."

"They're already on, Doctor," Lamartiere said. He felt sandbagged. Were the electronics dead because of a fault, one the crew hadn't bothered to fix once they had Hoodoo mobile again? But Heth and Stegner wouldn't have relaxed until they had the tank's guns working, surely!

"Doctor!" Lamartiere said. "Check under your seat. Both crew members would have the cut-offs so they—"

"Yes, it's here!" said Clargue. "I've got it open . . ."

Lamartiere heard ventilation motors hum. The interior lights, flat and a deep yellow that didn't affect night vision, came on; then the 30cm gunnery screen above the breech of the main gun glowed.

Hoodoo rang with a violent explosion against the turret. Choking smoke swirled through the open hatch. The ventilation system switched to high speed.

Befayt jumped out of the hatch, moving quickly and without the awkwardness with which she'd entered. "What is happening?" Clargue shouted. The doctor's voice faded as he climbed out of the driver's compartment. "Are we attacked?"

Lamartiere tried to rotate the turret. It didn't move: that breaker was still off. He pulled himself into the open air. He couldn't do anything inside and he didn't choose to wait in the turret to be killed if that was what was going to happen.

The smoke was dissipating. The tarpaulin had been hurled up the tailings pile, but Lamartiere saw no other sign of damage. Dr. Clargue was coming around the front of the tank. Befayt stood on the back deck, staring in consternation at fresh scars on the side of the turret.

"My belt blew up," Befayt said. "May God cast me from Her if that's not what happened. My belt blew up."

The women and children who made up most of Pamiers' population were disappearing into the mouths of the mines that had sheltered them through previous attacks. The traverses weren't comfortable homes, but they were proof against anything the government could throw against them. Guerrillas had dived into fighting positions as quickly. Those in sight of their leader were looking toward her for direction.

"What?" said Clargue. "Did you have electrically primed explosives on your belt, Captain?"

"Well," said Befayt. "Sure, I—Oh, Mother God. You turned the radios on, didn't you?"

"Of course a tank like this has radios, you idiot!" the doctor screamed. His goatee wobbled. Clargue was a little man in his late sixties, unfailingly pleasant in all the encounters Lamartiere had had with him to this moment. "What did you mean bringing blasting caps here!"