The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 1

Lamartiere was taller than Franciscus, but the colonel was an athlete who went through a long exercise regimen every morning and who gloried in hand-to-hand combat. He didn't need his trappings of guns, bombs, and knives to be dangerous. He was physically capable of beating Lamartiere to death at this moment, and he was very possibly willing to do so as well.

"Hoodoo has a full load of ammunition, both 2cm and 20cm," Lamartiere said quietly, forcing himself not to flinch as Franciscus stepped toe to toe with him. "I drove the ammo trailer to her myself and watched Sergeant Heth load her. But the rounds are in storage magazines in the floor of the hull. The ready magazines in the turret are empty."

"You must understand," Clargue said, breaking in with an expression that implied he didn't care whether Franciscus understood how to breathe, "that this tank is a very complex system. As yet I haven't found the command that will transfer ammunition between locations or even the command set it belongs to. It doesn't seem to be part of the gunnery complex, as I would have expected."

He shrugged. His frustration was as great as Lamartiere's, but the doctor was better at hiding it. "We're working through the range of possibilities. It will take time."

Clargue knew, as Lamartiere did, that there might be very little time because of the RF spike when Hoodoo's radios came on.

"Well look," said Befayt. She wore a new equipment belt, but this one didn't contain any of the electrically primed bombs that were a staple of the guerrillas' ambush techniques. "Why don't you move the disks by hand? I can supply the people if the weight's a problem."

"The storage magazines are sealed and locked," Lamartiere explained. This was something he knew about. "It takes a special fitting on the end of the ammo trailer to get into the tube. If there's dust on the rounds, they might explode when they're fired."

"We don't have time to be picky!" Franciscus said. He was a little off-balance around Clargue, perhaps because the doctor was so completely Franciscus' opposite in personality. "Blow open the magazines and load the turret by hand."

"No!" said Lamartiere and Clargue together.

"Like bloody Hell!" Befayt said, speaking directly to the colonel for the first time since he'd arrived. "I've looked at those fittings. Enough charge to blow one open and the best thing you're going to do is crush all the disks so they don't work. There's a better chance that you'll set one off and the whole lot gang fires. How does that help us, will you tell me, Mister Colonel?"

Franciscus looked as though he was going to hit her. Befayt's aides must have thought so too, because they backed slightly and leveled their weapons at the colonel: a pair of Ambiorix-made electromotive slug-throwers, and a 2cm powergun stolen or captured from the Slammers' stocks.

"Children," Father Renaud said with none of the sarcasm the word might have carried had it come from another mouth. "If we squabble among ourselves then we fail the Lord in Her time of need. There is no greater sin."

"Sorry, father," Befayt muttered. Franciscus gave her a sour look, then dipped his head to Renaud in a sign of contrition.

Renaud returned his attention to Clargue and Lamartiere. "Go on with your work," he said calmly. "Remember, have faith and She will provide."

Lamartiere bowed and turned to board the tank again. He mostly kept silent while Dr. Clargue methodically went over the software, but there was always the possibility that he would recognize something that the doctor had missed.

It hadn't happened yet, though. Working on the mercenaries' vehicles in depot didn't teach him anything about the way they operated in combat, and to ask questions on the subject would have compromised Lamartiere as surely waving a sign saying, I AM A MOSITE SPY!

The radio on Befayt's belt buzzed. She unhooked it and held it to her cheek, shielding the mouthpiece by reflex even in this company. When she lowered the unit, her face looked as though it had been hacked from stone.

"The government outposts at Twill, Lascade, and on Marcelline Ridge have just been reinforced," she said. "That's an anvil all around Pamiers. There's a mechanized battalion heading south out of the Ariege cantonment to be the hammer."

"It's because of my mistake," Dr. Clargue said in a stricken voice. "I shouldn't be involved in this. I'm not a man of war."

"Well, there's no problem," Franciscus said. "Just get the tank working and we'll wipe out this whole Synod battalion. The first battle will be in Pamiers instead of us having to go to them."

"I don't know how long I will need," Clargue said. "Finding the right command is like—"

He pointed to the sky. The sun had set and the first stars were appearing in the twilight.

"Like finding one star at random in all the heavens. How long is it before the enemy will attack?"