The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 1

President Hammer rested his elbows on the top of the table and massaged his forehead with the fingers of both hands. He muttered something, but the words were lost in his palms. The meeting had been going on since dawn, and it was now late in the afternoon.

"We really need to settle this quickly, sir," said Danny Pritchard, seated to the right of Hammer at the head of the table. "Every day there's another hundred people being added to the camps. Releasing them won't gain us back nearly the amount of good will we lose by arresting them in the first place. And there's too many being shot during arrest, too."

"There's always going to be a few fools who think they can outrun a powergun bolt," said Joachim Steuben with a grin. "I think we're benefiting the race by removing them from the gene pool. And as for the ones who choose to shoot it out with my men, well, that's simply a form of suicide."

Joachim was in a khaki uniform, identical except for the lack of rank tabs to those he'd worn during his years in the Slammers. Instead of a normal uniform's tough, rip-stopped synthetic and utilitarian fit, Joachim's was woven from natural fabrics and tailored with as much skill as a debutante's ball gown. He'd always dressed that way. Strangers who'd met Joachim for the first time had often mistaken him for Hammer's lover instead of his bodyguard and killer.

He didn't wear body armor; he rarely had except on battlefields where shell fragments were a threat. He said that armor slowed him down and that his quickness was better protection than a ceramic plate. Thus far he'd been right.

Hammer lowered his hands and looked at the twelve officials—nine men and three women—seated at the table with him. No aides were present within the temporary privacy capsule erected within the volume of the large conference room.

"We're not going to decide this today," Hammer said. His voice was raspy and his face had aged more in a month as president than it had in the previous five years of combat operations. "I've had it for now."

"Then we'll settle it tomorrow?" Danny said in a carefully emotionless tone.

"Blood and martyrs!" said Hammer. "Not tomorrow. Maybe next week. I don't want to hear about it tomorrow."

"Sir," said Danny, "no decision is a decision, and it's the wrong one. We've—"

Hammer lurched up from the table and slammed the heel of his right fist down on the resin-stabilized wood. "This meeting is over!" he said. "Mister Pritchard, Baron Steuben—remain with me for a moment. Everyone else leaves now."

Council members got to their feet and moved quickly to the capsule's exit. Guards stationed there opened the doors of the room itself onto the corridor. Aides waited there with additional guards and a number of the people who ordinarily worked in the building.

The locations of privy council meetings were kept secret from all but the attendees and were never held in the same place twice in succession. The first the staff of the site knew what was happening was when workmen arrived an hour ahead of time to erect the privacy capsule that sealed the meeting from the eyes and ears of non-participants.

Half the councillors dressed in civilian clothes; the other half were in uniform, either Slammers khaki or the blue-piped gray of the Frisian Defense Forces. Hammer himself wore a civilian tunic and breeches, but he'd deliberately had them tailored in the style that'd been popular when he left Nieuw Friesland half a lifetime ago.

Hammer's wife Anneke, nee Tromp, was present as the Director of Social Welfare. "Shut the door!" he called to her as she went out.

Anneke turned, met her husband's eyes, and walked on through to the corridor without responding. A guard swung the panel closed, sealing the capsule again.

Hammer sighed. "Now listen, both of you," he said in a voice that didn't hold the same key from word to word. "I'll make a decision on the detention policy when I'm ready to. Nobody—neither of you—will say another word to me on the subject till then. Do you hear me?"

"As you wish, Alois," said Joachim Steuben.

Danny Pritchard grimaced. "Yes sir, I hear you," he said.

"Pritchard, I mean it!" Hammer said in sudden fury.

"I've never doubted your word, Colonel," Danny said, letting his anger show also. "Don't you start doubting mine now!"

"Via, I'm not getting enough sleep," Hammer muttered. He put his left hand over Danny's right, squeezed it, and stepped out of the capsule.

Danny made a wry face and gestured to the exit. "After you, Baron," he said.

Joachim grinned and walked out ahead of the other man. Without turning he said, "I wouldn't shoot you in the back, Mister Pritchard."

Danny laughed. Workmen moved into the meeting room behind him to tear down the privacy capsule for use in another few days or a week. It was simply a framework with an active sound-cancellation system between two layers of light-diffusing membrane.