The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

He didn’t know whether Zapotec was generic or a brand name; if the latter, it was probably the best available unless he’d misjudged Daphne Priamedes. Huber suddenly realized that he knew very little about anything beyond what he needed to do his job well. He and his fellow troopers wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if they hadn’t focused so completely on their jobs, but when he thought about it he felt lonely.

The waitress trotted away. Priamedes glanced around the covered patio, slapping the eyes of the others back to their own proper concerns. When she and Huber were as private as one ever is in open air, she said, “My father told me what happened at Northern Star, Lieutenant. At the end, I mean. He said it would’ve been much easier for you to kill him and his men than to capture them, but you took a considerable risk to spare their lives.”

The waitress came back with the drinks. Priamedes entered her credit chip in the reader before Huber even thought to take his out of its pouch. Via! Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t in the field right now, because he was dropping too bloody many stitches.

Though …in the field he knew what he was doing reflexively. This was civilian life, and that was another matter. Arne Huber hadn’t been a civilian for a long time.

He took a swig of the liquor; it cleaned the gumminess from his mouth and tongue and focused his mind like a leap into cold water. “Ma’am,” he said, “I guess I’ve done worse things than shooting civilians who didn’t have sense enough to give up, but only by mistake or when I had to.”

He drank again; too much. He’d supposed he’d made his opinion of the Solace Militia clearer than he should’ve to an officer’s daughter. The whiskey was good but it was strong as well, even cut with water; the big slug made his throat spasm and he had to cough.

Covering his embarrassment, Huber went on, “Ma’am, I can give you policy reasons why my commanding officer didn’t want to blow away your father’s men when they made a break for it. The truth is, though, neither I nor Captain Sangrela really likes to kill people. I’m a soldier, not a sociopath.”

“I see that,” she said, smiling faintly. “And I still prefer Daphne, Lieutenant.”

“It’s the booze talking,” Huber said, smiling back. It was warm in his stomach, though and it felt good. “Look, Daphne, I appreciate the drink, but I really need to get to a bunk.”

“Very well,” she said, tossing off the rest of the fizzy, light green concoction she was drinking over ice. “If I can’t offer you dinner …?”

“No ma—no Daphne,” Huber said, rising more easily than he’d sat down. “I’ll eat some rations, but right now I need sleep more than company—even company as nice as you.”

“Then I’ll just thank you again for sparing my father,” she said, standing also. “And I hope we’ll see one another again in the future when you’re better rested—Arne?”

“Arne,” Huber agreed. “And I hope that too.”

“I’ll expect your report in three hours, then, General Rubens,” Huber said and broke the connection. He adjusted the little fan playing on him from the console as he thought about the next call he had to make. The day’d started out cool, but now by midmorning it was unseasonably hot for Plattner’s World.

Parts of Base Alpha were climate controlled, but mostly the Regiment’s machines and personnel were expected to operate under whatever conditions nature offered. You weren’t going to win many battles from inside a sealed room, and the Colonel tried to discourage people from thinking you could.

As a break from talking to people he didn’t like and didn’t trust—he knew they probably felt the same way—Huber called up the Solace Order of Battle. He wasn’t sure he was really supposed to have the information, but he’d found that his retina pattern was on Central’s validation list. A benefit of being assigned to Operations …

As he viewed the latest information, his gut told him that he’d have been better off staying ignorant. Sure, things could’ve gotten worse—things can always get worse—but he hadn’t really expected them to go this bad. Daphne’d said Solace was mortgaging its next ten years to hire mercenaries. Huber knew now that she’d been understating the real costs.

He looked out through the fence, trying to settle his mind. An aircar with Log Section markings had landed in the street under the guns of the combat car on guard. The driver, one of the locals the Regiment had hired for non-combat work, waited in the cab. A tall civilian in an expensive-looking pearl-gray outfit got out, stalked to the gate, and said, “I am Sigmund Lindeyar. Take me to Colonel Hammer at once!”

Instead of snapping to attention obediently, Captain Dillard turned his back to the furious man on the other side of the fence. He was frowning as he called Central on his commo helmet.

The fellow ought to be more thankful than he seemed. Dillard was treating him a lot better than some troopers would’ve done to a civilian who raised his voice to them.