The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

The bunched jacket held his right arm almost as tightly as his left. There was no possibility of tearing the tough, weatherproof fabric.

Daun heard voices nearby. He opened his mouth to call for help. One of the voices said, “Watch it! This one’s alive!”

A machine pistol within the area the Tech Detachment tent had covered fired a short burst downward. The muzzle flashes were red and bright.

Daun wore a pistol as part of his required equipment. It was in a cross-draw holster on his left side, where it was least in the way when he was working. He could no more reach the weapon now than he could fly back to Nieuw Friesland under his own power.

“They were playing cards,” said one of the Democrats.

“Hey!” said his partner. “We’re just supposed to be taking guns and ammunition.”

“So I’m searching their wallets for items of intelligence value,” the first Democrat snarled. “If you’re smart, you’ll keep your fucking mouth shut about it, too.”

The sky blazed orange as the light of an explosion reflected from the low clouds. The ground shock lifted Daun, the mast, and the sandbag wall an instant before the airborne shock wave punched across them. The ammo dump had exploded.

Daun hit the ground again. He was still tied to the mast. Sandbags collapsed over him.

Individual shells detonated during the next fifteen seconds, some of them at a considerable distance where the initial explosion hurled them. The first Democrat was cursing. The blast had knocked him skidding in the mud.

“There’s one!” cried his partner. Two machine pistols fired together. Daun felt the whack of little bullets against the sandbags over him, but he wasn’t the target. The moans of the soldier on the other side of the wall ended in a liquid gurgle.

“Hey, lookit!” shouted the second member of the Democrat clean-up team. He was standing beside Daun, but the Frisian could see only a triangle of cloud through the jumble of collapsed wall. “Look at this!”

“Bloody hell!” said the first man. “That’s a bloody powergun. The Cents don’t have bloody powerguns!”

“I do,” said his jubilant partner. A bolt of cyan plasma lanced skyward.

“You cursed fool!” the first Democrat said. “Don’t do that! Somebody’ll shoot us! Besides”—his voice changed slightly into that of a hustler calculating his chances—“it’s not worth anything much ’cause we can’t get ammo for it. Look, though—just for the hell of it, I’ll give you two hundred lira for it. For the curiosity.”

“Fuck you,” said his partner. “This is mine.”

The two Democrats stepped onto the bags covering Daun. They hopped from him over the fallen antenna mast.

“Look,” the first man was saying, “half of it is mine anyway….”

Daun’s lungs burned, but he was afraid to breathe. The detached part of his mind noted that the second Democrat should be very careful about standing with his back to his partner this night. Otherwise he might die for the trophy, as surely as Sergeant Anya Wisloski had died.

Lawler

The platoon leader’s door was open. Trooper Johann Vierziger paused in the day room and raised his knuckles to knock on the jamb.

“Come on in, Vierziger,” called Lieutenant Hartlepool in false jollity. “You haven’t been with us long enough to know, but we’re not much on ceremony in this outfit.”

Vierziger had been transferred to the 105th Military Police Detachment on Lawler as soon as he’d completed basic training with the Frisian Defense Forces. He’d arrived a week ago, and had seen action—with the FDF—only once according to his records. That action had occurred the night before.

“Thank you, sir,” Vierziger said. He was a short man, dainty except for telltale signs like the thickness of his wrists. Pretty, Hartlepool thought when the fellow was assigned to his platoon, and a nance.

Hartlepool had nothing against queers, not so it got in the way of his duties, but this was ridiculous. The One-Oh-Fifth wasn’t some parade-ground unit for show. They, and particularly 1st Platoon, A Company, were in firefights at least once a week.

Hartlepool couldn’t imagine who’d thought his platoon was the place to stick an effeminate newbie. He’d liked to have met the bureaucrat in an alley.

“Sit down, sit down,” Hartlepool said, gesturing to the seat in front of his desk. Malaveda, who now commanded First Squad, was in the room’s third chair, backed against the wall to one side.

Platoon leaders didn’t rate a lot of space at the best of times. Hartlepool had a glorified broom closet, but he knew there were lieutenants in the 105th who shared comparable quarters. Accommodations in Belair were tight. Expectation of war brought people to the capital, either for its fancied safely or because they believed there was money to be made.

“Thank you, sir,” Vierziger said. His face bore a slight smile, but he obviously didn’t intend to volunteer anything unasked. He sat down gracefully without touching the chair with his hands.

Vierziger reminded Hartlepool of somebody, but the lieutenant couldn’t place who.