The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“All Highball elements!” Huber ordered. “Slap ’em down as soon as you can get both at the same time! All Fox units, form below the ridgeline—”

His controller drew another line across the terrain map.

“—in line abreast, five meter intervals between cars, and wait for the command to attack. Fox Two-six has the right flank. India elements—”

The infantry platoon under Sergeant Marano, and Lord help them if the influx of rear-echelon troopers weren’t up to the job.

“—on your skimmers and prepare to follow the cars over the ridge.”

Fencing Master grounded again, not as hard because they weren’t scrubbing off the inertia of thirty kph this time. Huber was barely aware they’d halted, but from the corner of his eye he saw Padova climb out of the fighting compartment. A moment later Learoyd clambered in and seized the grips of his tribarrel. Frenchie was giving the orders Huber would’ve wanted if he’d had time to think about car Three-six at this juncture.

Tribarrels, at least a dozen of them, snarled from the head of the column. Huber couldn’t see the targets from where he was, but an orange flash briefly filled interstices in the foliage to the north. The aircars were chemically powered, and the multiple plasma bolts had atomized their fuel cells into bombs.

The C&C box had converted Huber’s orders to a graphic of routes and positions for the nine combat cars. Huber could’ve overruled the computer but there was no reason to. He’d planned to put Fencing Master on the left end of the line, but that would mean changing position with Flame Farter when there wasn’t much room or time for either one. Sergeant Coolidge and his crew could handle the flank.

Fencing Master was moving again without the bobbling usual when a combat car lifted from the ground. That was good, but having Learoyd on the right wing was better yet….

“X-Ray elements—”

The vehicles seconded to the task force from Regimental Command: the artillery, transport, maintenance, and engineers that the line elements were escorting.

“—hold what you got, we’ll be back for you.”

Huber drew a deep breath and raised his head from the holographic display. Fencing Master was passing to the left of an ammo hauler with about the thickness of the paint to spare. Huber would’ve liked more clearance, but he wasn’t going to second-guess Padova.

“Troopers,” Huber resumed, his eyes on the trees jolting past, “on the command the combat cars are going over the hill to shoot up all the hostiles we can in thirty seconds. We’re going to make it look like we’re trying to force the crossing, but we’ll pull back, I repeat, pull back in thirty seconds. The infantry follows the cars over the ridge line ten seconds later but grounds and conceals itself on the downslope instead of withdrawing.”

Lord, Lord…. He was counting on the hostiles being fooled by a fake withdrawal, counting on them not spotting the infantry ambush, counting on not losing every car in the task force in the initial attack which had to look real if this had a prayer of working.

And there was no choice.

“When the wogs’re moving up from the river,” Huber continued aloud, “the bypassed India elements will hit their flanks and rear, then Fox comes back over the hill and finishes the job. It’ll be a turkey shoot, troopers! Six out.”

Huber rubbed his face with both hands. The trouble was that these turkeys would be shooting back.

The combat cars were just below the crest of the reverse slope but still out of sight from across the river. The Solace sensors weren’t good enough to pinpoint them, although the Slammers weren’t making any real effort to suppress their signatures. They couldn’t, not and balance on a twenty-degree slope.

Mercenaries wouldn’t’ve tried to use aircars to scout against the Slammers, but the Solace Militia hadn’t yet come to terms with what it meant when the other side had powerguns and sensors good enough to tell them exactly when you were going to come in sight. The Solace scout crossed the river three klicks upstream, then rose above the forested hills to see what Task Force Huber was doing.

Flame Farter’s forward tribarrel snarled out six shots, every one of them a hit. The scout disintegrated like sugar dropped into flashing cyan water. It didn’t explode in the air, but a fiery mushroom rose over the trees where the wreckage landed.

Frenchie muttered something, to himself or Learoyd. Solace gunners across the Salamanca opened fire, raking the ridgeline and the tops of the trees growing on the southern side. A pair of 3-cm bolts hit the thick trunk to Fencing Master’s immediate right, shearing it ten meters above the ground. The blasts showered flaming splinters which drew smoke trails behind them. The Solace vehicles mounted high-intensity weapons, slow-firing compared to the Slammers’ tribarrels but round for round far more powerful.