The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

Hammer began to laugh so hard that his loose breastplate flapped back and forth. He said, “Oh, what a principled gentleman you are, Master Lindeyar!” and then bent over again in another spasm of mirth.

“On behalf of the Colonel,” Major Pritchard said as the delegates of both sides stared at Hammer in disbelief, “I can assure you that Hammer’s Regiment is scrupulously careful to operate within the constraints of the Bonding Authority. We aren’t vigilantes who imagine that it’s our duty to impose justice….”

Pritchard swept the politicians with a gaze as contemptuous as that of Lindeyar a few moments earlier. He went on, “And if we were, we’d be hard put to find an employer who could meet our standards, wouldn’t we?”

Lindeyar seemed more disconcerted by Hammer’s laughter than he might have been by anger. He looked at the bodyguards standing by the aircar he’d arrived in: all three had their hands in plain sight. When he followed their gaze back, he saw Deseau’s tribarrel aimed at them. Frenchie grinned down and pointed his right index finger at Lindeyar’s face like a pistol.

In a careful voice, Lindeyar said, “Of course, Colonel Hammer, your troops’ performance on Plattner’s World won’t go unnoticed, particularly the brilliant stroke by which you captured the port here. I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty finding employment in the near future.”

Hammer straightened. The laughter was gone; he gave Lindeyar a look of cold appraisal.

“I worry about a lot of things, Mr. Lindeyar,” he said. “It’s my job to worry; I’m in charge. But I’ve never had to worry about somebody hiring us. My Slammers are the best there is, and the whole universe knew it before we came here to Plattner’s World.”

Lindeyar nodded, licking his lips. “Yes, of course,” he said. He cleared his throat before going on, “Since there’s no need to conclude the formalities at this moment, I’ll be off to other matters which require my attention. President Rihorta, I’ll be in touch with you regarding the wording of your government’s concession of Port Plattner.”

He backed away from the circle, smiling fitfully each time his eyes met those of one of the Slammers. His hip bumped Foghorn’s skirt; he turned with a shocked expression, then walked at an increasing pace to his aircar.

Colonel Priamedes was able to support his own weight again. Huber released him and stepped aside, though Daphne kept hold of her father’s other arm.

“I guess you people have things you’d better be about as well,” Hammer said, surveying the delegations. All the civilians seemed to be on the verge of collapse; Priamedes, whose difficulties were merely physical, had gotten his color back and now stood straight. “Go on and do them.”

He focused on Minister Graciano. “You and I’ll talk regarding financial arrangements tomorrow. Mistress Dozier, you’ll be present?”

“Yes, of course,” the Bonding Authority representative said.

Lindeyar’s aircar lifted and curved toward the ships disgorging a Nonesuch armored division. Huber’d left his 2-cm weapon in Fencing Master, so all he had was the pistol on his equipment belt. He’d never been much good with a pistol; but if he fired in the direction of the aircar, Frenchie would swat it out of the air in blazing fragments.

That’d be a violation of the contract, of course. The Colonel would have him executed immediately as the only way to prevent

the Regiment from being outlawed and disbanded.

We’re not in the business of dispensing justice….

The delegations started moving away toward their own vehicles. Daphne Priamedes said, “It’s over for us, now—Solace and the Outer States as well now that Nonesuch has the port. ‘Woe to the conquered.’ That’s how it’s always been.”

Arne Huber thought about Sergeant Jellicoe, about Flame Farter’s two crewmen and all the other troopers he’d lost here on Plattner’s World. He watched the aircar landing among the disembarking Nonesuch soldiers and said aloud, “Yeah, I suppose. But it’s not just to the conquered, sometimes.”

Arne Huber stood on the berm against which Fencing Master nestled bow-on, surveying the landscape. It’d been a field of spring wheat before the engineers gouged Firebase One out of it two days ago and moved a third of the Regiment’s combat elements into it.

Huber hadn’t been a farmer; he’d seen no magic in the original flat expanse of green shoots stretching to the hills ten kilometers away. He was willing to grant that it’d been more attractive than this scraped yellow wasteland, though.

Deseau crawled carefully out of the plenum chamber. He was a small man, but battle and the hard run had left him stiff. You could hurt yourself on sharp, rusty metal when your muscles don’t work the way you expect them to. He stepped away from the access port before he dusted his trousers with his hands; Padova followed him out. He grinned at Huber and said, “Funny to be on Plattner’s World and not be skating in mud, ain’t it, El-Tee?”