The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

A dirigible slinging three pallets of howitzer ammunition was crawling upwind to the cargo pad. The big airships didn’t overfly the firebase: they dropped their loads outside the berm, from where trucks with troopers driving hauled the material the short remainder of the way.

“Hadn’t really thought about it, Frenchie,” Huber said. His eyes were on the dirigible, but he wasn’t really thinking about that either. “I can’t say I like the dust here in the highlands a lot better.”

“Hey, Learoyd?” Deseau called to the trooper in the fighting compartment. “Slide into the front, will you, and run up Port Two?”

Learoyd didn’t work in the plenum chamber unless he had to. He was too big for the hatches even when he was fit, and now his right arm was in a surface cast to keep him from rubbing off the medication that the Medicomp had applied when things settled down enough for the support equipment and personnel to arrive from Base Alpha. A fresh set of barrels for the 2-cm automatics had arrived, so Learoyd was working on the tribarrels while the other crewmen realigned the nacelle that’d taken a knock from the dense rootball of a tree Fencing Master had driven over.

“I’ll do it,” said Padova, mounting the bow with a hop and a grab for the first handhold on the hull proper. Rita’d settled in during the run and the three days of quiet following Port Plattner; now she was a member of Fencing Master’s crew, not just a skilled driver.

“Any word about when we might be moving out, El-Tee?” Deseau asked, shielding his eyes with his hand as he looked up at Huber. “I mean, we’re off the clock, right? Paying for our own time.”

A dotted line of dirigibles stretched to the southern horizon: Huber could see at least a dozen airships at once. There’d been a solid stream of airships transferring supplies and material from the UC ever since the Regiment pulled twenty kilometers back and set up three firebases equidistant from Port Plattner. They’d leave in a single giant transport from Port Plattner rather than in dribs and drabs from makeshift starports in the UC, so Huber supposed it made sense. Not that anybody cared what he thought.

“So far as anybody’s told me, Frenchie,” he said, “we’re going to stay here till we’ve all grown long white beards. I don’t expect that’s what’ll happen, but your guess is as good as mine.”

Padova switched on the portside fans and ran them up together. Huber cocked his head, listening with a critical ear for any imbalance in the harmonics. So far as he could tell, the nacelles were tuned as sweetly as if they’d just been blueprinted in the factory.

“El-Tee?” called Learoyd. He pointed to Fencing Master’s port wing gun, slewing incrementally under the control of gunnery computer. “There’s something coming.”

Huber looked south again, noticing this time that two enclosed aircars were approaching fast below the dirigibles. His eyes narrowed: the cars’ IFF must have been responding correctly or else the tribarrels on air defense would’ve shot them out of the sky a minute ago, but the drivers were taking a chance anyway. Even with the war over …

“Hey, what d’ye have?” Deseau said. He couldn’t see what was happening from ground level, but he’d noticed Learoyd’s and Huber’s interest. Instead of immediately jumping onto the plenum chamber to see for himself, he first latched the access port closed so that Fencing Master would be able to maneuver again.

The aircars came over the berm twenty meters up, braking to a hover with a slickness that showed the drivers were expert. They set down in front of the TOC, between two of Battery Alpha’s dug-in howitzers; dust skittered, dancing away to the west.

Huber jumped from the berm to the plenum chamber, his boots clanging. He climbed into the fighting compartment just as Deseau did; both men reflexively checked their tribarrels. Learoyd locked down the third barrel on his gun and slipped the adjustment wrench into its pouch on his belt.

“What d’ye think, El-Tee?” Deseau asked. “Did that bastard Lindeyar have second thoughts about terminating our contract?”

“None of them are Lindeyar,” Learoyd said. “They’re the other politicians’ cars.”

Fencing Master’s tribarrels couldn’t bear on the aircars because they were straight behind them, and anyway you didn’t point a gun across a firebase unless you wanted to lose your rank. Frenchie was holding his 2-cm weapon in the crook of his arm, and Learoyd unclipped his sub-machine gun from the bracket on the inside of the armor.

The limousines’ doors opened. Huber recognized Minister Graciano and his three colleagues, and the woman in battledress getting out of the front was Mistress Dozier. From the other aircar came President Rihorta and another member of the Solace delegation. The man accompanying those two was a stranger.

Aloud Huber said, “I don’t know who the tall guy is. He’s off-planet, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen a hat like that—”