The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

The skimmer jolted over a shrub whose roots had held the windswept soil in a lump higher than the ground to either side. Ruthven flew free and rolled. Every time his right leg hit the ground, a flash of pain cut out that fraction of the night.

A tribarrel chugged from behind, raking the slope up which they’d come. Ruthven was within the new perimeter. Half a dozen Royalists huddled nearby with terrified expressions, but E/1 itself had enough firepower to halt the rebels. They’d already been hammered, and now more shells screamed down like a regiment of flaming banshees.

Firebase Groening was northeast of Firebase Courage, so the hogs were overfiring E/1’s present perimeter to reach the rebels. Somebody …Sergeant Hassel? …must be calling in concentrations, relaying the messages through the command car. The vehicle was out of action, but its radios were still working.

Rennie spun the skimmer to a halt. “Made it!” he shouted. “We bloody well made it!”

Ruthven found his holster and managed to lift the flap. Beside him, Rennie hunched to remove his 2-cm weapon from the rail where he’d clamped it to free both hands for the rescue.

A buzzbomb skimmed the top of the knoll, missing the tribarrel at which it’d been aimed and striking Sergeant Rennie in the middle of the back. There was a white flash.

The shells from Firebase Groening landed like an earthquake on the rebels who’d overrun the Royalist camp and were now starting uphill toward E/1. In the light of the huge explosions, Ruthven saw Rennie’s head fly high in the air. The sergeant had lost his helmet, and his expression was as innocent as a child’s.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant Ruthven,” Doctor Parvati said as he stepped into the room without knocking. “You are up? And packing already, I see. It is good that you should be optimistic, but let us take things one step at a time, shall we? Lie down on your bed, please, so that I can check you.”

Ruthven wondered if Parvati’d put a slight emphasis on the phrase “one step.” Probably not, and even if he had it’d been meant as a harmless joke. I have to watch myself. I’m pretty near the edge, and if I start overreacting, well….

“Look, Doc,” he said, straightening but not moving away from the barracks bag he was filling from the locker he’d kept under the bed. “You saw the reading that Drayer took this noon, right? I’m kinda in a hurry.”

“I have gone over the noon readings, yes,” Parvati said calmly. He was a small, slight man with only a chaplet of hair remaining, though by his face he was in his early youth. “Now I would like to take more readings.”

When Ruthven still hesitated, Parvati added, “I do not tell you how to do your job, Lieutenant. Please grant me the same courtesy.”

“Right,” said Ruthven after a further moment. He pushed the locker to the side and paused. The garments were new, sent over from Quartermaster’s Stores. The gear on the command car’s rack had burned when they shot at rebs trying to get to the tribarrel. The utilities Ruthven worn during the firefight had been cut off him as soon as he arrived here.

He sat on the bed and carefully swung his legs up. He’d been afraid of another blinding jolt, but he felt nothing worse than a twinge in his back. Funny how it was his left hip rather than the smashed right femur where the pain hit him now. He’d scraped some on the left side, but he’d have said that was nothing to mention.

“So,” said Parvati, reading the diagnostic results with his hands crossed behind his back. The holographic display was merely a distortion in the air from where Ruthven lay looking at the doctor. “So.”

“I was talking to Sergeant Axbird this afternoon,” Ruthven said to keep from fidgeting. “She was my platoon sergeant, you know. I was wondering how she was coming along?”

Parvati looked at Ruthven through the display. After a moment he said, “Mistress Axbird’s physical recovery has gone as far as it can. How she does now depends on her own abilities and the degree to which she learns to use her new prosthetics. If you are her friend, you will encourage her to show more initiative in that regard.”

“Ah,” Ruthven said. “I see. I’m cleared for duty, though, Doctor. Right?”

He wondered if he ought to stand up again. Parvati always used the bed’s own display instead of downloading the information into a clipboard.

“Are you still feeling pain in your hip, Lieutenant?” the doctor asked, apparently oblivious of Ruthven’s question.

“No,” Ruthven lied. “Well, not really. You know, I get a little, you know, tickle from time to time. I guess that’ll go away pretty quick, right?”

It struck Ruthven that the diagnostic display would include blood pressure, heart rate, and all the other physical indicators of stress. He jumped up quickly. Pain exploded from his hip; he staggered forward. His mouth was open to gasp, but his paralyzed diaphragm couldn’t force the air out of his lungs.

“Lieutenant?” Parvati said, stepping forward.