The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“Look,” Coke said, “we’re here now, we’re on our own. From this point on, we’re on first-name basis.”

Nobody reacted openly. Shutters clicked across the eyes of the more experienced trio, Moden, Margulies, and Vierziger.

“I don’t mean,” Coke explained hastily, “that we’ve suddenly become a democracy. Fuck that notion. You will take my orders, or I’ll have you court-martialed on return to Camp Able.”

A starship across the compound tested its landing motors. Plasma flared in an iridescent shimmer above the vessels, lighting the team members and the shattered ground about them. Vierziger grinned in broad approval.

“We’re all good at our jobs,” Coke resumed as the jet’s rumble faded away. “And we’ll be living in each other’s pockets while the operation goes on. I trust that we can maintain real discipline without pretending we’re back in base somewhere. Okay?”

The other members of the team nodded—Margulies with obvious relief. The last thing any sensible officer wanted was to serve under a commander whose first priority was that his troops like him.

Coke smiled and nodded. “Saddle up, troopers,” he said. He switched on the repulsion units of his cases and resumed the last stage of his trudge to the terminal buildings.

Vierziger fell in beside him. “I’m not used to thinking of myself as ‘Johann,’” the little man said with an unreadable substrate to the comment.

“Better get used to it, Johann,” Coke said.

Vierziger’s eyes were always on the far distance, the shadows which might be hiding an ambush. His cases tracked as nearly straight as the ground permitted, never tilting far enough to be in danger of toppling over. The little man’s peripheral vision chose the best line possible across the field.

“People generally don’t trust me,” Vierziger said, as if he were commenting on the magenta glow of the western horizon. “That’s understandable, of course. But I want you to know that you could trust me, can if you want to.”

A speck of light now at zenith had been fifteen degrees further east when Coke left the freighter. A moon, then, rather than a star; but merely a speck.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said aloud.

Vierziger laughed without malice. “The only difference between me and the pistol in your holster,” he said, “is that you’re more likely to hit the target if you aim me than if you aim it.”

Coke looked at the little man. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“Watch out for this,” Vierziger said, gesturing toward a raw pit with the index finger of the hand gripping one of his cases.

The pit separated the two men by its width as they avoided it. “Why?” Coke asked.

“Because I think that’s what I’m here to do, Matthew,” Vierziger said.

He took two longer strides, then released his cases. They stood as sentinels to either side of the door as the gunman entered the terminal with his delicate hands free.

Coke walked through the doors a step behind Vierziger. Coke had been a combat soldier all his career, so he was irritated to be treated as an object for protection. Another part of him, though—

It was the job of the security element, Margulies and Vierziger, to protect the survey team’s staff personnel. Coke, as team commander, couldn’t object with even a frown at his people doing their jobs.

A hissing static broom shut off as the door opened. A woman, hidden until then behind the counter, stood up. Her lustrous auburn hair was caught in a braid and coiled on top of her head.

As Coke judged the mass, the hair would dangle to the floor if she removed the ornate silver combs pinning it up. Unlikely that she let it down often, though; the arrangement would take an hour to rebuild.

The woman wore black, relieved only by the massive silver crucifix hanging across her breast on a chain of the same metal. She was full-featured rather than fat and could have modeled for Rubens.

“Yes, gentlemen?” she said. Her voice held a touch of sharpness, a sign of uncertainty otherwise hidden. She appeared to be alone in the office. Two men had entered, well dressed but men and strangers, and there were further shapes looming outside the door.

“We’re passengers from the Norbert, ma’am,” Coke explained. “We’re looking for the entry control office.”

He hadn’t forgotten the sailor had said that would be in the left-hand structure. The center building was the only one that was lighted, however.

“Oh, they should have told me!” the woman said with a stricken look.

Her eyes focused on the door. The panels had once been clear, but years of grit blown by nearby landings had blasted them to a pebbled surface. “How many of you are there?”

“Six,” said Coke. “Is there a problem?”

“Not for six,” the woman said. “I was going to take the operations van home anyway. My husband has our—”

She caught herself, flushed, and continued. “You see, the port bus just left with your ship’s crew. They didn’t say anything about passengers. I suppose they wanted to get into Potosi before dark.”