The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“Is that a deal-breaker, then?” Coke asked. “Shall we just pack up and go home?”

Moden shook his head. “There’ve been precedents,” he said. “They aren’t talked about officially, but you hear about them in the bars around Camp Able. It affects the price and the size of the force to be risked, however.”

“I don’t like the idea of going in on a non-bonded operation,” Margulies said with a frown.

“We won’t be going in anywhere,” Coke said. “And the decision isn’t ours. We’re just here to assess possibilities.”

The Bonding Authority on Terra guaranteed that both parties to a hiring of mercenaries would perform according to the terms of the contract. That is, the troops would obey the orders of the contracting local party—whether the latter was a recognized government, a rebel movement, or an interstellar business conglomerate extending its holdings by force. And the troops would be paid even if that meant the contracting local parties starved or starved every civilian on the planet, in order to meet their obligations to the mercenaries.

The Bonding Authority didn’t take a moral stand: money has no smell. Though one could argue that forcing adults to keep their word was itself a way of instilling morality on human weakness.

Margulies grimaced and nodded.

“Johann?” Coke said.

Vierziger sniffed. “A company of infantry, backed up by a company of combat cars,” he said. He snapped the fingers of his left hand dismissively. “It could be done with less. These people are hopeless, quite hopeless.”

“How about panzers instead of cars?” Margulies suggested. “This is a city of bunkers.”

Vierziger shook his head. “There’s too many hiding places for buzzbomb teams,” he said. “Tribarrels can break up the facades almost as fast as a twenty-centimeter main gun could, and a car has twice as many eyes as a tank to watch for launchers. Even that’s risky, but the infantry needs the firepower support.”

Margulies pursed her lips. “We could use the local allies, whichever side, to unmask ambushes?” she said, the question implicit in her tone.

“Dream on,” Vierziger said scornfully. Margulies shrugged and nodded agreement with her nominal underling’s judgment.

“May I ask just what business you goodfolk deal in, please?” Georg Hathaway said in a cautiously distant voice.

Vierziger raised an eyebrow at Coke. Coke scratched the side of his neck. No point in trying to conceal matters. Theirs was, after all, a legitimate commercial operation.

“We’re representatives of the Frisian Defense Forces,” he said, nodding toward Mistress Hathaway to include her in the explanation. “Our superiors had been told that one or both gage syndicates here on Cantilucca might be interested in hiring high-quality mercenaries. The FDF are the best, period. We’re here to assess prospects for doing business and to report back to our superiors.”

Evie Hathaway’s face hardened by increments as Coke spoke. When he finished, she said harshly, “I don’t think you made a very positive impression when you arrived, gentlefolk. I doubt either the Widow Guzman or the Lurias will be interested in paying for the services of more like yourselves.”

“Evie, now, don’t be that way,” her husband begged. “I’m sure these—”

“No, no,” Coke said. “Mistress Hathaway is right. I suppose we need to do something to correct the situation immediately.”

“People are drifting away from the roadblocks, sir,” Barbour commented.

Coke had seen as much through the viewport, but there were still twelve or fourteen L’Escorials in position. About right for the purpose.

Margulies raised an eyebrow. Coke nodded. Margulies and Vierziger unlatched another pair of cases.

“How thick are the walls?” Coke asked.

“You won’t start a fight in here!” Evie Hathaway shouted. “You have to kill me first! This is a place of peace!”

“Ma’am, I wouldn’t think of it,” Coke said truthfully. “Anything that happens will be out on the street. I just want to be sure that none of the—side effects—will be dangerous to your structure.”

Barbour adjusted a set of controls. A ghost of Hathaway House glowed as a sidebar to the schematic of the immediate streetscape.

He looked up at Coke. “The front wall is nearly a meter thick,” he said. “Glass-reinforced concrete, and well shaken down. There’s a slight batter, but nothing that should matter.”

“Well, that’s right,” Georg said in surprise. “I thought, Evie thought, really, that we shouldn’t spare expense on protection if we were going to get the kind of guests we wanted.”

The innkeeper looked at the cases the security detail had opened. Like those of Barbour and Daun, they were filled with equipment. This time, all the equipment was lethal.

Margulies and Vierziger began handing out weapons to the rest of the team.