The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“They used to have a red sign,” the gunman to the leader’s other side tittered. “It had a little accident when we come by it.”

The trio moved further into the cafe. The local patrons flowed behind them on both sides and out the door, like damping fluid when a shock absorber compresses.

Moden wore a pistol in a belt holster. He wasn’t a particularly good shot. He certainly wasn’t good enough to drop three men in the fraction of a second he’d have before the sub-machine gun aimed at him blew his head off.

“Please,” Esteban said. “This is just a cafe. We have no sides, we are poor people.”

The leader took the bottle of liqueur and drank directly from it, eyeing Moden past the plane of sluggish red fluid. He handed the bottle to the man aiming at Moden. “Who’s the crip?” he asked.

“My name’s Sten Moden,” the Frisian answered calmly. His hand lay on his lap. The closed flap of his holster was in sight of the gunmen. “I’m from Nieuw Friesland, a businessman.”

“He’s a leftie!” said the Astra who’d warned Nunci not to leave. “Get it? A leftie!”

Without warning he triggered a single shot. The cyan bolt struck near the top of the kitchen door. Wood blew outward in blazing splinters, leaving a hole the size of a soup plate in the thin panel.

Rosaria screamed. Nunci stood transfixed, and Esteban’s fists balled.

Sten Moden gripped the table’s central leg. He lifted and hurled forward the massive piece of furniture with all his strength. Both sub-machine guns fired, into the tabletop and ceiling as the huge club pistoned toward the three Astras. Moden felt the shock of the bolts through his hand, but the table was too solid for the light charges of a pistol or sub-machine gun to tear it apart.

The tabletop hit the far wall, or almost, with a soggy thump. Moden pulled back, then slammed his weapon toward the wall again with his shoulder behind it.

There was a gurgling cry. When Moden withdrew the table the second time, sub-machine guns and other accoutrements clattered to the floor behind it.

Annunciata screamed. She threw herself into her father’s arms.

Moden gave a convulsive gesture that slammed the table back down on its six legs. He was trembling all over. He had to brace his hand on the scarred top in order to continue standing. Powergun bolts had blown smoldering craters in the wood.

Moden didn’t try to look over the table to see what had become of his victims, though he knew he ought to. One of the Astras might still have enough strength to pull a trigger….

But probably not.

The Rojo family spoke or cried in four vocal ranges, all of them incoherently. The Frisian closed his eyes and opened them, drawing deep breaths.

The cafe’s outer door flew open.

Mary Margulies lunged in behind a sub-machine gun. Niko Daun followed her with a set expression and another sub-machine gun.

The would-be rescuers looked at Moden, then looked at their feet. “Blood and martyrs,” Niko said.

Margulies straightened from her crouch. She put her weapon on safe and cleared her throat. “Ah,” she said. “Barbour, you know he monitors the audio from the helmets. He thought you might need a hand.”

Sten Moden looked at his palm. His adrenaline-charged grip had left white valleys where it held the corners of the table leg.

“No,” Moden said. “One was enough.”

Cantilucca: Day Three

The outer fence surrounding L’Escorial’s gage warehouse was woven wire, five meters high and topped with a Y of razor ribbon. The forest had grown to and entwined with the wire despite evidence of desultory attempts to burn it back. The diamond teeth of Coke’s powered cutting bar opened a man-sized hole with one sweep of his arm.

The vegetation in the four meters between the fencelines was cut to knee-height scrub. There was a single row of buried toe-poppers, located so that the mower could straddle them. Daun marked a safe pathway with white tape.

The sensor-controlled directional mines placed every ten meters along the inner fence were even less of a danger. Daun turned them all off with a deactivation signal, just as the watchmen would have done while mowing or carrying out other maintenance operations.

“Who do these bozos think they’re dealing with?” the sensor tech muttered disdainfully to Coke.

“Bozos like the Astras behind us,” Coke replied.

Well behind them. Coke had decided he and Daun would breach the defenses alone. Vierziger wasn’t happy to be a kilometer back in the forest along the road, but that was the only way Coke could be sure the Astras would stay where they belonged.

The last thing Coke wanted was a line of trucks to come driving up while he and Niko were in the middle of the wire. He’d seen relief in the sensor tech’s eyes when they went over the plan the first time. Daun had more reason than most to doubt the competence of indig forces.

“Wait here, sir,” Daun said crisply.