Hammer's Slammers - David Drake, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 1
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CHAPTER OPiEThey'd told Tyi Koopman that Bamberg City'sstarport was on an island across the channel fromthe city proper, so he hadn't expected much of askyline when the freighter's hatches opened.Neither had he expected a curtain of steamboiling up so furiously that the sun was only abright patch in mid-sky.Tyi stepped back with a yelp. The crewman atthe controls of the giant cargo doors laughed andsaid, "Well, you were in such a hurry, soldier. ..."The Slammers-issue pack Tyi carried was all theluggage he'd brought from six month's furlough onMiesel. Strapped to the bottom of the pack wasa case of home-made jalapeno jelly that his auntwas sure�correctly�was better than any he couldget elsewhere in the galaxy.But altogether, the weight of Tyi's gear wasmuch less than he was used to carrying in weap-2 David Drakeons, rations, and armor when he led a company ofAlois Hammer's infantry. He turned easily andlooked at the crewman with mild sadness�thevisage of a dog that's been unexpectedly kicked. . . and maybe just enough else beneath the sad-ness to be disquieting.The crewman looked down at his controls, thenagain to the mercenary waiting to disembark. Thesquealing stopped when the triple hatches lockedopen. "Ah," called the crewman, "it'll clear up ina minute er two. It's always like this on Bambergthe first couple ships down after a high tide. Theport floods, y'see, and it always looks like half thebloody ocean's waiting in the hollows t' burn off."The steam�the hot mist; it'd never been dan-gerous, Tyi realized how�was thinning quickly.From the hatchway he could see the concrete padand, in the near distance, the bulk of the freighterthat must have landed just before theirs. The flecksbeyond the concrete were the inevitable frothspeckling moving water, the channel or the oceanitself�and the water looked cursed close to some-body who'd just spent six months on a place as dryas Miesel."Where do they put the warehouses?" Tyi asked."Don't they flood?""Every three months or so they would," thecrewman agreed. "That's why they're on the main-land, in Bamberg City, where there's ten metersof cliff and seawall t' keep 'em dry. But out here'sflat, and I guess they figured they'd sooner thelanding point be on the island in case somebody,you know, landed a mite hard."The crewman grinned tightly. Tyi grinned back.They were both professionals in fields that in-volved risks. People who couldn't joke about the3COUNTING THE COSTrisks of the jobs they'd chosen tended to findother lines of work in a hurry.The ones who survived."Well, I guess it's clear," Tyi said with enoughquestion in his tone to expect a warning if he werewrong. "There'll be ground transport coming?""Yeah, hovercraft from Bamberg real soon," thecrewman agreed. "But look, there's a shelter onthe other side a' that bucket there. You mightwant to get over to it right quick. There's someothers in orbit after us, and it can be pretty inter-esting t' be out on the field when it's this wet andthere's more ships landing."Tyi nodded to the man and strode down theramp that had been the lower third of the hatchdoor. He was nervous, but it'd all be fine soon.He'd be back with his unit and not alone, the wayhe'd been on the ship�And for the whole six months he'd spent withhis family and a planet full of civilians who under-stood his words but not his language.The mainland shore, a kilometer across NevisChannel, was a comiche. The harsh cliffs werenotched by the mouth of the wide river which wasresponsible for Bamberg City's location and thefact it was the only real city on the planet. Tyihadn't gotten the normal briefing because the reg-iment shifted employers while he was on furlough,but the civilian sources available on Miesel whenhe got his movement orders were about all heneeded anyway.Captain Tyi Koopman wasn't coming to the planetBamberia; he was returning to Hammer's Stam-mers. After five years in the regiment and sixmonths back with his family, he had to agree with4 David Drakethe veterans who'd warned him before he went onfurlough that he wasn't going home.He had left home, because the Slammers werethe only home he'd got.The shelter was a low archway, translucent greenfrom the outside and so unobtrusive that Tyi mighthave overlooked it if there had been any otherstructure on the island. He circled to one end,apprehensive of the rumbling he heard in thesky�and more than a little nervous about the pairof star freighters already grounded in the port.The ships were quiescent. They steamed andgave off pings of differential cooling, but for thenext few days they weren't going to move anymore than would buildings of the same size. Nev-ertheless, learned reflex told Tyi that big metalobjects were tanks . . . and no infantryman livedvery long around tanks without developing a healthyrespect for them.The door opened automatically as Tyi reachedfor it, wondering where the latch was. Dim shad-ows swirled inside the shelter, behind a secondpanel that rotated aside only when the outsidedoor had closed again.There were a dozen figures spaced within ashelter that had room for hundreds. All thosewaiting were human; all were male; and all butone were in civilian garb.Tyi walked toward the man in uniform�almosttoward him, while almost meeting the other man'seyes so that he could stop and find a clear spot atthe long window if the fellow glared or turned hishead as the Slammers officer approached.No problem, though. The fellow's quirking grinsuggested that he was as glad of the company asTyi was.COUNTING THE COST 5It was real easy to embarrass yourself when youdidn't know the rules�and when nobody worethe rank tabs that helped you figure out whatthose rules might be.From within the shelter, the windows had anextreme clarity that proved they were nothing assimple as glass or thermoplastic. The shelter wasunfurnished, without even benches, but its con-struction proved that Bamberia was a wealthy,high technology world.There was a chance for real profit on this one.Colonel Hammer must have been delighted."Hammer's Regiment?" the waiting soldier asked,spreading his grin into a look of welcome."Captain Tyi Koopman," Tyi agreed, shakingthe other man's hand. "I'd just gotten E Companywhen I went on furlough. But I don't know whatmay've happened since, you know, since we'veshifted contracts."He'd just blurted the thing that'd been bother-ing him ever since Command Central had sent thenew location for him to report off furlough. He'dsweated blood to get that company command�sweated blood and spilled it ... and the revisedtransit orders made him fear that he'd have toearn it all over again because he'd been gone onfurlough when the Colonel needed somebody inthe slot.Tyi hadn't bothered to discuss it with the folkswho'd been his friends and relatives when he wasa civilian; they already looked at him funny fromthe time one of them asked about the scrimshawhe'd given her and he was drunk enough to tellthe real story of the house-to-house on Cachalot.But this guy would understand, even though Tyi6 David Drakedidn't know him and didn't even recognize theuniform."Charles Desoix," the man said, "United De-fense Batteries." He flicked a collar tab with hisfinger. "Lieutenant and XO of Battery D, if youdon't care what you say. It amounts to gopher,mainly. I just broke our Number Five gun out ofCustoms on Merrinet.""Right, air defense," Tyi said with the enthusi-asm of being able to place the man in a structureduniverse. "Calliopes?""Yeah," agreed Desoix with another broad grin,"and the inspectors seemed to think somebody inthe crew had stuffed all eight barrels with drugsthey were going to sell at our transfer stop onMerrinet. Might just've been right, too�but weneeded the gun here more than they needed theevidence."The ship that had been a rumble in the skywhen Tyi ducked into the shelter was now withinten meters of the pad. The shelter's windows didan amazing job of damping vibration, but the con-crete itself resonated like a drum to the freighter'sengine note. The two soldiers fell silent. Tyi shiftedhis pack and studied Desoix.The UDB uniform was black with silver pipingthat muted to non-reflective gray in service condi-tions. It was a little fancier than the Stammers'khaki�but Desoix's unit wasn't parade-groundpansies.The Slammers provided their own defense againsthostile artillery. Most outfits didn't have the lux-ury that Fire Central and the vehicle-mountedpowerguns gave Hammer. Specialists like UnitedDefense Batteries provided multi-barreled weapons�calliopes�to sweep the sky clear over defendedCOUNTING THE COST 7positions and to accompany attacking columns whichwould otherwise be wrecked by shellfire.It wasn't a job Tyi Koopman could imagine him-self being comfortable doing; but Via! he didn'tsee himself leading a tank company either. A one-man skimmer and a 2 cm powergun were about allthe hardware Tyi wanted to handle. Anything big-ger cost him too much thought that would havebeen better spent on the human portion of hiscommand."Your first time here?" Desoix asked diffidently.The third freighter was down. Though steam hissedaway from the vessel with a high-pitched roar, itwas possible to talk again.Tyi nodded. Either the tide was falling rapidlyor the first two ships had pretty well dried the padfor later comers. The billows of white mist weresparse enough that he coul...
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