The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2 полностью

Hans Wager was determined that he'd make thiscursed, bloodytank work for him. Nothing would ever convince him that a tank's sensors were really better than three sets of human eyeballs, sweeping the risks of a battlefield—

But there weren't three sets of eyeballs, just his own, so hehadto make the hardware work.

The threat sensor flashed a Priority One carat onto the main screen. Wager couldn't tell what the target was in the laterally compressed panorama.The cupola gun, slaved to the threat sensor the way Albers explained it could be, was already rotating left. It swung the magnified gunnery display of Screen Two with it.

Two bodies and one body still living, a Consie huddling beside what had been a pair of civilian females. The guerrilla's rifle was slung across his back, forgotten in his panic. He was too close for the tribarrel to bear.

The tank's skirts swept a bicycle and sling-load of bricks from the road,flinging the debris ahead and aside of its hundred-and-seventy-tonne rush. Chips and brickdust pelted the Consie. He leaped up.

His chest exploded in cyan light and a cloud of steam which somersaulted the corpse a dozen meters from the ditch.

There'd been a major guardpost at the truckstop on the hill, butDeathdealerand the crossfire of the two leading combat cars had already ended any threat from that quarter. Fuel roared in an orange jet from the courtyard pump. The roof of the cafe had buried whoever was still inside when tribarrels cut the walls away.

"Shot,"said his commohelmet.The voice of whoever was acting as fire control was warning that friendly artillery would impact in five seconds.

Three bodies sprawled: a step, another step, and a final step, from the front door of the cafe.

Deathdealerdropped over the hill.Its main gun lighted the far valley.The nameless tank topped the ridgeline with a roar.Their speed and Holman's inexperience lofted the vehicle thirty centimeters into the air at the crest.

Hans Wager, bracing himself in his seat, toggled the main gun off safe.

The low ridge a kilometer away paralleled the Santine River and embraced the western half of la Reole. The Consies had used the road to bring up their heavy weapons and building materials for substantial bunkers.

Three shells, dull red with the friction of their passage through air, streaked down onto the enemy concentration. The earth quivered.