The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2 полностью

Simkins eased them to a halt just short of the bridge approach. Cooter's blower was making the run—the walk, rather—and bleedin' Lord 'n martyrs, how thehelldid they expect that ruin to hold a tank?

The near span rippled to the rhythm ofFlamethrower's fans, and the span beyond the crumbling central support towers still danced with the weight of the car that'd crossed minutes before. This was bloodycrazy!

The Yokels guarding the bridge must've thought so too, from the way they stared in awe atHerman's Whore.

Ortnahme, hidden in the tank's belly, glared at their holographic images. They'd leaned their buzzbomb launchers against the sandbagged walls of their bunker.

Hard to believe that ten-kilo missiles could really damage something with the size and weight of armor ofHerman's Whore, but Henk Ortnahme believed it. He'd rebuilt his share of tanks after they took buzzbombs the wrong way—and, regretfully, had combat-lossed others when the cost of repair would exceed the cost of buying a new unit in its place.

There were costs for crew training and, less tangibly, for the loss of experience with veteran crewmen; but those problems weren't in Ortnahme's bailiwick.

"Sir?" the intercom asked. "The . . . you know, the guns they been hitting this place with. Wasn't that a, you know, an awful lot?"

"Don't worry about it, kid,"the warrant leader said smugly."Our only problem now's this bloody bridge."

Ortnahme adjusted his main screen so that the panorama's stern view was central rather than being split between the two edges.The shattered bunkers were hidden by the same buildings that'd protected the bridge from Consie gunfire. Smoke, turgid and foul, covered the western horizon.

"Ah, sir?"Simkins said."What I mean is, you know,we been fighting guerrillas, right? But all this heavy stuff, this was like a war."

A Yokel jeep jolted its way over the rubble pile in the wake of Task Force Ran-son. The driver was young and looked desperately earnest. The Marine major who'd gestured in fury asHerman's Whoreswept into la Reole at the end of the Slammers' column sat/stood beside the driver.

The officer was covering his mouth and nose with a handkerchief in his left hand while his right gripped the windshield brace to keep his ass some distance in the air. The jeep could follow where air cushions had taken the Slammers, but the wheeled vehicle's suspension and seat padding were in no way sufficient to make the trip a comfortable one.