The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2 полностью

"This war's been goin' on for bloody years, kid," Ortnahme explained.

His thumb rotated the panorama back to its normal orientation. Bad enough watching the bridge sway, without having the screen's image splitFlamethrowerright down the middle that way.

"They got, the Consies, they been hauling stuff outa the Enclaves all that time, sockin' it away. Bit by bit till they needed it for that last big push. All that stuff—"Ortnahme nodded toward the roiling destruction behind them, though of course the technician couldn't see the gesture "—that means the Consies just shot their bolt."

Ortnahme scratched himself beneath the edge of his armor and chuckled. "Course, it don't mean they didn'thitwhen they shot their bloody bolt."

Cooter's blower had just reached the far end of the bridge—safely, Via! but this tank weighed five, six, times as much—when the image on the main screen changed sharply enough to recall the warrant leader from his grim attempt to imagine the next few minutes.

ThoughHerman's Whorepretty well blocked the bridge approach, the driver of the Yokel jeep managed to slide around them with two wheels off on the slope of the embankment.As the jeep gunned its way back onto the concrete,its image filled a broad swath of Ortnahme's screen.

What the bloodyhell?

The major threw down his makeshift dust filter, rose to his full height, and began to shout and gesture toward the tank. The young Marines at the bunker besideHerman's Whoresnapped to attention—eyes front,looking neither toward the tank nor their screaming officer.

Ortnahme could've piped the Yokel's words in through a commo circuit, scrubbed of all the ambient noise. Thing was, whatever the fellow was saying, it sure as hell wasn't anything Warrant Leader Henk Ortnahme wanted to hear.

"Simkins!" he said. "Can you get by these meatballs?"

"Ah . . . Without hitting the jeep?"

"Can you get bloodyby, you dickhead?"

Herman's Whoreshifted sideways like a beerstein on a slick, wet bar. The fan note built for a moment; then, using all his maintenance-bay skills, Simkins slid them past the jeep closer than a coat of paint.

The wheeled vehicle shrank back on its suspension as the sidedraft from the plenum chamber buffeted it, but metal didn't touch bloody metal!

That Yokel major was probably still pissed off. When the jeep bobbed in the windthrust, he fell sideways out of his seat. Let him file a bloody complaint with Colonel Hammer—in good time.