The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2 полностью

Guns fired from Sugar Knob a kilometer away, guns on the Yokel left flank that Ranson had decided to bypass only thirty seconds before—

Warmongerburst into a clearing gray with powdersmoke and dust kicked up by the ten stubby howitzers firing at high angles.

The Yokel tanks had their engines forward and their turrets mounted well back, over the fourth pair of roadwheels. With their hulls raised fifteen degrees by the stream bank, the vehicles bucked dangerously every time they fired their heavy weapons. The water of Upper Creek slapped between the recoiling tanks and its gravel bed.

The tanks were parked in the creek to either side of the road. Less than a three-meter hull width separated each vehicle from its neighbors. While the turret crews fed their guns, the tank drivers stood on both ends of the line of vehicles, mixing with a dozen guerrillas in black uniforms.

The dismounted men covered their ears with their palms and opened their mouths to equalize pressure from the muzzle blasts.When the three combat cars slid from the forest, their hands dropped but their mouths continued to gape like the jaws of gaffed fish.

Men spun and fell, shedding body parts, as Ranson's tribarrel lashed them. The group on the east side of the lined-up tanks had time to shout and run a few steps beforeWarmongerraced down Upper Creek as though the gravel bed were a highway, giving Ranson and Stolley shots at them also.

The Yokel tanks couldn't react fast enough to be an immediate danger, but a single Consie rifleman could clearWarmonger's fighting compartment.

Couldhave. When the last black-clad guerrilla flopped at the edge of the treeline, Willens spunWarmongerin a cataclysm of spray and the three tribarrels blazed into the backs on the renegade tanks.

One-one and One-five had followedWarmongerinto the stream, but they hadn't had to worry about the dismounted enemy. Two of the left-side tanks were already wrapped in sooty orange palls of burning diesel fuel. The turret blew off a third as main gun ammunition detonated in the hull.

Ranson centered her projection sight on a tank's back deck, just behind the turret ring.The target's slope gave her a perfect shot. Cyan bolts streamed through the holographic image of her sight, splashing huge craters in thin armor designed only to stop shell splinters.