The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2 полностью

The main gun had emptied its ready magazine. Despite the air conditioning, the air withinWarrior's fighting compartment was hot and bitter with the gray haze trembling from the thick 20cm disks which littered the turret basket. The disks were the plastic matrices that had held active atoms of the powergun charge in precise alignment. Despite the blast of liquid nitrogen that cleared the bore after each shot, the empties contained enormous residual heat.

Des Grieux jerked the charging lever, refilling the ready magazine from reserve storage deep inWarrior's hull. The swale was blazing havoc behind them. Silhouetted against the glare of burning brush, fuel, and ammunition, Republican troops scattered like chickens from a fox.

Ten kilometers ahead of the tank, the horizon quivered with the muzzle flashes of Republican artillery.

"Now we'll get those bastards on 504!" Des Grieux shouted—

And knew, even as he roared his triumph, that if he tried to smash his way into the Republican firebase, he would die as surely and as vainly as the Rep reserves had died whenWarriorripped through the center of them

So long as Des Grieux was in the middle of a firefight, his brain had disconnected the stream of orders and messages rattling over the commo net. Now the volume of angry sound overwhelmed him:"Oyster Two, report! Break! Oyster four, are you—"

The voice was Broglie's rather than that of Lieutenant Lindgren. The Lord himself had nothing to say just now that Des Grieux had time to hear.Des Grieux switched off the commo at the main console.

"Booster," he ordered the artificial intelligence, "enemy defenses in marked area."

Des Grieux's right index finger drew a rough circle bounded by Hill 504 andWarrior's present position on the topographic display. "Best esti—"

An all-terrain truck snorted into view on the main screen. Des Grieux twisted his left joystick violently but he couldn't swing the tribarrel to bear in the moment before the tank rushed by in a spray of sand. The truck's crew jumped from both sides of the cab, leaving their vehicle to careen through the night unattended. "—mate!"

Booster had very little hard data, but the AI didn't waste time as a human intelligence officer might have done in decrying the accuracy of the assessment it was about to provide.The computer's best estimate was the same as Des Grieux's own:Warriordidn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of reaching the firebase.