The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

The stone hit the street with a crash and half-bounced, and half-rolled, into the path of the lead truck. The fire vehicle slewed to the side, but its wheels weren't adequate to stabilize the kiloliters of water in its ready-use tank. The truck went over and skidded, rotating on its side in sparks and the scream of tortured metal—even before its consort rammed it from behind.

Someone began to fire a slug thrower from the roof. The trucks were not burning yet, but a stray breeze brought the raw, familiar odor of petroleum fuel to the hunching Slammers.

There wasn't anything in Hell worse than street fighting in somebody else's city—

And Tyl, like most of the veterans with him, had done it often enough to be sure of that.

A clot of soldiers stumbled out the doorway. Scratchard was the last, unrecognizable for a moment because of the huge load of equipment he carried.

Looked as if he'd staggered out with everything the rest of the company had left in the arms locker, Tyl thought. A veteran like Jack Scratchard should've known to—

Reinforced windows blew out of the second floor with a cyan flash, a bang, and a deep orangewhoom!that was simultaneously a sound and a vision. The sergeant major hadn't tried to empty the arms locker after all.

"Put this on, sir," Scratchard muttered to the captain as the fire trucks up the street ignited in the spray of burning fragments hurled from the demolition of the Slammers' excess stores.The actinics of the powergun ammunition detonating in its storage containers made exposed skin prickle, but the exploding gasoline pushed at the crouching men with a warm, stinking hand.

Roof floodlights, driven by the emergency generator in the basement, flared momentarily around the City Offices. Shadows pooled beneath the waiting troops. They cursed and ducked lower—or twisted to aim at the lights revealing them.

Volleys of shots from the mob shattered the lenses before any of the Slammers made up their minds to shoot. The twin pincers, from the plaza and from the House of Grace, were already beginning to envelope the office building.

The route north and away was awash in blazing fuel. The police aircar that roared off that way, whipping the flames with its vectored thrust, pitched bow-up and stalled as an automatic weapon raked it from the same roof as the falling masonry had come.