The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

Gangbuster IIrose in a slurp of mud as dark and fluid as chocolate cake dough. The Hindi disappeared, not into his hole but by jumping toward the paddies north of the causeway. A Han gunner, lucky or exceptionally skillful, caught the Hindi in mid-leap. A splotch of blood hung in the air for some seconds after the corpse hit the water.

An anti-tank shot struck the rear ofGangbuster II's turret. The bustle rack tore away in a scatter of the tankers' personal belongings, many of them a fire.Impact of the dense penetrator on comparably dense armor heated both incandescent, enveloping the clothes and paraphernalia in a haze of gaseous osmium and iridium.

The projectile had only a minuscule direct effect on the inertia ofGangbuster's 170 tonnes, but the shock made Pesco's hand twitch on the control column. The tank lurched sideways. The lights in the fighting compartment darkened and stayed out,but the screens only flickered as the AI routed power through pathways undamaged when the jolting impact severed a number of conduits.

The second shot blew through the northern hedge a half-second later. Pesco was fighting for control. The projectile hit, but only a glancing blow this time. The shot ricocheted from high on the rear hull, leaving a crease a half-meter long glowing in the back deck.

Des Grieux spun the tribarrel because the cupola responded more quickly than the massive turret forging, but he didn't have a clear target—and the anti-tank gunner didn't need one.

Powergun bolts would dump all their energy on the first solid object they touched. It was pointless trying to shoot at a target well to the other side of dense vegetation. Heavy osmium shot, driven by a jolt of plasma generated in a chamber filled with liquid propellant, carried through the hedge with no significant degradation of its speed or stability.

Gangbuster IIhesitated while Pesco swung the bow to port, following the causeway, and coarsened the fan pitch to regain the speed lost in climbing the embankment. The tank was almost stationary for the moment.

Hindi soldiers rose from spiderholes in the hedge and raised buzzbomb launchers. One of the rocketeers was a hundred meters ahead ofGangbuster II; the other was an equal distance behind, his position already enveloped by the Han advance.

Des Grieux's tribarrel was aimed directly to starboard, and even the main gun was twenty degrees wide of the man in front. The tanker's right hand strained against the joystick anyway. The Hindis fired simultaneously.