The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

Des Grieux shivered and cursed; and after a time, he began to pray to a personal God of Battles . . . .

"Sir?"said Trooper Flowers from the narrow duct joining his station to H271's fighting compartment. The driver's shoulders were a tight fit in the passage."I'm ready to take my watch, sir. Do you want me in the cupola, or . . .?"

Des Grieux adjusted a vernier control on Screen #1, dimming the topographic display fractionally."I'm not'sir,'"he said. He didn't bother to look toward Flowers through the cut-out sides of the turret basket."AndI'llworry about keeping watch till I tell you different."

He returned his attention to Screen #3 on the right side of the fighting compartment. It was live but blank in pearly lustrousness; Des Grieux was missing a necessary link in the feed he wanted to arrange.

"Ah, S-sergeant?" the driver said. The only light in the fighting compartment was scatter from the holographic screens. Flowers' face appeared to be slightly flushed. "Sergeant Des Grieux? What do you want me to do?"

On the right—astern—edge of the topo screen, a company of Slammers infantry supported by combat cars moved up the range of broken hills held by the Thunderbolt Division. The advance seemed slow, particularly because the map scale was shrunk to encompass a ten-kilometer battle area; but it was as certain and regular as a gear train.

If navigational data passed to the map display, then therehadto be a route for—

"Sir?" said Flowers.

"Go play with yourself!" Des Grieux snarled. He glared angrily at his driver.

As Des Grieux's mind refocused to deal with the interruption, the answer to the main problem flashed before him.The information he wanted wasn't passing on the command channels he'd been tapping out of the Regiment's rear echelon back in Sanga: it was in the machine-to-machine data links, untouched by human consciousness . . . .

"Right," Des Grieux said mildly. "Look, just stick close to the tank, okay, kid? Do anything you please."

Flowers ducked away, surprised at the tank commanders sudden change of temper. His boots scuffled hollowly as he backed through the internal hatch to the driver's compartment.

"Booster,"Des Grieux ordered the tank's artificial intelligence, "switch to Utility Feed One and synthesize on Screen Three."

The opalescent ready status on the right-hand screen dissolved into multicolored garbage. Whatever data was coming through UF1 didn't lend itself to visual presentation.