The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

Des Grieux turned and stared up at the lieutenant. "Try me," he said. The tone was unemotional, but Carbury's head jerked back from the impact of the veteran's eyes.

Screen #3 showed a distant landscape through the sights of a combat-car tribarrel. The image expanded suddenly as the gunner dialed up times forty magnification. The target was a—

Des Grieux's attention clicked instantly to the display. Freed from the veteran's glare, Carbury blinked and focused on the distant scene also.

The target was a Thunderbolt calliope, shooting upward from a pit that protected the eight-barreled weapon while it knocked incoming artillery shells from the air. The high ground which the combat car had gained gave its tribarrels a slanting view down at the calliope four kilometers away.

The line-straight bolts from a powergun cared nothing for distance, so long as no solid object intervened. A five-round burst from the viewpoint tribarrel raked the gun pit, reducing half the joined barrels and the crew to ions.

That would have been enough, but the calliope was in action when the bolts struck it. One of the weapon's own high-intensity 3cm rounds discharged in a barrel which the Slammers' fire had already welded shut.

A blue-white explosion blew open the multiple breeches. That was only the momentary prelude to the simultaneous detonation of the contents of an ammunition drum. Plasma scooped out the sides of the gun pit and reflected pitilessly from rockfaces several kilometers away.

As if an echo, three more of the Thunderbolt Division's protective calliopes exploded with equal fury.

The Slammers' toehold on the eastern hills wasn't the overture to further slogging advances on the same flank: it was a vantage point from which to destroy at long range the artillery defenses of the entire hostile center.

"GoodLord," Lieutenant Carbury gasped. He leaned forward in amazement for a closer view. Des Grieux shoved Carbury back with as little conscious volition.

H271's artificial intelligence switched its viewpoint to that of a jeep-mounted infantry tribarrel.Six red streaks fanned through the sky above the narrow wedge of vision, a full salvo from a battery of the Slammers' rocket artillery.

Powerguns fired from the hills to the west.Some of Broglie's defensive weapons had retargeted abruptly to help close the sudden gap in the center of the line. That was dangerous, though, since Hammer's other two batteries continued to pound the flanks of the enemy position.