The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

If the mercenary commander surrendered now, while his position was tenable and his employers were still fighting, the Thunderbolt Division would forfeit the performance bond it had posted with the Bonding Authority on Terra. That would end the division as an employable force—and shoot the career of its commander in the nape of the neck.

H271 quivered as its fans spun at idle. The tank was ready to go at a touch on the throttle and pitch controls."Sarge?"Flowers asked over the intercom channel. "Are we gonna move out soon?"

"Kid," Des Grieux said as he watched holographic dots crawling across holographic terrain, "when I want to hear your voice, I'll tell you."

If he hadn't been so concentrated on the display, he would have snarled the words.

The Thunderbolt Division's employers weren't exactly fighting, but neither had they surrendered. The Hashemite Brotherhood was no more of a monolith than were their Sincanmo enemies; and Hashemite troops were concentrated on the plains, where their mobility seemed an advantage. Des Grieux suspected that the Hashemiteswouldhave surrendered by now if they'd had enough organization left to manage it.

Broglie's armored elements on what had been the Hashemite right flank, now cut off from friendly forces by the collapse of the center, formed a defensive hedgehog among the sandstone boulders. The terrain gave them an advantage that would translate into prohibitive casualties for anybody trying to drive them out—even the panzers of Colonel Hammer's tank companies. Broglie's Legion wasn't going anywhere.

But Broglie himself had.

Within thirty seconds of the time artillery defense had collapsed in the center of the Hashemite line, four tank destroyers sped from the Legion's strong point to reinforce the Thunderbolt infantry. There was no time to redeploy vehicles already in the line, and Broglie had no proper reserve. These tank destroyers were the Legion's Headquarters/Headquarters Platoon.

The move was as desperate as the situation itself. Des Grieux wasn't surprised to learn Broglie had figured the only possible way out of Colonel Hammer's trap, but it was amazing to see that Broglie had the balls to put himself on the line that way. Des Grieux figured that Broglie obeyed orders because he was too chicken not to . . . .