The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

But somebody was bound to run; and when that group seemed on the verge of successful escape, the others would follow as surely as day follows night.

There would be no day for most of this group of Hashemites. When their leading vehicles reached the bottom of the slope, the Sincanmos opened up with a devastating volley.

The two-kilometer range was too great for sidearms to be generally effective, though Des Grieux saw a bolt from a semiautomatic powergun—perhaps Chief Diabate's personal weapon—light up a truck cab. The vehicle went out of control and rolled sideways. Upholstery and the driver's garments were afire even before ammunition and fuel caught.

Mostly the ambush was work for the crew-served weapons. For the Sincanmo gunners, it was practice with live pop-up targets. Dozens of automatic cannon punched tracers into and through soft-skinned vehicles, leaving flames and torn flesh behind them. Mortars fired, mixing high explosive and incendiary bombs. Truck-mounted lasers cycled with low-frequency growls, igniting paint, tires, and cloth before sliding across the rock to new targets.

A pair of perfectly aimed bombardment rockets landed within the Notch itself, causing fires and secondary explosions among the tail end of the line of would-be escapees. The smooth, inclined surface of the Escarpment provided no concealment, no hope. Hashemites stood or ran, but they died in either case.

Des Grieux smiled like a sickle blade and pulled the hatch closed above him. He continued to watch through the vision blocks of the cupola.

Truckloads of Sincanmo troops drove up out of their concealment, heading for the loot and the writhing wounded scattered helplessly on the slope.

Have fun while you can, wogs,Des Grieux thought.Because you won't see the morning either.

Thirty-seven minutes after Chief Diabate sprang his ambush, Sincanmo troops in the Notch began firing southward. The shooters were the bands who'd penetrated farthest in their quest for loot and throats to cut. Other bright-robed irregulars were picking over the bodies and vehicles scattered along the slope. When the guns sounded, they looked up and began to jabber among themselves in search of a consensus.

Des Grieux watched through his vision blocks and waited. H271's fighting compartment was warm and muggy with the environmental system shut down, but a cold sweat of anticipation beaded the tanker's upper lip.