The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

Half—apparently the junior half—of each Sincanmo battle group waited under camouflage film in the gullies to provide a base of fire for the looters. The Sincanmos were not so much undisciplined as self-willed, and they had a great deal of experience in hit-and-run guerrilla warfare.

The appearance of a well-prepared defense was deceptive, though. The heavy weapons that were effective at a two-kilometer range had expended much of their ammunition in the first engagement; and besides, the irregulars were about to find themselves out of their depth.

They were facing the first of the retreating Thunderbolt Division troops. The Thunderbolts weren't much; but they were professionals, and this lot had Luke Broglie with them . . . .

At first the Sincanmos in the Notch fired small arms at their unseen targets; automatic rifles pecked the night with short bursts. Then somebody got an abandoned Hashemite railgun working. The Notch lighted in quick pulses, the corona discharge from the weapon's generator. Thecrack crack crackof hyper-velocity slugs echoed viciously.

A blue-white dazzle outlined the rock surfaces of the Notch. A Legion tank destroyer kilometers away had put a 15cm bolt into the center of the captured outpost. Two seconds later the sound reached Des Grieux's ears, the glass-breakingcrashas rock shattered under unendurable heat stresses.

Three Sincanmo survivors scampered down the Escarpment. One man's robe smoldered and left a fine trail of smoke behind him. The men were on foot, because their trucks fed the orange-red flames lighting the Notch behind them.

The Sincanmo irregulars had gotten their first lesson. A siren on Chief Diabate's 8x8 armored car, halfway up the slope, wound slowly from a groan to a wail. Exhaust blatted through open pipes as the indigs leaped aboard their vehicles and started the engines.

The first salvo howled from the Thunderbolt Division's makeshift redoubt to the southeast. The shells burst with bright orange flashes in the empty plains, causing no casualties. The Sincanmos were either in the gullies well north of the impact area or still on the slope, where the height of the Knifeblade Escarpment provided a wall against shells on simple ballistic trajectories.