The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

The topographic map of the main battle area flicked out and returned as a narrow holographic slice centered on the Notch. The APCs and other vehicles already north of the Knifeblade Escarpment were sharp symbols that crawled down the holographic slope toward—unbeknownst to themselves—H271 waiting at the bottom of the display.

The symbols of vehicles on the other side of the sandstone wall were hollow, indicating the AI had to extrapolate from untrustworthy data. The electronics, pumps, and even ignition systems of Thunderbolt and Hashemite trucks had individual radio-frequency spectrum signatures which H271's sensor suite could read. Precise location and assignment was impossible at a four-kilometer range beyond an intervening mass of sandstone, however.

One vehicle was marked with orange precision: the Legion tank destroyer which had huffed itself to within five hundred meters of the Notch. The tank destroyer's tribarrel licked skyward frequently to keep shells from decimating the retreating forces. The lines of cyan fire, transposed onto the terrain map in the tank's data base, provided H271 with a precise location for the oncoming vehicle. The other two tank destroyers were at the very top of the display, where they acted as rear guard against the Slammers.

They would come in good time. As for the closest of the three—it would have been nice to take out the tank destroyer with the first bolt, the round that unmasked H271, but that wasn't necessary. Waiting for the Legion vehicle to rise into range would mean sparing some of the half-tracks that drove off the slope and disappeared into swales concealed from the tank.

Des Grieux didn't intend to spare anything that moved this night.

The gunnery screen shrank in scale as it incorporated both orange pippers, the solid dot that marked the tribarrels target—the leading APC, covered by the flowing robes of a score of Hashemites riding on top of it—and the main gun's hollow circle, centered at the turret/hill junction on the fire-support vehicle which still, from its vantage point in the Notch, covered the retreat.

Des Grieux fired both weapons together.

It took a dozen rounds from the tribarrel before the carrier blew up. By then, the screaming Hashemite riders were torches flopping over the rocks.