The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

Barbour’s faceshield would be taking the input of up to a dozen of the visual sensors in and around Hathaway House. Coke couldn’t have kept that many locations straight, quite apart from needing a clear view of his immediate surroundings in the event of a firefight.

Coke grinned and nodded to his intelligence officer.

“Now,” Barbour murmured. “They’re gone.”

Margulies swung open the door; Coke was out onto the roof first. He kept his head below the level of the roof coping. The sun had fully set, but the afterglow was vivid to eyes that had been covered within the hiding place.

“They took the weapons they found,” Sten Moden said. “They carried my launcher and the reloads back across the street.”

“We’ve got what we need,” said Coke. “First we’ll do something about Johann.”

Mary Margulies looked at him. “We’re going to take them all on, then?” she said.

“Yeah,” Coke said. “All that’re left after they get done with each other.”

Margulies shrugged. “Suits me,” she said, checking with her fingers the pouches of 2-cm ammo on her crossed bandoliers.

Niko Daun slapped another panoramic camera onto the coping, a centimeter from where the previous one had been blown to atoms.

Coke stared at him. “You carried an extra one of those when you ran for cover?” Coke asked.

The sensor tech looked defensive. “I’ve got two of them, sir. Well, they’re real handy.”

“It’s all right,” Barbour said, responding to a threat before his fellows were aware of it. He positioned himself so that his body was between the trap door and the other members of the team. “It’s Hathaway.”

Georg Hathaway stuck his head up through the opening. It certainly hadn’t occurred to the innkeeper that without Barbour’s warning, somebody—very likely Coke himself—would have blown him away.

“Sirs,” he said. His normally pudgy cheeks looked sunken, though the fact he’d climbed the ladder spoke well of his general condition. “They’ve gone for now, all of them. They say they’re going to attack Astra. You can escape now.”

“I’m checking my equipment,” Bob Barbour said, the last syllable spoken as he slipped past Hathaway. He let himself drop to the corridor since the innkeeper’s body blocked the ladder. Hathaway recognized the problem and scurried down also, puffing and wheezing.

Coke started for the ladder. Margulies touched his arm. “Sir?” she said. “What’s the drill? Do we break Johann out now?”

“We check the situation on the big screen,” Coke said. “And then we break Johann out, yes.”

Wild gunfire erupted from the street.

Both syndicates had moved gunmen back into Potosi as soon as Madame Yarnell left, though the gangs kept a lower presence than before. Instead of loitering in opposing groups at every corner, men of the two sides kept generally to one end of town or the other— spaceport side for Astra, the eastern half for the L’Escorials.

Though the Lurias were acting on the spur of the moment, Pepe’s sudden decision was tactically ideal. Three red-painted armored cars were already in the street. The remaining vehicles rumbled out of the garage beneath L’Escorial HQ even as the first phase of the battle began.

The gateway into the Astra compound was blocked, as usual, by the converted bulldozer. As the L’Escorials swept unexpectedly toward their rival’s headquarters, the blue-clad guards started the dozer’s engine.

Pepe’s fireflies stooped like hawks with violet pinions. The short powergun barrel in each firefly spat cyan death at the startled guards. The side hatch to the cab of the converted bulldozer was open. A firefly slid in, lighted the vehicle’s interior with its five-round magazine, and curved out again.

The bulldozer stalled in a cloud of black smoke. The Astra guards sprawled on or around the vehicle, mangled by concentrated gunfire. The fireflies hissed back toward their controller. Pepe had told off a pair of his henchmen as assistants to reload the fireflies’ magazines when they returned.

Civilians vanished from sight. A few Astra gunmen opened fire on the advancing L’Escorials. The Lurias’ armored cars raked the street with their tribarrels and a salvo of 10-cm bombardment rockets. The latter blew up on building fronts with huge red flashes, hurling shrapnel and broken concrete in every direction.

Astras dived for cover in doorways and alleys. Counterfire stopped instantly, though only a handful of Astras were hit by the wild volley. The sheer volume of fire which the vehicles put down was too much for undisciplined troops to face. As more armored cars joined the initial trio, the gunmen who’d been chased to cover tore off their blue accoutrements and disappeared into the night.

The only Astras still fighting after the first exchange were those in the headquarters building with their leaders—and they were trapped like mice in a bucket of water. By taking the initiative, Pepe had won the battle.