David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 04 - Counting The Cost(1).pdf - David Drake - margozap

Hammer’s Slammers

By David Drake

Counting the Cost

CHAPTER ONE

They'd told Tyl Koopman that Bamberg City's

starport was on an island across the channel from

the city proper, so he hadn't expected much of a

skyline when the freighter's hatches opened.

Neither had he expected a curtain of steam

boiling up so furiously that the sun was only a

bright patch in mid-sky.

Tyl stepped back with a yelp. The crewman at

the controls of the giant cargo doors laughed and

said, "Well, you were in such a hurry, soldier...."

The Slammers-issue pack Tyl carried was all the

luggage he'd brought from six month's furlough on

Miesel. Strapped to the bottom of the pack was

a case of home-made jalapeno jelly that his aunt

was sure—correctly—was better than any he could

get elsewhere in the galaxy.

But altogether, the weight of Tyl’s gear was

much less than he was used to carrying in weapons,

rations, and armor when he led a company of

Alois Hammer's infantry. He turned easily and

looked at the crewman with mild sadness—the

visage of a dog that's been unexpectedly kicked

. . . and maybe just enough else beneath the sad-

ness to be disquieting.

The crewman looked down at his controls, then

again to the mercenary waiting to disembark. The

squealing stopped when the triple hatches locked

open. "Ah," called the crewman, "it'll clear up in

a minute er two. It's always like this on Bamberg

the first couple ships down after a high tide. The

port floods, y'see, and it always looks like half the

bloody ocean's waiting in the hollows t' burn off."

The steam—the hot mist; it'd never been

dangerous, Tyl realized how—was thinning quickly.

From the hatchway he could see the concrete pad

and, in the near distance, the bulk of the freighter

that must have landed just before theirs. The flecks

beyond the concrete were the inevitable froth

speckling moving water, the channel or the ocean

itself—and the water looked cursed close to

somebody who'd just spent six months on a place as dry

as Miesel.

"Where do they put the warehouses?" Tyl asked.

"Don't they flood?"

"Every three months or so they would," the

crewman agreed. "That's why they're on the

mainland, in Bamberg City, where there's ten meters

of cliff and seawall t' keep 'em dry. But out here's

flat, and I guess they figured they'd sooner the

landing point be on the island in case somebody,

you know, landed a mite hard."

The crewman grinned tightly. Tyl grinned back.

They were both professionals in fields that in-

volved risks. People who couldn't joke about the

risks of the jobs they'd chosen tended to find

other lines of work in a hurry.

The ones who survived.

"Well, I guess it's clear," Tyl said with enough

question in his tone to expect a warning if he were

wrong. "There'll be ground transport coming?"

"Yeah, hovercraft from Bamberg real soon," the

crewman agreed. "But look, there's a shelter on

the other side a' that bucket there. You might

want to get over to it right quick. There's some

others in orbit after us, and it can be pretty inter-

esting t' be out on the field when it's this wet and

there's more ships landing."

Tyl nodded to the man and strode down the

ramp that had been the lower third of the hatch

door. He was nervous, but it'd all be fine soon.

He'd be back with his unit and not alone, the way

he'd been on the ship—

And for the whole six months he'd spent with

his family and a planet full of civilians who under-

stood his words but not his language.

The mainland shore, a kilometer across Nevis

Channel, was a comiche. The harsh cliffs were

notched by the mouth of the wide river which was

responsible for Bamberg City's location and the

fact it was the only real city on the planet. Tyi

hadn't gotten the normal briefing because the reg-

iment shifted employers while he was on furlough,

but the civilian sources available on Miesel when

he got his movement orders were about all he

needed anyway.

Captain Tyl Koopman wasn't coming to the planet

Bamberia; he was returning to Hammer's Slam-

mers. After five years in the regiment and six

months back with his family, he had to agree with

the veterans who'd warned him before he went on

furlough that he wasn't going home.

He had left home, because the Slammers were

the only home he'd got.

The shelter was a low archway, translucent green

from the outside and so unobtrusive that Tyl might

have overlooked it if there had been any other

structure on the island. He circled to one end,

apprehensive of the rumbling he heard in the

sky—and more than a little nervous about the pair

of star freighters already grounded in the port.

The ships were quiescent. They steamed and

gave off pings of differential cooling, but for the

next few days they weren't going to move any

more than would buildings of the same size. Nev-

ertheless, learned reflex told Tyl that big metal

objects were tanks . . . and no infantryman lived

very long around tanks without developing a healthy

respect for them.

The door opened automatically as Tyl reached

for it, wondering where the latch was. Dim shad-

ows swirled inside the shelter, behind a second

panel that rotated aside only when the outside

door had closed again.

There were a dozen figures spaced within a

shelter that had room for hundreds. All those

waiting were human; all were male; and all but

one were in civilian garb.

Tyl walked toward the man in uniform—almost

toward him, while almost meeting the other man's

eyes so that he could stop and find a clear spot at

the long window if the fellow glared or turned his

head as the Slammers officer approached.

No problem, though. The fellow's quirking grin

suggested that he was as glad of the company as

Tyl was.

It was real easy to embarrass yourself when you

didn't know the rules—and when nobody wore

the rank tabs that helped you figure out what

those rules might be.

From within the shelter, the windows had an

extreme clarity that proved they were nothing as

simple as glass or thermoplastic. The shelter was

unfurnished, without even benches, but its con-

struction proved that Bamberia was a wealthy,

high technology world.

There was a chance for real profit on this one.

Colonel Hammer must have been delighted.

"Hammer's Regiment?" the waiting soldier asked,

spreading his grin into a look of welcome.

"Captain Tyl Koopman," Tyl agreed, shaking

the other man's hand. "I'd just gotten E Company

when I went on furlough. But I don't know what

may've happened since, you know, since we've

shifted contracts."

He'd just blurted the thing that'd been bother-

ing him ever since Command Central had sent the

new location for him to report off furlough. He'd

sweated blood to get that company command—

sweated blood and spilled it ... and the revised

transit orders made him fear that he'd have to

earn it all over again because he'd been gone on

furlough when the Colonel needed somebody in

the slot.

Tyl hadn't bothered to discuss it with the folks

who'd been his friends and relatives when he was

a civilian; they already looked at him funny from

the time one of them asked about the scrimshaw

he'd given her and he was drunk enough to tell

the real story of the house-to-house on Cachalot.

But this guy would understand, even though Tyl

didn't know him and didn't even recognize the

uniform.

"Charles Desoix," the man said, "United De-

fense Batteries." He flicked a collar tab with his

finger. "Lieutenant and XO of Battery D, if you

don't care what you say. It amounts to gopher,

mainly. I just broke our Number Five gun out of

Customs on Merrinet."

"Right, air defense," Tyl said with the enthusi-

asm of being able to place the man in a structured

universe. "Calliopes?"

"Yeah," agreed Desoix with another broad grin,

"and the inspectors seemed to think somebody in

the crew had stuffed all eight barrels with drugs

they were going to sell at our transfer stop on

Merrinet. Might just've been right, too—but we

needed the gun here more than they needed the

evidence."

The ship that had been a rumble in the sky

when Tyl ducked into the shelter was now within

ten meters of the pad. The shelter's windows did

an amazing job of damping vibration, but the con-

crete itself resonated like a drum to the freighter's

engine note. The two soldiers fell silent. Tyl shifted

his pack and studied Desoix.

The UDB uniform was black with silver piping

that muted to non-reflective gray in service condi-

tions. It was a little fancier than the Slammers'

David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 04 - Counting The Cost(1).pdf

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