The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume 3 (79 page)

Huber nodded. Pain washed over him; he closed his eyes. The technician muttered and made adjustments. Huber felt the pain vanish as though a series of switches were being tripped in sequence.

The Slammers used pain drugs only as first aid. Once a trooper was removed to a central facility, direct neural stimulation provided analgesis without the negative side effects of chemicals. The Medicomp had kept Huber unconscious while he healed, exercising his muscles group by group to prevent atrophy and bed sores. He’d been awakened only when he should be able to walk on his own. The technician was smoothing out the vestiges of pain while Huber lay in a cocoon of induced inputs.

Huber opened his eyes. His brain was still collecting itself; direct neural stimulation tended to separate memory into discrete facets which reintegrated jarringly as consciousness returned. Part of Arne Huber understood it was remarkable that the Regiment’s commander and deputy commander stood beside his pallet, but everything was new and remarkable to him now.

“How long’s it been?” he said aloud, marvelling at the sound of his voice. “How long’ve I been out?”

“Four days,” Danny Pritchard said. “Going on five if you count the time before we got you back to Base Alpha by aircar.”

“Right,” said Huber. “Well, I’m ready to go back to my platoon now. Are we still in the field?”

As he spoke, he braced his hands on the edges of the pallet and with careful determination began to lever his torso up from the mattress. A spasm knotted his muscles; his vision went briefly monochrome. The technician clicked his tongue.

“F-3 ought to be out of the line,” Hammer said in a gravelly voice, “but we can’t afford that luxury just now. We’ve assigned a car from Central Repair and personnel from the depot to bring them up to strength. I’ve put in a lieutenant named Algren as CO. He’s green as grass, but he was top of his class at the Academy.”

“I’m the fucking CO of F-3!” Huber said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I can—”

He lurched to his feet. His knees buckled. Hammer caught him expertly and lifted him onto the pallet. Huber gasped, hoping he wouldn’t vomit. There was nothing in his stomach, but acid boiled against the back of his throat while the technician’s fingers danced on his keypad.

“No, you can’t,” Major Pritchard said. “We need the troopers we’ve got too badly to let you get a bunch of them killed to prove you’re superman, which you’re not. Besides, I want you in Operations.”

“Right,” said Hammer. “Bad as things are in the field, just now I need experienced officers on my staff worse than I do line commanders. I might transfer you to Operations even if you were fit to go back to F-3.”

Huber glared at the Colonel, then let himself relax on the pallet. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I’m not fit, you’ve got that right. But . . .”

“But when you are,” Hammer said, “then I guess you’ve earned your choice of assignments. You did a good job getting your people out of that ratfuck. I won’t bother saying I’m sorry for the way you got left hanging, but sure—I owe you one.”

“For now you can do the most good to F-3 and the whole Regiment just by helping ride herd on what passes for the military forces of the United Cities,” Pritchard said. “If we don’t get them working together, it’s going to be . . .”

His voice trailed off. He shook his head, suddenly looking drawn and gray with despair.

“The first thing you can help with,” said Hammer, “is coming up with a platoon sergeant. I don’t want to bring in somebody new, not with a newbie CO. I offered the job to your blower captain, Sergeant Deseau, and he turned it down; the others aren’t seasoned enough on paper, and I don’t know any of them personally.”

“Frenchie’d hate the job . . .” Huber said, his mind settling into professional mode instead of focusing on his body and its weakness. “He could do it, but . . .”

“I can put the arm on him,” the Colonel said. “Tell him it’s take the job or out—and I wouldn’t be bluffing.”

“No,” said Huber. “There’s a sergeant in Log Section now, Jack Tranter. He’s worked with us before. He isn’t a line trooper, but he’s seen the elephant. He’s got the rank and organizational skills, and he’s got the judgment to balance some young fire-eater straight out of the Academy.”

“I remember him,” said Pritchard with a frown. “He’s a good man, but he’s missing his right leg.”

“The way things are right at the moment, Danny,” said the Colonel with a piercing look at his subordinate, “he could be stone blind and I’d give him a trial if Huber here vouched for him. We don’t have a lot of margin, you know.”

Pritchard nodded with a grim smile. “Yeah,” he said. “There’s that.”

Hammer turned to Huber again. The movement was very slight, but his gaze had unexpected weight. Huber felt the sort of shock he would if he’d been playing soccer and caught a medicine ball instead.

“So, Lieutenant?” he said. “Are you going to do what I tell you, or are you going to keep telling me what you’ll do?”

“Sir!” said Huber, sitting up. He didn’t feel the waves of nausea and weakness that’d crumpled him moments before, but neither did he push his luck by swinging his feet over the side of the bed. “You’re the Colonel. I’ll do the best job I can wherever you put me.”

Hammer nodded, a lift of his chin as tiny as the smile that touched his thin lips. Huber wondered vaguely what would’ve happened if he’d been too bullheaded to face reality. Hard to tell, but the chances were he’d be looking for a civilian job when he got out of the infirmary instead of arguing about where he belonged in the Regimental Table of Organization.

Danny Pritchard looked at the technician and said, “When’ll he be able to move? Sit in front of a console in the Operations shop I mean, not humping through the boonies.”

The technician shrugged. “I can have him over there by jeep in maybe three hours. It’s not how brave you are or how many pushups you can do, it’s just the neural pathways reconnecting. D’ye want me to requisition a uniform or did his own gear come in with him?”

All three men looked reflexively at Huber. Huber gulped out a laugh and felt better by an order of magnitude to have broken his own tension that way.

“Hey, when I came here the only thing I had on my mind was my hair,” he said. “Draw me a medium/regular and I’ll worry about my field kit later.”

“Roger that,” said Hammer, ending the discussion. His glance toward Huber was shrouded by layers of concerns that had nothing to do with the man on the bed. “You’ll report to Operations as soon as you can, Lieutenant, and Major Pritchard’ll bring you up to speed.”

Hammer started out of the room. Pritchard put a hand on the Colonel’s shoulder and said, “Sir? You might tell him about Ander.”

Hammer looked from his Operations Officer to Huber. “Yeah,” he said, “I might do that. Lieutenant, the UC government ordered General Ander’s arrest after his failure to execute their lawful orders. While he was in a cell pending his hearing before the Bonding Authority representative, he committed suicide.”

Huber frowned, trying to take in the information. “The UC arrested him?” he said. “Sir, how in hell did they do that? Ander’s Legion may not be the best outfit on the planet, but the UC doesn’t have anything more than a few forest guards with carbines.”

“I suggested they deputize a platoon of the White Mice for the job,” Hammer said. “I believe Major Steuben chose to lead the team himself.”

“Ah,” said Huber. He didn’t say, “Why would Ander kill himself?” because obviously Ander hadn’t killed himself. Huber’d turned down a chance to serve in the White Mice, the Regiment’s field police and enforcers; but he understood why they existed, and this was one of the times he was glad they existed.

“Right,” he said. “Ah . . . thank you, sir, though I hadn’t been going to ask. I know we’re in a complicated situation here on Plattner’s World.”

“You just think you know,” said Pritchard over his shoulder as he followed the Colonel out of the room. “After a day in Operations, Lieutenant, you’ll know bloody well.”

Like every other line soldier throughout history, Arne Huber had cursed because his superiors expected him to follow orders without having a clue as to what was really going on. Transferred now to the operations staff, he found himself in a situation he liked even less: he knew the Big Picture, and the reality was much worse than he’d believed when he had only a platoon to worry about.

Even more frustrating, there was nothing he could do to change the situation. It was like trying to push spaghetti uphill.

Huber cut the present connection, watching the image of a dark-skinned officer in a rainbow turban shrink down to a bead and vanish. Colonel Sipaji swore that his troops were already in position outside Jonesburg, save for the few support units which were still en route from the spaceport at Rhodesville. Jonesburg’s own spaceport had been closed because of the danger from Solace energy weapons. Like all the ports in the United Cities, it was only a dirigible landing field which small starships could use with care.

Sipaji commanded the Sons of Mangala, a battalion-sized infantry unit, not very mobile but potentially useful when dug in at the right place. Satellite imagery showed that not only were they not in Jonesburg, they were halted only two kilometers outside Rhodesville. The visuals were good enough that with a modicum of enhancement Huber had been able to see the cluster of officers outside the trailer that served as Colonel Sipaji’s Tactical Operations Center. They were sitting on camp stools with their legs crossed, drinking from teacups.

And that knowledge didn’t make the least bit of difference, because Colonel Sipaji was going to stick to his lie with the bland assurance of a man who knows what the truth ought to be and isn’t affected by consensus reality. Sipaji wasn’t a coward and if his battalion ever got into position it would be a very cost-effective way of protecting the northern approaches to Jonesburg; but it wasn’t going to get there before Solace forces had closed the route from Rhodesville. Intent was reality to Sipaji, and he truly intended to go to Jonesburg . . . soon.

Huber stood. He was at one of a dozen consoles under a peaked roof of extruded plastic whose trusses were supported by posts along each of the long sides. This annex to the Regimental Operations Center was located in the parking lot of the Bureau of Public Works for the City of Benjamin, the administrative capital of the United Cities.

The portable toilet within the chain-link fencing hadn’t been emptied in too long, which was pretty much the way life had been going for Huber during the week since he got out of the infirmary. He turned, then swayed and had to catch himself by the back of the console’s seat. He’d been planning to go inside the wood-frame Bureau HQ itself, but now he wasn’t sure that he’d bother.

“Lieutenant Huber,” said the officer who’d come down the aisle behind him. “Take a break. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day and I mean it.”

Huber jumped in surprise. He’d been so lost in his frustration that he hadn’t seen the section chief, Captain Dillard, coming toward him. Dillard was a spare man with one eye, one arm, and a uniform whose creases you could shave with. Huber respected the man, but he didn’t imagine the captain had been anyone he could’ve warmed to even before the blast of a directional mine had ended Dillard’s career as a line officer.

“Sir,” said Huber, “I can’t get the Sons of Mangala to move. I thought if I took an aircar to where they’re camped, maybe—”

“Get out of here, Lieutenant,” Dillard said in the tone he’d have used to a whining child. “If you went to see Colonel Sipaji, his troops still wouldn’t move. I don’t care to risk the chance that you’d shoot him. That’d cause an incident with the Bonding Authority and delay the deployment even longer. Get a meal, get some sleep, and don’t return before ten hundred hours tomorrow.”

“But—”

“I mean it!” Dillard snapped. “Get out of here or you’ll leave under escort!”

“Yessir,” Huber muttered. He was angry—at the order, at Sipaji, and at himself for behaving like a little boy on the verge of a tantrum.

The troopers at the occupied consoles pretended to be lost in their work. Three of the eight were on the disabled list like Huber; the remainder had been culled from other rear-echelon slots to fill the present need to coordinate the mercenary fragments of the UC forces. Text and graphics were more efficient ways to transfer data to the other units, but face-to-face contact had a better chance of getting a result on the other end of the line of communication.

Huber gurgled a laugh, surprising Captain Dillard more than the snarl he’d probably expected. Huber’s stomach was fluttery—he did need food—and if he was letting anger run him like that, he needed rest besides.

“Captain,” he said, “it looks to me like we’re hosed on this one. The UC’s hosed, I mean, so we ought to advise ’em to make peace with Solace on whatever terms they can get. Solace has columns moving on Simpliche and Jonesburg both. We can—the Regiment can—block either one, I guess, but I don’t see any way Solace won’t capture one place or the other unless the units we’re operating with get their act together. And when the core cities of the UC start to fall—it’s over, the rest of the Outer States’ll cut off their financing, and then everybody goes home. Which we may as well do right now, hadn’t we?”

“That’s not my decision, Lieutenant,” Dillard said impatiently, “nor yours either. Get some food and rest, report at ten hundred hours.”

He made a brusque gesture with his hand. So far as Huber had been able to tell during his week’s contact with Captain Dillard, the man genuinely didn’t care whether or not what he was doing had any purpose. Maybe to Dillard, nothing had purpose . . . which wasn’t a bad attitude for a professional soldier. Anyway, it didn’t keep Dillard from being efficient at his present job.

Huber walked out of the lot and stumped up the stairs to the back of the HQ building. His quarters were in a barracks within the Central Repair compound in the warehouse district. It was walled and guarded by a platoon of combat cars, making security less of a problem than it would’ve been elsewhere in the city. There’d be an aircar driven by a contract employee, a UC citizen, in front of the Bureau HQ, or if there wasn’t the receptionist in the entranceway would call one.