The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume 3 by David Drake

Author:David Drake [Drake, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction - Adventure, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction - Military, General, Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, Adventure, Fiction, Science Fiction And Fantasy
ISBN: 9781439133965
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2010-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

When Tranter came in with Bayes, the sergeant laughing as the trooper gestured in the air, Huber cued his helmet intercom and said, “Sarge? Come talk to me in my little garden of silence, will you?”

A console with regimental programming like Hera Graciano’s could eavesdrop on intercom transmissions unless Huber went to more effort on encryption than he wanted to. It was simpler and less obtrusive to use voice and the privacy screen that was already in place around his area of the office.

Tranter patted Bayes on the shoulder and sauntered over to the lieutenant as though the idea was his alone rather than a response to a summons. Huber was becoming more and more impressed with the way Tranter picked up on things without need for them to be said. Sometimes Huber wasn’t sure exactly what he’d say if he did have to explain.

“Do we have a problem, El-Tee?” Tranter asked as he bent over the console, resting his knuckles on the flat surface beside the holographic display.

Huber noticed the “we.” He grinned. “We’re going maybe to solve one before it crops up, Sarge,” he said. “Are you up to poking around in a combat car tonight?”

“I guess,” Tranter said, unexpectedly guarded. “Ah—what would it be we’re looking for, El-Tee? Booze? Drugs?”

Huber burst out laughing when he understood Tranter’s concern. “Via, Sarge!” he said. “You’ve been on field deployments, haven’t you? All that stuff belongs, and so does anything else that helps a trooper get through the nights he’s not going to get through any other way. No, I’m looking for stuff that our people didn’t put there. I don’t know what it’ll be; but I do know that if something’s there, I want to know what it is. Okay?”

Tranter beamed as he straightened up. “Hey, a chance to be a wrench again instead of pushing electrons? You got it, boss!”

“Pick me up at the front of the building at a quarter of eight, then,” Huber said. “We need to be at Central Repair on the hour— I’ve cleared it with the chief. Oh, and Tranter?”

“Sir?” The sergeant looked . . . not worried exactly, but wary. He wasn’t going to ask what was going on; but something was and though he seemed to trust Huber, a veteran non-com knows just how disastrously wrong officers’ bright ideas are capable of going.

“Don’t talk about it,” Huber said. “And you know that gun you were holding last night? Think you could look one up for me?”

“Roger that, sir!” Tranter said, perfectly cheerful again. “Or if you’d rather have a sub-machine gun?”

Huber shook his head. “I want something with authority,” he explained. “I don’t think there’s a chance in a million we’ll have somebody try to pull something while we’re flying between here and Central Repair tonight . . . but I do think that if it happens, I’m going to make sure we’re the car still in the air at the end of it.”

Chuckling in bright good humor, the sergeant returned to his console.

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