"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers - Counting the Cost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

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 construction 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 bothering 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 Defense 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 enthusiasm 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 concrete 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 conditions. It was a little fancier than the Slammers' khaki - but Desoix's unit wasn't parade-ground pansies.

The Slammers provided their own defense against hostile artillery. Most outfits didn't have the luxury that Fire Central and the vehicle-mounted powerguns gave Hammer. Specialists like United Defense Batteries provided multi-barreled weapons - calliopes - to sweep the sky clear over defended positions and to accompany attacking columns which would otherwise be wrecked by shellfire.

It wasn't a job Tyl Koopman could imagine himself being comfortable doing; but Via! he didn't see himself leading a tank company either. A oneman skimmer and a 2 cm powergun were about all the hardware Tyl wanted to handle. Anything bigger cost him too much thought that would have been better spent on the human portion of his command.

"Your first time here?" Desoix asked diffidently. The third freighter was down. Though steam hissed away from the vessel with a high-pitched roar, it was possible to talk again.

Tyl nodded. Either the tide was falling rapidly or the first two ships had pretty well dried the pad for later comers. The billows of white mist were sparse enough that he could still see the city across the channel: or at any rate, he could see a twentystory tower of metal highlights and transparent walls on one side of the river, and a domed structure across from it that gleamed gold - except for the ornate cross on the pinnacle whose core was living ruby.

"Not a bad place," Desoix said judiciously. He looked a few years older than the Slammers officer, but perhaps it was just that, looks, dark hair and thin features contrasting with Tyl's broad pale face and hair so blond that you could hardly see it when it was cropped as short as it was now.

"The city, I mean," Desoix said, modifying his earlier comment. "The sticks over on Continent Two where it looks like the fighting's going to be, well - they're the sticks."

He met Tyl's eyes. "I won't apologize for getting a quiet billet this time 'round."

"No need to," Tyl said... and they were both lying, because nobody who knows the difference brags to a combat soldier about a cushy assignment; and no combat soldier but wishes, somewhere in his heart of hearts, that he'd gotten the absolutely necessary assignment of protecting the capital while somebody else led troops into sniperfilled woodlands and endured the fluorescent drumbeat of hostile artillery.

But Via! Somebody had to do the job.

Both of them.