"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 04 - Counting The Cost (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

HammerтАЩs 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 sureтАФcorrectlyтАФwas better than any he could
get elsewhere in the galaxy.

But altogether, the weight of TylтАЩs 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 sadnessтАФthe
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 steamтАФthe hot mist; it'd never been
dangerous, Tyl realized howтАФwas 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