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

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, tooтАФbut 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'
khakiтАФbut Desoix's unit wasn't parade-ground
pansies.

The Slammers provided their own defense against
hostile artillery. Most outfits didn't have the lux-
ury that Fire Central and the vehicle-mounted
powerguns gave Hammer. Specialists like United
Defense Batteries provided multi-barreled weapons
тАФcalliopesтАФto 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 him-
self being comfortable doing; but Via! he didn't
see himself leading a tank company either. A one-
man skimmer and a 2 cm powergun were about all
the hardware Tyl wanted to handle. Anything big-
ger cost him too much thought that would have
been better spent on the human portion of his
command.