"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 10 - Paying The Piper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

the dirigible and thumbed her butterfly trigger.

"Lieutenant Huber reporting to the Provost Marshal, as ordered," he said to the sergeant commanding
the squad of guards.

"You're on the list," the sergeant said without inflexion. He and the rest of his squad were from A
Company; they were the Regiment's police, wearing a stylized gorget as their collar flash. In some
mercenary outfits the field police were called Chain Dogs from the gorget; in the Slammers they were the
White Mice. "You can leave your weapons with me and go on in."

"Right," said Huber, though the order surprised him. He unslung his belt with the holstered pistol, then
handed over the powerknife clipped to a trouser pocket as well.

"He's clean," said a guard standing at the read-out from a detection frame. The sergeant nodded Huber
forward.

The Slammers were used to people wanting to kill them. Major Joachim Steuben, the Regiment's
Provost Marshal, was obviously used to the Slammers themselves wanting to killhim .

Huber opened the door and entered. The building was a standard one-story new-build with walls of
stabilized earth and a roof of plastic extrusion. It was a temporary structure so far as the Slammers were
concerned, but it'd still be here generations later unless the locals chose to knock it down.

It was crude, ugly, and as solid as bedrock. You could use it as an analogy for the Slammers' methods,
if you wanted to.

The door facing the end of the hallway was open. A trim, boyishly handsome man sat at a console there;
he was looking toward Huber through his holographic display. If it weren't for the eyes, you might have
guessed the fellow was a clerk. . . .

Huber strode down the hall, staring straight ahead. Some of the side doors were open also, but he didn't
look into them. He wondered if this was how it felt to be a rabbit facing a snake.

I'm not a rabbit.But if half the stories told about him were true, Joachim Steuben was a snake for sure.

Before Huber could raise his hand to knock on the door jamb, the man behind the desk said, "Come in,
Lieutenant; and close it behind you."

A holographic landscape covered the walls of Joachim Steuben's office; flowers poked through brightly
lit snow, with rugged slopes in the background. The illusion was seamless and probably very expensive.

"You know why you're here, Huber?" Steuben asked. Everything about the little man was expensive: his
manicure, his tailored uniform of natural silk, and the richly chased pistol in a cut-away holster high on his
right hip.

The only chair in the office was the one behind Steuben's console.

"I'm here because of the ratfuck at Rhodesville, sir," Huber said. He held himself at attention, though the
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