Hammer's Slammers

This two-story compiliation, read by Stefan Rudnicki, offers two stories from David Drake's popular Hammer's Slammers series. In At Any Price, Col. Alois Hammer's indomitable Slammers are called in to support human colonists against a native uprising in this novel-length adventure. But even though the natives' off-world weapons are no match for the Slammers, their ability to teleport gives them a frightening advantage! In Rolling Hot, the battle-crazed troop of recruits and vets, led by Captain Ranson, must cover 300 miles of hostile enemy territory.

This two-story compiliation, read by Stefan Rudnicki, offers two stories from David Drake's popular Hammer's Slammers series. In Counting the Cost, the hottest science fiction mercenaries are back, so why count the cost? The other guy is going to pay for it! Hammer's Slammers must win a two-front war while maintaining the civilian power structure against hordes of religious fanatics. In The Warrior, Colonel Alois Hammer, Luke Broglie, Tess Kuykendall, and Slick Des Grieux - cogs in a killing machine - find themselves at the center of a potential bloodbath.

Gangs ruled Cantilucca. Guns were the only law, and there was no lack of guns. It was hard to imagine matters getting worse. Until the survey team arrived.... Major Matthew Coke was not a squeamish man, but the state of affairs on Cantilucca turned his stomach. He was only human after all. Where some of the rest of his team were concerned, it was difficult to be sure: five professional mercenaries who'd learned the hard way that in the end they could defeat anything - except their own consciences.

Colonel Alois Hammer: to the galaxy, a legendary commander of mercenaries. To his troops, a leader who can be trusted to always back them to the hilt - and meet a payroll. When the situation on a planet has gone beyond desperate, it's time to call for Hammer's Slammers.

Heed the Slammers Battle Cry! A warrior's truth: "In the long run, everybody's dead. So screw the long run!" Patriotic hoo-ha may be well and good for recruitment parades, but David Drake's battle-hardened mercenaries know it takes tanks, guns, and grit to win when the real fighting flares. Yet peace brings its own problems to old soldiers - for killing potential enemies in battle is self-limiting, but once the killing starts in peacetime, there may be no end to the madness.

Hammer's Slammer Don Slade is coming home to the planet Tethys, to his son and the woman he loves. But the space between is dark and cold. And the stars he must pass shine their light on planets which beckon to the weary traveler, planets which hold hidden dangers. And if Don Slade should ever reach Tethys... that is when the real fighting starts.