Year 248 P.L. Rychter Calendar
Coordinates: 42.1°S; 11.6°E
Site Designation: Badlands Liaison Post

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The noise was deafening.

Ryke flinched, leaping back from the line of displays, his head snapping towards the source of the blast. To the right of the gathering, somewhere within the Scraegan part of the liaison post, a huge eruption of fire burst between the rocks, flinging bulky stone machines and rubble end over end.

One Scraegan came tumbling out of the conflagration before pitching face first into the dirt, its back a ruin of metal and shards of sharp stone. Rock and rubble rained down on them and Ryke had to shield his head, surprise rooting him to the spot. Voices rose all around him in a shocked chorus. His ears rang; the comm links crackled with the emptiness of indecision.

Then the roars rose above it all. War howls that he knew only too well. In that moment, who had caused the explosion and why didn't matter. He could see the massive shapes of the Scraegans milling in the gloom. Another explosion thundered through the Liaison Post, and then he heard the tell-tale boiling snarl of charging furnace cannons.

What in the Everflowing River is happening?

The cauldrons of light pierced the gloom up ahead, all along the line of massive bodies. His eyes widened for an instant of horror, before his training broke through.

"INCOMING!" he screamed through the comm link, hurling himself sideways and tackling the closest Blackwater guard out of the way as the Scraegans fired.

Bressant and two of her bodyguards disappeared in a conflagration as a furnace shot tore through the line of human machinery. Half a dozen Blackwater soldiers were torched into oblivion in the opening salvo.

Ryke felt the intense heat as one of the blasts screamed overhead by just a few meters. Something blew apart and metal showered him as he went crashing to the ground. The guard entangled with him let out a blood-curdling shriek of agony as they landed.

Then the humans started shooting back. Gun positions screening the neutral grounds roared to life, and the guards not slain in the first volley scrambled for cover, anti-armour rifles barking as they went.

Politics was gone now. It was just survival.

Looking down, he saw that a spar of broken metal had hacked a deep gash in the guard's leg from knee to hip, and blood spilled liberally onto the grit of the plateau. The veins stood out on the young man's neck as he gritted his teeth, trying to staunch the bleeding.

"C'mon!" Ryke growled, dragging the guard's arm over his shoulder and looking around frantically for assistance.

What he found was the shadow of a Hunter-Killer thumping into the smoke towards the Scraegans. A second loomed a little further away, cannon whirling into life. The head section of the closer mech swivelled towards him for an instant, cameras piercing through the smog of gunsmoke and pulverised rock.

"GO, BOSS!" Preese yelled. "Get to your rig – we'll cover you!"

Ryke launched himself out of cover, dragging the injured guard along with him. The man screeched in pain but propelled himself along nonetheless on his uninjured leg, hopping madly as Ryke pulled them both behind the protective shadow of the two Hunter-Killers.

The comms continued to blaze with panic and confusion, but Ryke couldn't stop to untangle it now. He needed to get to his Hunter-Killer.

"Medic!" he bellowed, still heaving the injured guard onward. "I NEED A MEDIC!"

A stunned looking woman in the cyan livery of the medical cadre came stumbling from a nearby tent, still fumbling to strap on her armour. He shoved the injured man at her and sprinted off – he was no use as a doctor.

"Deadbolt!" he yelled into the comm. "Talk to me!"

"Shitstorm's loose boss!" Preese barked back. "We have been engaged, multiple casualties in the contact team."

"HK-Rupture, all pilots to your mechs, now, now, now! Haze, Deadbolt, no heroics. Suppressing fire to get non-combatants clear, then fall back to our staging area." Ryke double tapped the comm to the wide band. "Lockjaw-Valley?"

"I- Valley here. Go ahead?" The young officer sounded stunned.

"Are you combat ready?"

"Yes, sir, all mechs loaded and ready to deploy."

"Then you're weapons free, soldier. Scraegans are going to kill everybody on this rock."

"I... sir? What happened?"

"Now is not the time!" Ryke bellowed. "Get your mechs into the fight, Sergeant, that's an order!"

Not waiting for the other pilot's response, Ryke twisted and bolted off through the smoke, hoping and praying he could reach his Hunter-Killer before the whole base went up in flames.

*

Brackenshaw sprinted through chaos, ignoring the stinging behind her eyes and scorch in her throat.

A slim figure ahead of disappeared between two of the prefab hangers.

She piled on speed, teeth gritted as hell exploded all around her. She wasn't sure who shot first after the initial detonation, but now furnace cannon blasts were tearing through the plateau, and the human escort were giving as good as they got. Gun emplacements thundered into life and the attending Hunter-Killers were barrelling into the fray.

Brackenshaw knew they didn't have long before they'd have to abandon this place and sort the carnage out after, but she couldn't leave yet.

Her quarry had started a new war.

Everything since the blast felt like a nightmare. Although not part of the group tasked with talking to the Scraegans, by blind luck she'd been close enough to see the first explosion rip up through the rocks. She'd felt it in her bones and she knew what it was.

It was a very, very human bomb.

Brackenshaw had been a soldier long enough – spent enough time dodging blasts in a Scout Skiff and dropping mines of her own to recognise them. The second blast confirmed her suspicion and sent a sick feeling right into the base of her stomach.

Out on the perimeter, taking in the view for a few precious moments of solitude, she spotted the dark figure in Scout Cadre fatigues slink out of the gloom. Coming from the wrong side of the Liaison Post. She didn't get a good look at his face, but she knew what it had to mean.

He knew it too. The second he'd seen her, he'd taken off, sprinting through the crags for the vehicle hangars on the western edge of the base.

So here she was, hurtling unarmed through a warzone with nothing but her body armour, chasing some lunatic who'd just sabotaged the best chance any of them had at keeping the peace. Behind her, Sergeant Hynan and a couple of Cadre troopers who'd been unlucky enough to be milling around in her path when she stormed by had been roped into the chase. They raced along in her wake, rifles unslung, eyes flashing repeatedly to the growing clamour of battle in the middle of the base.

She heard the comms. Heard Vannigan marshalling the Hunter-Killers as best he could, buying time she was desperately going to need.

Skidding around the bend with her side-arm drawn, she saw the man slam a shoulder into one of the hangar side doors, breaking the hinges and falling inside before she could get a shot off.

"Drown me," she swore as Hynan and the others came clattering to a halt behind her.

"Ma'am?" Hynan panted. "You see him?"

"He's inside." Brackenshaw twisted back around, thrusting out a hand. "Your side-arm, sergeant."

To his credit, Hynan didn't even hesitate. A bull of a man with a thick beard, he'd served with her for years in the same platoon, until her promotion landed him command of a skiff of his own. He knew when to shut up and do as he was told. He shoved the pistol into her hand and swung his heavy rifle around.

"Split up?" he asked.

Brackenshaw nodded. "You two, go in through the front. Hynan, on me and follow him in through the side door. I'll head around the back to cut him off. Move it!"

They all looked baffled, but they weren't about to question her now. Hynan nodded and she set off, leaving the other two soldiers to cover the main entrance. With the sergeant right behind her, she pelted down the narrow alley between the hangars, trying to keep her breathing in check and her heart from slamming through her chest at the shock of it all.

As they passed the broken side door, Hynan ducked inside, rifle raised. If he shot a human being with it, there wouldn't be much left for them to interrogate, but she was banking on being the one to confront the bomber herself.

Redoubling her efforts, she went tearing around the rear of the building, hearing the thunder of Hunter-Killer cannons and the deep thump of infantry mortars mingling with the blasts from Scraegan cannons. A full blown battle was erupting right behind her, and she knew that the standing human forces here wouldn't be able to hold off an enraged Scraegan assault.

They needed to pull back, and she wasn't leaving without her prey.

Maybe twenty yards ahead, she saw a service door in the rear of the building swing open, and a head of short, sandy hair poked out.

"STOP!" she roared, squeezing off a shot from the pistol. The bullet clanged off the edge of the door and the bomber jerked back inside, wrenching the door shut after him.

Brackenshaw slid to a stop at the door, took three quick breaths, then kicked it open, ducking low as she swung inside with her pistol aimed. She caught a glimpse of her quarry's dark armoured form disappearing behind a cargo truck. Deeper the hangar several skiffs and infantry trucks were frantically trying to load up for combat, to preoccupied with the impending Scraegan threat to pay much attention to a few more soldiers running around in the thick of things.

So she chased him.

She banged between parked vehicles, dodged terrified looking civilian loaders and engineers as they tried to ready their charges for departure; hurdled crates of ammunition and combat gear, until she burst out into a small tract of empty space.

The bomber was close, sprinting for all he was worth towards another exit in the rear corner of the building. This one was an emergency blast door, though, and when he jammed a shoulder into it, he simply bounced off.

Before he could take a crack at the door's control panel, Brackenshaw pulled up less than ten yards away with her pistol aimed.

"That's enough!" she barked, breathing heavily. "You've got nowhere to go, son. Now turn around!"

The man froze. His body seemed to tremble for a moment, before he slowly pivoted around, revealing a young, stubbly face of pale skin and gaunt cheeks. His sand-coloured hair was an unruly mess, but it was his eyes that really cut into her. Bright green, almost unnaturally so, and filled with a wild-eyed glare that chilled her to her bones.

She levelled her gun, as the clump of combat boots heralded the arrival of Hynan and the others. Seeing the standoff, none of them spoke, instead peeling to her left and right, their rifles trained on the man. Brackenshaw recognised him vaguely; the bar on his shoulder marked him as a private in the Scout Cadre, but he wasn't someone under her direct command.

"Name and rank, soldier," she said with ice in her words.

"Doesn't really matter now does it?" he spat back, his voice thick with contempt. A smile crossed his cracked lips as a rumble of crashing earth shook the hangar. Metal groaned ominously under the strain. "You don't have long before the Scraegans tear this place to the ground."

"You planted those charges," Brackenshaw answered. "Why?"

"You don't make peace with beasts," the young man hissed.

"We did."

"And you were wrong to do it."

Brackenshaw felt a flash of rage in her heart. "You're not some snivelling civvie on a protest line. By the Watching Lords, you're a soldier. You're supposed to know better! Do you have any idea what you've done? Any idea how many people are about to die because of you?"

"It's the way things are supposed to be."

She edged forward, her finger curling around the trigger. "Who are you working for?"

His only response was to reach for the gun at his hip.

So she shot him.

It all happened too quickly. She meant to wound him, but at the sight of that sudden movement self-preservation kicked in and she just reacted. A bullet punched through his heart before he could even draw his sidearm.

The soldier jerked; stumbled back. His body thumped against the hangar wall before he pitched forward and landed face down, dead before he hit the ground.

Brackenshaw stared for a long, horrified moment at the body, trying not to think about all the precious information that had just died along with him. She spat a foul curse and let the pistol drop, just as another huge detonation sent tremors through the plates beneath her feet.

"Ma'am!" Hynan yelled. When she didn't respond, he grabbed her by the arm. "Lieutenant! We have to go!"

She flinched, reality snapping unpleasantly back into focus.

"Drown it all," she swore, pointing at the body. "Grab that bastard and load him up! The body's coming with us."

*

Only when the Hunter-Killers came into view did the sense of chaos and panic in Ryke's mind finally subside. Men and women were milling around in all directions, bellowing orders and making frantic gestures. Troops and support staff piled onto armoured personnel carriers, and he could see the crew of the base's Mammoth frantically powering up the hulking transport for departure.

In temporary bays along the southern wall of the Liaison Post perimeter, the eight dormant mechs of HK-Rupture stood. He gave a silent prayer to the Riverlords when he saw the rest of his pilots assembling, shedding uniforms to leave their pilot link skins on show as they raced towards their war machines. Fenix De Lunta was out in front, screaming orders at the stunned technicians and galvanising them into action.

"Sarge!" Brigg exclaimed on seeing him sprinting through across the concourse. "What in the Everflowing bloody River is going on?"

"Drowned if I know," Ryke panted as he reached them. "Something in the Scraegan side of the plateau went up like a piss-drowned ammo dump, then they started shooting."

"An accident?" Qadira asked, glancing at the climbing tower of smoke barely a hundred yards from where they stood.

"Somehow I doubt it." Ryke darted over to his Hunter-Killer as the attending engineer opened up its front armour. Giving the woman a nod, he leaped past her, tearing off his jacket and tossing it aside as mounted the small step-ladder. Clad in only his link-skin, he hurled himself into the pilot's cradle.

The impact gel caught him and allowed himself a short, steadying breath before sliding his hands and feet into the Hunter-Killer's controls and sinking his body back into the machine's embrace. All along his skin, nerves crackled as he interfaced with it on a molecular level, feeling every inch of the Hunter-Killer's armoured mass.

"Lockjaw – all pilots. Sound off!" he barked as the front section slammed shut again, and he was illuminated by the glowing HUD. With frantic speed he winked through the Hunter-Killer's start up sequences, checking ammo reads and armour integrity as the atomic reactor stuffed into its rear section powered up.

"Avalanche, solid copy."

"Medea, I read you."

"Riptide, loud and clear."

"Two-Step, solid copy."

"Headstone, I copy."

"Rabbit, I read you."

"Haunter, copy, copy."

"Haze, Deadbolt, status?"

"Shooting gallery out here boss!" Preese answered.

"Hang tight. The rest of you, on my lead." Ryke barked, then switched to the wide band again as he brought the Hunter-Killer stomping forward out of its cradle. "Lockjaw-Valley, status?"

"Moving to support your people now, Lockjaw," the other sergeant replied, sounding a little calmer than he had been; training taking over in the face of the chaos that had just been unleashed. "I count at least three Scraegan packs converging on the base on our seismics."

"Confirm that," Kim chimed in from her Raptor mech. "That's a lot of heavy coming our way, sir."

"Valley, just slow them up," Ryke said. "We're not dying for this piece of rock today. We hold the line long enough for the tech to pack what they can and get out of here. Copy?"

"Copy that."

"We'll be on your back in forty-five seconds. All Hunter-Killers, weapons free; defensive posture."

He changed the comm channel again, reaching out for someone else he prayed could bring some order to this mess. "Lockjaw – SC10. Brackenshaw, you still alive out there?"

"Just about, sergeant." The reply was tight, but not with pain. With anger. "For what it's worth."

"What in the Everflowing happened?"

"Sabotage, Vannigan."

"Sabotage?"

"Looks like there are some folks back home who don't want peace."

Ryke blinked and shook his head in disbelief. "Those bombs were ours?"

"Who else's would they be?"

"But... but, who would... how?!"

"That's a flood we're going to have to sort out later," she snapped "But right now, I think it's safe to say that the war's back on."