When he walked into the meeting with General Bosede two days later, Ryke really wasn't sure what to expect. While general mobilisation orders cascaded down through the ranks of Brekka's soldiery, he was getting hauled into more cloak-and-dagger gatherings instead of preparing with his squad. He seethed inwardly.

He was sick of being the go-between; sick of always being part of the complication. All Ryke wanted to do was command his squad, and protect Brekka. Somewhere along the way he'd become everybody's special little helper when it came to the Scraegans.

So when he sat down in the secluded briefing room, surrounded by Bosede's senior staff and several grim-faced Blackwater operatives, he couldn't keep the emotion off his face. Colonel Hackley had worked with him long enough to recognise the signs, and she smirked as she took up a seat a few spaces down from him at the hexagonal table.

"Something the matter, Sergeant?"

"There's a lot to do," he replied, folding his arms sullenly. "I'd rather be out there getting my people prepped."

"You and me both."

"You will," Bosede assured them, an impish gleam in his eye. "In due time. But before you do, there is some additional information you require. HK-Rupture has a special assignment ahead of it, but I would rather your pilots hear it from you."

"Why?" Ryke straightened a little in his seat, a feeling of unease creeping through him. "What kind of assignment?"

"One that I'm afraid will only be achievable with you in command."

That didn't make him feel much better, but he wasn't in a position to say 'no' to the commander of Brekka's armed forces. So he gave a small nod.

"So what do you need from us?"

"Since our last briefing, we've been received fresh reports from the dig site team," Hackley interjected. "And so far it appears that they've avoided any hostilities."

"They had to give over the Scraegans control of the site to do it," one of the other officers grumbled.

"I doubt they had a lot of alternatives." The Scout commander shot him a disapproving glance before returning her attention to Ryke. "Your brother is safe for the time being, as is Corporal Shanklin."

It felt like someone had lifted the foot of a Scraegan off his lungs. Ryke exhaled slowly, trying to keep his composure amongst the senior military staff. "That's ... that's good news, ma'am."

"Yes it is, but there's a lot more that they've reported."

"Indeed." Bosede nodded to one of the Blackwaters, a bronze-skinned woman with her curls of dark hair wrestled into a taut military bun behind her head. She tapped swift fingers across her data slate and a three-dimensional display sprang to life in the centre of the table.

Ryke blinked at the display. It was a diagram – a blueprint of some kind, showing a bulbous sphere, coupled to a long thin tower that speared up and out of the simulation's field of view.

"This," the Blackwater officer said, "is what they've found at the Scraegar labyrinth, and last time they checked, it was very much online." Another tap of a button and the diagram vanished, replaced by a series of images.

He leaned forward, peering at the dark pictures. He could see walls to angular to be natural formations, all made of some strange black material. It might have been metal, or some kind of polished stonework, but he was no expert. His eye was also drawn, however, to the blue lines lighting up sections of the floor.

"What is that place?" Ryke asked, this new revelation doing nothing to quell his unease.

"That is very much the question, isn't it?" Bosede replied, clasping his hands together. "But we know we didn't build it, and certainly the Scraegans didn't either."

"You're not telling me the bloody Crawlers built that thing?!"

"No, of course not." The general gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "But the two are connected somehow. This was built right into the wall of the Crawler queen's nest."

"You can understand," Hackley put in. "That with a discovery like this, we can't afford to lose our link to that site. We've got to take steps to safeguard our interests there. Specialist Vannigan has done an admirable job keeping the peace so far, but we can't abandon them."

Ryke's eyes narrowed as he looked at her. "I feel like that's what I said two days ago. You said it was too risky."

"And Colonel Hackley was quite correct," Bosede said sharply.

"Well then what in the Everflowing did you bring me here for?!" Ryke erupted before he could stop himself.

Hackley looked like she could have bitten his throat out as she opened her mouth to issue a rebuke, but Bosede raised a hand, shaking his head. The colonel subsided back into her seat with a disapproving huff as their commander continued.

"Colonel Hackley was correct," he repeated. "In saying that we cannot simply send and armed force south. Right now that would be all provocation the Scraegans need to launch an all out attack against our positions.

"If we want to send reinforcements through Scraegan territory; if we want to protect our people there, and if we want to have time to understand what they've found, we cannot do it through brute force, and we cannot do it alone."

Alone?

Ryke's bad feeling was quickly gathering steam and he fixed the general with a dubious gaze. "So what do you want to do?"

At a gesture from Bosede, the Blackwater brought up a fresh image on the display, and this time it was one that Ryke recognised. A Scraegan warrior filled the tabletop, head thrust forward in a bellow, heavy hammer in one big paw. The serrated metal horn of its skull plate marked it out unmistakably and he closed his eyes for a moment, hoping this wouldn't be going where it seemed to be.

"You know this Scraegan?" Bosede asked.

Ryke squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "That's a strong way of putting it."

Bosede smiled. "Perhaps, but you've encountered this Scraegan before? Worked with it?"

"Yes." He gave a reluctant nod. "It's a Beta pack leader."

"I gather you two have quite a history with the Crawlers. And some beyond that."

"It was there when we first encountered them. It seemed like that helped smooth things over when we worked with the Scraegans to wipe those things out." He jerked his head towards the Blackwater officer. "But you already know all this, sir. You've got my service history."

"I do," Bosede agreed. "But I'd like to get a sense of how you feel about this particular Scraegan."

"How I feel?!" Ryke recoiled. "I don't... 'feel' anything. It's just another warrior."

Even as those words left his mouth, he knew it wasn't totally true. Much as it pained him to admit it as a Hunter-Killer, during the Crawler war this Scraegan had actually saved his life, dragging his ruined mech out of a caved in tunnel.

His mind flashed back to the Liaison Post incident, when the Beta had made a clear, conscious decision to let them walk away without a fight. Somewhere beneath that brutish armoured exterior, it knew as well as he did what another war would mean. And it knew him. It remembered, and didn't want to kill him.

"Are you sure about that?" Bosede seemed to sense his inner conflict. "I think one thing we have all come to grapple with over recent months is understanding our enemy better than we have before. They are not savages. Brutal – animalistic even – by our standards, but not savages." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, speaking earnestly. "Sergeant Vannigan, we could all be wrong, about all of this. Maybe the Scraegans would happily have another war. Maybe they'd be glad to paint Brekka's walls and streets with their own corpses if that meant driving us out, but I think they know better. I think if we could speak to them – if we could understand – we'd see they don't want this any more than we do."

It was a pleasant picture the general painted and Ryke didn't quite know how to respond to it.

"We've made advancements in understanding the Scraegan language," Hackley said after a moment of silence. "It's still rudimentary, but it helped us coordinate the Liaison Post construction, and solidified the truce after you killed the Crawler queen. We can talk to them, in a limited way."

"So talk. What do you need me for?"

"We've tried. We've been trying since that bomb went off, but they're not listening. No-one else has any kind of real, personal connection to a Scraegan like you do. We need that." She tapped herself on the chest. "We need something that works here."

"By the Watching Lords." Ryke pressed his hands over his face for a moment, disbelief washing over him. "So you think I can, what, make a truce with this thing?"

"Not exactly," Bosede replied. "But if the Scraegans wanted us all dead they would already have killed everyone at the dig site. What we need is for you to convince them to escort you south, to the Scraegar Labyrinth. Together. This will firstly allow us to send reinforcements and supplies to the people at the dig, but perhaps more importantly, it will prove cooperation between both sides is still possible. It might, eventually, stop this from getting any worse."

"Is that all?" Ryke dragged his hands from his face, still trying to wrap his mind around this. The seam of his metal jaw tingled with discomfort from the tension in his facial muscles. "Sir, we don't even know how to find-,"

"We know where it is," Hackley interrupted. "I've had long range scouting units tracking its pack since the Liaison Post."

He looked at her. A cold feeling crept through his bones when the reality struck. They were really serious about this. They actually thought he could do it. He flexed his jaw nervously, fingers digging into the fabric of his casual fatigues. It was true, he'd had more face-to-face experience with Scraegans than most people, but only because – at the time – he'd had no choice.

This could all go very wrong, very easily.

"So where is my 'friend'?" Ryke asked.

"They're part of bigger contingent spread out through the Malljur Valleys," she answered, and with a dance of her fingers on a data slate, she took control of the display.

A map sprang up, showing the vaguely defined front line. The Malljur valley system formed a large portion of the eastern Scraegan flank, a plain of massive rolling dunes in the southern badlands. Ryke could already feel a million objections rising in his gut. The terrain there suited Scraegan tactics, with vast tracts of loose earth and sand they could tunnel through at fearsome speed to reposition their forces for ambushes and lightning strikes.

"And you want me and my squad to walk out there, on our own?" he asked incredulously.

"We've retrofitted a skiff with a loudspeaker system and a seismic signaller," the Blackwater officer told him. "We'll send it ahead of you, broadcasting our intentions as best we can. We'll make sure they know you're coming." The woman's eyes flickered to Bosede. "And if they're as civilised as we hope they are, they'll understand we'd never telegraph an assault like that. They'll know we want to talk."

Ryke grimaced. "That's all well and good, but if they do decide to attack..."

"We will have contingencies in place," Bosede told him. "There will be rapid attack units from the Scout Cadre and armoured infantry in position to support you, along with Hunter-Killer support from HK-Praxis. If they attack, you will withdraw – and we'll at least know that we tried."

He bit his lip, tapping a finger against the metal plate of his jawline as he stared at the map. It wasn't as though he was being given a choice here. Bosede was his superior officer; this was an order.

Ryke nodded slowly to himself, allowing a sliver of optimism to take root in the back of his mind. If he could pull this off, then maybe, just maybe they could avert a full scale war. Wasn't that at least worth the attempt?

So he saluted. "Just give the order, sir, and we'll be ready."