Ryke's cannon thundered at close range, the armour piercing shells ripping along the tread of the northern tank and tearing the drive system apart. The bulky vehicle slewed to a halt, smoke spewing from its rear housing, turret traversing frantically.

Grunn mounted the front armour before it could fire, bringing his warhammer down against the barrel. Metal shrieked as the blow landed, bending the cannon out of shape like a broken limb. With the main gun out of action, the Scraegan leader moved on, and the melee continued. Even the Hunter-Killer's powerful optics struggled to track everything through the thick whorls of dust and grit.

He knew he'd killed people today – other human beings – for the first time. His brain didn't have the space to grapple with it right now, but he knew there was no going back from that. Several wrecked Hunter-Killers and tanks from the northern units littered the area in front of their section of Brekka's defences now, caught off guard by the lightning charge of Ryke and his allies.

They did their best to take it easy. He ignored damaged tanks and crippled mechs, letting them drag themselves out of the fighting, but once they recovered from their initial shock, the northern units started giving as good as they received.

One of the Scout Cadre skiffs broke in half under the impact of an explosive shell; Erin's Goliath mech was torn out of action with the loss of an arm and its main gun. Armour piercing shells tore up the plating of their machines, and Ryke's HUD was filling with amber damage alerts. At least two of Grunn's pack were dead in the dust.

Along the wider line that followed the curve of Brekka's wall, Ryke could see sporadic eruptions of gunfire, and their mangled comms occasionally gave him glimpses into what was happening in the neighbouring sectors. Some northern units had balked at the prospect of actually attacking their southern counterparts, stalling out their advance. Others had not. From what he could gather, a few Brekkan units had stood down, their officers not willing to be the ones to start the shooting.

But there was no cohesion. In one section where the Brekkans had moved aside, one of the wall gunner teams had clearly decided otherwise. He saw the big quad-barrel roar into life, ripping a huge trail destruction in front of the advancing northern units. They pulled back; a line had been quiet literally drawn in the sand.

Ryke ducked the swipe of a warblade from a crimson-hulled Hunter-Killer, and surged forward behind his shoulder shield, barging the other mech with thunderous force. Metal screeched and his adversary went tumbling into the blasted earth.

Stepping back, he levelled his cannon, but stopped himself from firing, watching and waiting. The other Hunter-Killer righted itself, but by then Preese was alongside him, left leg sparking with blown servos, but otherwise still in the fight.

Grunn and two of his Scraegans thumped into the line to join them, furnace cannons snarling with superheated air. A scramble of enemy units formed up to face them – two tanks, a quartet of Hunter-Killers and a handful of light infantry vehicles, some painted with livery of other cities. Ryke wondered if they were really here by choice, or if Rubicon's gravity had simply dragged them down to this killing field.

A faint lull in the fighting descended on them, both sides regrouping; reforming.

"Sarge, this is a drowning mess," Brigg barked from further along the line, breathing heavily.

"Hold your positions," Ryke called back edging forward to face down the northern units. "Nobody enters the city. Until I get a direct order from Forge command telling us to stand down, we keep it that way. Copy?!"

"Solid copy."

Then the nearby pounder emplacement suddenly spoke.

He had no idea what internal struggles had gone on among the crew of the massive gun, but it had apparently been resolved. It discharged only once, and the heavy round stuck true, blowing one of the northern battle tanks clean in half.

Treads, munitions and torn plating went spewing in all directions as it spun violently, and Ryke tried not to think about the people inside. The shell carried clean through the tank and blasted a thirty-foot crater into the plateau surface, hurling men and machines in all directions.

That single shot was enough.

Faced with the fury of Brekka's emplaced defences, the northern units in front of him swiftly began to withdraw, scrambling away from the pounder's wrath. Ryke exhaled a long breath and blinked sweat from his eyes, feeling the familiar ache of combat beginning to seep into his limbs.

"Looks like round one goes to us," Preese panted.

"Haunter, can you get me anything from Forge command?" he demanded, hoping that her Raptor mech's more powerful comms array might have better luck than his own. "Does anybody have some damned orders for us?!"

"Negative, sir," she snapped back. "Dunno what in the Everflowing's happening with their comms but I can't get a steady signal. Every time I try a new frequency it just gets scrambled all over again."

Then he saw fresh movement on the HUD; Valley's Hunter-Killers were pressing forward towards the retreating enemy battlegroup, and the Scouts were screening them. A pack of Scraegans were close behind, and they looked like they were out for blood.

"Everybody hold your fire!" Ryke roared through the comm link. "Repeat, all units, hold your fire! Lockjaw-Valley, get back in line!"

"Sir? They're retreating!"

"Pissing Rivers, I know that! Get back in line."

"I... copy. Pulling back."

The comms were still a patchwork mess, but his message seemed to punch through locally. The Scout Cadre skiffs revved their engines and slid back behind the trench line, and the guns of the nearby militia fell silent.

Twisting, he grabbed Grunn by one big shoulder plate, dragging the Scraegan around to face him. Pouring his voice out through the Hunter-Killer's speakers, he shouted into his companion's face.

"STOP!"

For a moment Grunn looked baffled, so Ryke pointed at the retreating column of northern units, then shook his head in as exaggerated a motion as he could manage. Then he grabbed the Scraegan's cannon and shoved it towards the ground.

That seemed to get the message across. Grunn's lips curled in a snarl, but he nodded once, turning away from Ryke. Raising his head, the Scraegan leader let out a sharp, coughing bark following by a heavy tongue click that he recognised as the Scraegan approximation for the word 'halt'. He repeated the call again and at the second time of asking, the warriors of his pack began to pull away.

Bloodied and bruised, the Scraegans slouched back into line, and with a moment to breathe, Ryke tried to take stock of the aftermath.

Casualties on the Brekkan side had been light, the lightning assault catching the northern forces unaware, but he knew it wouldn't be so easy next time. Their accompanying infantry and scouts had fared worst under the attention of the heavy tank guns – HK-Atom had one pilot dead and another out of action. Along with Erin's crippled Goliath mech, that was a small, but still vital portion of fighting power missing.

"Vannigan!" Lieutenant Glass's sudden howl came ripping over the comm, his damaged mech being dragged along somewhere among the retreating, damaged bodies. "I'll have your head for this, you traitor! Everyone in that city will see what happens when you side with the enemy!"

"The Scraegans aren't the ones attacking us," Ryke shot back. "And the ones standing beside me are not the ones that just bombed your people. Don't you get it? They want us at each other's throats-,"

"You fired first. History will remember it."

Rolling his metal jaw from side to side, bitter fury filling him at the sound of the man's voice. A man who understood nothing, hurling threats and insults as though he'd earned the right.

Ryke gave a derisive snort. "No-one asked you to come here, Lieutenant. Brekka doesn't belong to the north. Go back and tell your Marshall that."

"You're a fool, sergeant, and you're going to die for it."

Ryke bristled, his fingers twitching against the trigger of his cannon. On the HUD he watched a fresh swathe of northern units emerge from the main army encampment, a much larger force than Glass's expedition. Hunter-Killers, heavy tanks and a long column of armoured infantry units poured onto the plateau.

And they were coming right at him.

*

It didn't take long for them to find the first body.

A technician, the man was sprawled against a wall in a sitting position, a knife-wound over his heart, eyes glazed over in death. Anger boiled Brackenshaw's blood at the sight. True treason, murdering innocent people just doing their jobs – all for the sake of a brand new war they were so desperate to have.

"Keep moving," Aurelia said quietly.

Grim and silent as reapers, they stole forward, looking and listening for any sign of their quarry. There wasn't any real sign of actual fighting, just a few bodies dotted through the burnished metal halls. People in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or those who'd tried to stop what was happening down here and paid for it with their lives.

"Why would they do this?" Ivy breathed from behind her, the young engineer struggling to get to grips with exactly what she was seeing. It was easy to forget that Brackenshaw had been neck deep in this mess for weeks – most people in Brekka had carried on their lives, blissfully unaware of the shadow war being waged in their midst.

"They can't let go," she replied as she edged around a bend in the passage. "Scraegans are still the enemy to these people. Always will be. They really think they're doing the right thing." Creeping around the bend, she shook her head bleakly. "Belief's a tough thing to break."

She led them on, her big rifle primed and ready, reaching out ahead like a probing spear point. Aurelia snaked up behind her, along with a pair of Blackwater guards. The scout soldiers under Captain Prentice fanned out behind them, and they passed from passage to passage, until they reached the main communications centre.

The door leading into it had been fused open – Brackenshaw could see the scorch marks up and down the frame where incendiary charges had been detonated to melt the mechanisms. Beyond it was a large, octagonal room, filled with a thick ring of consoles, its ceiling carved up by hardened comm lines that plunged out into the city.

Sneaking closer, she spotted a dozen technicians and a couple of disarmed guards over by one wall, hands and feet bound, heads lowered, being watched over by a man in militia fatigues holding another of the old-style automatic rifles.

"I count six," Aurelia whispered, indicating the other traitors moving back and forth. They looked nervous; fingers on triggers. One of them lingered by the main relay, chin cupped in one hand, watching the displays intently.

"Doesn't look like there's any damage," Brackenshaw replied as she scanned the room.

"Not that we can see."

"Shanklin?"

Ivy gave a small shrug. "Nothing obvious, but there's a lot of wiring in there. You could wreck the place if you just started tearing out bundles of it." She nodded to Brackenshaw's rifle. "You probably shouldn't fire that in there."

Brackenshaw twitched with annoyance, but she knew Ivy's assessment was correct. The armour-piercing rounds could easily tear through anything in that room. Gently, she laid it down and tugged her side-arm free instead. Then she nodded to Aurelia.

"We can't wait. We're going in. Fast and hard – copy?"

"Copy."

"Prentice?"

"Still here," the scout captain replied.

"Pop two concussive rounds in there, then follow my lead. We shoot to kill. Clear these bastards out and secure the hostages. Shankin?"

"Ma'am?"

"Hang back till the shooting's over, understand? When I call you, get in there and see if you can find what it is they've broken."

Ivy swallowed hard. "Don't need to tell me twice."

"Alright, let's do this."

Prentice motioned one of his men forward, the one carrying a grenade launcher packed with concussive rounds. The man slithered forward, lower and lower, and by the time he was close to the door he was almost flat on his stomach, the launcher's barrel aimed. The soldier glanced back for confirmation.

Brackenshaw nodded.

Two dull thumps echoed through the corridor in quick succession.

Their foes didn't have a chance to react. Before even a cry of alarm could be shouted, the shots detonated through the comm centre like screaming banshees. Designed to be fired at Scraegans, it only took two of them to totally disorient every single person inside the comm room. Bullets started flying almost instantly as shocked guards began shooting in a blind panic.

Brackenshaw went in low, ears ringing despite the protection of her helmet, but still in control of her senses. Her side-arm barked and three bullets smacked the closest enemy in the chest, throwing him backwards against a console before he slumped to the ground, dead.

Aurelia and the others poured in after her, scurrying low and fast, their suppressors and rifles sizzling and cracking as they advanced. One scout went down howling as a random spray of bullets clipped her, but the element of surprise was more than enough. The assault lasted a matter of seconds, and then Brackenshaw found herself in the middle of the room, surrounded by the dead or unconscious bodies of the saboteurs. Taking a breath, she nodded to herself.

"Shanklin?" she called back over her shoulder.

"It looks like the main system's intact," Ivy blurted as she scurried into the room. She started looking around frantically for any sign of damage, ducking under consoles, examining trunks of wiring and scanning displays. "Doesn't look like they actually broke anything."

"Keeping the seat warm for the new owners," Brackenshaw replied, scanning left and right with her side-arm. "So where's the fault?"

"It's the main relay!" one of the tied technicians shouted, even as Captain Prentice was working to cut his bonds. "They fitted some kind of scrambler to it. It's modulating – messing with the Forge comm frequencies. It's on some kind of random loop so every time they move to a new channel to try and give orders, it catches up to them and screws the system all over again!"

Brackenshaw whirled around, but Ivy was already moving, tugging a small torch from her belt as she vaulted over a console, sprinting for the huge, raised bulk of the central relay.

"Everflowing," Ivy hissed as she slid down into the recess beneath the hulking cuboid of screens and wiring, torch clamped between her teeth.

She disappeared from sight for a moment, and all Brackenshaw heard was a storm of colourful swearing, some grunting and clanking. Then she re-emerged holding a thick, curved device maybe ten inches across, shaped like an old style trip mine. It was still blinking, until Ivy tossed it to the ground and smashed a boot down onto it. It sparked; the lights died.

"Is that it?" Aurelia demanded as the three of them gathered around the comm station just to the right of the relay.

"I... I think so." Ivy picked up the transmitter; flicked through several toggles on the status display. Lots of green lights seemed to be a good sign, as far as Brackensaw could tell.

"Okay, I've got it, I've got it. Wideband frequency is open – blanket channel. I..." The young engineer looked up at her in a panic. "What do we say?"

"Can you get us the Commissariat War Room?"

"I... yes, yes I think so."

"Then do it. Now!"

Her bark galvanised the young engineer into action. She twisted back to the panel, one hand racing over the controls as she wrestled the relay towards the correct frequency. A few seconds later she nodded.

"I've got it."

Brackenshaw stuffed her pistol back into its holster and snatched the transmitter from Ivy. Breathing deep she gave herself a couple of seconds to order her thoughts, then let the words come rushing out.

"Forge CC-1, Forge CC-1, this is Lieutenant Kaydie Brackenshaw, Brekkan Scout Cadre, 45th Brigade, 3rd platoon. I am speaking from the Forge engineering levels. We're at the main communications centre. Repeat, this is Lieutenant Kaydie Brackenshaw. Please respond."

"Lieutenant! This is Major-General Bosede. I am with the Commissariat defence ministers now," came the reply a few seconds later, a terse snarl, partly of surprise, partly of relief. "What are you doing down there? We have already dispatched teams to repair the comm links."

"Sir, main comms were sabotaged. Your repair teams never made it here."

"Sabotage? The Scraegans?"

"Not the Scraegans. Activists – anti-Scraegan elements within Brekka's military."

"Everflowing! You are sure?"

"Certain, sir. Got the bodies down here to prove it." Brackenshaw took a deep breath. "General, the fighting, outside the walls-,"

"The northern troops are reforming for a frontal assault on our defences, and I doubt there's anything I can say that will stop them. We may have to fight this out, Lieutenant."

"NO!" Ivy yelled suddenly, leaping close enough that her voice would be picked up by the receiver. "Ryke's out there. We have to stop this!"

"It's already started," Aurelia spat, her eyes shifting to glare at the captured malcontents. "We were too late."

"Drown that!" Ivy looked desperately to Brackenshaw. "Please, we have to do something."

"Sir, this fight, it's exactly what the Scraegans wanted. It's exactly what these traitors wanted," Brackenshaw said, not sure where the sentence might be going, but just hoping and praying that some inspiration would come. "We have to try."

"The outer defences are already engaged and there are more northern units closing in."

"Then hang the outer defences!" Ivy shouted. "Pull everybody back behind the wall, shut the gates and fire up the big guns."

"Whoever you are, stand down," Bosede snarled.

"Sir, with respect," Brackenshaw answered, grabbing Ivy by the arm – a signal for her to keep quiet, "it might be the best course."

"We cannot withstand a siege against northern ordnance. The fighting must be kept to the plateau, or they will simply shell us from range until we have no choice but to stand down."

"Sir, we don't need to win a war – we need to stop this long enough to talk!" Brackenshaw barked.

"General," Aurelia said, stepping up to the transmitter. "This is 1st Lieutenant Aurelia Belisarius. I am the special intelligence attaché to Commissariat Minister Lanto Numitor of Rubicon. He is working with our Commissariat to stop this too. This has all been engineered by elements within our own hierarchy. He will have proof soon, but if we let this go too far, it won't matter. Please, sir, give him time."

"General," the voice of Minister Yanfoukis interjected. "I can vouch for the Lieutenant's information. And for Minister Numitor's commitment. We should consider pulling our forces back."

The comm went quiet for a moment, a tangle of angry voices just discernable, but not enough that Brackenshaw could actually hear the debate. Seconds crawled by and she could feel her heart beating faster and faster. They did not have time to sit around and argue about this.

"Lieutenant Belisarius, you are certain that your... minister can talk some sense into the northern army out there?" Bosede asked eventually. "Do you honestly believe it?"

"He has the ear of Commissary-General Xanthus," Aurelia replied smoothly. "If she feels she has been betrayed, she would stop this world turning to get to the bottom of it. Please, we just need to buy a little time, and avoid more bloodshed."

More quiet. More buzzing voices in the war room far above their heads. Then Bosede came back on the channel, his voice grim.

"I will issue orders now," he grated. "And may the Watching Lords protect us if you are wrong."