Kelso leaned back in his seat, his face grim, one hand cupping his chin thoughtfully, and the other gently directing the controls. He had to sit at an angle at the briefing table, his injured leg wrapped up in a brace and sticking out straight in front of him. He zoomed in on the moment of conflict that the original scouting party had gathered. Around them a team of Blackwater specialists, technical analysts and liaison officers from the disparate military bodies in Brekka had gathered to pool their brainpower.

Given her exposure to the alien technology beneath the Scraegar Labyrinth, Ivy, rather against her will, had ended being press-ganged into joining the club. She couldn't decide if she actually wanted to be here. Sitting in this room, she would get the firsthand knowledge, and be able to apply herself directly to the latest problem, instead of sitting around oblivious somewhere on Stamm Basin.

On the other hand, sometimes ignorance was bliss. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what was going on out there.

They'd poured over the structure itself, that vast, ugly mountain that had made its unwelcome home in the southern barrens. Ivy could tell, even from the relative distance, that the material was the same as those impenetrable dark structures in the deep. But far worse than the ship itself, were its denizens.

The Crawlers ignited a sickening, primal fear in the recesses of her mind, transporting her back to the first time those creatures had swarmed Ozzmar. She barely escaped alive, and watched a lot of good people who weren't so lucky be lost to the arthropod monsters. And now they were back. Back again to plague her world.

Feeling the muscles in her neck tightening, Ivy forced her eyes back to the screen, looking past the horrific, knobbled bodies of those demons and fixing her gaze on their masters. The alien creature was a fearsome sight, moving so fast in its attack that even the high resolution cameras from the Scout Cadre could barely capture the movement without blurring. The unfortunate Scraegan was barely visible in the snapshot, obscured by a cloud of mud, dirt and blood.

The clip played out, slowed down to capture the shimmer and flex of the alien's carapace. It looked like thousands of tiny scales, moving like a wave, the light of the blast glinting viciously across the multi-faceted surface.

"Look at the ripple," Ivy said, tapping the holographic display. "It's like the armour spreads the force of the blast somehow."

"Some kind of diffusive alloy?" one of the Blackwater analysts suggested – a taut, ripcord of a woman with short black hair. "We have had limited success in a lab environment with heat diffusion armour. It's still very early in development, and not reliable, but it could operate on a similar principle."

"It's not like any armour I've ever seen," Kelso said, his tone bleak. "It looks like its grafted to their bodies. It's not a suit, or plating. It seems like it's a part of them."

"Cybernetics maybe?" Ivy wondered. "They certainly have the tech for it, flying something that size all the way here, and landing without cracking a hole in the planet. If whatever's on their hides is the same stuff they used to build the outpost at the Labyrinth, then we're in a lot of trouble."

"Any ideas?"

"Scraegan cannons are high explosive." She propped her chin on her hand as she leaned closer. "The shots detonate on impact. Maybe the backlash rounds can punch through before detonation. Maybe that will stop the dispersion?"

"Maybe?" one of the technicians said, eyebrow rising.

"You want to go and try a field test, by my guest," Ivy shot back.

The man wilted under her glare.

Colonel Hackley, with a face like a stormcloud, shook her head slowly as she reviewed the footage again. Ivy could tell that the lack of concrete information was gnawing at the Scout commander's guts. Hackley prided herself on always having the best information.

"I don't like it," she muttered. "Putting our people out there like this, without knowing what they're walking into."

"We have to protect our borders," one of the northern officers said, though he didn't sound much more at ease about the prospect. "There's not much choice."

"We have no idea how effective our weapons will be against them."

"We've killed Crawlers before," Kelso pointed out.

Hackley snorted. "And it was a hell of a mess. These could be a tougher breed, never mind those things out there controlling them. It was bad enough when they were just mindless killing machines. Now, with actual direction...?" She didn't bother finishing the sentence. The implications were clear enough.

Ivy squirmed in her seat, fixing her gaze back on the alien creature, shoving all the loathsome fear out of her head and focusing on the facts as best she could. She felt her hypothesis of how the alien armour worked was the only plausible conclusion, but identifying how it seemed to work was only half the battle. Everflowing, how she wanted a sample; something to pound into the dust with every weapon she could find until she found something that worked.

Those schemes were interrupted when the door to their briefing room slid open. She swivelled in her seat to see Lieutenant Aurelia Belisarius step over the threshold, now dressed in a crisp red Rubicon liaison uniform, her hands clasped tightly behind her back. Conversation fell silent as she entered.

"Lieutenant," Colonel Hackley acknowledged her with a nod, "report?"

"I'm afraid we have a very big problem, ma'am," Aurelia replied, her face like a tombstone.

Ivy rose out of her seat, feeling a horrible sense that Hackley's concerns were about to be proved correct. "What is it?"

"Ozzmar," the lieutenant said. "It's been overrun."

"Overrun?" She felt her heart almost smash into her throat. "What happened?"

"The aliens came for a fight. Our weapons were only... partially effective. Brackenshaw's command didn't have the numbers to contain them. She had to order a withdrawal."

"Bloody Lords," Hackley swore.

"Casualties?" Kelso asked, his voice tight as he stood as well.

Aurelia's face somehow turned even more ashen. "Over fifty-percent."

"Everflowing River!"

"Is Ryke alright?!" Ivy blurted.

She grimaced. "He'll be okay. The Ozzmar battlegroup just got back. He's in the medical wing." Aurelia rubbed her eyes bleakly. "I'm afraid he's got a lot of company."

Ivy was out of the room before anyone could stop her.

*

She eventually found Ryke, his feet dangling over the side of his bed, a ragged cut running down his face, from his temple to the edge of his metal jaw. His link skin had been removed, revealing his lean torso, which currently sported the spidery metal cage of a rib-brace down his left side.

"Oh, bloody Lords, Ryke!" Ivy exclaimed, racing towards him, twisting and dodging the medical staff as she went. Upon reaching him she only just stopped herself from leaping into a hug, remembering that he was hurt.

Instead, she gently ran her hands over his bare shoulders and around to cup the back of his neck, pressing her forehead against his.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly.

He managed a tight smile. "I'll be alright. Bruised ribs, but I should be out of her in a couple of days."

"But your face..."

"Piece of armour ruptured," Ryke explained, easing away from her so he could look her in the eye. "Clipped me on the way through."

"Everflowing – Ryke, that could have gone through your skull!"

"That crossed my find."

Ivy felt her cheeks flush. "Sorry, I just... shit, what happened out there?"

His expression darkened. "We weren't ready. Not for this."

At his words, she took a second to look past him. The truth of Aurelia's words sank in when she saw dozens of men and women from across the spectrum, some limping through the space, some sprawled on beds, many wrapped in medical braces and bandages, some unconscious under sedation. The cyan-clad Medical Cadre staff scurrying back and forth, bawling orders to one and other, frantically trying to triage the worst cases. Screams rippled through the air as the critically injured were propelled from the infirmary towards the base's operating theatres.

She spotted Preese a few beds along, his left arm outstretched to be examined by one of the cadre nurses. He managed a weak smile, saluting to her with his other hand. The Raptor pilot, Kim stood at another station with a pilot she didn't recognise with dark braids hanging dishevelled behind her head. The two young women exchanged hushed words.

Through the throng of activity, Brigg's bulky frame came trudging. He looked exhausted, but seemed to be all in one piece. He clumped over to Ryke's bedside, giving her a weary nod.

"How you doing, Ives?"

"Walking and talking," she replied, reaching out to give him a gentle thump on the shoulder with one fist. "You okay?"

"I'm alive, and I guess that'll have to do right now."

"Did everybody make it out?"

Ryke shook his head bleakly. "Qadira. One of those things..." He sighed, unwilling to finish the sentence. "She didn't make it. We nearly lost one of the rookies – Andross – too. His mech's totalled and they've got him in the emergency wing." He gently rolled his neck from side to side, stretching it. "They say he'll pull through but..."

"But?"

"That's not really our big problem is it?"

Ivy grimaced, taking one of his hands in hers and glancing at Brigg. "That bad?"

"Those things are made of tough stuff," the Goliath pilot replied. "No way around it. I saw some of those things walk right through a bloody tank shell. Anything from range it just... I don't know. It just doesn't do much."

She nodded grimly. "I was just with Hackley and bunch of the tech-heads. We were trying to figure how that armour worked. It looks like it diffuses any explosive force across its surface to deaden the impact. But... but the backlash rounds should still have worked. They're heavy armour-piercing."

"The backlash rounds slowed them down," Ryke said, "but that was about it. The only thing that worked was our blades. We had to get right up close."

"Blades?" Ivy's brows rose. "They got through?"

"Not right away." He massaged his forehead with one hand, as though trying to push the memory loose. "It was like... like a kind of delay."

"What?"
"When you hit them," Brigg elaborated. "It was like the blade would get stuck for a second or two, before you could push the rest of the way."

"Prolonged contact," Ivy murmured.

"I guess."

"Once we figured out the blades worked we did what we could." He gave a fatalistic shrug.

"Maybe that armour can only diffuse the force of a sudden impact – to deaden the momentum. It would explain why the backlash rounds didn't work!" Ivy exclaimed. "That plating only needs to withstand the initial hit and can disperse the explosive force afterwards. If you're sticking a warblade into it and maintaining contact, there's nothing to disperse."

"So, we at least figured out one thing," Ryke replied, his voice recovering some of the steel she knew well. "You can kill them. You just have to do it the hard way."

Brigg, however, looked unconvinced. "This is all nice and shiny, guys, but its not exactly a winning formula. It took a whole squad of us just to kill one of those things, and with the Crawlers following them everywhere we go, getting up close and personal is a good way to get killed." He shook his head, leaning against the side of the bed with his arms folded. "We lost a lot of Hunter-Killers trying to just slow them down. And what above everyone else." He gestured to the rest of the injured men and women in the infirmary. "You can't exactly give everyone a bunch of spears and send them into battle."

She bit her lip, her mind already racing beyond his pessimistic summation of the situation. He was right, in some ways, but Ivy latched onto the one thing that they knew worked. Prolonged contact could penetrate the armour. That one chink in the enemy defences would have to be enough for now. She just needed to think of a way to replicate the impact of a Hunter-Killer warblade that didn't involve getting quite so close...

Nodding firmly, Ivy leaned in, pressing her lips to Ryke's and tracing thine fingers of her right hand along the seam of his metal jaw. When she pulled away, she could feel the determination coiling in her stomach.

"You guys get better," she told them, stepping back.

"Ivy, wh- wait, where are you going?" Ryke kept a hold of her hand.

She kissed him again, and gently uncurled his fingers from hers.

"I've got work to do."

Then she spun on her heel and sprinted out of the infirmary.