Days later, Ryke trudged out of the infirmary under his own power, still aching all over, but with fresh deployment orders from Major Kwendo. The doctors had reluctantly cleared him, claiming that they didn't want him anywhere near a Hunter-Killer. His orders said the opposite.

Frankly, he doubted they had that long to wait, no matter what the Medical Cadre wanted.

He gathered rest of HK-Rupture that was still fit to fight along the way, seven able-bodied pilots following him on the march back to Stamm Basin's main hangar. The injured pilot, Andross, looked like wanted to weep as they left him behind in his medical cradle, his body still a mass of angry burns and lacerations from where his mechs imploding mechanisms had almost torn him apart.

For the rest, their chatter was subdued, the loss of Qadira and the crushing defeat at Ozzmar still raw. Ryke kept his head high, striding as normally as he could, letting the dull throbs of pain in his body fuel his anger. He wanted to get back in the fight. Now that knew what he was dealing with, he wanted round two.

He wanted revenge.

They found Major Kwendo at the designated Hunter-Killer bay, with maybe forty pilots gathered in a lose semi-circle in front of him. Ryke recognised some of them. Charpente was there along with what was left of HK-Praxis; he saw a lieutenant with the callsign Blockade, commanding the crack mechs of HK-Thresher.

But his attention was quickly snared by what stood in the bay beyond them. Lined up like caged beasts stood ten hulking mechs – a rank of walking tanks that he knew all too well.

Each one was like a boulder of metal, wrapped in immense plates of iron-grey armour. A thick crater-like depression between the enormous shoulders housed a spherical head section, where slit-like sensor strips ran from the centre diagonally left and, like sets of demonic eyes. Hemispherical cages of metal sprouted from their backs to arch over and protect from above, while even more sheaths of armour plating obscured the multiple cooling stacks installed in the rear housing.

Dreadnoughts.

"Ohhhh, Everflowing," Preese murmured as they approached. "Here we go."

"Vannigan," Major Kwendo declared, acknowledging him with a nod. "Good of you to join us."

"Sir." Ryke saluted; his pilots did the same. "HK-Rupture, reporting as ordered."

"I'll keep this short," Kwendo rumbled, his attention instantly turning back to the wider group. "You all know what's coming. Enemy forces have been moving consistently in all directions, forcing us to pull back. Without concentrated firepower and proper defensive positions, we lack the numbers to protect the entire front."

He tapped a finger on the hologram map projecting up from the console beside him, enlarging the display so they could all see it. Ryke saw the pulsing blue dot with the letters, CRESCENTSCAR gleaming above it.

"That stops here," their commander continued, his voice hardening. "Crescentscar. It's the last settlement south of Brekka that command considers to be defensible. Our aim is to draw in a significant portion of the enemy forces, first to keep them from advancing on Brekka, and second to enable a sabotage strike in enemy territory."

"What are they sabotaging?" one of the other officers asked. "The ship?"

"I don't know, and frankly, I don't care." Kwendo pointed at the map. "Our only priority is to hold Crescentscar. We are going to beat these bastards to a standstill and send them to the River in pieces."

Ryke nodded approvingly. He didn't much care about the schemes of the Blackwaters right now either. He wanted to fight.

"Given the ineffectiveness of our traditional armaments, we have retrofitted our remaining Dreadnought Pattern mechs, two of which will be assigned to each squadron here. When the northern artillery and mines slow the enemy forces close to Cresentscar, you will be the first wave of our counter-attack."

He nodded to the attending technician, who approached the closest Dreadnought, data slate in the crook of her arm. She tapped in a command and Ryke's eyes widened at the sight of a three pronged warblade springing out of the machine's immense gauntlet. Only then did he realise that the cannons had been removed, making way for the close-in armaments.

"R&D are still working on effective counter-measures," Kwendo continued, "but as a stop gap, we've seen that our close range weapons can penetrate the armour of the aliens. Each Dreadnought carries two triple-locked, titanium-reinforced blades, each fitted with an explosive loader."

His hand waved over the display again, showing a close-in schematic of the weapon. Ryke saw the slim loaders fitted to each blade, and marvelled at the simplicity of it.

"No screwing around," the major growled. "Stick this in one of those things, trigger the loader, then get clear. You can blow them to pieces from the inside out."

A murmur of approval passed through the assembled Hunter-Killers.

"Who's assigning the Dreadnoughts, sir?" Charpente said, raising her hand.

"Squad leaders have final approval," Kwendo replied. "You know your people best. You know what you need for your unit to function effectively. Submit your duty rosters to me by 2100 this evening. We deploy in forty-eight hours. Any questions?"

Lots of looks shot back and forth between the pilots of all squads present, but no one spoke up any further. The plan was simple. Throw the full armoury at Cresentscar and put an end to this, here and now. It was a brutal, sledgehammer of a plan, and after the complexities of the last year, Ryke felt a weight lift off his shoulders.

No more diplomacy with Scraegans, no more long sorties into the badlands. Just us and them, and fight to a standstill.

The pilots began to disperse, but Ryke turned sharply at the sound of heavy footsteps, the low grunting and growling of Scraegan language seeping through the clamour of the Stamm Basin hangar. He saw Grunn rounding the corner of the bay, flanked by two of his warriors, all of them fully armoured. They carried makeshift-looking spears, apparently constructed from debris from the base, each one easily six meters in length.

At the sight, the Hunter-Killer pilots immediately moved to the left and right to give the Scraegans a wide berth, but Ryke stayed where he was, his eyes fixing on the big warrior. What a strange world it had turned out to be, that he felt a kinship with the beast, now more than ever with the return of the Crawlers.

The trio stomped their way to a standstill, whereupon the two guards lowered their heads, the butts of their home-made spears pressing against the ground. Their leader stepped forward, eyes flickering to the hulking Dreadnoughts for a moment, before his attention turned to Ryke.

Head held high, Ryke stepped to meet him. They stood there for a moment, eyes locked together, and he sighed.

"How'd we get here, eh?" he chuckled quietly, aware of the eyes of the other Hunter-Killers on him. His smile faded, and he cleared his throat, pointing past the Scraegans, to the badlands beyond. "All-Na?" he questioned.

Grunn nodded, nostrils flaring. He said something in Scraegan, head turning skywards and an expression of sadness flashing across his animal features. Then his big shoulders sagged, a heavy, resigned breath leaving his lungs. Ryke didn't need to speak the language to feel the anguish rolling off of his comrade.

Grunn snorted, but it was a soft sound, almost mournful. The warrior brought his great bulk down to one knee, lowering his head towards Ryke. He straightened, feeling an odd lump rise in his throat. He knew what was happening – somehow he knew. Grunn was leaving.

Ryke stepped forward, smelling the musty, burnt odour of the Scraegan warrior. Taking a deep breath, he leaned towards Grunn until his forehead pressed against the Scraegan's thick skull plate. He could feel the vibrations of Grunn's breath through the bone, the tremors of brute power beneath the skin.

They stayed like that for several seconds, the Hunter-Killer pilots around them stunned into silence by the display.

Then, Grunn pulled away, rising back to his full height. Letting out a gruff growl, he thumped his spear against the ground once, then turned away. The guards turned with him, and an instant later the Scraegans disappeared back into the flow of Stamm Basin.

"Where's he going?" Charpente murmured after a moment.

Ryke smiled sadly. "I think he's going home."

*

"It's not going to work!" Ivy stood up with such violence that her chair clattered over behind her. She raked her hands through her hair, clenching her fists in her brown locks in frustration. "We all watched the battle cam footage. Getting close enough kill these things is only part of the problem. You've got try and kill them before the Crawlers get on you and tear you to pieces!"

The other members of the R&D team averted their eyes awkwardly. The stubble-faced corporal who was on the receiving end of her ire scowled, his cheeks reddening.

"Well our long range weapons just aren't going to cut it," Valero insisted. "Even the northern artillery barely put a dent in those things. Without prolonged contact, that armour disperses any kind of high impact, high explosive charge. The Dreadnought blades are the best option."

"For how long?!" She rounded on him. "We only have ten of those mechs even operational right now! And if we lose one? We don't have the time or the resources to replace them."

"Then we retrofit the standard Hunter-Killer blades as well, as many as we can-,"

"And how the hell are we going to do that when most of the army's already been deployed the Crescentscar?!"

"We can do it in the field if we have to," one of the attending Blackwater techs interjected, eyes still glued to a data slate as he spoke. "Load up the gear onto cargo skiffs and run it to the front."

Ivy shook her head. "It takes time to perform those modifications. The Dreadnoughts were spec'd for close combat anyway – it was easy to refit the housing. Standard patterns have different ammo feeder mechanisms, and smaller blade housings. They're not designed for this! We'd be stripping and refitting the whole warblade mechanism and jury rigging the loaders, and getting the whole mess to link up properly with the feedback loop. It'd be tough enough running it as a test, let along throwing them into a live combat situation."

"I'm not saying it'll be pretty," Valero replied, "but if you've got another idea, I am all ears. Right now, this is all we've got."

"There's got to be something." With a snarl of frustration she spun away from him, and her hand caught a tin canteen of coffee on the table. She sucked in a breath as it fell, clanging deafeningly off the floor and spilling its steaming contents everywhere.

"You need to calm down," Valero said quietly. "We're all on the same side here."

"Bloody River," Ivy cursed, ignoring him and grabbing a cloth from a nearby crate.

She took two steps towards the spilled coffee.

Then she stopped.

Something in her brain sparked.

Ivy froze, staring at the liquid as it spread across the floor. Spreading, spreading, spreading... and staying there. Her eyes widened slightly as an idea began to coalesce. She squeezed her eyes shut, dredging back up the basics of her training when she joined the Engineering Cadre. Long hours spent as a rookie scrubbing armour plates, learning which chemicals would give you a shine and which would eat into the metal.

The spark ignited, and she realised there was a solution staring them in the face.

"A corrosive." Her eyes snapped open and she rounded on the others. "That's it!"

"Corrosive?"

"Yeah, you know what the word means, don't you?"

"I know what it means." Valero didn't look convinced. "You want to use – what – some kind of acid?"

"Yes! Why not?" Ivy stepped back towards them, placing her palms flat on the table. "They can't disperse that! It's not some high explosive. We mix up the worst kind of metal-melting corrosive cocktail we can think of and we paint the bastards with it! When its coated on those nice shiny plates it'll start eating through. We cook something nasty enough and it'll tear right through without the need for even a second shot."

The Blackwater tech looked up from his data slate, an eyebrow cocked. "We don't have anything like that in our existing arsenal. We'd be making it from scratch."

"So what?"

"So, the enemy are coming at Crescentscar now."

"I know that – Everflowing I know." She thumped a fist on the table then tapped her temple with one finger. "But think about it. If we can get a compound that works, all we have to do is swap out the shells. We could stick it in artillery shells and dump it on those things from a safe distance!"

One of the other Engineering Cadre specialists nodded. "If we can get something like that to work, it would be a lot more reliable. And safer for our people."

"You think the Hunter-Killers can't handle it?"

Ivy was around the table in an instant, grabbing Valero by the scruff of his jacket. "I know exactly what they can handle, better than you ever will. But if we do it your way, a lot of good people are going to get killed, just because we didn't bother ourselves to find another way."

"At least my way works." He shrugged off her hand, scowling. "I know how you feel, Shanklin, and I'm not thrilled about it either, but we have no idea what that armour is made from. Even if what you're saying is possible, we have no idea what compounds will actually work. Something that might eat right through one of our tanks might just spill off of those things. How in the Everflowing are we supposed to figure out what to use without a sample of that material?"

Her initial elation evaporated when she realised she had a very simple answer for him. She hesitated for a moment, her mouth half opening.

"Well?" Valero challenged.

Ivy looked him in the eye. "Well, somebody's going to need to go out there and get one aren't they?"