Year 247 P.L. Rychter Calendar
Coordinates: 39.2°S; 62.3°W
Site Designation: Brekka (City of)

The heavy toothed feet of Ryke's Hunter-Killer ground into the hard-packed dirt of the plateau that surrounded the city of Brekka. A Riot Pattern model, it stood just over four meters tall, and all fifteen tons of the fearsome war machine responded to his every thought as he trudged his way through the outer earthworks, its humanoid shape casting a long shadow in the morning sun.

Its brass armour still bore the scars of battle, scuffed and scratched, and across the armoured slab of his right shoulder there were dozens of crimson slashes, a message to anyone who saw his mech that Ryke Vannigan was a killer.

A retractable rotating cannon was slung under the right hand with an enormous trigger mechanism and an ammunition feeder snaking back to link with the cache of armour-piercing shells in the upper arm. The left shoulder of war machine bore a thick blast plate that served as an extra bulwark of armour while attached, or a shield when detached and held in the opposite hand. Folded back into the wrist section of that same arm a gigantic, oil-black blade was concealed.

The spherical head rested within an armoured crater of a neck, swivelling left and right as he looked around, sensor feeds relaying the outside world into the heads-up-display within his Hunter-Killer. An army of engineers, volunteers and military personnel laboured round the clock, relaying power cables, repairing roadways and rebuilding defensive installations. Behind them the once impregnable walls of Brekka were covered in intricate webs of scaffolding, with massive cranes hoisting fresh blocks of stone into position in the breaches left behind by the battle.

It had been five months since the siege that had almost destroyed his home, and the memories were still raw in Ryke's mind. The humans who colonised Rychter had been at war with the Scraegans for decades, but never had there been a pitched battle of such size and brutality. He'd lost friends; comrades. They'd very nearly lost Brekka itself.

The rebuilding work was slow and arduous, and HK-Rupture, along with many Hunter-Killer units, had been pressed into service to help the overstretched and overworked Engineering Cadre undo the damage of the siege. Behind him the nine other Hunter-Killers of his squad crunched their way through the earthworks, every second mech hauling vast equipment crates on makeshift, balloon-wheeled trailers. There simply weren't enough trucks to get the raw materials where they needed to go.

"You'd think they could tie these damn things to some rookies," Brigg 'Avalanche' Alwick grumbled over the comm as they marched on. Piloting one of the taller, bulkier Goliath Pattern heavy mechs, Brigg was dragging more weight than most. "If any Scraegans come knocking over the horizon we'll not be much good carrying ten tons of ballast."

Ryke smiled his half-smile, feeling the weight of the metal that replaced most of his jaw on the left side. In his first ever engagement that part of his face had been completely shattered when a blast from a Scraegan furnace cannon struck his mech. His own callsign, 'Lockjaw' had spawned from that distinctive feature, and served as a constant reminder of how dangerous their adversaries could be.

"I'd rather have rookies learning how to fight than dragging freight," he replied, angling his Hunter-Killer to the left in a looping arc through a series of half-ruined trenches. "Last thing we need is another Scraegan army to turn up to find us short on pilots."

"Maybe we should be out there doing a bit of dissuasion?" Thaye chimed in, a girl whose ferocity in combat had earned her the callsign 'Havoc' which she embraced wholeheartedly. "We all know they're out there just licking their wounds. They'll be back."

"All the more reason to get the defences fixed, eh?" the squad's second in command, Preese 'Deadbolt' Sarassian cut in. "Don't want them coming back here while there's still a bunch of holes in the walls."

"We've got one more supply drop then we're on patrol detail til 0900," Ryke told them. "Until then you can all suck it up. Hit the sims when we get back if you're itching to fight something."

Muttered responses filtered down through the comm from the pilots under his command, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. He knew exactly how they felt, orders or no orders. They were trained to fight; the Hunter-Killers were built to kill. Ferrying building supplies and patrolling Brekka's outskirts felt like a waste.

Despite their own private misgivings, however, they followed their orders. They dragged their burden around to the city's north east defences, arriving at a long, snaggle-toothed section of half-constructed bunkers where dozens of engineers in their distinctive iron-grey overalls were hard at work.

The flares of welding torches seared like fireflies in the early morning light, with many of the workers dangling in harnesses from cranes to reach the upper levels of the armoured constructs. Thick sheets of concrete and metal were being wrapped around massive, three-barrelled 'pounder' cannons, their structures gleaming with polish, fresh from Brekka's weapon forges.

"Lockjaw – Corporal Ides," Ryke said, addressing the engineering officer they were scheduled to meet at the work site. "Special delivery."

"Copy, Lockjaw, be with you in a second," a woman replied. He scanned the force of engineers for a moment until he spotted an individual unclipping from her harness and dropping down to the earth of the plateau. She scurried through the bustle of activity until she stood just a few meters away, looking up at Ryke's Hunter-Killer.

He gestured to the equipment, sending his voice through the Hunter-Killer's speakers where it boomed out over the earthworks.

"Just tell us where you want them, Corporal."

Ides, a tawny-skinned woman with a buzz-cut of dark hair, raised both hands with her thumbs up. Then she started hollering out directions to the line of towering war machines that stood facing her.

To an unfamiliar onlooker it would have a for a comical sight as the Hunter-Killers followed the directions of a person they could have flattened out of existence in the blink of an eye, but one thing that the siege had done was cement the respect among the different arms of Brekka's military. Ryke might have outranked her, technically, but the war to rebuild Brekka was the realm of the Engineering Cadre.

Ryke and his squad followed Ides' orders without a glimmer of complaint, heaving the flat-bed trailers into place for the thick-armed cranes to unload them. The immense metal boxes opened to disgorge huge piles of armour plating, spools of hardened communication wiring and solid concrete slabs. For half an hour they helped unload, dispersing the materials through the earthworks under Ides' direction before dispersing into their patrol route across the plateau's northern edge.

It had been a long time since any Scraegans had come anywhere near Brekka, perhaps just as scarred by the bloodbath as the human defenders had been. For all the death and destruction that had been visited upon the city, the Scraegan attackers had suffered horrendous casualties in the process before they finally retreated, having gained the release of the first, and possibly only captive the humans had ever taken in the war.

As a result the patrols, though necessary, often felt like a sleepwalk to Ryke, and he struggled to keep himself and his pilots sharp with this monotonous work. He mixed up the formations as best he could, keeping their minds focused on more complex manoeuvres, all the while keeping a whether eye on the HUD for surprises. He had yet to find one.

Until today.

HK-Rupture loped its way in a snaking column along the north east lip of the raised plateau where Brekka squatted, an area unlikely to find any Scraegan activity. They didn't find any today either, but from the head of the column came a warning call.

"Haunter-Lockjaw," said the voice of Kim Lassange, piloting a Raptor scout mech. "I've got an unidentified cluster on my HUD – extreme range. Bearing 317º."

Instantly Ryke was on alert, the weapon systems of his Hunter-Killer spinning up into readiness. "Scraegan?"

"Doesn't look like it – surface signatures moving in formation right down the Marratora Highway. Should be coming into your range any second."

Ryke turned his optics onto the bearing Kim had provided, the sensors of the Hunter-Killer blending with his own to let him see much clearer and farther than any human eye. He cast his augmented gaze over the long, dark scar of the Marratora Highway – the main transit artery out of Brekka to the northern cities. In the distance, even before the HUD displayed anything concrete, he could see the dust cloud, a haze of dirt, sand and muck churned up into the burnt air by something big. A moment later the sensors confirmed what his eyes had seen. Red indicators spilled over the HUD.

"Supply convoy?" Thaye mused.

"We're meant to get a heads up if they're expected on our routes, aren't we?" interjected Marylee 'Gutz' McCutter, the pilot of another Riot mech. "That looks like a hell of a haul for someone to miss on a patrol docket."

"People make mistakes," Ryke replied calmly. "Everyone hold your formation; standby weapons, just in case." The order was a reflex, but he couldn't believe that there would be any hostility from a human force, unidentified or not. One thing the Scraegans had accomplished was to unify the colonists of Rychter against a common foe. Still, this didn't look like any normal supply convoy he'd ever seen. Even from the considerable distance between them he could make out the colossal bulks of several mammoth transport crawlers and what looked like the dark, humanoid silhouettes of Hunter-Killer formations.

"HK-Rupture – Forge CC2A," Ryke called, widening his comm band. "We have an unidentified convoy of vehicles on approach along the Marratora Highway. I have no shipments scheduled on our patrol docket – can you advise?"

"Forge CC2A – HK-Rupture, message received. Please standby," replied the support officer. Ryke waited for a moment, tension rising as his optics zoomed in on the shapes in the dust cloud. Then the woman spoke again. "Forge CC2A – HK-Rupture, we have confirmed friendly IDs broadcast to Brekka Command. Parsing to your HUD now."

A couple of seconds later a blizzard of indicators splurged across Ryke's HUD at the extreme range of his sensors, crawling closer by the second. Callsigns he'd never seen materialised over several dozen distinct units in the snake of vehicles and he realised that what he could see was just the vanguard of a much larger force. A thousand questions instantly bubbled up in his mind.

"It's a support force from the northern coalition," the support officer continued. "Arrival was not scheduled but their broadcast indicates they have high ranking officials onboard. Forge Command confirms their ident-packets are authentic. You are to redirect and escort their forward elements to Brekka's north gate-road. HK-Praxis is also en-route."

"Doesn't look like they need an escort to me," Scantlin 'Haze' El Vahari grunted from the second Raptor. "Think they could've given us a heads up before they showed up all guns shining?"

"Politics, politics," Preese drawled back. "Someone wants to make an impression."

Ryke let out a derisive snort before responding. "Copy that, Forge CC2A. Moving to rendezvous. Any idea what they're doing here?"

"Above my pay grade, Lockjaw," the support officer chuckled. "And above yours, for that matter I reckon. We'll all find out soon enough. Force CC2A out."

"Alright, folks, let's go roll out the red carpet," Ryke traversed his Hunter-Killer onto the new trajectory and on the overlaid HUD canopy he saw the signatures of his squad falling into step behind him in a well-drilled skirmish line. Nodding to himself, he opened the comm to Brekka's wider defence network. "Lockjaw – Sharps, come in?"

"Sharps – Lockjaw, read you loud and clear," replied the officer commanding HK-Praxis, Brielle 'Sharps' Charpente. "Looks like we're to be an honour guard."

"Looks like. You know anything about this convoy?"

"Negative, but I recognise some of the unit callsigns."

"Friends of yours?"

"Some of them. Wonder what they're doing here?"

"It doesn't look like they came for a party. That's a lot of firepower."

Charpente let out a short laugh. "You always complain the north doesn't pull its weight. Maybe they heard you?"

"Ha, maybe," Ryke chuckled. "We are en route to the north gate-road – ETA four minutes."

"We'll be right behind you. Sharps out."

Ryke closed the comm channel with a smile. Although her unit came from one of the northern cities, they'd been stationed in Brekka for several months and over that time he'd built up a respect for Charpente that he didn't have for many of the untested reinforcements that trickled in. From their operations together, right through the battle for Brekka, he knew HK-Praxis could at least be relied on.

Circumventing the great walls of Brekka it wasn't long before he spotted the deep aquamarine livery of Charpente's mechs, their polished armour glinting in the morning light of Rychter's twin suns. Approaching from the opposite side of the city, they pincered in on the partially reconstructed gate-road that linked the long, hard-trodden trail of the Marratora Highway to Brekka. The convoy crawled closer, like a metal lava flow.

They reached the gate-road a few minutes ahead of the newcomers and Ryke's squadron formed up in a long line, standing ten meters apart like a series of metal statues. The mechs of HK-Praxis took up positions directly opposite them and together they formed a corridor to guide their guests into Brekka. Glancing towards the city he saw the vast armoured gates retracting into the walls with a piercing snarl of hydraulics that hissed out across the plateau. Massive, quad-barrelled gun emplacements swivelled to bear on the column as it approached.

Up close the convoy was more than Ryke had ever expected.

Leading the way came a squadron of Hunter-Killers, painted gold and red, marching with synchronised steps ahead of the train of vehicles in a wedge formation. Directly behind them came three cumbersome mammoth transports, dragging themselves across the highway on massive track units, each one towering a dozen meters over him, much larger than the Brekkan variants.

Smaller tracked vehicles flanked the mammoths like scavengers following a host, though these were still large in their own right. Several meters long with low, reinforced treads dragging them along, some sported long cannons built into a beetle-like armoured hull while others were mounted with turrets that swung from left to right as they rumbled onward.

Long, sharp-prowed skiffs hummed along in crisp ranks, held aloft over the highway by powerful anti-grav engines. These were bigger and bulkier than the vehicles employed by Brekka's Scout Cadre, but the similarities were clear enough to see. More mammoth carriers heaved themselves along behind the skiffs and the procession went on, and on, and on.

"Drown me," Preese muttered. "Think they emptied the north with this lot?"

Ryke couldn't have expressed it better. His eyes widened in awe and trepidation as the mighty force flowed into Brekka. He counted ten of the mammoth carriers, each one capable of housing forty Hunter-Killers with room to spare. There were hundreds of armoured vehicles, as well as open-topped trucks packed with soldiers in crisp uniforms and bristling with long anti-armour rifles. Further back came bloated fuel crawlers, support trucks and freight haulers, carrying vast stockpiles of everything an army would need.

"Why did they come now?" Thaye said, unease thick in her voice. "We could have used them six months ago but we haven't had a full run in with Scraegans since the siege."

"I know as much as you do," Ryke said, not taking his eyes off the convoy. "But if I had to guess, I'd say they're here to go to war."