The hot, dusty air of Rychter's badlands whipped at her face like a swarm of angry insects as the skiff hurtled along, powerful lifter engines snarling with the effort. Long and angular, the vehicle was a black blade of metal, open topped and carrying a cargo of twenty hardened, well-drilled Scout Cadre soldiers, some above deck and others hunkering down in its narrow armoured belly.

From the safety of a protective cupola at the prow, Master Sergeant Kaydie Brackenshaw surveyed the sands through her anti-armour rifle's powerful scope. A low twilight had descended on the badlands to the south of the town of Cresentscar, the orange-red glow of the twin suns still peering over the eastern horizon like the glare of a distant blaze. The five other skiffs of her unit trailed out behind in a staggered formation as they hurtled onward, skirting along the edge of what was considered by their commanders to be Scraegan-held territory.

At twenty-five years old, Kaydie was already a nine year veteran of the Scraegan war, having enlisted to join Brekka's famed Scout Cadre as soon as she was able to. Her swarthy skin was weather-beaten from so long spent in the badlands, and her dark hair was clipped short to just beneath her ears, barely visible beneath her blast helmet. A pair of goggles protected her grey eyes from the stinging winds, the glass reinforced and overlaid with a rudimentary HUD inside.

So far their tour through the badlands had been uneventful, but a niggle of unease remained in the back of her mind as the winds whipped past her. Their orders today went a lot further than a standard patrol. Today they were sweeping beyond the norm and laying the groundwork for the war.

Crescentscar was the furthest secure bastion south of Brekka, a town protected by its natural position in a canyon bed of solid rock. Protected from Scraegan digging by that base and with only two narrow modes of entry, it was easily defensible. But the safe staging area of Cresentscar was a long way behind them now. Soon they would cross that invisible line into Scraegan territory.

"Sarge?"

Kaydie eased her rifle from its notch in the lip of the cupola and swivelled to face the speaker. She found Corporal Hynan, a burly soldier with a thick goatee bristling around his mouth and a rifle resting casually across one shoulder. He threw a salute and a wiry grin around the smouldering stub of bacco jammed between his teeth.

"That time already?" She rose from her position, rolling her neck from side to side.

"You wanna stay out here, I won't argue with you, ma'am," Hynan replied.

"Not on your life, soldier." Kaydie eased past him, thumping the shoulder plate of his body-armour with a clenched fist. "We'll be crossing on your watch. Eyes open, eh? You know how I hate surprises."

He puffed smoke from the bacco-stub and saluted. "Yes, ma'am."

Kaydie gave him a nod and turned away, leaving her companion to settle into the cupola while she trudged the wind-scoured deck of the skiff. There was another one-man nest at the back of the vehicle, positioned behind a much larger twin-linked rail cannon that jutted out from the rear section. A second of those cannons rose from the middle of the armoured decking, manned by two soldiers – a spotter and gunner – to direct their deadly fire at a moment's notice.

Ducking her head against the wind and moving around behind the mid-ship gun, she descended through a narrow stairway into the guts of the skiff. White lights rebounded off of dark armour in the interior, and in the rear a sapphire glow emanated from an armoured compartment where the skiff's pilot maintained their course. The wind screeched outside.

In bunks lining the walls of the forward section off duty members of her platoon lounged, played cards and chatted, their long-barrelled anti-armour rifles never far from reach. Brackenshaw slung her own rifle across her shoulder and strode to the centre of the narrow compartment where a three dimensional display showed the immediate surroundings of the skiff flight.

Six blue dots were strung out in a long line, rapidly moving across grid sectors and taking a diagonal approach to the faint red line that marked enemy territory. Three members of the Scout Cadre were gathered around it conversing in low tones until they spotted their commanding officer. They came to attention with swift salutes.

"As you were," Brackenshaw said with a dismissive wave of the hand. She approached the display, leaning both hands on the edge and looking down on the terrain. "Status?"

"Nothing on the seismics for fifty clicks," Corporal Locke replied. "So far, so quiet." The other woman had her helmet tucked under one arm and her goggles handing around her neck, revealing a tight ponytail of brown hair and pale, freckled skin. "We should be crossing into the Scraegan playground in four minutes. We reach Ozzmar in twelve."

She nodded as the indicators blinked up on the display. A rotating green triangle marked out their final destination: Ozzmar, one of the more recent casualties to the Scraegan assaults before their attack on Brekka. It was the first target designated by their new commanders, where the war to obliterate the Scraegan menace would begin.

While Kaydie had her doubts about the effectiveness of the new troops in Brekka, after nine long years of losing town after town in this war of attrition, she was more than ready to go on the offensive. She'd felt a swell of pride when they'd selected her flight to perform this recon mission ahead of the attack.

"Alright then," she said, drumming the fingers of one hand against the edge of the display. "I want everyone armed up and on full alert for crossover, and constant eyes on our seismics. We don't know if the Scraegans have any forces permanently stationed at Ozzmar but we're not taking chances."

"Ma'am." Locke saluted then slapped her helmet back into place. She stepped from the table and began dishing out orders to the other soldiers lounging in the interior compartment. Kaydie wove through her troops as they tightened their armour and checked over their rifles, reloading their armour-piercing shells and double checking sight calibration.

She made her way to the front of the compartment where a narrow band of heavy blast-glass looked out over the badlands, scratched and scarred from exposure to the elements. Kaydie exhaled a long breath through her nose and unslung her own weapon, checking over its sight more out of habit than necessity. It wasn't long before the low bustle behind her faded into silence, indicating that her soldiers were armed, armoured and at their stations.

A couple of minutes later the display console let out a warning bleep as they crossed the red line.

Part of her had expected a volley of furnace cannon shots to arrive the instant they breached the artificial human designation of who owned what, but realistically the desert was a big place. The odds of the fast-moving skiffs running right over any Scraegan patrol was slim, at least for now.

She knew the sooner they drew to Ozzmar the greater those odds became.

Their patrol remained mercifully uneventful as they hurtled onwards, a narrow cloud of dust kicking up their wake. Regular status reports fed through from the other skiff commanders – no contacts on their seismic readers and no sign of any enemy force. Maybe they would be able to make their recon pass and scoot out of here without anyone being the wiser.

Kaydie allowed herself a wry smile. Wishful thinking for sure.

Her smile faded when the ruin of Ozzmar came into view. Once a thriving town of more than two thousand people, it had been reduced to a sand-scoured graveyard since the Scraegan assault. The remains of the geothermal power plants that had dominated the town squatted miserably in the middle of rubbled homes and shattered streets. Long dead.

The surrounding terrain formed gentle valleys of volcanic rock and hardy shrubbery, and more than one narrow fissure of magma sizzled in the distance. The power they could harvest from the active geothermal vents would have made Ozzmar a hub for human colonisation further south, but the Scraegans had crushed that idea with the brutality of a sledgehammer. Kaydie felt frustrated anger prickle her skin at the memory – the day when news of the attack came, and when floods of refugees were sent streaming back to the safety of Brekka, tails between their legs.

Soon they would settle that score.

Stepping away from the window, she moved back to the display unit, tapping her earpiece to open her comm to the other skiff commanders.

"Brackenshaw to all, units. We're on approach to Ozzmar now," she said breezily, her voice carrying her years of experience. "Keep your seismics running at all times, and all weapons spun to full readiness. We'll run the rest of this sweep by the numbers. Boxley, take Saguaro and Hwang, and sweep through east. If you've got unblocked streets sweep as deep as you can, but I'm not looking for any stunt flying today, understood?"

"Yes, ma'am, we'll keep our tails to the dirt," Sergeant Boxley answered and she could hear the grin in the man's voice.

"Kalashnik, Amberside, you're with me," Kaydie continued. "We'll take the west swing. Stay safe, sailors – Brackenshaw out."

The decking below her feet rumbled as the pilot adjusted their heading, and on the display she saw the six dots peeling off into their allocated groups as they closed in on the outskirts of the town. Gentle pulses rippled across the cobalt image of their surroundings as the skiff's built in seismic sensors constantly hunted for any sign of Scraegan movement in their surroundings.

The lack of any enemy presence this close to town made the hairs on the back of Kaydie's neck stand up with unease. She would have expected to detect some sign of their foe, even distantly, but for kilometres around they badlands remained undisturbed. Perhaps the carnage wrought at the battle for Brekka had hampered the Scraegan ability to patrol their territory.

Speculation, however, was useless at this juncture. The six skiffs swooped in on the town and with practised precision began their sweeps. Mounted cameras on the bow and flanks whirred into life, capturing every inch of the devastation to be reported back to their superiors. The ruined buildings climbed up around them and charred corpses of vehicles still clogged up sections of the road.

The powerful lifter engines of the Scout Cadre skiffs could circumvent these obstacles, temporarily boosting to elevate them over blocked sections and weaving the vehicles nimbly through the aftermath of the battle. Even with their manoeuvrability Kaydie still felt vulnerable in these narrow streets. So far there was no sign of life, but every bone in her body told her they were not along.

"Hynan, anything up front?" Kaydie asked quietly.

"Not a whisper, Sarge," he replied, though he sounded just as dubious about the apparent calm as she did. "Think they've left this place to the badlands?"

"I wouldn't count on it – stay clear up there." She bit her lip, shaking her head and looking at Locke. "I don't like it."

"They might have abandoned the place." The other woman shrugged. "What's here for them to hold?"

"The ground. They hit Ozzmar because they knew this territory was valuable." Kaydie frowned. "I don't think they'd let us just stroll back in – not without a fight."

"So what do we do?"

"Sweep the outskirts, but we're not going deeper. Too risky."

"Sarge, they'd have had to be waiting for us for... Everflowing, they'd have had to be motionless since we left Crescentscar – that was hours ago!"

"We've underestimated them before," Kaydie said. "I'm not putting all our lives on the line for a recon pass." She widened her band to the other group of skiffs at the opposite side of town. "Boxley, it's too quiet out here. Keep your sweep to the outer streets and meet us at the south gate. Do not move into the centre of town."

"Copy that, ma'am."

They passed the main avenues that would have guided them into the town centre, where the larger structures and looming power plants waited. If she'd wanted to ambush someone, she would have done it there. The trio of skiffs flew onwards, ignoring the enticing open space of the broader street. She watched the display suspiciously as they continued on through the empty outer roadways. This all felt too easy. Kaydie knew from bitter experience that the Scraegans never made things easy.

She was abruptly proven right when the surrounding buildings exploded.

The blue hellfire of furnace cannon shots ruptured the ruins all around them, showering the skiffs with chunks of masonry. Dull clangs echoed through the interior compartment as the armour rode the impacts and Kaydie was hurled into the wall as the pilot executed a hard turn. An explosion rocked the skiff, tipping it forward before the lifter engines compensated to level them out.

Two friendly indicators winked out of existence on the display.

"Come about, hard starboard!" Kaydie screamed over the clamour of surprise as she hauled herself upright. Grabbing the edge of the display table for balance she looked over it and instantly assessed their situation, her battle-hardened mind flying into gear. Amberside's skiff was gone.

She widened her band. "Kalashnik, close formation on my lead, all gunners prepped for a broadside pass, now!"

Their vehicle lurched violently as the pilot performed a savage turn that made the chassis groan under the force. She instinctively widened her stance and shifted her weight to compensate for the manoeuvre, years of training and experience kicking in as she continued barking orders.

"Boxley, we have been engaged – multiple hostiles in the ruins! Give me a status report!"

"Copy that!" Boxley shouted back and she heart the rattle of rifle fire in the background of his comm. "Drown me, the bastards were waiting here this whole time! Saguaro's gone and we're bleeding stabiliser fluid."

"Get out the buildings, rendezvous at the south gate," she ordered as she bolted up the stairway, readying her rifle as she went. "We'll meet you there!"

She burst out onto the deck and into the searing wind, her goggles quickly overlaying the HUD display with target indicators all around them. Darting to the reinforced firing rail, she locked her rifle into one of the V-shaped rifle supports and took aim.

Off to their left Amberside's skiff lay broken in half, having taken a direct hit in its centre from a close range furnace cannon blast. Bodies lay all around and flames licked at the wreckage. A handful of survivors frantically tried to traverse the rear-mounted cannon, but another blast of searing blue smashed into the stationary target, igniting the ammo cache in a thunderous explosion that tossed both men and machines in all directions.

"Volley on me!" Kaydie roared as her skiff pivoted and she trained her cross hairs on the Scraegans emerging from ruins. They shook off piles of rubble, having buried themselves and remained utterly still to avoid the seismics. She wondered just how long they had waited there?

The other soldiers on the decking rushed to join her at the firing rail, forming a line along the other starboard firing locks with their rifles aimed at the emerging Scraegan pack. A quick glance left and right and she could see her troops were in position.

"FIRE!"

Thumping volleys of anti-armour rounds streaked from the Scout Cadre rifles, peppering the huge shaggy forms in the dust. The skiff's two mounted cannon emplacements swivelled to add their weight to the salvo, barrels alternating back and forth with muffled bangs as they pumped shot after shot into their attackers. Scraegans twisted and roared, scrambling for cover as the shots struck home. They were unlikely to score any kills with these swift volleys, but right now Kaydie was only concerned with getting her flight out of here alive.

They'd gotten the intelligence they needed. The Scraegans were here in force.

"Sarge, sesimics are going crazy! Multiple Scraegan packs closing on Ozzmar from all directions," Locke shouted. "How in the Everflowing did they know we were coming?"

"We'll worry about that later," Kaydie snapped, squeezing the trigger and firing another shot. The stock of the rifle jammed back against her shoulder pad, and her shot gouged the skull of a Scraegan taking aim with its cannon. The creature's massively thick skull prevented the shell from penetrating to its brain, but it still gashed its brow, causing the Scraegan to stumble, tossing its head with a roar of pain.

The fierce retaliation from the skiff gunners kept the Scraegans from encircling them, and with Kalashnik's platoon close behind they accelerated through the street with furnace cannon shots tearing at their heels. They twisted and turned violently through the outskirts of Ozzmar, dodging small groups of Scraegans that tried to head them off. Rifle and rail gun fire filled the air, the Scout Cadre soldiers pouring out torrents of fire to keep the way clear.

The platoon didn't carry enough ammunition to keep this kind of fire up for long – the Scout units were not designed to engage in protracted battles. Kaydie knew they needed to concentrate all their fire in one hammer-blow to break out of this trap.

Ozzmar was not a big place for the skiffs to traverse, and soon remains of the southern gates came into view. Kaydie snapped off another shot at a group five Scraegans lumbering through the ruins parallel to them before she caught sight of Boxley's flight sweeping in from the opposite direction. The lead skiff was belching smoke and wobbling unsteadily, the pilot battling to keep it moving in a straight line. The four surviving vehicles grouped up and emerged from the town, finally hitting the flatlands to the south. However, she could already see the hulking shadows of the approaching Scraegan force that encircled them. The net was tightening fast.

"Locke," she barked. "Get me a bearing. Find the thinnest bit of this net and we'll hit it with everything we've got."

"Copy that." There was a pause that sent Kaydie's heart thumping as she fired again. "Okay, Sarge, I've got you a target, bearing 162º. One pack covering that area and they're strung out. Hit 'em hard and we should be able to blow through."

"Much obliged, Corporal." She gritted her teeth, shot another armour piercing slug at the encircling Scraegans and tapped her earpiece. "Boxley, you and Hwang lock onto my bearing, get in behind us and prep seismic charges for deployment." She unhitched her rifle and moved towards the front of the skiff, finding a fresh firing support and locking into place. "We'll run interference. Give me a corridor."

"Yes, ma'am, launchers loaded and ready!"

"Alright, all eyes forward!" Kaydie bellowed at the top of her lungs. "When you find targets in our way I want you to empty your mags – everything you've got!"

A roar of acknowledgement echoed from the other soldiers on the top deck as they scrambled to reposition. The twin cannons traversed to aim forward, angled over the heads of their comrades. The four skiffs piled on speed, chained to the bearing Locke had provided. As they drew within range Kaydie could see the weak link in the Scraegan trap – too much space and not enough bodies to fill it. Blue light swelled in the churning dust as their enemies prepared to fire.

"INCOMING!" Hynan yelled out a warning from the armoured cupola at the prow. The skiffs slewed wildly as bolts came screaming out of the badlands towards them.

Then they started shooting back, the two leading skiffs pouring fire at a trio of Scraegan warriors trying to bar their path. As the brutish creatures were driven backwards, she heard the deep thunk-thunk-thunk of the launchers from the skiffs behind them.

The charges arced high over head, landing in neat rows to their left and right, spinning furiously and using their toothed edges to burrow into the ground. Normally they were used to force underground Scraegan packs to the surface with massive seismic blasts, but in a pinch it would keep the elements of the Scraegan force on their flanks from slamming shut on them. Huge geysers of pulverised rock exploded to the left and right of the skiffs, showering the deck with debris and obscuring everything around in scorching dust cloud.

Still travelling at full tilt, the skiffs raced through and burst into the clear air beyond, leaving their pursuers far behind. Kaydie unlatched her rifle and sprinted the length of the main deck, skidding to a half at the aft firing rail and looking through her scope. Scraegan forms were fast shrinking, their frustrated, animal roars rising into the burnt air.

A handful of hopeful furnace-cannon shots shrieked after them, but at extreme range the nimble vehicles of the Scout Cadre had no trouble weaving out of the firing line. Engines flared, kicking up great trails of superheated dust and sand as the surviving skiffs made a hasty retreat.

Brackenshaw finally let her grip loosen, letting the rifle rest on the firing notch as the Scraegans receded into the distance. Her shoulders slumped and she exhaled the breath she'd been holding. They'd lost two skiffs and forty valiant souls, but they had their intel. Her hands shook with adrenaline and she slapped them down hard against the firing rail, trying to gather her thoughts.

"Looks like we're clear," Corporal Locke said, unable to hide the tremor of relief in her voice. "Orders, Sergeant?"

"Set a bearing for Brekka, straight and true," Kaydie replied, not taking her eyes off of the dark smear of Ozzmar's ruins on the horizon. "We've got a report to make, and I don't think the brass are going to like it."