By late afternoon, Ryke and his companions escorted the ragged band of survivors from Ozzmar back to the forward command base. The twin-suns of Rychter hung low and grim on the crimson-smeared horizon, and they could finally count the cost of the attack on Ozzmar.

Medics swarmed them as they arrived. Men and women spilled off of the hulls of tanks and crawlers to be led – and in some cases stretchered – away to the trauma tents in the forward base. Ryke reluctantly allowed them to take Ivy to have her wounds tended to. At first she didn't want to go, clinging to the bulk of his Hunter-Killer as though it was the only thing keeping her alive. He hated seeing her like this. Ivy was a tough girl, but whatever she'd seen had shaken her to her bones. Eventually she let the medics guide her away, eyes downcast as she joined the column of wounded.

The original garrison had consisted of six Scout Cadre skiffs, a full armoured brigade of twenty vehicles, over a hundred militia soldiers and eight Hunter-Killers awaiting reorganisation into new squads. Barely a quarter of that force had survived, not to mention the casualties among the supporting units of technicians, engineers, porters and medical staff.

Ryke felt a fresh fury grinding inside him as he led the way to the Hunter-Killer bays. The damaged tanks and crawlers peeled away as they moved through the base, directed by Engineering Cadre specialists as they dragged themselves along on battered wheels and broken treads. The Hunter-Killers continued on to their cradles, and the pilots who'd survived Ozzmar spilled out of their battle-scarred machines like rag dolls.

When Scantlin clambered free of his Raptor mech, Ryke was there to meet him. Dark-skinned and with a short, shock of dreadlocks bunched behind his head, the Raptor pilot had bulked out considerably since they'd first joined the Hunter-Killers, his wiry frame now packed with muscle. His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion and he sagged down wearily into a sitting position on the steps leading down from the cockpit.

He winced; exhaled through gritted teeth. Ryke saw, to his amazement, that there was still a spidery medical brace wrapped around the upper right of the other pilot's torso. Lights blinked. That mechanism would have interfered with Scantlin's link skin interfacing with the Hunter-Killer properly. Ryke was amazed that his comrade had managed to pilot the machine at all. The other pilots from HK-Rupture drew in around them as though pulled by gravity towards their injured comrade.

"Way to survive," Ryke said quietly, lowering himself into a crouch to look his pilot in the eye. "You hanging in there?"

"Just about," Scantlin replied, his voice tight with pain.

"You must've piloted this thing with one arm." He gestured to the brace around Scantlin's collar bone.

The Raptor pilot grinned through his obvious pain. "Noticed that, did you? Yeah, not something I want to repeat in a hurry."

"Good to have you here in one piece," Thaye told him. "Have you met Ricardo here? He's stepping in your shoes right now."

The rookie pilot shifted awkwardly, looked at the floor.

"How's he holding up?" Scantlin asked, turning his gaze on the young man.

Preese clapped Ricardo on the back with a smirk. "He's doing just fine."

"Glad to hear it. Keep sharp out there. Haunter'll keep you right."

"Yes, sir." Ricardo managed a nervous smile at that, throwing the injured pilot a lazy salute.

"Clear a path!" Another voice shouted suddenly, carving through the ranks of the assembled Hunter-Killers.

Ryke whirled to find a woman in the cyan livery of the Medical Cadre advancing with furious purpose towards them. She waved the pilots impatiently aside, twisting and weaving through them until she reached Scantlin.

"Alright, soldier," she said brusquely. "Let's get you to the medical centre. Can you walk?"

"Yeah I can walk." Scantlin straightened up, eyeing her dubiously.

She swept and arm behind her. "Then let's make tracks. Piloting a damn Hunter-Killer with a brace wrapped around you – you River damming cowboys need to look before you leap sometimes."

"I'm feeling fine, doc."

"Let's see if you still feel that way once we find the nerve damage you've probably caused."

"Ease down," Ryke snapped, glaring at the medic. "He's been through enough without you chewing him to pieces. There weren't a whole lot of options."

The medic's expression softened. Slightly. "Maybe not, but it won't matter if he's done more harm than good by trying to pilot that thing with another piece of tech strapped to him. Those systems are not designed to mesh!"

"I know that."

"Look, doc, thanks for your concern," Scantlin grunted. "But we've got bigger problems."

"You need to come with me, pilot."

"I need to make my report." He waved her away dismissively and walked away, leaving the medic open-mouthed. Ryke spun around to follow him.

"Scantlin?" he asked quietly, pulling level. "You sure about this? We can wait; get you checked out."

"I don't want to wait. I don't know what in the Everflowing is going on out there, but I've never seen anything like it." He glanced around, peering at the bustle of survivors, looking for someone. "We don't have time to waste, I promise you that."

Ryke exchanged a worried glance with Preese. His second-in-command shrugged. Ryke sighed; placed a hand to his earpiece.

"Lockjaw – SC-21, come in?"

"Reading you, Vannigan," Brackenshaw answered. "We're nearly finished getting the wounded off to the medical centres. Once everyone's been checked out and gotten some rest we'll pull the seniors in for a debrief tomorrow morning."

"Actually, ma'am," Ryke looked at Scantlin in resignation, "I think you'd better call that meeting right now. I've got Pilot El Vahari with me and he's pretty adamant that we need to get the full story sooner rather than later. You copy?"

There was a brief pause as Brackenshaw weighed up the proposal.

"Alright, copy that, Lockjaw," she agreed. "I'll see who I can round up from the garrison. Meet me at central command, western entrance. Brackenshaw out."

Ryke turned to the rest of HK-Rupture. "All of you, get yourselves something to eat and catch some R&R while you can. Something tells me it won't be long before we're heading back out there. Go!"

"You heard him," Preese said, motioning the others to follow. "Shake yourselves down, people."

Scantlin looked at him with something approaching desperation. "What about me?"

"You have some story-telling to do." He beckoned the injured pilot. "Come on."

With Scantlin by his side, Ryke set off through the thronging outskirts of the command base, and together they spilled out of the vehicle bays and out onto the open concourse. Ahead of them the central tower of the forward command base reared up against the darkening sky, with four squat buildings jutting out at right angles from its base to form a cross shape. Armouries, briefing rooms and communication hubs filled those makeshift, armoured structures; a support structure for the beating heart of the human army.

They found Brackenshaw and two other soldiers already waiting for them outside the building's western entrance. A female corporal from the militia contingent leaned wearily against the reinforced door frame alongside a man in the uniform of a tank commander from Helloc Mera; the most senior members of the garrison still alive.

Another figure in jet black infantry armour stood with them, his attire marking him out as one of Brekka's combat support specialists – a nebulous and sometimes shady arm of the Brekkan military that encompassed everything from intelligence, to battlefield coordination, to infiltration. He was a tall, flat-featured man with freckled bronze skin, dark hair, and a bulky sidearm clamped to one hip. As they approached his snapped towards them like a turret locking onto its target.

"Sergeant Vannigan?"

Ryke nodded and instinctively saluted, sensing this soldier outranked him by a considerable degree.

"All of you, follow me," the man said.

No-one said a word as they fell into step behind him.

Two guards met them inside the western entrance, leading the way through the warren of the command base. All around them in the narrow passages support officers moved with fervent energy, striding back and forth, consulting data slates and chattering into radios as they went. Command announcements blared from speakers embedded into the armoured walls at regular intervals.

They were led to a small, satellite briefing room situated just off the base of the main tower. The chamber was maybe ten feet square, dominated by a circular table and a large screen sitting dormant against the far wall. Inside they found Colonel Harcourt's female adjutant who he vaguely remembered from their encounter back at the Stamm Basin detention centre, along with Colonel Hackley and two more soldiers – a man and a woman – in the jet-black livery of Brekka's combat support specialists.

"General Llewellyn and Colonel Harcourt are still attempting to disengage our forces from the main battle line," Hackley said without preamble. "They'll be relayed any information they need in due course. In the meantime, take a seat."

The five newcomers slid awkwardly into the chairs arrayed in front of Colonel Hackley and her entourage. The specialist who'd led them here ghosted back out of the room and the door clanged shut behind them. Only the bulbous ceiling lights offered any illumination for the windowless cubicle. Ryke couldn't stop his eyes from flickering nervously to the two specialists. They barely seemed to be breathing.

"First, I'd like to thank the three of you for giving us your after-action report on such short notice," Hackley continued, nodding to each of them in turn. "I know you've been through a lot."

"Ma'am," Scantlin piped up. "If it's all the same to you, I think we'd like to get this done." The other survivors from Ozzmar nodded their agreement. Ryke stiffened, not sure how Hackley would react to the other pilot's informal attitude, but she merely smiled; nodded.

"We received the disaster call at 0950," Harcourt's adjutant interjected, leaning forward. She was slim, coppery hair clipped short above her pale, severe features. Her crimson Rubicon uniform was irritatingly spotless. "From then on we received no communication from your garrison. What happened?"

"We were attacked," Scantlin replied. "Though, I guess you already knew that. But it wasn't the Scraegans."

The assembled officers didn't bat an eye and Ryke tensed. Knowledge of the creature they'd found under the Scraegan warren had yet to be shared widely among the human forces. The commanders had barely had time to get their heads around it, let along figure out how to disseminate that information in the middle of an all-out offensive against the heavily defended Scraegan lines.

He suspected that Scantlin wouldn't be terribly understanding of that fact.

"Then what was it?" one of the specialists asked; his voice like silk.

A frown split the other pilot's face but the tank commander from the garrison couldn't contain himself any longer.

"They were demons," he blurted. "I've never seen anything like them! No-one has. There's no prayer, sermon, song or book that has ever talked about what we saw at Ozzmar."

"Calm down, commander," Hackley said, raising a hand and shooting the specialist a disapproving glance. "What you are about to see is not common knowledge. Do you understand?"

"You know," Scantlin breathed. "You know what they are?"

"I wouldn't go that far, but we have encountered them recently," she replied, inclining her head to him. Then she slipped a remote from her jacket pocket and aimed it back over her shoulder. "Tell me, is this what attacked you?"

She pressed the central button on the remote.

The screen flared to life showing a still that Ryke recognised all too well. He pressed back into his seat without thinking as he stared at it. The shot had been lifted from his combat camera footage, right before the monster from the depths had rammed him back into the cavern wall. The image gave a frightening close up of the arthropod's head.

"Pissing Rivers..."

"You already knew about these things and you didn't tell anyone!" the militia corporal exploded. She half-rose from her chair but Brackenshaw grabbed her by the arm and tugged her back down sharply into her seat. The woman stared wide-eyed in disbelief. "Why... why wouldn't you-?"

"We know almost nothing about them, but this creature was encountered by Sergeant Vannigan's squadron three days ago, in a Scraegan warren." She put the remote down and leaned back in her seat, her lips pressed tightly together.

"We're still assessing the threat," the other specialist interjected, her fingers drumming lightly on the table in front of her. "We need you to run us through the attack; how they were able to get to Ozzmar without being detected and knock out your communications rig."

"None of our seismics were triggered," Scantlin snapped, turning a furious glare on her. Ryke could see the pilot's fingers digging into his thighs under the table as he continued. "If you want to know how, I'm afraid I can't help. That's what you blackwaters are for. Though I think I can assess the threat for you. It's really, really bad."

"Scantlin," Ryke said, speaking quietly but firmly. "Easy."

"Easy?" Scantlin looked at him aghast. "Boss, they ripped that town to pieces!"

"We never had a chance," the tank commander confirmed, managing to keep his voice level, if a little shaky. "One minute we're alone out there, the next, these things came up out of the ground all around us. Smashed the comms rig to pieces in the first attack. We only just got the disaster signal off."

"They targeted it?"

"I don't think so. They just ripped the basecamp apart from the inside out. I think it was just blind luck."

"Some luck," the militia corporal muttered, sagging back into her seat with her arms folded.

"There's not too much to tell after that," Scantlin continued. "You've seen them – you know what they can do. Armour piercing rounds barely slowed them down. Some of us-," he gestured to the other officers, "managed to gather together what was left of the garrison to the north of the base and break out."

"You abandoned Ozzmar?" Harcourt's adjutant enquired.

"It was that or die. Then you'd have no-one to tell you such a nice little story to help you sleep at night."

The woman bristled at that, but one look from Hackley stopped her from pulling Scantlin up on his insubordination. Instead the Scout Colonel took the lead once more.

"Approximately how many of these things attacked you?" she asked calmly.

Scantlin shrugged. "It's hard to say. They were blasting in and out of the ground, through the buildings. Maybe fifteen or twenty?"

"That's all?"

"They caught us right up the River. Half the garrison was ripped to pieces before we even had a chance to fight back."

"I'm not judging you, soldier," Hackley told him. "I'm just trying to get a sense of what these things can do, and how many of them there are. We're still flailing in the dark here. We knew they were tough, but we didn't know they could be so far north already. With them striking Ozzmar the entire western flank of the army is exposed."

"Not to mention the other towns further north," Ryke pointed out. "We only left skeleton garrisons behind. Riverlords, even Brekka has barely a third of its normal defences and we have no way of tracking these things."

"I believe that's our headache," the male specialist said. He more intrigued than anything else, like he relished the challenge. Ryke couldn't decide if that was a helpful attitude or a spitting on the grave of the people the creatures had already massacred.

"So where did these things come from?" Scantlin demanded. "If the Scraegans have had these things leashed why wait until now to let them loose?"

"They don't work for the Scraegans," Brackenshaw explained. "When we found them they were killing each other."

"Oh. Well... I guess that's something."

"Thank the Riverlords of small mercies, eh?" Colonel Hackley glanced left and right to her companions. They all gave small nods, assenting to whatever unspoken request had been made. The scout commander turned back to them.

"The three of you are dismissed. Get checked out at the medical centre and then get some rest. You've earned it. Do not reveal what we discussed in this room until the information is passed through official channels. Is that clear?"

The trio of survivors stood; saluted. Chorused a less-than-enthusiastic "Yes, ma'am." Ryke watched Scantlin shuffle from the room, frustration digging at him. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and exhaled, long and slow as he sank down into his seat.

"Well, this is some mess we've waded into," Brackenshaw grunted. "What now?"

"Now?" Hackley's face was grim as she stood up. "Now I tell General Llewellyn that we have a very big problem."