Ryke never thought he'd miss the rough-hewn passages of the Scraegan warrens, but right now, trudging down this eerily angular hall, he longed for the simplicity of those tunnels. Every smooth surface and every right angle reminded him that something had put the Crawlers down here; not humans, and certainly not Scraegans.

These were solid walls, built by someone or something uncounted years ago. Who knew how long the Crawlers had been down here? Hundreds of years at least – long enough to predate the arrival of Rychter's human colonists. Who? And more importantly why?

He tried to stop thinking about it; a mystery for another day. Right now they had enough problems to take care of.

The Dreadnoughts and Scraegan elites led the way through the gently curving, cuboid tunnel that widened meter by meter as they dropped. On the thick walls he could see dozens, maybe hundreds of scratch marks, characteristic of the Crawler limbs and tails. Most were long faded with age.

"No digging through this," the pilot going by Typhoon muttered. "Looks like a big prison, Reaver."

"If it's a prison, where are the guards?" Thaye interjected.

"More like where are the inmates?" Ryke said. "Haven't seen a Crawler for a while."

"They'll be waiting, Lockjaw, don't you worry," Colonel De Lunta replied wryly. "Seismics show a chamber opening out a few hundred yards further down the passage. It's a big one."

As if in response to De Lunta's words, the Scraegan Alpha let out a low, undulating growl that echoed through the passage, and was soon taken up by the entourage of black-armoured hunters. The noise swelled until Ryke could feel the vibrations in the structure of his Hunter-Killer.

When it died away, it was soon replaced by an answering hell-chorus of Crawler hissing that roiled up towards them in a wave. He tensed, instinctively leaning his Dreadnought forward, squaring his shoulders in preparation for what they were about to meet. After weeks and weeks of bloody fighting, tearing their way south, bludgeoning a path unwittingly into another war, this was where they could end things.

If things worked out, they might even end two wars at once.

"Combat groupings," De Lunta said, his voice calm as the noise swelled. "Stick to the plan. Whatever's down there, we are going to cut a path to the centre of that chamber. Asset One, stay close and we'll get you where you need to go."

"Copy that, Reaver," answered the Engineering Cadre lieutenant who had the unenviable task of guiding the bomb to its location. Her voice betrayed her understandable nervousness as she continued. "Payload is secure and our armour integrity is at 84 percent. All gunnery positions manned and ready."

"All right then. On my lead, everyone. Let's finish this."

The human force rounded a final curve in the flat-walled tunnel, and found a gaping entranceway waiting for them. Vast columns of solid rock rose symmetrically to either side of them, too perfect and cylindrical to have been natural formations. They stretched away to the left and right, supporting a curved ceiling hewn right into the stone. Huge supporting spars of something that looked like metal spider-webbed out from the centre of the roof, holding a million tons of badlands stone above their heads. Great etchings that Ryke couldn't begin to decipher covered the pillars, and their path sloped down into a huge, flat plateau.

A plateau teeming with Crawlers.

Flares from the Scout Cadre skiffs arced gracefully overhead, to reveal a thick mass of armoured bodies that bristled in serried ranks, blocking their path as far as Ryke could see. Some of these Crawlers were larger, with dark, mottled carapaces that were scarred and pitted with age. The old guard, he wondered absently, some equivalent of a veteran soldier – things that had been alive for Riverlords-knew how long.

He was suddenly aware of the human and Scraegan force packing in behind the front line of Dreadnoughts and hunters. His HUD lit up like a fireworks display with friend and foe signatures as the mech's enhanced optics frantically picked out individual signatures on the gloom. There were hundreds of Crawlers jammed into this chamber.

Ryke edged forward with the rest of the Dreadnoughts, spreading into a skirmish line, with the Scraegan Alpha moving its troops to fill in the empty spaces between them. A strange tension crackled in the air, as though neither side wanted to make the first decisive move. Crawlers in the front rank hissed and stamped their forelegs, but did not move. Tanks rumbled into bombardment formation further up the slope; infantry gunners spilled out of their transports to take up staggered positions and scout skiffs glided dangerously forward, decks bristling with gunners.

Suddenly, his comm system crackled with a sound like nothing he'd ever heard before. It was almost like two giant rusted gears grinding together, but low like a roll of thunder. The strange noise rumbled through the emptiness of the chamber at a volume that had soldiers clamping hands over the sides of their helmets. His HUD showed that whatever it was had rang out at over 160 decibels. He winced, feeling his muscles coil with unease as he scanned the battlefield.

Then, at the back of the cavern, he saw something move.

Something huge.

Ryke didn't mind admitting that he'd been scared plenty of times before. He still remembered the raw, unbridled terror of seeing a Scraegan for the first time; still remembered the first time he'd taken a Hunter-Killer into battle. He remembered confronting the Scraegan priest; coming face to face with an Alpha. Remembered the first time he'd seen a Crawler.

None of it quite compared to this.

His eyes went wide as he stared at the creature that ascended out of the shadows. The thing's mass loomed larger and larger as it rose from its position at the back of the cavern. Limbs like great columns of rock unfolded from a vast, knobbled carapace, and a three-pronged tail as long as a truck unfurled. Deep thuds shook the ground as it turned, drawing up to its full height.

It was easily four or five times the size of a normal Crawler, with the same ovoid body, but a forest of legs bristling out to either side. Its head was different, set further back on top of the armoured carapace, and grotesquely bulbous. Multiple jaws clacked and hissed beneath an armoured shell of bone, a dozen sickly, white eyes swivelling and shining in the dark. All around it, spreading out in concentric rings, were the ovular lumps of Crawler eggs – some broken open, some fresh.

The creature manoeuvred its colossal mass forward to loom protectively over the eggs. Those gross, white eyes scanned the cavern and another grinding shriek echoed out towards the interlopers who had dared enter its sanctuary.

A Crawler queen. The queen, he had to assume. Ryke exhaled a slow breath, trying to get to grips with what he was looking at. All around them the Hunter-Killers stood transfixed; gunners looked up from sights in shock. Even the Scraegans could only stand, their natural ferocity muted by the sheer scale of what they were facing down.

"Pissing Rivers," Thaye sneered over the wide-band, sounding more disgusted than surprised. "That ugly bitch isn't winning any beauty contests, that's for damn sure."

And with that one, brazen remark, the sense of fear and awe shattered. Ryke allowed a smile to flicker across his face as a cascade of competing insults shot back and forth over the comms. The whole demeanour of the task force twisted on a dime. The Dreadnoughts edged forward, like wild animals on a leash. Faces among the soldiers hardened and they took aim again.

"All units, prepare to advance. Let's drown these bastards," De Lunta said matter-of-factly over the wideband. "Reaver – AC-1, care to do the honours?"

"Yes, sir!" Vanyr growled. "All batteries, let's show them how northern steel tastes." There was a brief pause; turrets traversed to find fresh firing solutions. "OPEN FIRE!"

Vanyr's blade-sharp roar was answered by a vengeful storm as the gunners of the northern elite unleashed their fury. A rain of shells went scything down into the Crawler ranks, shattering bodies and blasting craters in the pristine, flat surface of the plateau. Hot on their heels came volleys from the Scout Cadre and infantry support units, pumping armour piercing shells into the Crawlers.

The queen let out another shriek and the creatures surged forwards in a living tide of bodies. The cavern was filled with the cacophony of battering feet on stone, and the boom of gunfire. Then the Scraegan warriors opened up, furnace cannon shots lashing into the thick wall of Crawlers to melt armour and boil bodies.

De Lunta waited until the last possible moment. When the Crawlers were barely fifty yards away he finally gave the order.

"Weapons free!" he bellowed, his voice ripping across the comms and thundering out over the battlefield from his mech's speakers. "HK-Predator, engage!"

The Dreadnoughts exploded forward, and the Scraegans moved with them. They didn't need to understand the human language to know what De Lunta's words had meant. Both groups met the Crawler masses head on, and the killing began.

Ryke's fist shook as he crushed one warblade into the skull of a Crawler, driving forward with the powerful leg pistons and blasting at a second creature with his free hand shock cannon. He twisted, throwing the impaled creature off balance and shooting it in the underside, before reloading, fresh shells feeding into the shock cannons from armoured ammo loaders in the arms.

Thaye rumbled past him, her Dreadnought moving with deadly momentum as she spun into the next two Crawlers like a cyclone. Backlash rounds tore through bodies as she whirled, before severing a thick limb with a hack of one blade. Milica followed her in, lowering his shoulder to barge another enemy out of their path. Ryke spun himself to tail his companions and take the next Crawler in line. In a three, they leapfrogged each other, butchering their way deep into the enemy ranks.

Shells from Vanyr's armour continued to scream overhead, now concentrating on thinning the Crawler mass directly ahead of HK-Predator, and their precious payload. The armoured bomb truck rumbled long in their wake, fire spitting from its roof cannons at stray Crawlers that slipped through the melee. The mechs of HK-Grendel waited for them, along with the Scout Cadre troops. Bodies and machines were sacrificed to keep their deadly package moving.

The Crawler queen loomed ever larger, still screaming defiantly. It began to edge forward, lowering its titanic mass to guard the eggs beneath. Tank shells thunked harmlessly off its carapace, furnace cannon blasts leaving little more than black scorch marks against the thing's ancient hide.

"Reaver – AC-1," De Lunta shouted as he blew open the flank of yet another Crawler. "Bring a detachment down to support Asset One. Need additional protection."

"On our way," Vanyr snapped back. "Marcellus, Fentler, Bradden, form up on my flank – assault speed!"

Ryke glanced at the HUD. Like a stiletto HK-Predator and their Scraegan allies had driven deep, but the Crawler mass was now pressing on their thin wedge from all sides. He felt like he could keep killing forever, but they had a bomb to protect. Get too far ahead, and they could lose the very thing they'd come here to deploy.

Four battle tanks led by Vanyr came thundering into the fray to bolster the remnants of HK-Grendel, cannons blasting as they charged. One Crawler was crushed beneath the command tank as Vanyr's driver used the sheer mass of the vehicle as a weapon. Another disappeared in a blaze of grey blood as shells ripped it to pieces.

Then the whole plateau shuddered ominously.

"What in the Everflowing was that?!" Thaye yelped, tottering backwards before regaining her balance, using the forward momentum as she righted herself to smash a headbutt into the Crawler in front of her. It collapsed with a buckled carapace, legs on its left side flopping limply.

"Drown me, the whole surface is unstable!" yelled the pilot, Camper. "The shelling and the extra weight-," he was cut off by a sudden grinding sound. Something cracked with shocking loudness and Ryke swivelled to look.

He saw a whole section of the plateau on their right flank simply implode. Dozens of Crawlers, two Dreadnought mechs and a Scraegan vanished in a crash of breaking stone, tumbling into darkness below. A third Dreadnought leapt clear, smashing down onto the ragged edge where the stone had given in, warblade driven deep. One of the Scraegan hunters grabbed the mech by its shoulders, dragging the Hunter-Killer to safety.

"Shit," Thaye muttered. "We better pick up the pace!"

"Double time!" De Lunta roared. "All support batteries, target the queen. If we destabilise this thing any more we'll all go under! Everybody else, push forward – we're almost at the target location. Asset One – stay on mission!"

Ryke tried to follow De Lunta into the crush, but their formation was breaking up. There were just too many Crawlers. They'd killed scores of them already, but sheer weight of numbers started to break the human force into small pockets. The rudimentary brains of the arthropods seemed to have recognised the bomb carrier as some kind of threat, and more and more of them were driving towards it.

With Thaye and Milica fighting along in his wake, he desperately blasted his way towards the thinning human column. Another Dreadnought went down, blind-sided by a large, dark Crawler; one of Vanyr's tanks toppled into another fissure as the plateau began to break open even further from the immense forces being exerted on it.

A lurid orange lit up the battlefield as more breaks erupted, and temperatures in the cavern began to rise wildly. Ryke realised with a jolt that somewhere beneath them was a lot of very active magma.

"Asset One to all units!" screamed the lieutenant. "Crawler tore up one of our track sections – we've been immobilized. We need immediate support!"

"Lockjaw – Asset One, we're close to your position!" Ryke shouted back, wheeling in the direction of the bomb carrier. "We're en route!"

"Cobra here," shouted a female Dreadnought pilot. "On our way!"

When he got there, Ryke found the armoured barrel surrounded by several Crawlers – several more dead ones. Three remaining mechs from HK-Grendel battled valiantly alongside the dregs of the other support units that had been shepherding the atomic mine to its final resting place. The trio let by Cobra came barrelling free of the crush from the opposite side. He could just about see Colonel De Lunta up ahead, still massacring Crawlers with every movement.

"Clear this out!" he roared, racing forward into the melee. "Get them off the truck – now!"

He severed the tail of one Crawler, blew open the skull of another, then grabbed a third that was scrabbling towards the armoured truck, heaving it backwards and throwing all forty tons of the creature bodily away. Thaye's shock cannons blew it open when it landed.

"Lockjaw, I'm caught!" Milica yelped, causing Ryke to spin back. To his horror, he found one of the huge, dark Crawlers bearing Milica's Dreadnought backwards to the ground.

"Covering!" he yelled desperately, but a sick feeling settled in his stomach when he realised he was already too late.

A shock cannon blast removed one of the monster's limbs, but it wasn't enough. The Crawler reared up with a scream of fury and brought its whole body weight slamming down on the front of Milica's mech, the undermaw tearing into the thick armour.

The front armour of Milica's Hunter-Killer finally imploded under the strain, even as he raked both superheated warblades across the Crawler's hide to carve it open. A coughing gasp came over the comm as the huge arthropod collapsed on top of him, caving in the Dreadnought's mid-section and crushing the pilot in the blink of an eye.

Rage seethed in Ryke's mind and he raced forward, shock cannons blazing as he blew the thing's carapace completely open. He reloaded; fired again. The old Crawler sagged dead on top of his comrade, its body a riddled, shattered mess of broken exoskeleton pieces and thick sludgy innards.

"Ryke!" Thaye gasped. "The bomb – c'mon!"

"Secure the package!" De Lunta howled angrily. "Get that thing moving again!"

More Crawlers flooded towards them, dying in droves but still flinging themselves mindlessly into the crush. Another tank was torn open by a quartet of shrieking arthropods; HK-Grendel were reduced to just two when another mech was ripped to pieces. Ryke and Thaye moved to link up with the trio of other Dreadnoughts to form a protective ring around the truck.

"AC-1 – Reaver," Vanyr shouted, her voice hoarse from hollering orders. "The truck's rear track sections are shot to shit, but I think I can still push it into position."

"Then do it," De Lunta replied without a thought. "We'll make you some space."

"Copy that!"

Brigadier Vanyr's lonely command tank trundled into position, jamming its sloped front armour against the rear of the truck. Its engine thundered in the dark and after a few seconds they began to ease the stricken vehicle forward.

"Cobra, Lockjaw, Havoc, Lash, Blockade – run interference. Keep that bomb safe!"

"Yes, sir," Cobra acknowledged for the group. "Circle up people – full defence."

The five Dreadnoughts formed a pentagon around Vanyr and the truck, battering and carving up any Crawler's that came within reach. The roof gunners of the truck kept up their never-ending hail, spraying fire in all directions over the heads of their protectors. Even while pushing the truck, Vanyr and her gunners picked out targets with the tank's main gun. They edged forward slowly but surely.

A fresh cluster of Crawlers raced at them from the left, screeching and hissing as they came. Shells and armour-piercing bullets ripped a pair of them into the River. Ryke turned with two of the other Dreadnoughts to confront them head on.

Letting both warblades charge to their superheated maximum, and keeping a close eye on his reactor, Ryke opened the first one horizontally from jaw to flank by sidestepping and digging both blades into it. Several of its legs were severed and it crumpled to the ground. Releasing the charge of the blades, Ryke turned to face the next Crawler head on, firing both cannons right into its face at point-blank range.

As it hit the ground, dead, another Crawler went soaring over his head, leaping clean over its dying comrades and the cordon of Dreadnoughts.

And straight into the side of Vanyr's tank.

Ryke swore, wrenching the Hunter-Killer around and sprinting back over to the command tank. The Crawler's limbs and tail battered and thrashed at the armour plating, tearing great chunks out of the vehicle's flank. Part of the left track went spinning away in a mangled mess before Ryke reached the arthropod, ramming a blade its full length into the creature's tail joint.

The Crawler reared back squealing, tail severed from the socket. He slammed his second warblade into its flank and levered it off the tank hull, shoving it away with a snarl of effort. It thumped to the ground on its back, legs flailing aimlessly.

Vanyr's turret swivelled vengefully; flashed once. A shell blew the Crawler's insides open and it sagged in a dead heap.

"Piss drowning Riverlords, we're stuck!" Vanyr screamed in anger. The treads of one side churned impotently; the turret traversed, still looking for targets.

"I'm on it!" Thaye snapped and an instant later she bolted forward, putting the shoulder of her Dreadnought against the rear of the truck. "Anybody want to give me a hand here?"

"Right with you, Havoc," Ryke said without hesitation, and he placed himself alongside her. "Cobra, can you give us some cover?"

"We've got you, Lockjaw," Cobra barked, her mech pivoting left and right as she blasted shock cannons at any Crawlers who got too close. "Go, go, go!"

Gritting his teeth and ignoring the fearsome ache in his metal jaw, Ryke coaxed more power from the Dreadnought's reactor and pushed. With Thaye working in tandem with him, they shoved with all their might, and slowly but surely the bomb truck began moving again.

They made it maybe fifty yards before the ground beneath his feet cracked. Ryke let out a gasp of terror as he felt the rock begin to give way.

"Thaye!"

"I feel it – PUSH!"

Ryke let out a yell of exertion as he drove the feet of his Dreadnought into the disintegrating earth, forcing the truck onward. It moved; surging forward in the nick of time. He felt his left foot suddenly drop out from beneath him, the rock melting away under the weight of his mech and the force of the mighty hydraulics.

He lurched forward. Lost his purchase against the rear of the truck. It moved away from him, barrelling forward towards the Crawler queen, and Thaye was still locked against the back of it.

Ryke fell.

For an instant.

His feet hit something solid several feet further down, and he teetered unsteadily, forced into an awkward spin. Vertigo punched him in the throat as he found himself looking down into a widening chasm for an instant, a scar of burning orange glaring up at him. Then his eyes rose, self-preservation kicking in violently.

The opposite lip of the broken fissure was within reach. Just about.

Dialling the strained reactor of the Dreadnought up to its maximum level, he channelled all the energy into the leg servos, bunched his legs and jumped.

His heart slammed into his mouth as the huge mech lifted into empty space for a moment. He managed to reach an arm out over the edge, digging the warblade into the lip to anchor himself in place. For a horrible moment Ryke felt the rock give, and thought it was just going to break away, but it held, just long enough. Scrambling awkwardly, he got his other arm up over the lip and pulled, his mech's reactor screaming with effort.

The Dreadnought thumped to the shattered plateau edge and he felt the ground start to give way again. Rolling, he frantically tried to get some distance, not stopping until he twisted the heavy mech a dozen meters clear of the edge.

Wrestling himself upright, Ryke looked back to see Thaye and the other Dreadnoughts still going. Horror filled him when he realised they were now completely cut off; he had no way to help them. Heat haze boiled up from within the fresh chasm that had been cut into the plateau. Crawlers tumbled into it trying to chase the truck down. Others leaped the gap with ease, but it was now too far for him to jump. The Dreadnoughts were not built for such things.

"Shit, Lockjaw – Cobra, I'm stuck on the wrong side of this thing!" he shouted.

"Nothing you can do now, Lockjaw," Cobra shot back between cannon shots. "We're staying on mission. Jinx, Typhoon, Impact – you got eyes on Lockjaw?"

"Copy," Typhoon replied, his voice tight with effort. "Lockjaw, back it up and we're about thirty yards to your right."

"I..." Ryke staggered backwards, helplessness washing over him as he could do nothing but watch the battle play out. "On my way."

With the last dregs of the human and Scraegan vanguard closing in on the mass of eggs, the Crawler queen finally came charging from its refuge in a desperate attempt to stop them. Ryke couldn't look away, half horrified and half amazed as the titan thundered forward, screaming animal hate from its baleful head.

The Scraegan Alpha moved to meet it.

With surprising grace, the Alpha rolled to the side just as the sweeping barb of a tail whipped at it. The Scraegan rose; swung.

Its sword hacked one of the queen's limbs in two, spraying gore. The queen shrieked, kicking out with one of its many other legs and sending the Alpha sprawling. De Lunta raced in, cannons blasting at the monster as he tried to distract its attention. The surviving scouts circled like gnats, spitting fire at their foe, just trying to keep it distracted. Furnace cannon shots swell up in the half-light; Scraegan hunters hurled their bodies into the queen's path. One of them was bitten clean in half by the enormous jaws of the thing, but bought time for the Alpha to lunge forward, driving its sword deep into the flank of the queen's carapace.

It reared up again, shaking wildly. But the Alpha clung on. The huge, copper-furred warrior twisted and ripped at the wound it had made. The queen twisted and spun, trampling a Scraegan and one of the Dreadnought pilots under foot as it thrashed around. Behind them, Thaye and the others pushed, pushed and pushed. De Lunta's mech was caught by a crunching blow from the queen's tail, tearing one of the shoulder shields out of its mounting and sending him sprawling. The colonel staggered upright, sparks licking at his shoulder, but he thumped back into the fray nonetheless.

The distraction lasted just long enough.

"Asset One, we're in position," Thaye gasped over the comm. "Arm the pissing mine, right now!"

"Copy that," said the lieutenant. "Deploying."

"All units," De Lunta wheezed. "This is Colonel De Lunta. If you can, clear the blast zone. I repeat clear the blast zone, detonation is imminent."

"Sir?!" Ryke exclaimed, not sure what he wanted to ask, or what he could possibly say. He just... didn't want to walk away.

"You heard me, son," De Lunta told him. "Get out of here."

"Detonation in... in one minute." The engineer's voice shook violently. No-one in that truck would be coming out of this alive. In a perfect world they could have deployed the mine with a time delay and let it dig into the ground while they reversed away. With the instability of the plateau and Crawlers bearing down on them from all sides, that wasn't an option anymore. They had to make sure it exploded and took the queen with it.

"Damn it!" Ryke slammed a fist against the inside of his cockpit, a sob cracking his voice. With no other choice, he began backing away, joining Typhoon and the remaining Dreadnoughts as they thundered back towards the chamber entrance. The straggled remnants of their escort did the same, extricating themselves from the Crawlers, fighting their way clear as the seconds ticked away.

"Thaye!" he blurted across the private band as he reached the entrance, turning to look back on the hell-torn battlefield of the Crawler prison. "Thaye... can you...?"

"Sorry, Sarge. I'm stuck on this side," she replied. "I think... I think you better get out of here before the big bang."

"I should be there! Drown me, I'm sorry."

"Don't ever be sorry. Just... just remember. Make sure you put something nice on my honour role when this is done."

"Of course."

"And Ryke?"

He tried to control himself, fighting to keep the tears from spilling down his face. "Yeah?"

"Do me one other favour when you get home."

"Anything."

"Tell Ivy to pour a little shiner out for me," Thaye said. This time a faint tremor shook her voice, and ripped at his heart. "She makes it better than anyone. It'd be nice to still taste it where I'm going."

"I will," Ryke choked out. "Swim safe."

"Bye, Ryke. Thanks for the ride. I wouldn't have missed it."

Then the mine detonated.