Warsong (Hunter-Killer #2)

Chapter 04 - Uncivil War

The detention centre at Stamm Basin was not a large building. Brekka's armed forces seldom suffered from discipline problems with the unifying threat of the Scraegans to hold them together. A long, low cuboid with two floors, it squatted in the shadows on the north edge of the main concourse, its dark armoured shell punctuated by small square windows. Normally it was a short stay accommodation, for the odd soldier who took insubordination a little too far, or for the occasional drunken fist fight.

No-one had been subjected to a formal disciplinary hearing while he'd been a Hunter-Killer pilot, but Marshal Llewellyn had been right about one thing. Brekka's officers did run a loose ship, giving their soldiers a leniency probably not enjoyed by their comrades from the north. The threat of imminent death at the hands of the Scraegans was usually enough to keep the troops in line.

But now Llewellyn was here, and he'd brought military bureaucracy with him.

Ryke marched right up the door of the building with anger ebbing from every pore, and his squadmates Preese and Brigg right behind him. In the face of this the only thing they could do was present a united from against what he considered to be an inane display of grandstanding from the new Hunter-Killer colonel.

The militia guard at the detention centre door took one look at them and quickly stepped aside, not willing to put herself in the path of an angry group of Hunter-Killer pilots. The door behind her slid open and Ryke stormed through into a small foyer where a sergeant lounged behind a desk, reading something on his data slate. At the arrival of the Hunter-Killers he sat up sharply.

"Pilot Thaye Yulsa," Ryke said. "Where is she?"

"Hold up," the man grunted, placing the data slate on the table. "You her C.O.?"

"Sergeant Vannigan, HK-Rupture. Major De Lunta asked us to meet him here."

The guard nodded. "He's already down there." Standing, he turned to a metal-barred door behind him and punched a code into the locking control. A clunk of retracting mechanisms answered and the guard pushed it open. "Level One, cell eight, just down the stairs and take a left."

"Thanks." Giving the man a quick salute, Ryke led his squad through into the narrow grey passages beyond. At the end of the short hallway was a t-junction splitting off down two flights of stairs, with a thick yellow arrow pointing left for cells one to twenty.

He descended quickly into the lower level, his heart beginning to beat faster. He'd requested De Lunta meet him here, having already appraised Brekka's ranking Hunter-Killer officer of the events that had transpired on the training field the previous day. Ryke knew trying to undercut Harcourt like this was a dangerous game, but his anger at the injustice of it all pushed him well beyond caring. If they were going to war they needed people liken Thaye – she was one of the deadliest pilots in the entire corp.

The stairway opened out into a broader passage line with a staggered arrangement of cells down either side. Each one had a security door and a large reinforced window to reveal the sparsely furnished cell beyond. The rooms were clean and spacious. Most of them were empty.

They found Thaye a few cells along the way, with Major De Lunta waiting on their side of the glass. He gave them a terse nod as they approached. Ryke returned a salute before turning to his pilot.

"How you holding up in there?" he asked.

"Nice little vacation," Thaye chuckled, her voice projecting out through the small speaker grill embedded in the wall above the window.

"Hell of a way to get yourself some R&R." Preese grinned. A lean-bodied kid with tanned ochre skin, he now had the beginnings of stubble shadowing around his mouth, and a snarling dragon head tattoo now adorned the right side of his neck – a celebratory memento of surviving the siege of Brekka.