Warsong (Hunter-Killer #2)

Chapter 34 - Dreadnought

It made sense in a screwed up sort of way, Ryke supposed.

Back at the forward command base, he should have felt relaxed being out of his Hunter-Killer, but knowing that both Hackley, Kelso, and many other members of the support staff had stayed behind to thrash out more details with the Scraegan commander left him squirming with unease.

Despite knowing the basics of what the Alpha wanted from them, before any kind of joint operation could ever be launched, they needed a lot more detail. Colonel Hackley was not about to sanction anything without knowing what she would be ordering her soldiers into.

But his part was done. He was exhausted; so were his pilots. Weeks of almost non-stop deployment had left many of them teetering on the edge of burnout, and Colonel De Lunta hadn't taken no for an answer.

He tried to rest, but his mind wouldn't shut off. This period of rest wouldn't last long; more Crawler attacks were still nibbling at parts of the human line, appearing and disappearing at random, causing chaos and carnage before they could be driven off. The Scout Cadre were getting the worst of it; lightly armed but also the only force that could deploy rapidly enough to engage the arthropods before they hit crucial targets.

Those brave men and women were buying time for this plan with their lives.

Fresh reports of Scraegan intervention reached him through the grapevine as other Hunter-Killer squadrons returned from deployment. More of the heavily armoured Scraegan hunters appeared in small numbers through the badlands, showing up just long enough to slaughter as many Crawlers as they could before melting back beneath the sand. With Scraegan help, the humans could just about hold their lines.

Ryke wanted to be out there. Listening to stories of other people doing the dying made his skin crawl and his jaw ache. In the end he couldn't handle skulking in the barracks anymore and he set out towards the Hunter-Killer hangar bays, trying to occupy himself by checking on the progress of the repair and rearmament of his squad.

He knew what he'd find. The engineers and technicians didn't need anybody looking over their shoulder to do their jobs, but being at a loose end didn't sit well in his gut, so he went anyway. Sure enough, he found everything in order; a terse young man from one of Brekka's Armourer platoons assured him that the mechs were combat ready and fully loaded – ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

It didn't end up being the distraction Ryke had hoped for.

So he found himself wandering through the hangars, passing Hunter-Killer cradles, Scout Cadre bays filled with dormant skiffs, heavy armour berths that reeked of oil and burnt metal, and militia transport hubs. Everywhere he looked soldiers scurried back and forth with a simmering sense of urgency, officers snapping clipped commands to their troops as the war ground on without him.

And it was during this sightseeing tour that Ryke encountered the convoy.

It entered through the northern gates of the command base and when he saw it, he stopped and stared. He counted no less than fifteen long trucks hauling themselves forward at a sluggish pace, each one propelled along on a mix of bulbous wheels and thick tread sections. Each one had a long, thick flat-bed attached to their rear, upon which something huge and bulky had been strapped, covered up by impenetrable black sheets. Black-armoured soldiers carrying shotguns formed a cordon around the convoy, walking in a loose formation, casting wary eyes in all directions as they shepherded the cargo onward.

But on the driver's door of the lead vehicle Ryke spotted something that sent his blood racing. The silver shield encircled by upward facing bullets. The number fifteen printed boldly below it.