Warsong (Hunter-Killer #2)

Chapter 40 - A Lot of Good People

An explosion woke her.

Brackenshaw's eyes opened, and she was welcomed back to consciousness with a wave of searing, dagger-sharp pain. She almost blacked out again. A few seconds later a strangled scream of agony tore itself free from her throat as the ground beneath her shook violently, shaking her shattered body in turn.

She tried to think. The last thing she remembered was being hurled from her skiff, launched off the deck like a cannon ball. Her diminutive frame thrown into a melee of battle tanks, giant arthropod creatures and Hunter-Killer battle mechs.

She'd very much expected to be dead by now.

In some ways, she rather wished she was. Brackenshaw tried to move but the entire right side of her body screamed in protest, sending fresh waves of excruciating pain washing through her. The vision on her right side was bleary and red. She blinked; tried to look around. Another tremor in the ground shook her, extracting a strangled gurgle of protest.

The tunnel shook. The air around her was clogged with dust and gun smoke. An ear-splitting screeching filled her ears. Turning her head with all the effort she could muster, she saw several Crawlers nearby, failing and thrashing in the half-light of the tunnels. They squealed and shrieked, flopping like fish out of water.

Tank shells exploded among them – more of the creatures died. Others skittered away, vanishing into side passages, chased by the snap of human weapons. All around her, Brackenshaw could see huge mangled bodies, Crawlers, Scraegan, Hunter-Killers, tanks and skiffs all posed in a grizzly tableau.

Blearily she tried to locate her own skiff in the gloom, but the mass of broken vehicles that now littered the passage made it impossible. How many of her company could have survived such an impact? Frankly, she was shocked to still be breathing herself.

But she noticed something else now.

Quiet. A sudden, inexplicable quiet. Engines grumbled and voices still echoed in the dark, but there was no gunfire. The Crawlers had slunk away. For the moment at least.

Screaming with the effort, she levered herself up into a sitting position against the hunk of rock behind her. Something on her right side felt wet but she didn't bother to look. Her eyes were drawn to a Scraegan; the Beta she dimly recognised from that serrated horn on its helmet. It raised the gore-soaked hammer in one huge paw and let out a long, bellowing roar of victory.

Scraegans all up and down the line took up the cry, filling the tunnel with thunder. She wondered why the human comms were so silent.

Then she realised belatedly that she'd lost her helmet.

"Sarge?!" a hoarse voice coughed from her left.

Straining, she pivoted to look, grimacing with the effort. Brackenshaw found a silhouette limping through the gloom that eventually coalesced into the battered from of Corporal Hynan. The man's face was lathered in blood from a deep gash above his eye, and he was using his rifle as a crutch to keep himself upright, but he was alive.

"Everflowing, Sarge, is that you?"

"Corporal," she wheezed as he staggered over to her. She coughed; tasted blood. "What's the word?"

"You've got a Riverlord behind your sails, that's for damn sure," Hynan gasped, lowering himself towards her.

"Any others?" Brackenshaw cleared her throat. "Anyone else make it?"

"There are a couple of us who got out from the back of the skiff," he replied grimly. "There may be others, but in all this... I don't know. Can you move?"