"I made it!" Ryke's voice went shrill with excitement when he spotted his name on the billboard outside the academy. "I'm in!"

The early morning didn't hurt the enthusiasm of Brekka's new recruits. All around him hoards of them piled in, hunting for their names, desperate to see if their application had been successful. In another time and another place people would have been horrified at the prospect of going to war, but on Rychter if you didn't learn to embrace it, life was very hard indeed.

"Nice going," Jarrko grunted from beside him, still scanning for his own name in the miasma. Their application was different. Attempting to join the regular infantry units or support corps had a high success rate. The Hunter-Killers were a different bag.

"Make a hole, crazy people!" called a playful voice from behind, and they both had to step to the side as a slender girl dove between them, springing up like a sand-jack to examine the board. In the same classes at school, Ivy Shanklin was a little taller than him, with straight, light brown hair swept back out of her eyes by a black headband, the rest of her body swamped in a set of mud-brown overalls.

He waited for a moment as she hunted unsuccessfully for her name, before leaning forward and tapping her on the shoulder, pointing.

"Ivy, you're in," he told her, smiling in amusement. "Top right of the boards."

She followed his pointing finger and her eyes lit up. "Yes. Brekka 1st Engineering Corp!"

"Somebody's gotta build the better mouse-trap," Jarrko chuckled.

"Careful, adrenaline junky," Ivy shot back, rounding on him with a dangerous smile. "If you're in the Hunter-Killers you better remember who's fixing up your robot battle-toys."

"Wouldn't have another tech head on the job." Ryke gave her a playful shove as more and more bodies piled in around them.

A shrill whoop bit hard into Ryke's ears making him wince and he looked to his left to find the source. Sure enough his suspicions were confirmed when he saw the girl with the pink hair grinning inanely having apparently found her name on the board of accepted recruits. He swallowed his annoyance, reminding himself that they'd both passed the same test.

Minutes passed – the cries of joy began to mingle with the groans of disappointment from those whose names hadn't made the list. They were transferred to other departments, based on general aptitude. Jarrko found his name eventually and then another familiar face emerged from the crowd. Brigg arrived, clapping Ryke and Jarrko on the shoulders.

"You both made it?"

"Looks like it," Ryke said, grinning. "What about you?"

"Seems like we're going to be HK jocks together, boys!" Brigg laughed, dragging the two of them into a hug. Caught up in the moment, Ryke didn't notice Kelso was still staring grimly at the board.

Eventually though, he turned round and saw the look on his brother's face and his elation slipped away. He bit his lip and disentangled himself, moving up alongside Kelso.

"You okay?"

"I guess." Kelso pointed to the top right section of the board. "I didn't make the HK list." Following the pointing finger Ryke spotted his brother's name and next to it the words: TRANSFER – COMBAT SUPPORT UNIT. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

"Sorry."

"I studied all year," Kelso grated. "I know everything there is to know about the Hunter-Killer Corps and they still bumped me to some slack support job at a desk somewhere." He shook his head and turned to leave.

"Kelso, wait-," Ryke caught his arm but Kelso shrugged him off.

"Forget it. Congratulations little brother. Make the most of it." And then he stormed away without another word.

"Damn it," Ryke muttered.

Kelso left an awkward, lingering silence behind him, until Ivy laid a hand on Ryke's arm. "Sorry, Ryke. It's not your fault – it's a tough process. There are plenty of people just like him that didn't make the cut."

"Yeah, I know." He blew out his cheeks in a sigh, unable to take his eyes off of Kelso's receding form. Eventually he was lost to sight, and Ryke let Ivy turn him away, back to the boards and the happy faces of the recruits who'd made the cut.

Once the recruits had been given ample time to hunt down their names and find out their fate in the Rychter military a hulking man in soldiers' livery with a megaphone spoke.

"All new recruits please report to your respective instructors!" he bellowed. "You will be transferred to the main Brekka military complex at Stamm Basin to begin your training. Please make sure you have only the prescribed allowance of personal items with you. Good luck, may the Riverlords guide you."

He shuddered with anticipation as another swell of cheers rose up from the successful applicants. Jarrko clapped him on the back and Brigg pumped a fist in the air in triumph. Then, to his surprise he found Ivy's arms closing around him, pulling him into a tight hug. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders to return the gesture, and they squeezed tight for a few seconds before Ivy pulled back, grinning.

"Stay safe, Hunter-Killer," she told him with a wink, before planting a kiss on his cheek and vanishing into the crowd.

*

Things moved fast after the recruiting centre. The successful Hunter-Killer applicants were bundled aboard a separate armoured transport and driven through the city streets, its huge toothed wheels jolting Ryke's hardened bones as it trundled along. Everything on Rychter trundled, rumbled or trudged, glued to the ground. There were no aircraft in the grit-clogged skies, a combination of the planet's perpetually hot air, strong gravity and constantly swirling dust storms making such vehicles wildly impractical.

Long ago Rychter's colonists had learned to live with their feet on the ground.

The transport grumbled its way through Brekka, eventually emerging through one of the city's reinforced side gates, following a hardy, tire-torn track until they reached the Stamm Basin military base. Situated in what had once been a lake – long since dried up – the base was ringed by a wall that bristled with heavy calibre cannon emplacements. Armoured doors constructed of huge metal plates retracted to allow them passage, revealing the hulking cube-shaped store-houses, hangers and barracks.

There were forty new recruits on board the transport and all of them buzzed with excitement at the prospect of beginning their training. Seated at the window alongside Jarrko and Brigg, Ryke stared out at the soldiers who criss-crossed the concrete expanse of the training ground, dodging lines of trucks moving equipment, and felt a twinge of apprehension.

He quickly quashed the feeling as they piled out next to one of the cube buildings where an attendant ushered them in through a set of double doors. The corridors within were light grey and lined with long tubular lighting segments, built in a gridiron arrangement. The forty Hunter-Killer recruits were led through the halls to a room lined with metallic desks.

At the head of the room stood a tall, weather-beaten man, clad in simple black trousers, a grey top and dark jacket. He looked like a school teacher, save for the enormous scar that split his face from right temple to jaw. He appraised the group from behind small rectangular spectacles, antiques by any standard. His eyes were narrow and hard, the colour of concrete paving. A sling was wrapped around his left arm which hung motionless across his chest, and Ryke could just see the gnarled fingers of the man's hand twisted into a strange, claw-like arrangement.

Quickly averting his gaze, he sat down at one of the desks and thumbed the activation switch on the recording slate lying on top of it. A blank blue screen flicked into life. He freed the stylus from its holder alongside and tried to relax, leaning back against the seat. Jarrko took up station beside him; Brigg sat a row in front. He stared at the man at the head of the room, his heart rate quickening as the excitement and impatience began to take its toll.

"Good morning," said the man after what seemed like an age. "My name is Major Buchanan. You can call me Major, Major Buchanan, or Sir. I'm here to teach you everything we know about the creatures you'll be fighting in order for you to become effective Hunter-Killer pilots." His voice hung in the air, a grating, forced voice that sounded like he was digging out the words. With his good arm he removed his spectacles, inspected them for a moment, and then returned them to their original position.

"So let me ask, how many people in this room have ever actually seen a Scraegan?"

There was silence as the recruits exchanged looks but no-one reacted. Seconds ticked by and Buchanan's iron gaze bored into the youngsters. Ryke glanced around to see the others looking down and away. Could he really be the only one? With a deep sigh of resignation he raised his hand, looking straight at their new teacher.

Major Buchanan stared for a long moment before nodding. "Your name?"

"Vannigan, sir, Ryke Vannigan."

"You mind if I ask where?"

"The Rukkers Quarry incident, sir."

A murmur of surprise passed through the group and Ryke swallowed hard, keeping his eyes ahead.

"Alright," Buchanan snapped. "That's enough. So only one of you in this room really understands what you've signed up to fight. That means it's my job to clue your brains in to just what a Scraegan is, and what they're capable of."

He pressed a button on the bulky computer console on his desk and the roof mounted projector flickered and cast an image onto the wall behind him. What it displayed was an anatomical drawing of a Scraegan, the most fearsome and deadly threat to the human population of Rychter. Ryke's memory still remained vivid; a painful, raw reminder of the real thing. The picture showed a big, burly creature, bipedal and with a pair of massive arms that looked too big for its torso. The head was an elongated structure almost a meter from end to end, but the stripped back guise of the example drawing didn't do it justice.

"The Scraegans are simple, but that does not mean they're stupid," Buchanan said. "The first and biggest mistake humans made when we first encountered them was to think they were just animals. They are a whole lot more than that." He began pacing back and forth as he talked. "The first Scraegan raiding party destroyed a whole town in an hour. Since then they've smashed half a dozen smaller settlements over the years we've been fighting them, culminating in the destruction of Rukkers Quarry." He glanced pointedly at Ryke before continuing.

"Your average Scraegan warrior is fifteen feet of muscle and bone that can tear a building apart with nothing but its bare hands. And they have a lot more than their bare hands to use." He clicked another button to change the slide to show a zoomed in image of Scraegan weapons and armour.

"Conventional weapons are next to useless against them. Nothing short of a heavy armour-piercing round will penetrate plating they wear, and even then it takes dozens of those to bring them down. The Scraegans only seem to use one kind of weapon, but one is all they need. The closest people we have to experts call it a furnace cannon. We don't know how these damn things are powered, but what they do is generate a ball of fire capable of smashing a house to rubble and tearing through our conventional military vehicles like tissue paper. Every single Scraegan is a one man artillery emplacement."

He seemed satisfied at the ripple of apprehension that swept through the group. This wasn't news to Ryke, however. He'd seen the kind of devastation the furnace cannons could cause.

"Sounds bad, doesn't it?" Buchanan said. "That's because it is. Then the best military minds on Rychter came up with this." Another slide flicked into view and this time the murmur was one of anticipation. There on the screen, was their first glimpse of the Hunter-Killers. A man shaped robot, armed to the teeth, they were humanity's answer to the Scraegan menace.

"Ladies and gentlemen, take a good long look, because this machine is going to become your new best friend." He made a sweeping gesture with his good arm. "I present the Hunter-Killer: part technical marvel; part killing machine. This is what you will be piloting in the coming months. You will be bearing the heaviest single combat weapons ever designed, and you'll be on the front line of this war.

The Hunter-Killer's operating system interfaces with your body on a molecular level. The load on the nervous system is immense. There is no hard and fast timescale – every person's body reacts differently to the strain – but sooner or later the machines will cause irreparable damage if overused." He smiled thinly, tapping the arm that hung limply in the sling. "No Scraegan put me out of action. I was a pilot for seven years before this: explosive nerve feedback."

"By the River," a girl to Ryke's left breathed.

"Don't worry," Buchanan grunted. "The average life expectancy of a HK pilot is a lot less than that." The audible gasp seemed to satisfy him and he nodded approvingly. "That is something you need to understand. I know you all came in here bursting with enthusiasm, eager to get into the fight and I understand that. But you need to understand that this war is very, very real. Some of you will die out there and that's just the way it is. So your learning has to be tempered by good sense. You will learn to work as a unit, as a single cohesive fighting force. If you do that your chances of going out there, bagging a Scraegan body count, and coming back in one piece will increase dramatically."

A silence hung in the air as Major Buchanan let his words sink in. Ryke exchanged a grim look with Jarrko but his friend simply shrugged as if to say: well what did we expect? The others seemed to be going through a similar process, adjusting for the reality check, and then understanding that they'd known it all along. Faces hardened with resolve and eyes returned to the major.

Buchanan nodded. "Alright then, now that that's out of the way, let's get back to your new toys." The slide changed displaying three distinct variants of the Hunter-Killer machines. "There are three variants of Hunter-Killer in production today: the Raptor Pattern, specialised for high mobility and scouting, the Riot Pattern for frontline combat and the Goliath Pattern, for heavy fire support." He indicated each one in turn.

"As your training progresses some of you will be assigned to the specialised variants in order to maximise squadron performance and tactical flexibility. Each model follows the same basic principles, however. They operate with an amplified physical feedback loop, and a fully immersed three dimensional heads-up-display. All of this combines to make you feel like you are the Hunter-Killer. You will feel like a fifteen ton war machine. The Hunter-Killer will quite literally become an extension of your body."

Then Major Buchanan did something surprising. He smiled like a hungry wolf. His voice rose and took on the tone of hardened steel. "You are the next generation of humanity's elite. You are going to be the best of the best, the first line in the defence of millions. You will be leading the fight against the Scraegans and you will send those bastards to the River of Fire with my personal compliments." He slammed a clenched fist down against his desk and roared. "Recruits, are you ready for a war?!"

"SIR, YES SIR!"

And as forty voices roared back their approval Ryke felt his blood catch fire.