The explosion shook Brackenshaw to her bones. Even well beyond the kill zone in her skiff, she felt the vibrations. The vehicle's slender, armoured structure shuddered, and on the horizon it seemed that a new volcano had been wrenched into existence.

Well past the jutting peak of the Scraegan warren, a geyser of vaporised rock a hundred meters across exploded from the badlands earth, roaring like a demon unleashed. Vast tongues of fire belched in all directions and she had to shield her eyes from the glare, even with her protective goggles. A rain of shattered stone fell for hundreds of meters, peppering the skiffs and tanks lurking on the edge of the combat zone, and she watched with a mix of shock and awe as the ground seemed to collapse.

Cracks ripped in all directions for a few, brief instants, before the earth could no longer withstand the strain. As though being sucked down like a whirlpool, smashed rocks and dirt avalanched inwards with startling suddenness, falling away and leaving a vast crater more than a hundred meters deep. Magma bubbled and hissed in the ruined earth and a smoky haze of heat settled over the horizon.

"Drown me," Corporal Locke murmured beside her, shaking her head in awe. "The techs really don't screw around, do they?"

"Let's hope it was worth it," Brackenshaw muttered bitterly. She kept her eyes fixed on the boiling, smog-choked hell that yawned out before them and seethed. The last frantic transmissions from Sergeant Vannigan had been cast over the wide-band, giving her an unpleasant window into the chaos that the Hunter-Killers had plunged into.

A lot of pilots hadn't walked out of there, but losing Vannigan hurt more than most. She'd been fighting alongside the kid for weeks now and knew first hand the kind of soldier they'd just thrown into the fire.

Through the scope of her rifle she could see the battered remnants of the Hunter-Killer force trudging across the desert to the relative safety of the Mammoth, their numbers much depleted. They'd cleared the main blast with moments to spare, their mission accomplished, but somehow this didn't feel like a victory to Brackenshaw.

Her lips twisted grimly and she tapped her earpiece. "SC-21 – HK-Rupture, you reading me?"

"Copy that, SC-21," a weary young man replied. "Deadbolt here. Acting commander."

"Bring yourselves home, soldier," she said. "And good work."

"Yes ma'am." The reply was hollow, like the pilot's guts had been ripped out along with his commander. Other Hunter-Killer officers fired off exhausted messages of acknowledgement as they made their way out of the combat zone, screened by ranks of northern armour.

"CC-19 – SC-21," a voice suddenly cut into her earpiece. Brackenshaw straightened up. It was Kelso Vannigan.

"Go ahead, specialist," she replied uncertainly.

"We've picked up something on the long range seismics," he answered, his voice tight. He was doing a good job of holding it together, she would give him that. "Forty-three degrees from your current position, just outside the blast. Something's moving out there."

Oh.

Brackenshaw pursed her lips, scanning the fire and the smoke. Could Vannigan have survived? It didn't look possible from this vantage point, but the implication was clear enough. Something was still moving.

"We're on our way, specialist," she answered, giving a nod to Corporal Locke. Her subordinate began barking orders down the chain in preparation as Kelso replied.

"Thanks, Sergeant. I know it's not likely but..."

She nodded. "If he's out there, we'll find him."

In a matter of seconds three skiffs from the advance skirmish line roared out of formation, falling in behind Brackenshaw's vehicle. Below deck Corporal Hynan confirmed their heading, the feed from the seismics being shunted to the skiff's main display. Lifter engines flared, billowing dust as they sped off towards the disturbance. It looked small right now, and with all the disruption from the blast it was tough to get a proper reading on exactly what they were flying towards, so Brackenshaw opted to take no chances.

Soldiers manned the firing rails and the skiff's main cannons swivelled into readiness as they drew close. The heat this close to the blast made sweat run down her face but she ignored it, scanning the crumbling earth through her rifle scope for any sign of disturbance.

"Sarge, I got something here," reported the soldier manning the prow cupola. "Earth's churning about fifty meters ahead." A pause. "Looks like a Scraegan burrow to me, ma'am."

"Half speed," Brackenshaw barked through the comm. "Boxley, Hwang, flank out. Everybody stay tight, but do not fire unless we are engaged."

As the acknowledgements filtered through the comm, she craned her neck over the rail, looking ahead. A few seconds later she saw the burrow in question and had to agree with the scout's assessment. A small portion of the earth ahead of them was bulging upwards, sloughing off loose rubble and dirt, with something turning and twisting beneath it. It looked more like a slow-motion recreation of a Scraegan surfacing, though. Normally they just burst out of the sand like a jack-in-the-box.

The three skiffs slowed, manoeuvring to form a triangle around the mound, bristling ranks of guns looking inward as the earth began to break open. Brackenshaw felt herself tensing, and on either side of her, soldiers leaned closer to their sighs, pressing stocks against their shoulders in readiness. Then the rumbling earth split down the middle and broke apart in two miniature landslides.

She watched as three Scraegans hauled themselves out of the rough burrow and Brackenshaw could feel the guns of her soldiers traversing to track the big, shaggy forms. What in the Everflowing River were three lone Scraegans doing out here? Ceasefires might have meant something back at the clearly defined front lines, but out in the badlands no-one knew if such agreements held up. She couldn't stop her finger from reflexively tightening around the trigger of her rifle, but before pure instinct could drive her to fire, she realised the Scraegans were dragging something.

"Hold your fire!" she roared into the comm, raising an open hand to the soldiers around her and loosening her grip on her rifle. "I repeat, hold your fire! Nobody move, that is a direct order!"

"Ma'am?" Locke shot her a questioning look.

"You heard me, corporal." Brackenshaw let the rifle barrel rest against the firing rail and watched with growing anxiousness as the Scraegans emerged fully.

A vicious looking metal horn speared up from the leader's skull plate and a jolt of realisation hit her. It was the same Beta they'd seen on the recordings taken by HK-Rupture after their first encounter with the Crawlers. Had the Scraegans been watching; waiting at a safe distance to see what the humans were doing out in this desolate, abandoned piece of the planet? The brute swivelled to face the idling skiffs and its eyes narrowed, but the furnace cannon lashed to its left arm remained pointed down and cold.

Behind it the two warriors hunched over, muscles bulging as they heaved something big and heavy from the hole. There was a dull thump of metal on earth as they set it down. Then stepped apart.

"By the Everflowing River..." Locke breathed in shock.

Brackenshaw couldn't have put it better herself. Her eyes went wide as she stared at the battered, sparking hulk of the Hunter-Killer that the trio of Scraegans had extracted from the earth. The war machine was in a sorry state, its armour buckled, warped and crushed in a dozen different places, caked with muck and dirt, and leaking hydraulic fluids like blood. She glanced down the scope her rifle at the machine, focusing in on the chest.

Through the grime and the claw marks, she could just make out the callsign emblazoned in black letters just below the armoured cupola of the Hunter-Killer's head.

LOCKJAW.

"Drown me." She let the rifle drop again, staring in amazement for a moment calling to the under deck. "Hynan, are you reading this? Those Scraegans just dragged a Hunter-Killer out of the ground!"

"Copy that..." He sounded just as stunned. "I ... do you think there's someone alive in there?"

"I'm hoping to the Riverlords they didn't go to all this trouble to return a corpse." Brackenshaw tapped her earpiece, unable to tear her eyes from Ryke Vannigan's Hunter-Killer. "SC-21 – CC-12. You reading me, Vannigan?"

"I read you, sergeant. What's going on?"

"Specialist, this is going to sound crazy," she said. "But I think you'll want to believe it. You'd better get out here and bring some engineers with you. The Scraegans might have just rescued your brother."

*

Ryke was pleasantly surprised to wake up.

The last thing he remembered was half a mountain collapsing on top of his Hunter-Killer. He'd tried his best to outrun the blast, but with his reactor damaged he hadn't been fast enough. The edge of the earth-ripping explosion had caught up to him, and thoroughly buried him.

After that there was nothing.

No sense complaining though. As he blinked through the light shining down on him, he became gradually aware of the dull ache in every inch of his body. Well, even the Hunter-Killer couldn't have protected him from such a rockfall completely. He must have made it far enough to the surface for the survivors of the task force to extract him.

The light cleared. He blinked again as his eyes adjusted and glanced around the room. It took a moment for him to place the dark walled, well-lit array of beds and bodies. The main infirmary at forward command. His first through was of his Hunter-Killer. Had the machine made it back with him? Then he thought of Kelso, and his squadmates. Then the plan.

He knew they'd detonated the mine. The Hunter-Killers had achieved that much. But had it mattered? Had they killed the Crawlers, and the nest along with them? He began shuffling back, propping up on his elbows.

"Pissing Rivers, there are easier ways to get some R&R, Ryke."

He turned sharply at the sound of Thaye's voice and found the girl walking towards him, a tin mug in one hand and a crooked grin on her face. She grabbed a stool in passing and slid it over beside the bed, then sat down beside him.

"How're you feeling, sergeant?" she asked.

"I'm sore all over." Ryke shrugged. "But otherwise, I think I'm alright. What was the damage?"

"You've got a Riverlord watching over you, that's for damn sure. The tunnel collapsed but they think your Hunter-Killer got wedged between some larger pieces of debris, which stopped it all from crushing you. The medics said the neural feedback from the outside pressure is why you're still feeling the pain, but there's nothing broken. You just need a few days for it to flush out of your system... something like that."

"Wow." He rubbed his eyes with one hand; refocused on her again. "Where's Preese? And the others, did they get out alright?"

"Everybody else got clear of the cave in. They're in the barracks right now – we've been taking turns keeping an eye on you." A smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. "In the meantime, Preese is off having a nervous breakdown. He's going to be really glad you woke up. I don't think he likes the realities of command."

Ryke chuckled. "He can handle it."

"I think so too," Thaye replied with a wry smile. "But there's a difference between being up to the job, and actually wanting it."

"I guess that's true." Ryke wrestled himself into a sitting position on the bed, and his head swam for a moment. He blinked; flexed the metal of his jaw. "And the mission?"

"We did what we were set out to do." Her expression darkened; lips twitched with discomfort. "The area's too unstable for a full recon now, but there's nothing left of that nest. We turned that place into a new volcano."

He waited, but she didn't say anything else. Her eyes flickered to the floor and she took a sip from her drink.

"How many people did we lose?" he asked quietly.

Thaye's jaw tightened and she shook her head. "About a third of the force. Eighteen pilots KIA, three more badly injured." She swallowed hard, fingers drumming against her thigh. "Including Brody and Marlowe."

"Drown me," he cursed, not just for the pilots he had lost, but at the sheer volume of soldiers and machines obliterated in a single engagement. If there were other Crawler nests, which he had to assume there were, they couldn't sustain those kinds of losses. Fighting underground like that did not fit the design of the Hunter-Killers, not in the narrow tunnels that seemed to so suit the arthropod creatures.

Exhaling a sharp breath, he tried to sit up straighter, leaning over and bumping a fist against her knee. She looked up, and he forced a smile onto his face when she met his gaze. He cleared his throat.

"So, who managed to dig my sorry ass out of that tunnel?" he asked. "I think owe someone a beer."

"Oh, right." Thaye shifted awkwardly on her stool. "Ryke, err, it's a little more complicated than that."

"Meaning what?"

"We didn't pull you out. The Scraegans did."

The sentence hit him like a slap in the face. For a moment he just stared stupidly. Then said, "Can you repeat that for me?"

"The Scraegans pulled you out of the cave in."

"What? Why?!"

Thaye shrugged. "Hey, you're the ambassador, not me." She made an up and down gesture to her forehead. "Your buddy with the horn? They dug you out of there with a couple of friends. Even if we thought you were alive, we didn't have a way to find you. If they hadn't, you probably would have suffocated down there."

"Drown me." Ryke said again, slumping back against the bed, his head spinning.

"Yeah, tell me about it, but you're alive."

"That I am." The throbbing pain in his body fell to the recesses of his awareness as he tried to think. Saved by a Scraegan. The same Scraegan. He didn't know whether to be freaked out or exhilarated by the thought.

"I'd better go tell the others you're awake." Thaye stood up and patted him on the shoulder. "However you got here, it's good to have you back, Ryke. Place wasn't the same without you."