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?"

"I don't think so."

"Shit." Leaning awkwardly on his rifle, Hynan placed a hand over the side of his helmet. "SC-21 – priority comms, I need a medic now! Lock on my signal. One casualty immobile."

He waited. Nodded. Then sank down beside her in a crouch. Something big moved in her peripheral vision and she let her eyes wander. The Mammoth at the back of the column was reversing, heaving its great bulk backwards. Around it she could see tanks and surviving skiffs turning to follow. Soldiers from Brekka's militia and scouts that had lost their own vehicles clambered onto hulls wherever they could.

The strike force was pulling out.

"Sit tight, Sarge, help's coming."

"What's going on?" Brackenshaw groaned.

"Looks like De Lunta and those crazy Dreadnought bastards pulled it off," Hynan told her. "Found the mother of those things and blew her straight to the River. But we gotta go. Setting that mine off destabilised all the tunnels – this whole place is about to come down on top of us."

*

The blast from the atomic killed everything in the chamber; every Crawler, every Scraegan and every human left inside.

Ryke glimpsed the massive bulk of the queen come apart as white hot fire erupted beneath it, huge limbs disintegrating and its carapace turning to slush as the explosion engulfed it. Already crumbling from the battle, the plateau surface was torn to shreds. Jets of magma exploded from the bubbling lakes beneath to blend into the expanding fireball of the explosion. Chunks of rock the size of buildings fell from the ceiling; enormous columns collapsed into the furnace.

The Crawler queen was dead, but the cost of killing it had been staggering.

Six Dreadnoughts out of fifteen had walked off the plateau. HK-Grendel had been wiped out completely, along with most of the accompanying scouts and infantry units. Brigadier's Vanyr's immobilized command tank had been left to the fires along with three quarters of her armoured column. De Lunta and several irreplaceable pilots were gone.

Thaye was one of them, lost down in that fire somewhere.

For a moment, Ryke closed off his comms and just screamed out his anger within the confines of his Hunter-Killer until his throat was raw, her last words to him still ringing in his ears. But there was nothing else he could do. Blinking away tears and coughing through his aching lungs, he forced himself to move.

Those that made it out of the main chamber still faced a frantic sprint to anything that could be remotely described as safety. Ryke had no choice but to run, as a wave of atomic fire washed towards the chamber entrance. They followed the handful of surviving Scraegan hunters as the warriors barrelled ahead, roaring and growling to one and other as they raced up through the artificial passage.

Pieces of stone rained down around them as the structure started to give way. Solid rock split and cracked; it felt like the world was about to crush them under its boot.

They outran the collapse, barely, crashing out into the entranceway where the age-old corpses of the ill-fated human expedition still lay. This time there was no time for care. Ancient vehicles were smashed to dust by the pounding feet of the Hunter-Killers and treads of the surviving tanks.

Up ahead they were confronted with a fresh cave-in and Ryke's heart slammed down into his stomach. He could have handled dying in that chamber, fighting, but he did not want to get buried alive.

The Scraegans, however, didn't break stride. They turned sharply left down a connecting passage, sheering away from the route back to the surface.

Without much choice, the human soldiers followed them.

It looked like this rough-hewn hall ended with a dead end, but before Ryke could voice that concern to the others, the far end of the tunnel was blown open, collapsing out towards them. Small rocks showered his Dreadnought's battered armour and he glanced at the reactor readings. Twenty-two percent fuel capacity remaining. He could only pray to the Riverlords that it would be enough.

He tensed as the dust settled, acutely aware of the tremors beneath his feet, but his shoulders relaxed slightly when he saw more Scraegans coming into view. These warriors were of the rank and file, smaller than the great hunters, but their leader barked out something quick and sharp – its tone of urgency unmistakable.

"Everybody stay close," panted Typhoon, the senior surviving member of the Dreadnought squadron. "We're not out of this just yet."

"Copy that," Ryke heaved back. He took a second to blink sweat from his eyes and flex his fingers and toes. His whole body was on fire with throbbing pain from the strain of piloting the heavy mech. Stopping to think about it only made things worse.

The lead Scraegan of the hunters turned to them – a huge brute standing a head taller than any of the mechs and carrying an immense spear – and pointed to the new entrance. It barked out a command that Ryke recognised; there were no exact translations but he knew it essentially meant 'go' or 'begin'.

In this context he knew which one he leaned towards.

"On my lead," Typhoon told them.

"We're just gonna trust them?" another pilot said uneasily.

"Unless you've got a map of these tunnels I don't know about, yes, we're sticking with the locals right now."

The rebuke was sharp and brooked no argument. What remained of the strike force fell in behind the Scraegans and they set off, following the dark armoured figures through the depths. The tremors from the blast gradually receded into the distance, and they passed more and more warriors in the tunnel system, as well as fresh signs of battle. A sense of amazement filled Ryke as they passed through broad passages littered with Scraegan and Crawler dead. The battle had extended far beyond the narrow strike of the human forces.

They twisted upwards, inclines increasing in small increments. Ryke's fuel readings ticked down but he tried not to think about it, just focusing on placing one foot in front of the other. When they reached a Scraegan warren, filled with burning light, he knew that Typhoon's trust in their new allies had been well placed.

If it weren't for the Scraegans, Ryke was pretty sure none of them would have left the Labyrinth alive.

By the time a pair of warriors guided them to a surface entrance his reactor had dwindled down to nine percent of its remaining capacity. At that moment, though, he didn't really care. He'd never been so glad to see the twin sons of Rychter. Light seared over them as they spilled from the craggy depths and out into the badlands.

Ryke staggered to a halt and pulled his hands from the gauntlets of the Dreadnought controls, pressing them over his face. The two Scraegans that had led them here didn't wait around for a 'thank you'. They disappeared back beneath the surface, leaving that battered and bruised survivors to find their own way from here.

"HK-Predator – Command," Typhoon said, his voice thick with weariness. "Come in?"

An awful nothingness crackled on the comms for several seconds. Ryke swallowed hard. The Dreadnought would never make it back to forward command on foot. Even the tanks would be hard pressed to make their fuel last that long after such an intense, prolonged engagement.

"HK-Predator – Command," Typhoon repeated. "This is Lieutenant Farrell Kwendo, callsign Typhoon, acting commander of HK-Predator. Please respond."

"We read you, HK-Predator."

Ryke almost felt like melting at the sound of Colonel Hackley's voice. He let his head rock back against the impact gel as she spoke.

"Good to hear your voice, Lieutenant. And on behalf of all of us, a damn fine job."

"Thank you, ma'am," Typhoon responded.

"Colonel De Lunta?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. The colonel didn't make it. We lost a lot of good people today."

"I understand." She paused. Ryke tried not to think about what the casualties would mean for Brekka's forces going forward. They'd committed their very best to get the job done, and paid for it.

"Can you confirm your location?" Hackley asked, switching the subject. "We've got a comm signal coming well off to the east of the combat zone."

"I can confirm. Scraegans helped us find a way out, but we had to take the scenic route." Typhoon let out a weary sigh over the comm. "Do you think you've got space for some hitch-hikers, ma'am? We're running on fumes out here."

"Sit tight, Lieutenant – we're on our way. Hackley out."

Ryke closed his eyes and sagged limply into the pilot cradle, the tension flowing out of his body in a rush. In a matter of minutes sheer exhaustion overwhelmed him, and standing out in the badlands inside his Dreadnought, he fell asleep.