Chapter 37 - Pest Control

Death had come to the Scraegar Labyrinth.

The first Crawlers came plunging out of walls and from beneath the ground, only to find themselves faced with the full fury of the human army. Tank cannons bellowed, skiffs strafed them with armour piercing rounds and Hunter-Killers sprayed fire from their cannons.

Tactical assessments had quickly concluded that they were unlikely to stop the Crawlers from getting into the midst of the human column – the only option was to be ready for it when it happened. The battle mechs positioned themselves in amongst the tanks and armoured vehicles, waiting for the inevitable incursion. When it came, the Hunter-Killers were there to keep the flanks and rears of Vanyr's armour protected, allowing the northern gunners to ply their deadly trade.

Brackenshaw clung on tight as her skiff performed another gut-wrenching turn, fire spewing from its front and rear cannons. As the deck levelled out, she hauled herself back into place along the firing rail. To her left and right the scout troopers rattled off salvo after salvo into the milling Crawler swarm. They harried and distracted the creatures, trying to keep them off balance long enough for someone with a bigger gun to finish the job.

A Crawler to her left lost half its legs as one of the heavy Mammoth cannons ripped across it. Another was pounded to a pulp as two shells plunged into it simultaneously. She watched two of the creatures clambering and clawing at the hull of one tank, only for a trio of Hunter-Killers to come piling into the melee, to dislodge them.

More Crawlers flung themselves at the armoured flanks of the Mammoths, tearing at the plates with mindless ferocity. Some were shredded by defensive guns. Others were peeled off by Hunter-Killers or driven back by salvos of fire from scouts and infantry trucks.

It was total chaos.

"Keep your spacing!" Brackenshaw roared over the comms. "And stay out of friendly fire lanes." Another violent lurch of the skiff cut her off for a moment. She gritted her teeth. "Aim for the limb joints – slow them down and let the heavies finish the job."

The human column plunged into an ever-growing thicket of Crawlers, more of the things spilling in from all sides. Gore, fire and bodies piled up in the narrow confines of the gully. She saw Hunter-Killers vanish beneath mounds of smashing limbs, only for vengeful volleys of fire to atomise the perpetrators. Three Crawlers working jointly managed to tip one of the northern assault tanks onto its side, ripping into its vulnerable underside to slaughter the unfortunate crew within. One skiff slammed into a Crawler as it reared up, impaling the thing right through its under-maw and sending both the scouts and the monster smashing into the closest wall. The vehicle's ammo caches detonated in a violent fireball.

But it wasn't long before a third force arrived to add to the bloodshed.

She felt them before she saw them, the skiff's slender form vibrating violently for an instant before several Scraegan warbands arrived. Geysers of smashed rock burst across the battlefield as their new allies hurled themselves into the fray from both flanks, leaving the main approach clear for the human force to drive down into.

The glare of furnace cannons blazed in the gloom – Crawler bodies boiled. She saw the copper-furred Alpha's unmistakable mass stalking through the battle like a primeval god, its barbed sword clutched in two massive paws, swinging with earth-splitting force and caked with gore.

"AC-1, HK squadrons Rupture and Grendel, take the lead," Colonel Hackley ordered brusquely, her voice tight with nerves. "Punch a hole and we'll follow you through."

"Acknowledged – moving now," Brigadier Vanyr answered. "Rupture, Grendel, form up and intercept anything that tries to get in behind us. AC-1, form up and accelerate to assault speed. SC-21 and 13, give us an advance screen."

"On our way," Brackenshaw replied. A wrenching turn of the skiff confirmed that her pilot had gotten the message. With the Scraegans taking some of the pressure off, the Vanyr's elite tanks accelerated out of the melee, cannons blasting at the fresh groups of Crawlers that came spilling from the tunnels around them. The Hunter-Killers raced along in their wake, pairing off to shepherd individual tanks as they charged.

The vanguard of the human force pressed on relentlessly, and all the while the Mammoths grumbled along unheeding, crushing abandoned equipment and Crawler corpses beneath their tremendous mass.

Sweeping her own detachment into a screen in front of the tanks, Brackenshaw fired over, and over, and over, her shoulder beginning to ache from the constant recoil of her rifle. The colossal forms of the Crawlers flashed by her, snapping and snarling at the fast-moving skiff. She ducked as one lashed its tail at them, ripping a deep gouge in the flank armour. The skiff rocked, but mercifully remained upright.

As they spun around for their reverse pass, however, she spotted that the lead tank in Vanyr's formation had become isolated, its Hunter-Killer escorts bogged down with more Crawlers as the vehicle barrelled onward. Her eyes widened when she saw a trio of the creatures converging on it from all sides.

"Drown me, Rankil, get us over there!" Brackenshaw ordered, before yelping out a warning. "AC-1, you have incoming!"

"Copy that."

There was cold anger in Brigadier Vanyr's voice, but no trace of fear or panic. She might have been a northern officer, but she'd led the tank battalions through a baptism of fire in the southern campaign. She knew how to fight, and knew how to adapt, and Brackenshaw saw the proof up close with her own eyes.

The turret of the command tank twisted to the left, even as the machine's thick-toothed treads churned, ripping up rock and dirt to spin in the opposite direction. The short, broad barrel flashed once and the Crawler encroaching from the rear had several legs shattered, the shell ripping across the thing's flank and tearing through its armoured exoskeleton like paper. The Crawler went down, shrieking and leaking thick grey blood onto the torn earth.

Swinging violently to the right, the driver gunned the engine to disgorge a deep throated bellow as the heavy tank accelerated, and ploughed into the second Crawler head on. Taken by surprise, the creature didn't have time to react, and after a few seconds of scrabbling helplessly at the sloped front armour, the arthropod was dragged beneath the churning treads. Ninety tons of mechanised death rolled over it, leaving a bloodied, broken, twitching mess behind.

The third Crawler leapt high, arcing vengefully down towards the tank. The turret traversed with desperate speed, swinging to bear on the new threat with just seconds to spare. The monster fell; the barrel rose to meet it.

The cannon fired.

At virtually point blank range, the blast blew the Crawler in half, its thick carapace disintegrating as the high explosive round struck it dead centre. Limbs and gore splattered in all directions across the gully floor, and the tank rumbled forwards, crushing the remains carelessly under its bulk.

"All units," Vanyr snarled over the wide-band. "On my lead."

*

The comm chatter in his ears was driving him mad. Inside the Mammoth, Ryke and the other Dreadnought pilots had no choice but to wait, and trust their companions, but he didn't know how much longer he could sit still, knowing what was happening outside.

The whole Mammoth shuddered as the guns on its lower decks fired; Ryke could see gunnery crews racing back and forth, wheeling fresh magazines and bellowing orders at each other. A battering thudthudthudthud reverberated through the interior of the mighty vehicle. It felt like he'd been stuck inside this Mammoth forever, with no eyes on the outside world, forced to keep his reactor dark to conserve every scrap of energy for when it was needed.

Trying to distract himself, he examined the one other special piece of equipment that had would be deploying along with the Dreadnoughts. Filling most of the space of the lower deck of the Mammoth, a rectangular vehicle squatted on four thick-armoured track sections. The chassis was modified from one of the northern battle tanks, but instead of a main gun, its upper section was a semi-circular barrel of solid armour. Guns protruded from firing slits in its flanks, but this thing had only been designed to do one thing.

Deliver the bomb. Somewhere, wrapped in sheet after sheet of black, smooth amour plating was the atomic mine that would hopefully put an end to the Crawlers.

"All pilots, this is Reaver," De Lunta's voice cut through the din of battle, sending a bolt of lightning up Ryke's spine. "Crawlers are massing in the tunnel ahead to block the way, so it's about time to test out our new toys. Prepare for deployment and sound off."

"Dropout, sounding off," replied Captain Dultzer an instant later. The other pilots reeled off their own callsigns in confirmation.

"Ratchet, solid copy."

"Camper, loud and clear."

"Jinx here, solid copy."

"Typhoon, reading you loud and clear."

"Impact, sounding off."

"Sledge, I copy."

"Cinder, loud and clear."

"Lash, solid copy."

"Blockade, comm check is clean."

"Cobra, sounding off."

"Lockjaw, solid copy!" Ryke barked when his turn came, closely follow by Thaye and Milica – the last pilots in the chain.

"Havoc, loud and clear."

"Fang, comm check good."

There was a pause, like a held breath before a storm. He tensed, waiting for the order, hands strangling the firing controls of the Hunter-Killer. When the command finally came he could barely contain his anticipation, sucking in breath and rolling his metal jaw from side to side in readiness.

"Command – HK-Predator," Colonel Hackley snapped across the wideband. "You are cleared to deploy. I repeat, you are cleared to deploy!"

"Music to my ears," Thaye growled. "You up for this, sarge?"

"Always." Ryke flexed his neck to loosen up, adrenaline surging into his system at the prospect of finally unleashing the full power of the Dreadnought. He allowed the raw energy of the mechs raging reactor to bleed through him, the link skin crackling like pinpricks up and down his body. The immense clamps around his Hunter-Killer's waist section disengaged and the full weight of the machine sank against the armoured deck.

A deep boom echoed through the Mammoth's interior as Andre 'Reaver' De Lunta stepped out of his cradle.

"HK-Predator!" the colonel roared. "On my lead!"

The boarding ramp lowered, spilling dust, and chaos into the compartment, but it might as well have been a summer breeze for all the effect it had on the Hunter-Killers. With De Lunta leading the way, the fifteen Dreadnought mechs stampeded out of the Mammoth, and into the war.

As he propelled himself out into the gloom-filled carnage of the Labyrinth, Ryke felt something he hadn't felt in a long time.

He felt invincible.

The hulking mass of his Dreadnought thundered from the belly of the Mammoth, its clawed feet leaving deep divots in the rock and earth of the gully as he walked. Weapons systems rumbled to life, the Hunter-Killer's reactor boiling with fury, begging to be unleashed.

"Assault formation," De Lunta barked. "Tear them to pieces."

The heaviest killing machines ever created on Rychter's soil formed a wedge of black metal, their sensor strips shining a demonic crimson in the gloom of the gully. Masses of Crawlers were piling into the tunnel ahead of them, some instinct telling the creatures to stop the humans from reaching their goal. They swarmed to protect whatever lay down in these depths.

Ryke bared his teeth. They were welcome to try.

He let the reactor go. Heat rose in the pilot cradle but he didn't even notice, focusing on nothing but the onrushing hoard of armoured bodies. The twin-warblades slid into position and he hunched his shoulders, lowering himself as he charged.

They met the Crawler's head on.

Roaring a wordless battle cry, Ryke leaned his left shoulder into the first Crawler and wrenched violently sideways as he struck. The Dreadnought's frame responded with brutal force. The Crawler's head was smashed to a pulp as it was struck by the slab of metal, leaving a bony shattered mess driven right back into the carapace.

As the next Crawler came at him he pivoted and fired the shock cannon under his right arm. It recoiled with enough force to shatter stone, and the twin-barrels flared in the dark. Two shells hit the Crawler just to the left of its head section and blasted a three meter chasm in its carapace.

Fresh shrieking filled the air as the thing tipped sideways, limbs flailing and tail whipping in all directions. He turned; the tail clanged harmlessly off one shoulder shield. Then Thaye stepped in along side him and swung down, ramming one warblade into the creature and leaning the full weight of her mech down into the blow. Grey sludge exploded from the wound as she crushed the dying arthropod into Rychter's earth.

The wedge of Dreadnoughts ground into the Crawlers, causing horrific casualties as they went. At the point of the arrowhead, De Lunta was a carousel of death, blasting left and right at point blank range, shattering bodies and pulverising skulls as he went.

Anything that they didn't kill out right was mopped up by standard pattern Hunter-Killers and tank formations trailing in their wake. Crawler blood thickened to a paste on the gully floor.

An immense weight slammed down onto the top of Ryke's Dreadnought from behind, making him stagger, and he realised he'd been blind-sided. The creature clung to him, scrabbling savagely at his armour; a limb clanged off the spherical head section making him wince.

"Lockjaw – got one on me," he barked, twisting and shaking to try and dislodge the thing.

"Havoc, covering!" Thaye shouted back. There was a hissing, boiling sound a second later and the weight on Ryke's shoulders fell away.

He twisted around and found the Crawler flailing around on the ground, a deep, cauterized gouge in the side of its carapace. Thaye's Dreadnought stood a couple of meters back, the warblade from her right wrist glowing white hot. As the glow faded, she twisted to bring her other arm to bear, and fired down, pounding the Crawler against the ground like it was caught between a hammer and an anvil.

Then more Scraegans arrived.

The black armoured hunters from the wastes emerged into the chaos like an avalanche. They surged from both flanks of the tunnel, long-handled weapons skewering a score of Crawlers before the creatures even knew what was happening. Furnace cannons ripped into the tightly packed mass, unable to miss as they charred their way through flesh and bone.

Ryke was suddenly very glad that the Dreadnought had no olfactory sensors – he shuddered to think what it smelled like outside his armoured shell.

"Break up – combat groupings!" De Lunta shouted, firing both shock cannons at once into the seething mass of Crawlers. "Watch your spacing and eyes open for friendly fire. Camper, Jinx, Typhoon – right flank. Lockjaw, Havoc, Fang – take the left. Dropout, Ratchet, form up with me and let's ram this bomb right down their throats!"

A blizzard of acknowledgements shot through the comm from the battle-hardened Hunter-Killer pilots as they dispersed out of thee wedge, now moving into the vicious, whirling triangle formations. They cut into the seething ranks of arthropods, limbs and tails clanging of armour, bodies breaking from the colossal forces being exerted.

The melee was short and brutal. Tanks and Hunter-Killers streamed forward into breaches carved by the Dreadnoughts and Scraegan hunters. Skiffs stung like wasps, dropping mines and flares into packed groups of Crawlers to dazzle them before the heavy weapons struck. Mobile infantry trucks wheeled in support, disgorging small, fast-moving groups of crack Brekkan soldiers who scuttled almost unnoticed through the battle.

Like a tide the Crawler bodies suddenly receded away down the passage, snarling and spitting as they went. Some plunged away into fresh tunnels; most scuttled backwards in a single mass, like a living carpet. An unsettling quiet settled over the force that had invaded the Scraegar Labyrinth as they took stock.

Breathing heavily, Ryke trudged back into formation as HK-Predator took up position at the head of the column. He glanced back at the train of death and destruction that had followed them here. There were a lot of dead Crawlers, but he could see the toll this battle was already taking on the rest of the human army. Several tanks had been mangled into hulks of useless metal; more than a dozen pilots in the standard Hunter-Killers were dead. The Scout Cadre and militia units had also taken their share of a beating from the Crawlers – broken skiffs and mangled human bodies were scattered through the dead arthropods.

He resisted the urge to radio Preese and the rest of HK-Rupture. Every piece of him wanted to do it, but it wasn't his place – not now. In this elite group Ryke was just another soldier – De Lunta would give the orders and communicate between squads. They needed their discipline, now more than ever.

The passage ahead forked into three tunnels, the one on the right sloping downward according to his seismics. Ryke crunched forward with the rest of the Dreadnoughts, swivelling left and right, still expecting more Crawlers to come snarling out of the walls. For now, things remained suspiciously quiet. The bomb-carrying armoured truck lumbered along behind them, screened by more Hunter-Killers, tanks and scout skiffs. Wreathes of gun smoke coiled in the air, and through them marched the Scraegan hunters.

Immense, black-armoured bodies moved to join the Dreadnought mechs at the crossroads, Scraegans rumbling and growling to each other. Ryke wondered dimly what they might be saying. Did they have their own version of the pre-battle chatter and tension-cutting banter as the Hunter-Killer pilots? Did they have a personality locked beneath those huge shaggy bodies? Or was their culture so alien that he would never understand what those rattling exchanges meant?

"HK-Predator – Command," De Lunta said over the comm after a moment. "No sign of enemy movement. Which way now?"

Before Hackley could reply, a chilling chorus of hissing echoed from the depths of the tunnel to their right.

Demon voices washed over the human and Scraegan troops, a wave of alien, shrieking ferocity that made Ryke's head swim. He suddenly felt like he wanted to throw up. The seismics of his Dreadnought rattled with the force of the Crawler vocalisations. In response, several of the larger Scraegans bellowed their defiance into the tunnel mouth, their huge lungs emptying to overwhelm the sinister cacophony. The Alpha with copper-coloured fur trudged to the fore, a low, bass growl of challenge echoing from the back of its huge throat. Its sword was lathered with Crawler blood.

The warrior snarled something in the Scraegan tongue to the leader of the black-armoured hunters, then it turned its gaze on the Dreadnought mechs. One arm rose, hefting the sword as the Alpha pointed down the right-hand tunnel and let out a sharp, coughing bark.

"Well, colonel," Hackley said uneasily. "I think you have your answer."