Hellsky (Hunter-Killer #3)

Chapter 05 - Too Much Blood to Wash Under this Bridge

Year 248 P.L. Rychter Calendar
Coordinates: 39.2°S; 62.3°W
Site Designation: Brekka (City of)

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Ryke felt his soul settle just a little as the armoured mass of Brekka came into view on the horizon. Home, battered and bruised but still standing proud – a symbol of humanity's stubbornness and tenacity.

The Hunter-Killers thumped their way across the war-scarred plateau, Rychter's twin-suns searing down on them every step of the way. Brekka rose like a mountain in front of them, its outer walls sheathed in blast-plating and topped with immense quad-barrelled cannons. As they drew closer the diminutive figures of militia troops could be made out, the spines of their anti-armour rifles pointing at the sky like spear points. Beyond them the clustered white stone structures of the city proper rose.

He could make out the newer sections of wall, gleaming in the sun, some with vestiges of scaffolding still clinging to their exteriors. Reminders of how close they'd come to losing the city little more than a year ago. The siege remained raw in his mind. He'd lost a lot of friends that day.

It was difficult to reconcile in his mind. The Scraegan assault on Brekka had been the single largest battle of the war, and it had been a bloodbath. They might have been working side by side now, but every time he came back, Ryke felt that little kernel of anger and bitterness burn just a little brighter.

"HK-Rupture – Forge CC3B," he called down the comm as they drew within the firing range of the great wall guns. "We are on approach to the South East battlement. Acknowledge?"

"Acknowledged, HK-Rupture," replied the Forge officer – safely tucked away somewhere in the military nucleus of Brekka. "We have you on approach, all guns stood down to friendlies. Welcome home, and from what I've heard, nice work."

"Happy to be back," Ryke replied. "HK-Rupture, out."

"Home, sweet-sweet home," Scantlin crooned. "You buying, Lockjaw?"

"Don't remember agreeing to that," he answered, smiling as much as his face would allow. The callsign reference the slab of metal that replaced the left side of his jaw, where on his first mission his mech had taken the full brunt of a furnace cannon shot. Ryke survived, but that plate served as a reminder.

"C'mon, Haze," Brigg cut in. "When was the last time you fronted somebody some shiner?"

"His shiner's disgusting," Ricardo put in grimly.

"Yeah, well with Ivy off digging up the world, our best brewer's a good stretch of the River away. Someone's gotta start learning."

"The engineers always make the best," Ryke told them, the armoured South-East Gate looming larger and larger in his vision as they approached. "I'll ask around."

"Thank the Lords."

Then the gates were opening. Huge slabs of solid armour two feet thick, heaved apart by pistons the size of tanks. On the reinforced battlement above he could see the boxy heads of the main guns watching the approach for a moment, before they were lost to sight as the Hunter-Killers past through.

Brekka spilled out before them. Balloon wheeled trucks trundled over the heat-cracked streets, disappearing behind clumps of white buildings. Civilians traffic filled the main thoroughfares, but all over the city, strips of roadway remained empty for use exclusively by Brekka's military.

Ryke and the Hunter-Killers thumped onto one of those fenced off roadways, following thick, red arrows emblazoned into the ground. The sheer volume of operations that the Brekkan troops undertook meant they couldn't ever afford to get held up by the population they needed to defend. These routes entwined the city, letting the soldiers of the Scout Cadre, militia and Hunter-Killers to deploy wherever they needed.