Furnace (Hunter-Killer #1)

Chapter 07 - Hunter Killer

ONE MONTH LATER

Magnificent.

It was the only word that Ryke could think of as he stared at the awesome mass of the Hunter-Killer mech he would soon be piloting.

The machine towered over him, four meters tall from head to toe, its burnished, brass armour glinting in the hangar light. The Hunter-Killer was shaped like a human with thick, blocky arms and legs and a spherical 'head' built into a crater-shaped neck section. Hands the size of Ryke's torso were affixed to the end of each arm, five fingered to allow a range of dextrous movement. The feet were shaped like sand-ploughs, with the front sections sloping down into toothed 'toes' that could provide the massive machine with purchase on even the most treacherous terrain. A pair of squat, fat coolant-stacks jutted from behind the shoulders, scorched with use, there to vent excess heat from the Hunter-Killer's enormously powerful internal reactor.

On top of that, it also bristled with destructive armaments. A retractable rotating cannon was slung under the right hand with an enormous trigger mechanism and an ammunition feeder snaking back to link with the cache of armour-piercing shells in the upper arm. Meanwhile the left shoulder of the Riot Pattern mech had been fitted with an oversized blast shield that a skilled pilot could use to deflect incoming blasts while attached, or detach and hold in the opposite hand. Folded back into the wrist section of that same arm was a gigantic, oil-black blade. This allowed pilots to easily alternate between ranged and close combat engagements with their Scraegan foes.

The hangar was alive with activity, a cavernous space with several levels below Rychter's baking hot surface that Ryke hadn't known existed. Fat, cylindrical equipment haulers threaded their way through the hum of activity on carefully placed tramlines. A whole web of them filled the hangar, linked up with massive freight elevators and thick-armed cranes to transfer them from level to level. Men and women in the iron-grey overalls of the Brekkan Engineering Cadre were everywhere, loading munitions, performing repairs and cycling huge hauls of newly available military gear to the upper levels for immediate use.

He could see more than one Hunter-Killer strung up like some kind of puppet, held aloft by thick steel cables while technicians worked feverishly to repair any damage and get the awesome machines back into the fight. In the main deployment zone he could see a whole unit of battle-ready Hunter-Killers loping towards the exit, weapons primed and ready, moving with the ease of their expert pilots. Even from this distance he could see the crimson slashes on their shoulder shields – kill markings.

The weeks since the new recruits had joined them had been brutal, Mulrough and his instructors working the young men and women harder than ever before in the aftermath of Ozzmar's destruction. But it had been worth it though, as far as Ryke was concerned. Sixty eager pilots now stood in serried ranks in front of the dormant machines, each clad in a skin-tight black suit that covered them from throat to ankle – a link-skin.

The suits were aptly named. He felt strangely naked even though he knew he was wearing it. The material was so light and soft that it didn't really feel like clothing in the normal sense. The link-skins facilitated the full body molecular interface with the control mechanisms of the Hunter-Killer and as such were worth any level of discomfort.

He wanted to reach out and touch the Hunter-Killer, but controlled himself. Mulrough's roving eyes still watched them intently.

"Like what you see?" he barked above the noise of the hangar.

"SIR, YES, SIR!"

"Good." He allowed a smile to crack his features, waving Corporal Malewicz and half a dozen technicians forward. "You are about to enter the final stage of your training, and I don't mind saying that I'm damn proud of each and every one of you."