Furnace (Hunter-Killer #1)

Chapter 09 - Call to Arms

Things were finally looking up.

Since Ozzmar's destruction a sense of constant tension fizzled in the background of every training session, accentuating every failure and every misstep. Every day that passed seemed to drag them closer to some indefinable crisis, and every hour wasted relearning manoeuvres or combat techniques set Ryke on edge.

So when the Hunter-Killers of Squad Green began to display some true cohesion he could barely suppress his happiness. It seemed that his little chat with Thaye had wound in some of the girl's anger and she worked harder than any of them to ensure she didn't repeat such a mistake. Now that he saw her working with the team, he actually found her a little scary. The Ozzmar refugee attacked the training simulations with a skill and ferocity that none of them had expected. In a hand to hand fight she could handle a Hunter-Killer better than any of them.

He watched her effortlessly rattle a precise series of shells from her cannon across a simulated foe, rocking the Scraegan backwards before switching deftly to her blade-and-shield combo. In a fluid motion she detached the blast shield from her shoulder, locking it in the grip of her right hand as she unsheathed her war-blade in the other without breaking stride. As the Scraegan tipped down towards her she swung the shield up in a vicious arc beneath its chin. The impact smashing the thing's head upwards, revealing the throat armour. With startling savageness she surged up and slammed the blade into the armour in three hammering motions.

The simulated monster fell, and winked out of existence in death.

The rest of the squadron continued their advance through the urban battlefield that had been erected on the training field, practicing the clearing of a cramped environment in the bulk of the Hunter-Killers. Normal people's lives weren't scaled to match the armoured behemoths, and clearing an urban zone required more than simple extermination. The humans needed to do more than just kill-or-be-killed. They needed to defend their towns and cities without letting them be smashed to ruins in the process. If an attack was beaten off only for the town to be evacuated in the aftermath, it would render the defence pyrrhic.

So the team focused on swift, surgical strikes, setting up ambush points and kill zones to wipe out the maximum number of enemies with minimal collateral damage. The Greens excelled at the tightly packed engagements, moving quickly and decisively as they cleared out Scraegan attack packs. The Goliaths choked up the major junctions with withering fire, drawing the enemies into tight corridors where the Riot and Raptor mechs could collapse.

"All units, stand down!" Mulrough called as they finished their clear of the urban zone. Ryke's eyes flashed up to the timer in the top right corner of his HUD, and he grinned when he saw they'd shaved several minutes off their personal best and taken no casualties in the process.

"Nice hustle, Greens," the drill sergeant confirmed. "Walk it out and return your HKs to the main hanger for shakedown."

"Copy that," Kazem replied on behalf of them all. "Squad Green on me – fall out."

The ten Hunter-Killers loped from the combat zone in a snaking line following Kazem's lead, passing the mechs of Squad Red as they prepared for their own run at the urban gauntlet. Ryke felt at ease now within his machine, no longer having to concentrate so hard on maintaining his balance or the length of his stride. Long hours in the Hunter-Killers had pressed the muscle memory into him – if anything he felt odder outside of the mech than inside.

Returning to the main hangar, they guided their machines into their holdfasts, thick waist claws locking into place, technicians swarming over them to check over their charges. The HUD flickered away as his mech powered down, its chest plate splitting open and permitting the glare of the hangar to spill over him.