For a moment he didn't know what to do. He could only watch as a fresh surge of Scraegan bodies piled their way towards the gap in the wall. It was a narrow breach – one that the defenders could plug and repair if they had the time, but the Scraegans knew that too. If they were able to deliver more bombs to the same location they could well open a rift too big to defend.
Ryke's attempts to think of a plan were derailed by the constant melee he remained trapped in, dodging, slashing at blasting at the armoured bodies that continued to flood the plateau around him. The success of just one of their bomb teams had revitalised the flagging Scraegan charge. Fresh packs continued spilling from their campfires, charging through the withering hail of fire from the long range defences and hurling themselves into the crush.
Ryke could see the ammo counter of his cannon clicking down into the amber warning zone even as his comm. exploded with chatter as Brekka's defenders tried to redress their line to protect the gap in the wall. A snaking column of Scout Cadre skiffs zipped along behind the main battle line, racing for the breach and spewing fire at the small groups of Scraegans who wrestled themselves clear of the Hunter-Killer force.
"All Riots and Goliaths," he roared to his squad as he navigated the brutal close quarters combat. "Full offence – not a single one of those gets passed us. Empty your cannons and tear these bastards apart. When you're dry, engage hand to hand. Haze, Haunter, you're on hit and run duty. We'll cause a ruckus – you find those bombs and blow them."
"Copy that," Scantlin replied, his voice firm with resolve. "Haunter, pull in on my six and follow my lead."
"Copy – on your six," Kim answered with a lot less surety, but on the HUD the two Raptor mechs broke away from the main body of the squad, virtually ignoring the Scraegans as they used their mobility to sprint through the chaos, hunting for more bombs as they went.
Ryke followed his own order, unleashing his cannon without any though for conserving ammo, trying to do as much damage to the Scraegan force as possible and drag their attention to the attacking Hunter-Killers. They fought in a semi-circular skirmish line with the Goliath's behind, their heavy cannons causing horrendous damage at close range.
Another bomb blew apart on the edge of his vision and he saw his Raptor pilots scampering clear of the attempted retaliation by the Scraegan defenders. He surged forward punching his blade through the knee joint of a charging beta. The creature went down with a howl, flailing at him with a toothed bar of metal until Preese followed up behind him and pulped the monster's skull with a point-blank burst of cannon fire.
A furnace cannon shot sent amber damage warnings blaring on the HUD indicator for Brigg's Goliath, and Ryke swiftly doubled back, finding his friend staggering, blue flames licking at scorched armour.
"Avalanche, status?"
"Armour integrity holding," Brigg grunted. "Lost half a dozen sensors on my right side and shoulder servo is sluggish. Still combat effective." He accented the point by loosing a shot from his cannon into the throat of the offending Scraegan.
The carnage ground on, and the fast moving Raptors succeeded in destroying yet another demolition charge, but in that time another breach was reported. Out of their field of view in a different sector, it only served to highlight just how many Scraegans had committed to this.
Ryke could barely fathom it. Depleted though the wall defences might be, there were still torrents of fire ripping into the attacking force, and combined with the ferocity of the Hunter-Killer charges the Scraegans were paying dearly for every meter they advanced. He simply didn't believe they could sustain this indefinitely.
It was a hammer blow – they were throwing everything they had at Brekka here and now, with the intention of ending the battle in one cataclysmic engagement. And it was working.
Packs of Scraegans began to sporadically burst clear of the Hunter-Killer defensive line. They didn't have the numbers to contain them all along such a wide front, no matter how skilled the pilots.
"Lockjaw-Torch," he snapped. "We can't hold this much longer. Recommend withdrawal to the walls. We'll need to defend the breaches from the inside and bottleneck them."
"Negative on that, Lockjaw," the lieutenant shot back instantly. "We need to hold as long as command tells us. They're plugging the breaches and bringing up extra defensive guns but it's on us to buy the time. Hold your positions. Torch out."
"Drown me," Ryke spat in frustration as he shouldered another Scraegan out of his path with bone-jarring force, sending more damage warnings jittering along the left flank of his Hunter-Killer. Still more Scraegans were erupting from the earth and spilling from the campfires, charging over the inert deep-strike mines to join the battle. They'd be able to hold this position for a few more minutes if they were lucky.
"Lockjaw, I think I've got an idea that could buy us some time," Amelia suddenly piped up, a tremor in her voice.
"Lay it on me, Princess."
"You're not gonna like it."
"Try me."
"Those mines are still live, right?"
Ryke paused to twist his mech at the hip, ripping his warblade through the throat of an advancing Scraegan. The beast staggered past with a guttural howl of pain, a blunt-toothed axe of metal swinging in his direction. He drilled a volley of armour piercing shots at the creature's knees, and as it fell forward he reared one leg up and crushed a foot into its face.
"Technically, I guess," he panted, backing away from the downed foe. "Why? We can't trigger the remote detonators."
"I had something a bit more direct in mind." Her comm fizzed briefly as she let off a shot from her heavy cannon at close range, cratering the chest of another Scraegan in her path. "We've still got our mounted launchers and the mine positions. We get close enough we could drop a mine on top of them and set them off."
"Would that even work?!" Scantlin cut in. "Those things are designed not to go off by accident."
"None of us are bomb techs." Ryke's cannon arm kicked as he continued shooting into the churning mass of Scraegan bodies that plunged through the dust and grit. He flicked his comm to a secure targeted band. "HK-Rupture – Forge CC12A, acknowledge?"
"Forge CC12A, reading you – go ahead Ryke."
"You know the tech specs of these deepstrikers?"
"Sure – still don't know how they jammed the remote trigger or the proximity sensors though-"
"I don't care about that, Kelso. I just need to know if we could set one off with a mine from a Hunter-Killer launcher."
"I... I mean I guess so. They're not built to withstand other explosions." There was a brief moment of silence before Kelso realised what they were getting at. "Wait, wait, Ryke, no – that is not a good idea."
"Too many of them out here, Kelso – we need to do something or they're going to be through those breaches before we can stop them."
"That's not the point, Ryke. Those mines have a kill radius of nearly four hundred meters! Your launchers don't have anything like that kind of range. Even if it worked it would be a suicide mission."
"The Hunter-Killer armour should protect us."
"Not at the distance you'd need to be. Junk this Ryke – we'll think of something else. That's an order. We don't need any martyrs today. Force-CC12A out."
Ryke bristled at the swift rebuke. The comm. crackled and he flicked back to his squad-wide with a snort of frustration. He had no intention of blowing himself up, but staying out her fighting to the death would get him killed just as easily. They had to do something.
"Tighten up!" he barked sharply, noticing the squad begin to drift dangerously as they tried to wreak as much havoc in the Scraegan line as possible to give time for the defenders to bring up fresh ordinance and plug the crumbling hole in the wall.
But what could they do? His little squadron against the seemingly endless hoard of Scraegans thundering over the plateau towards them? The Hunter-Killer line had disintegrated into a series of bloody melees along their section, with casualties piling up exponentially on both sides. They were never going to hold them – he knew that.
"Ryke," Amelia spoke between thunderous blasts of her gun. "Have you got a better idea?"
"You got a death wish?" Brigg interjected before he could reply. "You heard command and you know it's true. These launchers don't have the range."
"Doesn't have to be a suicide run, Avalanche. I can up the time delay on the charge to give us enough time to pull out again once we've fired."
"Scraegans will be on our asses every step of the way," Marylee said. "There is not going to be a lot of time to pull this off."
"Not to mention disobeying direct orders."
"Enough!" Ryke roared, instantly silencing the comm. chatter so he could think. It was his decision and nobody else's. He might have had an order from Kelso not to attempt such a scheme, but from a coldly rational perspective, even if they couldn't get out it would be a small price to pay to stem the tide.
He looked back at the scorched and ruined fissure that the Scraegans had managed to blast in the outer wall. It would only take one more of those charges to bring a whole section of the wall crashing down, and the Scraegans would pour through the fissure before any meaningful defence could be mounted. They had to slow them down.
"Princess, are you sure you can do this?" he asked firmly. "I can take risks but I'm not looking for any heroes today."
"I can't guarantee a damn thing, sir, but if we don't try we might as well just give them Brekka on a platter. If this works other teams can do the same. We might actually have a chance of holding them off. Hang orders and hang the risks."
He took a deep breath. And nodded. "Good enough for me."
"Ryke-?!"
"HK-Rupture, on my lead," he growled over Brigg's objection. "Defensive formation around the Goliaths. We're heading for the nearest deep-strike mine. Make a hole."
He didn't wait for their acknowledgements – discipline in the face of the carnage that unfolded around them carried his pilots and they formed up, Thaye and Preese flanking him a wedge formation and the others creating a protective ring around the two Goliaths. Then they were running, carving a thin furrow of blasted earth through the scattered Scraegan packs.
"Torch-Lockjaw! What in the Everflowing are you doing?!"
"Buying time, sir. We're going to set off the deep-strike mine in our section." Ryke broke off briefly to rattle off a salvo of fire from his rapidly diminishing reserve. "If this works, you'll want to pass the word along, but we are committed. HK-Rupture out."
They smashed through a thick part of the Scraegan line as enemy packs tried to intercept them. Whether they knew that the Hunter-Killers were attempting or not, they were in his way, and Ryke launched himself into the chaos with revitalised fury. They had a plan, even a desperate one, and that send a fresh surge of adrenaline pumping through his veins.
The plateau top became slick with blood, oil and spent shell casings as their little squadron was bogged down by sheer weight of numbers. Brigg fell behind as his knee joint was ruined out by a hammer blow, forced to lockdown and keep firing as the escorting Riot mechs exacted furious retribution on the attackers. Kim and Norville became separated from the group, strung out as they tried to cover Brigg and aid the remaining mechs in their charge. Scantlin lost his warblade in the skull of an Alpha that tried to stop them.
More Scraegans closed in to try and bar their path, but they were tantalizingly close to being in range. At the point of the wedge with Thaye and Preese, Ryke tried to force his way through those last hundred meters, but was forced to slow down, his cannon spent and damage warnings screeching from a dozen systems.
Too slow. Too late. They couldn't make that last shred of distance and rage boiled in Ryke's blood as he hammered his blade through a Scraegan throat guard.
"I'm going in boss – cover me!"
He froze for an instant, then his eyes widened in realisation. "Amelia, wait-"
But she was past listening. The bulk of her Goliath barrelled forward like a freight train, abandoning the safety of the Riot mechs, shooting left and right and literally running over a Scraegan that tried to bar her path. A furnace cannon blast glanced off her shoulder shield, belching flames across the thick armour but she didn't slow down. Another shot hit her, tearing the shoulder cannon clean out of its housing and almost knocking the mech over.
Still Amelia forced the battered machine onward, into range of the mine launcher.
Scraegans closed in from all sides as she limped into position, her arm cannon spitting an arc of fire in all directions as she locked her stabilisers in place. He saw the mine launchers unfold, spider-like from the waist of the Goliath, their fat barrels pointing skyward.
"Deploying mines," she rasped.
Two hollow thunks echoed across the plain as the launchers fired, lobbing a pair of the toothed explosives high and far towards their targets.
"Amelia, get out of there!" Ryke bellowed through the comm.
"Gyros are wrecked and I've got hydraulic leaks in my leg joints," she gasped back, agony searing on every syllable. "S-sorry, boss. I think I screwed this one up. Didn't have time to set the delay. You better get clear."
Ryke opened his mouth to reply, but found the words turned to acid on his tongue. There was nothing to say, and nothing to do. The mines she had fired slammed to earth, digging their way deep into the plateau, and on the HUD reading he could see they were bang on target. They only had a matter of seconds. With a sob in his voice he gave the only order he could.
"All units ... pull back!"
"Ryke – wait... no we can't-,"
"PULL BACK!"
His voice cracked as he screamed out the order, unable to pull his gaze from Amelia's distant, stricken mech as he scrambled to get clear of the lethal blast zone. Thaye and Scantlin struggled along beside him, fending off the chasing Scraegans, collecting beleaguered squad mates as they went.
Then the deep-strike mine detonated.
It was as though a prehistoric god had awoken from its slumber. The ground beneath him trembled with wrath, a light breeze compared to the cataclysmic shockwave that followed. It seemed like the whole world exploded before his eyes. From left to right, fire burst from the plateau, creating a vast eruption of half-molten rock and mud that rose into the morning sky. The glare seared against the Hunter-Killer's optics as the full brunt of the blast finally arrived.
A mushroom cloud climbed darkly in his vision; the HUD overlay glitched and blinked in protest as he refused to tear his eyes away. The blast wave washed out across the plateau, scouring the life from everything it touched. Hundreds of Scraegans vanished in the fire in an instant.
Amelia's battered and broken Hunter-Killer vanished along with them.