Furnace (Hunter-Killer #1)

Chapter 28 - Dig Deep

The blast shook the ground beneath his feet, sending violent reverberations through the Hunter-Killer's shock absorbers. Fire and smoke belched to the heavens as the shells inside the pounder emplacement were ignited by the blast, sending huge lumps of metal plating hurtling in all directions.

What in the name of the Everflowing...

Ryke's mind spun with confusion and for an instant he was frozen with indecision, staring in horror at the smouldering, molten remnants of the once-mighty gun. Soldiers caught in the blast lay scattered like rag dolls all around it, and a whole section of the trenchworks had been torn to pieces by the fire and shrapnel. What the hell had caused it?!

And before he could even form a theory, the second pounder emplacement was obliterated. Just like the first the armoured bunker was blown to pieces from within, its explosive shells igniting in a series of secondary blasts that rolled into a devastating fiery cascade.

A mech from HK-Bandit on the far side of the bunker was completely shorn in two by a gigantic plate of metal propelled hard and fast enough to carve through the thick armour like paper. The nearby trenches were washed with flame and shrapnel, slaughtering the soldiers unlucky enough to be in the radius. The larger hunks of debris crushed and injured more militia as they careened through the trenches, and in the blink of an eye the well-organised human line descended into utter chaos.

"Drown me!"

"By the Everflowing..."

Ryke gritted his teeth as a storm of stunned and panicked voices cluttered his earpiece, forcing himself not to say anything as he examined his HUD. And in a lurching moment that sent his stomach turning he suddenly remembered Alldeep.

It felt like a lifetime ago but what other explanation was there? What else did the Scraegans have that could do this kind of damage? There had been no reports of similar incidents before or since, but nothing else made sense.

And all at once the Scraegan tactic made sense. They had literally sacrificed dozens; if not hundreds of soldiers to the guns of the city in order to cover the underground advance of the diggers that had carried the explosives. With the charging force and the thunder of battle the seismics would never have detected them if they remained in close proximity. This entire bloodbath was nothing more than a diversion to take out the mighty cannon emplacements that ringed the city.

He flicked his comm to fullwide band, a channel reserved for emergencies only. In Ryke's mind this certainly qualified.

"HK-Rupture to all command units!" he bellowed. "Emergency Code 001 – the Scraegan force on the surface is a diversion. They are sending explosives underground to take out the pounders and the trenches! Deploy all mine launchers immediately to surface them!"

He didn't have time to wait for a reply, turning his attention back to the mayhem that had engulfed their section of the defences. Smoke from the blast now filled the air, obscuring friend and foe alike and preventing Brekka's wall gunners from firing into the crush for fear of hitting their own.

Much closer in, however, the sensors of Ryke's Hunter-Killer could pick out Scraegan shadows in the gloom and a surge of anger snarled its way through his veins. His flexed his half-metal jaw and tensed.

"HK-Rupture!" he roared to his pilots. "Sound off!" A couple of seconds passed and then the shell-shocked pilots started to check in. They were all accounted for – blind chance had meant they were relatively central, too far from the bunkers to be caught in the blasts.

"The guns..." Amelia said, her voice shaking. "What do we do...sir?"

Within the armoured shell of his war mech, Ryke's expression darkened to one of black fury. "Engage at will," he spat. "Kill them all!"