Warsong (Hunter-Killer #2)

Chapter 12 - Heads on the Block

Kaydie Brackenshaw descended the ramp of her battered skiff, weariness dripping from her bones and sweat dripping from her brow. Her rifle hung across her back like an anvil and it took all the strength she had left to heave the strap up over her head and let the weapon hang in one aching hand. Scrubbing a sleeve across her face, she unbuckled her helmet with a sigh of relief.

She shook her short tangle of dark hair loose, digging her fingers through the sodden locks and grimacing. She needed a shower. Or a drink. Preferably both. Such simple things were all a soldier of her tenure looked forward to after a difficult operation.

Difficult? Brackenshaw shook her head bitterly. How about disastrous?

Other exhausted soldiers from the Scout Cadre trudged down the ramp after her, heads hung low and words passing quietly between them. When they'd left Ozzmar these same men and women had been spoiling for a fight.

Now they seemed shell-shocked. She stopped at the bottom of the ramp, turning to face the troops and thumping a gentle fist down on their shoulder guards as she passed her. They spilled gratefully out into the makeshift base in Ozzmar's centre, and Engineering Cadre specialists flowed the other way, scurrying over the battered vehicles of the task force with frantic precision.

Brackenshaw let her eyes wander over the carnage. Half of her flight had been wiped out in the ambush. Most of the others had limped home, burnt, dented and damaged in their desperate escape. She shook her head, still trying to wrap her brain around it. The long range seismic detectors employed by Brekka's forces should have given them plenty of warning, but somehow the Scraegans had found away around it.

Could they have been masking their vibrations somehow? She doubted it. The Scraegan technology was brutal and unsophisticated; destructive, not creative. But what alternative did that leave? How long had those packs been waiting in the desert for them to come by? Somehow they must have anticipated the movement of the human forces, instinctively knowing their targets and setting up defensive ambushes far in advance.

Tactically their manoeuvre had been a master stroke, stopping the human army from consolidating its smaller strike forces to push south, and they'd caused horrendous casualties in the process. She almost admired it.

But her admiration evaporated quickly as she walked through the devastated strike force. Miquelon was dead along with six of his pilots – a hole not easily filled. Both HK-Rupture and HK-Praxis had taken casualties of their own, not to mention the dozens of tanks, self-propelled guns and infantry vehicles that had been wiped out. The survivors had been badly rattled, and her concerns now went far beyond the physical damage the Scraegans had inflicted.

"Hynan," she called hoarsely as the man slouched past her.

He turned wearily, drawing himself up with a salute nonetheless. "Ma'am?"

"At ease, at ease." She nodded to the straggled line of her platoon's soldiers. "Make sure they get something to eat and some rest. If anyone gets the shakes, you let me know, alright?"

Hynan nodded. "Yes, ma'am. You should get some rest yourself."

"I will, corporal," she replied, looking past him. "But I need to check on a few things first. Dismissed."

"Ma'am."

His broad shoulders sagged and he turned away again, following the other Scout Cadre troops to their billets. Brackenshaw set off in a different direction towards the grimy, smoke-wreathed ranks of the armoured column. Some of the more badly damaged vehicles were still crawling into place, directed cautiously be Engineering Cadre technicians. Engines sputtered in the twilight. She approached one vehicle crew who had disembarked, now sharing a flask of weak shiner and speaking in hushed tones. They directed her to the far end of the vehicle line.