‘Landing platform,’ I whispered to Awl.
He nodded, and pointed to the thickly shadowed area underneath it. ‘There are gue’la under there. Thirty or so by the smell. They must not like the rain.’
Switching my optics into the infrared, the enemy platoon sprang to life. The Ka’Tashuns, for reasons I had never been able to fathom, eschewed environmental combat armour. Their multiple areas of exposed skin therefore lit up my display in brilliant hues as they radiated their body heat. Oddly, when I looked back at the kroot shaper, he was nearly the same colour as the surrounding jungle. The disgusting grease that his skin exuded was apparently some natural adaptation for stealth.
‘More over there,’ I said, indicating the area between the glass dome and the building with the radio tower. Another thirty men milled about. Underneath waterproofed tarps, I noted the telltale shapes of two huge machine guns; blocky things that fired kinetic bolts the size of my fist. ‘I think they’re expecting us.’
Awl grunted. ‘We must strike quickly, and close the distance. We will stand little chance against their heavy guns. What is the Shas’o’s command?’
‘We’ll divide in two. Take half your fighters and circle around to the left. Eliminate that unit near the glass dome. I’ll go with the others and clear out the area beneath the landing field. Then, we converge on the final building.’
Without another word, Awl slithered backwards and vanished into the undergrowth. I made my way as close to the elevated pad as I dared, and found twenty kroot waiting for me. A dozen hounds lay in the mud, panting softly. I was about to ask how it was they kept the beasts so controlled and quiet, when the jungle around me exploded.
I had no idea how the Ka’Tashuns knew that we were about to strike, but it didn’t matter. They opened up on us with everything they had. A mortar shell sailed up into the trees above me, and detonated. Huge shards of wood rained down. Lasers tore into the underbrush all around me, striking several of the kroot warriors. Their death screams were ear-piercing. A second shell of some kind landed directly amidst the hounds. The explosion lifted half of them high into the air and smashed them against the trees.
‘Go! Go!’ I shouted, but all the kroot still able to do so were already charging towards the Ka’Tashuns. I stood and ran into the clearing. I now saw that there were four groups sheltering underneath the landing platform. One of these contained a heavy weapon, and the kroot made straight for it. They leapt up into the air with their rifles clutched two-handed above their heads. Then they crashed down, caving in skulls and shattering limbs as they swung their weighted guns every which way. The remaining three Ka’Tashun squads backed up a few steps and prepped their rifles. I recognised the strategy. They weren’t going to rush in and try to help their comrades. Instead, they were going to let them die, sacrificing one small unit so that the rest could gun the kroot down in a massive, point-blank volley.
The stealth suit’s robotic exoskeleton amplified my every movement, and with a single bound, I had flanked them. The barrels of my burst cannon became a blur as I opened fire. Pulse blasts ricocheted off the nearest support column, and several of the Ka’Tashuns, forgetting about the kroot for a moment, ducked low. They searched about frantically, but my adaptive camouflage made me appear as little more than a moving blur, a ghost, a piece of the jungle come to life.
I am a shadow, I thought.
The kroot had finished slaughtering the heavy gun crew, and were moving towards a fresh target. More than a dozen Ka’Tashuns fired into them with their primitive laser weapons and sniper rifles. It had little effect. The kroot were like a wave of violence now, surging forwards and smashing into the foe. I continued to provide covering fire for them, but the truth was that they were doing fine without me. I gunned down the two gue’la closest to me and moved to yet another position.
There was one Ka’Tashun there that I took to be an officer of some kind. He wore a crimson rag tied over his hair, and his arms were covered with scars and tattoos. His sidearm was also larger and heavier than any of the weapons carried by the others. He levelled it and let loose with a bolt of plasma. It bounced harmlessly off of my shield generator, splashing across the surface of my battle suit in brilliant blue droplets. His face registered a look of stunned disbelief that was almost amusing. I let the burst cannon roar and he flew apart into gristly chunks.
For a moment, I stopped moving and drank in my surroundings. Lightning lit the clouds in ripples of purple. There were corpses everywhere. Many of the trees, I noted, were on fire, despite the pouring rain. Nearby, a pair of hounds were gnawing on a fallen Ka’Tashun. He was screaming obscenities and stabbing at them with his combat knife. They severed one of his arms and pulled off his face and he finally shut up. I watched several kroot use their rifles to sweep another man’s legs out from under him. Then they beat him relentlessly, breaking his limbs and pulverising his ribcage. Across the clearing, there was an orange flash as one of the few remaining rebels used his flame thrower. Several hounds caught fire. They ran around in circles as they burned to death, barking and whining. I saw Awl, in retribution, kick the man in the head with such force that it nearly flew off. Less than a quarter of his kroot were still alive, but those that were had formed a ring around the final Ka’Tashun.
For a moment, I thought it must be Ezra Mihalik, cornered at last, and my pulse raced. As I ran closer though, I saw that it wasn’t. He was just another officer, dressed similarly to the one I had blown apart a moment ago. He had a crimson head wrap and heavily tattooed arms. He held a sword in one hand that crackled and glowed, and in the other he had a pistol. His face was a portrait of defiance: his eyes narrowed and his teeth barred. He was a cornered animal. The last three hounds were circling around him, growling and snapping as they looked for an opening. It never occurred to me to put a stop to such cruelty. The kroot were delighted to see this sport, and I left them to it. I had prey of my own to find.
There was no movement in the glass dome. That left the flat roofed building as Mihalik’s only possible remaining location. The solitary door did not appear so thick or armoured that I couldn’t break it down, but I knew better. It would be trapped somehow, or would have a half dozen heavily armed men waiting just behind it. I followed the example of the kroot and simply avoided it altogether. I squatted down, then kicked out hard. The stealth suit’s augmented legs and thrust assist boosters sent me rocketing upwards. As I descended, I pulled my legs in tight, and fired my burst cannon at the building’s roof. When I landed, I again kicked out, crashing through the roof and landing in a crouch.
I sprayed the room. The pulse blasts sparked and snapped as they impacted on tables and chairs, blew through computer screens, shattered glass and overturned wooden supply crates. The ammo counter on my heads up display rolled backwards at a furious pace. Finally, I stopped. There was no one here. I was surrounded by all manner of destroyed electrical and scientific equipment, but a quick sensor check revealed it to be devoid of life. I briefly considered the possibility that the entire building was a trap of some kind; that it was about to explode and release the sporepod blooms across Cytheria. Then the audio pickups built into the suit registered something below me.
I saw now that there was a stairwell in one corner of the room. I moved to it and peered cautiously over the railing. Metal steps vanished down into a basement level. I amplified the background noise and heard the distinct sound of running feet. Of course, I thought as I descended after them, attack and run. That’s what you do, Ezra. No glorious last stands. No honourable self slaughter. Just run and live to fight another day. But not this time.
At the bottom of the stairs was a long hallway roughly hewn into the bedrock. Multiple doorways branched off to the left and right. I followed the sounds, passing unoccupied rooms filled with beds, and a sizable eating area where food still steamed on plates. There was an open doorway at the end of the passage. I moved towards it and was met with a volley of laser fire. Most of it was safely absorbed with
the additional armour plating I had specifically installed into the battlesuit, but as I barrelled into the next room, I felt a white hot stab of pain in my left shoulder. Alarms lit up inside my face plate, informing me that my suit had been breached. Not a second later, there was a soothing, hissing sound as painkillers were automatically injected into my bloodstream, and topical medicines were applied to the wound.
I had charged into a generator room. Four huge, blocky fusion reactors provided cover for Mihalik’s small cadre of veteran bodyguards. There was a heavy-looking blast door set into the back wall. There was a control panel beside it, at which Mihalik was frantically working. I raised my burst cannon, but before I could shoot, his men had rushed me. Three of them tackled me around the waist, hoping to knock me down. I leaned in to their charge and braced my legs against the doorway so as to remain upright. The fourth man activated a long melee weapon with jagged, metal teeth that blurred into motion. He drove it down across my helmet. My face was stung from a hundred shallow cuts as my faceplate shattered, but again, the suit’s medical systems made even this pain a distant and irrelevant thing.
I cleared the chainsword out of the way with my burst cannon, then punched its wielder in the face with all the strength I could muster. His nose exploded with a spray of blood and a snapping of cartilage, and he stumbled back. To his fellows, I delivered a flurry of elbow strikes and low kicks until they too had been distanced from me. Before they could recover themselves, I shot them dead.
Mihalik froze in place. He had a pistol holstered on his hip, and a ridiculously oversized mechanical glove on one hand. The heavy door was open now. Beyond it, I could make out a vertical tunnel and a ladder. A warm breeze blew into the room.
His eyes flashed. ‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘I guess you don’t plan to let me escape. Are you here to respectfully demand my surrender, then?’
I levelled my weapon at him.
‘Oh,’ he nodded. ‘OK then.’
Mihalik dashed forwards with a speed of which I would not have thought him capable. He held one arm rigid across his body like a shield, while his other, the one bearing the robotic fist, wound up to deliver a crushing blow. Had the thing not been so heavy and cumbersome, he might well have killed me. However, its awkwardness worked to my benefit. I grasped his shirt and used his own momentum to throw him to the floor. He landed with a heavy thud, and tried to swing his armoured fist into my thigh. I stomped down, pinning it, and with a burst from my cannon, blew off his forearm. The mechanical hand skittered across the room.
The stump below his elbow fountained blood. He began gasping for breath, but I was taking no chances. With two powerful kicks, I broke both of his legs. Then, still holding him by his shirt, I began to drag him along the corridor and back up the stairs.
‘Wha… what are you… what are you doing?’ he sputtered.
‘I promised myself that I would leave you to the beasts.’ I said flatly.
Outside, it was still raining. The kroot were making a meal out of the dead Ka’Tashuns, tearing off pieces of them and shoving the meat, raw and dripping, into their beaks. When I emerged from the building, they rose to their feet.
I threw Mihalik down into the mud. Awl approached. He clacked his beak the way another creature might salivate before an especially delicious meal. The other kroot began to gather around. The rebel leader’s eyes grew wide as he realised how it was about to end.
‘Shas’o Rra,’ he panted. ‘I guess… I was wrong to… to call you that.’
‘No,’ I responded. ‘As it happens, you weren’t.’
I did not turn away as they ate him. Nor did I try to mentally block out his agonising screams. I simply stood there. I felt neither remorse, nor disgust, nor pity. I didn’t even feel a sense of satisfaction or poetic justice. I felt nothing. I was totally and absolutely cold inside. I embraced it then, the name the gue’la gave me. Mihalik had called me the shadow of a commander. He meant it as an insult, but I no longer saw it that way. I would be Shas’o Alo’rra – Commander Cold Shadow – and wherever the enemies of the Tau are hiding, I would be there… intangible… unfeeling.
There were other, smaller groups of Ka’tashun yet to be dealt with. So in the days that followed, I ordered that the remaining kroot, who had been in orbit until then, land on the surface of Cytheria. I unleashed them into the wilderness and gave them free reign to seek out and eliminate whatever resistance they found. For a time, it worked wonderfully. Their savagery was more than a match for the rebels, and their bellies grew fat with the flesh of the enemy. Cytheria became largely pacified. Recently however, I have received a number of disturbing reports. The kroot increasingly refuse to obey the orders of their tau superiors and have taken to wearing red scarves around their foreheads. They speak in the gue’la language when they think no one is listening. Perhaps worst of all, in my subsequent conversations with Shaper Awl, he has begun calling calling me Shas’o Rra.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Stef Kopinski
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