Blades of Damocles

by Phil Kelly

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Sicarius. ‘We’ve not come up against any so far, not on this side of the gulf or the other.’ His lip curled in thinly veiled disgust. ‘Tigurius’ report to Atheus indicated that these tau are psychically inert.’

  ‘Dead inside, then,’ said Numitor quietly.

  Sicarius’ eyes narrowed.

  ‘Does that disappoint you, sergeant?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s a relief, in fact. Their tech-mastery is impressive, hard enough to counter even without psychics to back it up.’

  ‘Their weaponry is powerful indeed, and not to be underestimated,’ said Sicarius, his words cold as slabs of iron. ‘But it will be torn apart by the maelstrom of Imperial vengeance.’

  ‘You sound a lot like Chaplain Uticos,’ said Numitor, his tone slightly mocking. ‘Equipment check, brothers.’

  Sicarius turned away too, a knot of anger tight in his chest. The tau would learn not to rouse the wrath of a Talassarian.

  And if Jorus Numitor learned his place in the meantime, so much the better.

  The Silent Aftermath cruised over the water of the Dal’ythian Prime Reservoir, the Orca’s blocky silhouette dancing over the rippling waves below. Bathed in the lambent glow of the transport’s hold was a customised XV8 Crisis suit: statuesque, lethal, and as red as arterial blood. Its weapons systems hummed as its pilot test-ran engagement sequences and made the final adjustments to his calibration arrays.

  On the battlesuit’s sensor suite, a tiny blue light winked brightly.

  ‘Breach alert,’ said Commander Farsight, patching through the relevant data-package to the Aftermath’s pilot. ‘Transmotive one-two-one, out of Gel’bryn City. Set a course to intercept, Y’eldi.’

  ‘As you wish, Commander,’ said the air caste pilot. The Orca’s hold filled with a gentle hissing as its quad-block engines tilted obediently. ‘Although you realise this will take us away from the dropsite, delaying our research mission for an indeterminate period.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Kor’ui Bork’an Y’eldi,’ said Farsight patiently. ‘We must not be hasty to engage these humans before we understand them. They are more cunning than they look.’

  ‘I heard they were much like armoured kroot-apes,’ said the pilot. ‘Strong, but stupid.’

  ‘Not so,’ replied Farsight. ‘Amidst the sound and fury of their main assault, they are sending a covert strike team to counter-attack via our own reinforcement channels. In doing so they have demonstrated a dangerous intellect.’

  ‘I see. But they will fail.’

  ‘They will. Nonetheless, it is a sound strategy. Presumably they hope to locate our high command. By forcing us to shield our body, they hope to strike our exposed throat.’

  ‘With the greatest respect, commander, I feel you give these brutes too much credit. Could the transmotive not simply have taken damage upon the front line?’

  ‘I calibrated the breach alerts to respond to mass, not force. Besides,’ said Farsight, ‘I myself have employed similar infiltrations. Thus I must rule it out before continuing. Rest assured that Commander Shadowsun would do the same, Y’eldi.’

  ‘I offer contrition, of course. I do not doubt your wisdom for a moment.’

  Farsight blipped the symbol of the calming tide to put the matter at rest.

  ‘We are now in macro-sensor range,’ he said. ‘Let us combine our processors.’

  ‘Of course. Data communion underway.’

  Farsight’s distribution array expanded to show the transmotives allocated to reinforcement duty, a web of hexagons negotiated by dozens of transports conveying fire caste assets to the front line. One of the icons was steely blue instead of gold, delicate traceries of tau text spooling next to it as its drone pilot transmitted anomaly reports.

  An eye-flick, and the symbolic representation hardened into a direct visual feed. Smoke trailed like streamers in the transmotive’s wake. Two large holes had been ripped in its westward hull. The vehicle’s transit cylinders were empty as it retraced its path across the Prime Reservoir – empty but for hulking blue shapes standing tall in its interior.

  ‘As I thought,’ said Farsight. ‘Dispatch the drones to keep them occupied, then open the hull doors. It is time I fought these gue’ron’sha face to face.’

  The xenos transmotive hurtled across the tau planet at impressive speed. The wind howled in the damaged transit section with hurricane force, but it did not discomfit Numitor. Outside the broad panels of its synthglass, the smoking pillars and flickering fires of the dropsite receded into the distance. The shattered city was soon replaced by a vast azure reservoir, the same body of water that Numitor had noted on his drop. It was so large it took up seven of the hexagons dividing the planet’s crust.

  The transmotive shot across the reservoir’s surface, held aloft by a long support structure a little like a Macraggian viaduct. Each pillar led down to what Numitor surmised to be a water-driven power station at its base. Despite the superficial similarities, the smooth white order of the xenos structures showed no real grandeur or craftsmanship. The constructions were soulless, nothing but a gallery of shallow simulacra thronged with labour-saving devices that promised only complacency and sloth.

  Numitor shook his head. These aliens were so proud of their accomplishments, so infatuated with their own technology. It would bring about their downfall, just like it had brought down the legendary eldar before them. He could hardly wait to see their empire fall. Though he would never openly admit it to Sicarius, Numitor took more pleasure in casting the works of the alien into the dust than he did in killing the xenos themselves.

  There was a flicker of red in his peripheral vision, just for a moment. Numitor snapped his helm round and zoomed in. Fresh contrails hung in the air behind a distant hexodome.

  ‘Brothers, make ready,’ he voxed, the caution in his voice bringing his squad to full alert. ‘I believe we are–’

  The synthglass at the far end of the transit cylinder shattered inwards. A storm of energy bolts blazed through the air, several impacting on the shoulders and backpacks of Numitor’s squad. Drones, at least six of them. Two of the floating discs were aiming their underslung guns right at him.

  The sergeant ducked, firing two shots blind. One of his bolts found its target, detonating to tear the disc into two spinning halves. The other bolt crackled from a force shield projected by the second drone, a nimbus of light shimmering spherical around it.

  Sicarius sprinted past, his jump pack bathing Numitor in a wash of intense heat. The sergeant shot into the broken synthglass, smashing through it and carrying the shielded disc-drone into the machine behind with a loud crunch. His two squadmates followed closely, hammering through the wide oval portal at the transit cylinder’s end, blocking all chance of Numitor’s squad levelling accurate shots. The sounds of roaring chainswords, booming bolt pistols and crunching fists erupted as Squad Sicarius took the rest of the weapons drones apart.

  On instinct, Numitor turned back to the hole he had ripped in the transit cylinder’s hull. Something massive and red swept past the aperture – an enemy warsuit came into view, bigger and with a more complex silhouette than those he had encountered before. The sergeant snapped off a shot, but it detonated a metre from its target on a shimmering shield of energy.

  The red warsuit extended a hand, gripped onto the front of the transit cylinder, and triggered the oblong weapon system on its right arm. A burning blade of fusion energy shot out, so bright it caused Numitor’s autosenses to darken instantly.

  The xenos machine swept the energy blade through the link-pistons between the two transport cylinders, cutting the transmotive in half and shearing through the maglev rail beneath. Numitor and his squad were showered with gobbets of molten metal even as they sent bolt rounds shooting towards the warsuit.

  A split second later the entire transmotive bucked like a mad stallion, throwing Nu
mitor and his squad violently against the roof. The transport jack-knifed from the rail, twisting drunkenly and jerking as the cylinder sections behind crunched in to concertina its rearmost quarter. Numitor was already making for the rip in the hull, his squad charging shoulders-first through the windows to hurtle in clouds of glassy shrapnel towards the front half of the transmotive. Brother Crastec was taken by a trio of plasma bolts in mid-air, and a tangle of bloody limbs flailed past Numitor as he fought to correct his flight. Dominastos rattled and slammed inside the demolished transit cylinder behind them, caught in a tangle of metal and unable to escape as it plummeted into the reservoir below.

  Sicarius and the remains of his squad levelled a volley at the crimson warsuit as it leapt from a twisted maglev rail to soar over the transmotive’s truncated front half. The xenos warrior landed with a metal-buckling crunch atop the roof. Its lance of fusion energy punched through into the transit cylinder below, spearing Austos as he unslung his Phaeton-pattern flamer. Burning embers flew, and the battle-brother was reduced to little more than ash.

  Sicarius answered with a plasma pistol shot that punched right through the transmotive’s roof. The incandescent energies washed across a dome of force on the other side, a brief but intense flash of blue-white against the gloom.

  Numitor’s jump pack flashed warning runes in his visor. His full-burn leap had left him almost out of power. He pushed the pack to the absolute limit, arcing down alongside the transmotive as it slowed. Not good, thought Numitor. If the front half of the machine halted completely, they would be stranded in open terrain with no hope of reinforcement. He swung his legs around and mag-clamped to the side of the vehicle, pulling into a gargoyle’s crouch with his bolt pistol aimed high.

  There was a crimson flash as the xenos warsuit jumped, jet pack flaring, and twisted in mid-air. Its rifle dipped to send lozenges of plasma stabbing at Numitor. He swayed left, taking his own return shot as the killing energies zipped past him. The sergeant’s aim was true, and his bolt shell rocketed under the warsuit’s hemispherical force shield. It detonated hard, throwing the xenos off balance for a moment. The warsuit fought to stay atop the transit cylinder. Its crackling blade curved down, a wild swing that missed Numitor by a hand’s breadth but carved a diagonal furrow through the roof.

  Suddenly Sicarius was there, bursting through the hole his plasma pistol had burned in the transit cylinder roof to swing his Talassarian blade hard at the warsuit’s waist. The xenos raised the humming disc shield on its arm, and the sergeant’s broadsword was deflected in a cascade of blinding light.

  Numitor took his chance, a short push from his jump pack hurling him upwards under the tau’s guard. His power fist connected hard with the warsuit’s shoulder, its disruption field flaring on impact. The uppercut had enough force to tear open a tank. The arm projecting the warsuit’s energy blade was ripped free in a shower of sparks as the xenos warrior was flung backwards hard, electric blue flame gouting from the ruin of its shoulder. It soared sidelong from the transmotive, jet pack blazing intermittently, but the disruptive energies of Numitor’s blow still danced across its torso, and it could not correct its flight.

  Arcing down, the warsuit hit the water of the reservoir below like a boulder flung from a catapult.

  ‘Good solid hit,’ said Sicarius. ‘You got the scum.’

  ‘It cost us dearly,’ said Numitor. ‘If they’re all like that, we may be in more trouble than we thought.’

  ‘That was no line trooper, Sergeant Numitor,’ said Sicarius, a half-smile upon his lips. ‘That was their war leader.’

  Commander Farsight’s battlesuit sank through the water, its limbs inert and its sensor panels black. Within the control cocoon, O’Shovah’s fingers danced amidst firefly swarms of rogue data. He salvaged what he could from those electronic suites shorted out by the gue’ron’sha’s energy gauntlet, and locked down the rest.

  ‘They have disruptor fields,’ Farsight muttered darkly as he ran cauterisation programs. ‘Crude but effective.’ His heart rate was elevated from the fight, his blood singing hot in his veins, but his focus remained absolute.

  It had to.

  Water gushed in from the twisted hole of the battlesuit’s missing arm, spattering hard across Farsight’s shoulder and neck. The XV8’s wound-sealant – a fast-acting caulking system – had shorted out altogether, and he could feel cold liquid rising to cover his feet. If he could not get the systems back online in the next few seconds he would drown. It was no more complicated than that.

  Farsight’s XV8 was no ordinary Crisis suit. Amongst dozens of improvements, it had an advanced hazard suite, installed during the latter days of the Arkunasha War. The nictating membranes that sealed off his jet vents had been designed to keep out rust-storm particles, but they worked just as well against water. Without them, his suit’s engines would likely have already flooded. Still, even when bone dry the engines were no use without power.

  The commander searched the corners of his mind for every fragment of battlesuit science he could recall. Water flowed around the backs of his knees, chilling in its coldness, as he went over every military demonstration and procedural lecture from the earth caste he had ever witnessed. Each occasion was typified by genius-level complexity, but despite the technical jargon, Farsight had followed every one with great interest. To show that he fully comprehended them would have risked the label vash’ya, between spheres, and that state of mind was forbidden. Here, however, it might save his life.

  Water crept up to Farsight’s waist, its icy chill so intense he could no longer feel his feet. If he started to shiver, his manual dexterity would be lost, and he would be unable to operate the battlesuit at all. For the wearer of the Hero’s Mantle, there were few worse foes than intense cold.

  Farsight’s mind flared with the sudden recall of a contingency technique that O’Vesa had once mentioned in passing. He punched in an override to his subordinate register and turned it to Base Screen, frantically tapping code-blips with quivering fingers. He crunched his hands into fists, forcing himself to find balance before uncurling them and continuing the program. To make a mistake now was to damn himself to an inglorious death. That would erode the fire caste’s morale and damage the Tau’va in the process. It could not be allowed.

  The near-freezing water crept up to his throat, and his body started to spasm involuntarily. He grabbed one hand with the other in an attempt to steady it, jabbing in the last of the code with a single finger. It took three tries before he finally pressed execute.

  The thrust/vector suite flared into life, the holographic doppelganger that represented his altitude flashing. Reaching into the fires within his soul, he fanned them with painful memories. Tutor Sha’kan’thas scolding him, Ob’lotai gently mocking him, Puretide pushing him to his limit. He would not fail. Not this time.

  For a moment, he had focus. It was enough to set his directional jets at a quarter-pulse, two fingers gently increasing the pressure as water crept up to his chin.

  The battlesuit’s downward drift through the water slowed, then reversed into a gentle rise.

  The water lapped at Farsight’s lips as he rerouted the power wastage from his missing fusion blaster into his pack’s repulsors. He triggered a pre-programmed autopilot and hugged himself hard to conserve what little warmth he had left, feeling the battlesuit lurch upwards, accelerating hard.

  The sensor suite shimmered blue as the sonar vanes on its spine echo-located his surroundings. It was imperative that he find the gue’ron’sha warriors. Even should he escape the cold death that threatened to consume him, they were likely waiting above him to land the killing blow. Yet the water level in his cocoon was still rising. He had to ascend, or drown.

  A hazy picture resolved upon on his command screens. There was the maglev rail, twisted and broken wreckage dangling to the south, and to the north, the remainder of the transmotive. Two broad-shouldered silhouettes
stood atop the rearmost transit cylinder, outlined in shivering blue.

  Farsight took a last deep breath as the water closed over his head, but the autopilot held true.

  He burst from the reservoir like a torpedo, shimmering into the light.

  Numitor hauled himself onto the transmotive’s roof as it slid slowly away from the site of the battle. Sicarius was already atop it, his blade pinning a disc-like shield drone to the cylinder’s hull. He wrenched it free with a guttural curse.

  ‘We should find a way to take this thing to solid ground,’ said Numitor. ‘Link up with the rest of our squads.’

  Sicarius did not reply, but held up a cautionary finger whilst keeping his eyes fixed on the reservoir.

  A plume of water burst like a geyser at the transmotive’s flank. The crimson warsuit shot upwards, water sluicing behind it to form a rainbow of droplets in its wake. Its torso was canted to one side to counteract its missing arm, and the long cylinder of its plasma rifle was pointed right towards them. The weapon system spat white death as the xenos war leader arced towards the transmotive, landing upon the next carriage with a solid clang.

  Numitor ducked aside just in time, avoiding the volley. It took Brother Vectas instead. The battle-brother’s hoarse bark of pain became a death rattle as his lungs were blasted from his back by the deadly barrage of plasma. Numitor snapped off a shot but the warsuit deflected it easily. With the transmotive slowed to a crawl, it could pick them off at its leisure without fear of reprisal.

  Sicarius boosted from the roof, his jump pack sending him flying in a great leap towards their assailant. The plasma rifle’s vents glowed white as it sent more shots winging out in a spiralling pattern. Sicarius was forced to take evasive manoeuvres mid-flight, swinging his legs forward and blasting vertically into the heavens to avoid the incoming fire.

  Numitor took his chance. He scooped the sparking disc of the force-field drone from the transit cylinder’s roof and leapt, borne upwards on twin plumes of flame. Another plasma volley stuttered in towards him, a wide spread all but impossible to evade. Each finger-sized bolt of energy was powerful enough to kill.