by Phil Kelly
The strange multiplicity of her skillset was why she had never experienced the blessed union of the ta’lissera with her voice-team, and why she never would. It was a connection so deep that her bond-mates would uncover her secret in a matter of a few rotaa.
For a tau even to show aptitude in the arts of another caste was forbidden, let alone to hone that talent until it rivalled their birth-given skills. To stray between castes was to risk being named vash’ya, a mark of disgrace and censure that could not be erased. It was a far graver sentence than the empty loneliness Aman’te had embraced as a precaution. Even a water caste ambassador had no chance of talking their way out of that.
If the ethereals confirmed the accusation, the matter was settled, and the punishment inevitable. Those so named were taken away, ostensibly for attunement to the sacred tenets of the Tau’va. In Aman’te’s experience such individuals rarely came back, and those that did were so bereft of nuance they made the intelligences of their drone minders look sophisticated by comparison.
She had secreted a pulse pistol in her quarters, a long time ago, just in case they came for her in the night.
Something massive struck the complex walls above, shaking dust from the ceiling and making Aman’te start. The cracks in the ceiling grew wider still. A thought bubbled up to the surface of Aman’te’s consciousness. Perhaps it would be better for the ceiling to come down on her. To bury her and her sculptures forever so that none could know of her caste-treason.
The far wall of her chambers collapsed in an explosion of rubble, and she screamed nonetheless.
A giant burst through, horrific in proportion. At first she mistook it for a demolitions machine, for it was fully twice her size, and it had a bulbous convex head emblazoned with a strange icon. Then the thing turned, and she realised that what she had mistaken for a head was actually shoulder armour, a pauldron that had hidden a grotesque face.
Eyes full of hatred stared down from a knotted mass of muscle and fury, as intense as the worst of nightmares. Rivets had been punched into the thing’s crested head, and a thin gruel of blood and spit ran from its wound-like mouth. It growled like an animal, raising a boxy pistol so crude and heavy it could break her without firing a shot.
Aman’te screamed again, scrabbling back on all fours and kicking over an oval table so it stood between her and the creature. Her precious water sculptures splashed and spilled, sent flying as she huddled behind her improvised shield. There was a loud bang, a rush of air, and an explosion so powerful it sent the table rocketing backwards. Aman’te was taken with it, her senses stolen by the stunning power of that single shot.
On instinct Aman’te thrust both feet outward, uncurling hard. She tumbled through the iris-like aperture that led to her corridor, the oval table crashing back into the room she had left. A muffled, animal roar came from behind it as she got to her feet, bloody and dazed. Her hearing was swirling back from the ringing impact that had taken it, clearing enough for her to make out guttural syllables on the cusp of understanding.
To a fire warrior, the grunting dialect would have been unintelligible, but all water caste tau prided themselves on being able to decipher even the most alien of languages. Since news had reached her of the coming invasion, Aman’te had studied the Imperial tongue well.
‘This way!’ the creature was shouting. ‘More vermin, and more tunnels behind!’
Aman’te creased her brow hard, bringing a measure of clarity to her senses. Darting left, she half staggered and half ran down the corridor towards the communal quarters where the subsystem’s earth caste work teams dwelt. Sounds of crashing destruction came from behind her, stark light sending shadows dancing madly ahead. Halfway down the tunnel was her aural workroom, the gateway to the audience chambers, and beyond that, the prototype laboratories of the earth caste. There was still a chance she could get out alive, patch a message through to the fire caste, maybe even alert the earth caste in time for them to bring their defences online. She could still contribute to the Greater Good one last time.
But the monstrous things were close behind her, and getting closer.
First, she would have to reach the pulse pistol she had secreted in her meditation chamber.
Sergeant Numitor stormed through the gloom of the tau hab-complex, delicate porcelain crunching under the heavy ceramite tread of his boots. There had been a small tau lifeform up ahead, an unarmed civilian making fear-sounds as it tried to escape. Numitor had followed it at speed. Likely it would lead him to its fellows, or attempt to raise the alarm.
The sergeant saw a circular door ahead, irising closed at his approach. There was a flicker of motion beyond it. He wrenched a boxy sculpture-thing from a nearby shelf and hurled it so it caught in the closing petals of the door, jamming it open. Lowering his shoulder, he charged, pushing a half-second burst of thrust through his pack to bolster his momentum.
Numitor struck the jammed door apparatus with such force the entire thing came loose in a crash of splintering xenoplastics. He scrambled through with half the doorframe caught upon his backpack. Growling in irritation, the sergeant reached back with his power fist to tear it free in a juddering mess of splinters.
‘You shall not escape, xenos,’ he shouted, storming forward with anger writ large upon his features.
The tau civilian was lying close at hand, fallen on the far side of the room amidst a confusion of shattered plastics. Its dark almond eyes were open wide in some alien approximation of terror. Numitor’s lips curled back involuntarily at the sight of it. The tau was little larger than a Calthan youth, with a malnourished look to it. Its long, frail fingers reached towards him imploringly. It smelled of meadow flowers over the antiseptic tang of bleach, and the beat of its heart stuttered on the cusp of his hearing.
‘Wait, sire warrior!’ it said in perfect High Gothic. ‘I am no threat to you. I am regarded poorly even amongst my own kind!’
Numitor’s brow furrowed. The creature’s voice was… strangely human. Somehow, it was speaking with the tones of a young woman, and with a Macraggian accent at that.
‘You have the bearing of a knight, sire,’ it said, its accent becoming even more refined. ‘An honoured and noble warrior tradition. I see it in the heraldic devices you wear. They are the marks of your forefathers, are they not?’
Numitor raised his pistol, debating whether or not to waste another bolt. The creature knew too much about them already, that was plain.
‘Would your forefathers be proud to see you cut down a helpless, unarmed female?’ asked the young tau, her honeyed voice all innocence but for the barest hint of reproach. ‘Would the king amongst kings you must venerate be impressed? He whose code you follow?’
Numitor thought of Roboute Guilliman in that instant, of how the primarch would have acted in this situation.
In truth, he was unsure.
Aman’te had the creature’s eyes fixed on hers, its repulsive face twisted in crude caricature as warring emotions passed across it.
She could do this. She had it partially entangled in her fu’llasso already.
Her hand crept slowly, painfully, to subtly press-click the cabinet where she had hidden her pulse pistol. At this range it would take a single pull of the trigger, especially if she was lucky enough to make a head shot.
The human warrior was mighty indeed, but slow of wit. It wore its psyche plainly on its features. Even though it was bestial in appearance, it was dressed in armour that bore honour markings and medallions, giving hints of a warrior brotherhood that valued glory and accomplishment. It was a simple, unsubtle angle she had taken, to play to the monster’s twisted sense of justice, but it was proving effective. Already the creature was hesitating, bound by the contradictions of its own value system.
It was as the Golden Ambassador had once said. Notions and codes can stay a killer’s hand as effectively as any net.
Perhaps it would
be enough.
‘I am nothing to a lord such as you,’ she continued, her deft fingers finding the handle of the pulse pistol and curling to bring it inch by inch into her grip. ‘Our own warrior caste does not match itself against harmless civilians. Instead, they seek to engage the strongest foes they can find, the better to win true glory.’
The brute was listening. If she could hold its attention for a few more moments…
Numitor stared down at the tau civilian. The creature was a weakling, almost despicable, but part of him had to concede it had a point. If the Space Marines were to kill the planet’s civilians as well as its military, the campaign on Dal’yth would soon grind to halt. Perhaps his energies were better spent elsewhere.
‘Many of our warrior caste dwell just beyond this chamber,’ the young female continued, ‘worthier opponents for a true knight, who values honour and skill. Would you instead choose to sully your hands with the blood of unarmed civilians?’
She brought a blocky pistol out from nowhere, whipping it towards Numitor’s head.
‘Yes,’ said Cato Sicarius, barrelling past his fellow sergeant to stamp the creature hard into the floor. Numitor heard its ribs break into flinders within its chest. Sicarius spat on its corpse, pushing onwards into the gloom.
Shaking himself free of the creature’s mental manipulation, Numitor set off after his brother, the clatter and stamp of charging Ultramarines close behind him.
A thousand admiring eyes were fixed on Commander Farsight as he walked stiffly to the disc-like hover drone at the heart of the holotheatre. A million more watched him over the caste-net.
Shadowsun, to Farsight’s immense relief, was not amongst those present.
Ovoid transmitter drones triangulated the footage of the commander’s every movement. The ramrod-straight backs of his officers straightened a little further as he passed. It was a mark of great respect that they attended in person instead of by holographic representation. He could see the water caste’s claims already – the pupil of Puretide descends once more to dispense his wisdom, the hero of Arkunasha gathers his chosen warriors to repel the vicious human invaders from the sept world of Dal’yth.
The truth of his recent near death, however, they kept hidden.
The hollow glory of the moment was bitter in Farsight’s mouth, but it was nothing to the agonies coursing across his body. Tight fists of pain filled his lungs, clenching with each step. Even his pores hurt. He kept his expression studiously neutral. To show weakness now was to dishonour the fire caste, and to do direct harm to the morale of the entire war effort.
The chamber’s central hover drone dipped as he approached, a small mercy that allowed him to step onto it with relative ease. He was glad of the rigid curving spar holding the data suite array, and held onto it for support, stifling a painful cough as he straightened his back. He scanned the eyes of the fire caste officers in the front row. None had creases of concern on their features; he had not shown weakness yet. Tutor Sha’kanthas was amongst them, his face as sour and unlikeable as ever, but the rest of them practically glowed with pride, thrilled by the honour of being so close to a pupil of Master Puretide.
So far, so good.
‘Greetings in the name of the Tau’va, comrades,’ said Farsight softly. His words carried across the theatre, and the massed ranks of officers responded in kind, each making the sign of the Greater Good.
On the balcony high above them all, the ethereal Aun’Dreca nodded once. Flanking him were the images of the absent ethereals Aun’Tefan and Aun’Tipiya, attending by holopresence, the unwavering attention of the two females almost as daunting as that of the delegate attending in person. Aun’Dreca gestured with thin fingers for Farsight to continue.
‘War has come to us once more, my friends.’
There was a susurration of excitement in the audience. Farsight saw the glow of bloodlust on the faces of many officers in the front row; it was held in check, but present nonetheless.
‘Here we fight a race possessed of great resource. Do not be fooled by the paucity of troops they have committed thus far. By my estimations we have encountered but a fraction of their strength. Worse still, their starships are using unknown methods to punch through our outlying fleets and deploy their troops on core sept soil.’
Behind Farsight, a complex holographic array glowed into bright life. Por’o Kais of the water caste had adopted the commander’s suggestions as to how the fire caste best assimilated information, and the multi-part display was fashioned and compartmentalised like the control screens of a battlesuit.
The central section showed footage of ornate Imperial craft barging through the void. Each boasted cannons large and numerous enough to shatter a kroot warsphere. Distribution arrays showed the fleet’s entry point into tau space, a glowing wound in the fabric of space. Wedge-fronted Imperial craft pushed out from the roiling rift like swords bursting through a split gut.
‘We do not know what strange technology they used to penetrate straight into the First Sphere,’ said Farsight. ‘The earth caste have not seen its like. Yet that is a riddle for another day. The humans are here now, upon Dal’yth, and in ever greater numbers. That is what matters.’
The fire caste officers nodded, many thinning their lips in signs of aggression. Farsight felt the heat of their keenness; in their hearts, they wanted to be out there with the cadres on the front line. But their minds sought wisdom and unity first, and they paid rapt attention to every word of their commander’s brief. It was a sight to make even an ethereal proud.
‘So far we have held the invaders at bay,’ continued Farsight. ‘The air caste have maintained overall control of low orbit, and our own Sky Ray gunships have added their might to the struggle for Dal’yth’s airspace. Over a singe rotaa, hundreds of the rudimentary aircraft that serve as the gue’la skyforce have been shot down.’
The holograms behind the commander showed a textbook air caste deployment, staggered picket lines of craft linked by a perfect distribution of aerial drones. Footage of an Imperial squadron slid into focus, veering away from the trawling net of air caste hunters only to be taken out with grim efficiency by streaking seeker missiles from below.
The scenes cut expertly to the wallowing, fat-bellied shape of an Imperial bomber, its cargo bays pregnant with death. A squadron of Razorshark fighters emerged from behind a sensor tower, quad ion rifles cutting the wings from the giant aircraft even as it disgorged a clumsy tumble of cylindrical bombs. Interceptor drones detached from the Sun Sharks in the fighters’ wake, diving low after the falling bombs and detonating them in a string of harmless explosions across the sky.
A spasm of pain passed through Farsight’s body and he felt his spine twitch hard. He turned the involuntary movement into a half-twist, making it look like he was taking a moment to watch the footage playing behind him.
Two Razorsharks harried a darting Imperial flyer that had been separated from its squadron, a blunt-winged craft with a class designation that translated as ‘Thunderbolt’. The tau strike fighters neatly bisected the fleeing aircraft, their underslung guns turning its wreckage into little more than scattering debris as they traced a spiral path around its plummeting descent.
The footage did not show the mighty gue’ron’sha craft that had dived headlong towards Dal’yth’s surface, pugnacious attack ships that smashed holes through the air caste’s defences with the ease of a krootox punching through thin ice. In places it seemed the Imperial gunships were actively seeking collision, forcing the matrix of tau fighters to evade in disarray. There was plenty more material highlighting the sheer strength of the gue’ron’sha attack, but little of it need reach Farsight’s fellow officers. Not yet, at any rate. Morale could be a delicate thing.
‘The earth caste’s transmotive network is working at near peak efficiency,’ continued Farsight. The holograms showed sleek silver carriages disgorging pristine fire warrio
r strike teams, the scorched skies of Gel’bryn City behind them. ‘By conveying cadre support to each assailed hexodome as and when the Imperials strike, we are quickly neutralising the pods that form the gue’ron’sha’s favoured invasion vectors.’
A veteran officer made the sign of will-to-speak from the front row. Farsight unfurled a palm in return.
‘It is a fine thing to see the invasion in hand,’ said a tall, distinguished tau veteran in full parade dress. Commander Sha’vastos, an old friend of Farsight’s. Despite his age he made the deferential gesture of the enquiring student, finger curled and head cocked to one side. ‘Might I ask as to the water caste’s efforts?’
‘Of course, Commander Sha’vastos,’ said Farsight, grateful for the interjection. It was important the other officers felt they could ask questions of their leader, especially in a time of open war, and his old Arkunashan ally had thrown open the floor. ‘The water caste maintains the flow of critical intelligence across Dal’yth and beyond. Many of these holograms will be broadcast to the population at large, in order to lessen the psychological impact of the invasion. I am given to understand some of them include a handsome young commander in a rather striking red battlesuit.’
Quiet mirth trickled through the holotheatre; they had all heard of the human flaw of vanity, and found it endlessly entertaining. Even the ethereal Aun’Dreca smiled, recognising that humour was sometimes a necessary tool. Though Farsight grinned ruefully, he felt nothing but aches and exhaustion behind his mask of levity.
For a moment, he let a fraction of his pain show. The room fell silent.
‘The castes fight in unison, for the ethereals guide and watch over us all,’ said Farsight, his words carrying the ring of conviction as he made the opened hands of unbound respect. ‘As it is now, and as it ever shall be. With the unbreakable shield of true unity we will repel these invaders. Together we prevail, no matter the legions they throw at us. And those legions are manifold.’