by Various
Tan’bay, seated in a corner, immediately came to my rescue. ‘We are certain the shas’o meant no disrespect,’ he said. ‘However, the stakes in this particular instance are so high that there cannot be the slightest doubt. We are certain the kor’el would agree?’
Che’rod’s eyes flicked from Tan’bay, to myself, and back again. ‘Indeed,’ he breathed. He squared his narrow shoulders and continued. ‘The renegade gue’la are broadcasting their propaganda across half the planet, utilising a transmitter far more powerful than any they have in the past. It was quite easy to triangulate its source. The location was then visually identified using orbital satellite imagery, and double-checked by multiple overhead fly-bys with barracuda-class fighters.’
Che’rod tapped the screen, zooming in on the ridge. A few outlines of buildings could be glimpsed through the otherwise unbroken canopy of red leaves. ‘According to records, these structures are a botanical research station, constructed by the gue’la and dating back several centuries.’
‘A botanical research station,’ Tan’bay murmured. ‘That would explain how the Ka’Tashan are able to produce so many altered sporepod blooms.’
‘Our sensor sweeps indicate the presence of between sixty and seventy personnel. There is no evidence of any vehicles or anti-air defences.’ His report concluded, Che’rod clasped his hands behind his back and waited.
‘This is most excellent, kor’el,’ I said, beaming. That arrogant fool, Mihalik, had let his pride cloud his actions. His braggart radio messages would be his undoing. Things were finally about to turn around on this accursed planet. ‘It would appear Herzon Ridge is where control of Cytheria will be secured once and for all, and the honour falls to you and your men. You may begin bombing at once.’
I could see it now. Plasma torpedoes would fall from the sky like a cleansing rain, and the cyclonic winds generated by the exploding cores would sweep the Ka’Tashun’s ashes away. It would be quick and painless. A far better end than they deserved. Who’s the shadow of a commander now, Mihalik? I thought.
Kor’el Che’rod was frowning. ‘With all due respect, shas’o, given the apparent nature of the gue’la bio-weapon, that would be most unadvisable.’
I narrowed my eyes at him, but a moment later understood. Of course. Whatever spores weren’t consumed in the initial explosions would be carried up into the atmosphere by the shockwaves. The prevailing winds would then spread them across half of Cytheria. No wonder then that Mihalik was unabashedly transmitting his location. He knew quite well that I daren’t vaporise his stronghold from the air.
‘Again, he mocks me.’
‘Shas’o?’ Che’rod asked, and I realised that I had been thinking out loud.
I cleared my throat to compose myself, and then nodded towards the door. ‘I understand, kor’el,’ I said. ‘You have executed your duties in this matter with honour and efficiency. Take my thanks to your men.’
Che’rod bowed his head, and left. I stared down at the map until my eyes were burning. The ridge couldn’t be attacked from the air, which left a ground assault as the only option. However, the jungle was far too thick for sufficient numbers of battle suits to operate in, and any fire warriors sent in on foot would simply end up as fodder for Ka’Tashun traps and ambushes. My enemy seemed untouchable. Perhaps Mihalik had been right after all. All my years of study on Bork’an had failed to prepare me for this type of scenario.
‘There is a gue’la expression,’ Tan’bay said softly after some moments, ‘that the shas’o might be wise to meditate on. ‘One cannot fight fire with fire’.’
I scowled at him. ‘That only proves what a backward people they are. Fire is the element of war. Soldiers should always be pitted against other soldiers. Anything else would be uncivilised.’
‘Then the shas’o would agree the axiom is incorrect, that in effect, the only way to fight fire is with fire? That like should be met with like?’
‘I would,’ I snapped without consideration.
Tan’bay pressed his fingers together, and lifted his head to gaze up at the ceiling. At the time, I took it to be a pose of contemplation. Now I suspect that he was intentionally avoiding eye contact. He inhaled deeply and said, ‘We are an enlightened people. The methods of fighting as have been displayed by our enemies on this planet are simply not in our nature, and that is well. However, there exist within the Empire certain other species who, owing mostly to cultural retardation, are not so civil. We have seen them in combat. They can be… quite effective.’
Outside, the sun was setting. The room began to darken.
‘Where was this?’
‘Along the eastern edge of the Empire. In our youth, we undertook a prolonged tour of the worlds beyond the Perdus Rift.’
There was a silence between us. Tan’bay waited. He was an advisor, not a military commander. His job was to offer avenues of action, to open doors. Whether or not I followed or stepped through was left entirely up to me.
‘Where is the closest War Sphere?’ I said at last.
‘As it so happens, there is one in-system.’
‘Contact it.’
Tan’bay’s robes rustled as he stood. He bowed his head and spread his arms wide. ‘It is an honour to serve the shas’o,’ he said.
When he was gone, I moved to the window and stared out across the grounds. Dark clouds were gathering across a violet sky. Out in the jungle, Ezra Mihalik was sitting atop Herzon Ridge, smugly thinking that he had beaten me. He was positive that I lacked the bloodlust required to shift him, and he was right. Such a thing was beyond a tau such as myself. Not so for the kroot.
During my officer’s training on Bork’an, I studied all of the tau’s various alien allies. The kroot were even taller than the air caste, but not at all fragile. Their limbs were taut with ropey muscles. Their skin was greasy leather. Their heads were crowned with quills and their faces dominated by a massive, serrated beak. They had a knack for picking up new languages and when they slept, they did so lightly, crouched together in large groups. They were also ferocious cannibals. They believed that by eating the remains of their fallen enemies, they could gain their strengths. This may have been more than primitive superstition, in fact. Scientists within the Empire were of the opinion that something in the kroot genetic structure did indeed cause them to take on the characteristics of whatever they ate. Despite decades of trying, no one had been able to break them of this particularly barbaric trait. Still, they were so adept in certain areas that commanders across the Empire were willing to turn a blind eye to it. Their homeworld, Pech, was covered in vast coniferous forests, and thus, they were renowned for their ability to move through even the thickest cover at great speed and in absolute silence.
They were exactly what I needed with which to fight the Ka’Tashuns. Fire with fire.
I planned to lead them myself. Allies though they may be, a people as primitive and uncivilised as the kroot must still be supervised. More importantly though, I was now determined to kill Ezra Mihalik personally. He would not be captured or subdued. Nor was he going to die in an honourable or gentlemanly way. I was going to shoot him into pieces and leave him in the jungle as fodder for the beasts. It was what he deserved.
For the next three days, I met with earth caste engineers and modified a stealth battle suit specifically for my needs. It was nearly completed when Tan’bay appeared to tell me that the kroot had arrived. Dawn was still hours away and the sky was pouring rain. I walked out of the mechanical bay to appraise them. There were forty in all. They stood barefoot in the mud, naked, save for a few scraps of leather armour. Their skin, the grungy brown colour of dead leaves, was exuding a greasy substance that made the rainwater bead and run off. They stank of dirt and sweat, salty and earthy. In their taloned hands they each clutched a long-barrelled rifle made of wood and tarnished metal. Some of these were adorned with clusters of feathers or glass beads strung
on pieces of copper wire. Every one of them was capped with a primitive bayonet. Several canvas packs lay scattered about them. Off to one side, a pack of roughly two dozen kroot hounds snorted about in the sopping ground and nipped at one another viciously.
Tan’bay gestured, and one particular kroot stepped forward. He wore a string of half-chewed bones around his waist, and had applied some kind of white makeup underneath his left eye. Otherwise, he would have been completely indistinguishable from the rest. They all look alike to me.
‘Shas’o,’ Tan’bay announced loudly, ‘may it please you to meet Shaper Awl.’ I nodded slightly
Awl made a clicking noise from somewhere in the back of his throat. ‘We have sworn to fight for the tau.’ The pitch and tone of his voice was disturbingly melodic, like birdsong echoing up from the bottom of a well. ‘Their enemies are our enemies. Lead on. We will follow.’
‘I take it you have been briefed on the nature of this mission?’ I asked him. ‘You know our objective?’
Awl had no lips with which to smile. Instead he opened up his beak, and clacked his thick tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘You shall have your prize,’ he said slyly. He whistled sharply to the other kroot, and they began to gather what meagre supplies they had. As they did so, Tan’bay moved to my side.
‘Good fortune to you, shas’o. We will take our leave now, and hope to see you again upon your safe return.’
‘Wish you were coming along?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘The shas’o has no need of us,’ Tan’bay replied. He looked at the kroot, then turned back to me. His face had a gravity to it that I had never seen before. ‘There will be no diplomacy where he now goes.’
A pair of drop ships waited on the nearby landing field. By the time I had encased myself into the stealth suit, the kroot had already clamoured aboard. I joined them, sealed the ramp behind me, and signalled for the pilots to take off. Within minutes, we were airborne, speeding over the plains towards the jungle lowlands. I spent the time in silence, checking and rechecking my suit’s systems. I synchronised its inbuilt positional relay to the satellites above, and studied our insertion route on my heads-up display. I ran a test on the integrated shield generator. Finally, I familiarised myself with the automatic stimulant injector, an experimental piece of technology that would flood my bloodstream with painkillers should I become wounded. The kroot, on the other hand, jabbered incessantly in their squawking, clicking, chirping native language. They made barking sounds that I assumed were laughter. Awl haphazardly poured some kind of thin oil all over his rifle, then produced a leather rag and began to work it into all the mechanical housings. He seemed to take no notice of how the others behaved until we were very near the landing zone.
The lights in the troop compartment changed from white to yellow, and we began our descent. Awl barked for his troops to get ready, and they immediately fell silent. The aft ramp opened, and within a minute, we were out. The engines flared as the drop ships rocketed away. I watched them vanish up into the heavy clouds above. When I turned back, the kroot were already moving swiftly into the thickening underbrush. I activated my suit’s adaptive camouflage and followed. It was not always easy. The kroot preferred to climb up into the trees and swing from limb to limb. The hounds kept pace on the ground. They raced from one trunk to another, constantly snorting and sniffing the air.
The rain had let up, but very little light managed to filter through the foliage above. I walked along the forest floor surrounded by a deep gloom. I saw increasing numbers of hata’le bushes, all of them picked clean of their sporepods. Hours later, as I pushed my way through a thorny shrub twice my height, I stopped to find Awl crouched on the ground ahead. His head was cocked to one side. All about him, kroot were clinging to the sides of the trees. The second he saw me, his clenched fist snapped up, and I froze. Without saying a word, he gingerly brushed at the ground before him. Buried just below the surface there was some kind of explosive device.
Awl spoke to his warriors in a rapid string of squeaks, and they vanished back up into the trees. He turned to me. ‘Plasma mine,’ he said quietly. ‘Short proximity sensor.’ Then, with a single bound, he too leapt back up into the jungle above. I carefully manoeuvred around the trap, all the while amazed how Awl had known it was there. I double-checked my scanners, but there were no telltales. Whatever materials the Ka’Tashuns had used to make their landmines, they did not register.
The afternoon was growing late and the rain had begun again when we arrived at Herzon Ridge. I cautiously moved forward and joined Awl, who was lying prone beneath a bushy shrub. I saw no sign of the other kroot, but knew that they couldn’t be far off. Awl pointed to his eyes, then flicked a talon forwards. Ahead of us was a rough clearing with three sizable buildings. The first was low to the ground and rectangular-shaped. It had a single large door set into one face, and only the thinnest of slots for windows. A tall, metal tower adorned with dishes was affixed to its otherwise flat roof. The second structure was an enormous glass-enclosed dome filled with plants and greenery; a multitude of cylindrical storage tanks that ran along one side of it. The third building, set apart from the other two, was actually more of a raised, flat area. It was octagonal in shape, and stood atop four squat pillars. Armoured walls hung from every side, but these look rusted and long since used.
‘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 ev
ery 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.