Fire Warrior (warhammer 40,000)

by Саймон Спуриэр

  Kais spoke into his comm, fighting to tear his gaze away from the luminous being before him.

  “Shas’el?” he rasped, voice dry.

  “La’Kais!” came Lusha’s reply, full of relief. “We weren’t able to fix on you. We assumed... Shas’la: what’s your status?”

  “The Aun is free, Shas’el. He’s wounded. We...”

  “Hold on, Kais. We’re getting your signal again.”

  A green bar of characters within his HUD — ominously absent for too long — chimed to life, confirming the sensor contact. It felt like a tiny slice of T’au — a portion of efficiency and logic lighting up this dark place of gue’la ugliness.

  A thought occurred. “El’Lusha — did the prisoners get out?”

  “They did. La’Y’hol led them to safety through the ruins, despite his injuries.” Lusha sounded amused. “The por’hui have got their hands on the footage already, I’m told.” Kais smiled to himself, imagining Y’hol’s proud, grinning features smeared across every bulletin screen back on T’au.

  “Our troops are holding out above ground,” Lusha continued. “The surveyor drones have picked up a collapsed cavern near your position. We’ll airlift you out.”

  The coordinates blinked to life in Kais’s vision, an impossible promise of freedom. He could barely allow himself to believe it was real.

  Lusha’s voice suddenly didn’t seem so far away at all. “You’re coming home, Kais.”

  The dropship left the battle behind, pulling away through the lazy columns of smoke towards the edge of the crater valley. Below, Lusha could see the last vestiges of gue’la resistance surrendering their posts and dashing for the cover of the underground levels exposed by the orbital strike. It didn’t matter. The pathfinder squads would pick them off one at a time, more through professional completism than any great need to cull the gue’la numbers. La’Kais had done it.

  He could hardly believe it. The youth had been out of contact, hidden to the dropship’s sensors behind countless layers of rock and steel. But the truth was there, displayed before his eyes on the monitors. Aun’el T’au Ko’vash — looking weak and wounded but alive, slowly but surely picking his way through the caverns towards freedom.

  Lusha mumbled a litany of affirmation and watched the extraction point grow ever nearer.

  A broken component — that’s how he’d described Kais to the shas’o. Had he been right? It hardly seemed to matter now. His gamble had paid off: the inexplicably bizarre gue’la scheme — whatever it had been — had been foiled and punished. Let that be an end to it.

  But it wouldn’t be. Oh, no. He’d seen the report, compiled and transmitted from the Or’es Tash’var half a dec earlier. High above the smoking, debris-strewn plains of Dolumar IV, prowling out of the warp like a shoal of rampaging t’pel sharks, the gue’la fleet had arrived.

  III

  08.51 HRS (SYS. LOCAL — DOLUMAR IV, Ultima Seg. #4356/E)

  A call to arms klaxon trilled, oscillating whoops that made the ears ring and the head pound. Footsteps and shouting voices hurtled along the iron lattice corridor, adding to the clamour of the grumbling generarium and the hissing, gurgling duct innards riddling every wall.

  Governor Severus lurked in his plush cabin aboard the flagship Enduring Blade and forced himself to focus, biting his lip until he tasted blood. The ceaseless uproar of the warship was far from conducive to contemplation.

  The journey from the surface had been comfortable, he supposed. The nobilite shuttle he’d acquired and furnished years before had provided ample room, despite his companions comprising a hulking retinue of Space Marines.

  Severus had first contacted the Enduring Blade a week previously. It was an irregular convention, he’d discovered, for companies of Space Marines to be seconded aboard navy warships, spending their time in isolated training and meditation away from the crew. He dimly suspected it was all part of a goodwill scheme to minimise enmity between the characteristically arrogant Adeptus Astartes and the abundant personnel of the Battlefleet Ultima. It made little difference to him why they were aboard; the admiral had boasted in communication that full companies from the Raptors and Ultramarines Chapters had honoured his flagship with their presence, and Severus had wasted little time in formulating his petition.

  The Raptors’ reputation for risk-taking and tenacity — often taken to an almost reckless degree — immediately endeared them to him. He could allow nothing, be it hesitation or pragmatism in the face of overwhelming odds, to stand in the way of his goal. Besides, the Ultramarines were famous for their application of righteousness and morality, characteristics that, in Severus’s experience, bred a proclivity towards asking awkward questions.

  He’d contacted Captain Mito, commander of the Raptors’ fifth company, aboard the Enduring Blade, requesting his Chapter’s aid with a politeness he struggled to maintain. He cited the Administratum documentation he held, expansively glorifying his plans to capture and study a tau ethereal, highlighting the tactical value that such a coup might hold. He played upon the captain’s piety, stressing the holy importance of purging xenogen life wherever it was found, assuring him that in understanding the Emperor’s enemies, His glorious will could best be served. All this and more he communicated, hungry for the Marines’ involvement, and in the end he was rewarded with the pledged assistance of a tactical squad of Raptors. They arrived two days later, colossal warriors cut directly from the myths and legends of history, and he’d presided joyfully over their secret reception at his mansion in Lettica, immensely pleased at his own machinations.

  The tip-off he’d been expecting arrived two days later. Beyond the abyssal gulf surrounding the Dolumar system, the tau empire’s outermost fringes were rich in colony worlds. There, left behind by the collapse of the Damocles Crusade, waged by the Imperium two hundred years previously, Severus had long ago discovered several scattered populations of humans, living peacefully beneath the patronage of the tau. He’d been fostering contacts amongst the dispossessed communities ever since. In the end, greed had overcome any sentiments of loyalty to their new masters: he’d learned of the impending arrival of an ethereal upon the colony world of Kuu’lan from one fortune-seeking fool, and had dispatched the Raptors immediately.

  They’d performed admirably, despite the immense collateral damage they’d inflicted. And now the next phase of the plan was progressing equally as pleasingly: the tau response had been swift and devastating and, even better, Battlefleet Ultima had come running at his call. It was, he supposed, a minor annoyance that the tau ethereal had escaped, but he’d rectify the problem one way or another. There were so many possibilities, so many potential outcomes, and every one made him a winner. Yes. Cause for celebration.

  Not that he could afford the time for such things. He must concentrate; force himself to contain the energies a little longer. There had been too many leakages already.

  A tiny voice in his mind, words hissing like blistering flesh, whispered: Soon.

  Kor’o Natash T’yra, standing at the centre of his private swarm of control drones and sensor screens, worked his jaw thoughtfully. The serene bridge of the Or’es Tash’var surrounded him in calmness, its crescent arrangement of smooth-moulded control consoles and benches typical of air caste sensibilities. Against the airy brightness of the command deck, with its serene curvature and uncluttered spaces, the main viewscreen sucked at his attention: the inky blackness of the void punctuated sparsely by whirligig lights.

  It was, he thought, like a cluster of jewels; intricate crystals of white and yellow fragmenting and tumbling, spinning their multifaceted surfaces through the planetary luminescence. A tiny sapphire blossomed in one corner of the screen, quickly swallowed behind a brief diamond flare, returning again to obsidian nothingness.

  He watched as impossible swarms of gue’la attack craft obliterated the few air caste fighters not grounded or damaged on the planet below, forcing his thoughts away from the abstract beauty of the sight. Every diamond, he k
new, was a glowing missile exhaust, every polished sapphire the pulsefire of an outnumbered tau fighter; every crackling amber bead another life lost, another kor’ui mouthing their deathshriek into the void.

  The human fleet skulked nearby, a dispersing pack of kroot hounds circling a dying preything, hungry for carrion. Every one was a beaked slab of colossal dimensions, infested by the scuttling buttresses and spires characteristic of gue’la architecture, bristling with multi-tiered turrets and cannons. It could raze a planet, this ponderous clutch of predators.

  Staying out of range of their main batteries was proving problematic, even for his faster, more manoeuvrable Gharial-class warship, but Tyra was unwilling to disengage from orbit until the very last second. The swarms of fighters disgorged from the warships’ bellies like flies lifting from rotten meat were a more immediate threat. Tyra cast a sad glance towards the schematic charts. Damage indicators pulsed calmly.

  “They will cripple us,” he said beneath his breath, “drain us, then move in to finish us.”

  “Kor’o?” His first officer, El’Siet, had overheard him.

  “Nothing,” he said self-consciously, berating himself for giving voice to his anxiety.

  On one screen a camera drone faithfully documented a cluster of fighters, jagged black and grey slashes of metal superimposed with IR-sensed fuel emissions like trails of blood, as they strafed the smooth hull of the warship’s juntas side. Twin furrows of las-fire etched ugly wounds across the tawny hull, puncturing blast shields and sending great spears of debris and writhing kor’la crewmen venting into space. It happened again on another screen. And another. It was happening all over. Tyra shook his head sadly and gritted his teeth, prepared to make any sacrifice to linger here a little longer.

  The kor’uis poised over consoles nearby murmured incessantly, forever dispatching message drones and crew orders with quiet industry. Tyra allowed their reports to wash over him.

  “...second wave hitting the upper plates...”

  “...snae’tas are targeting the engines...”

  “...repair team to the tertiary core...”

  “...toroq side of the fleet’s circling at the rear...”

  “...major damage to the 5th and 17th weapons-pods...”

  “...3rd phalanx move into... 3rd phalanx? Come in?...”

  It was an endless stream of negatives and failures, leaving Tyra sighing heavily as it went on and on and on. A small kor’vesa hovered up to his side and blinked a cyan light.

  “Report,” he said glumly, anticipating more bad news.

  “Second hangar reports dropship Tap’ran docked,” the tiny machine droned, resonant voice absurdly incongruous with its size. “Aun’el T’au Ko’vash is aboard.”

  Tyra turned in astonishment, staring at the hovering machine with wide eyes.

  “Confirm!” he demanded, fighting to keep the excitement from his voice.

  “Aun’el T’au Ko’vash is aboard,” the drone repeated faithfully.

  “Helm!” Tyra hissed, stabbing at control drones in a blur of activity. “Set course for Rann spacedock. The ethereal is with us again.”

  Whatever relief the crew enjoyed quietly at the news was short-lived. El’Siet looked up from his console — his dark expression effortlessly bursting Tyra’s bubble of excitement. “We’re under way, Kor’o...” he said, a minute frown betraying his concern. “There’s damage to the toroq rear engine. The gue’la are matching speed.”

  Tyra felt his relief turning in on itself, washing over him in a wave of fear and disappointment. A tremor ran through the bridge as a strafing wave of gue’la fighters glided across the viewscreen.

  One of the kor’ui controllers pressed a chime, attracting his attention. “Kor’o? We... we have incoming...”

  “Incoming what?”

  “Assault craft, Kor’o. Infantry assault craft.”

  Tyra let his eyes close slowly, feeling the enormity of the revelation soaking in. Dozens of expectant faces regarded him from every direction, arranged throughout the bridge in silent expectation. He flicked at a small control, opening a channel on the internal communicator. Its quiet peal echoed throughout the vessel.

  “All hands,” he said, fighting against the wavering of his voice. “Prepare to repel boarders.”

  Lusha watched Kais hurry away, the change of armour unable to disguise him amongst the other shas’las. He walked differently: a rolling, predatory gait that the others hadn’t yet adopted, marking him out as plainly as any scarred wargear. He’d been changed by the morning’s madness, there was no doubt about it. Exactly what he had become, Lusha sighed, remained to be seen.

  Up and down the rounded corridors of the Or’es Tash’var dilating emergency lights pulsed in time with the sonorous fluctuations of a siren. Maintenance drones, hovering high at the zenith of the hallway arch, prattled machine code and exchanged optic signals without slowing. Kor’la crewmen, tall frames appearing spiderlike amidst the clattering groups of fire warriors, hurried from place to place on myriad errands.

  And always, every few heartbeats, came the jarring, ugly rush of another impact, another gue’la assault craft gouging its way through the warship’s hull, splitting apart at its prow in a toothless sneer of melta charges and jagged angle grinders to disgorge its huddled cargo of human soldiers. The quiet corridors of the tau vessel had become a battleground, and every able-bodied fire warrior had been sent into the fray to prevent more landings.

  Except Lusha. He had more specific orders.

  “This way, Aun’el,” he said, his respectful tone unable to fully disguise his impatience. The ethereal too was watching Kais depart, his expression difficult to judge beneath the medipack tied delicately around his brow.

  “That shas’la,” he said, voice clouded. “He carries a great weight.”

  Lusha tried to steer the ethereal away, “He’s done well, Aun’el.”

  “Oh, I don’t disagree, El’Lusha... But is it not said that even when broken, a sword may still cut?”

  “‘Broken’, Aun’el?” he replied, hearing his own words echoed in the allegory. “Beyond repair, do you suppose?”

  The ethereal looked thoughtful. The blast door separating the pair from the rushing shas’las sealed with an organic breath. Ko’vash pursed his lips.

  “We shall see. Come.”

  Ko’vash turned towards the command deck elevator and strode away, robes billowing. Lusha hurried after him, gun cradled alertly at his side.

  “I’m not convinced this is wise, Aun’el. Your safety is paramount.”

  “Nonetheless, El’Lusha — I wish to visit the bridge. I must speak with the kor’o.”

  “I appreciate that, but—”

  “Good. Then you may act the bodyguard on the way there, if you must.”

  “Orders of O’Udas, Aun’el,” he said, enduring the ethereal’s stubbornness with a smile. “We’ve come too far to lose you now.”

  “Hmm.”

  The elevator sealed behind them, delicate patterns of interlocking colours glowing on the interior walls as the carriage began to rise. Lusha let his eye wander across the ingenious skeins of pastel lattices, focusing the mind as it explored. Like everything aboard the Tash’var, even the fio’sorral artworks were unsurpassed. The idea of gue’la troopers stamping their filth across the warship’s serene spaces filled him with disgust — irrational and untaulike. Troubled at his internal impetuousness, his thoughts returned implacably to—

  “You’re troubled by young La’Kais, El’Lusha.”

  Ko’vash was staring at him, dark eyes narrowed shrewdly. Lusha frowned, perplexed by his own transparency. In all his tau’cyrs of service he’d met many ethereals and learned — by and large — to contain the impossible sense of awe induced by their presence. Still, rumours always abounded...

  “Aun’el... Are you reading my mind?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, El’Lusha.”

  “Then how—”

  “Think of me as a student o
f tau nature, Shas’el. I watch things and...” he smiled thoughtfully, “And follow my nose, as the gue’la would say. Your concern is palpable.”

  “I knew his father. He’s... I think he’s lost, Aun’el. He needs guidance.”

  The ethereal sighed, eyes closed. “Shas’el — you know as well as I that one cannot be simply forced onto the pathway leading to the tau’va.”

  “I know, Aun’el, but—”

  “If La’Kais is lost, Shas’el, his first step to recovery lies in wanting to be found.”

  “And how does he do that?”

  Ko’vash smiled, a bitter, humourless grin that seemed incongruous amid his serene features. “Carefully, El’Lusha. Carefully.”

  The elevator walls dimmed as the carriage decelerated, doors slewing open with a sigh. The bridge opened up before them: an arena of dashing kor’las and blurring drones. A barren-voiced AI, reacting to some hidden optical sensor, no doubt, declared, “Aun on the bridge.”

  Immediately a knot of high-ranking kor— and shas-personnel surged forwards to envelop Ko’vash, bearing him away in the direction of the tired looking Kor’o in a polite clamour of questions and greetings. Lusha was left with his thoughts.

  A distant roar broadcast another boarding impact, contact vibrations shuddering the length of the ship. A row of panels glowed orange, damage sensors emitting their sonorous warnings. A harassed shas’vre seated at a command console diligently began directing troops towards the new insertion zone, knowing that every assault craft left undamaged, protruding from the hull like a knife hilt from a corpse, was a docking point for the vast gue’la troop carriers, winching into position even now.

  “Prognosis, Shas’vre,” Lusha grunted, keen to take command. The controller barely looked round.

  “A knife’s edge, Shas’el. It could go either way.”