‘And you, Janissary Roach,’ the tau said, ‘were you not equally… cocky?’
Recalling the grin he’d flashed the observer drone, Roach shrugged affably. ‘Like I said, I know my business, shaz-wee,’ he answered, stumbling over the alien honorific.
‘You are gifted with spirit, but crippled by arrogance,’ the tau observed.
‘It’s not like that,’ Roach said, surprised he cared enough to argue.
Staring into that inscrutable, crystal-studded faceplate, he found himself wondering what Jhi’kaara actually looked like. Alvarez had said their officer was female, but that angular armour and toneless vox-coder gave nothing away. Nevertheless something about the alien’s manner told Roach that Jhi’kaara was indeed a she. She could sure be bitchy as hell when the mood took her, which was all too often. Whatever else she might be under all that plate, the lady was certainly one angry xenos.
‘You will either live long or die quickly, Janissary Roach,’ Jhi’kaara concluded before amplifying her voice to address the rival clusters. ‘This exercise is ended. We will return to the Diadem.’
And then she was gone.
Alvarez slapped Roach on the back and grinned, ‘I think our shas’ui likes you, Friend Roach!’
The Cuttlefish troop transport nosed its way through the clinging smog, skimming just above the surface of the lake. Its whirring anti-grav rotors barely stirred the turgid expanse of water.
Dead water, Roach thought. Mister Fish had told him the place was called Amrythaa, which meant ‘Wellspring of Life’, but Roach guessed things must have changed a whole lot since the ancient Saathlaa had done their naming. The great lake was virtually an inland ocean, but its size didn’t make it any less dead. Or any less rank…
Roach hawked and spat over the side of the vessel, adding a dram of black saliva to the ooze. The stench rising from the water was bad enough, but what really got to him was the smog. It hung over the entire valley, dusting the vegetation with soot and congealing into thick scum on the water’s surface. The stuff got everywhere, making skin itch and throats burn, but there was no escaping it during the crossing. The tau had issued them all with rebreathers, but the cheap masks clogged up fast, making them worse than useless. Only the real arse-kissers persevered with them, always keen to suck up to their alien masters.
Of course those masters don’t share our misery, Roach observed sourly, glancing at the armoured xenos standing at the prow of the skimmer. Doubtless Jhi’kaara’s helmet was equipped with a proper filtration system, unlike the mass-produced junk doled out to the human grunts. Still, at least she showed her charges a little respect, unlike the rest of the blueskins on the Diadem.
The Diadem. Now there was another screwed-up, highfaluting name for a place. Guido Ortega had explained that ‘diadem’ was a fancy word for ‘crown’, but there was nothing regal about the Mechanicus monument that crowned the dead lake. In fact the massive refinery was just about the ugliest thing Roach had ever set eyes on. Hidden deep within the Coil, the rig dated back to Phaedra’s first pacification, making it almost a thousand years old.
And it sure as the Hells looks its age…
Roach could see the relic looming out of the smog now, towering over the lake on a frame of stilts and pipes like a colossal jellyfish cast in iron and rockrete. Its mantle was a puzzle-box of manufactories and hab-tenements that bristled with chimney stacks and coolant towers, all bound together in a web of pipes and catwalks. The visible section was as big as a town, but Roach knew the monster’s tendrils ran deep beneath the water, piercing the silt lakebed and burrowing into the living coral like an industrial vampire. Down there they were busily sucking the blood out of the planet and pumping it back up to the distilleries to be sifted and refined into promethium. In return the engine threw out waste on an epic scale, flooding the valley with toxic slag and smoke.
No wonder Lady Phaedra hates us so much, Roach thought. We’ve been ripping out Her guts for centuries. Compared to us the tau are just gnats. Even if they have stolen our thunder here...
As they drew closer to the monster he heard its heart pounding – a deep, hungry beat that rippled through his blood and set his teeth chattering. Like the smoke, the rhythm was at its most painful out in the open where there was no cover. Soon enough the vomiting began, running through the janissaries like a tide of nausea, with poor Ortega suffering the worst of it. Roach saw the elderly Verzante hugging the side of the boat, looking shockingly grey and drawn. The once portly pilot had slimmed down and toughened up since he’d thrown in with the Arkan, but he was just too old for this kind of punishment. Roach decided he’d talk to Alvarez about letting him sit out Jhi’kaara’s endless games. Rumour had it she was looking to recruit a batch of trainee pathfinders, but Ortega was never going to make the grade, so why push him? Besides, if the old man’s heart gave out Roach’s own plans would be well and truly fragged.
Suddenly a wave of dazzling light cut through the smog, casting the world into a negative image of itself. The janissaries shielded their eyes, but the beam passed by in seconds, swept away as the titanic lamp continued its steady rotation. Mounted in the apex of the Diadem, the great beacon was like a tireless eye that watched over the lake for approaching enemies. Uneasily Roach wondered if the sentinel could see right through him. As if to confirm his anxieties, the transport was swathed in light again as the floodlights of a Devilfish punched through the mist. Roach found himself holding his breath as the hover tank pulled up alongside them and disgorged an inquisitive drone. Jhi’kaara’s own drone rose to greet it with a burst of machine chatter and the guardian slinked away satisfied.
It’s just routine, Roach chided himself. I should be used to it by now.
He had been at the Diadem nearly a month now and was no stranger to this journey, but it still unsettled him. He’d counted at least six Devilfish prowling the lake, their patrol intersected by darting Piranha skimmers and twittering squadrons of gun drones. A heavier tank lurked by the feet of the rig, tracking their approach with a massive turret-mounted ion cannon. Alvarez had told him the Hammerhead was a tank killer, a variant on the standard Devilfish that sacrificed transport capacity to pack more punch. Eyeing that big gun, Roach guessed even a glancing hit would take out a Sentinel. The xenos were taking no chances here.
I’ve never seen so many blueskins in one place, he mused. Maybe it’s just the promethium they’re after or maybe it’s something more, but this old rig is important to them. It might even be their HQ in the Coil…
The transport glided into the nest of piers splayed around the refinery like lazy tentacles and nosed its way towards an empty berth. Hulking, heavily armoured combat servitors patrolled the promenade, gliding back and forth on elegantly moulded anti-gravity skirts. Their heads were little more than nubs of dead meat protruding from iron torsos, hanging between their massive shoulder pads like dried fruit. Roach shuddered at the sight of their sightless, milk-white eyes. By any yardstick that counted, servitors were dead men, mind-wiped and melded with machines to serve as soulless thralls to the Imperium.
Except these walking corpses aren’t even walking and they sure don’t serve the Imperium no more…
While all servitors were mongrels of man and machine, these creatures were tri-part hybrids, twisted a notch further away from humanity by the touch of xenos-tech. The smooth contours of their anti-gravity skirts betrayed their alien origin, along with the burst cannons welded to their right arms and the drone antennae jutting from their skulls. Those high-tech plumes linked the dead men into the Diadem’s security array, granting them an eerie sharpness that sickened Roach more than all the other violations heaped upon them. Sometimes he’d swear there was real hatred burning behind those cataract-encrusted eyes…
If the tau are so bloody enlightened, why didn’t they scrap these poor bastards when they set up shop here instead of joining in with the fun?
But R
oach already knew the answer to that one. His time among the Concordance had taught him plenty about the tau mindset. While many races fastened onto grand notions like honour, glory or righteous hate, the tau simply got on with the job of winning. For all their fine talk of the Greater Good they were hard-nosed pragmatists: a race of materialists who saw the world as an ornery, but essentially logical, place that could be chipped, whittled and sometimes just plain hammered into shape. More to the point, they hated waste and loved tinkering, hence the fate of the augmented zombies they’d ‘inherited’ at the Diadem.
Although technically the zombies don’t belong to the tau, Roach reflected. I guess the cogboys are still pulling their strings.
The servitors weren’t the only relics on the rig. There were a whole bunch of Mechanicus priests here, including a full-blown magos, backed up by an army of tech-guard – Alvarez called them ‘skitarii’. These augmented heavies were the rig’s permanent garrison, as opposed to the janissary clusters who just passed through for training. At first Roach had been surprised to find the skitarii were all drawn from native Saathlaa stock, but given the age of the Diadem it made perfect sense. The original off-world soldiers would have died out long ago, forcing the priests to recruit – or more likely enslave – replacements locally.
Of course the priests themselves were a different matter. Such men had the knowledge to make themselves virtually immortal, although the price they paid might make them unrecognisable as men. After centuries of augmetic butchery there was no telling what Magos Kaul and his cronies were hiding under their flowing red robes, but Roach doubted it would be anything he’d call human.
I still don’t know what the deal is with this place. What have the cogboys been doing here for all these centuries? Were they stranded after the first pacification lost steam or did they want to stay? And what about now? Are they working alongside the tau or are they just glorified slaves like the rest of us?
As he hauled himself up onto the pier, Roach realised he was still a long way off cracking the Diadem’s secret. Probably he never would.
‘Subject 11 persists in obfuscating my endeavours to establish a rapport, habitually retreating behind a barrier of atavistic hostility.’ Por’o Dal’yth Seishin paused to gather his thoughts, steepling his fingers in an oddly human gesture. ‘He presents a most perplexing, yet compelling paradox.’
Perched cross-legged on the padded dome of a floating throne drone, the tau Water Caste ambassador had the look of a mystic immersed in some profound meditation. His emaciated body was swathed in an azure robe of shimmering silk that flared into a rigid, high-backed collar to frame his hairless skull. Although his face was little more than a wedge of bone wrapped in grey parchment, his black eyes shone with vigour. At eighty-three he was an ancient, his lifespan extended well beyond the natural limits of his species thanks to Magos Kaul’s juvenat techniques. Doubtless some of his more orthodox colleagues would disapprove of such artificial longevity, but O’Seishin knew it was all for the Greater Good. He had entered the Fi’drash conundrum at its inception and would see the matter through to its logical conclusion. However, if everything proceeded according to plan that would be a very long time coming.
‘As I have posited previously, the gue’la are afflicted by a racial predilection towards extreme psychoses,’ he continued. ‘I would further postulate that the fungal pathogens contaminating this planet’s atmosphere might induce a psychotropic response in emotionally charged individuals…’
There was a chime at the chamber door and O’Seishin sighed. ‘Suspend recording,’ he ordered his attendant data drone. ‘Come.’
The scarred warrior who entered offered only the hint of a bow. It was a slight from one of her rank; she was a veteran of the Fire Caste, but he had attained the pinnacle of his own. While tau society attached no stigma to those of lower rank, experience was to be respected and obeyed. In the absence of a ranking Fire Warrior he was her superior.
‘You summoned me, O’Seishin,’ Jhi’kaara said, using his personal name with impudent familiarity.
‘That is so, shas’ui,’ O’Seishin answered, countering her disrespect with perfect courtesy. ‘Regrettably your request for reassignment to front line service has been denied. It seems your most excellent mentoring of the gue’vesa neophytes precludes it. Your talents are too valuable to place in jeopardy.’
And you are best placed precisely where I can see you, he thought.
‘I am a warrior,’ she said bitterly. ‘I was born to fight.’
‘Correction: you were born to fight for the Greater Good,’ O’Seishin said smoothly. ‘And for the time being the Greater Good requires you to forge capable janissaries.’ His nostrils flared in the tau approximation of a smile. ‘I do however have some good news for you. Your achievements here have been recognised by the shas’el and he has approved your promotion to the rank of shas’vre.’
‘What of my request to meet with the shas’el?’ There wasn’t a trace of gratitude in her tone. O’Seishin frowned, finally becoming exasperated by her insolence.
‘It is in process,’ he said, ‘but the acting commander is burdened by manifold and onerous responsibilities. Be assured that he will summon you in due course.’
‘It has been many rotaa since I reported the gue’la’s treachery at the Shell,’ Jhi’kaara urged. ‘I swore an oath of consequence to my comrades when they died.’
‘Shas’el Aabal has been informed of your concerns. In the meantime I have requested an XV8 battlesuit for you, shas’vre.’
‘That is unnecessary–’ she began.
‘It is necessary,’ he snapped. ‘According to the records you are battlesuit trained and you are now the ranking Fire Warrior here. You must be prepared for any eventuality.’ He glanced at the chronolog on his data drone: his session with Subject 11 was due shortly. ‘Regrettably I must excuse myself, shas’vre. I am also burdened with multifarious responsibilities in service of the Greater Good.’
‘No, friend Roach, you’re still not getting it. The Greater Good, it don’t work that way,’ Alvarez urged. ‘It’s something new, man. Something better than the lies the aristos and the padres been telling us since forever.’
‘I see that, but grunts like you and me, we still don’t matter none,’ Roach said. ‘Sure, these tau boys treat us decent enough – a whole lot better than the patricians did back home – but that don’t mean they care about us.’
‘They gave me back my voice, Friend.’ Alvarez tapped his scarred neck. It was an old wound and a favourite parable of the Verzante deserter. ‘I told you how that crazy commissar busted me up real bad, right? So why did the tau put me back together if I don’t matter?’
There were murmurs of agreement from the other Concordance janissaries gathered in the dormitory. Mister Fish looked uneasy and Ortega threw Roach a warning glance, but he ignored them both, too irritated to back down.
‘They fixed you up because you’re a good soldier,’ he insisted. ‘You’re useful to them, but you’re still just a cog in the Big Machine, just like you was back in the Imperium.’
‘No, we’re talking a whole different kind of machine here, Friend Roach,’ Alvarez said. ‘Sure I’m a cog, but so are the Fire Warriors and the Water Speakers – even the Ethereals themselves. See, we’re all in this together, everyone doing their bit for the Greater Good. And we’re in it because we believe, not because some crazy pendejo in black leather is holding a gun to our heads.’
‘And they don’t judge a man by his blood,’ Estrada piped up, nodding meaningfully at an obese Verzante slumped on a bunk. ‘Else fat Olim over there would still be calling all the shots.’
‘That’s right!’ Alvarez was nodding furiously. ‘The tau reward a man by what he can do, not the clan he’s born into.’
‘But that don’t go for the tau themselves,’ Roach said triumphantly. Seeing their blank faces he pressed on. ‘I mean f
or them it all comes down to how they’re born, right? A tau that’s born a warrior won’t get to build anything and one that’s born a builder won’t get to fight, no matter how angry he gets. Every caste is a prison they can’t ever escape.’
‘Why would a warrior want to build anything?’ Estrada seemed genuinely confused.
‘The newcomer is implying that your logic is flawed, Señor Estrada,’ the pariah, Olim observed languidly. ‘He is actually rather bright for a peasant.’
‘You say something back there, aristo?’ Estrada snarled, rounding on the fallen nobleman. Olim cringed, instinctively shielding the bruised potato of his face.
‘Be easy, Friend Estrada,’ Alvarez restrained his comrade. ‘Friend Olim already knows his place in the Tau’va.’ He flashed a benign smile at the cowering noble. ‘The latrines will need cleaning before you start your shift in the comms tower. Don’t disappoint me now, Friend Olim.’
Olim scurried away like a plump mouse, keeping his distance from the others as Alvarez turned his smile on Roach: ‘As for you, Friend Roach, you’re still new to our cluster and have a way to go, but you got to open up your mind…’
‘That’s what I keep telling him,’ Ortega said, ambling over with a conciliatory smile. ‘But will he listen?’ He gave Roach a pointed glare and the scout shrugged helplessly. Ortega had indeed warned him repeatedly against baiting their fellow janissaries, but Roach still kept walking into the same old arguments. The crazy thing was he liked Alvarez and the rest of them. Sometimes he even caught himself thinking there might actually be something to their whole Greater Good deal.
Fire Caste Page 19