Farsight

by Phil Kelly

  A snout-nosed ork fighter sped past, its underslung machine cannons stuttering. One of the rounds winged O’Shoh’s rear jet unit. The vicious punch sent him head over heels for a moment before he struggled upwards in a burst of blue fire. His blacksun filter showed the heat-sign of Brightsword’s fusion blasters discharging nearby, followed by the expanding pressure wave of a midair kill.

  ‘Ignore the orks and close on my position!’ shouted O’Shoh. His suit’s jetpack was gouting smoke. With the rust storm tearing into it, the situation could only get worse. ‘Use visuals if you have to!’

  The commander touched down, his battlesuit stumbling to compensate. The gale whipped him left and right as if he were no more than a puppet. Boosting desperately upwards to avoid a ridge of scrap metal, he found himself slammed bodily into Brightsword. The impact sent their battlesuits spinning apart.

  ‘Re-establish and link!’ shouted O’Shoh. He triggered his shield generator’s boost code, readying it for a sustained burst. Emerging from the guts of the storm, Brightsword came in close. His own suit had been abraded badly. Sparks fizzed from its seals.

  ‘We must ground,’ Brightsword cried. ‘The disruption is too great!’

  ‘No choice,’ said O’Shoh over the hellish noise. Eyes flicking, he looped an area of the map near a large rectangular heat-sign. Its centre was beyond the red-grey wall of the storm’s edge.

  ‘Link!’ shouted O’Shoh. ‘Link and brace!’

  Even as he gave the command, O’Shoh was hurled back as if slammed by an invisible hand. He pivoted to land feet first in a dune before leaning left and boosting away hard. Brightsword struggled against the tempest, giving everything he had simply to stay still.

  The rust storm intensified again. O’Shoh saw his comrade’s sensor antenna torn from his battlesuit’s head, whipping in to ricochet off his energy shield. He triggered his jets to full, bodily slamming into Brightsword’s back and grabbing wildly at his comrade’s XV8 before wrenching himself shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘Now, Brightsword!’ cried O’Shoh. ‘Boost full!’

  The battlesuit commanders hurtled forwards just as the storm changed direction to swat them like flies. O’Shoh’s shoulder crunched into a dune with such force that he felt his body bruise inside the cockpit. Next to him, Brightsword braced a leg, gaining purchase. With a sustained burst of flame they both spiralled away, Brightsword’s requisitioned XV8 adding every ounce of its thrust to O’Shoh’s remaining jet.

  The commanders plunged on through the dust to see a manic confusion of ork vehicles hurled into the air. Skeletal dune buggies and badly built transports were being ripped apart like straw.

  A hurtling ork corpse slammed into O’Shoh’s battlesuit, sending several of his screens fizzing. He refocused on the largest of the heat signals ahead, gripping tight to Brightsword’s shoulder as the young commander pulled the two battlesuits in an arcing sweep.

  The howl of the storm lessened, and for a moment, O’Shoh felt hope.

  ‘I see it, cunning one,’ said Brightsword.

  ‘All weapons trained, upper plane,’ replied O’Shoh.

  The ork tanker was immense, plucked from the dunes and tracing a slow spiral in the air as the storm carried it higher and higher. Its cab dangled from the colossal cylinder behind it like the lolling head of a corpse. The storm’s claws had scoured the juggernaut’s flanks, streaks of silvery metal showing through thick red plating.

  ‘Thrust/vector sphere critical,’ warned Brightsword. ‘Shutdown imminent.’

  ‘Then get us above the cylinder.’

  ‘Acknowledged.’

  A yank of thrust, and Brightsword hauled them a few metres above the ork tanker.

  ‘Now!’ shouted O’Shoh.

  Brightsword discharged his fusion blasters with a dual swipe, their curving trajectories carving an eye-shaped hole in the vehicle’s flank. The thick green fluid inside squirted out and was immediately whipped into the gale. The storm yanked at the linked battlesuits, but O’Shoh had already anticipated its contrary motion. Angling his shield generator, he fired his plasma rifle downwards into the hole Brightsword had carved in the tanker’s hide.

  The ork vehicle detonated with force enough to level a transit hub.

  O’Shoh had his force shield angled just right to catch the bow wave of the explosion. The two battlesuits were flung upwards like boulders hurled from a Fio’taun catapult. They barrelled through the rust storm’s wall into nothingness, a total absence of sound and sensation compared to the raging confusion of the hurricane winds.

  ‘The eye of the storm,’ said Brightsword reverently.

  ‘Maximum thrust,’ said O’Shoh tersely, angling their progress back towards the command disc.

  Below them, the tempest swirled furiously, howling its madness as it consumed every living thing within reach.

  It was dusk when the two commanders returned to the quadrant of the slaughter.

  The ork convoy had been reduced to nothing more than torn spars of metal and glinting plates. Wreckage stuck up from the rust dunes at odd angles, and storm-flayed corpses lay scattered among a confusion of razor-sharp metal.

  O’Shoh’s battlesuit crunched down into a pile of mangled scrap. The picked-over bones of the convoy extended as far as his sensors could perceive. He stooped over an ork body, the barrel of his plasma rifle dug into the dune to steady his crouch.

  ‘Keep watch,’ transmitted O’Shoh, keying his plexus hatch’s release sequence.

  ‘Acknowledged,’ responded Brightsword. ‘I am in no hurry to encounter another of these ghost storms.’

  ‘Don’t let Aun’Tal hear you call them that,’ said O’Shoh. ‘We may not understand them, but that does not mean we should revert to superstitious beliefs.’

  ‘As you say, commander.’

  The front of O’Shoh’s battlesuit hissed and smoothly hinged down. Pressing his buckle clasps, the commander slid out of his control cocoon and landed two metres below in a hunter’s crouch, a pulse pistol held loosely in his hands.

  Scanning the horizon, O’Shoh made haste to the nearest ork corpse and bent low. The commander placed a finger in one of the deep gashes of the beast’s torso. He withdrew it, and stared hard at the result.

  His forehead furrowed as an uncomfortable suspicion blossomed in his mind.

  ‘Odd.’

  ‘Commander?’

  ‘These corpses,’ said O’Shoh, his finger probing the split eye socket of a nearby cadaver. ‘They’ve been drained of blood.’

  The two commanders stood under the baking Arkunashan sun, one still in his battlesuit, the other kneeling by a scattering of ork corpses. The strangeness of their findings had put a pall of silence between them.

  Brightsword was the first to speak.

  ‘Desiccated by the heat, perhaps?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe so,’ said O’Shoh, pushing open an ork’s maw with the barrel of his pulse pistol. Turning on his heel, he strode to a third corpse lying in the shadow of his battlesuit’s smoking jetpack. He knelt and repeated the procedure.

  ‘Commander?’

  ‘Their saliva is still present. The thin film of liquid upon their eyeballs is also intact.’

  Something metallic, half-buried in the rusted scrap, caught O’Shoh’s attention, and after a brief examination, he tucked it away into his pilot suit.

  ‘The draining of one specific fluid makes no sense,’ said Brightsword.

  ‘And yet it is so. “When the evidence of the senses defies logic, it is logic that must yield”. ’

  ‘I have not heard that maxim. Puretide?’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ said O’Shoh. ‘He coined it after I scaled the sheerest side of Mount Kan’ji using an improvised pulley system and the dead body of a snow lynx.’

  Brightsword laughed, then winced and clutched at his torso.

>   ‘Enough of this,’ said O’Shoh. ‘We must complete a proper spectroscopic analysis. All ork cadavers in sensor range.’

  ‘My sensors are damaged, perhaps beyond recovery.’

  ‘I shall try my own.’

  O’Shoh padded back over to his crouching XV8, planting a foot on its ankle, then the other on its knee. He boosted up into the control cocoon with a smooth movement and clipped on his harness. The machine righted itself, plexus hatch hinging closed.

  The sensor antennae jutting from the battlesuit’s head rose, lowered, and then rose again.

  ‘As I thought,’ transmitted O’Shoh. ‘All cadavers in range are lacking the bio-sign corresponding to blood. All others are intact.’

  ‘Should we return to the Constellation to resupply, and make our report to the earth caste?’ asked Brightsword.

  ‘That is protocol,’ sighed O’Shoh.

  ‘May I make an observation of my own, perspicacious one?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I sense reluctance to make that report.’

  O’Shoh was silent for a long moment before replying.

  ‘The rumours concerning the manner of Ob’lotai’s death are true, Commander Brightsword,’ he said. ‘It was my last collaboration with the earth caste that cost him his life.’

  8-0

  The Rust Wastes, Southern Hemisphere, Arkunasha

  ‘At last, commander, you return my communion request!’

  El’Vesa’s image beamed as his hologram sprang to full size onto the Constellation of Hopes’s bridge. O’Shoh felt a sudden surge of disgust and anger at the earth caste scientist’s cheery tone. He frowned involuntarily, glad that he had ordered his command staff to leave the bridge. It would not do for them to see division within the upper echelons of command.

  Breathing deeply, he put his feelings aside. Another flame smouldering in the vault of his soul; another injustice gone unspoken. Yet an outburst would not serve the Tau’va. He had pushed his luck too far already.

  ‘I am not of the water caste, El’Vesa,’ he said. ‘I prefer to get to the point.’

  ‘I am well aware of this, commander,’ chuckled El’Vesa fondly. ‘That became abundantly clear during your unsanctioned disappearance. Our diplomatic friends do not like having their propaganda machine disrupted.’

  ‘That is of little interest to me,’ said O’Shoh. ‘To business. I append evidence of anomalous meteorology in quadrant 7-82. This, I presume, is why these phenomena are known as “ghost storms”. ’

  ‘That term is forbidden, commander. You should know better than to use it.’

  ‘Do not tell me how to communicate, honoured El’Vesa,’ said O’Shoh, his voice tight and full of threat. His hand strayed to the hilt of his bonding knife, still stained with Ob’lotai’s blood. He forced himself to focus once more.

  ‘This append is indeed illuminating,’ continued El’Vesa, his hologram eye-flicking through the data. ‘The storm’s intensity appears to surpass our current classification scale. Its onset is most sudden.’

  ‘It rose from the dunes in microdecs,’ said O’Shoh. ‘It turns out this is far from unprecedented. Eighteen separate engagements have been logged as abandoned due to “sudden ambient phenomena”. ’

  ‘Ah, yes, those,’ said El’Vesa, his benign smile wearing thin.

  ‘And even these records were sequestered in a remote cache unavailable to any below council level.’

  ‘Well, if the common populace–’

  ‘Why was I not told about this connection?’ interrupted O’Shoh.

  ‘It is difficult to prove there is a connection, commander,’ said El’Vesa. ‘And the ethereals ordered the records minimised after each incident.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Presumably because they do not wish to cause alarm until they have a satisfactory hypothesis.’

  ‘I have a theory,’ said O’Shoh, his tones low. ‘It is possible these storms appear near incidents of conflict because of some electromagnetic phenomenon we do not understand.’

  ‘Quite so!’ said El’Vesa, his beaming smile reaching his eyes once more. ‘I am glad we are aligned in this conclusion.’

  ‘This matter is not so simple, I’m afraid. Those taken by the storm have no traces of blood in their circulatory system, whilst their other bodily fluids remain completely intact.’

  El’Vesa’s face fell, as sombre as a Fio’taun mask.

  ‘I shall reinvestigate your appends this night-cycle,’ he said. ‘I offer thanks for the data.’

  ‘It is not for you I did this, El’Vesa,’ replied O’Shoh, ‘but for the Greater Good.’

  ‘Of course. Speaking of which, my teams have repaired Commander Brightsword’s custom Crisis suit to operational efficiency. Furthermore, I have thoroughly analysed your own XV8 and written a maintenance program tailored to minimise the damage suffered.’

  ‘You entered my battlesuit without my permission?’

  ‘Yes. In doing so, I noticed some efficiencies that could be made to improve your shield generator. May I patch these subroutines across?’

  O’Shoh gave a dismissive sign of acquiescence. The realisation was dawning on him that matters of tact and the concept of boundaries were likely lost on the earth caste scientist.

  ‘Do so if you must, El’Vesa,’ said the commander. ‘I believe I have found something else of great import.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘Part of a machine.’ O’Shoh took out the scrap metal he had recovered from the ork corpse. ‘Rusted beyond recognition, but clearly a complex structure. I believe it to be the vice section of a primitive lathe – a metalworking apparatus used to create other tools.’

  ‘I am aware of the meaning of the word “lathe”, yes,’ said El’Vesa. He looked off camera once more, his eyes narrowed. O’Shoh did not miss the implication: El’Vesa likely thought him a fool. The feeling was most definitely reciprocated.

  ‘Well, this was but the most complex of many such items,’ continued O’Shoh. With a slide of his finger, he flicked over another data package he had prepared. El’Vesa called it up and gave it a cursory glance at first, but as he scrolled through, it claimed his full attention.

  ‘This data confirms my own findings beyond doubt, I believe,’ said the earth caste scientist. Flicking a stylus-thin data tool, El’Vesa called up the holographic projection of a rust-caked remnant of machinery that revolved slowly in the air.

  He looked back up at O’Shoh, his expression very different. ‘You appear to have located an area where the planet’s devastation was less than complete. I have done the same, albeit at different coordinates. This item was recovered by my geostasis teams in the lee of a large rock formation. I suspect it was once part of a primitive fossil fuel engine.’

  ‘The planet’s devastation? You believe it was more than aeons of erosion that shaped this world?’ asked O’Shoh.

  ‘That is my hypothesis. It has been questioned by my fellows many times already.’

  ‘Tell me of it.’

  El’Vesa’s hologram looked over its shoulder at something O’Shoh could not see.

  ‘The deserts of this world are made of rust particulate,’ the scientist continued quickly. ‘Therefore, there must have been a great deal of ferrous metal upon its surface in the past.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The irregular make-up of these items suggests the presence of complex parent structures. Essentially, your latest finding confirms Arkunasha was once host to a low-technology civilisation.’

  ‘Go on,’ said O’Shoh.

  ‘For a planet with such a complex infrastructure to have been reduced to no more than a strata of oxidised metal,’ said El’Vesa, his tones almost a reverential whisper, ‘that would have required an extinction event of world-killing power.’

  ‘Do you think
such an event could have been triggered naturally?’

  ‘No, commander, I do not.’

  Silence hung between them for a moment as they considered the implications.

  ‘I see,’ said O’Shoh, his eyes narrowing. ‘So whatever befell this world must have been extreme indeed, a cataclysm large enough to justify the science that destroyed it.’ He stared at the hologram, a cold suspicion crawling over his mind. ‘Perhaps you theorise extreme measures were taken to eradicate a previous ork infestation?’

  El’Vesa’s hologram gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘Not only do I believe that to be the case, but by mapping the carbon atoms of the rust deposits, I have ascertained the approximate time of their dissolution.’

  ‘The time of the extinction event?’

  ‘Yes. It came shortly after the manifestation of a celestial phenomenon we have been calling the Arkunashan Antivortex.’

  O’Shoh’s mind whirled at the implications.

  ‘A similar astronomical event to the one detailed in my original brief?’

  ‘Indeed. By my estimation, it occurred on the same planetary equinox, nearly nine hundred tau’cyr ago.’

  ‘So a recurrent vortex that allows ork fleets to attack unbidden,’ said O’Shoh. ‘Truly this world is cursed.’

  ‘That notion is unbecoming of a fire caste commander, surely? Such talk is for those without the intellect to appreciate hard science.’

  ‘It was an artefact of speech, nothing more. Have you given any more thought to the matter of ork reproduction?’

  ‘I have drawn several conclusions,’ said El’Vesa.

  ‘As have I. In fact, I may have some pertinent information. Ob’lotai would not have approved of us targeting their reproductive cycle, but our people are starving, and we do not have the luxury of his moral guidance.’

  ‘That is not so!’ said El’Vesa brightly. ‘I mean, that need not be so.’

  O’Shoh felt his blood suddenly run cold.

  ‘What do you mean by that, Fio’el Vesa?’

  ‘Simply that I took the liberty of brain-scanning Shas’vre Ob’lotai before his corpse was cool. He was a valued member of your team, I believe. You will be pleased to hear the data transfer reached ninety-three per cent before the biological remnants were rendered non-viable.’