More tales of the Tau Empire from Black Library

SHAS’O
A collection of Tau Empire short fiction

DAMOCLES
A Space Marine Battles book containing the novellas ‘Blood Oath’, ‘Broken Sword’, ‘Black Leviathan’ and ‘Hunter’s Snare’
Also available as an MP3 audio book from blacklibrary.com

THE SHAPE OF THE HUNT
A Space Marine Battles audio drama

THE KAUYON
A Tau Empire audio drama

SHADOWSUN: THE LAST OF KIRU’S LINE
A Tau Empire novella

FIRE CASTE
An Astra Militarum and Tau Empire novel

COURAGE AND HONOUR
An Ultramarines and Tau Empire novel

Visit blacklibrary.com for the full range of Tau Empire novels, novellas, audio dramas and Quick Reads, along with many other exclusive products

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

1-0

THE RUST WASTES, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARKUNASHA

Commander Farsight was struck by a dozen bullets at once. The solid slugs punched into the armoured plates of his Crisis battlesuit, each hitting hard enough for him to feel within its control cocoon. More impacts dented the ochre plates of the XV8’s exterior. He swung his shield generator to block the gunfire, the shallow dome it projected rippling at each impact. Above his command suite’s damage display, a holographic doppelganger of his suit pulsed red.

The orks in the storm outside were shooting at anything that moved, roaring in their bestial tongue as they emptied their guns into the tempest. Their fusillade had raw kinetic power, but little chance of penetrating a battlesuit’s nanocrystalline alloy. Farsight’s elite Crisis teams could theoretically ride out an ork volley with no more than superficial damage. Even a basic XV8 pilot could hold out long enough to kill his attackers.

The cadre’s fire warrior infantry could not.

Tau bodies littered the rust dunes, chewed to dismal ruin by the killer storm and the relentless hail of ork firepower.

‘Beasts,’ spat Farsight, recalibrating his plasma rifle for close-range engagement. With the howling gale turning the air red with oxide particles, long-distance marksmanship was out of the question.

There was a momentary lull in the din of battle. Sensing an opportunity, the commander broke left into the storm. He kept his shield raised and his cowled head-unit turned away as his sensors extrapolated the paths of the largest calibre bullets to strike him. Ghostly lines flickered across his targeting bay, each a ballistic trajectory.

The analysis was complete in a microdec, confirming the firing solution Farsight had already put in place. His index finger twitched three times, and the long cylinder of his plasma rifle seared with staccato bursts. Each bolt of plasma silenced a heavy gun hidden in the storm.

Farsight’s humourless smile soon fell away. Such kills would have been routine in an open battlescape. In the training simulations he had undertaken as a cadet, he had taken entire waves of orks apart with systematic efficiency. But the reality of Arkunasha was worse than Tutor Sha’kan’thas had ever imagined.

The immense tornados haunting the rust planet’s wilderness whipped great swathes of its ferrous deserts into the air, flinging tiny metal fragments at a terrifying pace. An unarmoured tau warrior would be chewed to ruin before he could escape the storm. Even inside his battlesuit, Farsight could practically feel the airborne rust gnawing at him, its violent energies rendering his suit’s blacksun filter next to useless. As well as disrupting any kind of electronic surveillance, the tempest made it impossible to maintain battlefield cohesion. For the orks, a race that thrived on anarchy, the storm was an inconvenience. For the tau, it was a nightmare.

The commander scanned left on instinct. Sure enough, a knot of hulking orks was barrelling out of the murk. They were almost as broad as they were tall, clad in soiled cloth and beaten metal plate. In their calloused fists they clutched crude bludgeons, whirring mechanical axes and boxy pistols. Their bucket jaws hung low, exposing blunt yellow tusks. The orks charged, roaring like hungry predators hunting fresh prey.

They found something else entirely.

The commander took a long step backwards before firing, coring the nearest beast with a plasma bolt. The second ork was close behind; a blinding arc of light seared from the fusion blaster on Farsight’s right arm, and the creature collapsed in a puff of scattering ash.

The third greenskin charged with a roar, bringing its chain-toothed axe down in an overhead sweep. Farsight’s rifleman stance became a low crouch, and he blinked his shield generator to maximum just as the ork’s blow was about to connect. The generator’s flaring energy field hurled the ork backwards, the commander swiftly taking its head with a plasma shot to the jaw. The storm snatched the thing’s decapitated body into the vortex like so many others.

Farsight recalibrated his sensors, adjusting his blacksun filter to mask out the storm’s latest assault. Bloodstained corpses lay everywhere, tau and ork alike. Some were slumped on the dunes, whilst others hurtled through the air upon violent winds.

To his right, Farsight saw a lone gun drone struggle against the storm before being whipped into the hurricane. Behind it, a team of Crisis suits stalked over the crest of a dune, jetpack vents glowing blue.

‘Keep your altitude low!’ shouted Farsight. A gold symbol of acknowledgement flickered on his command suite. The wind changed abruptly, and another battlesuit team emerged from the red haze, Commander Sha’vastos at their head. The old warrior picked off a cluster of nearby orks with precise bursts of plasma, his team matching him as best they could. The orks broke, scattering from sight.

‘We cannot win this war, Commander Farsight,’ transmitted Sha’vastos over a closed frequency. ‘We cannot battle two foes at once. We fight the storm and the ork infestation, yet we have mastered neither.’

‘Keep scanning, Sha’vastos. Recalibrate every dec if necessary. Tooth Jaw is in here somewhere.’

In his heart, Farsight knew Sha’vastos was right. The ferrous sands gummed engine vents, clogged ball-and-socket joints and baffled electromagnetic sensors. Exactly the kind of scenario his tutors had said to avoid.

‘All teams compensate for the storm as best you can,’ transmitted Farsight into the cadre-level net. With any luck, it would reach at least some of his teams. Some sent the gold of acknowledgement, a loose constellation of icons blipping across his distribution array. Others remained the silver that denoted an unconfirmed status. A worrying number had turned the charcoal grey of death.

The commander felt his throat tighten. They were losing.

He pushed on through the storm, his sensors reaching out for signs of his quarry. A white-yellow heat signal flickered, and he bore down upon it at top speed. A many-armed smudge began to resolve in the rust clouds ahead. Its silhouette slowly coalesced into one of the barrel-bodied contraptions the orks used as walkers.

The commander’s face twisted, disgusted by the mockery of the Hero’s Mantle confronting him. The waddling scrapheap was a single-pilot war machine, but there the similarity with a tau battlesuit ended.

Such ugliness. Such inefficiency. Yet the thing was clearly dangerous; its hydraulic shears were crusted with tau blood.

The commander’s plasma rifle burned a fist-sized hole through the thing’s metal plates. The ork walker stomped on regardless and returned fire, the solid slugs ricocheting from the invisible disc of Farsight’s shield generator. The monstrosity’s joints wheezed steam and drizzled oil as it came about in clumsy, limping increments. Around the machine came a mob of hollering orks, their porcine eyes glinting in the storm’s strange twilight.

Farsight didn’t need his sensor programs to find the lumpen thing’s weak spot. He broke left, drawing the walker’s ork followers towards him, and then suddenly burst right. Pounding a wide circle to the clanking walker’s rear, he slashed his fusion blaster’s beam into its midsection. The shot cut through the boiler door strapped over its power plant, and the walker exploded. A ring of knife-sharp shrapnel burst outwards. Farsight rolled with the impact, but the orks who had been advancing alongside the walker were shredded.

A secure frequency stuttered open.

‘The storm’s eye is moving counter-intuitively, commander,’ transmitted Sha’vastos. ‘Our cadres cannot sustain much more of this.’

‘I realise that, Sha’vastos,’ replied Farsight, firing into a knot of orks as he came alongside one of his XV8 shas’ui veterans, ‘yet unless we make it to the eye, escape is impossible. We must press on.’

His sensor suite flared a red warning. Anomalous readings spiked as an energy build-up bloomed from his right, crackling like a thunderhead about to strike. In a flash of green light, the XV8 shas’ui simply disappeared from the waist down.

Farsight staggered back in shock as the pilot, his legs shorn completely, slithered from the control cocoon. The remains of his battlesuit fell sparking onto the rust dunes.

Righting himself, the commander leaned into the storm and pushed towards the source of the hideous attack. His sensors detected more of the powerful energy emissions typical of the orks’ mechanic caste. He could just make out a loose group of the creatures up ahead. All were clad in thick piston-driven armour, but one had a strange contraption strapped to its back. Its readings shone with aggressive brilliance on Farsight’s sensor unit.

‘Ork elders located,’ he transmitted. ‘All teams close on my position.’

Finding a firing solution, he loosed a burning bolt of plasma. It dissipated at the last moment, dispersing across a crackling dome of force.

‘Sha’vastos,’ said Farsight, his tone grave, ‘they have portable shield technology. Appending footage.’

‘Send it to El’Vesa. It’s his field.’

‘No time,’ Farsight lied.

Taking a gunman’s crouch behind the lip of a dune, the commander joined his fusion blaster’s beam to the trajectory of his plasma rifle and poured everything he had at the ork mechanic caste. The primitive power field overloaded in a shower of sparks, sending greenskin elders stumbling backwards.

The flame-painted battlesuit of the young Commander Brightsword burst from the tempest to leap over Farsight’s position. Twin fusion beams cut a great ‘X’ into the rust dunes, reducing all bar one of the ork mechanics to steaming ruin.

‘Die, worthless ones,’ Brightsword said through his XV8’s vocalisers. ‘This planet is ours!’

The symbol of Stealth Team Tar’osa appeared on Farsight’s distribution array, the telltale ripple of their passage gliding through the storm nearby. They were heading to intercept a scrawny ork in brightly coloured attire with a highly unusual heat signature. Farsight punched the creature’s image up close. For some reason, the writhing ork was being held in the grip of two much larger specimens. Some trick of the storm’s light made it look as if the beast’s eyes were aflame.

Farsight watched the ork spasm, the bio-sign readings on his sensor suite going haywire. The commander felt his blood thunder within his veins as a sickly light poured from the alien’s eyes and mouth. Blinding whips of green-white energy lashed from the greenskin’s cranium. Several grounded on Stealth Team Tar’osa, rendering the shimmering battlesuits visible for a flickering moment just as they levelled their burst cannons.

Then the crackling energies simply erased the tau from existence.

Crying out, Farsight triggered his battlesuit jets and boosted low through the storm to their position. A threat alarm blipped insistently; he had left his fellow Crisis pilots out of formation in his wake. He ignored it. Such unnatural horrors could not be allowed to survive.

A shot from his plasma rifle cut one of the creature’s ork bodyguards down, its muscular flank burned away. The other ork stepped in, axe raised. A contemptuous shot from Farsight’s fusion blaster vaporised it.

Before the commander could make another kill, the gangling ork wretch convulsed, its snaggletooth maw yawning wide. Heaving forwards, it vomited a kaleidoscopic geyser of energy that struck Farsight’s customised Crisis battlesuit full in the chest.

Fierce spears of light jabbed at Farsight’s eyes as his entire control console went haywire. He could see nothing but crazed static, his targeting systems glitching and unresponsive. Even his motive units had stopped working.

Unable to fight the storm, Farsight’s Crisis suit toppled onto its side. His audio picked up the ork’s febrile yammering outside. The commander twitched his fingers inside his control gauntlets, each gesture calling for a kill.

Nothing happened.

The commander blink-jabbed fail-safe icons, but even they were offline. He could see a yellowish fluid bubbling through his hatch seals, its suffocating stench filling the cocoon. His throat was scorched with every gasping breath. He yanked hard at the mechanical release lever, but it was stuck fast.

His battlesuit had become a tomb.

Farsight took a desperate glance through the plexus vision slit. The control cocoon was filling with smoke, the stench of burning electrics and ork bile chokingly intense. Eyes watering, the commander disengaged his buckle clasps and kicked hard at the manual release panel. The seals depressurised with a hiss. Still the torso unit did not open.

The smell of boiling vomit clawed at Farsight’s throat, eyes and skin. Lungs burning, he braced against the cocoon’s backrest and placed both feet on the hatch. He kicked out hard and sharp, but it shifted less than a finger’s breadth.

Farsight channelled his pent-up anger and frustration; the fires of desperation roared within his soul.

With a great cry, he pushed as hard as he could.

The hatch groaned for a single microdec, then sprang open. Farsight fell into the howling storm. He landed on his hands and knees on a dune of sharp-edged rust, as vulnerable as a newborn.

Razored flinders chewed at his face and hands as he stumbled away from the sparking wreck of his battlesuit. A sudden gale hurled him from his feet, and the commander scrambled backwards over the lip of a dune. The rust sliced his nimble pilot’s fingers to the bone, terrifying pain wracking his hands as the tops of his digits were carved away. He felt terror creep over his mind as he realised his hands were all but useless. He could not pilot a battlesuit now, even were he safe inside one.

Farsight shielded his face to draw in a foul-tasting lungful of hot air, getting a mouthful of rusty sand for his efforts. He fell, coughing hard as splintered metal stabbed him in a thousand places at once. Mind blazing, he tried to focus, to somehow grasp a strand of hope that could lead to his escape.

An insistent buzzing grew louder over the howling gale, accompanied by the thin screech of metal. The silhouettes of three ork walkers emerged from the tempest. Rotary saws at the end of each of their limbs buzzed loudly.

A giant of an ork stomped amongst them, its sutured body as much metal as flesh. It was easily the ugliest thing Farsight had ever seen. Beneath a crown of crackling antennae, a scarred head peered through the storm, its leer obscured by a jutting metal jaw and the buzzsaws that revved in place of its hands.

The pig-like eyes of Dok Toofjaw glinted red, lit by the fires of malice.

Then the buzzsaws came down to end the Arkunashan war once and for all.

2-0

ONE TAU’CYR EARLIER, LOW ORBIT, ARKUNASHA

‘Commander Shoh, the fleet is ready to enter low orbit at your command.’

The Supreme Light’s air caste pilot turned in his command bay, puzzlement clouding his long features as he met O’Shoh’s gaze.

‘Scans complete,’ the pilot continued. ‘All enemy craft remain planetside.’

‘My thanks,’ said O’Shoh, turning to face his fellow officers. ‘Curious. It appears the be’gel have no fleet at all.’

‘Perhaps these fearsome “orks” are in fact cowards, wise one,’ said Commander Brightsword from his honour throne at the front of the craft. The warrior lord stood, contempt clouding his youthful visage. His hand gripped the hilt of his ceremonial blade as if to draw it. ‘No starships, no cordon – not so much as a monitoring array. Why do they not wish to fight us?’

‘Perhaps, commander,’ said O’Shoh, ‘they seek to lure us into a trap.’

At the back of the bridge’s curvilinear slope, the thickset figure of Shas’vre Ob’lotai nodded slowly. The veteran fire warrior’s features were thrown into blue-black shadow by the holobanks behind his head, making him seem more solid and indomitable than ever.

Ob’lotai, a warrior of few words, met O’Shoh’s gaze for a brief second, and subtly made the sign of the sword-yet-to-strike.

‘Interesting,’ said O’Shoh. ‘On inspection of the planet’s surface, another theory presents itself. Consider the manner in which the orks have invaded – sudden, brutal, irreversible. Their craft are little more than asteroids hurled from orbit at the bio-domes. And not without success.’

‘To crush your foes in so literal a manner...’ Brightsword mused. ‘It would be almost admirable were it not so utterly without honour.’

‘Perhaps,’ said O’Shoh. ‘They focus entirely on attack, with no thought for defence. It is a weakness I intend to exploit.’

‘Their strategy shows consummate arrogance,’ said Commander Brightsword with a wry smile. ‘We shall make the savages pay dearly for their mistake.’

‘An easy promise to make, young blade,’ said Ob’lotai, his sonorous bass resonating from the back of the bridge. ‘Not so easy to fulfil.’

‘Do not call me that,’ said Brightsword, loosening his ceremonial weapon in its scabbard. ‘I no longer answer to that name. I have the rank of commander, and you will address me accordingly.’

Ob’lotai merely raised his muscular shoulders a fraction, his broad face as impassive as a glacier.

‘Commander Brightsword draws a reasonable conclusion,’ said O’Shoh, putting an end to the matter before the young warrior’s temper flared any further. ‘Yet there remains another.’

‘You think these primitive ones capable of setting up a Kauyon strategy?’ asked Brightsword.

‘The greenskins have a brutal cunning, I hear,’ replied O’Shoh. ‘Perhaps they let us approach unhindered in the hope of gaining a new opportunity. It is as Master Puretide taught us, “For a fortress to welcome reinforcements, it must first open its gates”. ’

‘Commander Shoh,’ said the air caste pilot, ‘my telepresence team have contacted Arkunasha’s garrison commander. Shall I open the dialogue?’

‘One moment,’ replied O’Shoh, stepping over to his command throne and tapping a sequence. A plate-sized holographer drone rose silently from the throne’s wide white armrest, scanners flicking. ‘Proceed.’

Smoothly, a high-resolution hologram of a fire caste officer resolved within the commune bay. He was tall, upright and clad in full formal dress. From his domed head a long topknot was banded with many honorific rings, and his posture was as upright as a battlesuit at an ethereal’s grand arrival.

‘Greetings, Shas’o Vash’ya Astos,’ said O’Shoh. ‘We look forward to fighting alongside you.’

‘I am humbled by the notion, noble comrades,’ said the hologram. ‘Please, simply call me Sha’vastos. I am not worthy of the rank of commander, not whilst Arkunasha bleeds.’

The Arkunashan met O’Shoh’s gaze and bowed stiffly, sincerity radiating from his features.

‘Shas’o Vior’la Shoh Kais Mont’yr, I bow to you. This is a day I have long awaited. It is a privilege to meet a student of the legendary Master Puretide.’

‘Hmm,’ said O’Shoh, ‘your protocol is immaculate. Still, I urge you to speak plainly. We must discuss matters of military advancement. Time is short.’

Sha’vastos looked taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered his composure. O’Shoh blink-flicked the screen at the side of his own command throne, and on the curving screens behind Ob’lotai a set of gently curving lines resolved over a map of Arkunasha.

‘Our vectors of approach are clear,’ said O’Shoh. ‘The orks have put no impediment in our path, so we shall simply land at Bio-dome 1-1 and make immediate rendezvous.’

‘I await your arrival with hope and a clear mind,’ said Sha’vastos. ‘It is said you are Master Puretide’s brightest pupil. The orks have been largely inactive since our withdrawal into the bio-domes, but we know the locations of their bases. With your famous inner light illuminating our way, the path to victory will soon become clear.’

O’Shoh frowned slightly, but did not reply. He could feel a dangerous heat building in his chest, a hunger for the conflict to start. The idea of deliberate inactivity chafed at his soul.

‘It is a shadow upon my honour,’ continued Sha’vastos solemnly, ‘that not all of our people will be able to properly celebrate your arrival.’ He made the gesture of conciliation.

‘For the sake of the Greater Good, observe no more formalities, Sha’vastos!’ snapped O’Shoh. ‘This is a war, though by all accounts you are no longer fighting it. Those stranded in the outlying bio-domes are starving, and estimates suggest the orks outnumber us by three hundred and ninety-eight to one.’

‘So my officers tell me, Commander Shoh.’

‘Your tone indicates disagreement,’ said O’Shoh, his voice edged with warning.

‘I offer contrition, commander, but our air caste pilots believe the ratio you mentioned is worsening daily.’

‘Perhaps, oh patient one,’ said Brightsword drily, ‘your ork visitors have hidden auxiliary forces within their asteroid craft.’

‘That was my conclusion too,’ replied Sha’vastos. ‘Yet high-orbit drone scans reveal no additional lifesigns emerging from their asteroid bases.’

‘You have another theory, perhaps?’ said O’Shoh.

‘My primary earth caste advisor, Fio’el Vesa, believes they are reproducing. Worse still, our readings indicate they are slowly increasing in stature.’

O’Shoh sighed heavily. The tau had encountered the orks before, but they were a long way from understanding them. The notion of a foe that grew stronger the more you fought it was unsettling indeed.

‘Constructive stalemate is of no use against these pests, Sha’vastos,’ said Brightsword. ‘The code of fire is clear. The orks must be either quarantined or annihilated. We should scour them from Arkunasha for good.’

‘Ideally so,’ replied Sha’vastos, nodding sagely, ‘though their numbers are too great for my cadres to meaningfully affect. If anything, it is the orks who are quarantining us.’

‘For now,’ said O’Shoh. ‘I cannot guarantee a swift resolution to this war, but I do know that further delay will only worsen matters. We must act, test the mettle of this horde and find its weak spot.’

It was said the orks lived to fight. They were not alone. A part of O’Shoh yearned for the clamour of war, the thrill of battle, the spilling of blood and the exhilaration of the righteous kill. The urge to do violence resided within him, coiled like a slumbering wyrm.

‘The light of every new sun throws shadows of its own,’ muttered O’Shoh under his breath.

‘I beg repetition, commander?’ said Sha’vastos.

‘We hope to turn the tide in our favour very soon, Commander Sha’vastos,’ interrupted Brightsword smoothly. ‘Is there any additional information you have to impart?’

‘Ah… yes. The Arkunashan storms,’ replied Sha’vastos. ‘They are unpredictable in the extreme, far more so than you may have been briefed. They have been seen to change direction without warning, snatching up those who stray too close. However, I believe them to be nothing more sinister than a quirk of meteorology.’

‘An interesting choice of words,’ said O’Shoh, his eyes narrowing.

The Arkunashan commander’s posture stiffened slightly, and he glanced away at something the holographer drone could not see. O’Shoh noted it as a point for later pursuit.

‘I simply mean to say it is wise to give these phenomena a wide berth,’ Sha’vastos continued. ‘El’Vesa has devised an optimum formula for dispersal.’

At this, the hologram Sha’vastos tapped a finger on his cuff-mounted control node. Almost instantaneously, data spooled across the curved screens behind Ob’lotai’s domed head.

‘I assume your cadres are busy re-establishing supply lines, Commander Sha’vastos,’ said O’Shoh.

‘We are making every attempt, honoured one. My sub-commander Tutor Sha’kan’thas is striking hard and then withdrawing before retaliation.’

O’Shoh scowled involuntarily at the name. Memories of the training dome regimes rose unbidden. So many cycles ago now, but the scars lingered on.

‘Ultimately, though,’ continued Sha’vastos, ‘the presence of so many ork aircraft denies any chance of large-scale resupply. To move even a single supply ship into place has been to attack a vespid nest. Until today, of course.’

As he spoke, the Arkunashan commander smiled ever so slightly. In that single facial tic, O’Shoh saw the commander’s desperate need to believe in imminent salvation.

‘This is not a war that can be won with open confrontation, commander,’ said O’Shoh. ‘We will break them using the weapons of the mind as well as the gauntlet.’

Ob’lotai leaned forwards at the back of the bridge. ‘He who wrestles the beast shall fall to its claws. He who outthinks it shall feast well.’

O’Shoh nodded. ‘A lesson Master Puretide was keen to impress upon me.’

Sha’vastos made the curled finger of questions-yet-to-come. ‘May I ask you to expound, commander?’

O’Shoh rose from his command throne. He walked to the edge of the row of delegates and turned back, padding with perfect balance up the slender span of white alloy curving over the seating bay. Stretching up to the ornamental spars above, he took down one of the crossed ceremonial swords that crested the bridge. The commander leapt off the span, his cloak billowing out. As he landed in a crouch atop his command throne, he punched the sword, point down, right through the seat’s cushioned arm.

The assembled officers watched in shock as O’Shoh wrenched the hilt to one side, the snap of its blade startlingly loud in the awed silence.

‘The Way of the Broken Sword,’ said O’Shoh. ‘Divide and slaughter.’

3-0

BIO-DOME 31-8, ARKUNASHA

The atmosphere of desperation in Bio-dome 31-8 was thick enough to taste. Mentor Y’eln, named for her patience, already loathed the humid stink of recycled waste and unwashed tau bodies. With the transport tunnels collapsed, the desert hostile and the skies infested with ork aircraft, the populace had been cut off from the protein stations and dew farms since the invasion began.

The daily broadcasts from the water caste were supposed to bring hope. They should savour the anticipation of victory, the magisters had said, for O’Shoh’s arrival would be their salvation.

At council, Mentor Y’eln had replied that one could not eat hope.

Emaciated youngsters huddled around Y’eln’s skirts, their sunken eyes wide and unfocused. She forced herself to ignore them, instead staring intently at the dome’s holograph announcements. That was where the Greater Good lay now – in information and in surety of purpose.

Her eyes hurt from the strain, but it was a small sacrifice. If the bio-dome’s walls were breached by the resurgent orks outside, a single moment of hesitation could be the difference between life and death.

The water caste were talking around the subject, spinning the phase of war to come as a glorious opportunity for them all. To Mentor Y’eln, one of the eldest tau in Bio-dome 31-8, their wordcraft was just another cursed mind knot to unravel.

In truth, she had little else to do. The youngsters had long ago stopped asking when they would next eat proper food. Many settlements had enough supplies to last a whole tau’cyr, maybe more, but not Bio-dome 31-8. Its harvest wing had been hit by an ork asteroid on the first day of the invasion, and the vault doors sealed soon after. Nutrient paste was all they had left.

Over the last few cycles, the water caste’s broadcasts had become ever more focused upon war. They had shown low-orbit footage of the orks – dirty green hordes entrenched around the walls of each complex, spreading filth wherever they went. They roared and stomped and fired guns into the air, throwing up great clouds of rust as they shoulder-barged the bio-dome walls again and again. The water caste was painting the creatures as little more than hungry beasts. Somehow, that just made it worse.

Each time she saw footage of the invaders, it reminded her of the incident at the viewing dome. A thrashing, bellowing throng of orks, battering themselves against the far side of the complex wall. Blood and dung smeared in equal measure. Slobbering jaws slapping strings of alien drool across the transplastic, teeth spitting from bloodied mouths and crude axes rising and falling to bounce a metre from her face.

It was chilling enough that the beasts had been permitted to remain. Yet Commander Sha’vastos’s tactic of patience had not been without reward. With the fire caste stripping back its offensives to little more than armed patrols, the fringes of the ork horde were slowly drifting away into the desert in search of easier prey. A few more days and a dedicated resupply mission would have had a real chance of success.

Y’eln watched the holograph displays smoothly transition to show a thousand lights glimmering in the azure sky, arranged in a perfect geometric lattice. A water caste envoy’s smooth tones slid over the broadcast. He proudly announced the live drone footage of Commander Shoh’s magnificent fleet descending, bringing their salvation through the rising Arkunashan dawn.

The mentor grimaced, her face twisting with worry. O’Shoh’s fleet was making no effort to mask its approach. The ships would be seen for hundreds of miles all around. She knew enough about the orks to realise the prospect of war would stir them from sporadic bouts of violence into a planet-wide frenzy of battle lust.

To Mentor Y’eln, there seemed no greater folly than salving the wounds of a burning world by setting new fires.

One of the youngsters at Y’eln’s side gave a low moan. The mentor felt sadness and anger well up inside her as she stroked the young tau’s brow. The child cared not for the pomp and ceremony of the fire caste’s arrival. He was growing weaker with every passing night.

Time was running short.

Dok’s Rok, Equatorial desert, Arkunasha

Vral walked down the baking rust dune, every step taking him closer to the orks’ mountainous asteroid. The thing was vast, its fore-mounted gun batteries massive enough to rival the engine arrays at its rear. Its titanic ugliness and weight were intimidating in the extreme.

In his heart, the water caste magister was already regretting his assertion that the orks must be held at bay by any means necessary.

The ethereal caste had long believed that, when it came to negotiation, the orks were a lost cause. Upon encountering an infestation, standard procedure was either to wipe them out altogether or to avoid them at all costs. But with the orks thumping down their asteroid fortresses all across Arkunasha, standard procedure had proven completely inadequate.

When his once-mentor Por’o Kais had put forward the notion of finding a new strategy, Vral had given an impassioned speech recommending they revisit negotiation. Hundreds of Arkunasha’s people were dying with each new cycle. The water caste specialised in circumventing immutable obstacles – how was this any different?

Por’o Kais had immediately approved the concept, much to Vral’s shock. Within microdecs, the old ambassador had arranged for Vral to visit the densest concentration of orks on the planet. Not quite what he had in mind, but after making so public a speech, his course was set.

Vral told himself for the hundredth time that this was the direction dictated by the Greater Good, and that the sweat on the back of his neck was due to the baking sun, not crippling fear. This was the right thing to do for the Tau’va; personal safety was as nothing when set against the Greater Good. Yet somehow, when it meant his walking up to an ork fortress with only twelve fire warriors at his back, the righteous appeal of his cause quickly diminished.

The water caste magister looked up in trepidation at the ork hulk ahead. Even the rock that formed the bulk of the asteroid ship was somehow grotesque. Holes like empty eye sockets pitted its surface from one end to the other, whilst its larger caves and niches were filled to bursting point with riveted plates and crackling machinery. Vast chimney-like engines jutted from the ramshackle craft’s upper slopes, a chaotic profusion in stark contrast to the earth caste’s sleek propulsion units. The asteroid base had been slammed into the tau’s peaceful world like the fist of a primitive god.

The baking heat of the Arkunashan noon had driven even the orks into the shade. A dozen of the thickset monsters lounged in the lee of their gigantic fortress-ship, their raucous laughter drifting through the shimmering heat of the desert air.

‘They shall not laugh when the potency of our weapons is revealed,’ said Shas’ui Lhoro, the leader of Vral’s honour escort. Beside the fire warrior drifted a pair of cargo drones and an anti-gravitic bier stacked with plasma rifles, pulse carbines and portable burst cannons.

‘It is a pity they shall not experience our weapons technology first hand,’ said Shao, the youngest of the fire warriors. Her dry wit usually raised Vral’s spirits. Today, it fell far short.

‘I too would rather see these weapons used against them than traded with them,’ said Vral. ‘Yet that is not what the Greater Good demands of us. It is as the Golden Ambassador said, “When our approach is blocked, we must flow around the obstruction, finding a better route”. ’

‘Blocking, flowing, finding,’ grumbled Lhoro. ‘Better to strike, to force, to shatter.’

‘Not this time, shas’ui,’ said Vral, the subtle reiteration of the fire warrior’s rank reminding him of his place. ‘This time we use our wits alone. Before we leave, we shall bind these beasts in such a tangled fu’llasso that they will spend days if not weeks trying to extricate themselves. By then, the revered O’Shoh will have his sword at their throats.’

‘As you say, Magister Vral,’ said Lhoro, his head lowered in deference. ‘I offer contrition.’

‘None needed, my friend,’ said Vral, brushing away the sentiment with a circular gesture. ‘Let my words alone filter into their thick heads, the better to drown their minds in confusion.’

‘It is a tactic at which you excel, magister,’ said Shao, checking the pulse pistol at the small of her back. ‘Sometimes even on purpose.’

The rest of the fire warriors followed Shao’s example, checking their grenades and concealed weapons with light pats and subtle taps. Lhoro transmitted a few murmured words to the pilots of the Devilfish and the two Piranha skimmers waiting beyond the crest of a nearby dune.

Vral tapped open the neck of a phial of dark liquid, drinking it down and working it around his throat whilst making a variety of strange facial expressions and glottal noises.

‘Now all of you,’ said Vral, his voice deeper and more gravelly than before, ‘I wish you to be silent for the approach. May the Greater Good focus your minds – and your aim, should it come to it.’

Each of the fire warriors blipped an assent symbol, the water caste magister mentally checking them off as they flicked up within his augmented eye’s readouts.

Now or never, Vral thought.

The tau approached the cavernous arch with a confident stride that belied his terror, taking in the gently clanking chains high above and the activity bristling in the gloom.

The entire asteroid was infested. Ball-like organisms, little more than giant fanged heads with powerful legs on either side, snapped and slobbered as diminutive slave-creatures scuttled past. Fat white sparks shot from cutter torches on the rough gantries, masked welder-brutes hollering to one another as they clambered around a giant effigy with spiral drills for arms. To the west, a scrawny ork was tied to the top of a tall copper pole, its multicoloured clothing flapping in the breeze. A trio of waddling, cylindrical walkers stomped slowly past, each carrying bits of ork anatomy in their pincer-arms. Here and there, deep pits ringed with fungal growths gave off the miasma of rotting ordure. Vral had to fight not to cover his olfactory senses as he approached a trio of large ork elders.

One of the greenskins was a hulking, heavy-set beast with an oily apron and a sparking silver skullcap. He had a noisome smoking-tube clenched between his yellowed teeth, and a strange harness bolted directly to his neck and shoulders that supported a bulky box with a long, ribbed antenna. Another ork – rotund and crag-faced, with a long catcher-pole under his armpit – lounged against the flank of a slumbering orkoid behemoth. Vral noticed tattooed hunter-paintings on the greenskin’s flesh, far cruder than those drawn by the fire caste’s ancient predecessors. Around the ork’s feet were slave-creatures that squealed and punched each other as they fought over scattered screws, nuts and bolts.

The third of the brutes was by far the most fearsome. Taller and broader than the other two, his metallic maw held as many iron spikes as it did tusks. His slab-muscled body was bolted, riveted or plated with mismatched armour. Strange cybernetic protrusions ended in what looked to be surgical instruments, though they seemed more like weapons of war than the precision tools of a doctor. Most disturbing of all were the ork’s arms. They ended not only in grasping fingers, but also in disc-like rotary saws. To his mounting horror, Vral saw that each was wet with blood.

‘Oi, Droggok, ya lunk,’ said the leader-beast in a guttural growl. ‘You owe me three teef. They’re traders, like wot I said. They got guns, but they ain’t carrying ’em.’

Vral breathed in deeply, privately pleased that he could understand the ork tongue in practice as well as in theory. He’d studied it from the archive as best he could for most of his adult life. There was a reason he had become the pre-eminent linguist upon Arkunasha.

‘Oi, you lot,’ said Vral, jabbing a finger towards the orks in the correct gestural vernacular. ‘We wanna talk about guns.’

‘That right, runty?’ said the skullcapped mechanic, probing a flaring nostril. He inspected the findings with an air of idle interest.

‘Yep,’ said Vral, pointing a thumb towards the gun-stacked bier nearby. ‘That little lot.’

Under the influence of his relaxant tincture, the tau envoy’s voice assumed a passable imitation of the ork’s grunting dialect – by no means perfect, but close enough. Several nearby orks were downing tools and loping over to stare at the oddity in their midst.

‘Give us a look then,’ said the ork doctor-beast, brushing away a sting-tailed horror buzzing around his head. He motioned to the oily brute nearby. ‘Drogs, get yer finger out.’

Taking his chance, Vral signalled his cargo drones to move the hover-bier closer. Shas’ui Lhoro stepped alongside it, hefting a large-bore burst cannon from the bier. He strained under its weight before laying it in the sand and stepping back to a safe distance.

The ork named Droggok wiped his oily hands on his apron and approached the burst cannon, lifting the weapon effortlessly with one hand and inspecting it, his beetling brow creased.

‘Huh, looks shooty all right,’ he said, tossing the gun up and catching it by the trigger grip as if he’d used it all his life. ‘Dakka, dakka, dakka!’ he shouted, sparks flying from his cybernetic skull as he swung the barrel round to point at the fire warriors. The nearest of them flinched, and the orks collapsed in howls of laughter.

How Vral hated these creatures.

‘Thing is, mate, it don’t fire anyfink out,’ said Droggok. ‘Not much use, is it? Us meks know about this sorta fing.’

‘That one’s switched off,’ said Vral. ‘Lhoro, show ’em one wiv the dakka switched on.’

Vral made the prearranged signal to Shas’ui Lhoro, and the fire caste warrior took another burst cannon from the bier. He thumbed the activation sequence and turned it on the Devilfish transport hovering over the dome behind.

Lhoro braced his legs in a wide firing stance and pulled the trigger. The burst cannon whirred smoothly before emitting an ear-splitting roar. A fusillade of plasma pellets blasted from its four tapering barrels, chewing away the front of the Devilfish and setting fire to the flammable coating Vral had tasked Shao with spraying onto its exterior. The burning tank tilted, veered, and crashed wing-first into a rust dune.

Lhoro turned back, hoisting the burst cannon back onto the bier before rejoining his comrades.

The orks bellowed and hooted, clapping their hands on their thighs and slapping each other heartily on the back. Only the surgeon-beast remained unmoved.

‘Look wot the little zogger done!’ said the rotund ork with the belly tattoos, his grotesque bulk shaking as he laughed in incredulity. ‘He smashed up his own ride! I’m gonna get me some of that dakka. Put it on my squiggoths,’ he said, patting the scaly haunch of the tusked monstrosity sleeping behind him.

‘It woz dead shooty, Krobb, true enough,’ said the mek named Droggok, nodding, his lantern jaw stuck out in pugnacious thought. A small crowd of ork warriors were picking up the long-barrelled tau guns now, sniffing them and staging mock firefights with one another.

‘Lads could always use more dakka,’ added the mechanic, his lips pursed in brutish appreciation. ‘Even if the fight’s gone outta you lot. Hidin’ away in yer bubble hut fings. Whaddya fink, Toofjaw? Reckon these could knock down a few walls?’

‘It smells funny as a dead squig, that’s what I fink,’ growled the cyborg monster. He stood up to his full height and took a couple of steps towards Vral, pistons hissing. ‘So wot do you lot want in return for them guns, then? Cos I reckon somehow it ain’t more dakka.’

‘Nah,’ said Vral. ‘We got plenty o’ that already. Especially now our mates have showed up.’

The ork leaders exchanged a look. Lips peeled back to reveal shining white tusks.

‘Mates, eh?’

‘Yep. We want you ta stay out of the middle part of the desert,’ continued Vral. ‘The hot bit between the two rings.’ He triggered a hologram from his elaborator disc. A moment later an image of Arkunasha sprang to life, its equatorial belt shaded a deeper red. ‘This bit. You can have the rest of the planet. Plus you get a new one of these gun stashes every day.’

‘Is that right?’ said the Toofjaw creature, his eyes narrowing. ‘We can have the lot, I reckon, and there’s nothin’ you gun-runts can do about it. Nor these mates o’ yours, come ta that.’

‘Yeah,’ said Droggok, an evil smile crawling up the sparking ruin of his face. ‘The lads could do wiv a good fight. We could just take them guns from ya right now. Maybe use ’em on yer fancy mates, whaddyafink?’

‘You wouldn’t get no more that way,’ said Vral. ‘And they’re all switched off. Like that one ya got there, Droggok. Soon as you get out of the hot red bit I showed ya, they’ll all switch on. You’ll have more dakka than ever.’

The orks just stared, the intensity of their gaze all but overwhelming. Vral felt a prickly heat cross his skin. A long droplet of drool fell from Droggok’s rubbery lips, hitting the mek’s steel toecap with a ping. Vral could feel the tension in his throat. The eyes of every nearby ork were boring into him.

Too late to go back now.

‘Plus, as a little sweetener,’ said Vral, ‘we’ll fix up your ships. Make ’em ready to leave so you can invade a proper planet. Then it’s shootin’ time.’

The ork leaders shared a look of incredulity for a moment.

‘Nah,’ said Toofjaw, his buzzsaws whirring to life. ‘It’s shootin’ time now, ya mouthy git. Kill ’em, boyz!’

The ork encampment roared in savage joy, the nearest brutes raising their new guns and stuffing meaty fingers through trigger guards. They pointed the weapons at the tau and pulled the triggers, only to find all of the guns inactive. Low growls quickly grew to hoarse shouts of rage.

Vral turned and ran. Voice tight with fear, he called in backup from the two Piranha recon skimmers he had sequestered in a nearby dune trench. He sprinted past his fire warriors as they hurled photon grenades into the oncoming mob of orks. Phosphor-bright flashes strobed, and the air was rent by ear-splitting bangs.

Vral risked a glance backwards as he ran towards the Devilfish. Lhoro’s team had drawn their pulse pistols and were pacing backwards, picking off the orks that staggered through the haze of their grenades. The Devilfish, its fires extinguished by the drones rising from its wing tips, extended a burst cannon from a ventral panel and spat a stuttering stream of plasma into the milling greenskins. Piranha skimmers screamed past, their pulse weaponry scything down those orks nearest the tau delegation.

For a few heartbeats, the well-honed target priority of the fire caste gunners held the disoriented beasts at bay. Heads were taken from necks in puffs of crimson gore. Then a massive glut of the things barrelled out of the gloom. The orks held aloft the weapons they had taken from the gun bier, wielding them like clubs. Howling in manic glee, they fell upon Lhoro’s team, battering them to the ground and caving in skulls with the elegant tau war-tech. Arcs of tau blood spurted into the air as the orks bludgeoned the fallen warriors to death.

Vral sprinted towards the Devilfish, his eyes fixed on the circular hatch that promised salvation.

He heard a sudden clank, a scream of protesting metal, and watched as a massive length of chain fell from the overhanging rock above the skimmer. The magister leapt back in horror, scrambling away as the enormous chain thundered down in an avalanche of rusted metal, burying the Devilfish completely in a mound of heavy iron links. Rough barks and hoots came from high above, the shadow of a crude crane rippling across the sand.

Vral cast about frantically for some means of escape. Back under the lip of the asteroid base, he could see fire caste warriors dying – beaten to a pulp, their bodies caught up and slammed back down again, or being messily eviscerated by jagged claws. One of the Piranhas had been downed, a plume of oily smoke belching from a gaping hole in its flank. Shao lay dead nearby, her once-lively face a bloody mask. An ork warrior roared in triumph over her corpse, her comms helmet jammed awkwardly on its greasy green pate.

Frozen in terror, Vral spotted the doctor-beast the mechanic had called Toofjaw storming from the shadow of the asteroid base. Shas’ui Lhoro motioned frantically for Vral to run, then turned and took aim with his pulse pistol. His shot took a chunk from Toofjaw’s neck, but the beast just growled and kept on coming.

The ork swung one of his disc-saws out in a wide loop, carving Lhoro in two from hip to shoulder. The sheer force of the blow sent the two halves of the fire warrior’s corpse flailing into the sunlight.

A Piranha arced over the sands from the lip of the ridge, slowing expertly on approach as it veered close to Vral. Its gunner leaned down and grabbed the diplomat’s robes in the small of his back, hoisting him bodily upwards with a great heave.

The envoy scrabbled upwards into the cockpit, all dignity and poise forsaken. The light skimmer wobbled alarmingly, veering about on an escape vector. Its pilot activated the craft’s drones, sending them off to buy them a few more microdecs. A trio of bulky, ugly warbikes emerged from the shadow of the giant ship and roared after them in pursuit.

A clattering series of bangs came from behind as the ork asteroid’s guns clanked to life. Large-calibre bullets stitched the desert in a parallel path only a few metres away from the fleeing tau. Two, then three deadly lines stuttered across the sands towards the overburdened Piranha’s silhouette.

Vral made his peace with the Tau’va, and screwed his eyes shut.

The fourth asteroid gun caught them in its crosshairs, and the light skimmer came apart, ploughing into a rust dune before exploding in a confusion of wreckage and bloody limbs.

The morning sun blazed down as the smoke of the ruined Piranha drifted on the desert breeze. Vral’s torn corpse trickled blood down a ruined wing tip. His would-be saviours, the Piranha crew, lay blackened and burned nearby. In the distance, more ork outriders set off from the crashed asteroid base, following the drones that the skimmer pilot had launched before the crash.

High above, a pair of scruffy black vultures circled in the sky. Their harsh caws were met by the rising rumble of an ork horde mustering for war.

4-0

BIO-DOME COMPLEX 1-1, SECTOR 2-1-1, NORTH HEX, ARKUNASHA

The Manta missile destroyer Por’es Kauyon bellied down outside the bio-domes, its splayed wings like those of a ray settling on the seabed. Its cavernous hold opened and extruded a wide ramp. Ground teams, then battlesuits, then vehicles came into view until an entire hunter cadre had emerged.

The cadre deployed with such practised efficiency that O’Shoh nodded approvingly despite himself. Behind them, other Manta missile destroyers descended with a grace that belied their size.

The containment zone established by the Arkunashan army stretched for miles on either side. Despite having broken into the transit tunnels in several places, the orks had been unable to penetrate either the vault doors that led inside the tau settlements or the metres-thick transplastic of the bio-domes themselves. With the ork hordes held in a stalemate and a localised drone net watching the skies, the major bio-domes were islands of relative safety.

Nonetheless, the carnage the greenskins had wreaked was extensive. Shattered conurbations dotted the skyline, the rubble of broken homes strewn across the sands.

With a sick feeling in his heart, O’Shoh saw the parallel trails left by the heels of corpses dragged towards the bio-dome entrances for their burial rites. Sha’vastos had clearly done his best to cover up the damage, but to O’Shoh it was plain that hundreds, if not thousands, of tau had died in this complex’s defence.

While his fire warriors disembarked from the Mantas, O’Shoh studied the ruined transit tunnels leading into the vast, hexagon-plated bio-domes. Their shattered spars threw sharp shadows upon the dunes as the Arkunashan sun slid slowly across the sky. The wind howled through holes blasted in the tunnels, its voice as mournful as a broken soul.

Here and there, O’Shoh saw malnourished work teams digging through rubble. Fire caste warriors and stocky earth caste engineers were labouring together to search the clusters of wreckage the orks had cast down. Red-grey clouds darkened the horizon.

O’Shoh heard the heavy footsteps of his old mentor, Ob’lotai.

‘A storm is coming, Shoh,’ said the shas’vre, sombrely. ‘It would be wise to proceed inside.’

‘I offer thanks, Ob’lotai,’ said O’Shoh, turning with a scowl that put the lie to his words, ‘though I no longer live or die by your counsel. And in front of others, I’d rather you used my title. It is a matter of respect.’

Ob’lotai inclined his bald head for a moment, and O’Shoh felt a flicker of shame at his sour reply. Four long tau’cyr in Ob’lotai’s Broadside team had established a deep connection with the old warrior, and they were long past formal dialect.

‘ “A true warlord strives to master the environment as well as the foe”, ’ quoted Ob’lotai.

‘A strong wind cannot dissuade me, old friend, that I promise you,’ said O’Shoh. ‘Look around you. These people need help, not prudence.’

He swept his arm out, once more taking in the dust-caked work teams shifting plasrock in the shadowy ruins of the transit tunnels. Many were emaciated to the point of starvation; others panted in the heat like exhausted kroot hounds. Yet still they carried on ferrying chunks of ruined architecture along the work chain. Some of them left bloody handprints on the white stone.

O’Shoh tied his ceremonial cloak around his waist and walked over to the workers. Nodding respect to the team’s leader, he bent his knees and lifted a heavy chunk of debris. He carried it over to the improvised wall that they were building in the transit tunnel and placed it carefully before going back for another. Ob’lotai nodded solemnly and joined him in the task, his great muscles cording as he lifted boulder after boulder into place.

Between the fire caste officers and the earth caste work team, the task of clearing the rubble was finished by the time the last of the hunter cadres had entered the bio-dome. On the horizon, the gloom had thickened into a dark wall looming into the firmament.

‘Shas’nel Xo,’ said O’Shoh to a battle-scarred cadre fireblade who had been standing guard. ‘Find the work teams enough water to soothe their parched throats. Then get them inside. Use the supplies we brought on the Supreme Light.’

The disfigured fireblade bowed deeply. ‘As you wish, my commander,’ he slurred, ravaged lips twisting into a smile.

The commanders moved into the contoured recesses of the bio-dome’s entrance, their honour guard flanking them as they took up position in the wide plaza beyond. After labouring in the desert sun, O’Shoh was glad of the cool blue light and soft breeze of the interior. Even Vior’la wasn’t this hot.

Striding towards them down the processional entrance was Sha’vastos, his saz’nami honour guard walking close behind. He was perhaps the tallest fire caste warrior O’Shoh had ever seen, and his face bore the lines of one accustomed to the burden of command. Combined with his formal battledress and billowing cloak, he looked like one of the idealised warriors O’Shoh had drawn as a child.

‘Shas’o Vior’la Shoh Kais Mont’yr,’ said the garrison commander, his smile tired but genuine as he spread his hands in the host’s gesture. ‘I bid you welcome to Bio-dome 1-1.’

‘It is my honour, Shas’o Vash’ya Astos,’ said O’Shoh, making the guest’s bow. ‘Let us proceed to the audience chamber immediately.’

‘All is in place, noble O’Shoh,’ said Sha’vastos. ‘Your warriors briefed, your tank squadrons reconvened, and your battlesuits processed by our decontamination bays. We have become adept at desert combat and maintenance. I am afraid to say this ferrous particulate is invasive to the point of extreme inconvenience.’

‘I had noticed that,’ said O’Shoh, banging a trickle of rusted iron from his well-worn gauntlet. ‘I fear that just as Arkunasha plays host to me, I already play host to Arkunasha.’

O’Shoh had intended the comment to diffuse the mood, but if anything, it made Sha’vastos all the more tense.

‘I… I offer much contrition,’ said the commander. ‘To inconvenience a protege of Master Puretide is to earn great shame. I shall have our earth caste workers attend to your cleansing.’

‘There is no need, really,’ said O’Shoh. ‘It was an artefact of speech, nothing more.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Sha’vastos, ‘I… I may have made a mistake.’

O’Shoh inclined his head, intrigued.

‘We all misjudge the situation sometimes, Sha’vastos,’ he said, extending the gesture of the calming hand. ‘Perhaps we should discuss our military collaboration in private.’

‘If you believe that best,’ said Sha’vastos, his broad shoulders sagging in relief.

O’Shoh dismissed his own honour guard, subtly waving away the silent question indicated by Brightsword’s half-curled finger. Sha’vastos did likewise, sending his saz’nami to their garrison duties.

‘Lead on,’ said O’Shoh to the Arkunashan commander. ‘We have much to discuss.’

War klaxons sounded, loud and insistent. Their wailing blare sent pulses of excitement through every fire warrior in the complex.

‘All drone relays,’ said O’Shoh into his communion bead, ‘transmit your images to the screen disc at my position. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.’

In answer, a broad screen mounted in the bio-dome’s arches glowed into lambent life. A confusion of colours resolved from red oxide to a filthy, green-brown vista.

O’Shoh spat a vitriolic curse, his fingers clenching into fists.

That was no storm, but a dust wall thrown up by an approaching army.

And it was heading in their direction.

O’Shoh and his fellow commanders made haste to the battlesuit decontamination bays. A nameless charge of excitement filled the air: war’s teeth were about to bite, and the fire caste was ready for them.

The bays were brightly lit, each white recess containing a technological masterpiece. Those battlesuit teams who shared ta’lissera bonds clasped each other’s forearms in a solemn farewell before mounting the scaffolds leading to their control cocoons. The rest took position in silence. Once atop their scaffolds the pilots crouched down, turned, and slid into the torso units of their battlesuits with practised ease.

Flanked by Ob’lotai and Brightsword, O’Shoh marched up the high stairs to the command-level alcoves. His old mentor leaned into the control cocoon of his beloved XV88. O’Shoh was fond of the lumbering great thing; it had been a rallying point for him on numerous occasions, and turned the tide of many a battle. Ob’lotai had reconfigured the Broadside suit to bear its enormous twin-linked heavy rail rifle in giant metal gauntlets rather than atop its shoulders. It had proven to be an effective pattern in recent engagements, but was still unofficial as yet.

‘Ob’lotai, if you insist on using your XV88 with that configuration,’ said O’Shoh, ‘then compensate with a rear-leaning stance. Arkunashan storms are said to be sudden and extremely violent, and I don’t want you falling on your backside.’

‘Precisely why I want a lower centre of gravity,’ grumbled Ob’lotai. ‘I know these things better than even you, despite what your sycophants tell you.’

A pair of Arkunashan shield drones came to attend Ob’lotai, taking position on either side of his scaffold.

‘Get these things away from me,’ said Ob’lotai gruffly. His rail rifle swept around, smashing one of the disc-like drones from the air in a shower of sparks. Its companion veered backwards with a high-pitched whine.

‘Ob’lotai!’ said O’Shoh sharply. ‘There are better ways of refusing gifts.’

‘I offer contrition, commander,’ said Ob’lotai. ‘Though an insect that bothers a krootox soon finds itself swatted.’

O’Shoh sighed, casting a glance towards Sha’vastos. The garrison commander was busying himself with his own high-end XV8, his stiff stance a telling sign that he had noticed the affront, but was pretending he had not.

‘Send an incident report afterwards, Ob’lotai. We don’t have time for this.’

In his heart, O’Shoh was annoyed at himself for not warning Sha’vastos in time. Ob’lotai had never forgiven dronekind for their failure to protect his own mentor, Commander Flamechild. He had been killed in battle before Ob’lotai’s eyes, and the shas’vre had distrusted artificial intelligences ever since.

As Ob’lotai’s plexus hatch hissed closed, Commander Brightsword strode to his flame-painted XV8. He kicked away the embarkation scaffold propped against it, instead nimbly leaping up to grab the battlesuit’s vision slit and hoisting himself upwards to twist into the control cocoon. O’Shoh shook his head at the young commander’s showmanship, but did not reprimand the breach of procedure. He had pulled similar stunts in the past.

In pride of place at the end of the gangway was O’Shoh’s own modified XV8. The battlesuit was a testament to the tau way of war, a deadly statue waiting to come alive. The dimly lit confines of his control cocoon called to him. O’Shoh had to push away the desire to climb up with unseemly haste; no doubt the monitor drones of the water caste were upon him, broadcasting this moment across the planet.

Head held high, back straight, O’Shoh climbed the scaffold with solemn dignity before pivoting and sliding back smoothly inside the cocoon.

Sensing the presence of its master, the battlesuit came alive. Lambent screens shone as O’Shoh panned his gaze across them. Topographical maps rose in contoured splendour. As each of his teams reached readiness in smooth succession, their status icons blossomed gold. His autotrans spooled standby, the thrust/vector sphere waiting to flare into life. Plasma rifle and fusion blaster were primed and ready, and a brief eye-flick of his shield icon saw his disc-like force field ripple with cerulean energy.

An almost imperceptible shiver thrummed through the XV8’s chassis. The suit was just as ready to kill as its pilot.

O’Shoh eye-flicked an icon, and the incoming ork horde resolved upon his distribution array. The arrows showing its trajectory flowed, undulating across the holographic dunes. The suit’s remote estimate put the orks at just under three thousand in number.

Shas’vre Ob’lotai’s icon flashed, its colouration the steel of caution. O’Shoh blink-pushed it gold, sketching a loose battle plan upon the hologram with one eye whilst the other panned over to assess the readiness of his cadre’s support elements. This was no time for the patient bait-and-slay technique of the Kauyon. With so many orks bearing down on them, lack of aggression would lead only to death.

The commander twitched paired fingers, and the distribution array panned back to show the orks’ approach across a wide front. Sure enough, there were mass-related patterns in their formation. The commander assimilated them, overlaid them, drew them into himself and brought them out through carefully translated command programs. Lines of approach, target priorities and overlapping kill-fields appeared on O’Shoh’s isometrics as he unravelled the battle to come. Only when he had absorbed all the data did he stitch the whole tapestry together into a scenario where the tau alone could win.

There was a possible Mont’ka strategy here. A blunt sham compared to the finely honed killing blows for which O’Shoh had become famous, but effective nonetheless.

By the time the dome-like roof of the decontamination bays irised open to reveal the blazing blue Arkunashan skies, O’Shoh had plotted his victory a dozen times over.

Nothing could have prepared Commander Shoh for the noise he heard as his battlesuit bore him outside of the dome. The orks were preceded by a guttural, bass roar that mingled with the crunch of countless hobnailed boots. As more of the Arkunashan military emerged from behind the bio-dome, the din grew in volume and pitch until it was louder than a Kan’jian avalanche.

The green horde was bloodlust made flesh.

‘Phase one initiate,’ transmitted O’Shoh. Gold symbols of acknowledgement blipped across his command suite. ‘Ob’lotai, establish range.’

Shas’vre Ob’lotai was quick to obey. His twin-linked heavy rail rifle whip-cracked hypervelocity rounds from the position he had taken atop the bio-dome’s outer wall. His team followed suit, taking aim upon the ork tanker-transports grinding across the dunes at the head of the horde.

Their volley enfiladed past the preposterously heavy metal jaws shielding the front of the leading vehicles, punching instead through the cabs of those to their flanks. The sidelong impacts sent the juggernauts careening out of control. In the space of three heartbeats, Ob’lotai’s team had crippled several heavy transports and forced the wheeled wagons behind to swerve into each other in their haste to evade.

The Hammerhead gun-skimmers hovering over the smashed transit tunnels took a more direct approach. Their railguns punched hypervelocity cylinders through the jutting metal ploughs of the nearest transports. Orks spilled out in jumbled knots. The Hammerheads switched to submunitions fire, and each cluster of greenskinned warriors was consumed in explosions of blood and shrapnel.

O’Shoh’s mouth twisted in annoyance as he glanced at the battlesuit teams ranged along the crest of the transit tunnels. Key to the fire caste’s way of war was mobility; even their heavy elements had anti-gravitic engines and thruster arrays. Here, they were forced to assume the defender’s mantle.

Behind the scattered wreckage of the ork vanguard came a sea of alien warriors so thick it hid the landscape from view. It stretched back to the limits of vision, the wall of dust thrown up by the orks’ advance hiding its true extent from O’Shoh’s blacksun filter. Crude walkers of dark metal bludgeoned through the horde, their piston-driven legs driving them forwards with a gait so ungainly it was almost comical.

With the orks coming closer by the minute, additional fire caste teams added to the slaughter. As ork buggies and half-tracks launched high over the crests of the dunes, tau markerlights painted them as priority targets even before their rubbery wheels struck the sands. The tank-launched munitions that followed detonated with enough force to send wreckage spinning into the air.

The kill count was spiralling high. Hundreds of orks had been reduced to smoking corpses already, though they swiftly vanished underfoot as their numberless comrades trod them into the sand. O’Shoh had an uncomfortable suspicion the horde could absorb such losses a dozen times over and still not lose impetus.

With a chime, the proximity parameters O’Shoh had set turned from ash grey to a ruddy copper glow. Just as he had predicted, the rulers of the ork horde had not been able to resist the lure of a battle in full swing. Giant, muscular figures barged their way to the front of the green tide pouring towards the tau position. O’Shoh could see the need for violence etched upon their bestial faces.

The foe had bared its throat at last.

‘Phase two initiate. Kill them all.’

O’Shoh leapt into the air, his powerful jetpack carrying him in front of the blinding Arkunashan sun. It was an old trick, but a sound one, especially against so primitive a foe. Through the skies behind him came Brightsword and Sha’vastos, their Crisis teams bracketing them as they scanned the horde below for its leaders. Primitive rockets arced towards them – some wildly off course, others too near to ignore. Brightsword intercepted the closest two, detonating them with swipes of his fusion blasters and jetting through the fires of their demise.

Commander Sha’vastos led his own team by example, a double bolt from his plasma rifle searing down to punch through an ork leader’s torso. A hundred savages roared war cries below him, their guns hammering out wildly inaccurate fire. Unperturbed, Sha’vastos took the head from another of their leader caste with a carefully aimed shot.

O’Shoh set his sensor suite to scan the ork throng for individuals with uncommonly high mass. Target designations rippled across a wide front. The heads of the bulky ork leaders stuck up amongst their fellows, their banner poles bearing crude plates and symbols.

Commander Shoh calibrated a firing solution, took a hit from a punching bullet, compensated and then calibrated again. Six beams shot out as his plasma rifle and fusion blaster fired over and over. Six headless ork leaders slumped back into the horde.

He had Kauyon-Shas to thank for that technique. A flash of memory: sitting cross-legged upon the shoulders of Mount Kan’ji, their faces a hand’s breadth apart as she taught him the hunter’s art of looking in two directions at once. Catching two falling leaves by their stalks, O’Shoh had formed a bird in flight with a twist of his fingers and offered it to her as a gift. Bilateral focus had been an invaluable trick ever since.

O’Shoh suppressed the memory with a shudder. She rarely came to him these days.

The next of the leader-creatures in O’Shoh’s sights realised what was coming as O’Shoh’s shadow fell across it. The greenskin ducked down on instinct, and O’Shoh’s shot missed. Sha’vastos came in close behind, his shoulder-mounted flamer sending a blast of burning sunfuel into the orks’ packed ranks. Charred corpses fell away. One of the beasts, little more than a burning torch from the waist up, hurled an axe at its persecutors before collapsing to black cinders.

With the common soldiery taken down, their leader-beast was revealed. The ork shouted its defiance, stomping through the dissipating ash of its fellows. O’Shoh put a plasma beam through its neck.

Everywhere the orks’ ruling caste was being picked off, and yet the horde showed no sign of slowing. If anything, its rampage was gaining momentum. The roar of the ork warriors intensified as the horde spat more and more bullets towards the battlesuits in the skies.

One of Sha’vastos’s saz’nami guards was caught in the crossfire from two heavy weapons, his limbs juddering before his battlesuit came apart altogether. The pilot’s symbol on O’Shoh’s command suite turned from gold to charcoal as the wreckage of his suit fell into the ork horde. Far behind them, even Ob’lotai took a hit – a cluster of orks wearing gun-harnesses had taken position atop the crest of a dune to pour fire into the shas’vre’s position. The old warrior blipped a silver symbol of reassurance before his team slew half of the orks in a single volley, scattering the rest.

The roar of the ork attack was disturbing, almost deafening in its volume. O’Shoh’s lips curled, his eyes half-closing involuntarily. He stabbed a volume filter into place and found his focus once more.

Swooping in low, the commander levelled his fusion blaster at an axe-wielding ork leader. He took the beast’s hands off at the wrist before angling the shimmering beam downwards to slice through its head. Incredibly, the ork’s lumpen form came on regardless. O’Shoh dipped and kicked it back into the ranks of its fellows before boosting up into the skies.

The orks had suffered terrible casualties for negligible return. No army could lose so many leaders and still function efficiently. And yet, looking back, O’Shoh saw not a single ripple of fear amongst the horde.

The barrel-bodied walkers the commander had spotted earlier were getting closer. Their long hydraulic limbs waved as if to attract attention. Four of the contraptions sent rockets flaring towards the Hammerhead gunships hovering above the transit tunnels. One found its mark, and was rewarded by the dull crump of detonation. Behind the ork walkers, a tall banner pole waved crazily. An unusual energy signature accompanied its image on O’Shoh’s sensor suite.

His heart beat faster at the sight. Here was the key.

‘Commander Brightsword,’ blipped O’Shoh, ‘cut us a path through that walking wall of junk, if you can.’

‘If I can?’ said his fellow commander. ‘Observe, old one, and learn how a fusion blaster is best employed.’

A moment later, the young warrior shot past, his battlesuit all but horizontal in its flight. He touched down a spear’s throw from the nearest of the lumbering machines. Crouching with his fusion blasters levelled, he boosted up and backwards, his guns spitting at full discharge. As he ripped the blasters upwards, blinding white energies carved through the ugly hulk’s torso. With a great clanking crash, the walker fell apart. Blood steamed from the ruined pilot within.

Revealed by the gutted machine’s fall was an oil-streaked ork elder holding a gun as large as a full-grown tau. A buzzing contraption of coils and wires was strapped to the creature’s broad back. Yet it was the greenskin stomping past the ork mechanic that demanded O’Shoh’s attention.

The ork warboss was huge, not much smaller than the barrel-chested walker it had been using for cover. Its scarred and muscle-roped arms were encased in thick metal armatures, each tipped with huge snipping shears. Two tall poles jutted from its back, hung with a variety of colourful, grille-snouted helms. The ork’s metallic legs wheezed steam as it charged.

Brightsword swooped down once more, the muzzles of his fusion blasters shimmering. He levelled a double blast at the charging monster. There was a flash of light so bright that O’Shoh’s blacksun filter cut in, accompanied a microdec later by a deafening thunderclap. According to his suit’s readouts, the fusion blast had been dissipated completely.

Then the cybernetic beast hit Brightsword with the force of a charging bull. One of the ork’s pincer-fists lashed out, grabbing the young warrior’s suit by the leg and shearing it off with a hiss of pistons. The young commander reared back, repulsor jump jets flaring, but the warboss already had its other arm wrapped around his battlesuit’s waist. Though Brightsword lifted the thing off the ground, he could not bring his guns to bear. Neither could he break the ork’s grip.

The greenskin horde roared its approval as their leader slammed the limb it had shorn from Brightsword’s battlesuit into his jetpack intake. The ork roared in alien joy even as fat blue sparks flew into its face. It sank its metal jaws deep into the battlesuit’s plexus hatch, ripping it free in a confusion of wires. O’Shoh’s throat tightened as he saw a flash of Brightsword’s blood glinting in the Arkunashan sun.

Eye-flicking a masking pattern, O’Shoh fired. His plasma rifle stitched a shot through the fizzing cascade of sparks where Brightsword’s leg had been moments before, cutting the beast’s pincer-arm off at the shoulder. As the ork dropped down into the rust, O’Shoh dived in low. He slid underneath Brightsword’s suit like a Fio’taun scree-rider. Backhanding the ork warlord’s vile bulk with his disc-shield generator, he released a generous pulse of energy right at the moment of impact.

The ork’s body flew backwards, flailing into the whirring saws of the walkers closing in behind. The creature juddered apart in sprays of red-black blood.

‘Brightsword,’ said O’Shoh, ‘we are leaving. But not empty-handed.’

Hooking the end of his plasma rifle into the opened ribcage of a fallen ork leader, O’Shoh dug his battlesuit’s heels into the rust, braced his shoulders against Brightsword’s hovering bulk, and boosted both tau and ork into the air. As his jetpack struggled to bear them upwards, an ork walker’s rotary saw swung for him. He pivoted, and it missed him by a finger’s width.

Trauma indicators flashed urgently as bullets hammered into O’Shoh from the horde below. The commander clamped his shield arm around his stricken young comrade and pushed his thrust/vector suite to maximum. The doppelganger XV8 projected above his damage control suite pulsed in protest as the ork horde fired everything they had at him.

Just as O’Shoh thought his suit would come apart, Sha’vastos swept past, his flamer melting the eyes from the brutes glaring up at them. A moment later, an ork rocket careened into the Arkunashan commander’s hip, sending him spinning away on a trail of smoke.

‘Heavy elements, buy us time!’ shouted O’Shoh.

The ork front line came apart in a profusion of explosions, but it made little difference. The greenskin horde was charging the transit tunnels, its warriors kicking through the carefully stacked rubble as drill-armed walkers demolished those wall sections that still remained intact.

O’Shoh tucked the ork corpse he had taken in the crook of his arm and carried Brightsword’s ruined suit to a safer altitude. Their battlesuits rose towards the sun, O’Shoh eye-flicking new attack vectors for his cadre even as he fled.

Below him, the sea of orks stretched out towards the horizon. Every acre of the northern dunes was covered with bellowing, greenskinned monsters. Thick pillars of smoke reached towards the sky by the dozen, each marking a precision kill. Yet as O’Shoh overlaid footage of the initial surge against the current situation, his blood burned like acid in his veins.

The momentum of the ork assault had not been stalled.

It had not even been slowed.

‘Abandon phase two,’ O’Shoh transmitted across the cadre-net. ‘I repeat, abandon assassination mission and begin withdrawal. The day is lost.’

5-0

THE DOME OF INFINITE HORIZONS, BIO-DOME 1-1, NORTH HEX, ARKUNASHA

Head hung, O’Shoh stood in the Dome of Infinite Horizons’s shallow amphitheatre. Other than the slight tang of sweat from those mustered from the battle, it smelt of sterility and abandonment. The vast majority of its counsel thrones were empty. Only the innermost circle was occupied; four of the five members necessary for a full elemental council were present, along with the same number again of fire caste officers. Some were old allies of O’Shoh’s. Some, he was troubled to note, were anything but.

With the ork hordes still roaring outside the perimeter walls, none among the fire caste were keen to debate their failures. Yet no less a person than Aun’Tal had summoned them in the wake of the battle, and an ethereal’s wishes could not be denied.

Every member of the emergency council stood and dipped his head as the ethereal finally appeared in the antechamber. O’Shoh felt his breath grow shallow and his heart beat faster in the presence of such majesty. He cast his eyes down, but could hear the faint shuffle of the robed figure descending the wide stairs to the amphitheatre’s inner throne, along with the low hum of the shield drone hovering close behind.

‘Greetings in the name of the Tau’va,’ said Aun’Tal. ‘You may sit and raise your eyes.’

O’Shoh looked up to see the ethereal with his hands out wide in a gesture of welcome, his gaze falling upon the council one by one. When it came to his turn, O’Shoh felt an electric jolt as Aun’Tal’s profoundly black eyes bored into his own. The shame of failure burned within him.

‘Let the circle commence,’ said the ethereal gently, settling into his high-backed throne. ‘Given the proximity of the foe, I think it wise to dispense with full protocol. Commander Sha’vastos, please initiate proceedings immediately.’

‘Of course,’ said Sha’vastos, standing up and making a formal bow that only emphasised his now-dishevelled, sweat-stained dress uniform. ‘It is my contention that the orks have been roused by the arrival of our comrades from Vior’la, and that the cull of their leader caste was ineffective due to the number of foes present.’

He paused, straightening his old-style dress tunic as best he could. ‘I believe the failure does not lie with the Code of Fire,’ he continued. ‘Either there are simply too many of them to be broken by assassination tactics, or there is a force uniting them we do not understand. I am sure the wisdom of Puretide will see us triumph in the end.’

The Arkunashan officer wrapped his right hand over his clenched left fist in the gesture of completion. Though it implied there was no more to say, O’Shoh detected a dangerous uncertainty in Sha’vastos’s stance.

‘I am Tutor Sha’kan Thas,’ said the fire caste elder to his right, standing and turning to meet the gaze of each delegate in turn. ‘Well known to the defenders of Arkunasha, and also to Commander Shoh of Vior’la.’ At this, the hard-faced old warrior cast a baleful glance towards O’Shoh. ‘I believe the newcomers acted rashly. Their ostentatious descent has drawn the beast to our door once more. They have not only endangered the lives of those in this bio-dome, but agitated those ork forces besieging the outlying settlements. We still do not understand the enemy, nor do we truly control the planet upon which we fight. I press for censure.’

He sat down once more, his expression cold.

‘I am Shas’vre Ob’lotai of Vior’la,’ said O’Shoh’s old mentor, rising slowly. His deep bass voice filled the amphitheatre. ‘Nothing worthwhile was ever accomplished quickly. We must persevere with phase two if we are to see this course through.’

‘Phase two did not work, Ob’lotai!’ blurted O’Shoh.

A moment of silence passed, and O’Shoh felt his face darkening as all eyes turned towards him. All but those of his old mentor; instead, the big shas’vre looked downcast, the domed peak of his head sinking amongst the foothills of his shoulders.

‘I am Shas’o Brightsword of Sa’cea,’ said the young commander to Ob’lotai’s right. He winced a little as the bandages across his torso pulled tight; the ork warboss’s metal jaw had bitten deep. ‘Respectfully, Shas’vre Ob’lotai, I must also disagree with your assessment.’

O’Shoh gritted his teeth. It was just like Brightsword to worsen the situation whilst attempting to alleviate it.

‘The situation is not as we thought, esteemed one,’ Brightsword continued quietly. ‘The enemy we face is not the bull, but more the Dal’ythan water hydra – cut off one head, and another grows in its place. There will always be those in their ranks larger than the others. We must find another path to victory.’

O’Shoh raised his eyes in surprise. In the centre of the amphitheatre, Aun’Tal nodded sagely.

‘Wise counsel, Commander Brightsword,’ said the ethereal. He gestured towards a robed ambassador of the water caste. ‘Next element.’

‘I am Por’o Kais of Dal’yth. Perhaps the only tau here who has not only encountered a Dal’ythan water hydra, but also eaten it afterwards.’

A few solemn expressions lightened at the ambassador’s mellifluous tones. Though O’Shoh doubted the elderly tau could overcome a kroothawk, let alone a hydra, he was grateful for the shift of focus nonetheless.

‘Commander Brightsword is quite correct,’ continued Por’o Kais. ‘The orks are held at bay by our perimeter walls for now, but for how long? We seek to break the beast as the cliff breaks the sea, but in the end, does the rock not crumble before the tide? We must alter its course. Divert its violence so that it flows elsewhere. This war cannot be won with direct confrontation. Even O’Shoh has said as much.’

At this, the water caste elder raised his elaborator disc. A holographic image of a similarly attired magister appeared like a phantom, ten shimmering fire warriors standing to attention nearby. The magister was treating with four heavy-set ork chieftains in the lee of a crude asteroid fortress. The largest of their number was a cybernetic terror, its gangling arms ending in jagged rotary saws.

‘This is footage from an unauthorised parley,’ continued Por’o Kais. ‘Only the drone that delivered it survived. The rest of the initiative was lost.’

‘What initiative?’ Sha’vastos started out of his chair, his expression furious. ‘Is that Shas’ui Lhoro and his team?’

‘Indeed. Needless to say, Por’vre Vral would be disciplined harshly for dragging the fire caste into his ambitious ploy,’ said Por’o Kais sadly, ‘had he not already given his life in the name of the Greater Good.’

‘And what purpose did the sacrifice of Lhoro’s team achieve?’ asked Sha’vastos. Hot anger boiled under his icy formality.

‘Consider this cyborg monstrosity,’ said Por’o Kais, making a languid gesture towards the elaborator disc’s holographic image. ‘Note the deference in which he is held by his fellow brutes. Inadvertently, I believe Por’vre Vral identified the true warlord behind the ork invasion. According to my cross-referencing, the leader-beast is the largest of all greenskins encountered upon Arkunasha thus far. His name roughly translates as “Tooth Jaw”. ’

O’Shoh memorised everything he could of the hulking cyborg as the orks in the footage rushed towards the camera, jaws agape. There was a blinding flash, and the drone’s footage cut out.

‘That is all we have,’ concluded Por’o Kais.

‘It is information hard won, true enough,’ said Aun’Tal. ‘Yet the negotiation cadre gave their lives in the name of the Tau’va. They were not wasted.’ He turned to the council’s air caste representative, extending a hand of invitation. ‘Next element.’

‘I am Kor’o Li’mau Teng, of the orbital city Li’mau,’ wheezed the air caste admiral, unfolding himself from his counsel throne. The veteran tau stood shakily, his attenuated pilot’s physique ill accustomed to normal gravity.

‘Though my pilots are collaborating with Arkunasha’s own, and though the drone net is now at twice its usual processing power, the skies are still infested with ork craft. Furthermore, the unpredictability of these “ghost storms” is hampering–’

‘They are storms, nothing more,’ interrupted Aun’Tal, his sharp tone cutting like a knife across Li’mau Teng’s testimony.

‘I offer contrition, noble Aun’Tal,’ blurted the admiral, his eyes cast down.

Aun’Tal stared hard, his gaze unwavering.

‘You may continue, Li’mau Teng.’

‘My thanks, ethereal master. Our pilots have obtained a great deal of data, and are currently cross-referencing it with those of the earth caste, though our analysis is incomplete. That is all.’ The venerable admiral made the motion of cupped hands, implying bounty yet to be passed on.

‘Next element,’ said Aun’Tal, looking pointedly at the squat young earth caste delegate opposite.

‘Fio’el Vesa, first engineer of the equatorial bio-domes,’ said the young scientist, standing awkwardly under the ethereal’s gaze. Even at his full height, he was a stocky stump next to the slender willow of Admiral Li’mau Teng. ‘Our latest drone net findings show we are outnumbered,’ El’Vesa said, ‘by approximately three hundred and ninety-nine to one.’

An uncomfortable silence passed. O’Shoh shifted in his seat.

‘Since our last survey,’ continued El’Vesa, oblivious to the tension around him, ‘the number of orks present upon Arkunasha has increased significantly. Furthermore, the outlying ork warbands are no longer functionally dormant. An estimated thirty-two per cent of their number are converging upon our position as we speak.’

The amphitheatre was suddenly in uproar, half the delegates getting to their feet at once.

‘How can this be? How can the numbers still be increasing?’ protested Sha’vastos. ‘We just killed thousands of the damned things!’

‘The newcomers have stirred them up,’ spat Tutor Sha’kan’thas, fixing O’Shoh with a venomous glare. ‘Always overconfident! Always arrogant!’

‘It cannot be done, then,’ said Por’o Kais, his expression one of profound sadness. ‘We must concede Arkunasha to the beast.’

‘Enough,’ said Aun’Tal. The word was spoken quietly, but all those gathered fell silent. ‘O’Shoh, by triggering the ork attack on this facility and failing to stop it you have placed us all in great danger. You have failed the Tau’va this day. Hence you are no longer part of this caste council.’

A void opened inside O’Shoh’s soul as the ethereal continued.

‘You and your commanders will depart this place at the earliest opportunity, relocating your cadres to the command disc Constellation of Hopes. There you will mount a mobile operation that draws as many orks from this installation as possible. Be about your exile within the cycle.’

O’Shoh made a curt salute, the bile of disgrace burning inside him.

‘El’Vesa,’ continued Aun’Tal, ‘you will locate the physical weaknesses of the orks. They must have them. Por’o Kais, you will determine their psychological flaws. Once your findings are corroborated and optimised, you will disperse them to Commander Shoh and Admiral Teng without delay. This elemental council will find the key to these creatures’ defeat before Arkunasha succumbs to starvation. Is that clear?’

As one, the council members interlocked their fingers in the sign of the Tau’va.

‘Good,’ said Aun’Tal. ‘Disperse immediately.’

The tau elders filed out, each anxious to attend to his own business.

O’Shoh was the first to leave. As he strode down the curved white corridor, his skin glowed with shame. Part of him longed to head straight for his quarters, to rally and to meditate until he found a measure of peace. Then, like a dawn, inspiration rose inside him.

The commander slowed, looked around for a moment, and then doubled back down the corridor towards the earth caste’s medical facilities. Now was not the time for solitude, not with so many lives at stake. He had agreed to work together as necessary with the other castes, after all – and there remained the matter of the ork cadaver he had recovered from the battle.

A fierce defiance flickered in O’Shoh’s heart. They would beat these beasts yet.

Bio-dome 31-8, Arkunasha

Mentor Y’eln awoke with a start, her blanket gathered up around her neck like a constricting snake. She clawed it away, eyes wide, but managed to keep from crying out. Dreams of crippling famine and brutality still lingered in her mind. Y’eln tried to settle, mentally reciting the meditations of the teacher. Still her soul would not be at peace. Something was wrong.

Y’eln could not shake the feeling that something malign was inside the room with her. She turned, and her heart turned to stone inside her chest.

A spectral apparition, hideous and simian, leered from the corner near the communal basins. She grabbed her notation disc and made to still-capture it, but the thing faded from view. She blinked, her forehead wrinkling. There was no more evidence of the creature’s presence than a lingering, unpleasant smell.

Y’eln forced her heartbeat to slow, telling herself the phenomenon was due to lack of sleep alone; there was no need to raise the alarm for a night-cycle hallucination. She had been under so much pressure recently that mental distress was only to be expected.

There was a crackle of green energy in the corner, and the gangling creature reappeared. Its reedy laugh haunted the cusp of hearing as it met her gaze, sunken eyes burning green in the skull-like mask of its face. It pointed a long, gnarled finger right at her, and then slowly drew it across her throat.

Y’eln screamed. In the darkness around her, a hundred starving tau children began to cry.

6-0

RESEARCH BAY 21, BIO-DOME 1-1, NORTH HEX, ARKUNASHA

The utter sterility of the research bay was a balm to the fires raging across O’Shoh’s mind. Here, order reigned supreme. Every elegant white curve, storage pod, press-niche and dataport had been systematically cleansed by rad-drones. In the bays and laboratories of the bio-domes, not a single lifeform existed without the earth caste’s consent.

In the centre of the bay was a large, lozenge-shaped cryocasket, held aloft by a hoverplinth. The casket was large enough to accommodate a stealth battlesuit. O’Shoh walked around its edge, eyes panning across its sensor spectrums. His broad forehead creased, numerals from the radiological scans reflecting in the deep sheen of his skin.

The readout showed the skeleton of a large ork, its details picked out in blue-white light. Dense muscle was rendered around it in indigo, its skin a thick layer of violet.

Such animalistic power in the brute’s frame, thought O’Shoh. It was little wonder the orks proved so formidable at close quarters.

The earth caste scientist who had introduced himself as El’Vesa walked slowly around the cryocasket, stubby fingers tapping upon a hovering notation disc. O’Shoh watched with interest as the scientist’s wide eyes flickered up and down the cryocasket’s data displays. His face was rapt.

The commander made a small gesture for El’Vesa’s attention, but was not surprised in the least when it was completely ignored.

Shas’vre Ob’lotai stood with his arms folded in the corner of the room. The old warrior had been waiting outside the research bay when O’Shoh approached, greeting his commander with a small smile and the locked fingers of the Tau’va. He knows his commander well, thought O’Shoh.

El’Vesa’s notation disc moved in to scan Ob’lotai’s life signs, but a swift backhand slap sent it wobbling away with a bleep of alarm. Luckily, its owner was too preoccupied to notice.

‘It is a prevalent theory amongst my caste,’ said El’Vesa, suddenly looking up at O’Shoh, ‘that the smaller orkoids are the young of the species, and that their females are hidden underground.’

‘Is that the case?’ said O’Shoh, one eye still watching the data spooling across the cryocasket.

‘It may well be. I personally believe the smaller, slave caste orkoids to be only distantly related to the warrior caste.’

‘How so? Genetic castoffs, perhaps?’

‘We can only speculate at this time. I theorise that the orks are hermaphroditic, and are capable of asexual reproduction – perhaps via podding, or a form of posthumous fission. This cadaver may allow me to reach a conclusion. For that, you have my thanks.’

‘We just need to know how best to kill them,’ grumbled Ob’lotai, ‘not how to make more.’

‘Our esteemed comrade El’Vesa believes identifying their breed patterns might yield an early countermeasure,’ said O’Shoh, ‘and hence prevent further generations being birthed. Am I correct?’

‘Quite so,’ said El’Vesa, showing his broad, flat teeth in a smile. The scientist tapped at one of the cryocasket’s sensor suites with a wand-like data probe. Translucent streams of holographic information twirled out from the probe’s end, feeding into his notation disc. ‘We kill them before they are born.’

The crisp, sterile air of the research bay seemed to somehow grow stale. Ob’lotai was standing bolt upright, his features hard as stone. He stared daggers at the earth caste scientist. It was a look O’Shoh had seen before, and never without consequence.

‘A war waged against the young is without honour,’ said Ob’lotai, his voice cold and full of danger as he quoted the tau maxim.

O’Shoh moved over to stand by his old friend, putting the hand of calm upon his forearm.

‘Ob’lotai speaks wisely, of course,’ he said smoothly. ‘The orks appear bestial, and beasts at our door must be culled. Yet they are undeniably sentient. We cannot bring disgrace to the fire caste by essentially attacking their young.’

El’Vesa finally looked up, a shadow of confusion on his features as he pulled a pair of second skins onto his nimble hands. ‘More self-imposed limitations,’ he said, his head cocked to one side. ‘Regardless,’ he continued, knocking on the cryocasket, ‘there is much to learn from our silent friend here.’

Turning away, the stocky scientist tapped a deft sequence on his notation disc. The cryocasket’s vents hissed tiny broadsides of ice-cold air, and the skin on O’Shoh’s forearms puckered slightly.

The lid of the casket raised, slid silently to one side and folded away. The temperature inside the room dropped even further before the environ nacelles in the ceiling compensated for the change in temperature. Yet they could do little to override the eye-watering stink of burnt ork flesh.

The monstrous corpse inside was twice the size of a fire caste warrior, even one as large as Ob’lotai. It lay twisted, trunk-thick arms contorted either side of a torso hollowed front to back by a plasma bolt. Its grotesquely protruding jaw hung open in a silent bellow of pain. Above it, porcine eyes squinted from wrinkled pits.

El’Vesa thumbed his data probe, and a suite of microcameras unfolded on its swivelling tip like the petals of a flower. Leaning over the lip of the cryocasket, the scientist held it inside the creature’s blackened torso, muttering clipped observations to the notation disc hovering nearby.

‘Anomalous ork specimen, full maturity. Closest known physical analogue undoubtedly the krootox. Similarly exaggerated musculature, extremely fibrous.’ El’Vesa poked at the cadaver’s flesh with a gloved finger. ‘Extraordinary muscle mass suggests an alpha life form. This was a prime specimen. Compliments to its procurer, Commander Shoh.’

O’Shoh nodded once in recognition, beckoning Ob’lotai in close to inspect the corpse. His old friend took a single step forwards, his distaste palpable.

‘Cause of fatality… the aforementioned commander,’ said El’Vesa, glancing at O’Shoh with a slight smile. ‘Massive plasma trauma to the torso. Near instantaneous demise. Many vital organs missing entirely. The remnants…’ El’Vesa lifted a flap of grisly red-black meat to expose a dribbling swamp of flesh, ‘are already in a state of decomposition.’

Ob’lotai wrinkled the flat of his face as ever-fouler smells emerged from the corpse’s innards. O’Shoh filtered them out with a flicker of thought, instead focusing on the data spooling along the base of the radiograph.

He started, stepped back for a moment, and then came in close.

Sure enough, the violet layer around the indigo muscle mass was bleeding a constellation of tiny bio-signs. Each was far too small for the naked eye to see, but the hoverplinth’s sensor suite was picking them up in great number. It displayed them as tiny specks expanding out into the room. O’Shoh felt queasy to think he may be breathing in tiny flakes of ork skin.

‘Honoured El’Vesa,’ said O’Shoh, covering his mouth. ‘I believe there are microscopic bio-signs breaking away from the cadaver.’

‘Autoimmune response inactive,’ said El’Vesa, lost in his analysis. The scientist thumbed a sequence of buttons on his camera-tipped wand. ‘Nervous system catastrophically compromised. In theory, we can still explore its parameters with minor auxiliary electrical stimulus. Hypothesis test one imminent.’

There was a crackling snap, and the cadaver jerked, its fingers clenching, before falling still.

‘Honoured El’Vesa,’ said Ob’lotai, ‘is that really–’

‘Hypothesis test two, doubling electrical stimulus.’

There was a blue flash, and the corpse convulsed hard. O’Shoh moved in, eyes narrowed.

‘Please, El’Vesa, this may not be wise.’

‘And test three…’

Another flash, and the corpse twisted upwards with a belching exhalation of gas that turned into a bellowing roar. Eyes red, it shot out a gnarled claw and caught O’Shoh by the throat.

‘Abort!’ cried El’Vesa, stepping back and dropping the data-wand in shock. ‘Abort!’

O’Shoh put his legs against the hoverplinth and pushed, doing his best to lever away the ork fingers gouging into his neck. Its grip was unbreakable. He could feel his lungs beginning to burn as he struggled for breath.

The greenskin elbowed itself upwards, reaching out its other arm and backhanding the earth caste scientist into a wall-mounted press-niche. A hidden drawer of shaped foam hissed open at the sudden impact. El’Vesa sprawled senseless to the floor, knocking stubby laser scalpels from their insets.

Ob’lotai came in hard, shoulder-barging the thing’s arm in a crunch of snapping bone. The ork roared and whipped its head sidelong, gouging one of its tusks into the meat of Ob’lotai’s forearm.

Fighting the instinct to prise away the greenskin’s thick fingers, O’Shoh reached for the bonding knife at the small of his back. Black spots swam in front of his eyes as he tapped open the ceremonial scabbard. His legs burned with the effort of staying braced. He let his knees give way suddenly, and the creature pulled him close.

Close enough for him to embed his knife into its neck.

The ork reared backwards just as Ob’lotai hammered a blocky fist into the side of its head. The hoverplinth rocked crazily, and with a crash the cryocasket toppled over.

Still held around the throat, O’Shoh was yanked down to the floor. Yet the sudden twist caused the ork’s grip to slacken. Seeing a weakness, O’Shoh slammed the flat of his hand hard into the brute’s arm. Its elbow joint buckled, and it let go.

O’Shoh staggered back, wheezing in lungfuls of raw pain. The greenskin sprawled sideways from the upended cryocasket. Thrashing in a puddle of its own blood, the ork grabbed the knife stuck deep in its throat and ripped it free.

As the half-dead thing was pushing itself upright, Ob’lotai kicked it square in the jaw. Enraged, the greenskin reared up and brought both arms round, smashing its fists straight through Ob’lotai’s guard. The blow sent the big shas’vre sprawling into the corner of the room, his head colliding hard with the edge of a metal table.

O’Shoh scanned the research bay for his bonding knife, but found a laser scalpel instead. He scrabbled over to it before keying it to maximum yield. A thin rod of ruby light blazed at its tip. Behind him, the ork reared up to its full height, bellowing in confusion and anger. Through the gaping hole in its chest O’Shoh caught a glimpse of Ob’lotai, slumped and bleeding. Unbidden, the lessons of Puretide rose to the forefront of his mind.

Where the foe has strength, blind it.

O’Shoh darted around the ork’s flank and pointed the laser scalpel towards its face with a shout. The hulking greenskin took the bait, looking around with jaws yawning wide. The commander whipped the laser scalpel across its eyes.

Black gore bubbled from the ork’s sockets as it flailed its arms around wildly. O’Shoh rolled underneath its rangy swipes, but a dirty nail caught him across the forehead, nearly taking one of his own eyes. Heavy claws smashed into neatly stacked sample dishes, scattering them across the floor.

Where the foe has certainty, confuse it.

O’Shoh backhanded another cluster of sample dishes stacked on a curved bench nearby, sending them clattering to the other side of the research bay. The blinded ork turned its head towards the noise, ruined eyes weeping black fluid. It took a thudding step before sniffing the air, its grotesque nostril-slits flaring.

When the foe seeks you out, deceive it.

Raising the laser scalpel, O’Shoh climbed atop the empty hoverplinth and pointed the ruby tip at one of the environ nacelles in the ceiling. Almost immediately a fine rain of analgesic liquid sprinkled down, its crisp tang unmistakeable.

The blinded creature sniffed for O’Shoh’s scent again, but the smell of medicinal fluids filled its nostrils instead.

The ork bellowed its anger to the ceiling. It swung a club-like fist, denting the wall behind. O’Shoh made himself small, rolling towards a fallen plasma saw behind the cryocasket. The ork spun with shocking speed at the noise, fanged maw yawning. O’Shoh grabbed the first thing to hand – El’Vesa’s notation disc – and smashed it into the greenskin’s teeth, thumbing the recall button. Tiny holographic anatomies flickered amongst strings of ork drool.

A gnarled fist came in hard, smashing O’Shoh across the room. He felt ribs break, and the sick burst of a lung puncture. The ork staggered after him, listening for sounds of movement, but the malfunctioning notation disc jammed in its mouth was replaying El’Vesa’s observations at deafening volume.

‘The ork physiology is extremely robust,’ blared El’Vesa from the notation disc. ‘Its precise physical limits are currently unknown.’

The beast bit through the notation disc, splintering it into shards of plastic and fizzing wire. El’Vesa’s recorded voice gave a distorted swoop, the sound surreal over the beast’s frustrated growl.

And when the foe shows weakness, slay it.

The ork lumbered by, completely robbed of its senses. O’Shoh emerged from the fallen cryocasket and scooped up the plasma saw with the end of his foot. He flicked it up to waist height, caught it and thumbed its activation node as he padded around the back of the greenskin. The saw’s urgent buzz filled the air as it projected a crackling beam.

The monster turned. O’Shoh swung the saw diagonally upwards with a shout. The sparking beam at its tip carved the top half of the ork’s head from the bottom.

Blood flew, and the remains of the notation disc shed fat sparks. The mutilated cadaver toppled forwards, its jutting chin crunching down hard.

O’Shoh watched the creature’s corpse for a moment, but it remained still. He spared a quick glance for El’Vesa’s unconscious form.

The scientist was still breathing. Good enough.

The commander scrabbled over to his fallen fire caste comrade. Ob’lotai was sitting awkwardly in the corner, drawing only ragged, shallow breaths. O’Shoh’s bonding knife was stuck deep, punched up through the warrior’s breastbone. Blood pulsed around the blade. It fanned out across the floor in a red delta.

‘We need to get you to a proper med bay, old friend,’ said O’Shoh. ‘It’s bad – I won’t deceive you – but likely not fatal. This will soon be but another scar.’

The veteran’s watery black eyes met O’Shoh’s. The expression there was one of profound sadness.

‘Shoh… you must… keep your focus,’ he panted. ‘We must… rise above… the beast within…’

Ob’lotai fumbled his fingers together in a clumsy gesture of unity, and slumped to the floor, as lifeless as stone.

7-0

THE RUST WASTES, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARKUNASHA

O’Shoh sat alone in the control bay of the disc skimmer Constellation of Hopes. In silence he watched the rust dunes slide by under the viewing area’s transplastic floor. The communion console nearby pulsed an urgent red, its musical alert chords soft but insistent as it flashed up El’Vesa’s holographic ident. He ignored it, just as he had ignored it a dozen times before.

The commander gripped his bonding knife tight enough to hurt. He noticed with detached interest that his knuckles were white, a range of scarred bone like the caps of the Kan’jian peaks. His mind flew back to his ta’lissera bonding ritual, and his heart beat faster still. He had shed blood there, on Mount Kan’ji, forming a sacred bond with two young tau who meant more to him than any other.

More even than poor dead Ob’lotai.

The old warrior’s body had already been sequestered by the earth caste, sealed away in preparation for the death rite. Ob’lotai, his closest friend, whose lifeblood still stained O’Shoh’s hands and his bonding knife. The ceremonial blade was black with the stuff.

After his ta’lissera ritual upon Mount Kan’ji, a tiny trail of Kauyon-Shas’s blood had stained the side of the knife’s ornate leather grip. He had never washed it off. It was a treasured remnant of the sacred bond they shared, and their connection since their parting. Now it had been obscured by the blood of another, and was likely gone forever.

The realisation drove a spike of despair into O’Shoh’s gut. To use the ceremonial knife as a weapon outside the ta’lissera was bad enough, but for an alien to profane it by killing a trusted member of the Tau’va? That was unbearable. It was as though the ork had taken part of O’Shoh’s own body and stabbed it through the heart of his friend. It had robbed him of his calm, his perspective and his self-belief in one grotesque act of vandalism.

As the command disc hovered effortlessly across the Arkunashan dunes, a mangled corpse slid into view far below. Then another, followed by the remains of a third.

Soon the desert was littered with them, tangles of broken tau bodies punctuated by the odd ork corpse. A shattered transit hub hove into view, its rib-like spars still smouldering. The hub’s tunnels led to a bio-dome breached by a titanic boulder. Citizens lay scattered around the dome’s exits in their hundreds, dried gore staining the sands wherever the orks had cut them down.

O’Shoh forced himself to look down at the massacre, to take in the consequences of the fire caste’s failure to defend Arkunasha. As a race they had failed to understand their foe, writing the orks off as a lost cause that they could wilfully ignore. So much blood had been spilt because of that fateful decision, staining the planet, and staining the honour of the castes that had strived to protect it.

The commander stood sharply, strode to the nearest transmission node and opened a channel to the Constellation’s battlesuit hangar.

Alone in the shattered med bay, El’Vesa turned from the wall-mounted communion console. His concern at being unable to reach O’Shoh ebbed away as he watched a trio of fist-sized sanitation drones finish their clean-up operation. It was almost hypnotising, their interlocking dance: a silent symphony of robotics that erased the stains of tau and ork alike.

For a while, the scientist absently analysed their movements, working out their program patterns. The cleaning drones’ meagre artificial intelligences fit his predictions to within a point-four per cent margin of error.

‘Definitely some improvements to be made, then,’ said El’Vesa softly to himself. He glanced involuntarily at the last few smears of blood near the door; his fellow earth caste subordinates had left them behind after taking Ob’lotai’s body for its last preparations. For some unfathomable reason, the visceral colour of the fingerprints gave him a strange disquiet, though he was no stranger to the hue of tau blood.

In the adjacent research bay lay Shas’vre Ob’lotai’s cooling cadaver, his pallid features just visible through the adjoining window. Soon the corpse would be borne away upon a hoverplinth to the incinerator dome, and a few moments after that, Ob’lotai would be no more – a martyr to the Tau’va, with an exceptional kill ratio to his name, yet ultimately little more than a footnote to O’Shoh’s illustrious career.

‘What a waste,’ said El’Vesa, startling himself with the sentiment. He put his anomalous outburst down to mild impact trauma, and made nothing more of it.

A thought rose unbidden from the ordered matrix of his mind. He cocked his head, fractal possibilities blossoming. There was something else under the idea, a tingling that was both uncomfortable and familiar, but its details escaped him.

The scientist deactivated the cleaner drones with a word. Tapping in a code into the med bay’s control console, he shut off its interior cameras, as well as those of the adjoining room. The scientist walked over to a wall section indistinguishable from its surroundings and pressed it in opposing corners.

The wall section hissed open smoothly. Strung in the alcove behind was a complicated apparatus of galvanic webs and nodal electrodes that El’Vesa had constructed a long time ago, but never used.

He took the apparatus from its alcove with the greatest of care, holding it with his fingers at full spread. The thing had always appeared analogous to a Dal’ythan jellyfish made of wires and discs. For some reason, he did not find it a pleasant comparison.

The door to the adjacent medical bay chimed. Through the lozenge-shaped window, El’Vesa could see two earth caste workers approaching Ob’lotai’s hoverplinth. One of them was programming it to approach the incinerator dome.

El’Vesa quickly turned his back, shielding the apparatus from sight with his body. His heart rate was speeding up for some reason, a disquieting development in itself. The scientist finger-swiped the nearest control console and leaned in to its microphone.

‘I have yet to conclude the postmortem process,’ he said as calmly as he could. ‘Please return to your duties and await my summons.’

After a few microdecs, the bay door gave the clear chime, signifying exit.

Once El’Vesa was sure the workers had left, he punched in the code for the door between the med bays. It slid obediently open without a sound. He stepped through into the darkened chamber and approached Ob’lotai’s corpse, the apparatus writhing slightly as he draped it upon the shas’vre’s head.

The boxy shadow of the Blessed Surety flitted over the dunes as it sped north across the desert. Commander Brightsword stooped over the Orca’s command console, features lit by the azure triangle of light that represented O’Shoh’s battlesuit.

After the council in which he was effectively banished to the desert, O’Shoh had requested Sha’vastos put in place an anti-ork protocol from the Tau Empire’s early days. All teams were to patrol the desert, engaging at long range using Devilfish-mounted seeker teams and advanced-model battlesuits only. Close, physical combat was to be avoided at all costs.

All well and good, in principle. Except, as the wars of the First Sphere Expansion had shown, that protocol alone was never enough. There was always another ork warrior ready to pummel its way into command, or another strange technology that resulted in a deadly glitch. The beasts were so unpredictable that it was all but impossible to second-guess them for long, especially in such dire conditions. The phenomena the fire caste had been calling ghost storms had a habit of striking at the most inopportune of times.

Brightsword cast a nervous glance towards the Blessed Surety’s meteorological display. Pursuing O’Shoh was a grave and unsanctioned risk, one that could cost Brightsword his rank if a storm rolled in. Perhaps Tutor Sha’kan’thas was right about the commander. O’Shoh’s appalling breaches of protocol could not be allowed to continue unchecked, especially if the dark rumours circulating around Bio-dome 1-1 were true. In the wake of the alleged disaster in El’Vesa’s med bay, the maverick commander risked permanent disgrace, and perhaps even the dreaded Malk’la ritual if he compounded his erratic behaviour. Brightsword would not allow that to happen, even if it meant earning censure himself.

On the topographical display, O’Shoh’s image flickered. The stylised battlesuit covered the isometric framework of dunes and gullies in short bursting leaps, each bound taking it closer to the green blips of the ork war-vehicle convoy in the distance.

‘Time until engagement range, winged one?’ asked Brightsword.

‘Point-six-three decs, commander,’ replied the Orca’s pilot. ‘Calling up holo-counter now.’

Brightsword pushed back from the console. He strode into the Orca’s transport bay, fastening the pilot suit clasp at his neck.

‘To strike,’ he quoted. ‘That is the distillation of purpose into a single perfect moment.’

At the sound of its activation phrase, his replacement XV8 hummed into readiness. Its plexus hatch slid open to reveal the soft blue glow of the control cocoon.

The Orca jolted, and Brightsword’s torn abdominal muscles pulsed with pain as the transport ship rode out a wave of turbulence. He turned the sudden momentum into a curving run across the grilled floor, leaping up and twisting into the battlesuit’s confines. He grimaced as he cracked his elbow on the interior edge on the way in. The bruise would be a chastisement well deserved, he thought, a badge of dishonour for letting his beloved Crisis suit take such heavy damage.

Brightsword triggered his buckle clasps, and the suit’s torso unit chimed. Signal data flared within its holographic displays: readouts of the locale’s topography, the meteorological systems and the dispersion of the ork column.

Brightsword skimmed the data with a series of eye-flicks. The suit’s fusion blasters were at maximum charge, though the weapons were not nearly as efficient as the versions installed in his own XV8. It made him feel unclean, somehow, to go into battle with his fusion yield less than perfect. It reeked of another costly failure.

A rare moment of doubt came upon him as the Orca jolted once more, sending pain rippling through his abdomen. Since becoming a pilot, he had always cared more about his battlesuit than his own physical form. That had to stop, especially if he was to complete his contribution to the Tau’va Eugenics Programme. Genetic stock like his was not to be wasted; the ethereals had been very clear on that. But he had a duty to his mentor that could not be ignored, and the memory of his rescue outside Bio-dome 1-1 was still fresh.

The young warrior sighed and eye-clicked the azure triangle representing O’Shoh. It resolved into the Orca’s aerial footage. The accompanying analysis confirmed his suspicions: the rogue commander was at maximum burn, and closing with the ork convoy fast.

Brightsword transmitted his thanks to the Orca’s pilot, casting a last look in his direction before the plexus hatch closed completely. He took a deep breath, reflecting on the engagement to come and making his peace with the Tau’va. Beside his head, a decimal countdown flashed red.

A moment later Brightsword signalled readiness. His battlesuit shuddered as the Orca’s rear hatch slid open. Hot air filled the transport bay, sending his readings jerking frantically.

He disengaged the suit from its transport clamps. Two mag-locked strides, and he stood at the Blessed Surety’s open ramp. Dunes hurtled past below.

With a double blast of vector jets, Brightsword leapt.

A breathtaking panorama sprawled beneath him as he rode the Orca’s borrowed momentum high over the desert dunes. The sensation of flight made his blood sing. He realised he was grinning fiercely, and forced himself to focus on his mission.

There, in the middle distance, was O’Shoh. His battlesuit was carving through a gulley on an interception curve towards the ork vehicle column.

For some reason, the commander’s Crisis suit colours had been reconfigured a deep red.

Brightsword reached full burn just as his quarry plunged into the funnel of oxide dust billowing in the column’s wake. Compensating, the young commander switched sensor spectrums as he swung his control cocoon downwards. He recognised the heat-sign of O’Shoh’s modified XV8 up ahead.

There was a familiar flare of plasma discharge. A split microdec later, a ramshackle junk-truck somersaulted up on a blossoming cloud of flame.

O’Shoh’s heat-sign touched down briefly on the far side of the ork column before bounding from the dunes once more. Jets flaring, he cut another diagonal across the column of smoke-belching transports.

A veering warbike shot out of the dust, its rider firing a crude pistol. O’Shoh answered with a swipe of his fusion blaster, burning the ork to molten ruin.

‘Permission to join the fight, commander?’ transmitted Brightsword, jetting forwards as fast as his suit would allow.

There was no answer.

Brightsword arrowed out of the dust like a hurled spear. He pivoted, slamming feetfirst into the gun deck of a rolling ork fortress. Its mismatched, lumpen hull shook under the impact. Plates of rusted metal fell away.

Brightsword scanned the thickly welded armature of its chassis for a moment. He eye-marked its integral joints before boosting back up with his fusion blasters on full trigger, drawing the guns upwards. Their incandescent beams sliced through the armoured wagon’s vital locations. He boosted away, the vehicle below him coming apart in a shower of orange gobbets and hissing steam.

‘Did you notice that armour kill, observant one?’ transmitted Brightsword, leaning in his control cocoon as an ork slave-gunner sent solid shot skipping off his battlesuit’s thigh.

O’Shoh sent a symbol of dismissal, and more disturbingly, that of the Monat.

This was logged as a research mission, thought Brightsword, not a lone warrior’s suicide attempt. Alone against a column of over a hundred ork vehicles, even the most gifted Monat operative would be overwhelmed.

O’Shoh jetted towards the ork column once more, cutting across the path of an articulated junker. The vehicle’s bristling guns fired indiscriminately at his passing. O’Shoh’s plasma rifle flared white, its blinding discharge filling the junker’s cockpit. The multi-wheeled monstrosity swerved, ploughing on for a moment on two wheels before hitting the crest of a dune at an oblique angle. It jackknifed, ploughing into a scattering swarm of greenskin gun-buggies. Crushing one under fat wheels, it toppled over to flatten two more with its metallic bulk.

‘This is unprecedented, commander,’ transmitted Brightsword, eye-sketching a plan for the two battlesuits to come together on the next pass. ‘Please clarify Monat status. And I cannot help but notice you wear irregular colours. Why is this?’

O’Shoh’s only reply was to boost through the dust cloud, his course parallel to that of the ork convoy.

Brightsword’s thrust/vector suite chimed an overload warning as he pushed his engines to maximum. O’Shoh’s heat signal pulled away, and Brightsword felt a surge of awed respect; O’Shoh’s optimisations had made his battlesuit impressively fast.

The young commander emerged from the dust cloud to see his mentor charging across the dunes in a shoulder-led crouch, his shield generator flaring. Brightsword was puzzled by his mentor’s earthbound vector until he saw he was heading for an anti-aircraft wagon trundling on the edge of the convoy. Brightsword zoomed in on the wagon’s ork gunner. The grinning savage was cackling madly, panning its quad-barrelled flak gun downwards towards O’Shoh. With four long-barrelled cannons firing in one intense burst, even an ork might make a kill shot.

The flak cannons roared, streams of solid shot slicing through the rust clouds. The gunner swung in its seat, the cannons’ fusillade carving towards O’Shoh as he charged into close range. Each snub-nosed shell detonated prematurely, a string of explosions setting the invisible dome of O’Shoh’s forcefield alight.

Up ahead, a pair of primitive one-man skycraft hurtled into O’Shoh’s blind spot, the thokita-thokita-thokita of their rotor engines audible over the convoy’s din. Two rockets corkscrewed from their cockpit fairings, one going laughably wide even as the other detonated hard upon O’Shoh’s shoulder plate. The commander rolled with the impact, veering left.

From the ground, the gunner’s stream of flak chattered towards him, detonations blossoming closer and closer. O’Shoh deactivated his shield for a moment, took a shot with his plasma rifle, and then reactivated it again before boosting into the air. Where Brightsword’s zoomed-in view had shown the ork gunner before, only a remnant of blasted flesh remained.

The rotor-bladed contraptions veered in, the hydraulic shears under their prows champing like the mandibles of hungry insects.

Brightsword pulled around in a turn so tight he felt his stomach flatten inside him. He raised his battlesuit’s arms like wings, jetting towards the peculiar ork craft and triggering his fusion blasters for a full microdec as he passed. Each blinding beam cut through the spinning shafts of the contraptions’ rotor arrays, sending them hurtling away into the dust. One of the ugly craft hit the dunes as the other smashed nose-first into a veering gun-bike. The double explosion threw a gratifying flare of heat-sign.

‘When the foe takes to the sky,’ Brightsword transmitted to O’Shoh, ‘clip his wings.’

‘Just so,’ replied the rogue commander, blipping the symbol of gratitude.

Brightsword smiled. ‘May I ask what purpose this attack serves, inscrutable one?’ he said, veering away from a stream of tracer fire.

‘Research,’ said O’Shoh. He dove back down into plasma rifle range before loosing a shot. The tracer fire stuttered and stopped.

‘I have another theory as to its purpose, commander,’ said Brightsword. ‘I posit that the rumours of a grave incident at the bio-dome are true, and that your injured soul seeks atonement through physical pain.’

There was a pause. O’Shoh’s suit was a hundred metres distant, visible on conventional as well as infrared spectrums. It slowed, allowing Brightsword to come alongside. A distance to the right, the ork convoy was eclipsed by a sudden gale of dust.

‘So you do listen after all,’ said O’Shoh. His sorrow was tangible, despite the static of the rust sirocco.

‘Of course,’ said Brightsword. He touched down briefly before boosting back upwards. ‘I doubt I will ever prefer words to deeds, but in this case… my opinion might prove helpful.’

‘The channel remains open,’ said O’Shoh, ‘for now, at least. And in answer to your question, it is in remembrance of those who have died since our arrival.’

‘Commander?’

‘You asked me why I changed my battlesuit colours. It is to honour the Arkunashan dead. Their blood is on my hands, and I will not forget it.’

‘Commander, that is noble and worthy of respect, but to me it further indicates your judgement is clouded. I have come here alone to reason with you because you are acting through emotion, not logic. In doing so, I believe you truly are turning away from the Tau’va.’

O’Shoh did not reply.

Brightsword cringed in his control cocoon. It was a grave accusation indeed. He was about to explain himself when his environ suite chimed. A strange pulse of apprehension grabbed him as he switched his blacksun filter’s spectrum from infrared to kinetic.

A raging wall of rust particulate reared upwards less than half a kilometre away, the tornadoes at its base plucking ork vehicles from the dunes and flinging them into the air.

It was closing on them at speed.

Commander Shoh gritted his teeth, fighting to lean his battlesuit into the gale-force wind. Clotted rust hammered him as the ork convoy broke apart and veered wildly below. The racing vehicles scattered, ramming one another in their haste to escape the raging tempest. The red-black wall closed over O’Shoh, and his screens glitched black.

The sound of a trillion tons of ferrite dust grinding at his battlesuit filled the cocoon. The noise was so loud that O’Shoh muted his audio suite altogether. It made little difference. The tiny doppelganger XV8 above his damage control suite flickered as the hurricane wind gnawed ever harder.

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.’

O’Shoh could not answer. His old friend Ob’lotai had been denied his funeral rites, his body and spirit treated as little more than fodder for an earth caste experiment. It was abhorrent.

El’Vesa took O’Shoh’s silence as awe. ‘Yes, our honoured friend Ob’lotai is alive and well, after a fashion. I have replaced the missing sections of his personality transfer with targeting programs, and stored his data in a state-of-the-art mnemonic drone. Come here, Helper Ob’lotai!’

A flat black disc hovered into the holographic field, red lights glimmering along its edge.

‘Bow to your old commander, Helper Ob’lotai,’ said El’Vesa fondly. The drone duly lowered its front edge in a gesture of obeisance.

O’Shoh felt fire kindle in his veins – a sick, unhealthy flame. To turn the old veteran into one of the drones he despised was beyond dishonourable; it was a grotesque abuse of the veteran’s warrior spirit.

Hands shaking, the commander drew his bloodstained bonding knife from its scabbard and pointed it, tip first, at the scientist’s face.

‘Ob’lotai hated drones,’ said O’Shoh softly. ‘You must undo this.’

‘Ah, yes, well, the program’s housing is of course–’

‘Ob’lotai hated drones, you soulless fool!’ shouted O’Shoh.

El’Vesa’s eyes widened, like those of a prey animal. ‘A sudden dust storm is affecting our communion,’ he blurted. ‘I must leave immediately.’

The hologram dwindled to a mote of light, leaving O’Shoh alone on the bridge. He sank to his knees, the bonding knife falling from his hand.

‘You will suffer for this, Fio’el Vesa,’ he snarled.

His blood, hot with rage, slowly cooled as the wider situation settled in his mind. In truth, there was little he could do. There was no way to bring what he had learned to the ethereals without exposing his own conduct. In a storm-haunted desert, with the castes already divided, he could see no way to defeat a foe as mighty as the ork invaders.

The Broken Sword cut both ways.

Many tau’cyr earlier

Mount Kan’ji, Dal’yth

Ghosts. Kauyon-Shas was obsessed with them. When surrounded by the empty darkness of Kan’ji’s peaks, it was easy to give the mind to such thoughts.

Mont’ka-Shoh gazed up through the crack in the cave roof, giving names to the stars. His limbs ached, but the furs were agreeable, and the company even more so.

‘I used to dream of them, you know,’ said Kauyon-Shas, her voice a whisper in the dark. She too was looking up at the stars, her focus giving the impression she was confiding to the heavens as much as to him. ‘Drinkers of blood, I used to call them – evil ghosts so angry at the injustice of their own deaths they sought only to inflict pain. They came after me, and I could not shake them.’

‘Do you still dream of them?’

She did not answer.

That day, the master had tasked his three young students with hunting each other. Monat-Kais was still out there somewhere, too distant to invite pursuit. Whilst the sun was high, Mont’ka-Shoh had instead watched Kauyon-Shas making her way to one of Kan’ji’s sheerest slopes before disappearing from sight.

After taking the measure of the skies, Shoh had followed her. He spent half the day setting piles of rock above each nook and cranny, taking care to place bowl-like stones at the top of each cairn. He then made the trek down to the river and scaled the opposite peak, settling hidden behind the lip of a small ridge. There he had waited, as still as stone. By early evening, his limbs had grown numb and cold. Nonetheless, the master had taught them how important it was to set the environment against the enemy. If you could play on your foe’s fears in the process, so much the better.

Finally, the rain came. A few scattered droplets at first, but swiftly growing into a downpour. Across the crevasse, Shoh had seen movement. The bowl-shaped rocks were slowly gathering enough rain to tip over, collapsing the loose piles beneath. Each rockfall caused a small avalanche that often sent startled animals dashing away in alarm.

The third pile of rocks to fall startled a distant smudge from a cluster of boulders. Kauyon-Shas bolted from cover, her camouflage almost impeccable as she hurled a handful of rocks at some unseen assailant. Mont’ka-Shoh had clapped his hands sharply and pointed an imaginary rifle across the crevasse.

He smiled at the memory of the obscene gesture she had made in return. His teasing after their rendezvous was met with sullen silence, but after they had shared a roasted cliff fowl together, she began to talk more freely.

‘The mountain has its own spirits,’ said Kauyon-Shas into the night. ‘It is a place where destinies are born.’

‘That much is true, at least,’ said Shoh. ‘Master Puretide fashions us new fates as easily as he gives us new names.’

‘But he is not here tonight,’ she said. She turned to him, treating him to a rare half-smile. ‘And I have my own destiny in mind.’

‘Monat-Kais will never let us forget it if he catches us. We should sleep.’

‘Then let us do so in comfort.’

Mont’ka-Shoh sighed, closed his eyes, and rolled into her warmth.

9-0

THE RUST WASTES, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARKUNASHA

Destined Blade came low out of the clouds, the squat-bodied Orca settling onto the flat carrier decks upon the Constellation of Hopes’s upper disc. The ident code of Commander Sha’vastos flashed up on O’Shoh’s communication suite, requesting permission to board. O’Shoh bid him come straight to the bridge, where he and Brightsword were in council.

‘Greetings, Shas’o Vash’ya Astos,’ said O’Shoh, as the tall Arkunashan officer walked in, his bodyguards flanking him.

‘And greetings to you, Shas’o Vior’la Shoh Kais Mont’yr,’ replied Sha’vastos. Every syllable held disappointment, and the set of his shoulders was even stiffer than normal. ‘Commander Brightsword, greetings.’

The cold formality did not bode well. Commander Sha’vastos had proven to be conservative and traditional, and since landing upon Arkunasha, O’Shoh had confirmed himself to be anything but. He composed himself as best as he could, burying his fury at El’Vesa’s presumption under the weight of duty. It was important that Sha’vastos left the command disc as an ally; to lose another at this stage would be disastrous.

‘Please release your saz’nami,’ said O’Shoh.

Sha’vastos held his gaze before making the gesture of dismissal. His bodyguards saluted sharply and left as one.

‘You wanted to speak to me, I believe,’ said Sha’vastos. ‘So here I am.’

‘I thank you for attending me in person,’ said O’Shoh. ‘Apparently many of our number take a dim view of the current situation.’

‘That is certainly the case with many senior caste members,’ replied Sha’vastos. ‘Tutor Sha’kan’thas in particular is outraged that you mounted an unauthorised foray without due notice, in Monat pattern and in irregular colours. He has also called for censure against Commander Brightsword for pursuing you.’

‘Sha’kan’thas is a short-sighted fool,’ hissed O’Shoh. ‘I was outwitting his training simulations when I was less than eight cycles old. And what colours I wear upon my battlesuit are my concern.’

Sha’vastos’s mouth gaped, his shock almost palpable.

‘Be aware the seeds of our actions have borne useful fruit, Commander Sha’vastos,’ Brightsword interjected smoothly. ‘I believe Commander Shoh has uncovered many of this world’s secrets.’

‘I see,’ said Sha’vastos, his expression still caught between shock and curiosity.

‘The rust desert is littered with archaeological detritus,’ said O’Shoh. ‘It seems this world was once host to an advanced civilisation. Given the depth of the rust strata, that planetary population must have numbered in the tens of billions.’

‘This makes a great deal of sense, of course,’ said Brightsword, ‘but what does it matter? Whoever they were, those people are long gone. This world belongs to the tau alone.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said O’Shoh.

‘Commander?’ said Sha’vastos. ‘You doubt our right to rule this world?’

‘No, I do not,’ said O’Shoh. ‘I purely hypothesise that the orks have invaded this planet before. The event that erased them from history was apocalyptic, and I believe it was artificially induced by the former people of Arkunasha. Its echoes can be felt even now, in the storms. Whilst we are fighting the planet as well as the invaders, we cannot win.’

‘But how is this useful to us?’

‘He theorises that the rust devils are sentient,’ said Brightsword, cutting to the heart of it, ‘and attracted by bloodshed.’

‘That is a massive oversimplification,’ said O’Shoh hurriedly. ‘I believe the rust storms are attracted to certain electromagnetic patterns. It is hardly the same thing. We must set the environment against the foe, and set the fear the storms inspire against them and not us. There is something unnatural about these storms. It may sound ridiculous, but there is extensive evidence that those lost to them are drained entirely of blood.’

‘That much I know,’ said Sha’vastos. ‘My recon cadres have found similar evidence across the planet.’

‘What? You’re telling me you knew about this? That these findings were cached?’

‘Of course. They make for disturbing reading. The locations of these cadavers and those of recent rust storm activity correlate precisely. So far, there have been eighteen cases where a rust storm has risen in the vicinity of an existing conflict. The corpses left behind are always exsanguinated.’

‘I was not told about this phenomenon,’ said O’Shoh. ‘There was nothing of the sort mentioned in my brief.’

‘Perhaps the ethereals considered it a distracting anomaly.’

‘Perhaps.’

An awkward moment of silence passed.

‘It has occurred to me…’ began Sha’vastos, glancing nervously around the room.

‘Go on,’ said O’Shoh.

‘It is possible the ethereals are deliberately suppressing the truth, and I think I can see why. If there are civilisations in this galaxy capable of reducing entire worlds to dust, that fact alone would be a shocking blow to tau morale. The notion that such an event was in response to an ork infestation would only compound the issue.’

‘The war would be as good as lost.’

‘I believe so. Even so, by keeping such truths even from senior caste members, the ethereals are hindering our chances of victory.’

O’Shoh’s head began to throb. It was hard indeed to hear the judgement of the ethereals questioned, especially by his own caste.

‘They have judged this the most appropriate course for the Tau’va,’ he said. ‘Let that be the end of it. I will not speak of this knowledge to any save yourselves, yet we must act on these findings to our advantage. We must understand this world if we are to save it.’

‘To reach the heavens,’ quoted Sha’vastos, ‘a warrior must look to the earth.’

‘Just so,’ said O’Shoh. ‘We must harness these storms and use them against the orks wherever we strike. Given the durability of the bio-domes, we can scatter or slay the foe whilst theoretically leaving those stranded inside completely intact.’

‘It is a highly unconventional plan,’ said Sha’vastos, ‘and one that requires bait.’

‘I intend to supply it,’ replied O’Shoh. ‘When the time comes, will you both join me?’

‘If you can prove these storms can be predicted, and even used as a weapon,’ said Sha’vastos, ‘then I will follow your lead in a microdec.’

‘It certainly sounds feasible,’ said Brightsword, ‘and extremely dangerous. I’ll be there.’

‘We cannot allow the populace to know of this strategy,’ said O’Shoh.

‘Agreed,’ said Brightsword and Sha’vastos in unison.

The three made the sign of the Tau’va, as binding an oath as any tau needed.

‘There is another matter I wish to discuss,’ said O’Shoh, ‘that of ork leadership.’

‘Their command structure is based on physical ability alone,’ said Sha’vastos.

‘A common perception,’ replied O’Shoh, ‘though I believe there is more to it. When Brightsword and I engaged an ork convoy, the destruction of their vehicles led to a great many being left behind in the desert.’

‘We know they are a selfish race,’ said Sha’vastos.

‘They can afford such losses. They thrive on war. To fight them on equal terms is to lose as soon as the first shot is fired. However, without their vehicles, and without their equivalent of an earth caste to rebuild them, the orks are left to roam the dunes at the mercy of the rust storms. They will become divided to the point of vulnerability.’

Sha’vastos nodded slowly. ‘Do you propose a cull of their mechanic caste?’

‘More than that,’ said O’Shoh. ‘I propose we cut down the mechanic and medic castes alike – steal their mobility, and rob them of their capacity to bring their leaders back into the fight. We will also refine our long-range assassination of their largest members.’

‘Widen the kill parameters?’ asked Brightsword.

‘Essentially, yes. We disseminate new targeting programs and take out everything substantially larger than the mean average at range. Without obvious contenders to command them, the orks will be easily goaded into leadership challenges. Their warrior castes will then fight amongst themselves, and the violence will escalate to such a degree it summons the rust storms.’

Brightsword nodded, his eyes alight.

‘We disappear before the tempest hits, and let Arkunasha do the rest.’

Smiling, O’Shoh made the sign of the-avalanche-that-kills.

‘A cogent plan,’ said Sha’vastos, nodding approvingly. ‘Though how will you recognise their specialist castes? They do not differ in size from common orks.’

‘They wear sigils to denote their status,’ said O’Shoh.

He flicked a prepared display onto the curving data wall at the back of the bridge. It showed stills of a dozen different ork glyphs, each a crude rendition of an abstract concept.

‘I registered these on my research mission. This symbol denotes rank,’ said O’Shoh, highlighting a stylised lower jaw with jutting tusks. ‘And this, presumably intended to depict a tool, denotes the earth caste equivalent. The symbol to the right of it is a stylised syringe. It is indicative of their medical staff.’

‘I had not credited the ork race with a written language,’ said Sha’vastos.

‘They have one,’ said O’Shoh, nodding. ‘It is similar to the pict-tongue the kroot carve into the trees of Pech. The numerals the orks use are based on a tally system, albeit one that appears to have no number higher than five.’

Brightsword gave a barking laugh of contempt.

‘Our cadres will snipe those enemy vehicles that bear such insignia, then,’ said Sha’vastos, ‘and their comrades, in their haste to find their persecutors, will leave their masters in the dust. Only then do our second elements deliver the Mont’ka, leaving the hordes leaderless and without medical aid.’

O’Shoh nodded, his expression cold. ‘Wrestle not the giant,’ he quoted, ‘but strike at his head and heart.’

‘This plan has elements of the genius I hoped you would display upon arrival,’ said Sha’vastos. His face was alight with hope, all traces of recrimination long gone. ‘Still, one question remains – why do the rust storms drain blood and nothing else?’

O’Shoh looked out the viewscreen at the infinite desert, his forehead furrowed. He turned and met Sha’vastos’s eyes, making the open-handed gesture of the unknown void.

10-0

THE RUST WASTES, NORTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARKUNASHA

‘Drokk it!’ shouted Garguk as a stikkbomb rebounded from the back of his head. He spun around and kicked it hard. The cudgel-like grenade exploded in Frukk’s face, a shower of bone and blood covering the gathered orkoid throng.

‘I’m da boss here,’ growled Garguk. ‘Rozgob got our ride shot up, so we gotta do this my way. Any more lip an’ you’ll end up like Frukk there – wivout a face to call yer own.’

‘Sez who?’ growled Urgat, twirling the stikkbomb pin still dangling on his finger. ‘I reckon I could take yer wiv one leg tied behind me back.’

Urgat leered nastily. Then his head exploded in a puff of red mist. The whip-crack sound of a distant shot echoed across the red wastes as the ork’s decapitated corpse toppled into the rust.

‘Ha!’ said Garguk. ‘Havin’ second thoughts, Urgat?’

‘Boss,’ said a runt hiding behind Garguk’s leg, ‘I reckon the shootin’ came from over there.’ The snot-nosed creature pointed a spindly limb at the horizon. Garguk couldn’t see anything more than a vague shimmer in the gloom.

‘Garguk ain’t boss,’ shouted Bad Hurk. He shook his snazzgun menacingly. ‘Spitta here sez I’m da boss, and that’s that.’

‘That fing’s a piece a junk,’ said Oggo the Mek.

‘Wot did you say?’ roared Hurk, spittle flying from his mouth. He swung the snazzgun round, levelling all five muzzles at Oggo’s metal jaw.

The mek didn’t so much as flinch. ‘I could fix it up. Give ya more dakka wiv a simple tweak of the gubbinz inside. Ten teef, to a flash git like you.’ The mek yanked out a large spanner and held it up, eyebrows raised in silent question.

A moment later his neck flew apart in an explosion of blood. His steel-plated skull spun away, rebounding from Garguk’s boot.

‘Oi!’ Garguk shouted at the horizon. ‘Leave it out, ya grot-fondlin’ lumpa squig dung!’

The side of a grabba pole smacked into his head.

‘Wot’s wrong wiv grots, Garguk?’ said Boggok. The old runtherd squared up to stand a few inches from Garguk’s face, his eyes pinched and red. ‘An’ who sez I ain’t the boss?’

‘You?’ sneered Garguk. ‘You’re a pig-stinkin’ fat-arse wiv a fancy pole.’

Stepping back, Boggok caught a nearby snotling with his grabba stikk and shoved it hard between Garguk’s jaws. ‘Choke on it, Garguk,’ said Boggok, turning his grabba stikk around and sticking the reeling ork’s throat with its zapper prongs.

It was the only signal the mob needed. Pandemonium broke out as half of the ork veterans decided they should be in control, and set about proving it at the expense of the other half.

The last thing Garguk saw was a shimmering black disc zipping off into the sky.

The Rust Wastes, Southern Hemisphere, Arkunasha

‘Now watch this grouping,’ said O’Shoh to the officers gathered around him, ‘the larger specimens in particular.’

A loose mob of a dozen orks milled on the curved viewscreen of the Constellation of Hopes. As the officers watched, a muscular ork warrior took a spearing blow to the throat. It was flung out of frame, blood jetting from its neck.

‘With the largest of their number disabled, they will attempt to establish dominance almost immediately. These guttural sounds you hear are challenges and insults.’

Several of the fire caste nodded, murmuring in appreciation at the sight of another greenskin leader being cut down.

‘Commendable finesse,’ said Shas’nel Xo, the corners of his scar-twisted mouth twitching. ‘It is always gratifying to watch our pathfinders go about their work. This drone footage is remarkable.’

‘Observe,’ said O’Shoh. ‘An alpha life form will try to restore order.’

The orks were shoving and punching each other, but one of their cyborg medical caste was restoring order by jabbing troublemakers with a long syringe. O’Shoh highlighted the medic with an eye-flick and spoke into his headset communion bead.

‘Rail rifle shot please, Team Thoro.’

A heartbeat later, the ork cyborg’s head exploded in a puff of red mist. Guttural roars rose from the speaker arrays as the fighting began anew.

Por’o Kais spoke up from the curving arc of the Constellation’s command tier. ‘Impressive. I have my magisters working on translations of these latest challenges even now. The earth caste are recutting them into broadcast subroutines.’

‘An elegant solution, Commander Shoh,’ said Admiral Li’mau Teng, ‘to set the beast upon itself. It chews its own tail in frustration, unable to heal.’

‘More than that, we shall soon set the environment against the foe,’ said O’Shoh, ‘and play on their weaknesses in doing so.’

‘The commander has the key, I believe, to winning the war,’ said Sha’vastos. He pressed an update visor against his temples as he leaned back in his command throne. ‘According to the sub-orbitals, the orks’ numbers are already thinning considerably. We are able to dispatch our Crisis teams upon sabotage operations once more.’

O’Shoh turned to the assembled officers. ‘The ork warriors have a physical hierarchy that is well known,’ he said. ‘However, I suspect their tribal groupings operate in much the same way. The bigger tribes dominate the smaller ones across the planet. Should all the groupings be kept roughly the same size, the resultant civil war could be prolonged indefinitely.’

‘And the death count rises, even when we are not there,’ said Brightsword from O’Shoh’s left.

‘Genius,’ said Admiral Teng.

‘Pragmatism, but thank you nonetheless,’ replied O’Shoh. ‘Now, if I could draw your attention to Sector 13-2.’

A convoy of ork vehicles resolved into focus as a monitor drone drew close.

‘The nomad clan,’ he continued. ‘Their signifier is a grimacing sunburst. I studied this particular grouping first hand in a research mission. Commander Brightsword was kind enough to join me. I believe this particular tribe governs leadership potential by the velocity a driver can attain, rather than his physical size.’

O’Shoh zoomed in on the hurtling, crimson-daubed monstrosities at the convoy’s fore.

‘My teams have honed this particular Mont’ka strike to perfection. They have intercepted the invaders towards Transit Bridge 181. Observe the ork behaviour when the fastest of their number is removed from the equation.’

The impact of heavy rail rifle fire punched the speeding red juggernaut at the head of the convoy into a slewing crash. It flipped and rolled, sending up a wall of oxide particles. Almost immediately, the wheeled vehicles in its wake accelerated into the rust clouds in a bid to lead the charge.

O’Shoh thumbed his communion bead once more.

‘Detonate.’

On screen, the end section of Transit Bridge 181 crumbled away into the chasm, leaving a wall of pale rock dust behind.

‘I estimate one third of the ork column will fall into the trap,’ said O’Shoh. ‘The casualties will include all of the tribe’s ruling caste. The rest of the rabble will soon fall to infighting.’

The leaders of the impromptu ork convoy, each powering into the rust clouds as fast as their vehicles could carry them, pitched right over the edge of the chasm. Articulated battle fortresses, junk tankers, souped-up dragsters, prong-jawed tank wagons and even fat-wheeled warbikes found themselves going too fast to stop.

By the time the rest of the ork column had slewed to a halt, their entire vanguard had been swallowed by the chasm.

Murmurs of appreciation filled the room.

‘And now the internecine conflict will begin,’ said O’Shoh. His cold and humourless smile was half-lit by the wide viewscreen.

A few long moments of strained silence passed. Sporadically at first, but then with gathering volume, the orks started hurling recriminations and curses at each other. One of the roof gunners opened fire with a sponson-mounted machine gun, and sparks flew across a dozen red-painted roofs. Whenever a larger ork emerged to restore order, the red dot of a pathfinder’s markerlight would appear, and the ork’s head would explode.

Spellbound, the fire caste officers looked on as the entire ork column erupted into an anarchic close-range gunfight.

‘This is one of two hundred and sixteen Mont’ka variants that are taking place as we speak,’ said O’Shoh.

‘By the Tau’va,’ wheezed Teng, ‘you seem to know everything before it happens, commander. Are you sure this is not archive material?’

O’Shoh could hear the jest in the admiral’s tone, but he enlarged the readouts nonetheless.

‘Observe the timestamp, admiral. It is simply a matter of understanding ork psychology.’

‘I offer contrition, commander,’ said Teng as he got to his feet. ‘And if you will excuse me, I will leave immediately. It seems I finally have some pleasant news for Master Aun’Tal.’

11-0

THE RUST WASTES, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARKUNASHA

Dok Toofjaw paced amidst the roofless wreckage of a gun-runt transport dome. Rubble-strewn tunnels reached out like shattered spokes, each opening painted with his war leaders’ personal glyphs.

Toofjaw looked behind him to the trio of killa kans that formed his orderlies, each squat walker covered in a bloodstained apron. An old joke, those outfits, but one he’d kept for a reason: if the ladz thought he was a bit mad, so much the better.

‘There’s one comin’ now, painboss,’ said Droggok, lounging in an improvised hammock of cables. The mek wiggled one of his best screwdrivers into a cavernous nostril. His skullcap fizzed sparks, and he sat up with a bark of pain. Nearby, Krobb guffawed with laughter.

A wide-shouldered ork with a snowplough jaw emerged from the farthest tunnel, tasselled greatcoat flapping in the hot desert wind. He had a multi-barrelled gun slung on an ammo strap in such a way that it just happened to be pointing in their direction.

‘Dok,’ said the figure, tipping his ostentatious hat.

‘Grogboss,’ said Toofjaw. ‘I hear you been scrappin’ wiv my lot.’

‘So what?’ replied the new arrival, taking a swig from a dusty bottle.

Before Toofjaw could reply, the flatulent roar of a speedster engine filled the air. A gun-trike the size of a battlewagon growled in through the largest of the transit tubes.

‘Show-off,’ muttered Toofjaw.

A grinning loon of an ork slammed back the corrugated panel of the giant gun-trike’s cockpit. Dozens of teeth, every one a spent bullet casing, glinted in the sun.

‘Wotcher, Dok,’ said Redd da Bullit. He vaulted from the cockpit and swung out, crunching heavily into the rubble.

Five out of nine bosses left, thought Toofjaw. Good enough.

‘Right, lissen up you lot. Them gun-runts still ain’t up for a proper scrap. They keep shootin’ bosses and knockin’ out wagons.’

Redd da Bullit nodded sagely. ‘Can’t let ’em kill our wheels.’

‘Not in the desert,’ said Toofjaw. ‘Not wiv them storms. They’re bad news. Good news is, I still got a plan.’

‘Better be a good one,’ said Grogboss. ‘We can’t fight wot keeps disappearin’. I’ve lost too many mobs that way already, and Crossbones’s lot are pickin’ fights every chance they get.’

‘I lost a pair o’ squiggoths meself,’ said Krobb, scratching his chained squighound just above its eyes. As the beast herder straightened to his full height, the monster-hunting stick figures tattooed across his gut distorted strangely. ‘It was them desert ghosts wot killed ’em, I reckon.’

‘Yeah, them ghosts wiv da guns,’ leered Grogboss. Toofjaw stared daggers at him. The freebooter and the Snakebite chieftain had always hated each other, but they could ill afford yet more division between the tribes.

‘Speakin’ o’ guns,’ said Droggok, fiddling with his bionic eye, ‘we’re runnin’ outta dakka. We keep on lettin’ these gun-runts pick off our meks and we won’t have no Waaagh! left.’

‘Shut it, you,’ said Dok Toofjaw, his killsaws whirring menacingly. ‘Now listen up. First, we’re gonna take the farthest one of them bubble-domes out fer good, and nab as many gun-runts as we can.’

‘Can’t get through the walls, boss,’ said Droggok, grinning helpfully.

‘I know that, Droggok,’ said the Dok through gritted teeth. ‘That’s why we’re gonna cheat. Oi, Skrawn!’

A gangling ork with vomit stains on his brightly patterned clothing sat up from the shade of a ruined tunnel. The small rocks that had been drifting around his head dropped suddenly to the sand.

‘I din’t do nuffin’ boss!’ the weirdboy blurted.

‘Skrawn, what did you tell me yesterday?’

‘Er… that squig curry was bad for ya guts, boss.’

‘I mean about the dream, Skrawn,’ said Toofjaw, his killsaws revving.

‘Oh yeah, er… the dream. Well, I reckon I could swap my dream of being inside them dome fings, lookin’ at sleepin’ gun-runts, with us lot being outside the domes. Sorta like a tellyporta.’

‘Right. So in other words, you can get us in.’

The warbosses looked at each other in eager bloodlust, grins plastered across their faces.

‘Redd,’ continued the painboss, ‘you and your speed freeks are gonna smash up some o’ them fancy flyin’ tanks. Krobb, you hit the rest wiv a squiggoth stampede. Keep ’em distracted.’

The chieftains nodded. Redd’s shell-case grin grew even wider.

‘Grogboss, you and yer flash gitz deal wiv them flyin’ robot fings, if yer can stay sober enough ta shoot straight. Meantime, Skrawn gets me and the killa kanz inside.’

‘Then wot, Dok?’

‘Then I get busy carvin’ ‘til the boss gun-runt shows.’

Krobb’s squighound began to yap and snarl crazily, leaping at a patch of empty sky and thrashing on its lead.

‘Zoggin’ eck, Sniffa, give it a rest,’ said Krobb. ‘He keeps doin’ that. Barkin’ at nuffink.’

‘You’re a pig-stinkin’ fat-arse wiv a fancy pole!’ said a disembodied ork voice.

Toofjaw started, looking around at Grogboss, but he seemed just as nonplussed.

‘You wot?’ said Krobb, picking up his grabba pole. ‘You talkin’ about me, are ya?’

‘Leave it out, ya grot-fondling lumpa squig dung!’

Toofjaw cast about for the culprit, killsaws revving, but the source of the insults was still a mystery.

‘Lumpa wot?’ said Krobb, stomping purposefully towards Grogboss. ‘You got the guts to say that again?’

By the beast herder’s side, the squighound was going crazy. It was making it hard to think.

‘You two,’ said Dok Toofjaw, ‘cut it out. Now.’

‘Yeah,’ laughed Redd da Bullit, already halfway up to his absurd vehicle’s cab, ‘don’t make me gun you losers down.’

‘That fing’s a piece a junk,’ said an ork voice from behind Toofjaw.

‘A piece a junk?’ choked Redd. He grabbed a kustom slugga from the driving seat and pointed it at Toofjaw. ‘I’ll show you wot’s junk, ya mad git. Robbit, ready da guns!’

Two triple-barrelled cannons cranked up from the rear of Redd’s gun-trike, shivering around until they were pointing in Toofjaw’s direction.

This time, the Dok was shocked to find the disembodied voice from behind him was unquestionably his own.

‘It’s shootin’ time now, ya mouthy git.’

Every one of the warbosses bared their tusks.

Then the gun-trike fired, and things got really ugly.

The Dome of Infinite Horizons,
Bio-dome 1-1, North Hex, Arkunasha

In the amphitheatre of the Dome of Infinite Horizons, the tau officers watched the ork leaders blasting away at each other. One of the greenskin war-chiefs was already down, and the others were withdrawing into the shattered transit tunnels.

Despite the ache behind his eyes, O’Shoh thought he could happily watch the footage a dozen times over.

‘These specific tribes will not fight alongside each other for some time, Master Aun’Tal,’ he said. The ethereal at the centre of the amphitheatre nodded. ‘In this way, we shatter the cohesion of the foe. While he reels, we use the desert as our ally, scattering the hordes into nothingness.’

Around him, the caste council and Aun’Tal’s honour guard watched in respectful silence. To O’Shoh’s great relief, both El’Vesa and Tutor Sha’kan’thas were conspicuous by their absence, and not a single challenge had been levelled at his strategy. All eyes were on the ethereal as the drone footage showed ork leaders fleeing into the desert.

‘Admiral Li’mau Teng,’ said Aun’Tal. ‘On wings of hope, you have borne to me the gift of joyous news. Our once-errant warrior has returned to the fold.’

The willowy tau elder bowed extravagantly, smiling widely at the ethereal’s approval. O’Shoh’s own smile was a modest acknowledgement. Within, his heart leapt.

The ethereal turned to face O’Shoh, raising his arms in a gesture of blessing. His honour guard stepped forwards, forming a hemisphere around their master and raising their ceremonial swords in salute.

‘Commander Shoh of the fire caste,’ said Aun’Tal, ‘you have opened our eyes to a new way of defeating the ork menace. You clearly not only understand the minds of these beasts, but can also predict their behaviour.’

O’Shoh bowed his head and knelt in humble acknowledgement.

‘For this prescience,’ continued Aun’Tal, ‘you may stand up not as O’Shoh, the Inner Light, but as O’Shovah.’

A burning well of pride filled O’Shovah’s chest as he got to his feet, drinking in the honour the ethereal had given him. Shovah was a rare name element indeed; it was given only to those who saw into the future, guiding the tau for the Greater Good.

A moment of respectful silence passed, the caste council bowing as one. Aun’Tal made an inverted gesture of dismissal and left the room, his honour guard close behind.

There was a long pause, the atmosphere in the amphitheatre one of restrained jubilation.

‘So,’ said Sha’vastos, ‘what are our orders, Commander Farsight?’

12-0

THE RUST WASTES, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARKUNASHA

Brightsword revelled in the feeling of familiarity as he tipped his custom XV8 into a long horizontal swoop. Behind him was an entire hunter cadre, and behind that, led to battle in their wake, was an Arkunashan storm of terrifying intensity.

To say O’Shovah’s new strategy was audacious was an understatement, even to one as adventurous as Brightsword, but after the commander’s recent restoration to full caste council status, no one was foolish enough to disagree with it. Still, his instructions had caused many raised eyebrows and extensive clarification requests from Tutor Sha’kan’thas.

The ork beast was already blind, Commander Farsight had said. Its claws had been blunted. The vast majority of the ork outriders, air cover and heavy gun batteries belonged to specific tribes, tribes that had been split away from the main invasion force by the dissent the fire caste had sown amongst them. Now was the perfect time to attack the army of the warlord that called itself ‘Tooth Jaw’, with mobility as their foremost weapon. They were to ambush the slow-moving horde that remained, kill the leader of the ork invasion and escape before the rust storms moved in.

Behind the three advance cadres roaring across the desert were several Devilfish transports, each bearing a crack team of pathfinders. Brightsword had been assigned to coordinate their mission in person. Over the course of the last few decs, they had cut down one ork patrol after another, leaving smoking wreckage and pillars of greasy flame in their wake.

It was not long before the orks came looking for the perpetrators en masse.

Brightsword’s hunter cadre, united in a two-pronged Mont’ka strategy with Farsight’s own, had cut down orks by the hundred. The orks had fought back with great fury, and the cadres had lost over thirty tau as a result.

It was a high cost to the cadres, but it had worked. The cyclonic storm prowling nearby had changed direction towards the site of the battle, just as Farsight had predicted it would. Now it raged behind them with a terrifying intensity.

‘Lay meat before the hydra’s lair,’ Farsight had transmitted to his fellow commanders, ‘and it shall come to you.’

The cadres shot across the desert at maximum speed, the roiling wall of a rust storm rolling in behind them.

From Brightsword’s viewpoint, it looked huge and angry enough to swallow the world.

Bio-dome 31-8, Arkunasha

From the highest vantage point of Bio-dome 31-8, Mentor Y’eln stared out across the dunes. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she clutched a stolen pulse pistol in both hands, the weapon as familiar now as her notation disc. She had been the first to spot the dust wall, and the first to realise its significance. Hard-locking her transmission codes into the broadcast network, she had overridden the cycling propaganda broadcasts and brought the entire complex to high alert, its rail rifle turrets mag-loaded and poised for the fight to come.

She already knew it would not be enough. The black-green horde ploughing towards them was immense. She had dreamed of this moment; somewhere in their number was an ork that knew how to get past their walls.

This would be no siege. It would be a massacre.

The Rust Wastes, Southern Hemisphere, Arkunasha

A strident chime came across the cadre-net: a transmission from the air caste’s drone network, its data-voice perfectly androgynous.

‘Ork war horde inbound upon Bio-dome 31-8,’ it said. ‘Estimated number at thirteen thousand and nine hundred infantry, six hundred and fifteen bipedal vehicles. Air cover minimal.’

Brightsword felt the fires in his soul flare at the thought of so many orks on the attack. Yet his ire was dampened by a chill mist of regret. His eugenics cycle had barely begun; to die here would be to leave no legacy other than an early martyrdom.

As Brightsword touched down at the muster site, the commander-level data-net displayed the flattened icons of stealth drones flanking the slow-moving ork horde. Their footage confirmed Farsight’s suspicions. Marching at the head of the invading horde was a massive, cybernetic ork warrior with buzzsaws in place of hands: ‘Tooth Jaw’ himself. Brightsword zoomed out again, his screen filling with countless greenskins.

The storm front was less than a kilometre behind the ork horde. Up ahead, the horizon was broken by the hemispherical complexes of Bio-dome 31-8. The tau cadres had a matter of demidecs to slay the ork leader caste before the horde launched its attack on the beleaguered settlement. Only once the decapitating blow had fallen could the hunter cadres look to escape, flying out to the safety of the air caste ships in low orbit. Bereft of leaders and the vehicles to carry them away, the milling ork infantry would be easy prey for the ghost storm Farsight had drawn towards them with his earlier Mont’ka.

It was a bold plan, to say the least.

Brightsword flicked up the environ display once more. In their wake, the ghost storm howled ever closer, hungry and mad.

Gold symbols blossomed across his command suite as Commander Farsight finally gave the order to attack.

‘All battlesuit teams, with me,’ transmitted Brightsword across his cadre-net. ‘Ranged elements, continue past the horde and await those driven before the storm.’

Affirmation symbols flicked across the commander’s own isometrics. Shas’nel Xo’s Devilfish transports began to accelerate as the cadre’s battlesuit teams chimed in one by one. When the last of his cadre had confirmed understanding, Brightsword fired his jets at maximum burst and hurtled over the dune’s crest.

The ork horde ahead was immense, covering the undulating landscape far into the distance. Its spilling mass was lit by shafts of evening sunlight that refracted through the upper panels of Bio-dome 31-8. Looming, fat-bellied walkers lurched and staggered in the midst of the horde, grotesque in appearance but all the more menacing for it.

Farsight’s own cadre of battlesuits was attacking from above, each team diving down with the sun behind it. Brightsword eye-flicked a gun drone to detach from his XV8 bodyguard team and record the commander’s actions. He would not miss this, not for the world.

Explosions rippled across the outlying elements of the ork horde as team after team fired volleys from their missile pods. Wherever one of the enemy walkers hobbled around to return fire, a battlesuit would dart in from above to core it through with a column of plasma.

Brightsword touched down for a moment at the edge of the horde, crunching into the rust behind a team of orks with heavy gun-harnesses. Crossing his battlesuit’s wrists, he activated his fusion blasters and whipped them out wide. Twin arcs of fusion energy cut through the orks, and the ruined halves of his victims fell cauterised to the floor.

A great roar went up from the orks as the slow-witted beasts realised they were under attack. A primitive rocket corkscrewed skywards from the ork ranks, then another, then a dozen hurtled up at once. The twilight was suddenly filled with weapons fire, tracer rounds punctuating a storm of lead. Brightsword boosted back with his battlesuit’s feet barely a metre from the ground, eye-flicking his teams to form a wedge behind him.

‘Keep low, trusted ones,’ transmitted Brightsword. ‘Locate and assassinate. Only engage with the rank and file if absolutely necessary.’

‘Affirmed, commander.’

Brightsword turned away, taking a stream of automatic weapons fire on the shoulder of his battlesuit before boosting in hard. There was killing to be done.

Commander Farsight dropped down into the great ridged furrow his cadre’s firepower had cut into the foremost portion of the ork horde. Not much of a defensible position, but the fire caste was not concerned with territory; in a matter of microdecs, it would become entirely irrelevant.

‘Secure the beachhead and watch for the leader caste,’ transmitted Farsight, eye-looping priority kills. ‘Ork designated “Tooth Jaw” is first priority. Maintain range whenever possible.’

To either side of Farsight’s position, flamer-wielding battlesuits burned back the orks spilling over the dunes towards them. A loose mob clad in crude, piston-driven armour lumbered over the ridge just as a clanking walker lurched down the furrow’s other side.

Farsight focused his eyes on different screens and thought fast. He triggered his firing solution, hitting two of the armoured orks full in the face with a pair of plasma bolts whilst his fusion blaster sliced the ork walker into a hissing ruin. The thing came on nonetheless, pincer arms snapping as gobbets of liquefied metal sprayed from its bifurcated torso.

Farsight rolled to the side and triggered his jets, punching his shoulder into the half-molten walker. The impact sent it staggering into an ork too slow to get out of the way. The walker fell onto its back, exposing a dense mass of wiring under its barrel torso. Farsight took his shot, detonating its power core and bracing to lean his shield generator into the resultant explosion.

A wide disc of energy flared white. The backlash knocked the rest of the armoured orks onto their backs, limbs flailing like upended beetles.

‘Hunter Team Va’shya, consolidate and destroy,’ said Farsight.

Almost immediately, a Devilfish transport moved in behind him, its fire warrior passengers disembarking to put kill shots into the downed orks.

Then the ghost storm broke over them.

A wall of tiny, jagged fragments flew horizontally, hurled by a hurricane as hot as arterial blood. Farsight altered his stance, but knew he could not resist for long. The storm’s gale force was so powerful it had knocked every one of the nearby fire warrior team from their feet, tearing a helmet from one of their number and snatching the pulse rifles from two more.

Farsight found his battlesuit jerked sidelong, his control cocoon swaying as he fought to restore equilibrium. He boosted into the wind, zooming in on the fallen fire warriors. They were all struggling to their feet; the one without a helmet was clutching a mask of blood where his face ought to be.

Farsight compensated for the gale and leapt, landing with a crunch a few feet from the stricken trooper. He boosted his energy shield to full for a moment, throwing a shallow dome of force around the fire warriors stood in his battlesuit’s lee.

A signal of thanks appeared on the commander’s distribution array as the fire warriors scrambled back to the Devilfish struggling nearby. Blipping a gold symbol of his own to the fire warrior team, Farsight strode to the lip of the furrow. He monitored his generator levels, noticing a small icon blinking to catch his attention: the upgrade protocol El’Vesa had appended to his shield program.

The commander was about to investigate when a brutish ork wielding a giant twin-bladed axe crested the dune, a dozen more following behind it. Unbidden, a Crisis XV8 suit emerged from the commander’s right to bathe the thing in fire. The ork came on regardless, green flesh blistered black. Farsight’s olfactory relays conveyed the stink of its burning flesh as a nearby fire warrior team picked off the smaller orks in its wake.

When the leader-creature was close enough to touch, the commander levelled the oblong muzzle of his fusion blaster and discharged a beam of blinding light. The ork’s eyes and mouth glowed white for a microdec before it simply disintegrated.

‘My thanks for the distraction, Shas’ui Tharota,’ Farsight transmitted to the nearby XV8. The icon of affirmation stuttered on his display in response. In the storm, communications were limited to short bursts at best.

Gaining the crest of the shallow furrow and pounding down the other side, Farsight saw a burning tau gunship dug prow-first in a rust dune. Even over the storm, the stink of its electrical fires bled into his sensor suite. Atop the fallen skimmer was a baying mob of orks holding primitive rocket launchers above their heads. One of the hunter cadre’s Piranhas hissed over a dune to intercept them, but the two-man craft did little more than wobble crazily before being yanked away by the tempest.

‘All skimmers, stay low. I repeat, stay low.’

Farsight made a quick calculation and leapt right into the wind’s fierce embrace, letting it carry him towards the ork tank hunters. Pivoting with a burst of thrust, he kicked one of the beasts from the tank’s cupola before reducing its brutish comrades to clouds of blood with successive shots from his plasma rifle.

The commander landed on the far side of the Hammerhead gunship with a crunch, his gyrostabilisers fighting to compensate for the hurricane wind. According to his meteorological readouts, the storm was the most violent they had yet encountered.

He was beginning to fear that he had led Arkunasha’s cadres into a battle they could not possibly win.

To the east, a swarm of minor orkoids scampered over the dune’s crest, jabbering and screaming in their unintelligible tongue. There were hundreds of them, clambering and gouging at each other in their haste. Farsight eye-flicked the symbol of the nearest flamer-pattern Crisis suits.

‘Team Ghuo, come in,’ he transmitted, his tone terse. ‘Deal with this distraction.’

Affirmative gold winked on his sensor suite. A moment later, a pair of Crisis suits flanked him. Taking a low firing stance, their flamers poured fire across the dunes. The orkoid creatures shrieked high and loud, thrashing in agony as their limbs burned tinder-thin.

Their screams were muffled by a pounding reverberation. A scattering of sand spilled from the crest of the dunes nearby. With a jolt, Farsight realised the diminutive orkoids had not been attacking, but fleeing something far larger.

The quadruped was immense, a scaly monstrosity as large as an Orca drop-ship. It bellowed against the storm, giant jaws gaping wide. Its metal-bound tusks scattered battlesuits and skimmer tanks alike as it ploughed towards Farsight’s position.

‘Broadsides, engage on my mark!’ he shouted as he ran in to intercept the beast. Team Shu’lythan blipped an engagement signal.

The distinctive whip-crack of heavy rail rifle fire cut across the white noise of the rust storm. Four jets of gore erupted from the beast’s flank, black blood gushing from the cratered ruin the Broadside salvo had left behind.

Somehow the thing still came on. It stamped a malfunctioning battlesuit into a crumpled heap of alloy and plastic, before barging a Hammerhead gun-skimmer onto its side as its driver fought to pivot away.

‘Just kill it, Shu’lythan,’ muttered Farsight.

A microdec later, one of the creature’s rolling eyes turned into a black pit, the telltale crack of a heavy rail rifle not far behind. The beast’s front legs gave way and it fell, gouging its enormous tusks into the horde of orkoid slave-creatures. Commander Farsight allowed himself a thin smile.

‘Fine work, shas’vre,’ he transmitted, plunging on into the tornado.

The beast had been enormous – exactly the kind of status symbol an ork would find impressive.

The elders had to be close.

Brightsword pounded through the hurricane, the remnants of his scattered cadre fighting to keep up as best they could. According to his sensor suite, Commander Farsight was already over the lip of the next dune, engaging a knot of orks that projected a strange energy signature.

The young commander pushed his jetpack to maximum boost, riding the storm over the dune just in time to see Commander Farsight overload the primitive forcefield protecting his prey. Brightsword arced down, his fusion blasters overlapping to cut a steaming cross into the ork mechanics. His attack left all bar one in scattered pieces.

‘Die, worthless ones,’ Brightsword said through his XV8’s vocalisers. ‘This planet is ours!’

Farsight blipped the sign of appreciation before striding into the storm. Impossibly, the rust hurricane was intensifying. Brightsword spared a glance at his environ suite. Somehow, the eye of the storm that should have been inbound on their position had vanished.

Farsight’s plan had been to let the storm rage over them until they were in the relative safety at its heart, but with the deadly gales concentrating their wrath on their position, there was no chance of coordinated escape.

Brightsword pushed on through the storm, blipping a request for new orders just as he saw Farsight put down another two of the enemy. Behind their slumping corpses, a slender ork in brightly coloured clothes was shuddering as if in pain. A great stream of greenish-yellow energy gouted from its mouth, splashing across the front of Farsight’s battlesuit. The commander toppled into the dust. Brightsword punched up the transmission link, but got nothing but static.

Shouting in anger and grief, Brightsword pounded round the edge of a dune’s thin crest. Guns raised, he burst through in a shower of rust. The motley-clad ork turned, gibbering in pure terror as the young commander rose up to his full height.

Brightsword aimed his fusion blasters and slashed. The creature fell apart in three heat-sealed sections, each of which was quickly ripped away into the whirling storm.

He turned and ran back to O’Shovah’s stricken battlesuit. Its plexus hatch was open, foul-smelling smoke gouting from the inside.

The torso unit was empty, its salvation transmitter a molten mess.

Commander Farsight was lost, exposed and alone in a killer storm.

O’Shovah dropped to his knees, hoping to flatten his profile and thereby escape the worst of the airborne maelstrom’s wrath. His skin itched like fury as the rust whipping through the air gnawed at him. Competing instincts warred within him: to cry out for salvation, to run, to fight.

All impossible.

The commander shielded his eyes, squinting through a crack in his fingers as best he could. He was dimly aware that his skin was bleeding from a thousand tiny cuts, but he pushed his fear to one side. A shadowy shape was coming through the storm, something heavy enough to shake the sands.

A buzzsaw swished down through the storm, missing Farsight’s head by a finger’s breadth as he threw himself sidelong. Skidding on his stomach, he scrabbled into the lee of a dune.

‘Why are you making this worse?’ Farsight shouted at the storm, driven half-mad with the pain of the flaying wind. His voice was hoarse, made ancient by rust. ‘We want to stop the orks, just like you did! Don’t you understand? We’re trying to stop them!’

The storm wind shifted direction suddenly, hurling the commander backwards just as Dok Toofjaw loomed from the red-black murk. A rotary saw-arm buzzed out in a killing arc, but found nothing. Undeterred, the ork warlord charged onwards, whipping his lethal disc-saws left and right. Another slash, and Farsight was forced to throw himself backwards, gracelessly tumbling down the dune in a windmill of bleeding limbs.

The fallen commander’s vision was ebbing away when his spine collided with something hard and unyielding. The cracking pain brought him back to full awareness with a sick jolt.

Farsight looked up through ruined fingers to see a massive Broadside battlesuit looming above him. Its plexus hatch hissed wide open. There was no pilot inside.

A ghost, perhaps, thought Farsight.

‘Get in, old friend,’ said the voice of Ob’lotai. ‘We have kills to make.’

13-0

THE RUST WASTES, SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARKUNASHA

The Broadside’s plexus hatch slid closed, cutting out the dreadful howl of the storm. Commander Farsight sank into its control cocoon. A riot of conflicting sensations warred in his head. Crippling pain and crawling unease fought with outrage at what was undoubtedly El’Vesa’s work. The feelings were mingled with relief, and a slow-burning need for revenge – not against the scientist, but the brutal orks.

The flames of Farsight’s righteous anger burned low as he looked at his ravaged fingers. Their tips had been slashed to little more than wet red stumps.

‘I cannot pilot a Hero’s Mantle like this,’ the commander mumbled. ‘Not that this cursed drone-machine is worthy of that title.’

‘Stop mewling and fight,’ said Ob’lotai, flashing rail rifle reticules on the targeting bay. ‘Remember these?’

‘How could I forget?’ said Farsight despite himself. He was fighting a clouding of the mind that threatened to consume him, making him want to kick open the plexus hatch and run out screaming to certain death. This machine was not his friend; it was not the mentor who had taught him the ways of the battlesuit in an early model Broadside. This was an artificial intelligence wearing the persona of a dead warrior, resurrected against his will.

‘It is me, Shoh,’ said Ob’lotai’s voice. ‘The best part of me, at least.’

‘A distorted echo, nothing more,’ spat Farsight.

A scene flashed up on the sensor suite, a relay view of a dome interior filled with starving tau children and mentors aged to little more than skeletons.

‘There’s no time for debate. You have to act, Shoh.’

Another screen flashed up, showing the ork warlord emerging from the rust. Three clanking walkers waddled at his side. A proximity alarm blared. The sound kindled an instinctual response in Farsight’s mind.

‘Back up and designate,’ said O’Shovah. ‘Cascading priority.’

The Broadside obeyed instantly. Without so much as a twitch of Farsight’s finger, the battlesuit swung its weapons around into a rifleman stance.

‘Fire.’

The battlesuit’s crosshairs flared white, and the whip-crack of electromagnetic discharge sent a hypervelocity shot smashing into the foremost ork walker. The thing’s innards blew outwards into the storm, its pilot reduced to red soup.

‘Three paces and re-engage,’ said Farsight.

The Broadside stomped resolutely through the raging storm, its sheer solid weight making it proof against the hurricane. It took a firing stance once more, and another rail rifle round split the air. The second of the three walkers toppled over, its torso gouting greasy flame.

Farsight narrowed his eyes as the third walker changed its course, waddling around and disappearing into the storm.

‘Kill it.’

Ob’lotai took the shot, and the lumpen thing pitched over into the rust.

And then their time ran out.

With a roar, Dok Toofjaw ran out from behind the wreckage of the second walker. His piston-driven armour gouted green steam as he charged in, far faster than Farsight had thought possible.

‘Kill shot on priority target!’ shouted Farsight, eye-flicking a weak spot he was sure would lead to a fatal injury. Ob’lotai was quick to respond. A rail rifle shot punched into the warlord’s gaping mouth and out through the back of its neck.

Incredibly, the beast came on.

‘Step back and repeat, secondary systems too,’ said Farsight, his calm tone belying the turmoil inside. This time, the shot from the twin-linked rail rifle turned the ork warlord’s shoulder into a mass of torn flesh. A moment later, two bolts of plasma fired from Ob’lotai’s shoulder-mounted rifles slammed home, sending one of the cyborg’s saw-limbs spinning into the storm.

‘That all ya got?’ roared Toofjaw, his manic laughter audible over the howl of the storm as he lumbered into a headlong charge.

‘Pull back,’ said Commander Farsight, and the Broadside retreated a few clumsy steps. ‘For the Greater Good, pull back, Ob’lotai!’

Not nearly fast enough.

Proximity alarms blared as the ork warlord slammed into them with the force of an oncoming mag-train. Ob’lotai had braced at the last moment, locking the legs of the battlesuit, presenting an immovable object to the greenskin’s irresistible force. Cyborg and Broadside staggered back from the crushing impact, but Toofjaw was the first to recover. His right killsaw came scything around, and this time it hit home, sawing through the square barrel of Ob’lotai’s twin-linked rail rifle in a shower of sparks. Then Toofjaw’s one-shot rocket launcher spat its payload. The missile ricocheted off the Broadside’s thick torso armour and detonated upon the battlesuit’s plasma rifles, blowing them clean off the suit in an explosion of white flame.

‘Ha!’ shouted the ork, barrelling forwards. ‘No guns now!’

‘All weapon systems neutralised,’ said Ob’lotai.

‘The rail rifle’s still a weapon,’ said Farsight. He eye-flicked a sweeping motion on the targeting bay, and in response Ob’lotai brought his great rifle’s barrel around like a kroot warrior swinging a bladestave. Club-like, it caught Toofjaw hard in the face, sending him sprawling over the crest of a rust dune and sliding away out of sight.

‘So it is,’ said Ob’lotai.

Farsight was already eye-flicking a new course onto the topographical map.

‘Get clear. Discard the rifle. I’ve something else in mind.’

‘According to my sensors, your customised XV8 is beyond repair, Shoh,’ said Ob’lotai.

‘Not all of it,’ Farsight replied.

Farsight’s stricken Crisis suit still lay sparking on the dune, its control cocoon half-filled with rust. Ob’lotai’s sensors threw up dozens of damage reports, but Farsight paid them little heed. He could hear Dok Toofjaw’s howls in the storm, angry and hungry for revenge.

Flashes of battle flared in the rust tempest. The eye of the storm should have been upon them long ago, but the hurricane’s hunger was not yet sated.

It took every ounce of Farsight’s concentration to instruct Ob’lotai in how to detach the Crisis suit’s shield generator and jetpack unit. With nothing but the Broadside’s oversized hands at his command, and the storm raging all around, the transfer operation would have been extremely difficult even for an earth caste scientist. Yet there was no facet of the front-line battlesuit, be it Crisis or Broadside, that Farsight didn’t know inside and out.

By the time his proximity sensor flashed up the icons of incoming orks, Commander Farsight’s salvaged shield generator was chiming in readiness, its programs synchronised with the Broadside’s master suite and El’Vesa’s symbol still winking over its spooling specifications.

Farsight activated the transfer with a single eye-stab. A heartbeat passed, then another.

As realisation dawned, a smile crept over Farsight’s face, the pain in his crippled hands forgotten.

Dok Toofjaw stamped out from the ochre haze, a look of pure hatred twisting his blood-streaked features.

‘These beasts do not give up easily,’ said Ob’lotai.

‘They do not,’ replied Farsight. ‘Yet your creator has given us hope. Thinner force shield, greater burst time.’

Alarms shrieked once more as the ork warlord lurched over the dunes, his limping run gathering speed. Farsight eye-flicked an evasive path, and the Broadside suit lumbered left, cumbersome on the uncertain footing of the dunes.

‘Too slow,’ said Farsight. ‘Brace!’

The ork cyborg launched himself at the Broadside once more, buzzsaws swiping out to chew through the battlesuit’s hip.

‘The shield,’ said Ob’lotai.

‘Agreed,’ said Farsight. ‘Copy my movements.’

He rocked down and to one side in his control cocoon, the Broadside doing the same. Eye-stabbing the shield program to maximum, Farsight brought up his bloody red fist in a looping uppercut.

The battlesuit stooped and brought its own fist upwards just as Toofjaw lunged in for the kill. The knife-thin edge of its new forcefield caught the ork under the chin. As the Broadside made a clumsy leap, an invisible blade of power sliced the ork warlord’s head from his shoulders in a spray of gore. Alien blood boiled across the bladed forcefield until every inch of its crackling edge drizzled red.

The ork’s armoured body slumped lifeless to the sand, its head whipped away by the storm.

‘Ha! Priority kill made,’ transmitted Farsight to his cadres. ‘All units, muster on my signal. Tooth Jaw is dead. Repeat, the warlord Tooth Jaw is dead.’

Within moments, the remnants of Farsight’s hunter cadres had fought their way through the maelstrom to join their commander. Their armour, be it the plate of a footslogging fire warrior or the substance of a noble Crisis suit, had been badly scarred by close engagements, and in some places scoured back to bare metal.

‘Commander?’ queried Sha’vastos, his battlesuit fighting through the storm towards the location of the transmission. ‘You pilot Broadside armour. I do not understand.’

‘No time for that. Report.’

‘The eye of the storm eludes us still. With so many infantry, to attempt a vertical breach would be to waste hundreds of lives.’

Farsight adjusted his shield generator to maximum yield and radius. El’Vesa’s modifications were startlingly effective; the difference in power and versatility was incredible. Burning rust defined the invisible dome as Farsight pushed it to its limit, atomised flinders shimmering like a constellation of tiny supernovas.

‘All cadres, form up on me,’ said Farsight. ‘Crisis teams, shield generators to full. Protocols be damned – burn every asset if you need to. We are leaving.’

With their commander’s shield forging them a path through the hurricane, and his fellow battlesuit pilots shielding those less fortunate, the battered hunter cadres made their way through the storm. Step by step, they trudged tenaciously to the edge of the rust tempest, before finally emerging into the freedom of the open desert.

Exhausted though they were, decimated though they were, by the time the blue sky spread before them every single team was chanting Farsight’s name.

The orks they left behind had no such technology to protect them. Shorn of their leaders and with the storm around them angrier than ever, Arkunasha’s invaders were slowly cut to ribbons.

EPILOGUE

BIO-DOME 31-8, ARKUNASHA

Mentor Y’eln felt long-forgotten muscles tense at the side of her eyes as the rust storm dissipated. The ork horde that had borne down upon them had been broken, and the sight of clear azure skies felt like a message of hope. Bio-dome 31-8 had been crippled by starvation, a third of its number lost since the ork invasion began. At the last minute, though, Commander Farsight had broken the greenskins’ grip.

There was no sign of the smoke-spewing ork aircraft that had once blighted the skies, and not a single greenskin prowled the dunes. Only scattered, bloodless corpses were left where once a besieging army had hollered and bawled.

The mentor shushed the excited babbling of her young charges and climbed the spiral stairs to the balcony, hoping that the perfection of the skies would bear telltale scars.

Sure enough, the triple lines of an air caste supply-drop carved the horizon.

Y’eln made the sign of the Tau’va, and cried tears of joy.

The Rust Wastes, Southern Hemisphere, Arkunasha

To the west, a fat-bellied ork slouched across the dunes. Behind him, a caravan of tusked squiggoths trod the sands, their sweaty stench thick enough to sear the eyes. Mounted atop each squiggoth’s howdah was a team of grots with makeshift telescopes, some of which they were managing to hold the right way round.

One of the grots squealed. Grabbing a red flag from a fellow runt, it waved the pennant frantically and pointed to the shadow of a dune.

Krobb waved a buzz-squig from his head and lumbered over to where the grot was pointing.

Sure enough, there it was.

The beast herder chortled to himself as he made his way into the shadows and picked up a malformed lump of flesh and metal from the rusty sands. Already thinking of where to string his new trophy, he brushed some rust from the disembodied head and turned it round for a proper look.

Dok Toofjaw stared right back, and snarled.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phil Kelly is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 Damocles novella Blood Oath and the Warhammer titles Sigmar’s Blood and Dreadfleet, as well as a number of short stories. He works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham.

An extract from 'The Arkunasha War' by Andy Chambers, taken from Shas’o.

Kreeger found his patron in the scorched hilltop temple he’d taken to haunting since they’d gone to ground on Kliest four months ago. It was a broken place on a broken world and it suited Haniel Mordaine’s mood exquisitely. Of late, the disgraced interrogator had immersed himself in sketching the crumbling statue of Sanguinius Ascendant that loomed over the pulpit like a petrified angel, its wings spread wide to encircle the lost celebrants. It was primitive work, roughly hewn from the local granite, yet its brooding gravity drew Mordaine back day after day. Crumpled parchment littered the ground in testament to his increasingly frenzied attempts to capture the Angel’s essence, and he would sometimes cajole or harangue the effigy as if it were actively opposing his efforts. Kreeger took it all in his stride. Mordaine was a noble and Kreeger had watched over enough of his kind to know they were all crazy. It was probably something in their blue blood.

‘The conclave has our scent again,’ he called, marching up the nave without reverence or reserve. ‘It’s time to move on, duke.’

‘Again?’ Mordaine turned reluctantly from his work. His eyes were like bloodshot sores in the shadow of a handsome face. ‘Are you certain?’

It was an empty question because Kreeger was never less than certain of anything, but it was part of the ritual that had carried them from one failing world to another along the borders of the Damocles Gulf, always one step ahead of the Inquisition and ten more from hope. Perhaps half those worlds, Kliest among them, had been found wanting in their loyalty to the Imperium prior to the crusade, but all were paying the price in murderously increased tithes. Most would be stripped to the bone and abandoned within a scant few centuries.

It sends a message, Grand Master Escher had decreed. If your neighbour falls, you fall. Nothing stimulates loyalty like judiciously applied fear.

‘We need to be off-world tonight,’ Kreeger said, brandishing a sheaf of greasy identity papers. ‘I’ve wangled us passage on a Gulf freighter. No questions asked.’

‘Another cargo hold?’ Mordaine guessed sourly.

‘Fish tank,’ Kreeger corrected. Seeing his employer’s expression he pressed on quickly. ‘Relax, we won’t be sharing, duke. They’ll be filling up at the other end.’ He shrugged. ‘Can’t promise it’ll smell of incense and amasec, but…’

‘It will reek of a billion dead fish.’ Mordaine grimaced. ‘I despise fish, Kreeger.’

‘Lots of fish on Oblazt.’ The old soldier shrugged. ‘Fish, promethium and ice are about all they’ve got.’

‘Oblazt?’ The grimace became a frown. ‘The world with the floating hives?’

‘They call them anchor hives. Build ’em on platforms spiked deep into the ice so they don’t float. The Imperium’s been sucking promethium and fish out from under the ice since forever. There’s a whole ocean buried down there.’ As always, Kreeger had done his groundwork fastidiously. To his mind it was the trick to staying alive.

‘I’m not finished here.’ Mordaine gestured vaguely at the stone angel. ‘Anyway, perhaps it’s time to stop running.’ But there was no sincerity in his voice.

‘Oblazt is the subsector’s breadbasket and promethium wellspring in one,’ Kreeger pressed. ‘The kind of world the tau would make a play for.’

Mordaine hesitated, raking a hand through his lank, grey-streaked hair. ‘Do you have something?’

‘I’ve got a contact.’ Kreeger shrugged again. ‘He calls himself the Calavera.’

THIRTY DAYS BEFORE UNITY
ABOVE THE DOME, VYSHODD ANCHOR HIVE, OBLAZT

The roof of the world was a convex plain of dark rockcrete, blizzard-scoured and barren save for a scattering of blocky maintenance outposts and comms towers. A tracery of thermal capillary pipes shone dully beneath the surface, hissing and steaming as they dissolved the rapacious ice before it could take root. The resulting slurry flowed down the dome into the perimeter recycling trenches, then on into the hive’s reservoirs. Much of it would be superheated and pumped back into the canopy, a greatcoat against the cold. It was a crude but efficient system that maintained the ambient temperature of the city a few notches above freezing, but decades of neglect had taken their toll. Scattered mounds of hard-packed ice glazed the dome like glistening cancers where the hydrothermal network had failed, yet the outposts were dark and no servitors or icebreaker teams laboured across the surface to purge the blight. Such was the way of things on Oblazt in the wake of the Damocles Gulf Crusade.

Two figures surveyed this entropy-in-motion from the shelter of an antenna-spiked relay tower. Both were swathed in heavy grey thermal robes, yet they were otherwise unalike. One would have towered over a tall man, yet his shorter companion was the stranger of the two, for there was a subtle aberration in the set of his shoulders and posture that suggested an altogether inhuman heritage.

‘Their world ends, yet they do not see it,’ the alien observed. It spoke Gothic with the chilly precision of one who has mastered the language like a weapon. ‘This blindness is the lor’serra of your kind. The shadow truth of your nature.’

‘They are not my kind, traveller,’ replied the giant. ‘We parted company millennia before your kind possessed the wit to dream of touching the stars.’

‘Nevertheless you were forged from their bloodline, Iho’nen. Such bonds endure even after they are broken, like the ghost pains of a lost limb.’

‘You speak of your own wound,’ the giant called Iho’nen judged.

‘My wound is my purpose,’ said the traveller with glacial passion.

‘As is mine.’ But in Iho’nen’s voice there was no passion at all.

For a time they were silent, brooding on private shadows.

Finally the traveller spoke: ‘I walk the vash’yatol, Iho’nen. I cannot linger on this failing world. When do we begin?’

‘I have activated the Catalyst,’ the giant answered. ‘He is already here.’

TWENTY-NINE DAYS BEFORE UNITY
THE IRON JUNGLE

The locals called the inner skin of Vyshodd’s dome the Iron Jungle. Climbing through the gloomy industrial labyrinth bolted to the perimeter wall of Sector Nineteen, Haniel Mordaine felt it was an eminently fitting name. His path spiralled upwards, shadowing the dome in a tangle of catwalks and girders that heaved and groaned like an iron man bloated with corrosion. It was an arduous ascent, but he’d resisted the lure of the intermittent pneumatic lifts, preferring the certainty of a long, hard climb to the possibility of a short, infinitely harder fall.

If this architectural heresy kills me I’ll never know the truth of things, he thought grimly. I’ll never know the truth of him. Angel’s Blood, is this Calavera even a man?

For almost two months Mordaine had been lying low in a decrepit traders’ hostel waiting for word from their contact while Kreeger salved his anxieties with cheap Oblazti lodka and narcotic glitterfish oils.

‘The Calavera is in deep,’ his lieutenant had explained. ‘It’s the way he operates. How he sniffs out the rot.’

‘You make him sound like a dog, Kreeger,’ Mordaine had taunted.

‘A bloodhound,’ Kreeger had corrected, ‘the best the grand master had – and the only player in the conclave who buys your story. He’s all you’ve got, duke.’

‘And I’m grateful for his friendship, of course–’

‘Friendship?’ Kreeger had shaken his head. ‘No, duke, you’re useful to him. I’ve told you before, he thinks you’re the key to the real enemy.’

‘But I don’t know a damn thing!’

A shrug. ‘Maybe you don’t need to.’

And then Mordaine had tried the Question, as he’d done countless times before: ‘What is he, Kreeger?’

And as always, Kreeger had offered the same hollow answer: ‘Never met him. Nobody ever did except the grand master. All the rest of us ever had was a name.’

A name I never knew, Mordaine thought bitterly. I was your protégé, Escher – your damned interrogator – but you never trusted me with the identity of your finest operative. And if you concealed that then what else did you hide from me?

‘How did you find him?’ Mordaine had tried.

‘I didn’t,’ Kreeger had answered. ‘He found us.’

‘Yet the entire Damocles Conclave failed?’

‘Maybe because he’s been covering our trail.’

Watching over me as I scurry from one dismal backwater world to another like a frightened rat! Tugging my strings…

Mordaine snatched at a guardrail as his boot punched through a rust-riddled plate and sent fragments clattering into the abyss below. Frozen rigid, he waited until the shuddering walkway had steadied before gingerly sliding his foot free. Once again he cursed the Calavera for sending him on this lethal errand.

Word had finally come two days ago.

‘He’s found them,’ Kreeger had relayed. ‘The tau are here.’

‘On Oblazt?’ Mordaine had slurred through a lodka-soaked daze.

‘In this hive,’ Kreeger had said. ‘Whatever’s coming, it starts here. It’s time to step up and take control, interrogator.’

‘Interrogator…’ Mordaine had been ashamed of the sudden, gut-wrenching terror that seized him. ‘I’ll be exposed… The conclave will come for me.’

‘And they’ll find a man who’s done his duty.’ Kreeger had actually grinned then, but it was all teeth and no eyes. ‘This is where you make things right.’

‘I need to meet the Calavera.’

‘What you need is muscle. An army. This is what he wants you to do…’

And once again I’m dancing to the Calavera’s tune, Mordaine thought miserably as he resumed his ascent. And the worst, most damnable thing about it is he’s right! An army is precisely what I need.

Two levels further up, his army found him. The sentries surged from the shadows overhead, leaping between the swaying gantries with the wild yet graceful assurance of natural acrobats. Watching them descend, Mordaine understood why they’d made the dome’s canopy their eyrie. Oblazt might not be their home world, but up in this vertiginous web they were its masters.

Save for the quirks of fate, these warriors might have been enemies of the Imperium, Mordaine thought. Savagery runs dangerously deep in the blood of the Iwujii Sharks. After all, they’ve been bred for it.

The military harvested its recruits young on Iwujii Secundus, Kreeger had explained, fast-tracking children into soldiers through a state-sanctioned programme of internecine wars that culled the weak and brutalised the strong. It was a barbarous tradition that predated the planet’s assimilation into the Imperium, but one the Departmento Munitorum had been rather taken with, for the practice offered a steady stream of hardened troops for the Imperial Guard.

‘The Iwujii Sharks aren’t what you’d call well-adjusted regiments,’ Kreeger had warned, ‘but they live, breathe and bleed the Imperial Creed. You’ve just got to handle them right.’

Offering neither threat nor submission, Mordaine studied the men who encircled him. They were all slight of build, with burnished copper skin and ebony hair that hung about their shoulders in elaborately braided dreadlocks. Their features were striking, with high cheekbones and sharply canted green eyes. Most didn’t look a year past twenty and all exuded an energy that seemed to rage against stillness. They wore tight-fitting fatigues of viridian striped with crimson slashes like open wounds and a haphazard array of leather armour. The majority sported vambraces and greaves, one a pair of shoulder pads wrought with splayed claws, another a breastplate carved into the likeness of a snarling tree. These warriors were evidently Iwujii first and Imperial Guard second. They weren’t the kind of troops Mordaine would have chosen, but they were the only regiment stationed on Oblazt.

Regiment? One company, Mordaine calculated soberly. Just three hundred men to seize the reins of a hive and expose a xenos conspiracy…

‘My lieutenant sent word to your commanding officers,’ Mordaine declared, hesitating only a moment before committing himself: ‘I am Inquisitor Aion Escher, Grand Master of the Damocles Conclave. By authority of the Holy Orders of the Inquisition I am hereby sequestering all Imperial forces stationed on this planet to assist me in the prosecution of the Emperor’s justice.’

Keeping his movements slow and steady, Mordaine drew a heavy seal from his coat and brandished it like a defensive ward. The grand master’s seal – the seal he’d stolen after watching his mentor die.

I didn’t know, Escher, Mordaine swore. I didn’t know that girl was an assassin…

He quashed the guilt, drawing strength from the awe in the troopers’ eyes as they recognised the stylised ‘I’ emblazoned on the seal. For a few brief weeks his every word would carry the sanction of the Imperium’s most feared authority.

I can do this, Escher, Mordaine promised, though he didn’t know if it was an apology or a curse.

TOWARDS UNITY
ABOVE THE DOME

Veiled by the emptiness at the roof of the world, the outsider called Iho’nen watched as the Catalyst moved his design towards its apogee. The remote outpost he’d claimed and upgraded with xenos tech was awash with a fluid cacophony of information – tapped vox-communications and vid-feeds… economic and social statistics rendered as filigree neon algorithms and charts… a constantly updating parade of psych profiles… Iho’nen drank it all in like a giant data-devouring spider, assimilating, correlating and assessing a thousand facts every minute.

Days passed, yet he stood motionless, waiting as rigorously calculated probabilities crystallised into absolutes. Occasionally minor errors would manifest, prompting him to intervene through a reagent element, but this did not trouble him. It was the errors, or more precisely their correction, that kept him from becoming irrelevant.

His fellow outsider, the xenos, did not watch with him, for he was travelling.

THREE DAYS BEFORE UNITY
HÖSOK PLAZA, VYSHODD ANCHOR HIVE

The first steps had gone smoothly enough, Mordaine reflected. Both the Iwujii Sharks and the hive’s ruling oligarchy had acceded to his authority, albeit sullenly in the case of the Koroleva nobles. With his force swelled by the hive’s Ironspine Hussars, he’d launched himself into the hunt with the fervour of a man racing death, which of course he was. If he didn’t uncover something tangible before the conclave caught up with him, he would be finished. His life was almost certainly forfeit regardless, but there was still honour to fight for, and, somewhat to his surprise, he’d accepted that might be enough.

But everything hinged on finding the tau.

The spoor of the xenos permeated Vyshodd like a spreading disease. He’d discovered fragments of strange machinery in the manufactories – sleek, geodesic blasphemies that shrugged off dirt and sang with unholy life. Then there’d been the rogue tech-priest who peddled enhanced trinkets guaranteed to run for a lifetime without power-ups or prayer. Most unsettling of all had been the abominable xenos sculptures adorning a Koroleva pleasure mansion. The brash minimalism of those abstracts had been an affront to decent Imperial aesthetics! Individually they were petty heresies, but together they pointed to a systemic infiltration that had been eroding Vyshodd for years, possibly decades. And then there was Unity.

Unity – a simple, beautiful and perfectly ruinous lie.

Rumour had it that a common fishery worker had formulated the creed in her rest periods, scrawling her ideas on scraps of packaging then spreading them by word of mouth. The doctrine espoused such deviant notions as the right to free speech and the wholesale redistribution of wealth, wrapping them up in a muddled entreaty to embrace some kind of galactic fraternity. It was puerile nonsense, yet it had spread among the ignorant and the oppressed like wildfire, as insidious as any Chaos cult. Mordaine didn’t doubt its true origins so he’d focused on rooting out the leaders, but all he’d found were followers – hundreds of them – who insisted that Unity had no leaders. How could it, when it was ‘the Many of One’!

And throughout this dismal farrago there had been no word from the Calavera.

‘Silence is good,’ Kreeger would assure him. ‘Silence means you’re on track.’

‘Then where are the warp-damned xenos?’ Mordaine had railed. ‘I’ve got nothing the conclave won’t find themselves!’

With the hive’s detention facilities overflowing and the population growing restive, Mordaine had tightened the screws, first with punitive rationing and curfews, then finally a string of executions, but nobody had come forward with anything he could use. Instead… this…

How can so many be so blind? Mordaine despaired as he weighed up the crowd gathering in the square below. He was crouched on a rooftop overlooking Hösok Plaza, a sprawling, statue-studded court dedicated to Oblazt’s Imperial liberators. The symbolism of the venue was not lost on him, but it was the sheer numbers that appalled him. There were thousands of them, mostly scruffy manufactory bondsmen and icebreakers, but also a smattering of municipal clerks and free traders. All had daubed their foreheads with the concentric blue circles of Unity. Despite its simplicity, there was something inherently alien about the symbol that repelled him.

‘I speak for the Many who walk as One!’ someone called from the square – a tall woman with the gaunt, febrile features of a tormented artist. The crowd fell silent at her voice, as if at a prearranged signal. ‘We offer you the open hand of friendship. Stand with us against the bloated tyranny that has betrayed this world!’

Mordaine could almost taste the seductive xenos heresy lacing her rhetoric. Yet despite her words the woman in the plaza appeared neither ignorant nor oppressed. Oblazt’s ruling class was a race apart from the commoners and she had the look. Mordaine was unsurprised, for the most zealous prophets of change often rose from the ruling strata. Sometimes it was guilt that drove their heresy, sometimes merely ennui, but the Inquisition had long understood the perils of privilege.

‘Cast off the shackles of your dead god and bear witness to a living unity that embraces all as One!’ the demagogue implored.

‘The heretics spit in the face of Father Terra,’ someone hissed beside Mordaine. Armande Uzochi. Since Mordaine’s journey into the canopy, the young Iwujii captain had become his second shadow, devoting himself to ‘the great inquisitor’ with an awe that bordered on reverence. Unfortunately there was a rancid, tightly coiled violence about the man that made Mordaine’s skin crawl. He suspected Uzochi was quite probably insane.

The right man to have by my side today…

‘Give the order,’ Mordaine said, feeling disconnected – disconnecting himself – as Uzochi voxed the platoon leaders. Ranks of Iwujii Sharks rose along the rooftops like vengeful spirits, silent and watchful. There was a clatter of booted feet below, and white-uniformed Ironspine Hussars appeared at every egress from the square, lining up in neat formations. The crowd backed away, congealing at the centre of the square as if density might offer some safety, but the rebel speaker held her ground.

‘Truth cannot be silenced!’ she proclaimed, spreading her arms wide, palms open. ‘Every martyr you burn will forge two stronger heroes!’ Her eyes glittered a radiant azure, ignited by the passion of her belief.

Why did you choose me for this filthy work, Escher? Mordaine asked, as he’d done so many times before, but never of the grand master himself. You knew I didn’t have the conviction to stomach it.

Impossibly, the rebel seemed to be looking directly at him now.

‘An inquisitor must armour his soul in ice,’ Escher answered from the crumbling mortuary of Mordaine’s faith. ‘The ordinary mass of mankind is irrelevant, as are even the most exceptional individuals. It is the divine thread of our species that the Inquisition safeguards. All else is either expendable or inimical.’

No. Mordaine strangled the dry, dead voice in his head. You’re wrong, Escher. Otherwise what’s the point to any of it?

‘Captain…’ he began.

‘Purge the heretics!’ Uzochi bellowed, misinterpreting him. ‘For Father Terra!’

No! Mordaine tried to scream, but he had no voice and a heartbeat later there was a surfeit of screams as his army opened fire.

Kreeger was waiting for him in the stairwell, smoking a lho-stick.

‘Tell the Calavera I’m done,’ Mordaine said, stepping past him.

‘He’s going to come in,’ Kreeger called after him. ‘He has a few loose ends to tie up first, but–’

‘Too late,’ Mordaine said flatly.

‘Only a couple more days, duke.’

‘It was too late from the start, Kreeger.’ Mordaine turned, letting the rage well up in his chest like purifying fire. ‘We’ve been played – you, me and most especially your precious Calavera! Vyshodd was a trap. This slaughter… We’ve given the xenos exactly what they needed. We’ve proven the Imperium is a monster.’

‘Always was.’ Kreeger shrugged. ‘Just like all the rest.’

Mordaine faltered, his fury leeched away by the other’s indifference. Perplexed, he studied his lieutenant’s deeply seamed yet oddly bland face, trying to make sense of the man who’d been saving his skin for more years than he cared to count. Everything about Franz Kreeger was grey, from his gaunt complexion and the dusting of stubble on his scalp through to the barren alchemy of his soul.

His story was fairly typical of his breed: twenty years a storm trooper in the Guard, including a stint at the Cadian Gate, then secondment to an Inquisition taskforce to Phaedra, a world somewhere on the fringes of the Damocles Gulf, where he’d impressed the presiding inquisitor enough to win a place on his retinue. Later that inquisitor had become the grand master of the Damocles Conclave and later still he’d assigned Kreeger to support a promising new interrogator.

‘Keep him by your side, Mordaine,’ Escher had advised, ‘and he will keep you alive.’

This was certainly true. Without Kreeger, Mordaine would have stopped running long ago. Angel’s Blood, he wouldn’t have run at all.

‘This hive… This entire planet…’ Mordaine whispered. ‘It’s going to welcome the tau with open arms.’

‘We’re still in the game, duke,’ Kreeger said. ‘The Calavera has taken a prisoner.’ Then he offered a name.

Mordaine stared at him. And then he dared to hope.

Click here to buy Shas’o.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2015.
This eBook edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Farsight © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. Farsight, Legends of the Dark Millenium, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

978-1-78251-313-1

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.