Broken Sword
Guy Haley

 Chapter One


 	Recording 7-9998-14 Gue’vesa. Institute of Human Affairs, Lui’sa’loa, Bork’an. Retrieval code 14a-159. Personal memoirs of Gue’vesa’vre Dal’yth J’ten Ko’lin, gue’vesa auxiliary diplomatic protection la’rua 8448.


 	This is all about Skilltalker.

 	I’ve been asked to record this as honestly as I can, so I will. I don’t think you’re going to like everything I’m going to say, or I don’t think you would if you weren’t all so damned sure of yourselves. Probably you won’t listen to those parts, or you’ll discount them. I’m only a gue’la after all, and a first generation one at that.

 	I’m recording this in Gothic. I’ve not had the vocal surgery yet, so I’m afraid my Tau’noh’por will be as senseless as it would be offensive to listen to.

 	Okay. Let’s begin. I am Gue’vesa’vre Dal’yth J’ten Ko’lin. In another life, I was, and still am to myself and among the other human auxiliaries… the gue’vesa – I mean – Jathen Korling. I was originally of Gormen’s Fast, now G’men in Ksi’m’yen Sept, but all that’s behind me now.

 	This is my testimony.

 	Firstly, Por’el Bork’an Kais Por’noha – Skilltalker – was my friend. I’m still cut up about his loss, more than I am about my team, if I am to tell the truth. But that’s what you want, right, the truth? I’m uneasy about this. Telling the truth back in the Imperium was often a good reason to get killed. You’ll have to forgive me if I appear hesitant, but as you have been so good as to trust me, then I suppose I can only return the favour and hope for the best.

 	You say we are given a choice. You know as well as I do that there is no choice. My choice was given to me while I was slowly bleeding to death on Gormen’s Fast. A kroot rifle blade had cut clean through my femoral artery. Everyone else from my platoon was dead. I’d got a tourniquet on it but I didn’t have long, and already the kroot were starting to feast on the dead. I tried not to watch that, but the noises…

 	I figured, you know, that was it. I was done for. Praise the Emperor, long live the Imperium of Man, goodbye Captain Jathen Korling.

 	The shas’vre of the warrior team that had blasted half my men to shreds called the kroot off, they checked the dead, found me. Medical support was there within seconds. The medic must have seen my stripes because a few minutes later there was Skilltalker, giving me the Greater Good chapter and verse while a bunch of earth caste patched me up. I cut through what he was saying, I was dog-tired, used up; half dead, in point of fact. I’d been put on the front to die – a shield for the high-brass, only they’d died and I hadn’t. I’d had enough of high words to last me a lifetime.

 	He was patient, and took my interruption with good grace.

 	‘I betray the Imperium for your Greater Good,’ I said. I’d heard how it worked. I’d seen tau tech openly for sale, even seen a couple of the water guys roaming about Mainstreet unopposed. I’d heard about the planets that surrendered without a shot. I’d also heard that the tau killed everyone that didn’t throw in with them. Enslaved those that did, sometimes murdered the willing anyway. You’ll forgive me again, I’m sure. Honesty, yeah? This is what we were told, you’re xenos scum, worst of the worst, that make traitors of honest men. ‘What if I don’t?’

 	Skilltalker smiled, showing me his big square teeth. Such an expressive face, he had. You’re stolid to us, you know that? Most of you wrinkle your noses when you’re happy, and shas’la always look kind of pissed off, but other than that you tau don’t do facial expressions. I’ve had all the careful lectures about how aliens can’t appreciate the Tau’noh’por, the concern that comes with that lack of understanding. I don’t think you realise that you’re condescending, unaware of your own limitations. Sure, even after they resculpt my vocal cords, I’m never going to manage the threefold stances of subtle disharmony, no matter how many times you make me dance through it. I can’t differentiate between the fourteen tones. Fine. Come back and tell me off when one of you can wink.

 	Skilltalker was different. All the por’la have such telling faces, but Skilltalker was different even from them. There was such warmth and humour to him. I… I miss him, you know? 

 	‘Then you may die with honour,’ he said to me.

 	This wasn’t a threat. I think he could tell he had me already. He said this with a real twinkle in his eye, like we were in on a joke together.

 	Death or life. It’s never a real choice, is it? Not for the sane. ‘Where do I sign?’ I said. He laughed. That was a noise I was going to appreciate as time went on. He loved life, Skilltalker.

 	I was carried off on a stretcher by the fio’la. As I was lifted up, I saw I was being carried right past a line of other scared, wounded men who’d just watched one of their officers turn his coat at the drop of a medpack, and that was that. Skilltalker was giving his lecture to them as they pushed me into the transport. I don’t think a single one said no. You are not a stupid people, I’ll give you that.

 	I was relocated to Dal’yth, along with a lot of other Fasters. I’m not complaining. Good luck turning it around, I say. You’re welcome to it.

 	I’ve been back here on Dal’yth these last five months… a half tau’cyr, convalescing. They’ve got me working alongside the water caste in the acclimatisation programme, dealing with new commonwealth citizens relocated from across the Damocles Gulf. I watched the gue’la coming in from Mu’gulath Bay. Pale, half-starved, terrified. Watching their fear go is the most remarkable thing. Watching their amazement grow is the second most remarkable thing. I thought Gormen’s Fast was a dump, but compared to the hives of Agrellan, it was okay, and this place is a paradise. 

 	You give us all a choice, but there really is no choice, not a real one. I know that.

 	I remember when Hincks got it, gunned down by those swine outside of Hive Chaeron. I went to see his widow a few days ago. Nice place she’s got now. Good support from the sept authorities. Hincks’s kids are growing up to be model citizens. His boy says he wants to go into the gue’vesa auxiliaries like his uncle Jathen. He’s a healthy lad, tall and strong. I can’t help think what kind of life he’d have back on Gormen’s Fast. Probably be half-blind from working in the gossamer plants. Or dead. And yet there he is, cared for and fed and as strong as an ambull calf. Remarkable.

 	I’m still waiting for the catch.

 
 
 Chapter Two


 	Whenever I think about those last days with Skilltalker, my mind always goes back to the Devilfish, when we were on our way to Chaeron. An Imperial transport is crowded, dirty. Usually stinks. They’re always hot. It’s like they weren’t built for people at all. A Devilfish is not like that. You’ll never know unless you ride in a Chimera. I hope you don’t, for your own sake, because you’ll be going nowhere good. The Imperium treats aliens a lot worse than you do.

 	We were on Agrellan – Mu’gulath Bay, before it was Mu’gulath Bay. At that time I’d been attached to the diplomatic corps for five months. It had been twenty months since I’d taken up the generous offer of joining the efforts of the Greater Good. I’d seen a lot of things I’d never thought I’d see in that time; most of it good, but not all of it. I’ll never forget Colonel Boroth of the Ossoun planetary defence force lining up for battle and then ordering his entire army to throw their weapons down to the sound of trumpets. He didn’t lose a single man.

 	But I’ll also never forget the descent of the hunter cadres onto Thelion IV when they said ‘no’. The dead there…

 	On the face of it, the Tau’va, for me… It looked good. It is good. Not just in the civilian side, but in the military. Gone was my temperamental hand-me down lasgun. We had pulse carbines. Weapons worth a damn, and armour! Plating that actually, might just conceivably stop a shot. And the comms, vox equipment to make a Space Marine envious, for me! Those toys were mighty tempting to a lot of us; some of my squad had come over precisely because they were hungry for tau tech. Or because they were afraid of it.

 	We were an odd little collection. Hincks, from Gormen’s Fast, like me, only a few hours left to live. Goliath, we never did get him to tell us his real name, but he was big enough for the one he’d chosen, and that was good enough for the rest of us. A pirate once, or so I heard. Holyon Spar, who swore he’d run away from a rich family of rogue traders, but whose word couldn’t be trusted on anything else, so I didn’t trust him on that either. Helena, who came from some mudball agri world I’d never heard of that had been conquered half by accident.

 	And then there was Othelliar. He said he was from a human world never brought into the Imperium, until one day the fleets of the Master of Mankind had showed up, they say they’re not interested in the light of the Emperor and all that, and that was that for his home. He hated the Imperium, I mean really, really hated it. I’ve seen fanaticism before. I’m not talking about the way you tau defer to the aun; that’s instinctual, I can tell. I’m talking about fanaticism by choice. Because if there’s one thing we humans do have over you – in most circumstances at least – it’s choice. Mad priests, unbending officers, officials blindly following orders… They all choose to do those things, the Emperor alone knows why. But Othelliar’s hatred of the Imperium, well, that was something else entirely. It scared me. He was too far gone with rage. Unstable. I’d mentioned this a few times to my superiors, but I’d been gently fobbed off with ‘every sentient must be allowed a chance to shine,’ and ‘we all contribute to the Greater Good in the best way we can.’ I feel like a fool now.

 	There we were. Skilltalker’s protection detail. Humans chosen to visit humans with the water caste – this was all plainly explained to me – to show that there really was nothing to fear from the Tau’va. With us was Krix – what we called him, it was as far as we could get with his name. A kroot warrior, and Skilltalker’s bodyguard. Yeah, I know he was there to protect him from us as much from the enemy. We were a calculated risk, after all. What was there to stop us bolting for home when we were deep in enemy territory? That’s the thinking. If you’ve ever lived on an Imperial planet, you’d know that wasn’t going to happen. Also in the back with us there was Fior’la Bork’an Bue’lai. Bu. A tech demonstrator, show the natives some shiny beads, impress them with the superiority of the tau cause. Sometimes there were others with us, sometimes there were not. It all depended on the mission. This was a dangerous mission, and so the usual assortment of other hangers-on were not present. The bare minimum embassy. Privately, I didn’t rate our chances much. But Skilltalker was all smiles and polite chatter with all of us – each in our native dialect of Gothic, of course. 

 	He was never scared. I remember, I asked him once if he was ever frightened. He wrinkled his nose at me and made that bubbling sound that passes for laughter in the tau.

 	‘J’ten,’ he said. He always used the tau version of my name, even though he could pronounce the human perfectly. He was making a point, except, well… except for that once. ‘What is there to be afraid of?’ he said. ‘We go where we are directed for the needs of society. If I were to die, then it would be for the Greater Good. That is all I ask from my life, to further our glorious cause.’

 	I looked at him dubiously. He grabbed my shoulders with his wide fingers and peered into my eyes, his face an exaggerated copy of human concern. I couldn’t look back for too long, and looked away. Tau eyes are so big and dark. I’m afraid I’ll not be able to look away. Sometimes… sometimes I think I can see stars in them. Sounds stupid, but it’s the truth.

 	‘You do not quite understand yet, friend J’ten. I can see that. You are motivated still by self-interest. Only when one forgoes the need to further one’s own goals, to put behind them the need to satisfy their own desires, can one truly achieve one’s greatest potential…’

 	‘Unity with the polity through service of the polity, for the Greater Good. Tau’va,’ I finished for him.

 	He smiled and chuckled again, shaking my shoulders slightly raffishly. There was something mischievous about him. It’s why I liked him, I suppose. ‘You see! You know it. You know it, friend J’ten! Only by believing it will you know true satisfaction.’

 	‘I don’t think I’ll ever fully grasp it. Forgive me,’ I said. I was mindful of my words. Back then, our friendship was only slowly growing. He was my superior. He was an ’el, I only a ’la. I’ve never got over it. Even if I ever am made a gue’vesa’el, same rank as he was, I think I’d probably feel the same. First among equals, and all that; tau come first. I can’t quite shake that conquered feeling.

 	He put his tongue out through his teeth and hissed through the gaps. That was my first inkling that he and I were getting to be friends. He had stopped mimicking purely human expression around me, and behaved, just a little, more like a tau. ‘Do not worry. Your children will understand, and that is all we ask of you. That and your loyalty.’

 	‘You have that, Por’el Skilltalker, I swear,’ I said. If for no other reason than if I’d have gone back to the Imperium, I’d have been shot.

 	You know, him mentioning children, gets me thinking about it, remembering it now. I’d like to have children some day. Never thought I would, but the Tau’va is a better place for them than the Imperium ever could be, and that’s got me hankering after the family life. And then I think on this; Skilltalker once told me that breeding outside of each caste is forbidden. And I wonder, how long until this rule applies to humans, how long until our best characteristics are bred true like they are in grox? And in tau.

 	You asked me to be honest. Our culture’s sacrosanct, so I’m told. Pair-bonding, family units, freedom of choice in our spouses, the works. I’ve seen that honoured. But I also think on Hincks’s kid, all full of the Greater Good. How far will he go, or his children, in embracing your ideals? You won’t need to push much. We’re mutable culturally, we humans. How much, I wonder, sometimes late at night, do you really want of us?

 	That conversation was months before the mission. By the time we were coasting at treetop height over the petrified forests of Agrellan, I was a ’vre, and Skilltalker and I had taken to socialising together. We were on our way to Hive Chaeron. Each of the twelve hives was getting a little visit from water caste – lay down your arms, embrace the Greater Good. No harm will come to you. Blah blah. Chaeron was our mark. This was a few days before O’Shaserra’s killing blow, but everyone always gets one last chance to surrender. That’s the way you play it.

 	The Devilfish. Quiet enough to talk in. The engines hum. It’s cool. We’re comfortable. Marvellous technology. Bu told me quite a lot about how it all works before he got reassigned. As much as I could understand anyway. It’s hard for me. I still half-believe in machine-spirits. Although I understand it’s all nonsense now, it’s hard to shake the faith. You’ll have that problem with a lot of us. Human culture is irrational, I’ve been told. But I’m not so sure everything we believe is so irrational. I’ll tell you something. Agrellan – Mu’gulath Bay – is not a good planet. Something happened there, something really bad. All we gue’vesa could feel it, like a shadow on us. I could taste it, practically, in some places. The creatures in the forests, the forests themselves… It’s not a natural place, not entirely. I heard the Nagi wouldn’t come down there at all. But the tau? You’re oblivious to that kind of thing. So don’t lecture me quite so hard on the irrational. There’s something there. I know it, even if your kind can never feel it.

 	Looking at my team in there, I had a foreboding that something wasn’t quite right, I think. We had our helmets off, everyone was checking their weapons, standard drill. We barely had anything in common. Different dialects, different worlds, except me and Hincks, that is. Different morphology even: skin, height, eyes, hair. Like I say, humanity’s a diverse race, us there in that back of the Devilfish? We were practically a fio’la biologist’s dream sample.

 	I was thinking about ta’lissera. Ta’lissera indeed, Skilltalker wouldn’t stop badgering me about it. But what could have bound us together? We were too different, I told him. We’d come from too many worlds, from too many nightmares.

 	I kept saying this to Skilltalker, and he’d kept asking me to think about it. Ta’lissera, that is. It seemed important to him that we bond, even though the Shas’ar’tol had made it clear to us all the bonding ritual – any bonding ritual – was only to be undertaken if we wanted to do it. Our culture was not tau culture, they made that clear. We could take what we wanted and ignore what we didn’t like, except, of course, the Tau’va.

 	 ‘That, friend J’ten, is why they were chosen, precisely because of their differences,’ he’d said. We’d been in a Kor’Shutto on the way to the front. The Damocles Gulf is heavily fortified after the heroic defence of Dal’yth. It was a defence installation first and foremost, but they did have a bar. We were in it. They served a passable imitation of human ale. He took a whey drink. Always made him a bit tipsy, eager to talk, even more so than normal. ‘Do you think it is coincidence that these people are here together under your command. You are their gue’vre. Think of how the problem is for our own ethereals. Many aliens, some divided into many cultures, and the many septs of the tau.’ He closed his hands around one another. ‘But you see? Each of my fingers is a different finger, but they all work for the good of the greater organism – me. And I…’

 	‘Work for the Tau’va.’

 	He mockingly saluted me with his drink. Once, the cheesy smell of it had made me gag, but I’d got used to it, like I’ve got used to so much else.

 	‘I see great things for you, gue’vre. This is one of many challenges for you. You must mould this la’rua, and make them one. Each element individual yes, and so they should remain! But individuals each working for the common cause.’

 	‘So together we might better serve the Tau’va.’

 	He smiled. ‘You have it!’ Then he realised the full meaning of my expression and tone. An expert on human affairs, Skilltalker, but sometimes slow on the uptake. Sarcasm was a tough one for him, you’re all so damn sincere. Even the por can never be the races they mimic so well. It’s their biggest weakness. ‘Why this, this, this…’ He drummed three broad fingers on the table. Cynicism is not a concept that the tau have. I supplied the word.

 	‘Cynicism! Ah, yes.’ He was delighted and became annoyed again. ‘The Tau’va is not for the Tau’va’s sake! This you do not understand. The Tau’va is for my good,’ he pointed at my chest, ‘and it is for your good. The Greater Good means you, me, the fio servers here, the nicassar, thraxians, kroot… Whomever you care to name. All who embrace it serve, and all who serve it are served by it, yes?’

 	He seemed pleased with himself, as he often did after one of his little lectures. The beer got the better of me.

 	‘Permission to speak my mind, por’el?’

 	‘Yes, yes! By all means, friend J’ten! You should always say your thoughts. How else are we to work together properly?’

 	‘You are patronising, you know that?’

 	He understood patronising all right, and was offended. ‘I do not mean to be.’

 	‘No problem.’ I took another drink. It was getting late. In one k’un’cyr the lights would dim and we would be ushered off to bed. ‘This is why you’re so keen for me to make my team bond.’

 	He shook his head and bared his broad teeth. Grazer’s teeth, I always think of them. ‘No, no, no J’ten! Not make. Just do. Or do not. It is your choice, but I do believe that if you do undergo a ta’lissera, it will be better for you all.’

 	‘To fit in?’

 	‘You are impossible.’ He muttered to himself and rolled his shoulders with exasperation. Amid his melodic, glottal stream of Tau’noh’por I caught, ‘Fu’llasso.’

 	I laughed. ‘A mind knot? Don’t tell me I’m getting to you finally.’

 	‘Ah! Your Tau’noh’por improves,’ he said. ‘You are an example, J’ten! You are ready to embrace our culture more than some of the others. It will only benefit us to have you more properly committed to our vision. And it will benefit you, it is the superior way after all.’

 	I didn’t want to disagree. We were quiet a space. A chime sounded. The third shift would come to an end soon. The air caste had assigned third shift to us as our activity group. They expected us to sleep now. Already another group would be waking to start their day. The space stations of the air caste are crowded.

 	‘So, have you?’ he said at length.

 	‘What?’ I said, feigning ignorance.

 	He wasn’t going to be put off. ‘Chosen a ta’lissera. Surely there must be something acceptable in your culture that will stand. An oath-swearing, or celebration.’

 	There was, but I hadn’t. I’m not sure why I put it off so long now. A streak of stubbornness? Not wanting to subsume myself into tau culture entirely? Was I clinging to my old identity a little too hard? I don’t know. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No I haven’t.’

 	 ‘What are you thinking about, boss?’ Goliath asked me in his guttural Gothic, bringing me back suddenly into the present of the Devilfish. His pulse carbine looked laughably small in his hands. The earth caste had given us weapons specially constructed for human physiology, but with Goliath they’d hit the upper limit of the size range.

 	‘Nothing, I said. Nothing at all.’ I glanced at my mission clock. ‘Suit up people! Five minutes to dust off.

 	When I caught Skilltalker’s eye, he was smiling. He knew what I was thinking about. I’m sure about that.

 
 
 Chapter Three 


 	Report of Nagi’o Joauuulliiallo, third level synaptic adjudicator of nagi synchronous collective 45978. Direct cranial engagement interrogation. Subject gue’ron’sha of semi-autonomous Imperial Uash’o ‘Raven Guard’, Tio’vre Six, Kau’ui Three.


 	[Supplementary note : The nature of the ‘Space Marines’ is well known to us, but we of the nagi 45978 synchronous collective were surprised by this subject’s resilience to the mind rip nevertheless. We have ascertained that this is partly owing to the latent capability to interface with multiple dimensional realities present in all gue’la to lesser or greater degree, but the greater part of our difficulty originated from the subject’s extensive psychological conditioning. The requisitioning of two lesser collectives was required to break through the subject’s mental blocks. Despite our overwhelming mental superiority, the subject remained defiant to the end, resulting in the deaths or terminal disjunction of all members of one of the lesser collectives (may they find ultimate joining beyond the membranes of activity). Many memory artefacts are present in this interrogation report, but we were able to extract much audio-visual information concerning Imperial gue’la tactics and organisation. That they are so heavily factionalised was the chief surprise to our water caste and n’deemi intelligence experts. We nagi humbly submit that this is encouraging news, surely so divided and decrepit an empire, no matter its size, cannot hope to stymie the efforts of the glorious Tau’va in this critical phase of the Third Sphere Expansion.]


 	I am Brother-Sergeant Herek Cornix of the Raven Guard. I am Brother-Sergeant Herek Cornix of the Raven Guard. I am…

 	I am aboard the Wings of Deliverance. I go to a meeting with my Chapter Master, Corvin Severax, my lord and my leader. I would do anything, should he command it. I am aboard…

 	I am not aboard the Wings of Deliverance. This is a trick. Get out of my mind. Get out, get out! I am Brother-Sergeant Herek Cornix of the Raven Guard, and you will not break my will!

 	[At this point, more pressure was applied. Earth caste enhancement machines were engaged in greater number. Several of them burned out, killing a full half of the lesser second collective before we were able to break into the inner spaces of the subject’s mind.]


 	I… I am aboard the Wings of Deliverance. We are in orbit around hive-world Agrellan, the principal planet of the Dovar System, far from the sacred grounds of Terra, yet strategic, for it commands the Dovar Gap through the Damocles Gulf. Xenos contest it, and their temerity will not go unpunished. We of the Raven Guard come here to mete out such punishment as we deem fit. The battle-barge rumbles with repeated broadsides and weapons impact. Enemy rounds penetrate our void shields every so often, but so vast is the Wings of Deliverance that it is untroubled and sails on.

 	I am Herek Cornix, and I go to see my lord. We are arrived but lately in the system, and I am called into his presence first. This is an honour.

 	I wear my armour. This is right. Sable, emblazoned with the white emblems of my order. It is newly repainted with the badges of my deeds and rank, and freshly polished. We are at war. We must be ready at all times. It is said by the shadow captains that the enemy we fight has a degree of honour uncommon in xenos, that they are likely to give us fair warning before attacking in order to offer us terms. But this is our way, all done in accordance with the Codex Astartes. We stand ready at all times.

 	I pass through the great spinal way of the Wings of Deliverance. The blast shields are closed, but as I ride the transit way to the bridge complex, I see Agrellan below us through one open spotting cupola. It is a vile planet, tainted by long-ago war. Its atmosphere is poison to human beings, its forests grim places full of mutated wildlife. The lingering effects of a virus bomb, I am told, and something darker. Weapons fire sparkles around it as our picket ships duel with tau interdiction vessels. We have taken them by surprise. Elements of the first reinforcement fleet are hurrying to our aid from out-system. But the tau are many, and although our might is such that we can hold them back, quick judgment suggests that we cannot do so indefinitely. I wonder therefore, what our strategy will be. I am proud that I, before all others, will discover exactly what Lord Severax has planned.

 	I reach the support block bearing the bridge complex. I am allowed through by our Chapter Master’s honour guard. The atrium is vast and pleasing to the eye. Statues of heroes of our Chapter stand in solemn repose in the shadows. Their names are mysterious, known only to those who should know. This is as it should be. Ours is the way of the shadow war.

 	I am directed by servitors to one of many grand elevators. The doors, decorated with great skill by our serf-artisans, are inlaid with jet and polished coal, depicting a great raven, head down and wings crossed across its breast. Now I near the presence of my lord, my hearts quicken. Few are invited into the presence of Lord Severax, but I, Herek Cornix, have been granted this honour. Whatever the reason, I swear that I will prove worthy of the task set me. I will not shame myself.

 	The elevator takes long minutes to ascend the main support to the bridge complex. The Wings of Deliverance is our mightiest vessel, a battle-barge of great age. I am humbled by its majesty.

 	At the top I am met by members of the Shadow Conclave, our lord’s most trusted servants. They lead me silently along hushed ways. We pass the great doors to the primary bridge. They lead me upwards on sweeping stairs, and usher me into the personal audience chambers of my lord.

 	The space is great, made all of dark stones and blackened iron. Nevertheless, the presence of my Lord Severax fills it utterly, from shadowy corner to gloomy embrasure.

 	Severax sits upon a dark throne of onyx, the black chalcedony. Subtle bands of white compete with the hard highlights of the throne’s carvings to confuse the eye. Much of his face is lost to darkness, yet I look upon it! He is a living idol to our lost primarch. He is a true son of Corax. His skin is as white as pale stone, his hair as black as jet. His eyes are penetrating and black. His nose is aquiline – features we all bear, but he is flawless where the rest of us are as yet half-formed. Four hundred years of war have beaten the impurities out of him, as the impurities are beaten from the blade upon the anvil of the smith. He is our exemplar. He is the Raven.

 	Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike is present. I am surprised to see him, as he has been most active on the surface, bringing relief to our embattled brethren from the White Scars Chapter. With him also are an Adeptus Mechanicus magos, his red robes embroidered with the badges of the biologis sect. Beside him stands an inquisitor I do not know and have not seen before. This is no surprise; their methods are even more secretive than ours. He is old by the standards of the ungifted, but his bearing is full of strength. His hand rests within the basket hilt of a power rapier, his off-white clothes the only sign of lightness in the chamber’s gloom. Cybernetic pseudoravens flap overhead, cawing and whirring. Otherwise the chamber, its galleries and broad floor fit to host half the strength of our Chapter, is empty.

 	‘We greet you, Brother-Sergeant Cornix,’ says Shrike to me. Severax does not speak. He sits and looks at me, the black coins of his eyes unreadable.

 	I fall to one knee, the metal of my battleplate clunking on the black granite paving. I bow my head.

 	‘I am honoured to be called to the presence of our Lord Corvin Severax,’ I say.

 	‘Rise, brother-sergeant. Time is short,’ says Shrike.

 	I comply… I…

 	I am not aboard the Wings of Deliverance! I…

 	[A flash of a dirty room in a city of metal. A mother’s face. A father’s sorrow. The sound of machinery is constant. The cry of young. Small spaces divided by dirty cloth. Danger is everywhere, the air smells of smelting and harsh chemicals. A young gue’la runs through dark streets, his feet swift, his eyes ever on the dark round of the moon looking down on his world… Further pressure was applied here. The vision of the subject’s past retreated. Truly their worlds are squalid.]


 	I rise. Severax’s eyes glint as he follows my movements. He is motionless.

 	‘Our lord has a mission of great sensitivity for you. A council of war is even now being convened. We speak to you first brother, as your role is of the utmost importance.’

 	A holomap comes to life in the air. It shows the entire front across the Gulf. Multiple systems blink with red infographics denoting the presence of the tau forces. Many more blink a sinister purple, showing the great swathe of worlds that have fallen to the alien’s false promises. It saddens me to see so many turn away from the Emperor’s light. We will retake them all, and their populations will be made to suffer for it once the Inquisition arrives. I pity them. Do they not see? It is true that this region of space is distant from Terra, and does not often see aid from the High Lords, but it is crucial. It is their duty to hold, no matter the cost. The cost for not doing so will be greater to them. Every crack in the fabric of the Imperium threatens to become a fissure. This cannot be allowed to happen. It is the duty of every citizen to make sure it does not.

 	Shrike looks to Severax. There is a slight nod in reply. ‘Lord Severax has determined that this world is lost, brother-sergeant, and the Dovar System entire. Already the outlying planets have fallen. Agrellan cannot hope to withstand the attack that is coming. Analysis of their doctrine suggests that the tau would ordinarily bypass such a system, to return to it later once supply lines are cut. Surrounded, as populous a world as Agrellan cannot hold out. They would starve. But here, they have not the time. The tau seek to secure this system. This kind of war here is not of the tau’s liking.’ Shrike fixes me with his dark eyes. ‘Their ways are our ways, brother-sergeant, the lightning strike, the overwhelming application of force to vulnerabilities. A protracted ground campaign they prefer to avoid. It suits the Imperium better. But the tau require this system as a staging point, and they will do all they can to seize it. Already their numbers far exceed ours, and more are coming.’ Shrike bids the map to zoom in, showing the system, a densely populated cluster of worlds, the gap in the clouds – the Dovar Gap.

 	‘Nebulae hem Dovar. The tau’s drives cannot pass easily through them. It is the fortress gate in the walls of the Damocles Gulf. But we must abandon it,’ said Shrike. ‘Lord Severax has decreed it.’

 	‘I understand, brother shadow captain.’

 	‘We will choose our battleground, not they. Already we have lost too many men battling over Agrellan. The tau are closer to home than we. They will likely exhaust their empire to take it. Small as it is, the taus’ domain is vibrant, and confident. Lose here, and we lose the entire subsector. By the time a new crusade is prepared, they will be fortified and ready. We will melt away, and draw them where we will. Elsewhere, we will break their assault, crush their main forces in a battle of our choosing, and then reclaim what is rightfully the Emperor of Mankind’s.’

 	‘My lord,’ I say. I am astonished that such information is shared with me.

 	‘I am telling you this, brother-sergeant, because Lord Severax wishes you to go to the surface. Take your squad. You are to seize one of their number and deliver him to Inquisitor Gallius and High Magos Biologian Tulk here.’

 	‘You wish me to snatch one of their leader caste? I… Consider it done, shadow captain! I will…’

 	Lord Severax chooses to speak. He leans forward in his throne, armoured hands gripping the carven rests. I see his face fully. His skin is as white as snow, his hair blacker than midnight.

 	‘You presume too much,’ he admonishes me. His voice is little more than a whisper, but his criticism cuts me. I bow my head, I hang upon his every word. ‘Capturing their ethereals is nigh on impossible. Every attempt that has been tried has failed with great loss,’ said Severax. ‘They will fight to the last to protect them. This task of which you speak we will save for another day. No. Your target is one of their emissaries. You will take one of them, and bring him to us, so that he might reveal the secrets of their persuasiveness.’ He falls silent again.

 	‘Our forces are sufficient to win this war, but we are losing many more worlds to the efforts of their diplomatic core than we are to military action,’ continues Shrike. ‘We are to be granted no more reinforcement for the foreseeable future. We cannot afford to become committed in one place, while their emissaries talk the worlds of the Emperor out of His light. Capture one of these emissaries while they are distracted. While we are evacuating, you will be on Agrellan. This is a great honour.’

 	‘We feel that they must have some kind of psychic or chemical hold over those they approach. How else can the number who capitulate be explained?’ The biologian’s artificial lungs wheeze as he speaks.

 	‘They need a live subject,’ adds Gallius. ‘He must be delivered alive, do you understand, sergeant?’

 	‘In order to verify our hypotheses,’ interrupts the biologian. He shows insufficient respect to our lord, he does not acknowledge him before he speaks. This angers me. The inquisitor is different. He shows deference, looking to Lord Severax before daring to speak. His face is lined with worry. It is the lot of the Inquisition to carry heavy burdens of knowledge and responsibility. Compared to my own duty to fight and die, his is onerous indeed.

 	‘We have further assets in play,’ says the inquisitor, ‘should you fail.’

 	‘I will not fail,’ I say.

 	‘Might is not always the sharpest weapon, a truth your Chapter exemplifies.’ The inquisitor paces around me slowly, looking me up and down. ‘We have an agent, a traitor among traitors, implanted with a tracer buried so deep that even the tau will not find it.’

 	‘This is good,’ I say. ‘He will deliver the emissary to us?’

 	‘They may,’ says the inquisitor. ‘Should it prove expedient. They have their orders. You have yours. Let us mesh them together for best effect. The one our agent guards, he is of particular interest to us.’

 	‘Any will do,’ interrupts Tulk.

 	Gallius stares at the biologian. ‘But this one is of particular interest.’ He turns back to me. ‘If a direct assault does not succeed…’

 	‘If the quarry goes to ground, flush him out.’

 	‘And let one’s hound chase it down,’ says the inquisitor. He understands our ways.

 	Our exchange pleases my Lord Severax. There is a fleeting expression of approval on his otherwise still features. None but a brother of the Raven Guard would notice it.

 	‘I have it on good authority that you are becoming adept at our ways, brother-sergeant,’ says Severax. ‘You have been chosen because of Shadow Captain Shrike’s personal recommendation.’

 	To hear such words from my lord fills my hearts with pride.

 	‘I serve as best I can, lord,’ I say.

 	‘Then serve us well, and deliver to us this war-talker, who poisons the minds of rightful men against the proper rule of the Lord of Mankind. This is your duty. Go now, and prepare.’

 	I obey, and with alacrity. Later, I and Inquisitor Gallius will have further words, and our trap will be set.

 
 
 Chapter Four


 	The meeting was to take place a dozen kilometres outside of Hive Chaeron’s walls. The Imperials had set up a temporary landing pad in a hole they’d carved in that awful forest. The trees had been cut back for a good three hundred metres, the red earth scraped raw by a heavy excavator. Our pilot took us through the canopy into the darkness beneath the trees. I couldn’t see out of the transport, but I felt the shadow close over me. There was a real presence down there, a menace that had the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The tau were unaffected, although I saw Krix’s quills shift. The faces of kroot are hard, most of them taken up by a mouth that’s more akin to a beak than anything else. Their flesh is thin, little musculature under it. To we gue’vesa, your average earth caste is inexpressive, but they’ve got nothing on the kroot. It’s like their faces are cast in stone. I could still tell that he felt the wrongness of Mu’gulath Bay too.

 	The Devilfish touched down so softly that we couldn’t tell we’d landed until Kor’la D’yanoi Yel’fyr – the air caste up front – flicked the signal and the landing lights went from amber to green.

 	‘Well now,’ said Skilltalker, patting his knees with his hands twice and hitching up his robes in preparation to stand. ‘We have arrived, and our task is at hand. Let us see if we cannot save a few lives here. Gue’vesa’vre, if you would be so kind?’ he said to me.

 	I had the squad sound off that they were set. They were. Their ‘affirmatives’ and ‘yes sirs’ told me far less than the air of wary readiness that came over them. They were a good la’rua, and I was very proud of them. We’d adopted a synthesis of Imperial Guard and fire caste teachings and I’d been gratified to see that it worked. With them behind me, and equipped with superior earth caste weaponry, I often felt that we could take on the entire Imperium on our own. And we all had reasons to want to.

 	I was wrong about our effectiveness, of course, and even my team’s cohesion. You drill and drill and concentrate on one thing so hard you miss what’s right in front of you. We have a word for it in Gothic – hubris. I was relatively well-educated for an Imperial, I must add here. You won’t find this level of talk right across society, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now in your dealings with other gue’la. Skilltalker was fascinated by the concept. Apparently there is no word for it in the modern tau language, although one day he did come up to me hurriedly, a look of delight on his face, to say he’d found an ancient term from the time of the Mont’ka that had an approximate meaning. In all honesty, I’d advise you reacquaint yourselves with it.

 	The rear ramp opened. There’s wasn’t even a hiss, the internal air pressure had automatically and soundlessly matched that of outside. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take tau tech for granted.

 	We went out. I took point, Holyon behind me. He might have been a liar, but you could rely on him in a fight. We had to be prepared for battle despite the terms of truce we were meeting under. If we were attacked, it wouldn’t be the first time the water caste has been targeted.

 	The clearing was muddy, broken tree stumps all around it, roots still clogged with the heavy red soil of Agrellan, bright scars in them leaking pale sap. A plasteel mesh had been laid down over the ground in the centre of the clearing, although it was far from level. Beacons blinked around the makeshift pad, the light coming off them making it hard to see under the trees, and that made me nervous. The trees of Agrellan are brittle, they snap so easily. The wood feels dead, their skins are slimy, leaves black like they are in the grip of decay, but they were alive somehow. I don’t know how something so sickly looking can grow into a forest. I didn’t like the place and I’m extremely grateful I’ve not been stationed there.

 	I’d appreciate it if you didn’t send me back.

 	A pathway of more mesh led off from the pad to the lip of a slope. From up there we had a fine view of Hive Chaeron. Big as a mountain, as hives are. The lower reaches must have been a hundred kilometres in diameter. Levels heaped upon level, reaching high up into the atmosphere so the top of it was lost in the yellow clouds. 

 	We were a ways out, but from the landing zone the walls looked huge. It was getting late in the afternoon, not yet evening, but the shadows were lengthening, and that of Chaeron lay like a slab of night on the haunted forest. The walls of Chaeron were white, blinding up close, but through the haze of pollution in the air they were coloured a gentle shade of apricot by the sun. A thousand metres tall, their length broken by bastions topped with macrocannon. A sixteen lane highway – a penline on a cloth compared to the bulk of the hive – went through a gate almost directly opposite us, but the gates were closed and the road empty. They were ready for war. 

 	It was all a little unreal, too big to be taken in and understood by the human mind. Like the Imperium itself, I suppose. The sunlight was broken by the haze, made dim, so that the hive looked like a painted backdrop. Only the lights on the evening side of it and the movements of fliers around the upper reaches told me it was not. I’ll bet my last pulse round that the landing site had been chosen so that we’d be intimidated by the size of the hive. It didn’t work. I still don’t quite grasp how blind my erstwhile countrymen can be. Earth caste weapons would have the walls down in a half hour or less. Bu clacked his tongue behind me in disapproval. He was wearing a respirator, as was the por’el. We all had our helmet seals engaged. There was something foul in the atmosphere.

 	‘How they live in such things? It is unsafe, unsanitary. Unsupportable. And this air!’

 	I motioned him to silence ‘Someone’s coming.’

 	Up the path hacked into the forest, a welcome party came. A functionary come to greet us, a squad of Guardsmen behind him. He wore heavy robes that looked like they’d not been washed for a while – if they could be, they were so stiff with brocade I doubt they’d survive any form of cleaning. Half his head was taken up by a lumpen cogitator and an ugly bionic eye. Not an Adeptus Mechanicus, as far as I could tell, but extensively modified anyhow. It was possible his own respirator was built into his face.

 	They came close, the Guardsmen faceless behind their respirators, marching in perfect step.

 	‘I am Plenipotentiary Carrillon. On behalf of the Lord Grunkel of Hive Chaeron, I greet you in the spirit of peace,’ he said, touching a seal of office hanging around his chest. He spoke very loudly and slowly from behind his breathing apparatus. He was looking me up and down suspiciously. No doubt taking in my feet, the five fingers on my gloved hands, my height. I decided to put him out of his misery. As the routine we’d developed with Skilltalker dictated, I slung my carbine and unfastened my helmet, revealing my human face to them all. I had a smaller respirator on underneath simply so I could pull this trick. Like I say, it’s all carefully thought out.

 	Carrillon managed to keep his reaction to a narrowing of his remaining eye. The Guardsmen with him were not so careful. Shocked intakes of breath and muttered curses came from them. I’m sure they’d all heard of the traitors who’d thrown in their lot with the xenos, but there aren’t that many of us in the Tau’Shas’Va as yet, and they probably thought of us as a myth. Carrillon held up his hand to silence them.

 	‘Gue’vesa’vre Jathen Korling, gue’vesa auxiliary diplomatic protection la’rua eight-four-four-eight,’ I said. I held Carrillon’s eye. If Carrillon was going to say anything, he never got the chance, because then Skilltalker made his entrance. Followed by Krix, he walked down the ramp of the Devilfish and into that sorry excuse for a landing zone.

 	He was looking around with eyes wide and welcoming, as if he were drinking in every sight he could, and that each was a fresh wonder. They’re childlike, the por’la, at least in that regard. Appear childlike, I should say. Like everything they do and have us do, it’s all calculated to bring about a particular reaction. I stood aside and replaced my helmet. The air was making my eyes water. Skilltalker came to the fore. We all stood to attention, carbines held vertically in front of us. Another calculated show, this one to demonstrate our loyalty. I wasn’t too worried. Kor’la D’yanoi Yel’fyr would be on high alert in the Devilfish, and the drones housed on the front of the craft were always vigilant.

 	Skilltalker crossed his hands in front of his chest and bowed. ‘Many thanks to you for our cordial reception, Plenipotentiary Carrillon. I am Emissary Por’el Bork’an Kais Por’noha, although I am more commonly referred to as Skilltalker.’

 	Skilltalker ignored Carrillon’s derisory snort at his name. To humans, the names of tau can seem to be unduly immodest, although this mystifies most tau I know. Why would a tau have a name that bragged of something that were not true? Fine, I say. But often for us it is regarded as impolite to make a big deal about the things we are good at, at least in some human cultures. Mine is one of those. We are a more subtle and diverse species than most of you give us credit for, and on Gormen’s Fast, we don’t like braggarts.

 	‘I bring you greetings from the tau. We are five castes, one people. We offer you peace.’

 	Carrillon shook his head ever so slightly, a sour look on his face. A mix of contempt and foreknowledge of his defeat, I think. ‘This way Emissary Skilltalker,’ his augmetic ground out an unlovely recitation of Skilltalker’s full tau name for him. ‘Lord Grunkel awaits you.’

 	We were led down the path around a curve to a large, hermetically sealed pavilion fronted by an ostentatious airlock. One of Carillon’s guards activated the airlock and I, Krix, Bu and Skilltalker went inside. I voxed the squad to hang back by the entrance. ‘Watch them,’ I said, confident that there was no way the Imperium could crack tau encryption. ‘I don’t like this. The whole thing stinks of ambush.’

 	‘Wouldn’t be the first time, Jathen’vre,’ said Goliath.

 	‘We’ve got your back,’ said Holyon. For once, I believed him.

 	The outer door shut. Air was pumped out, then back in. The inner door opened. The exercise was accompanied by a cacophony of whirring, banging, clanging and whining. I saw just how primitive our technology is, how ramshackle. I can’t believe I used to take things like that to be normal.

 	We stepped out. The floor was covered in carpets showing already wet patches from damp trapped inside the tent. The fabric of the habitat was beaded with condensation. The place was luxurious, but grimy. A long wooden table ran the width of the tent. Two guards in scarlet dress uniforms, crested, golden helmets and respirators stood to attention behind it, flanking a fat man in a similar outfit who sat in a ridiculously overly ornamented chair. He had a face like thunder, and a mouth full of food. Many dishes were laid in front of him. The whole meeting, his fork never stopped moving. His head was bald and beaded with sweat, his eyes sunk in folds of flesh. A thin moustache and tiny, triangular beard clung to his flabby face.

 	‘Ah, Lord Grunkel,’ said Skilltalker, pressing his hands together and speaking with unalloyed delight. ‘Such a great pleasure to meet you face to face. I am Emissary Por’el Bork’an Kais Por’noha. I bring you greetings from the tau, we are five castes, one people, and I am here with full authority to invite you to lay down your arms and join with us. We offer a bright future for all who side with us, a new way of life. We have much to offer a faithful friend. All are bound to the dream of bringing a new and better way to the universe. All are working to the Greater Good. I hope you will choose to share the culture, technology and protection of the tau empire, as your kind here with me today already have.’

 	Grunkel grunted and glared at me. ‘I’ve heard your standard offer before, as I have heard of these traitors. I am sure, if I were to ask him, that he’d tell me how wonderful it is to live with stinking xenos and spit on the law of the Emperor. I’m not so naive to believe that he could possibly be either entirely honest or not coerced. I’m not interested.’ He wiped his mouth and hands on a napkin, then stood and gestured at the chairs. ‘Nevertheless, I invite you to please, sit. I dislike aliens but am not a barbarian. This meeting was called under fair terms and I intend to uphold them. I offer you what little luxury we have. The blockade has been hard on my people.’

 	Grunkel’s fat belly and the small fortune’s worth of off-world delicacies led me to believe he was suffering far less than his subjects. Always the way.

 	‘Most unfortunate. I am sorry for the miseries of your people.’ said Skilltalker. And damn it, he meant it, not that Grunkel believed him. A chair was pulled out for the tau by a liveried servant, and he sat gracefully. Water caste are taller than fire warriors, something else that often proves a surprise to us. ‘We have many supplies of a high grade. Upon your surrender, they will be immediately dispatched to your city, along with aid teams and marshalling officers, all of them are fully briefed and ready to aid your government in providing for the new citizens of the Tau’va.’

 	‘What’s that? Commonwealth or something?’ Grunkel poured a generous measure of wine into a glass and handed it to Skilltalker. He wouldn’t have known that alcohol has no effect and less appeal for the tau. He also wouldn’t know that the water caste’s bodies, thanks to the efforts of the earth caste, are mostly inured to poisons. Skilltalker drank the wine. No doubt it tasted vile to him, but he smiled with appreciation. ‘Empire, more like,’ said Grunkel. He reached for a roll of bread and broke it in two, stuffing one piece into his mouth. He spoke as he chewed and waved the other half at Skilltalker. ‘You come here, bringing traitors, hoping to show me how safe and fine life is under the tau. Do you take me for a simpleton? I am not fooled.’

 	‘They are not traitors!’ said Skilltalker. ‘Not traitors to civilisation and peace. You may ask gue’vesa’vre J’ten Ko’lin whatever you will. The presence of my protection team here vouches for the honesty of the Greater Good. They are my guard. They accompany me everywhere. Their weapons are at my back every day and every night. They could, if they so chose, end my existence at a whim. But they do not. They work for the Greater Good, as do I. They serve me willingly, and I for my part serve them willingly, by serving the greater ideal of the Greater Good. This is what Tau’va means.’

 	Grunkel sat back with a sigh, pushing out his belly. I’m glad I had my helmet on. The smell of non-Tau’va humans gets to me now. Tau are fastidiously clean creatures, although they smell strange to me still. Humans can be, but in places like Agrellan, where everything is in short supply, including water, hygiene’s not a priority, even in the monied classes. In short, Grunkel reeked. Of sweat, of unwashed clothes, but most of all of privilege built on the suffering of others.

 	‘I’ve heard such offers all before, at one time or another. Not always in the same pretty words, and not always together. We’re isolated out here, the Imperium’s eye is elsewhere. It’s up to men like me to make sure that the rule of the Emperor does not falter, but it does.’ He glanced at me. ‘Pirates, renegades, xenos… The Damocles Gulf is a playground for them all. We have to fend for ourselves, make sure the light of the Emperor and the Imperium does not fail. Tell me, tau. How are you different to the hrud? Your kind will infest our world as surely as they would. And what makes you different to the orks? Your threats are more coy than theirs, but I hear them all the same. And your weaponry, as has been pointed out to me by other emissaries like yourself, is far better than that carried by the greenskins.’ He leaned forward with a grunt. With a gut like that, he must have been in constant discomfort. He picked up more food, some kind of stringy meat, and dipped it into a pot of sauce. ‘You offer us nothing but slavery, hidden behind the words of friendship,’ he said, before taking a bite of the meat. Sauce dribbled into his beard.

 	Skilltalker was dismayed. ‘No! No, none are slaves. We all work together, for the Greater Good.’

 	‘Do you know, your kind, how large the Imperium is? Do you?’ Grunkel smiled nastily. ‘I’m sure treacherous men like your J’thing here has filled you in. The Imperium of Man is the largest empire in the cosmos. It stretches from one side of the galaxy to the other. Your little “commonwealth”, no matter how dynamic it feels itself to be, runs up only against the bulwarks of the Imperium – we here beside the Gulf. And although you may breach the walls in one place, you cannot hope to take the fortress. Once you have drawn the attention of the High Lords of Terra, my alien “friend”, then your kind will regret its arrogance, shortly before it ceases to exist altogether. If you sincerely believe in your messages of cohabitation and peace, and I am not convinced at all by those, then in the same spirit I offer you some sage advice of my own. Withdraw back over the Damocles Gulf. Fortify your frontier, and pray that the Imperium deems you too little of a threat to bother crushing, because crushed you will be. No matter your technology, no matter your self-belief. You goad a giant, and wake it at your peril.’

 	Quite the speech, I thought. Skilltalker’s expression was open and sympathetic. ‘Oh great lord of the Imperium, thank you for your advice, but I fear it cannot and will not be acted upon. That is not our destiny. Our destiny is to carry the message of the Greater Good to all, and bring peace to the galaxy.’

 	Grunkel twisted his lips and shook his head in disbelief. ‘You believe yourselves so superior. And, heretical as it might be to say so, you might be right. I have seen your technology. But you are few, and we are many.’

 	‘And you cannot see that your time has passed,’ countered Skilltalker. ‘Here, let us show you some of the technical and social benefits we can offer you, as equals, all working together as one.’ He waved Bu forward, but Grunkel scowled at him. Bu came to the table only to stop before setting his demonstration unit down. As far as I could tell, he was hurt by the rejection. But they’re stoic, the earth caste. Annoyingly stoic.

 	‘I’m not interested. You can take your impure alien junk and shove it into whatever passes for an alimentary exit in your species.’

 	Charming, I thought, and this is the upper level of Agrellan society. 

 	Skilltalker looked glum, although the manner of expression made it abundantly clear that it was sorrow he felt for Grunkel, not himself. ‘As stars are born, burn bright and then decay, so do empires. Do you think that your species has a monopoly on power? Archaeologists of our earth and water castes have discovered evidence of lost civilisations that predate both of ours by tens of millions of years!’ He held out his hands, as if he would wring a drop of reason from this rock of Imperial rectitude. ‘Why, yours is not even the first empire of mankind – our contact with worlds you have forgotten about tells us that. I assure you, it will be the last. Your people will live on within our commonwealth, whether or not you yourself live to see it. And I rejoice that it is so, for genocide is shameful and unnecessary. Would that we could welcome you all into our fold without bloodshed. If you fear the retribution of your kind, do not. Work with us! The more of you that do, the less power the tyranny of your masters will hold over you. Be safe, be free.’

 	‘Free?’ snorted Grunkel. ‘Freedom’s a dangerous myth. I say again, I’ve heard all this before, Skilltalker. You think that your army waiting out there,’ he gestured upwards, ‘makes me more inclined to take your duplicitous offer, or less? You underestimate us if you think we shall all be so easily intimidated. There were water caste here before the last attempt you people made to take our worlds. I’ve seen your broadcasts, read your propaganda.’ He looked directly at me as he continued to speak. ‘All very marvellous, but better, I say, better the righteous rule of the Emperor of Mankind, better the chains of honest servitude than an alien boot on the neck in a false equality.’

 	He threw down his meat, leaned back, sighed and laced his fingers over his gut again.

 	‘I am sure you will be very disappointed, xenos, but this is my answer – there will be no surrender of Hive Chaeron.’

 	Skilltalker nodded, understanding and disappointment artfully expressed by his remarkable face. ‘I understand. I thank you for this meeting.’ He stood, and bowed, hands crossed across his chest in the tau way. ‘If you should survive the attentions of our hunter cadres, I hope we may meet again, and that your opinion will have changed.’

 	With that he headed for the airlock. Krix followed, turning to and fro, alert for any sign of ambush. Bu and I followed.

 	‘Wait!’ called Grunkel. Skilltalker stopped. ‘I have a question for your human slave.’

 	‘J’ten?’ asked Skilltalker.

 	I turned. ‘Go ahead, Grunkel.’ Not using his title pleased me greatly. It didn’t faze him. I reckon he was a kind of pragmatist, Grunkel. He was no coward, either. I feel for men like him. Sure, he was a pig of a man, a tyrant. But the system he existed in demanded he be one. He knew he stood a good chance of dying. What could he do? He was playing the odds; a pity for him that he laid down the wrong hand on the table.

 	‘Tell me, “J’ten”, if that is your name. Is it truly as he says? Is it better for you as a slave of theirs or as a subject of the Emperor’s?’

 	I regarded him through my helmet vision system for a moment. It put distance between us, that technological interface. Looking at him that way made him seem disconnected from my life, ridiculous even. All that made my time before the Tau’va seem almost impossible. I almost believed it had been some kind of nightmare. Almost.

 	‘What do you think?’ I said to Grunkel. I then spoke to Skilltalker. ‘I advise us to depart now, por’el.’

 	Skilltalker hesitated. He was such a professional, making it clear to Grunkel that he was considering my words. I was no lackey.

 	‘Very well, gue’vesa’vre. I concur. Farewell, Lord Grunkel.’

 	We left the tent. The last time I’d done something like this, I’d been on the other side, back when I was still Jathen Korling and I was a captain in the Gormen’s Fast planetary defence force. I knew as soon as the tau came in – in greater force that time, I might add, our water caste visitor lacked Skilltalker’s flair for humility – that we were outgunned. We could all see it, all except Colonel Artreuse. Looking back at our audience with Grunkel, maybe he saw it too. Maybe he was just too proud to accept it. It’s no easy thing to accept that your time is done.

 	Grunkel was more of a pragmatist than Artreuse, but not as much of one as Boroth. We roll our dice and take our choices. I made mine. Grunkel made his. I’m alive, and Grunkel’s dead. What does that tell you?

 	Evening was coming on outside. The hive’s upper levels, jutting so far above the curve of Agrellax, still glowed amber, but the walls were grey with shade, and the forest floor already lost to night. 

 	‘They’re up to something,’ I signalled the squad. ‘Hincks, Othelliar, take point. Goliath, Helena, close in on the por’el. Holyon, stick by me. Might be worth getting Kor’la D’yanoi Yel’fyr to fire up the drones.’

 	Bu grabbed my sleeve, his other arm cradling his ignored tech demonstrator. ‘We wait here. No go. Por’el thinks we be safe.’

 	‘That’s not his job, it’s mine. He’s too invested in ideas of honour and mutual gain to see how devious these swine can be,’ I said. ‘I don’t like it. Something’s up.’

 	We rounded the corner into the landing glade. Kor’la D’yanoi Yel’fyr had been hauled from his cockpit, struggling to stand on legs suited to zero-g. Men stood around, their weapons pointed.

 	‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘They’ve gone and done it.’ This was no fear for myself speaking, you understand. I knew what was going to happen. My guts clenched. These men were all going to die.

 	‘Drop your weapons! Stand down. You are to be taken prisoner!’ their officer shouted.

 	‘Oh the damned idiots,’ I heard Helena whisper.

 	‘Don’t do this!’ I said, switching my helmet to broadcast. ‘Stand down, we are a diplomatic mission with full immunity as agreed before the meeting.’

 	‘There can no consideration for xenos scum and traitors! How marvellous can this Greater Good be? You have fallen into a trap.’

 	With a half-platoon of lasguns trained on me, I let my weapon fall, my squad followed suit. I would not be party to gunning down men I would have once fought alongside. This was small consolation. 

 	‘No my friend,’ I said softly. ‘You have triggered one yourself.’

 	This is the way it goes; once weapons are raised and threats offered, everyone gets a chance to surrender. The por’el turned to me. Now was the time. They might take it better from me.

 	‘Now, for the love of the Emperor, lay down your arms.’

 	The Guardsman laughed. ‘You have no love for the Emperor, traitor!’

 	They moved forward to arrest us, but never made it.

 	Fire came hissing out of the trees, the gentle burr of sound-suppressed burst cannons. It was so quiet that the Guardsmen only realised they were under fire when three men exploded into hunks of flesh.

 	An instant of shocked silence, and then the clearing erupted into pandemonium. Men threw themselves in all directions, too busy trying to save their own skins to open fire on us.

 	One of the Devilfish’s drones popped out of its housing and rushed towards Skilltalker, encasing him in a glowing sheath of energy. The Guardsman had been instructed to bring him down, it seemed, for large amounts of weapons fire came his way, but he stood there impassively, protected by the superior technology of the Greater Good.

 	When they realised what was happening, they turned their guns on us, shooting Hincks dead out of spite. Krix went into them, moving so fast that the first three men he killed didn’t even register his presence. He screeched fearsomely, and the remaining Guardsmen ran from him, right at the stealth teams hidden in the fringes of the forest.

 	‘Stop! Stop! Enough! Cease firing! Let them be!’ ordered the por’el.

 	The stealth teams’ blood was up, and it took a repeat of Skilltalker’s order before the shooting stopped. Bodies lay everywhere around the clearing. Guard came running up the path to be met by our raised weapons. The stealth teams emerged behind them, their shapes visible as a glimmer on the air. This time, when asked to drop their weapons, they complied.

 	‘Such a waste, such a waste,’ said Skilltalker softly. He walked around, looking at the carnage, still protected by the shield drone. Krix was looking at the bodies longingly, but he wouldn’t eat, not in the presence of the tau.

 	Bu helped Kor’la D’yanoi Yel’fyr back into his pod, as he was practically helpless at this level of gravity. My men surrounded the Guardsmen, bunching them up in front of the Devilfish. One of the stealth teams headed off to the tent. There was a brief round of gunfire, and then they came back, their bulky forms behind Grunkel and more Guardsmen. All told, we’d taken about thirty prisoner.

 	‘What shall we do with them?’ I said.

 	‘Leave them,’ said Skilltalker. ‘This is a diplomatic meeting, and I will abide by the laws of it, even if they do not.’

 	‘They’ll only fight O’Shassera,’ I said.

 	‘Then they will die. But that is their choice. It will not be mine. Destroy their weapons.’

 	My remaining men got on with that while the stealth teams watched the prisoners. I looked at the smoking corpses, checking them for signs of life. Skilltalker saw a waste. I saw idiocy. Grunkel was standing in the flood of the tide and denying his feet were wet. That was the real shame of it. Times are changing. Most of my kind just don’t know it yet.

 	‘Stupid,’ I said to Grunkel. He stared back, hands clasped behind his head, in the same boat as his men for once. He was a cold-eyed whoreson, that’s for sure.

 	‘Not stupid,’ said Skilltalker, talking more to Grunkel than to me. ‘This is an act of defiance, a petty act. Now look, your men are dead, and for what?’

 	‘You brought men too,’ said Grunkel, somewhat petulantly, I thought.

 	Skilltalker smiled sadly. ‘Only because the perfidy of your kind is well-known. I thank destiny not all of you are the same. Our offer still stands. Please reconsider. I wish to see you working with us, together, and not dead in this manner. It is a waste.’

 	‘Go to hell, xenos.’ Grunkel snarled through his respirator. ‘I’d rather die.’

 	Skilltalker’s smile faded. ‘I’m very much afraid that you will, much to my eternal regret.’

 	Skilltalker turned and went back into the Devilfish. We retrieved Hincks’s body. We stood warily, our guns on the Guardsmen as we waited for the engines to spool up. You could see that a lot of the Guard there were considering Skilltalker’s offer, but we couldn’t take them.

 	Bu went into the craft. We followed, guns up all the way.

 	The door shut on the faces of those who had thought that they were going to die. Their relief was easily apparent. Skilltalker showed mercy and artful diplomacy in releasing the men, for what little good it did them. If their leaders did not surrender, they’d only die tomorrow, or the day after.

 	The Devilfish took off, carrying us back to our ship to take us back to the fleet. Back on the ground, the stealth teams would be vanishing in front of the Imperials, going back to hide in the jungle to wait for O’Shaserra’s attack to come over the following days.

 	Grunkel should have surrendered.

 
 
 Chapter Five


 	I never cease to wonder at the efficiency of the tau.

 	Only days later and the battle for Agrellan was at full spate. It was late afternoon where we were. Already ten of the twelve hives – Chaeron included – had fallen to Shadowsun’s First Strike hunter cadres. In a single day. Those kinds of rapid gains must have taken the Imperial brass totally by surprise. As history proves, the remaining two cities would not hold out long. I’d heard that the Imperials had begun evacuating the planet the moment Shadowsun attacked. Clever that, as our forces were committed elsewhere, too spread out to do much about it. I suppose that’s the benefits of having your army commanded by a Space Marine Chapter Master. He gave Shadowsun a run for her money all right.

 	The Imperials were pulling back all their assets to Agrellan Prime where they were being ferried into orbit. Their fleet was away over that side of the planet, well out of our line of view, holding position over Agrellan Prime and keeping the tau battlegroup back while their warriors were pulled out of the fire. I wondered if the Imperials were going to offer to take the civilian population away with them, and I wondered how many of the civilians would accept that offer. Most of the fighting was away from us, but the ground rumbled with distant artillery bombardments, and flights of Sun Sharks screamed overhead periodically.

 	There were few warriors at our position, but the earth caste support work group was busy all around us. The invasion hadn’t even concluded, and already the earth caste were busily constructing a spaceport. Hell, they were building a city. I’m sure pre-existing ground-to-orbit facilities had been identified as key targets for various teams in the cadres, but these assets were as much a liability for the tau. Most of them were close by or built onto the hive cities. As such, guaranteeing their security was nigh on impossible. The cities were vast. No matter how quickly the armed forces capitulated or were routed, the hives were occupied by fractious populations. Not everyone was going to see the tau as a liberating power. The hives would take days to fully pacify, the spaceports and landing pads would be prime targets for every fanatic with a bomb and a death wish. The tau couldn’t risk their constructor groups or administrators coming under attack. Bu had also told me that the earth caste was amazed – in a very bad way – at the hive cities. Some ambitious plans were mooted to convert them, but as Bu said, it’d take a long time to make them fit for the Greater Good, and in any case the population of the world was going to be greatly reduced as the earth caste calculated Agrellan was well over its optimum population loading. He confided to me that personally, he’d prefer to see them dismantled, but he didn’t think that was going happen. The Third Sphere advance was progressing too quickly to take the time to do it.

 	To get round this lack of secure facilities, in usual earth caste fashion they were going to build a new city, under fire, in little under three days.

 	As we were mere gue’vesa, and not entirely to be trusted, we were assigned rear line duties, in our case guarding the site of this new settlement, named prosaically Mu’gulath’effu’ve – Mu’gulath First Bridgehead.

 	Not very poetic, the earth caste.

 	I can’t say I was completely disappointed. Space Marines had been present on the planet since the first Imperial reinforcement – White Scars, so I understand, although I never saw any of them. But more had come, Raven Guard, their leader taking command of the whole counter-invasion force. Only a few hundred all told, if that, but that’s more than enough. You have to understand, that to citizens of the Imperium the Adeptus Astartes are the stuff of myth, almost gods… And we’re scared of them. They are called the Angels of Death for good reason.

 	There were a few fire warrior teams – real warriors, as far as the tau were concerned, but I’m not convinced. I know I’m on dangerous ground here, but I reckon you’ve enough to shoot me already in this recording should you decide I’m not sufficiently obedient. I’ve noticed that when battle’s going against fire warriors; they’ve got less staying power than men. I’m looking forward to the time that we gue’la are trusted enough to take up front line work with the likes of the mal’kor and the thraxians. We’ve a lot to give, not least flexibility.

 	Anyway, that’s something I’ve been badgering fire warrior command about whenever I’m able. I doubt I won them over, they must have judged the time right, because we will be shipping out to the front as soon as my vocal grafts take. I can’t wait, I really can’t. I can’t say all my messages and petitions did the job. But maybe what convinced them is partly down to what happened there, at Mu’gulath’effu’ve.

 	Shadowsun began her attack early in the morning, by local noon earth caste contruction teams were clearing the area and beginning to erect the first buildings. The first to come down, under attack, was a lifting unit bearing the four-storey central command node. Somehow it deposited its load and got away before it got shot down. With the command node down, everything sped up. Flights of lifters brought in earth caste equipment, and as soon as they were down, they started laying the road network out. Enemy aircraft were cleared soon after, and we had clear skies for the earth caste to bring their heavier units in. By mid-afternoon, the streets had all been laid out, foundations were dug and basing modules in place, and more and more prefabricated buildings were being shipped in by the air caste. The place was swarming with construction drones, engineers and several hundred alien members of the Tau’va. There was an ethereal on site – Aun’Kira – up in the command node overseeing it all, which goes to show how certain we were of victory. We were co-opted into patrolling the perimeter, but we were there in the first place because our Por’el Skilltalker was stationed at First Bridgehead. A large part of the complex was given over to reprocessing, and there were several water caste there. Confident of capturing many prisoners or experiencing mass surrenders, and mindful of the vast populations of Agrellan’s twelve hives, the reprocessing centres had been put up first. By early evening, we’d already had over ten thousand captured Imperial soldiers brought to the facility, processed, and we were beginning to ship those who were willing to pledge their loyalty to the Tau’va out.

 	It’s harsh what happened to those as didn’t, but that’s war. They had their choice.

 	It was just after we heard that Agrellan Two had fallen to the cadres, we were attacked. 

 	Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure this incident has been played over and again at the High Command. There were half a dozen or so bridgeheads constructed by the earth caste teams, why ours was the only one attacked was way above my command tier to know for sure at the time, although it became all too clear. In the immediate aftermath my suspicions were that this was no attack of opportunity, and yeah, in light of what happened later I should have acted on them. I admitted that fair and square at the debriefing. I was still in a situation then where I didn’t feel it my place to speak up and contradict my superiors’ predictions. Commander O’Hye’esera herself told me, to my face, that that should never happen again, that I should speak my mind and that my being a gue’vesa made no difference, that we are all equals fighting for the Greater Good. More than that, she said that I would have much deeper understanding of the gue’la because I am gue’vesa, and that my opinion would therefore be valued.

 	I am learning, I swear. Still, hindsight’s a marvellous thing.

 	There was one cadre stationed to protect First Bridgehead, along with five kroot kindreds, my la’rua, two other gue’vesa auxiliary teams, and one thraxian close melee. Around two companies’ strength in Imperial Guard terms, I guess. We didn’t see the attack coming at all. Why would we? We were a long way behind the – rapidly shrinking – main lines, the Imperials had been taken unawares despite being prepared, and their evacuation was well underway when we started on First Bridgehead. I’d have thought a cadre backed-up by gunships and one of the new Riptides would be enough to dissuade anyone, but those Catachans are not easily intimidated.

 	I was patrolling the southern perimeter with my team when it happened. The woods were evil, gave us all the spooks. I was glad of the ves’ron turrets watching the shade of the woods. Evil place, even in the broad light of day. There was no undergrowth so far as I could tell, only the trees grew, and their pale trunks marched off into a smeary kind of grey that was unpleasant to look too deeply into. 

 	‘Local wildlife’s keeping a low profile,’ said Helena.

 	‘Good job,’ said Goliath. ‘It’s not friendly.’

 	‘Do they know what they’re doing here? Choosing this world? Gives me the creeps, what you Imperials do to your planets,’ said Othelliar. As always, that note of anger was clear in his voice.

 	‘By “they” you mean “us”, Othelliar, and by “you” you mean “them”. I’m no Imperial, nor is Helena or Goliath. We’re all in the Tau’va. You seem to be wilfully forgetting that.’

 	He mumbled something that might have been an apology. Holyon laughed. Emperor knows why.

 	‘What’s that!’ said Goliath. He pointed out to the edge of the forest. Something was moving there.

 	‘Halt,’ I said, bringing the la’rua to a stop. I zoomed my lenses in to the movement at the fringe of the trees. ‘Native life,’ I said. A large, cat-like thing with a flat head and six legs was prowling along the edge of the forest.

 	‘Look at that thing!’ said Goliath. ‘Nasty looking.’

 	‘I’ve seen bigger, and I’ve seen worse,’ said Holyon dismissively.

 	‘How anything can live here without a respirator beats me,’ said Goliath.

 	‘It does not appear well,’ said Helena.

 	‘No,’ I said. She was right, its grey fur was matted and in places fallen out to show scabbed skin. When I had my helmet zoom at maximum, I could see sores showing pretty much all over it. One of the middle pair of legs was withered. 

 	‘Should it look like that, ’vre?’ said Helena.

 	‘Beats me, I don’t know if the local life is hexapedal or whether it’s a quadruped with some kind of mutation. I’m no biologist. Go ask the earth caste.’

 	Helena laughed. ‘They’re kind of busy, and the ones hereabouts are the wrong sort.’

 	‘Fine then, you’ll have to save it.’ We watched the animal slink off. In spite of its size, it didn’t appear to be much of a threat, even so, the closest ves’ron turret tracked it pretty carefully until it had vanished into the trees.

 	We resumed our patrol. Maybe for about a half dec. We’d settled into a steady, diligent sweep when alarms suddenly went off everywhere. That’s when we heard the first report.

 	‘All units, all units! Stand ready, we are under attack. We are under attack!’

 	We looked around like idiots, searching for the source of the disturbance. The south side was silent, alarms clanging out from the ves’ron turrets and our helmet earpieces aside, there was no movement at all. We couldn’t even hear anything, and for the time being the constant activity of the earth caste behind us went on uninterrupted.

 	I checked in. ‘Command, command, this is gue’vesa la’rua eight-four-four-eight, we see nothing. What are our orders?’

 	There was a pause before O’Hye’esera answered me personally. ‘They attack the north side. Proceed swiftly to reinforce shas’la la’rua goi’va’he’naka.’

 	‘What’s their target?’ I asked. The translation units in my helmet conveying my words to my commander.

 	‘They’re going for the reprocessing centre,’ she said. ‘The gue’la slay gue’la to prevent their joining of the Tau’va. This is abominable!’

 	She was right; it seemed petty, but then she didn’t know the Imperium like we did, how vindictive it could be. I think we appal you.

 	Signs of combat were becoming apparent. The three Hammerhead gunships that had been patrolling over our heads on the south were heading directly over the centre of First Bridgehead for the north side. Earth caste were abandoning their tasks with that iron efficiency with which they do everything. Machines were setting themselves down, protective energy shields going up around them, blast doors and shutters closing over their vulnerable parts. We ran. The site was four kilometres across. When we’d made the centre, earth caste were making their way in orderly lines to the central command node, where they’d find shelter in its bunker. We had to shove our way through them. Flights of drones whizzed over us. We could hear the gunfire now, the high pitched whine of pulse weaponry, the crack of lasguns. The drone emplacements around the command node were belting out a high rate of fire toward the north. A trio of mortar rounds exploded nearby, showering us with dirt. We ducked into a crouch and ran on. Another, larger shell came close in afterwards, hitting the middle of a line of earth caste we’d just shoved through and lofting body parts, mud and shattered construction matrices into the sky. The shockwave caught us, sending me sprawling. Goliath helped me up. Helena and Holyon were a few paces away, helping wounded earth caste. Othelliar was a problem, sprinting toward the battle.

 	‘You okay, boss?’ said Goliath.

 	I shook off his hand. ‘Othelliar, Othelliar! Fall back into formation now!’

 	I felt a little woozy. Med teams were running all over the place, hauling shocked fio’la to their feet and pushing them toward the command node. They took over from Helena who was trying to stem the flow of blood from the neck of a fio’la, and she rejoined us. Holyon came in close after. Of Othelliar, there was no sign.

 	‘Come on, we’re one gun down as it is, we need Othelliar.’ I shouted into my vox-pickup. ‘Back here now, la’Othelliar!’

 	A network of shield drones came swooping in, throwing a protective energy umbrella over the remaining earth caste as they ran into the broad, slot doors around the command node. Shells, ranged now, slammed into the energy envelope surrounding the structure. A couple got through the shields, but did little more than turn the smooth white of the exterior smoky black. Others exploded among the drones. Three fell from the sky with a clang, sending up sparks and smoke, but they did their job, and the remainder of the fio’la made it to safety.

 	We were away from the central section then, off up one of the radial roads, and into the battle proper.

 	Lines of fire warriors had taken up station around the northern edge. The Imperials had chosen their time and location well. The land for First Bridgehead had been cleared. The site was circular, and the construction patterns – the processing centre aside – proceeded sectionally, starting in the south-west quadrant and moving around the site like a clock face being filled in. Much of the superstructure had not been put into place in three-fifths of the site, and all that had was towards the south-west and west, so there was precious little cover in the north. The roads were raised somewhat, there was some shelter to be found behind the foundation plugs and turrets, and there were a handful of pits dug to facilitate more rapid deployment of the deeper-ranging prefabricated buildings, other than that we were caught in the open. 

 	Bu had told me much about the combat deployment of earth caste facilities – he is quite bloodthirsty for a fio’la, hence his frontline attachment. And actually, a similar facility to First Bridgehead had been my first glimpse of a tau settlement, back on Gormen’s Fast two tau’cyr ago. It’s all very smart, but the self-contained nature of the units that made up First Bridgehead was working against us here. If this were an Imperial beachhead, there’d have been trenches for comms lines, piles of construction materials, cumbersome earth shifter equipment. It would have taken weeks to build, but we’d have had plenty to hide behind. As it was on Mu’gulath Bay, the south was finished, but here there was nothing between us and the processing centre, and there was nothing again between that and the command node.

 	The Guard were in a far better position. An initial foray against the processing centre had been beaten back, and there were several dozen human bodies littering the ground in front of it, although the centre itself had not escaped unscathed. The others were a trickier proposition. Attacking from the jungle, they were deep in cover. We ran over to the fire warrior squad we had been assigned to and threw ourselves down, Othelliar was there already. He was firing his pulse gun in time with the shas’la la’rua. I was furious with him. Heedless of the fire coming in from the Guard, I kicked his gun away and rolled him onto his back.

 	‘Don’t ever do that again,’ I said. ‘We’re supposed to work as a team. This is your team. Us, not them.’ I pointed at the fire warriors. ‘Or whoever happens to be fighting a fight you find appealing. You disobey orders and you compromise our efficiency. Do it again and I’ll have you on charges.’

 	I couldn’t see his face through his helmet. But he nodded. I let go of his shoulder and he rolled back over, and retrieved his weapon.

 	The tactical situation was so: we were out in the open, but we had by far the heavier firepower. So much of it was blasting into the woods that the Guard were keeping their heads down and their shots were poorly aimed. Secondly, pulse fire is more effective at range than las-fire. Especially somewhere like Agrellan where the haze of the atmosphere disperses the coherency of the light beams quite quickly. Every Imperial Guardsman that’s lived through one engagement knows this; lasguns are reliable and cheap to make, but the environment can compromise their efficiency. We’d a number of gunships, they’d three heavy tanks in support. One was a blazing wreck already, but the other two had pushed up banks of the clay soil in front of them with their dozer blades. How they managed to get in so close is still under investigation, but I suspect it’s simple fieldcraft. The Catachans have a knack for this sort of fighting, they’re renowned for it. There were a good number of Sentinel walkers – another signature of the humans from that particular world. They’re hard men, all right. The creatures on their home world make the diseased horrors of Agrellan look pathetic. They wore vests and were bare-armed, barely a scrap of armour among them. Slows them down, they say. Heavily muscled too, on account of their world’s high gravity. The only concession they had made to the toxicity of Agrellan was the respirators each and every one of them had on. Even a Catachan can’t breathe the air of Agrellan.

 	Mortar fire was coming in thick and fast, bad news for us. Fire warrior teams away to the east were copping the worst of it. It was pure good fortune that there’d been a rare delay in the construction, and the atmosphere reprocessors hadn’t been flown in – there was a vast network of these planned, Bu said, to clean up the air. A direct hit on one of those and the battle would’ve been over in short order.

 	 O’Hye’esera was there, directing drone squadrons against the Guard. The ves’ron made a handy shield, and kept them occupied. And so we were in something of a stalemate. The lone Riptide assigned to First Bridgehead was hammering away at the trees, but the Catachans were moving around, and they were hard to see, even with all our useful technology. Markerlights – drone and tau operated – were stripping away some of the benefits they derived from cover, and I thought it wouldn’t be long before our superior weaponry and superior fire discipline would drive them back into the forest where they could be hunted down after the conquest, captured, and inducted into the Tau’va at leisure. Despite our difficult position, we’d already blunted their attack. Or so I thought.

 	I was wrong about that.

 	Overlapping patterns of pulse fire started to take their toll, markerlights painting up the Catachans in bright oranges within our helmet sighting mechanisms. Shells continued falling on us, and we were taking stiff casualties, but we’d annihilated a good platoon’s worth of the enemy to their two fire warrior teams’ worth on our side.

 	That was when the Imperials revealed their secret weapon. They waited until our Riptide had advanced, jetting forward to support the rush forward of our troops. For that moment, it was on its own and unsupported by the Hammerheads.

 	An Imperial Knight came from the forest to the north-west. The movement of the treetops was the first indication that it was coming, and then it burst through the trees and all hell broke loose.

 	Knights are rare things, great walkers possessed of arcane tech. I’d seen one once before, in the same colours. House Terryn, I think. Bigger than the Riptide, and just as heavily armoured. It opened up with its battlecannon and stubbers as it came charging at our lines. Their weapons are simple solid and explosive projectile throwers, but the sheer size of them makes them devastating. All of a sudden the triumphant feelings we’d been enjoying evaporated. A volley of battlecannon fire slammed into the lead of our three Hammerheads, blasting it into shrapnel that went scything into the fire warriors sheltering behind it. As it demolished the tank, the Knight’s other weapons were running hot, sending a stream of tracer bullets into our lines. The height advantage the Knight had over us made what little cover we had useless, and perhaps a fifth of our fire warriors died in those few moments. 

 	O’Hye’esera reacted instantly. The two remaining Hammerheads took off skyward, firing as they went. She ordered a withdrawal, and we fell back, team by team. The turrets of the command node switched to target the Knight, and the Riptide repositioned itself to engage. The earth caste were very confident about the Riptides, but I don’t think they’d accounted for the shielding the Knights have. The Riptide rocked as it sent several ion rounds at the Knight. Each and every one was absorbed by the shields to the front, sending ripples of coloured light playing across the machine’s heraldry. Probably the shas’vre in there thought he’d fell the Knight with no problem, generally tau weaponry shreds Imperial armour like tissue paper. He was in for a rude shock. Caught by surprise, he ignited his jets too late, lifting off the ground as the Knight broke into a lumbering run that set the ground shaking, chainfist raised. It carved through the air with a speed that took us all by surprise, crashing into the Riptide’s leg and taking it clean off. The blade continued on into the side of the Riptide’s jump pack, shearing through the left exhaust, and the battlesuit lurched to the left, gases billowing from it, and out of my line of sight.

 	We retreated from the Knight in good order. In response, the Catachans poured out of the trees in force, running toward the command node. It looked like they’d abandoned their plans to go for the processing centre and were headed right for the command centre. That there was an ethereal in there got the tau all het up. O’Hye’esera ordered a ring of steel to be cast around the node. I mean, that was the obvious target, right? The attack on the processing centre was an obvious feint.

 	We were all wrong about that.

 	‘Gue’vesa teams eight-four-four-eight, eight-eight-nine-severn and eight-nine-one-three, fall back to the processing centre,’ came Ethereal Aun’kira’s command. He was stationed up in the command node, and hopefully safe. ‘Your species will be comforted by the presence of its own. Defend the complex against any incidental aggression.’

 	‘I hear you and respond, Aun’kira. We obey.’ I signalled to my four remaining men and we ran back pell-mell from the rippling lines of fire warriors covering each other’s redeployment. The other humans of the cadre joined with us. To an Imperial this sending aliens to guard aliens would have been the height of idiocy, but the aun knew we would obey. Actually, let me put that another way; it was almost inconceivable to him that we would not do as he commanded.

 	As the most longstanding gue’vesa’vre, and an ex-captain to boot, I took charge of all three gue’vesa squads, and deployed my little band of traitors at the processing centre. It was a big building, roughly one hundred metres each side, curved corners, a fat-bellied frontage that swelled up four storeys to a projecting observation floor. Typical clean tau architecture. Pathfinder snipers were up on the top deck, so we weren’t entirely alone. There was only one real entrance, a set of double doors six metres wide and three high. These were securely locked.

 	‘What’s the situation inside?’ I radioed.

 	‘All calm, gue’vesa’vre,’ came a tau voice, oddly modulated by my helmet’s translation suite. ‘We have displayed your presence to the gue’la captives. Your people are calmed by your actions.’

 	‘As the aun wished it, so we make real,’ I said. I don’t always remember the formula responses. I’m better at it now than I was then.

 	I set the other two teams to guard the doors, and took Holyon, Helena, Goliath and Othelliar away to a guard post, the last erection away from the building in the otherwise unfinished quadrant of the city. The post was a small, circular pod, slotted into a predefined space on the city’s grid. A curved roof topped it, one wraparound window giving a 360 degree arc of vision. A little like a very squat mushroom. You know the type.

 	We went inside. There was enough room for all of us. ‘We’ll get a good view from here,’ I said. ‘Not that I expect much action.’ We watched the interplay of las- and pulse fire around the node, the sparkle of tau energy shielding. I regretted not being involved in the firefight going on around the command node. Now they were out of the forest, the Catachans were having the same problems we did, and no sheltering screens of drones to protect them. But by the Emperor, they were fierce, and where they closed to assault range with the tau, they cut them down with those big jungle knives without mercy. Where we could, we lent fire support, but we were only five, and outside of our guns’ effective range.

 	I was mindful that Skilltalker was in the building behind us. I was relieved he was well out of it, and that he had Krix with him.

 
 
 Chapter Six


 	[A green sky is choked with smoke and flies. There are bodies everywhere and a powerful stench. The subject is satisfied with what it has done here. These are traitors. This is the fate of all traitors. Wait. Analogy? The subject seeks to communicate its defiance and fury at the gue’vesa. Remarkable. It defies the nagi, whom none can defy. Collectives refocused. Earth caste intensification machinery operating at 87% of tolerance. Mind rip operational.]


 	I am in a dying jungle. A single squad, Ebon Wing, is with me. My squad, battle-brothers for many years. I have fought with these adepts for long lifetimes of men.

 	Captain Odell of the Catachan 432nd signals his readiness. Seneschal Contyre of House Terryn indicates to us that he is approaching the xenos construction site. I thank them for their sacrifice. Their chances of escaping Agrellan are slim, and the xenos will treat them harshly should they be caught. They are to begin guerrilla operations once this engagement is concluded. The deployment of the Knight, with little hope of recovery, is a mark of how important our mission is. We must capture one of these water caste forked tongues, and rip his secrets from him. As to that end, all is in place.

 	We are one hundred and fifty kilometres behind enemy lines. Analysis of previous tau conquest patterns have revealed that colonisation begins immediately, even as victory is being won. Such efficiency is paid for with predictability. We have identified fourteen possible sites for processing and landing facilities. Following the transit of prisoners and the activity of enemy survey teams, we have narrowed this selection down to eight probable sites, then six definite. By tracking the movements of our betrayer of traitors, we determine the correct site. All has proceeded smoothly. It is as we judged, our target is where we predicted.

 	We move through the arid forest without a sound. The tau are arrogant, so sure of their technology. They do not detect us or our allies as we approach. Their overconfidence will be their undoing.

 	‘Swift Vengeance, we are in position. Await my orders,’ I signal our ship, an escort. A small craft, but fast. One I have the honour of commanding in battle myself. We have two opportunities to take a sample for the biologians; as our target hides here, or when it runs before us. Either will suit me, and I am relaxed, sure of our triumph, one way or the other.

 	I order another auspex scan of the complex. There are many aliens there, but only a single company of their warriors.

 	‘Their technology is formidable, brother-sergeant,’ says Brother Usk.

 	‘And their prowess weak. We will prevail,’ I say. We have studied much of these tau in our cells whilst in transit, especially the details of the punitive expedition into their space during the first crusade. I have little fear that this second crusade will not achieve the same results. We shall cast them back over the Damocles Gulf, and in time cross over ourselves and wreak righteous genocide upon them. Their worlds will burn, become ossuaries, the stacks of their sightless skulls under silent skies testimony to the might of the Imperium.

 	Such times are in the future. For the moment, I am eager to coat my blade in their vile blood. The shadow captains say that they are worthy foes. That is as may be, but they are alien for all that, and so worthy only of contempt.

 	A vox pulse, modulated in such a way to avoid detection, reaches me. Colonel Odell and his men are in position. I respond.

 	‘Attack. May the Emperor be with you.’

 	‘I yearn to be into the fray,’ says my brother Yuvin. His hands work the grip of his axe. We all feel his impatience.

 	‘You will have your opportunity soon enough, brother. We must wait until they are fully engaged to the north.’

 	Gunfire erupts in the distance, on the other side of the clearing from our position. About now, Odell will have sent his wave of penal troopers forward at their prisoner processing facility. An obvious feint. The ‘real’ attack will be directed at the command node. It is imperative that they feel that their leader is under attack if we are to snatch our true target. A fake attack on our real objective to mask our true intentions. Such deception is second nature to us. 

 	I am irritated that I am not to attempt the rendition of one of the alien lords, but every attempt thus far has been a failure, and Shadow Captain Shrike informed me that the consequences for the civilian population here would be dire.

 	The thump of explosions joins the sounds of lasgun fire. I can hear the shouting of men.

 	The forest about me is unclean. The tree boughs are rotten. Dry through and brittle, yet coated with a noxious slime. Shaggy grey beards of moss drip from every branch. The forest floor is slimy with black leaf litter. Little else but the trees grow here, and they are diseased. Cankers afflict many of them, whorled bumps that leak angry red fluids down the trunks. The creatures I have seen are of similar condition. My armour’s sensorium warn me of toxins in the air that might tax even my physiology, blessed by the Emperor’s gifts as it is. I watch a malformed insect analogue climb painfully up a tree limb, its feeble efforts performed to the accompaniment of repeated battlecannon round detonations. The Seneschal Contyre is engaged. I look again at the insect. This malformed creature faces a battle as great as Contyre in simply searching for food. It reminds me of…

 	[Danger! Something deep arises from the mind of the subject. A whirl of images confounds us; a fight in a narrow way for stale food. Orange skies. A friend. Yes. This is the source of the resistance. A friend. Female, dirty face, affection in her eyes. She struggles to survive. She struggles to find enough to eat. Memory overlay is in process, emotional resonance threatens to overwhelm us. Earth caste machines at 92%. Mind rip recommences.] 


 	I shake off the memories of my early life. I am a Space Marine. I have a duty to perform. This is not a healthy world. It carries the taint of the warp. I hope the xenos choke upon its poisons when we leave it for them.

 	‘The attack is under way. We shall proceed. As one, brothers, let us ignite our raven’s wings and fall upon the xenos and the traitor with rightful anger!’

 	‘Aye, brother-sergeant!’ they respond.

 	We leap skyward together, sending a rain of sickly branches crashing down. The xenos are unaware as to our approach, and we fall upon them with complete surprise. All hail the Emperor of Mankind, all hail His son and our father, Corax, Lord of Ravens.

 
 
 Chapter Seven


 	When we were absorbed in the fight at the command node, that’s when things got interesting for us. There was a roar in the sky. I looked up to see the blaze of jump pack jets as black armoured warriors came hurtling down.

 	Raven Guard. Black armour, white birds on their shoulder pads. Their jump packs howled like monsters, their blocky bolt pistols firing as they descended. All of them were armed for close combat, and they were coming down right on top of my la’rua.

 	I switched targets, blasting away at the nearest to me. There’s enough stopping power in a pulse carbine to put a Space Marine down. One out of his armour, that is. Good as pulse weaponry is, the rounds lack penetrative power. Someone might want to look into that. My shots hit home, forcing him off course. He twisted in the air to correct his flight, and is sent away from his comrades, but not a one got through his armour. Imperial power armour might be less sophisticated than the Crisis suits, but it is still formidable. He landed ten metres away from me with an audible clang. His fellows followed suit, touching down between my diminished squad and the processing centre.

 	In the next three seconds it became abundantly clear that the command node was not the Space Marines’ objective. They didn’t attack the fire warriors defending it. This is what I figured they’d be doing, trying to trap us between two forces, make us divide our fire, then get in close where the superior strength of the humans – and especially the Space Marines – would tell. With all due respect, the fire warriors are noble and well-disciplined, but they are not effective melee combatants. If this single squad got in amongst our lines, it was all over. The Raven Guard would go through the best of the shas’la like a hot knife into butter.

 	But that didn’t happen. Instead, the Raven Guard headed straight toward the processing centre where five hundred would-be citizens of the Tau’va were sheltering. The other two gue’vesa squads there didn’t last long. Fourteen dead to not a single Space Marine casualty, blasted to meat by explosive rounds. The Space Marines formed up around the big double doors of the processing centre. I saw one of them turn the door mechanism to slag with his meltagun, and the others force the door. Panicked humans spilled out through the gap, some trying to run, others throwing themselves at the Raven Guards’ feet in surrender and dying just the same. I didn’t have much time to think on this, as the Space Marine who’d landed separately from his fellows came at me with a burst of his jet, leaping straight at the guard post. Five of us, against one of him. It was not a fight in our favour.

 	‘Get out!’ I yelled at my team. I was terrified, could barely speak. They ran backwards, out of the door. I only just managed to dodge out of the way as the Space Marine crashed through the wall and window. I fell sprawling to the floor, only just managing to keep hold of my carbine.

 	‘You are a traitor and will be dealt with as such!’ he shouts. His vox-grille had a harsh, primitive sound. ‘Prepare to face the judgement of your rightful master, wretch!’ he cried. Or something along those lines. I was desperately blasting at his breastplate with my carbine, but again I was foiled by his armour. The others fell back from the command post, wary of the slaughter going on behind them at the building. Ten Space Marines are an enemy to cause a hundred of the mightiest men to pause, and we are not among the mighty.

 	The Raven Guard loomed over me. Every detail of him is frozen in my memory. Brother Yuvin, he was called, according to the script on his right shoulder pad. His armour was hung with ribbons of parchment, and decorated with many battle honours. A campaign badge was on his right knee. This guy was a veteran of the first order. Funny, I thought, that if things had turned out differently, I’d be wearing that campaign badge too and he’d be about to kill someone else. 

 	He raised his axe. He was huge, four or five times my weight in his wargear, a head and shoulders taller than me and much more massive. The axe alone would have been more than I could lift. There was no way I could fight this man one on one and hope to survive, for all the power earth caste weaponry gave me. The axe came down. Its blade flickered with the tame lightning of a disruption field. I barely threw myself out of the way. The axe carved a long gouge out of the guard post floor, the disruption field banging away as it shattered atomic bonds and sent the fabric of the floor to ash. I scrambled backward in a sitting position. I fired at him again. I didn’t even think of going for my combat knife, there was absolutely no point. As it was, I might as well have been throwing gravel at rockcrete for all the damage my weapon did.

 	I prepared to die a traitor’s death.

 
 
 Chapter Eight 


 	We tear through their undefended rear with great fury. Their automated guns, driven by unclean spirits, are silenced by Brother Horsk’s meltagun. His artistry with this weapon is unsurpassed in our Sixth Company, in all the Chapter I would argue. I have willingly taken wagers on this matter, and have won most.

 	Down onto a small group of their warriors we fall. They are obscured by my exhaust trail as I descend. My entire being shakes with the thrust of my jump pack, making my vision blur. It is not until my boot soles ring upon the unfinished plazas of their illegal settlement that I notice the nature of our foe. They are humans, traitors who have turned their back upon the Emperor of Mankind and thrown their lot in with these xenos. It is then that I see the tracing pulse blink brightly. This is the correct place then. I am pleased with the efficacy of our intelligence.

 	What would make these men turn? I think. Some say that the tau are progressive, and their offers of equality and friendship are sincere. I am no fool. I do not believe as Biologian Tulk believes, and Inquisitor Gallius half believes, that there is some psychic or biochemical coercion at play. I doubt Tulk has seen much of the Imperium beyond the precincts of his own forge worlds. Gallius most certainly has, but men such as he are as preoccupied as the likes of Tulk; they see their task before them and are so blinded to the greater picture. In my quieter moments, after conflict, I have wondered at the injustice I see in the worlds I have visited, for it brings to mind the terrible woes our Primarch Corax suffered himself at the hands of the Technarchy of Deliverance before their rule was overthrown by the Emperor in aeons past. I can understand the temptation the tau present. These water caste need nothing more than half meant promises of freedom. On many worlds long forgotten, this would be enough to sway the hearts of men.

 	But this they do not understand – the alien is perfidious in his ways, they cannot be trusted to keep to their oaths. Their codes of honour, if they possess them, are different to ours, and one cannot rely on their word. It is said by the Ecclesiarchy that mankind is the apex of evolution, that there is no higher form of life. If there were, the preachers say, then why are the sons of Terra so numerous? The tau believe it is their destiny to rule the stars. In actuality, they are nothing but pretenders.

 	And no matter how fine the inducement, there is no excuse for treachery. We dwell in a time of suffering, so that mankind might persist. Who is to shirk this responsibility? No man, whether he be the lowliest servitor or the highest adept of whatever order, low-born, noble, savage or civilised has the right to decide his own fate thus. To turn one’s back upon the Emperor is to deny Him one’s service, and in doing so to deny one’s service to Mankind as a whole. I do not deny my service. I do suffer in His name for all humanity. What then am I to think of those I protect turning their hand against me, no matter their situation?

 	So I have understanding of their decisions, but I have no sympathy. Sympathy…

 	[A further emotional resonance disrupts the rip briefly. It is tied with the memory of the companion. There is the sensation of soft lips upon his, a fleeting sign of affection long ago, but it is an important memory for him, no matter how deeply buried. There is but a shadow that passes over our reading, and it is gone.]


 	I think all this as I land and eviscerate four of them with my bolt pistol, one shot apiece. They do not have time to react. Their xenos-gifted equipment is admirable, but cannot stand against the arms of the Emperor. Their deaths are just. I feel no shame. They have betrayed us all.

 	We are into the processing centre easily. Weapons fire patters off me as the traitors recover their wits. The rounds of the traitors’ guns are strong, but lacking in the necessary mass to penetrate our battleplate. Their energies are quickly absorbed by the layers underlying the adamantium and plasteel of my war harness’s outer shell. The rest die at our hands. Horsk melts the locking mechanism. By the time he and I have prised open the door, the servo mechanisms and fibre bundles of our armour thrumming with the effort, the majority of the human traitors guarding the facility are dead. I spare a quick glance for my visor’s tactical overlay. Yuvin has been separated from us, but is engaging a smaller group of human traitors. He will keep.

 	‘Quickly! Into the atrium! Our targets are within.’

 	I, Raayvak, Kolinthinor, Roak, Kaaw and Horsk follow our grenades into the interior. The lights go out, either turned off to hinder us or extinguished by our attack, I cannot tell. Men are screaming. Many run for the doors, some prostrate themselves. All are met by fire from Usk, Braakor and Kanthin outside. I consider telling them to cease their fire, each and every one of the men inside here are Imperial soldiers, but they are also potential turncoats, else they would not be in such a centre, and none will ever leave Agrellan unless it be under tau colours. Better that ten good men die so that the eleventh not raise arms against the Emperor. 

 	The confusion works in our favour. My visor picks in outline the tau whisperers. My armour’s cogitators analyses their badges and markings. None are of high rank. They are not the one we seek. I shoot them down. Then, I have him. A positive match with the images given to me by Shrike. An officer of their diplomatic corps. More, he is the specific officer.

 	‘There! That one! Take him!’ I point. The tau looks right back at me, but does not run. He is wounded, but lightly. Is he in shock? Some species have feeble constitutions.

 	Roak makes for him. The others are hacking at the rest of the Tau’s whisperers. They shove men out of their way, chopping them down if they do not move. Many do not. Some are certainly dazed, others perhaps seek to protect their captors. How fickle is men’s loyalty.

 	Shouts over my vox. A scream. I bring up the vital signs of my squad. Yuvin is dead. I look out of the door. Bulky shapes are coming down outside, the tau commander and her bodyguard. Here is a challenge for us. Their armour is powerful, mounting many weapons systems of great efficiency. But the tau are by nature, or have been made by reliance on such devices, soft and weak. In combat they are no match for us.

 	I ignite my jets, setting ablaze a huddle of men. I fly from the building, axe swinging. I barge one elite from my path, and damage another with a blow from my axe. It hops back quickly on the flame spears of its own flight unit. Threat indicators blink with urgency in many parts of my helmet. The bodyguard all carry melta-type weapons. They are falling back to bring them to bear, boxing me in. Their skills are lesser, but their flight packs are quicker than ours. I stand to lose most of my squad.

 	By the command node, the Catachans’ attack is faltering. More of the tau are turning their attention to our fight.

 	There is no honour to be had dying here. I check the trace in my visor. The betrayer of traitors is close by, very close, and lives.

 	‘Fall back, oh brothers of the Raven. Melt into the shadows!’

 	My men obey. Three – Yuvin, Usk and Kolinithor are down. Yuvin and Usk dead, Kolinithor hindered by a damaged jump pack. He struggles to shuck it off. I watch as he is attacked from two sides. As he goes for the enemy on his left, a plasma round from the right lays him low.

 	With regret I notice Roak has not caught the water caste, although last I saw he had him gripped around the chest. 

 	‘Success eludes us,’ he communicates. ‘Alas I was driven off by the ferocity of a xenos slave-guard.’ A deep furrow has been scored across his breastplate, but he is not harmed. I am glad. For Roak to be bested by a xenos, it must have been ferocious indeed.

 	‘Fall back!’ I cry. I would feel shame in our failure, if failure it were. But to fight with wisdom is the mark of our order, and there are other plans afoot. I contact Brother Raavan, serving as commander in my stead aboard the Swift Vengeance, and bid him make ready. The hunt is on. The hunt…

 	Attack from the shadows, I think. Like the gods who dwell on the moon. Always from the shadows. I am a boy again. I will have my vengeance.

 	[Another hunt. We are losing him. We must be careful. His sanity is in the balance. This mind rip is torturing us all. He remembers. He remembers things long ago. He defies us. We are on a walkway, a sliver of stolen metal in our hands, waiting. Waiting for the man who defiled the one we loved; our companion. He defies us!]


 
 
 Chapter Nine


 	O’Hye’esera was there, the three ’ui in her Crisis team in close support. She came rocketing in like the Raven Guard had, only with more grace. They too fired as they landed. There was a cry of pain from behind me. The air shimmered with the beams of the Crisis team’s fusion guns. One of the Raven Guard was vaporised where he stood. The one about to kill me was distracted just long enough for me to roll out of the way of his killing blow. Before he could recover, a line of searing blue plasma packets hammered into his side. He was flung sideways as they detonated against his armour. Droplets of red-hot metal sprayed everywhere, some of it catching me and charring its way through my combat suit. By the time I’d batted it off my flesh and got to my feet, the after-images the plasma burst had burned into my vision were dimming, and I was treated to the sight of the Raven Guard falling back on jets of orange fire. Three of their number were dead or dying, and had been abandoned. Helena was down, not too far off. It didn’t look good for her. Holyon was a bloody smear across the construction matrix.

 	I looked at the one who’d nearly ended me. He was dead, his arms flung out, the power plant on the back of his armour ruptured and leaking coolant everywhere. His armour had been stripped of paint by the plasma. In places it still glowed dull red, where it had cooled it was discoloured with heat; grey with a purplish sheen. A gaping hole was in his side, the flesh and bone within charred black. Wisps of smoke escaped his broken eye lenses.

 	So died a champion of humanity. I felt no triumph. I’d been raised on stories of the valour of such men since the cradle. If anything, I felt sick, like I’d finally crossed a line I could never go back over. Sure, I’ve killed a lot of men in my time, most of them for the Greater Good, and I hadn’t been responsible for the death of this warrior. But this was not a man who had died, this was a Space Marine.

 	I’d been party to the slaying of a hero of my kind.

 	Tau’va.

 	I still don’t like to think about it.

 	The racket of battle receded. My body flooded with stored-up fear, and I started to tremble. I felt sick. It’s always the way after a fight for humans, it’s a chemical thing in our brains, so I’ve been told.

 	‘The gue’la are retreating! All units, stand down and return to your posts. O’Hye’esera, prosecute pursuit as you see fit. Earth caste prepare for resumption of duties.’ That was the Ethereal Aun’kira. He’d got through unharmed then. Looking at the node, it had taken minimal damage. Away to the north, the sounds of firing diminished. I caught sight of the Knight retreating, energy field cast around its back as it pounded across the dirt and vanished into the woods. Aircraft were coming in from the east, nine of them, ready to hunt it down. By far the most damaging element of the Imperial raid, the Knight left scores dead, and several wrecks burning, not least the shattered remnants of the Riptide. Smoke billowed from its own side where it had been holed, but it had definitely come off better from the encounter. Volley fire from our own side became erratic as fire warrior la’rua broke forward in pursuit. From the vox-chatter, they were taking it carefully. The Catachans were falling back with discipline. This was no rout. Their objective had certainly been to distract us from the Space Marines attack, and it had been fulfilled. There was no reason for them to stick around and die.

 	‘Goliath! Othelliar! Come in.’ The remainder of my squad reported back. They weren’t far from me, the rush of battle stopped me from seeing them, even though they were practically in front of me, you know? We rejoined each other.

 	‘Helena?’ asked Goliath. He had a soft spot for her, and his voice was shaky.

 	‘Hit, I don’t know if she’s dead or not, Holyon’s had it,’ I said, pointing at the chunks that had been our mendacious friend. As it turned out, Helena wasn’t dead, but she lost her left arm just above the elbow. A bolt took her there. The shrapnel from its explosion would’ve killed her, were it not for her armour, for which I give thanks to the earth caste. I hear her rehabilitation’s going well, and that she’ll be able to rejoin the gue’vesa auxilliary corps soon enough.

 	I didn’t know any of that at the time, I suspected she was dead but didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout of saying that to Goliath. My head was swimming with the after-effects of the fight. I had to pull it together. ‘Fio’la medical teams are on their way,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to leave Helena in their hands now. Come on, let’s check on the por’el. I’ve got a bad feeling from all this. This wasn’t a random raid.’

 	 I went to the processing centre. People in disposable respirators were streaming from it, shepherded under the guns of shas’la. There was a fan of bodies lying around the main entrance, blasted to pieces. Although I’d watched the Space Marines gun them down, my earlier assumption that the enemy were going for the prisoners was wrong. The casualties among the gue’la prisoners were collateral damage.

 	The same couldn’t be said for the dead water caste. 

 	‘Help the shas’la!’ I ordered Goliath and Othelliar. ‘I’m going to find the por’el.’ I ran into the building. The poles and light ribbons that divided up the space into orderly areas for queuing were all smashed down. Fires guttered in bolt-round craters in the walls. The lights were out, and the sun shining in through the open doors did not reach all the corners. Smoke writhed blue as it crossed the square of illumination, a square that picked out a tableau of bloody horrors just for me. Here, a pair of fio’la medics sought to stabilise a human whose legs were tattered ribbons. He was shaking and coughing up blood, jerkily moving forward as he tried to sit. The fio’la held his hands and babbled soothing-sounding Tau’noh’por at him. In front of me, a circle of twisted limbs and broken torsos were laid out like the petals of a bloody flower around the crater of a grenade detonation. People were screaming and crying. Medics were running around, frantically handing out breathing masks. Fire warriors were hauling shell-shocked prioners of war out of the hall. And dotted around, the corpses of water caste. Half a dozen of them were dead, hacked brutally apart.

 	I began to panic.

 	‘Por’el Skilltalker!’ I called. ‘Skilltalker? Skilltalker!’

 	I shoved at the milling humans, searching for a glimpse of blue skin amid brown, black and white.

 	‘Calm yourself, gue’vre. I live.’

 	I span around, searching for him.

 	‘I am behind you, against the wall.’ His mellifluous voice was croaky with smoke, and perhaps the poison of the air – the atmosphere scrubbers were off, and the toxins of the outside had worked their way inside.

 	I spotted him, and hurried over. He was having a wound dressed in his arm. One sleeve of his robe had been cut away to allow access to it. His-ever present water caste hat was missing, and the comms vane he wore in his ear opening torn away. I was relieved to see a medical respirator had been pushed on his face. He was spattered all over in tau and human blood.

 	I slung my carbine and dropped to my knees beside him, earning myself a look of annoyance from the medic. I didn’t care. ‘Are you all right, por’el?’

 	‘I am touched by your concern, Gue’vesa’vre J’ten,’ he said. He sounded wearier than I’d ever heard him. He was troubled by the carnage, and his eyes did not meet mine.

 	‘Por’el, I am done here,’ said the medic. ‘There is minimal damage. The wound on your arm is not deep. You will have bruising on your chest from where you were grabbed, but nothing more.’

 	Skilltalker flexed his hand and nodded. His wiry muscles moved under the plastic dressing. ‘Thank you, fio’la. Now go, many others are in greater need of your attention.’

 	I stood and extended my hand. Skilltalker grasped it and I pulled him to his feet. He dusted himself down, but this only smeared blood over his robes. He held his hands up and frowned at them.

 	‘Grabbed you? They were coming for you, to capture you,’ I said. ‘That was what this was all about.’

 	He looked at me a moment, then smiled. ‘Why yes, friend J’ten. Of course. Many of the Imperium’s worlds have elected to join with us for our mutual benefit. Your erstwhile masters are so blinkered in thought that they assume we have some covert means of encouraging treachery. Perhaps they impute uncanny powers to us, as they do to our beloved ethereals.’ He laughed. ‘Do not be so discouraged. This is a sign that the Imperium is desperate, that they attack the talker and do not address our words. But then, words cannot be so easily killed. It is easier to fight a tangible foe.’

 	‘If that is so, we have to get you to the command node, to sit this out,’ I said. ‘Come on, we’ll escort you.’

 	‘No, friend J’ten. I have been ordered to depart the world for the safety of the Kor’vattra support cadres until the conquest is complete. Apparently I am too valuable to risk, something of great flattery to me, but I’d rather stay here and help the effort at the front. Still, needs must, I go where the Greater Good requires, not where I desire.’ Something funny came over his face when he said that. He displaced it with a smile. ‘You and your squad are to come with me.’

 	‘Holyon’s dead. I think Helena is too.’

 	His face fell. ‘I am sorry to hear that. They died for us all.’

 	‘Tau’va,’ I said reflexively.

 	‘Tau’va,’ he responded. ‘I will personally ensure your comrades’ remains are treated with great honour. They were good friends, and served well.’

 	‘I am grateful. How long until we depart?’

 	‘A ship will arrive soon to extract us.’

 	‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I’m probably speaking out of turn here, but my oath is to protect you. If you go, you’ll be in flight and vulnerable. The Space Marines are rightly named, they are expert void fighters, and their ships are among the swiftest in the Imperium. I might be wrong, but I’ve got a feeling they mean to draw you out so that you might be more easily caught, por’el. We should stay here. You’ll be much safer. The conquest is almost done.’

 	That strange expression flickered over his face, a medley of alien and human expressions that I could not read. He knew something I did not, although that might just be me convincing myself retrospectively. He grasped my shoulder with his uninjured hand. ‘I go where the Greater Good demands, J’ten. These are my orders, from Aun’Va himself, and you are to go with me.’

 	‘Obey without question, as the river flows downhill without complaint,’ I quoted. Sometimes I think it’s easy for the tau proper. You obey the aun without thinking. It’s hard for some of us to act so.

 	‘Just so, just so.’ He patted me.

 	I looked up and around the ruined room. ‘And Krix, where is he? They didn’t get him did they?’ I said.

 	The por’el shook his head. ‘No. He will be eating. He finds it harder than some to suppress his kroot appetites, but he is a fearsome warrior and a loyal guard. I forgive him his lapses. Now, gather your men. The kor’la will be here for us shortly.’

 
 
 Chapter Ten


 	About five minutes later, we were on the landing field, the bulk of a Manta spinning slowly in the air as it lined itself up to land. They’re so big it looked like it was directly above us, but when it landed there was a good fifty metres to cover, and I hustled the por’el to it faster than decorum allows. We went in the back hatch, past the hangar with its empty drone and battlesuit racks. We made all haste to the upper deck. The craft was empty; everything it had brought down was off fighting, and being in there in all that unoccupied space did nothing for my nerves.

 	‘We are ready to depart, por’el.’ The kor’ui pilot’s announcement came out of nowhere, straight into our helmets.

 	‘Very well. Let us make all haste away from here,’ says Skilltalker.

 	Goliath and Othelliar strapped themselves in. Krix took the seat on the left of the por’el, I on the right.

 	There was a lurch, then the stomach-dropping sensation of sudden acceleration. I was pressed back into my seat. The speed these things take off at pushes us humans right to the limit, I swear. I’ve seen Kor’la pull off manoeuvres that would make a human black out. The muscles on my face were dragged downwards, I felt the skin on my face rippling with the force of the take-off, and then zero-gravity, and the sensation grew less as the craft stopped accelerating. A second later, the artificial gravity snapped on. T’au standard. Lighter than is entirely comfortable for a human, but a damn sight better than nothing.

 	Skilltalker had his eyes closed, his head leaning back on the rests of his seat. Rows of seats stretched away either side of him, each with their straps neatly folded. The empty ethereal’s throne at the prow end of the cabin moved against some force I could not feel.

 	‘Por’el, are you all right?’ I said.

 	‘What?’ His eyes slid open in that slow tau way. ‘Oh yes, yes, I am fine. You are doing an exemplary job, friend J’ten. I will commend you to fire caste auxiliary command.’

 	‘Yeah, well. Thanks,’ I said grudgingly. I wasn’t sure that I really wanted too much attention at that stage. I was still shaken up over the death of the Space Marine, for all that he’d nearly killed me. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

 	Skilltalker clucked his tongue. ‘Now you are worrying over me as a class mother worries over her teaching batch! I am fine. I have been in worse situations than this, many times over. I think I better ask you, are you all right?’

 	‘Have you ever faced Space Marines before?’I asked abruptly.

 	Skilltalker gave a little shiver. ‘No, no I have not. And formidable they were.’ He smiled. ‘But as strong as they may be, friend J’ten, the Greater Good is stronger, far too strong to be overcome by a handful of gue’ron’sha. Do not fear them.’

 	‘I do fear them,’ I admitted. ‘And I feel shame at their deaths.’

 	Skilltalker rested his head against the seat back and closed his eyes again. ‘That is regrettable, but understandable. These are heroes from your culture. Complete assimilation into the Tau’va typically takes a viviparous, child-caring, pair-bonding species of your lifespan three generations. I had hoped that you were coming along more swiftly.’ He did not sound disappointed, but chuckled at the back of his throat. A pleasant sound, water on stones. ‘Pardon me. I do not laugh at you, but at myself.’ He opened his eyes again, and they twinkled with good humour. ‘I made a wager with Por’ui Ka’shato as to your complete becoming in the Tau’va. It seems I have lost.’

 	I must have looked a little dismayed, as he moved to reassure me.

 	‘Never mind! It is a better thing, I hold, that the non-tau that choose to join us in the Tau’va do not entirely lose that which makes them what they are. As we of the five castes are different, and better for it, then so too is it good that each species within the Tau’va is different from the others. And although I was impressed by your embracing of the Tau’va, I am glad to have been wrong as to the extent. Why, friend J’ten, I like you the way you are! I trust you. You have proven your loyalty and utility to the Tau’va again and again.’ He smiled broadly, showing off his flawless, broad, grey teeth, and touched my arm with the back of his hand. I’m sure there were a whole load of subtle body language cues he was giving off that I missed. ‘I am glad that you are at my side. Truly.’

 	‘Thank you,’ I said. I wished I could see out of the Manta, but there are no windows or viewing displays in the passenger cabin. Was a night-black ship slipping after us? Were we being targeted by the weapons systems of the Adeptus Astartes? I hate flying. I’m not frightened by it, you understand. But I hate the feeling of powerlessness I have. A missile could come right at us and there’d be nothing I could do about it. If I were the pilot, at least I could take my own life into my own hands. But I couldn’t. I was entirely dependent on the efforts of others. I know this is a key part of the Tau’va, the driving philosophy of it, this trust in those around you, but there we are. You wanted honesty.

 	We dozed a little, all of us except Krix. I never saw that kroot take a nap. Not once. Do they even sleep? I woke a little before we docked, feeling sticky and stiff. I longed to take a shower. Goliath’s head was lolling, a string of dribble coming out of his mouth. Othelliar was staring into the middle distance, his jaw working on his own teeth, eyes full of an anger I didn’t like.

 	Then there was the ungentle push of deceleration, which went on until I nearly couldn’t bear it. A slight bump, and the kor’ui pilot announced our arrival at the Kor’vattra Dah’kolsuio.

 
 
 Chapter Eleven


 	[The man dies, hot blood pours over the boy’s hand. He has taken him unawares, as his friend was taken unawares. Tears as warm as the man’s blood runs down the boy’s face, not for his friend’s shame and hurts, but for this act of murder. This is the first life he has taken, and the boy is ashamed by it. Vengeance is not the cure to the pain in his heart he thought it would be, but instead adds more bitter emotions to his suffering. The man’s eyes widen, he sinks into the knife in his gut. His hands paw feebly at the boy’s shoulders. The boy grits his teeth, twists the knife and withdraws it. The man slumps further onto the boy. ‘Why?’ is his last word. The boy does not answer, but pushes him from the edge of the walkway. He wipes at his face as the body falls fifty storeys to the dark streets. The blood from his hands leaves blood upon the boy’s lip, warm as that single kiss.He retreats into the shadows, and never truly emerges again.With this the subject defies us, albeit by now on an entirely subconscious level. Earth caste machines at 97%. Mind rip recommences.]


 	I address my squad. ‘We have lost three good brothers to the xenos. Their response was impressive and their weaponry is deadly, even to those as well-gifted and armoured as we. This is a foe that deserves respect. Judge them not by their decadent philosophy, nor by their small stature, nor by their grandiose claims to superiority. They may be as children compared to the storied histories of mankind, but their toys are no less dangerous.’

 	There are nods of agreement from my brethren. The Thunderhawk bucks in thermals coming fast off the parched jungles of Agrellan, the craft creaks and bangs. Such perturbations in the atmosphere do not trouble us. Death does not trouble us. Both are minor inconveniences to the fulfilment of our task.

 	‘Be not troubled by our initial failure, for our target has been driven from his hide, and even now runs unknowingly into the arms of greater dangers.’

 	An alarm sounds in the pilot’s cabin, almost inaudible in the passenger deck. The ship swings to the side, we hear the hum of power packs giving out their energies as the laser cannons fire. The ship resumes its course. The alarms cease; whatever threat there was has been dealt with.

 	We arrive upon Swift Vengeance. Raavan greets us via the vox as the Thunderhawk lands within the strike cruiser’s hangar.

 	‘Our prey is sighted. We fly in pursuit.’

 	We disembark. The building howl of the reactor fills the ship as Swift Vengeance makes all speed to catch our enemy.

 	Squad Silent Talon is readying itself in the arming bay, the brothers leaving their commands aboard the vessel in the hands of our serfs. Only Raavan and our brother Techmarines, of all we initiates, will remain on the ship.

 	We strip our weapons and clean them, untroubled by the acceleration. Our Techmarines come out from the Thunderhawk and check over our wargear. Serfs from the forge chant the mysteries of Mars as they effect minor repairs. Major damage is assessed. Severed power lines spark as Roak’s chestplate is removed, the plastron beneath adjusted. A spare piece of armour is brought out from the stores, and his battleplate made whole again with much chanting of prayer. Other such exchanges are undergone by several of my brothers. A new greave here, a different gauntlet there. Several of these fresh provided are unpainted. Each brother is responsible for his wargear, his own will be repaired and returned to his care. For now, expediency is our master.

 	 Brother Rayvaak’s bolt pistol has a malfunctioning ammo feed, and so he takes a different weapon. Serfs bring crates of fresh ammunition. We speak the litanies of victory as we refill our magazines, sing the battle songs once sung by Corax himself as we string new grenades from our belts. The coolant systems in our power plants are connected to maintenance shrines and refilled. Auspexes are connected to our armour, the tech-priests run their tests. More adjustments to our equipment is made. Fibre bundles are recalibrated, poor signal transmissions addressed, telemetry aligned between the cogitators. A faulty helmet is removed from Brother Huk of Squad Silent Talon during this checking.

 	We spend the remainder of the journey making our battlegear as clean as possible. It is improper to enter the fray with the sigils and badges of our order obscured. As we polish our battered plate, the Swift Vengeance steals closer to its target. The xenos craft has taken aboard our prey, and broken free from the fleet besieging Agrellan. No doubt fierce battle is being waged in the heavens over the hive worlds, as the tau strive to prevent Lord Severax’s evacuation. We do not request news on this engagement, nor is any offered. Our minds are on our mission and our mission alone. 

 	We are ready.

 	‘Xenos craft approaching,’ Sergeant Raavan informs us.

 	We are up and towards the boarding torpedo tubes. The Swift Vengeance is equipped with four. We shall require only one. It is a rare time when our Chapter is present in sufficient numbers to require more.

 	The circular door at the rear irises open. We go through, one at a time, and take our places either side of the torpedo’s central aisle, two rows of ten in single file.

 	Frames rise from the floor. We place ourselves within them. Magnetic locks activate, holding our battleplate in place. We are standing, ready to deploy the moment the torpedo burns its way through the aliens’ hull.

 	We are silent. Our way is that of introspection. Each of us dwells on our own concerns at this final moment. The faint push of the ship’s constant acceleration decreases, and then my body is being pulled in another direction as the braking jets are fired. There is a rumble and a shudder runs through the craft. We have been observed, and now the two ships are exchanging fire. This is also not our concern. We trust to Raavan and our serfs to see us safely aboard.

 	‘Torpedo launching,’ comes a voice. A terse advisement.

 	More forces play upon me as the torpedo’s rockets fire. Their roar fills the cabin, my helmet’s aural senses dampen automatically to protect my hearing. The torpedo shakes mightily. I am pushed hard into the magnetic frame as the torpedo accelerates fast toward its target. Such pressure is hard for me to take, a lesser man would perhaps not survive it. A crushing pressure upon my chest, black spots in my vision. It is difficult to breathe. This will pass, I tell myself, and it duly does. The acceleration cuts out, and so does the pressure. There is a faint sense of push and pull as the torpedo’s attitude jets keep it locked on to the xenos ship. There are few of these, the craft must not be attempting much in the way of evasive manoeuvres. The shockwave of an explosion buffets the torpedo, but we are taking little fire. The melta weaponry on the prow of the torpedo activates with a deep hum. A fraction of a second later, the torpedo impacts upon the hull of the alien vessel. The mag-locks hold me in place, but I feel my internal organs shift with the force of it.

 	As the torpedo burns its way into the hull, machinery grinds, tracks on the outside of our assault boat. The meltas burn, the tracks pull, and the torpedo burrows its way within the xenos ship.

 	It all stops of a sudden. There is a hiss from the outside as the torpedo sprays sealant foam around itself. Atmospheric decompression is not desirable in this situation, lest we destroy the integrity of the ship, or slay our target unintentionally through suffocation.

 	The front of the torpedo opens, four petals gaping wide. We step out into a softly curved corridor littered with debris and ripples of cooling metal. Steam and smoke billow around us. Alarms jangle. We are aboard. Weapons rattle against plasteel chests, boots clang on the deck. My brothers spread out. I order Kaaw to take four of Squad Ebon Wing and head towards the prow, where the bridge is situated. The rest of us, some twelve, I order sternwards.

 	‘Our quarry is near. We start the search to the rear.’ 

 	The pulse of the betrayer of traitors’ cranial implant pulses steadily in my visor.

 	‘Yes, brother-sergeant,’ they say, and we are on our way to victory.

 
 
 Chapter Twelve


 	We were taking refreshments in the gallery of the diplomacy lounge when the alarms went off. The Raven Guard had done it again, coming in at us unawares somehow. There was barely time to register the blare of the proximity warning systems before the ship heeled hard to starboard in avoidance. The motion of it fought the gravity plating of the deck, and our drinks and food were sent spilling off the table on peculiar trajectories. The entire vessel shook with the shockwaves of near misses from another starship’s weapons. The ship twitched as it expelled mass rounds by the thousand in reply.

 	Whatever the ship was trying to dodge hit us anyway. A tearing bang and the squealing of metal was followed by the rush of fusion cutters. An explosion announced the arrival of the Raven Guard on the Dah’kolsuio.

 	The gallery looked out over a wider lounge. Seating areas, a table at the centre of each, were set in protruding, circular sections of the gallery. A long, straight landing ran alongside. The whole set-up was designed to impress potential new members of the Tau’va. Plants in pots, examples of tau art and architecture, models, interactive displays of technology, that kind of thing. It was all very appealing in that slightly bland, sinuous tau way, a good place to thrash out the deals of accession, or have a quick meal like us. It was, however, a lousy place for a firefight.

 	We snatched up our gear quickly, put our helmets on and checked our guns. The prow-ward doors opened, and fire warriors came running down the gallery, their armour was the standard night blue pattern of space troopers. These shas’la had been training their whole lives for void combat and ship actions, but they were up against the best in the galaxy, and I didn’t think their skills or numbers would prove to be enough.

 	The Space Marines were there quickly, like they knew exactly where they were going.

 	The sound of the battle in the enclosed space was terrific. Even with the audio dampers on my helmet my ears were ringing with the rapid triple bangs of bolt-rounds – expulsion, acceleration, explosion. I had Por’el Skilltalker shoved down in cover. By this time, I had no doubt that he was the target. They were going to slaughter us all and spirit him off to Emperor alone knows what torment. I was not going to let that happen. Every time he tried to rise, I shoved him back. In the main, humans are stronger than tau, and the water caste are not the strongest of the castes. It was no trouble for me.

 	I looked around. There was a door a quick scramble back from the balcony, leading from the lounge into a service way. Away from the table and the gallery’s enclosing, low wall, there was a clear line of fire up the landing. When I tried to link into the tau tacnet I couldn’t. My helmet displays were full of static snow. I’m pretty sure it was being jammed, and so my understanding of the wider situation was severely limited. I attempted to get a look over the balcony wall down into the lower hall, but I didn’t even get the top of my helmet over the lip before a spray of bolts drove me back. A couple sped overhead, propellant flaring at the rear, two more smacked into the wall in front of me, one blowing a smoking hole out of it on our side. I threw myself onto Skilltalker as shards of composites pattered around us.

 	Skilltalker was trying to talk, looking at me beseechingly. I think he was trying to tell me that he was going to surrender. I don’t recall the exact words, but I remember shouting ‘no’ at him several times. I got angry with him, I am sure of that.

 	‘We have to get him out of here before the Space Marines make it up the stairs onto the gallery!’ I called to Goliath and Othelliar. The pair of them were firing down over the edge of the balcony at the Space Marines. Goliath was sniping, ice cold. The fire warrior at his side was flung backwards from the rails, pulse rifle clattering over the edge. He staggered a few steps before being thrown further backwards as the bolt in his chest blew, spraying us with his viscera. Goliath didn’t even flinch as blood ran off his helmet, but carried on calmly shooting. Othelliar was wilder. I couldn’t see his face behind his helmet, but I guessed that he was snarling with hatred at the Emperor’s elite. He was losing it, and turning into a liability.

 	Goliath quit firing soon enough, I had to order Othelliar to give it up, and he did so only reluctantly.

 	‘Shas’ui! Shas’ui!’ I called, beckoning to the fire warrior leader. It took me a couple of attempts.

 	‘I am going to get the por’el out of here,’ I said in badly mangled Tau’noh’por. A lot of tau have difficulty understanding human accents, we can’t hit the higher notes, can’t control our pitch vibrato properly, and the multiple glottal stops are murder on our throats. He got my drift. ‘The service door!’ I shouted.

 	A missile streaked overhead, tearing a chunk out of the roof. Wiring fell through in a bundle, sparking madly. A large part of the gallery’s lights went out. Fires had taken in various places, I think the Space Marines were spraying promethium around down there. The ship’s life support must have taken a hit too, as the air was filling with poisonous black smoke. Retardant foams sprayed fitfully from the ceiling, but all the systems in the room were taking a pounding, and the fires were winning.

 	‘O’Va’Dem will be here soon,’ he said. Their commander. A new one on me, I didn’t recognise the words that made up his name.

 	‘I’m going now,’ I said. ‘If commander arrives, por’el still in danger. Gue’ron’sha take him. They come up stairs, they kill us all. They take him away. I take him from here, you hold enemy at bay!’

 	The shas’ui said nothing. I cursed my human throat. I’d just spewed a garbled mess of noise at him. ‘We go now!’ I said as clearly as I could, pointing at myself and then Skilltalker.

 	Bolt-rounds were speeding up the gallery by now. I’d lost a good chance to get out trying to make myself understood. Pulse rounds were being traded on an almost equal basis for the Space Marine’s miniature rockets, making our way out a perilous crossing over a shooting gallery.

 	‘I will give myself over to them!’ said the por’el. ‘There has been enough bloodshed.’

 	We both ignored him. ‘Get ready,’ I said. ‘Do you understand?’ I said to the shas’ui.

 	The shas’ui nodded, and beckoned three of his warriors over.

 	‘Cover the gallery so that Por’el Skilltalker may make his escape,’ he told them. The door opened to receive us.

 	‘Cease fire!’ the shas’ui ordered. Immediately, pulse fire dropped off. The three fire warriors ran into the corridor, between the bolter fire and our escape door. We followed right behind, keeping low. The fire warriors were dropped in short order, spun around by the impact of the bolts and their secondary explosions, selling themselves to shield the por’el and us.

 	‘Tau’va!’ one cried as he died. Othelliar shrieked. He stumbled into the service corridor.

 	We were through the door. Me, Krix, Othelliar and Skilltaker.

 	Othelliar was frantic, clawing at his helmet. There was a crack in it.

 	‘Let me look! Let me look!’ I said, pushing his hands out of the way. I reached around and snapped off the seals. The moment it came away, Othelliar calmed. The round had not penetrated, but the impact had shivered the material, and a sliver of the composites that made up the helmet had pierced his scalp. The source of the pain removed, he calmed down, although blood was running down his face.

 	‘You okay?’ I said. I had to shout over the racket outside. ‘We need to get out of here!’

 	‘Where’s Goliath?’ he gasped.

 	Goliath. I spun around, still in a crouch.

 	In the corridor, Goliath was on the floor, hand outstretched. A red chunk the size of both my fists clasped had been taken out of his side.

 	He stared at me for a moment, then fell dead. You’d think there’d be something in a look like that. Wondering, or pain, or anger, but there was nothing there, nothing at all.

 	Heavier weapons fire sounded from the gallery below. The shriek of tau plasma weapons and the puffy explosions they made, the soft but dangerous burr of a burst cannon. I caught sight of a battlesuit, a design I’d never seen before, rise over the edge of the balcony wall, and then it was gone, diving hard onto the Space Marines below, the barrels of its plasma rifles glowing blue as it spat the stuff of stars at the warriors of the Imperium.

 	The door slid shut, cutting us off from the sounds of the battle.

 
 
 Chapter Thirteen


 	My brother Kaaw reports that they have made the bridge with no casualties and minimal contact with the enemy. The pilots have been slain, they say. I order them to scour the area around the bridge, kill all they find, then fall back to the boarding torpedo.

 	Minimal contact. The same cannot be said for here. We have come out into some kind of refectory, an eating area that is decadently appointed. It is a large place, as much museum or demonstration area as refectory. It curves around with the ship, and I cannot see the far end.

 	 Sculptures and displays shatter under bolter fire. The enemy’s returning volleys, the high-energy particles they fire, score the walls around us.

 	There are many of them. Fifty or so of their fire warriors to begin with, although many are dead. Positioned around the refectory, in its galleries and behind its barbarous alien artworks, they have the advantage of numbers, cover and height. But we are the Space Marines of the Emperor, the Raven Guard. We are the mightiest warriors of the galaxy, and they are dying.

 	Three of my brothers have worked their way up to the gallery where they have caught sight of the diplomat. He is pinned in place with his treacherous human guardians. In a short time we shall have him, and we will depart this ship.

 	Pulse fire whistles through the air all around us. Six of us hold the entrance to the refectory. The other three work their way forwards, awaiting bursts of covering fire from us as they run from cover to cover. Brother Huk of Squad Silent Talon carries a flamer, with him go his battle-brothers Colot and Cruk. A grenade arcs in from above, tossed by one of my brethren there. A small group of fire warriors are slain, slumping down when shrapnel pierces them. Under the cover of the explosion, Huk and his companions dash forward again. In the gallery, my brothers slay three of the enemy, take position in one of the protrusions that decorate the gallery’s length, and open fire from above. The fire warriors below are driven to hide, those that seek to dislodge my warriors from their new vantage are slain, for there is only a long corridor by which each of the small eating areas are accessed, and they are quickly cut down as they approach.

 	This time Huk, Colot and Cruk do not seek cover.

 	A whumph of igniting promethium, and flame spreads all over the lower part of the refectory. Aliens scream shrilly. The volume of fire coming from their part of the hall falls off dramatically, then so does our own as our potential targets are laid low.

 	[Fire. He remembers fire. Another fleeting intrusion. The fires of polluting refineries belching poisons at the night. The fires of the sky warriors’ ships as they descend that fateful day. The fires of a hundred burning worlds. Earth caste machines at 98%. Secondary nagi collective down to 29% living membership.]


 	Fire.

 	Then, ill news. ‘Brother-Sergeant Cornix, the diplomat has escaped into the ship.’

 	I curse this ill luck. ‘Alone?’ I ask.

 	‘No, brother-sergeant. Two of the human traitors and the avian xenos went with him.’

 	I check my signifier. The steady pulse of the beacon implant beats true yet. It appears that we must rely on Gallius’s gambit.

 	‘All is not lost,’ I say. My brother does not reply, but I sense the confusion in his hesitation. ‘We are the masters of secrets,’ I say. ‘We keep what we need to keep close by our breast, for no other to know.’ It is explanation enough for him; this is the way of our Chapter.

 	‘Brother-sergeant!’ Huk has time to cry out before he is cut down. His fire tipped the balance towards us, but the smoke and flames have allowed the foe’s elites to approach unobserved. Now comes the true test.

 	They come in through the choking broil of the fire, weapons spitting. Five of them, their armour painted in the same blues and blacks as the fire warriors. One levels a plasma gun at Huk’s remaining companions. A bolt of incandescent gas bursts through the chest of Cruk. Fire leaps from his eye lenses as he is consumed. They are led by one larger. His armour is of different design entirely, and coloured a bright crimson. He attacks with terrible ferocity, and Colot goes down to join his dead brothers. We honour their sacrifice for now and forevermore.

 	The fire warriors, so close to breaking moments ago, rally around their leader and his bodyguard. One of these armoured knights falls to concentrated bolter fire from my group, but the others shrug it off, the bolts ricocheting from the suits’ angled planes, or exploding on the surface. The weapons they possess are far more effective against us than those carried by their infantry.

 	‘Withdraw!’ I shout. ‘Fall back to the torpedo!’

 	‘We have failed!’ The cry comes from Roak. He is angry, and his anger is laced with shame.

 	‘No. We are successful. There are ways to win other than slaughter.’ This is true, I think. But if I depart now, then attention will fall upon the diplomat. Needs dictate a diversion, a sacrifice. There is no need for more than one more of us to die here.

 	A duty I accept unflinchingly. In this way do we serve the Emperor, and through him all mankind.

 	‘Fall back. I will hold them here!’ My brothers obey instantly. They cover each other as they retreat from the room. The xenos’ armour makes them strong, but they are cautious in the face of such as we.

 	This is my oath; to serve the Emperor. We strike from the shadows where we can, and reap the glorious harvest of confusion and panic our actions engender. Not today. Not every war can be prosecuted in secret, not every battle won from the darkness. I stand firm, in full view, my bolter raised and shouting out mankind’s superiority over the xenos that would usurp our position as masters of the stars. Now, revealed to my foe in full, I sing the quiet songs of my Chapter.

 	The xenos do not approach. They cannot draw adequate fire angles on me. I hold them.

 	I am gratified to witness the departure of my command. They communicate that they are aboard the torpedo, and tell me to join them. I would if I could. I adjudge the diversion sufficient, and that our final plan to be a success. 

 	But I cannot fall back. I am surrounded. They are trying to come at me from behind while they pin me down to the front. From the gallery, increasing numbers of weapons are being brought to bear on me.

 	I cast a grenade at the lesser warriors advancing from my rear. My bolter is almost spent. I throw it down, pull free my axe and bolt pistol and charge at the battlesuited elite in the gallery space, hewing at them. Their armoured suits offer much protection, but against the energised edge of my axe, it avails them of little.

 	Before they take me, two die by my hand, and I am satisfied.

 
 
 Chapter Fourteen


 	We ran.

 	Through the ship, away from the noise of fighting, along a transverse corridor that connected the reception chamber to the kitchens and servants’ quarters behind it. A tau in the livery of the earth caste diplomatic support group popped his face round the door and I snarled to him to get back into his cabin. There was a minimal number of earth caste servers aboard. A lucky happenstance, I thought at the time. They’d have been slaughtered.

 	Everything’s calculated though, isn’t it? My time with Skilltalker should have taught me that.

 	‘We’ll get him to the other side,’ I said. ‘We’ll hold there until the threat is confined.’

 	‘You lead. I’ll take the rear,’ Othelliar said. ‘Give me another chance to take a crack at those whoresons.’ He was really angry. He looked wild, all that blood on his face.

 	It was eerily silent here away from the fight. The Space Marines ship was no longer firing on us, not wanting to kill their own, I guess. We reached the other side of the vessel, and turned toward the rear.

 	‘This way!’ I said. I was panting. The air on tau ships is too thin. ‘There’s a strongpoint just down here. We can take station there and wait this mess out. I counted twenty Space Marines or so. That’s a lot, but there’s no way they can fight their way out of that.’

 	‘Jathen, stop.’ Othelliar said.

 	‘Why?’

 	‘Because we just ran past the lifeboat bay.’

 	‘What’s that got to…’

 	There was the building hum of a pulse gun, the whip-crack discharge. I whipped around to see Krix go down. Smoke poured out his thin chest. His beak clacked once, and his eyes dulled. He was dead.

 	I stopped. Shock almost got me, but I had my gun up, pointing it without thinking at the kroot’s assassin: Othelliar.

 	‘Stand down, Jathen!’ he said. All the anger had gone out of him. He was calm, and that made me very worried. ‘This is where you’re staying. Me and the por’el are going on alone from here.’

 	‘What? Drop your gun now!’ It took a moment for me to figure out what was going on. I was confused. There was no warning of Othelliar’s treachery. One moment we were running away from the battle, intent on getting Skilltalker to safety, and now this?

 	And then it all clicked.

 	‘This has been planned, all along. Skilltalker’s the target. The attack is a diversion.’

 	‘Almost, Jathen, I’m the back-up plan.’ Blood was still trickling down his face. ‘You always were a sharp one,’ he said. ‘Only this time, not sharp enough.’

 	Perhaps I should have shot him there and then. Maybe if he’d still been wearing his helmet, I would have. But I was looking into his face, wounded in a battle we’d fought together in. We were comrades, for the Emperor’s sake. I just couldn’t do it. I’d fought with him for nine months. All this time, he’d been waiting for his moment? It didn’t make any sense. Othelliar? There was no triumph in what he said. I figured he wasn’t acting of his own accord. He couldn’t be.

 	‘You’re a plant?’

 	He nodded reluctantly.

 	‘How long?’

 	‘From the beginning. Does it matter? There are plenty of us. The Inquisition’s been trying to infiltrate the gue’vesa since the last war. They kept me on stand-by. I guess they didn’t want to reveal their trump card,’ he swung his gun barrel away from me then, pointing at Skilltalker’s head. ‘I should kill you too, Jathen.’

 	‘Why? You had us all convinced you hated the Imperium!’

 	‘I still do. It was my poor luck my world got caught up in all this. We’d been minding our own business for the last ten millennia when the first crusade comes crashing into the sector. You know this part of space is alive with “lost” human worlds? I mean, I say lost, we know where we are. The Imperium’d know about more of them, if it gave a damn for this part of the galaxy. Some of them have never even heard of the Imperium. We had, and wanted no part of it. Unfortunately for us, the Imperium didn’t agree. At least I’m still alive, unlike just about everybody else I ever knew. Now, drop your gun or I swear I’ll kill the por’el before I die.’

 	That did it. I’d have sold my own life for Skilltalker’s, I think. In the great calculations of who was worth more alive you tau doubtless rated him much higher. But it was more than blind loyalty; I cared about him. He was the first damned friend I’d had in a long, long time.

 	I lowered my gun. He jabbed his carbine muzzle toward the lifeboat bay. I put my hands up and backed slowly toward it. The circular door spun and opened at my approach, and we entered the bay, a semicircular room with five lifeboat hatches at equal intervals around the wall.

 	‘Why are you doing this?’ I said. My throat was dry and my words caught.

 	Othelliar’s face was red. His eyes were bright, with tears or fury I couldn’t tell. The way he was glaring at me down the barrel… It was defiant, like he was challenging me to disagree with what he was doing, to call him to put his weapon down, to reach for my knife. Anything to make shooting me easier, because I saw then that he was relieved I’d obeyed him. He didn’t have it in him to kill me either. He wiped the sweat from his face on the undersuit in the crook of his arm. The gun remained quiet. He answered me instead.

 	‘They have my family.’

 	‘Who?’

 	‘The damned Inquisition!’ he shouted back. ‘Who do you think? Your thrice-damned Inquisition!’

 	I held up my hands. ‘They’re not my Inquisition.’ They never had been, even back when I’d been one of the Emperor’s loyal subjects. Who regards the Inquisition as on their side, for the love of Terra? ‘I’m a member of the Tau’va. You are too. Don’t do this, Othelliar. They’ll cut him up alive to see what makes him tick. Can you do this to him? It’s Skilltalker!’

 	Othelliar’s eyes flicked from Skilltalker to me and back again.

 	‘I have no choice. It’s him or my children. My children, Jathen!’

 	‘They’ll never let you have them back. You know that.’

 	His eyes said he did know. I didn’t blame him. In his situation would I have done any different? I ask myself that sometimes, usually at night when the screams come and the dreams grow dark and dawn is long hours away. The answer’s always the same: Probably not.

 	‘I don’t have any choice,’ he said.

 	He was right about that. People like him and me, we’re all pawns on the board in the end.

 	‘They’re dead already, Othelliar.’

 	Othelliar stared at me. ‘You know I can’t let myself believe that.’

 	‘I’m sorry.’

 	‘I don’t have any choice!’ he screamed, and he pulled his weapon in tighter to his shoulder. ‘If I give up, if I go over, they’ll kill my family, and they’ll kill me. Deep cranial implant, so deep even these clever blueskins won’t spot it. They get close enough to me, bang! That’s it. Not that I care, but my children, Jathen…’

 	Skilltalker was his usual placid self. He held up calming hands. ‘Do not fear, friend J’ten.’ He spoke to Othelliar. ‘Do not shoot J’ten Ko’lin. It will not advance your cause.’

 	‘I don’t want to kill him. They told me to leave no one alive, but I will. I’ll only dance to their orders so long as they’re watching. I’ll leave him be if you come without trouble.’

 	‘I have no intention of doing otherwise,’ said Skilltalker.

 	‘Good.’ Othelliar kept us both covered. He was getting twitchier by the second. The sound of fighting away on the other side of the ship was getting loud enough to hear.

 	‘He doesn’t really want to do this,’ I said. I was sure I could talk Othelliar out of it.

 	‘No,’ said Skilltalker. ‘I will go with him, it is what must be. For your safety.’

 	And then, Skilltalker took a step toward me.

 	‘I thank you for the service. Truly you are gue’vesa, most faithful of companions. You have served the Tau’va in ways that you may never understand. You may recall I asked you once what form your ta’lissera would take?’

 	I nodded.

 	‘Get away from him!’ Othelliar barked. We ignored him.

 	‘I hope you will think on it further. But, my friend, this shall be our ta’lissera.’ He put out his hand. ‘Is this custom an acceptable display of mutual friendship bonding?’ It was as if Othelliar and his gun didn’t matter any more. He might have shot Krix, but that was self-preservation, pure and simple, and Krix wasn’t human. When it came down to staring another man in the eye and pulling the trigger, he was as keen as putting a carbine particle into one of his team members as I was, for all he said.

 	I reached out and took Skilltalker’s hand. Dry skin, I remember, quite rough; feels thicker than human skin. I’ve not touched a tau many times. Strange that, thinking about it. We’re more tactile than you.

 	He gripped my hand back, his three wide digits around mine. Then he reached out his other hand and wrapped it over the top of our clasp. ‘This is my ta’lissera with you, Jathen, a binding that neither life nor death may sever,’ he said. There was real warmth in it. ‘I pledge my bond to you. I part ways from you as your friend. I thank you for your friendship. It has been most illuminating, but also…’ He said something in tau that I didn’t quite understand and then smiled with that flat space where your noses should be all wrinkled. ‘There is no word for it, not directly, in your language.’

 	Othelliar was getting more anxious, looking at the doors as if a horde of Space Marines were going to smash them down any moment. He gestured with his gun barrel, the weapon still held high to his shoulder.

 	‘Go, go!’ he shouted. He reached out and slapped Skilltalker, knocking his hat askew. This made me more angry than anything, and I would have gone for Othelliar there and then had Skilltalker not gestured for me to stand down.

 	Othelliar grabbed at Skilltalker’s robes, and yanked him backward from the room toward a lifeboat hatch. Its lock spun and the door hissed open.

 	Othelliar was treating Skilltalker more roughly than he needed. I felt for him, for what he was going through, but it wasn’t right the way he was acting.

 	Skilltalker made a gesture to me before the door slid shut, and this one I knew all too well – Tau’va.

 	For the Greater Good.

 	Only as the lifeboat’s engines firing shook the dock, did I realise that Skilltalker had used my human name.

 
 
 Chapter Fifteen


 	Their alien technologies prove my undoing. Some device is clamped to my leg. I knock he who placed it there sprawling with the back of my hand, cracking the large shoulder pad he wears with the power of my blow. If only I held my axe in my right rather than my left hand, I would have slain him. I drop my bolt pistol, and reach down to rip the device free. It is circular, the size of a man’s fist. Lights blink a rapid pattern and it emits a building whine. I lay my hand upon it too late. A massive burst of electromagnetic energy drives the spirit from my armour. My systems go dark. I feel sharp stabs of pain through the neural interfaces in my black carapace. The displays in my helmet fail. The world seems suddenly smaller, framed by only the lenses of my helmet. The sudden burden of my armour without its supportive musculature has me off balance. I stagger backward, dragged at by the power plant and cooling unit upon my back. Driven down by the dead weight of plasteel and ceramite that clads and protects me, I fall to my knees. I struggle to stand, but the remaining elite are by my side. It is no trouble for them to hold me in position, one hand each on my shoulders. I cannot rise.

 	Their leader comes before me, sinking to the ground on the white-hot jets of his flightpack. He lands lightly and they cut out.

 	‘Well met, son of man,’ he says. I raise my head. On my knees, he seems tall. If I were a lesser being, I would be intimidated. I am not, but I am taken aback by what occurs next.

 	The chest piece of the suit cracks open, swinging wide upon hinges to reveal the occupant within. Unlike our own battleplate, his limbs do not fill the limbs of his armour, but he sits in a space inside, piloting the armour rather than wearing it.

 	At this juncture, the reason for the suit’s greater size becomes apparent. What gets out to stand over me is no tau, but a man.

 	‘I am Gue’vesa Dal’yth O’Va’Dem.’ Tall, noble of features, a sure and steady gaze. He wears dazzling white armour of form-fitting plates, a high gorget covering the lower portion of his face. Upon his forehead is branded the adorned I of the Emperor’s Inquisition.

 	‘I was once Inquisitor Lucien van Deem. You may use that name, if you wish. It is long since I spoke with an adept of the stars,’ he says. He is weighing my fate, this arch-traitor, but there is no hostility in his face. ‘I apologise for this conflict.’

 	‘And what would you have, if not conflict, when the enemies of mankind pit themselves against us and its very protectors turn persecutor?’ I say. My voice is muffled by my helmet. The traitor nods to the two battlesuited elites to either side of me. ‘Hold him,’ he says. The tau with him defer to his orders as if he were one of their own. He is every centimetre the alien commander, but his face is brown-skinned, not blue. The downward pressure from their hands increases. The rogue inquisitor reaches down to my helm. I jerk from side to side, but he grasps me hard, and with swift fingers depresses the hidden catches to release it. The seal hisses. I smell burning and scorched flesh at their fullest strength, and then he has drawn my helmet away from me and looks down at me with appraising eyes.

 	If I could move quickly enough, I would break his neck. I test the strength of my captors, and still cannot rise. If the Raven Guard still possessed the full suite of the Emperor’s gifts within its genestock, then I would spit poison in his face, but I have no Betcher’s Gland. Some of my brothers do, those raised from seed tithed to Terra by other Chapters. But I am of the purer sort, a greater proportion of Corax’s own genetic material is meshed into mine. For this singular honour, I pay the price in lessened ability. It is the only time I have ever regretted this lack.

 	The rogue’s gorget slips away into itself, and he looks at me, a traitor now fully unmasked. ‘What else? Cooperation, adept. Coexistence. Peace. Are these words so repugnant to a Raven Guard?’ He holds my helmet with respect. His hair is white, as is his beard. His eyes are a piercing green.

 	‘Treachery, deceit, dishonour. Are these words palatable to you?’ I reply. ‘They are anathema to me. You are anathema to me. What have they done to you, these creatures, to turn you from your sworn duty?’

 	He crouches before me, and sets my helmet aside. He knows the reverence with which we Space Marines treat our wargear. He respects it. ‘They have done nothing to turn me but talk to me. I was part of the Damocles Crusade, two hundred years ago. I was left behind upon their world which we so brutally ravaged. And for what reason? Reason did not come into it! The bitter pride of an old man – that was the reaction our Imperium gave to a race who bring nothing but the promise of peace and salvation from the darkness. As they said to me, this is only what our own Emperor tried to achieve, so long ago, before the great treachery destroyed his dream on the cusp of its realisation. You are shocked. Oh, I see it even beneath the mask of hatred and contempt you wear. They know much of us. I swore to defend the Imperium of Man, from threats within and without. But what is the Imperium if not the guarantor of man’s survival? The oaths I swore were to serve humanity, not the prison it has built around itself.’

 	‘Those are not the oaths of the Imperium,’ I retort.

 	‘They are the spirit of the oaths. Or should be.’

 	‘And so you throw your lot in with these naive children.’

 	He snorts and smiles. ‘The eldar say the same of us. We say that their empire is done and we are the inheritors of the stars. Not so. Our time is done also. We had our chance, and fell. The Emperor failed to restore us. I throw my lot in with a race which is young, vibrant, and just. A race that will tear back the veils of superstition and bring a new age of enlightenment to the galaxy, an age in which mankind can prosper as part of the Greater Good.’

 	‘You seek to convert me. You will fail.’

 	He shakes his head and looks down. ‘I do not seek to convert you, because I know I cannot. You cannot be taught the virtue of the Greater Good because you are not free. You are not a man, but a weapon, and there is no place within the new order for such as you. I am sorry.’ He motions to his followers. They haul me to my feet. My armour is dead upon me, and I cannot act.

 	‘You are a traitor.’

 	‘If I am, then what I betray is worthy of betrayal. Take him away.’

 	And so I came here. Into this place. I am… 

 	No.

 	I will not yield.

 	I am Brother-Sergeant Herek Cornix of the Raven Guard. I am Brother-Sergeant Herek Cornix of the Raven Guard. I am Brother-Sergeant Herek Cornix of the Raven Guard, and I will do my duty.

 	[Note, this was the last coherent thought pattern the nagi collectives were able to retrieve from the subject’s mind. He went into arrest some moments later, the feedback from his suicide taking the remaining members of our weakened secondary collective to their deaths. Earth caste mental intensification equipment, operating at this point at an unprecedented 99%, was severely damaged. From this interrogation we can draw one conclusion, no more: the gue’ron’sha cannot be incorporated into the Tau’va. Where encountered, all efforts must be expended to destroy them. This will serve the primary military goal of removing them as an immediate threat, but secondarily will also break gue’la morale, and demonstrate to them the self-evident superiority of the Tau’va. Report of Nagi’o Joauuulliiallo, third level synaptic adjudicator of nagi collective 45978 ends.]


 
 
 Chapter Sixteen


 	O’Va’Dem came to me not long after Skilltalker was taken. I guess I should have been surprised that he was a man like me, but I wasn’t, not one bit. But I’ve never seen tau obey a non-tau like that before. Never.

 	He came to me in his underarmour. His face was troubled.

 	‘I am sorry, O’Va’Dem. I have failed.’ I hung my head. I felt sick, my stomach kept turning over and over, and my mind went unbidden to all manner of tortures that Skilltalker would soon be subjected to.

 	‘Jathen Korling?’ he said. I looked him in the eye. He must have been old, he had that look you get from good antigerontics, an ageless face sheltering old, old eyes.

 	‘I am Lucien van Deem, in our shared language. Please, call me Lucien. We are all equals in the eyes of the Tau’va.’ He had an accent to his Gothic. A tau accent.

 	‘Lucien,’ I said.

 	He smiled faintly in approval.

 	‘I came to reassure you. You are not to blame.’

 	‘How?’ I said.

 	‘Because the result of this entire deception was the kidnap and removal of Por’el Skilltalker into Imperial custody. You performed admirably, indeed, one might say a little too well – your dedication to your duty almost resulted in the failure of the mission. As it was, we thought Skilltalker would never be taken. After observing you – and I am a very good judge of men, Jathen – I feared you might suspect that Othelliar was an Imperial agent, however reluctantly.’

 	‘But…’ I said, not believing it. ‘The attacks, the ambush… The Space Marines…’

 	‘We had to make the task as hard as possible while making it achievable,’ said van Deem, ‘or our opponents on the other side would have suspected something. The Raven Guard in particular are masters at this sort of action, but I trust even they were convinced. A shame that the Inquisition is now almost certainly aware that we know of their sleeper agents. Even so, I expect that the misinformation Skilltalker will feed the Imperium will set back their war effort substantially.’ He sat beside me. I watched as earth caste medical staff carted a body sack containing Krix’s mortal remains past.

 	‘How can you be sure?’

 	‘He’s been extensively trained and his memories have been manipulated. To all intents and purposes, he believes what he will tell them, or at least he has convinced himself he does. If they find him out, well… We know about their plants within the Tau’va – like Othelliar – Skilltalker would just even the score.’ He stood. ‘There are many kinds of shadow war, not only the kind the likes of the Raven Guard prefer to fight. Skilltalker is a part of that war. He went gladly, of his own accord in service of a higher ideal.’

 	I remember the gesture he made at me as he stood in the lifeboat’s closing door.

 	‘Tau’va,’ I said glumly.

 	‘Tau’va,’ said the former inquisitor.

 	It was then that I noticed the tube built into the side of Lucien’s underarmour. I’ve seen them before. A nagi housing; you sometimes see them with the ethereals. Lucien had a mind worm with him, ensconced in its own subaquatic environment, safe from our poisonous air. He caught me staring at it, he smiled at me, not entirely reassuringly. 

 	‘This? Do not be alarmed. This is Illluoosun, he is my advisor.’

 	‘He is carried with you gue’o,’ I said, feeling a queasy horror. ‘Is he interfaced directly?’ I was pushing my luck asking such a question.

 	‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘All the better to advise me,’ said the ex-inquisitor. ‘You have done well, and proven yourself. We need more humans like you, who take the Tau’va completely to heart. Until that happens, we will not be able to do our best for the greater good of all. I will make recommendations for you, in my report. Rest assured, they will be propitious. With the glowing praise Skilltalker lavished upon you, I think you have a bright future. Tau’va.’ With that, he walked out of the room, and out of my life. 

 	‘Tau’va,’ I whispered back.

 	I like to believe that the worm was there as an advisor, that the aun had not put him under the creature’s control, that Lucien was his own master and served the Tau’va of his own accord.

 	If not, then I have to believe that it’s all for the Greater Good anyway.

 	What other choice do I have?

 	I still feel responsible, for Skilltalker, I mean; that it was my fault. I’ve been told again and again that it wasn’t, but if I’d acted back on Mu’gulath Bay, then the whole scheme would never have come off, and he’d still be alive. I did what was expected of me, but was it the right thing? Was I good enough to be worthy of my own oaths? I wrestle with this still. I understand why I was used the way I was, but feeling and thinking… They’re worlds apart from one another. I wonder, thinking back on that conversation on the Manta shortly before he was taken from us, if his wager with Por’ui Ka’shato was not actually a means to try and keep me out of all this. I don’t know. What I do know is that Skilltalker was an example to us all. That’s why, in part, I signed up for the vocal enhancement surgery.

 	After three tau’vyr waiting, I’m finally slated to have the surgery next week. The earth caste medics tell me it’ll be two tau’vyr until I’ll be able to speak, another one until I’m fit for duty, another five before I’ll have mastered Tau’noh’por to a sufficient degree to fit in with the higher command ranks. Almost half a tau’cyr. But if it all works, then I’ll be off back across the Damocles Gulf, leading the first frontline gue’vesa cadre from the new conquests to fight on behalf of the Tau’va. I don’t care that it will be against those who were my brothers. I relish it. Nothing’s perfect. The Imperium certainly is not. The commonwealth isn’t either, but it is less cruel. If for no other reason than that a lesser evil is better than a greater one, I have pledged myself entirely to the cause. You are five castes, one people, but you are also now a dozen species, half a thousand cultures. In spite of this, there remains, for now, one goal. 

 	I will do my utmost to ensure that that goal is fulfilled, for I have wholeheartedly made your goal my goal.

 	Tau’va.

 	Recording 7-9998-14 Gue’vesa. Institute of Human Affairs, Lui’sa’loa, Bork’an. Retrieval code 14a-159. Personal memoirs of Gue’vesa’vre Dal’yth J’ten Ko’lin, Gue’vesa auxiliary diplomatic protection la’rua 8448. ENDS