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Orks had plagued every part of this fair and great Galaxy. From the Eastern Fringe, all the way to the Inter-Galaxtic Void. They are savage, warlike, and crude, but ironically they are the most successful species in the whole galaxy! Even outnumbering possibly every other intelligent race, even humans! (The one exception might be Tyranids, but that's not important right now.)Fortunately they enjoy killing each other far more then getting a Waah! together to raid some planet.
From my time spent with the Impiral Guard, I have face off against more Warbosses than Commissar Yarrick, and I have the trophies – and scars – to prove it!
The worst had to be Goltoof da Treasa'unter (great name), an Ork Freebooter that harassed the Tau frontier worlds for almost a century. He made a name of himself during the Tau Civil War, when he would pray on shipping lanes and steal everything. It was said that he had Battlekroozers made out of solid gold, and harems so large that it would make Imperial Navy Officers and Planetary Governors jealous. But when the war was over, and Farsight in control, we began to take down his empire. He wasn't too happy about that.
The only good thing I could say about the beast, without him Jhi'Kaara and I would have never met.
Exerpt from Kain Osman's private Journal.
Cymbals and drums sounded tinny and distant in the thin, cold air as they welcomed him to the new world. Looking down from the top of the ramp, the shuttle's only passenger seemed surprised to find any kind of welcoming committee, even one as small as this one, awaiting him. High overhead, twin suns lit the scene with a fierce glare but little warmth; what little heat there was had been ripped away by a chilling breeze filled with fine, irritating ash.
It did not bother Kain in the slightest, he was originally from a cold planet so ice flowed from his very veins, and he served on worse worlds than this. A little bit of ash was not going to send him running back to T'au.
Gentle ripples of slate-grey ash marked the edge of the landing pad and marched off towards the foreshortened horizon with monotonous discipline. A small collection of domes, blocks and stubby spires in the mid-distance constituted the apparent entirety of Virrauka's one and only colony, the handful of off-white shapes looking lonely and isolate on the too-wide canvas of an empty world.
"Am I being punished? Or is Farsight screwing with me?" He beheld the tall, slender, shapely profile of the colony leader at the bottom of the ramp. "Yep, screwing with me."
One of the cymbal players, a wiry-looking fellow with blue facial markings, broke away from the small crowd and hurried up the ramp."
"Please to be meeting with our lady, great warrior, I, unworthy associated, will conduct you hence if willing?"
"Fine by me, I…" But the low ranking associate was already backing away and gesturing as if to draw Kain by an invisible string. The bemused Kain followed a long, his hard and worn leather boots clanked down the ramp and onto the first true ground he had touched in weeks of travel.
"To make introductions," the associate said gesturing to Kain and colony leader in turn. "This great warrior is Gue'vesa'O Kain Russell Osman. This is Po'O Yis'ten."
Po'O Yis'ten was undoubtedly one of greatest merchants in the water caste. With her silver tongue more planets had given into the Empire rather than a long and bloody war, and with her intervention Farsight's Enclave was able to keep the civil war a secret to the rest of the galaxy. She wore the expecteded flamboyant gown and jewels of any high ranking official of the water caste, but her robe was a few sizes too big for her. Whether this was intentional or not would bicker in Kain's head for years to come, but now it was an embarrassing distraction.
Kain gave a minor nod to her, "Yis'ten, I am flattered that you came to meet me. You are more beautiful than the stories they tell."
Even for a Tau, Kain had to admit the Yis'ten was quite beautiful. Like most Tau in the water caste she was tall and slender, with the common Y-shaped marking on her forehead, to show she was a female, which led down to the delicate air slights that made up her nose. Long braided, black hair that went past her waist, with locks of hair that frame her face down to her chin. But her most legendary, and most obvious, trait was her body - and what a body! It was no surprise she ran most of the water caste.
"Nonsense, Kain Osman, it was only seeming for me to be present in order to make the proper acquaintance and welcome you to Virruaka. My little fortress in the stars."
"We have a lot to discuss," Kain said politely, "and I hope we can work together to better protect the frontier colonies."
There were earth caste engineers there, and they were not too happy by Kain's words. They gave a non-committal grunt at the prospect, eliciting the shadow of a frown on Kain's face. The engineers smoothly got back whatever they were originally doing.
"Of course those are Prime Minister Farsght's words, not mine." Kain turned back to Yis'ten.
"Shovah can be a tease at times, but I understand his concern. Just tell him to send me flowers next time."
"I'll run it past him."
"Please," she motioned towards one of the domes. "You must be tired and hungry from your trip. Refreshments are being served inside."
Kain refused to be immediately drawn after them, addressing a question to temptress.
"And where are the warriors I am to command? I am surprised to find that they have left greetings, welcome as they are, to other, while absenting themselves."
Yis'ten answered directly, cutting across the associate platitudes even as they began.
"To be honest, the fire and water caste do not see eye to eye. Surprising, I know, but the Shas'la are sulking in their barracks after I refused permission to bring weapons along to a meeting with a gue'la governor. They said that they would rather be naked than suffer the shame at being disarmed at their first encounter with their Gue'vesa'O!"
"Any good looking in the group?" Kain asked.
"A few, mainly for me, but I never judged you as enjoying my species."
"I like the Tau, I'm not attracted to them – with the exception of you. I just asked because I do not want to claw my eyes out when I see a nude one."
"Neither do I," she chuckled. "But this is a world absent of life, minus us. Just whom could they possibly shoot at?"
Kain understood her reasoning. For a temptress, Yis'ten was quite intelligent. Green soldiers were always the worst to deal with. They were pumped filled with piss and vinegar, always itching for a fight, and more gung-ho than a pack of ork boyz. They were more of a threat to themselves than they were to whatever enemy they might be put up against. Kain truly had his work cut out for him.
"What's that supposed to be?"
"It's a planet, boss, the mekboss wants to go there."
Ork Freebooter Kaptin Goltoof da Tresa'unter leaned forward, peering down at the wiry little gretchin before his throne. The gretchin quaked, the big shard of glass in its hands quivering and making the dirty yellow-brown ball on its surface bounce around uncertainly.
"The mekboss, eh?" Goltoof rumbled with a voice like stone tumbling down a metal shaft. "Well, I'm the Kaptin and I say where we go!"
Goltoof was a Kaptin out of his prime. He was once the most feared Freebooter on the Eastern Fringe. He had raiding parties that would pray on Space Marine worlds, and were large enough to eclipse even the mightiest Waaghs! But now, with the Tau Empire on the rebound, he was constantly on the run, and there was no profit to make there.
"The mekboss said the ships are gonna break if we don't go!"
Goltoof paused at that. Glaring gold eyes pierced the quivering gretchin with new interest.
"What did you just say?"
The gretchin's healthy green pallor had gained a distinctly whitish cast, the world in the viewing glass oscillated tightly back and forth in its grip.
"The mekboss said to tell you we got too many holes. Some are so big the boys are falling out and all the… breathy stuff is leakin' out."
Goltoof thrust his mighty jaw out truculently. "Breathy stuff? That's air, you stupid little grot!"
"Y-yes boss!"
"So we're gonna be stuck there?" Goltoof's three meter tall form seemed to sag at the prospect. No more reaving across the stars for him and his bloodthirsty crew of freebooters; they would be stuck on one stinking planet with no way off it and nothing to fight but each other.
"Bo - boss! The mekboss says there's metal on this world. We can fix the holes an' keep goin!"
Goltoof seemed to swell up visibly at the prospect. He grabbed the viewing glass from the gretchin with a gnarled claw as big as its torso and glared at it with a rapacious gleam in his eyes. The gretchin failed to relinquish its grip quickly enough and ended up dangling from Goltoof's fist by one arm.
"Anything to kill?" Goltoof demanded.
"No boss," the grot squeaked apologetically, "leastways nothing good. Tau water boys use that planet."
"So plenty of looting!" Goltoof gave out a loud laugh.
"And the mekboss said that their leader lady, Yis'ten, is down there." The gretchin got a bit cockier with its kaptin's change in behavior.
"That's even better!" He yelled with glee. "Call up the boys and Mr. Wrench'Ead! It's time for lootin'!"
Kain found the warriors beneath his command awaiting him at their barracks, just as Yis'ten had said. The warriors stood in ranks inside the quadrangle formed between their quarters, garages and armory. Each was in full armor; the jointed plates given them an insectile quality in the harsh glare of the twin blue suns. They held their pulse rifles upright before them, long-barrelled firing chambers pointing rigidly at the skies. Small mounds of windblown ash reaching up to their ankles showed they had been silently awaiting him for quite some time. Kain dropped his single carry bag and power saber with an audible clank before blowing out his cheeks in a long-suffering sigh.
"And just what is the meaning of this?" he shouted in a parade ground bark very different tone he had used with Yis'ten and the engineers. A fire warrior with the stripes of a Shas'ui, a sergeant, took a step forward and replied.
"It is my responsibility, Gue'vesa'O," the Shas'ui said, the voice distorted by their audio pickup of their enclosed helmet. "Any punishment is mine, and mine alone."
A murmur of discontent rippled out behind the Shas'ui as they spoke and the forest of pulse swayed slightly in response. Kain respected the Shas'ui's honor, but raised a hand to silence them.
"Am I led to believe that all of you refused to leave your barracks unarmed? On the backwards idea that it would offend you in my eyes not to greet me as warriors?"
"The Po'o believes that with no enemies present our weapons are only a danger to ourselves and her business, Gue'vesa'O," The Shas'ui replied cautiously.
"And she would be right!" Kain snapped. "The water caste is the Empire's merchants, diplomats and administrators! They are responsible for maintaining effective interaction between the castes, as well as communicating with and supervising the integration of alien species into the Tau Empire. As the fire caste, you are here to protect and observe them, because they are the ones keeping you from early graves!"
"But the ambassador believes us too ill-trained and unreliable to bear arms!"
"Enough! Put down your weapons at once!" Kain barked. As one, the assembled fire warriors placed their rifles on the ground. "Now take off your armor. You heard me, every piece!"
Kain watched while the warriors more hesitantly unclipped shoulder guards and breastplates, thigh pieces and curved helmets. They quickly lost their uniformity and were revealed as a selection of males and females of a young age, a few probably even closer to their first trial by fire. The variety of their physiognomy showed that they hailed from a variety of different septs. There were some dark faces from Vior'la that were eyeing him with approval, a gaggle of pallid D'yanoi that looked confused, several Sa'ceans that obeyed quickly and efficiently without hesitation, handful from Tash'var who tried to act proud of current situation, and a few from Au'taal who seemed to be completely relaxed – even if they were shivering in their rubberized fatigues.
The one that surprised him the most was the Shas'ui, who proved to be an attractive female with a more fit body of T'au and a scar on her face, she also had red hair that was tied into a bun and held with golden pins. She went the extra yard, stripping out of her armor and rubberized fatigues and folded them into a neat pile right next to her. She covered her fairly ample breasts with one arm, but stood at complete attention – even if she was shivering with every gust of wind.
Kain had to avert his eyes because so many perverse thoughts of how to punish her were floofing his mind. He walked over to the Shas'ui's neat little pile of equipment and kicked it over.
"These… objects do not make you warriors!" He shouted into her face. "The will… the ability to fight, to be a warrior, does not reside in your weapons, nor inside you armor unless you bring it there yourself! The warrior begins within, a warrior is one who still fights with whatever they have and with nothing at all if they must!"
Kain had their attention now, every eye was on him and he saw the unconscious flaring of nasal slits in approval on all of the faces. He bent down and drew his saber from the sheath and shoved the blade into the ground. The sheath was made from ironwood, hard enough to crack open an Ork Nob's skull like an egg, and was as long as his leg. He then tossed two fighting sticks from his carrying bag, made from the same material and as thick as his arm, and tossed them before them.
"Now… who among you is enough of a warrior to fight me for the right to put your armor back on?"
Two days later, a Devilfish personnel carrier skimmed over low dunes with all the smooth agility of its namesake, its graceful lines speeding across the gritty ash. Inside, Kain watched the external monitors with interest, nothing the tall double plume of dust snaking in their wake that would be visible for miles. His body ached a bit from the bruises, but they were nothing compared to what the other five warriors felt.
He'd beaten all of them, one by one, even though it had taken all night and most of the next day. The smarter ones had waited until he was tired before taking their chances, managing to get a few telling strikes on him. Afterwards, Kain had fought them in pairs in groups to allow them a little revenge. Not bad, but some of them really were ill-trained and all of them were very inexperienced.
More importantly, they were now thinking of themselves as warriors again, instead of scolded children.
The only one who seemed to have any combat experience was the Shas'ui. She knew how to fight, and because she was completely naked during the fight she knew how to slightly distract him. He chuckled, causing his bruised ribs to ache. He read her file on his trip to the planet, or at least the parts the censors allowed him to read. Shas'ui Jhi'kaara started off as a Pathfinder, the Tau scouts, during the Second Expansion and in the jungles of the Dolorosa Coil. While her combat profile told him she was a capable warrior with true leader potential, but her psych profile told him something completely different.
He turned to Jhi'kaara, raising his voice above the whine of the Devilfish's ducted turbines.
"So you're telling me no other living organisms is on this planet?"
"Nothing at all, not a plant, not an animal." Jhi'kaara's response were clipped and coolly professional but Kain could tell she was barely holding her excitement in check. Yis'ten, in her water caste fashion, had a entire personal arsenal of Devilfish transports, Sky Ray, and Hammerhead gunships
"Seems like an odd place to set up shop. Even for the water caste."
"But the colony has its purpose. The land is quite fertile, if it wasn't for the ash, and there are plenty of mines." She prodded. "That is something of an exaggeration, Gue'vesa'o, the main colony is her in the Orgap Highlands. The Fio have established many other facilities but there all small, highly automated and widely dispersed."
"Their purpose?"
"Metal extraction and purification. Underneath most of this ash are large veins of precious metals, and the ash we are going over bear huge quantities of metallic oxides mixed with silica and carbon. The Fio believes it to be a mixer over what was at the planet's core and the detritus of a civilization that once covered this planet."
Kain sparked up with interest. "My briefing material said nothing about this, perhaps you jest, Shas'ui?"
Jhi'kaara gestured at the grey dunes sliding past the monitors, "No, Gue'vesa'o, I do not jest. The ash you see out there are compounds of metal and other elements completely impervious to decay. The Fio don't know whether the gue'la – sorry humans – or something more ancient lived here, certainly a long time ago." She paused. "Permission to ask a question, Gue'vesa'o?"
"Granted."
"Your name – Gue'vesa'o Kain Russell Osman. I am aware that your tidal means "human helper," but you have to be a skillful warrior to achieve the tidal of 'o.' You must have passed at least three trials by fire to achieve such a rank…"
"I'm sure you have a question in there somewhere, Shas'ui. So spit it out."
"It's just…. Why would the Shas'ar'tol send someone like you to a place like this? Surely you would do more good in an active conflict region than being crèche supervisor in some forgotten outpost for the water caste."
"I believe it is because O'Shovah has a sick sense of humor and enjoys seeing me in pain." Kain replied. "But to be honest, I have no idea why he sent me out here, maybe to whip you greens into shape. The God-Emperor works in mysterious ways, who am I to question Him?"
Jhi'kaara looked at him in frank disbelief, and seemed to be trying to deduce just what her Gue'vesa'o had just said. She opened her mouth to ask another, probably even more impertinent, question when the Devilfish lurched suddenly, banking sharply to one side. The fire warriors were thrown against their restraining harnesses with a chorus of suppressed groans. On the monitor, Kain caught a glimpse of a blazing darkness amid the dunes that rapidly vanished down one side of the personnel carrier.
"I thought the volcanoes were extinct." Kain said, groaning at the pain in his ribs.
"There shouldn't."
The Devilfish's turbines ran quiet, and all motion ceased as the transport's reflective panels shimmered and camouflaged it with the rest of the grey wasteland. Jhi'kaara took point, followed by the five other fire warriors, and then Kain.
The grey ash ran an entire spectrum of colors, going from white to orange and then red, glowed within the fissure and it quickly cooled, causing a thin layer of metal to form. One of the braver fire warriors, a female from Sa'cean, were the first to venture onto the metallic skin. To Kain's surprise the layer did not break under the combined weight of Tau, armor and gear. Even when he jumped on it, it did not break or dent.
"Gue'vesa'o," Jhi'kaara asked, "What could've caused this?"
"I have a theory," he said as he slammed a power cartridge into the back. "I just hope that I'm wrong."
They walked in an semi organized manner. Jhi'kaara at point, and two inline of two in the middle, but the only factor keeping it disorganized was their Gue'vesa'o. He would shift from one point in the line to the other, always checked his back and sides, and had his finger firmly glued on the trigger. Jhi'kaara was about to ask him what was wrong, but before she could he called for a complete stop.
"What's wrong?"
"Wait here."
Kain crept on ahead, carefully placing one foot at a time on the metallic ground. The ground seemed to go back into the ash, giving Kain some adequate cover. Taking a quick peak, his heart momentarily stopped.
It was what he feared, an Ork Rok.
Kain had fought the damned beasts before. Sometimes his regiment fought them off world, other times he escaped by the skins of his teeth. The first time he laid eyes on one he was a private and lost complete control of his bladder, by the time the Third War of Armageddon rolled around he already had more necklaces made from their teeth he cared to admit. All of them he had left behind when he defected, so right now he had to every instinct to leap over the dune, guns blazing, and give into his sick addition once more.
The thing that stopped him was the size of the force. Kain was a capable warrior, no doubt, but he could not take on over a dozen loota boyz, five flash gitz Nobs armed to the teeth with their high-caliber snazzguns, and more gretchins than he could count. A few frak grenades could kill the boyz, and send the gretchins into panic, but then he had to deal with the flash gitz. Nobs were a challenge alone, but flash gitz were another story. For starters they loved their snazzguns, and loved using them. Not to mention there were five of them, each with their own deadly, custom weapons of mass destruction. One veteran commander with a power sabre and a pulse rifle would not be enough, but a squad of anxious fire warriors might.
He turned and headed back to his squad. Jhi'kaara was cleaning out the ash of her Railgun while the other five were communicating via private channels. All of them came to attention when they saw their gue'vesa'o.
"We have a slight ork infestation." Kain said. "A dozen boys, five nobs and a whole lot gretchins in total. First question, what do we do?"
"Take them head on, gue'vesa'o." said a recruit from Vior'la.
"That is a good idea – if you want a quick and very painful death."
"Head back to the outpost and regroup. Warn the colony." Said a recruit from Au'taal.
"The better and more logical option, Shas'la, but Orks don't exactly go by our schedule and will hunt us down before we ever make it back."
"We can out flank them," Jhi'kaara said. "Get around them and use the Devilfish's burst cannons for support."
"You are on the right path, Shas'ui, but you are forgetting one tiny detail about the creatures. They fight on who is the strongest of the pack, usually going boss, nob, boy, and then gretchin. I didn't see any warbosses, so we have to take out the Nobs to have the pack cave in on itself. It will save us time, ammo, and manpower. You," he pointed at the tau from Au'taal. "Get the Devilfish to swing around the creator. Tell the pilot to stay low and keep the jets quite, then open fire when he sees the signal. You'll know what it is, and I expect you to keep any that slip by away. Everyone else is with me."
The Au'taal recruit did as he was told headed back to the transport. The others followed him. Apart of Kain could tell what they were thinking, that he was crazy or they should turn and run, but he did not care. They followed orders and that was all he needed.
They surrounded the mouth of the creator, each at two arm's length apart from one another. That was when they got a good look at the feral beasts. The boys had ditched their deffguns in favor of their choppas – huge pieces are sharp, jagged metal – and began fighting each other in a tournament like fashion, and once there was dozen was now half that number. The flash gitz, on the other hand, still kept their number at five, but now they were picking on the gretchins. Shouting at them in their guttural language because the weapons on the rok would not work, and when the imps tried to explain the Nobs would throw them up and use them for target practice.
Kain thought for a moment to let this continue. Maybe if he was luck they would kill themselves off, but the chances of that were slim to non-existent. He saw a small cloud of ash kick up and resettle; the Devilfish was in place and awaiting orders. Using a private channel within his helmet, he gave his fire warriors their orders.
"Us your photon grenades to stun the boys, then aim for the Nobs."
Kain counted down on his fingers, and when he hit one his warriors primed their grenades and threw them over the embankment. All of them landed in soft run-off beds, making them invisible to the greenskins close by, but was able to attract the attention of the sharped ear gretchins. The grenades exploded one at a time, mere milliseconds apart from each other, kicking up electrically charged ash and shrapnel up into the Orks.
Several gretchins and two orks were killed in the explosion, and one lost an arm caused by being distracted by the explosions and losing it to a choppa strike. Kain and his fire warriors then began to open fire upon the greenskins. The devilfish's burst cannons followed suit, and plums of plasma encased the feral beasts in cocoons of instant death.
Doing as they were told, Kain's fire warriors fired upon the nobs. The only problem was that the beasts were now firing back. Huge chunks of the metal ground shattered, causing a few of the tau to tumble down into the creator with them.
Two of them, the recruit from Vior'la and Sa'crean, were unfornate enough to be sucked into the torrent of rush ash and metal, and when they dug themsevels out they found themselves on the business end of a nob's choppa. They were still burried and scrambling to get out. Try to get back over the ridge or find a good place to to make cover, anything was a better option than being gored by a greenskin brute.
The nob lifted its massive green arm, muscles and veins bulging as it gripped its choppa harder, and swung down. The two embraced each other and closed their eyes, preparing for the worst. It was probably for the best, because if they kept them open they would have seen the brute's arm being chopped off by a power saber and then being shot in the head. When they opened their eyes, they found their gue'vesa'o standing over a dead nob and pulling out it's teeth.
The nob's breath smelled was the rancid smell of vomit as Kain dug arounf in it's mouth for the best teeth. Most of them were greyish-yellow and rotten, only a few were the white he wanted, and he managed to get a few to start off with.
"Gue'vesa'o," Jhi'kaara addressed him. "What are you doing?"
"Giving into a sick habit, Shas'ui," he said as he examined the jagged fangs. "How are the Shas'las'?"
"Shaken, and covered witth ash, but fine. My question still stands though."
"I'm collecting war trophies," he said, "Orks have taken so many of my men, so I figured this is me getting even."
"That's barbaric!"
"That's war." Kain turned to his other fire warriors. "Toss a few grenades into the rok. I think I saw some gretchins dive back in."
His Shas'las' follewed his orders and tossed them into the rok, blowing out fire, ash and a few unfortunate gretchins.
Fire and iron thundered out of the void with twisting, belching black trails chasing at its back. One, three, then three fiery meteors were vomited from the sullen skies, the clouds peeled back in ragged taters where the smoking lances pierced them from above. Distance made churning smoke and fire trails seem absurdly slow-moving as their burning tips crawled arcoss the sky.
Kain watched the apocalptic sight with nothing but hate and vile boiling in his soul. From their direction told him that they were heading towards the unmanned refineries to the south.
"At least they're not heading towards the colony... yet." He sighed. "Everyone, get back onto the devilfish. Tell the pilot to get every hunting team back to the colony. Also get Yis'ten on, I need to have a word with her."
Goltoof mashed random buttons on the arm of his throne until a frightening-sounding grot voice squeaked from the speaker gril response.
"All of the roks are away boss, what now?"
"Tell the flyboys it's time to drop and give'em a boot up the arse from me," Goltoof growled happily. With easy targets to kill on this planet, the landing was going to be the most fun part and he was going to squeeze out every bit of it. Distant clunks reverberated through the hull as landers are flyers dropped away from the giant ship with all the aplomb of baby chicks falling out of a large, ugly nest.
A chaotic selection of viewscreens flickered into life around the bridge, half exploding in showers of sparks before immediately going dead. Of the remainder, some only showed static, but others showed the juddering, leaping views from the nose of the ork flyers. Boring-looking ash dunes and petrified earth bounced around on the working screens for a few seconds before one caught a ile of dead orks around a burnt rok. Goltoof's attention snapped to the screen and his impressively golden-tusked jaw champed convulsively.
"Looks like they have their fire boys!" Goltoof roared, jabbing one clawed finger at the flickering image. "Get us down there! NOW!"
The desert horizon that had once been so crisp and clear was smudged with the plumes of smoke the roks left. Po'o Yis'ten had been busy destroying anything that the orks could use to make larger war party, as well as get every ship ready for evacuation. Dealing with her own cast was simple enough, it was the earth caste overseer that was giving her problems.
"Mehmet, I must protest!" She snapped as she chased after the human overseer. His drones were buzzing around his workshop like angry hornets, and his stout staff of engineers were getting weapons ready instead of destroying them like she ordered.
"Against what?" he asked. "Defending the colony?"
"Let me make this clear to you, Fio'ui." She said. "We are going against ork feebooters, and there are a lot more of them then there are of us. Our fire warriors are too few in numbers to hold them back, and we need to get the civilians off planet."
"Fine, go ahead and do that," Mehmet said, still working on an energy core. "But I ordered the engineers to stay until colonel Osman hasd returned."
Yis'ten had dealt with the earth caste before, and even her years of diplomacy could not break through their stubborness. But of all the blunt, bullheaded, tinkering, plotting, callouse, pragmatic, and down right stubborn technician she had dealt with Mehmet was the worst!
He was an enginseer from Mars, the Imperium's main forge worlds, who defacted around the same time gue'vesa'o Osman did. He always had a facination with alien technology, but because of the cults and the inquisition acts such as that were completely outlawed by the Imperial Creed. So, like most, when he saw his chance to leave he took it. Now all he had been doing was spending millions of her caste credits on projects that she, on all accounts, were restricted of accessing.
Before she could say anything to the human, a earh caste engineer came up to her with a communicator on a secure channel. "Po'o," said the stout engineer, "it's gue'vesa'o Osman."
"Perfect timing," Mehmet said. "Tell him to come down here when, and if, he gets here."
"How far down are they taking me?" Kain had confined to a feight elevator for fifteen or more minutes, and the entire time it had been rapidly descending into the depths of Virruaka.
The last place Kain wanted to be was in another confined space, unable to do anything to help his warriors. Only two of the three devilfishes returned, one was severly damaged, and he had heard nothing from the hammerhead teams. Fortunately the skyrays that had stayed behind for training, where now holding the green tide back. But without reenforcements, a relentless foe, and their commander several hundred meters underground, it was only a matter of time until the line broke and every one above ground would be slaughtered.
The doors finally slid open, and they emerged in what appeared to be a well-lit hangar. The far end had a series of dismantled machines and battlesuits.
Three engineers and at least a dozen AI driven droids were busy in the center of the room. Kain had dealt with drones before - between one or four at a time. The technicians had once him that there were technical reasons why only a few earth caste droids could be at the same place at the same time, but they were buzzing around the room, doing whatever the engineers told them to.
Yis'ten cleared her throat. The technicians turned and the drones stopped.
Kain had been so focused on the droids that he had not noticed what they were working on. It was a fully functional battlesuit, but it was different in certain ways. The design looked like the XV89 Crisis Battlesuits, but it seemed more humanlike. It was bigger than any of the standard battlesuits, and the build had more of a human physic.
It was painted in his Enclave's colors - black over-coat with a crimson red under - and had the three rings planted on the "chest" area.
"The XV95 Hellion Battlesuit," Fio'ui Mehmet said. He snapped his metal fingers and an explosion of holographic schematics of the armor appeared next to him.
"Even though we had to use parts from the XV8, this is an improvement to the XV9's. The armor's shell is a multiple alloy of remarkable strength thanks to this planet's rescorces. We - I - recently added a refractive coating to dispense incoming energy weapon attacks - to counter any deffguns up there." He pointed inside the schematic. "Inside the battlesuit is a gel-filled layer to regulate temperature; this layer can reactively change in density."
"Is that supposed to help with control?" Kain asked.
"Nope. It's meant to help your life expensity. Against the skin of the operator - you - there is a moisture-absorbing cloth suit, and biomonitors that constantly adjust the compartment's temperature and fit. There is also an onboard computer that interfaces with your brainwaves." a small fissure rocked the bunker. If an explosion like that could do that, Kain hated what was happening up there. "Now I know that time is not on our side, so if you do not mind, Colonel?"
Mehmet gestured and the schematics collapsed and the drones started to circle Kain. They stripped him of his armor, and only left him in the flexiable padding of the under-layer. Mehmet gestured him into the opened chest cavity, and Kain chose to trust the enginseer.
The hull closed and a dark-red light lit the small space inside. It felt like a coffin inside the machine, a comfortable coffin, but a coffin none of the less. It already began to become humid and uncomfortable in there when Mehmet's voice came on the comms. "I found away for humans to operate the suits, without injecting needles into your brain. The only problem is, I have to drown you."
The compartment stared to gel-like liquid, causing Kain to struggle to get out. "Relax, colonel, this is meant to help you to become one with the suit. Once your lungs are filled with the gel, it'll allow your blood to be oxygenated directly. You'll get used to it - probably. Still working on the recipy."
Kain gasped, his lungs needed clean air, fortunately gel did as Mehmet told him. A entire spectrum of colors flashed before his eyes until it finally forcused in on the environment arond him. Now he felt like he was floating above the ground. He flexed his hand and felt his saw the machine's hand flexing in and out.
"Nice to see your natural reflexes are working. Now for your weapons." A team of drones and technicians helped apply weapons onto his left arm and back. "I'm giving you an prototype Iridium shield. It'll protect you from heavy fire, but it'll also give you a powerful kinectic pulse - just incase those greenskins get too close. On your back is are anti-infrantry missile pods - simple and too the point. But I saved the best for last."
A heavy, metal container opened, revieling something Kain really know how to use. It was based off of Commander Farsight's Dawn Blade, but crafted to mimic his power saber. Grabbing a hold of it, the weapon seemed to hum with life, and it sparked with trails of lightning when he swung it around. It was perfect.
Another tremour, bigger than the last one, shook the entire facility.
"Damn the beasts," Yis'ten cursed. "they are ruining my fortress. Mehmet, is there any way to quickly get him above ground?"
"Yep," he smiled like a cat. "There are plenty of launch pads down here."
"Then get him up there! Also, get your teams to the evac-sight."
"Do you not trust your investment?"
"I trust Osman with my life," Yis'ten said, "but I have a purpose to serve to the remaining caste on my planet, and I rather not sully a reputation I worked so hard for."
Goltoof was having a good plunder and an even better slaughter.
He already collected enough metal and riches to fix his ship up a thousand times over, but now he and his boyz could crush their boredom using the Tau defenders to do it. Their gunships and missile batteries were a pain to deal with, but without any pesky battlesuits or reenforcements to help them, his stormboys easily stormed them.
Now he wanted to get some slaves - mainly Yis'ten. She would be the crown jewel in his new harem, and just thinking of the things he would do to her made his blood run hotter and his strength increase by tenfold. What the beast did not expect was the ground opening up below him and something shooting out. At first he thought it was a defense missile as it flew across the ash sky and landed right in the middle of his boyz, destroying some unexpecting boyz, two killa kans, and Mr. Wrench'Ead in the process. So it was a mixed blessing .
Goltoof and his boyz had no idea what landed on their side, but when it started to move and speak, the ork knew whom it was. "Hello, Goltoof."
"Osman!" the beast growled in a voice so deep and vissious that it could be felt inside of the suit. "I should have guessed you were on this planet."
"The feeling is mutual, ugly." In his head's-up display, Kain could see positions where his warriors were holding back the greentide. Jhi'kaara had proven herself to be a fine commander, managing to hold the beasts back with such little support. If he could kill this incoriable creature, then the tide would turn on itself and it would be easy hunting from there. "I'll give you one chanse to surrender, and I promise you - your deaths will be quick."
The anger on Goltoof's face bubbled and boiled over into a shout so powerful that it caused the deaths of at least a dozen gretchins nearby. Ork stormboys had gotten the message though and swarmed all over the battlesuit, but with a flash of pur energy, the rocket propelled beasts were knocked into the ash where their rockets blew-up, killing more boyz and nobs, while other were converted in red mist and chunks of meat.
"I was just joking about that quick death bit, yours, ugly, will be long and painful."
Goltoof grinned, showing all of his sharp, jagged, golden tusks. He was clad in kustom red mega-armor, with a kustom power klaw on his left and a large shoota mounted on his right. He summoned all of his remaining nobs to attack, but they soon found themselves blown to bits by the anti-infrantry shrapnel missiles. Now it was just a one on one match between him and the greenskin.
A blaze of energy engulfed the waves of orks from above, brilliant white beams dancing from one band to the next, leaving burning torches in their wake. Gazing up, Jhi'Kaara laughed as she saw wide delta blotting out of the suns. The frimiliar silhouttes of Manta missle destroyers hovered above the colony like guardian angels, finally enough of them to evacuate he whole colony. What she was not expecting were more fire warriors, battlesuilts, and gunships come down to support them.
They later found Gue'vesa'o Osman's battlesuit later on, in the middle of a good crater with a dead ork. The suit's left arm was torn off and the shull was badly damaged. Fortunately Kain was very much alive - bright pink and completely hairless, but alive none of the less.
"You have done well, Gue'vesa'o." O'Shaserra - Commander Shadowsun - said. "You bring credit to your Enclave and the fire caste. We understand that you are distressed by the casualities incurred under your command."
She paused as Kain shook his bald head.
"Casualties are a fact of war," he replied. "I am distressed by being starved of reinforcements that evidently exist and the unnecessary hardships thereby inflicted on my command
An unidentified Aun male spoke, "Surely it is not your place to question the strategies of the Shas'ar'tol?"
"It is my place to question poor strategy whenever I see it, ask O'Shavah that and he will say the same. Not to mention this statergy did not originate from my honoured colleagues at the Shas'as'tol." He paused to pull a flimsy sheaf of message transcripts from inside his tunic. "I checked."
Aun'o Vor replied. "Your success in small unit engagement with the or'es'la has enabled the build up of larger reseves. When the campaign to retake Virruaka were to happen, it would have been undertaken with overwhelming strength."
"In other words, you were planning to throw lives now for an easier victory later." Yis'ten interjected. "Am I wrong, Vor?"
"As is our remit, for the greater good."
Kain rolled his eyes. Vor was one of the fossils from the old empire, when the ethereals ruled with an iron fist, and using the philosophy of the greater good as an excuss to control them.
There was an awkward moment of silence as Kain refused to respond. Aun'o Vor seemed genuinely puzzled.
"Gue'vesa'o, you act as if the war was lost, when your actions have virtually assured victory."
Kain dashed the transcript on the floor in sudden fury. "Because I was not told!"
The Vor drew drew back from the human's anger, his eyes becoming hooded. Kain breathed deeply, mastering himself before speaing again.
"You allowed me and my cadres to fight in the belief that no help was coming while you sat in orbit doing nothing. If it was not for Yis'ten and Fio'ui Mehmet, my cadres - what is left of it - secured the planet."
"Possibly," Vor admitted. "Yet your situation spurred you to the highest efforts. As you said, casualties are a fact of war. Yet you minimised your own and maximised those incurred by the enemy. Is that not a victory?"
"Of a sort," Kain admitted bitterly. "But here I thought we fought a long and bloody civil war in order to rid the empire of your backwards ways of thinking, Vor. Or do I have to tell O'Shovah what you told me?"
And for once, Aun'o Vor could not come up with an answer.
Kain turned back to the other caster representatives, mainly O'Shaserra and Yis'ten. "O'Shaserra, I would like for the remaining warriors to be put in my Enclave. They have proven themselves battle ready and capable."
"In better time, this would not be a problem. However, seeing that this is on frontier space, and the chances of more freebooters out there, I cannot allow it."
"I can raise up the money to put more Cadres together, O'Shaserra," Yis'ten said. "But I do agree with her. If these were different times, but they are not. I will though, give you the warriors from your squad. They lead the defensive while you were being outfitted."
The human's face had become an immobile mask. He revealed nothing of his inner feelings towards the ethereal caste when he responded.
"I am merely a servant to the Emperor. If this is His will, I will comply. But know this, if something like this ever happens again, there will be a second civil war."

Description

Orks had plagued every part of this fair and great Galaxy. From the Eastern Fringe, all the way to the Inter-Galaxtic Void. They are savage, warlike, and crude, but ironically they are the most successful species in the whole galaxy! Even outnumbering possibly every other intelligent race, even humans! (The one exception might be Tyranids, but that's not important right now.)Fortunately they enjoy killing each other far more then getting a Waah! together to raid some planet.
From my time spent with the Impiral Guard, I have face off against more Warbosses than Commissar Yarrick, and I have the trophies – and scars – to prove it!
The worst had to be Goltoof da Treasa'unter (great name), an Ork Freebooter that harassed the Tau frontier worlds for almost a century. He made a name of himself during the Tau Civil War, when he would pray on shipping lanes and steal everything. It was said that he had Battlekroozers made out of solid gold, and harems so large that it would make Imperial Navy Officers and Planetary Governors jealous. But when the war was over, and Farsight in control, we began to take down his empire. He wasn't too happy about that.
The only good thing I could say about the beast, without him Jhi'Kaara and I would have never met.
Exerpt from Kain Osman's private Journal.
Cymbals and drums sounded tinny and distant in the thin, cold air as they welcomed him to the new world. Looking down from the top of the ramp, the shuttle's only passenger seemed surprised to find any kind of welcoming committee, even one as small as this one, awaiting him. High overhead, twin suns lit the scene with a fierce glare but little warmth; what little heat there was had been ripped away by a chilling breeze filled with fine, irritating ash.
It did not bother Kain in the slightest, he was originally from a cold planet so ice flowed from his very veins, and he served on worse worlds than this. A little bit of ash was not going to send him running back to T'au.
Gentle ripples of slate-grey ash marked the edge of the landing pad and marched off towards the foreshortened horizon with monotonous discipline. A small collection of domes, blocks and stubby spires in the mid-distance constituted the apparent entirety of Virrauka's one and only colony, the handful of off-white shapes looking lonely and isolate on the too-wide canvas of an empty world.
"Am I being punished? Or is Farsight screwing with me?" He beheld the tall, slender, shapely profile of the colony leader at the bottom of the ramp. "Yep, screwing with me."
One of the cymbal players, a wiry-looking fellow with blue facial markings, broke away from the small crowd and hurried up the ramp."
"Please to be meeting with our lady, great warrior, I, unworthy associated, will conduct you hence if willing?"
"Fine by me, I…" But the low ranking associate was already backing away and gesturing as if to draw Kain by an invisible string. The bemused Kain followed a long, his hard and worn leather boots clanked down the ramp and onto the first true ground he had touched in weeks of travel.
"To make introductions," the associate said gesturing to Kain and colony leader in turn. "This great warrior is Gue'vesa'O Kain Russell Osman. This is Po'O Yis'ten."
Po'O Yis'ten was undoubtedly one of greatest merchants in the water caste. With her silver tongue more planets had given into the Empire rather than a long and bloody war, and with her intervention Farsight's Enclave was able to keep the civil war a secret to the rest of the galaxy. She wore the expecteded flamboyant gown and jewels of any high ranking official of the water caste, but her robe was a few sizes too big for her. Whether this was intentional or not would bicker in Kain's head for years to come, but now it was an embarrassing distraction.
Kain gave a minor nod to her, "Yis'ten, I am flattered that you came to meet me. You are more beautiful than the stories they tell."
Even for a Tau, Kain had to admit the Yis'ten was quite beautiful. Like most Tau in the water caste she was tall and slender, with the common Y-shaped marking on her forehead, to show she was a female, which led down to the delicate air slights that made up her nose. Long braided, black hair that went past her waist, with locks of hair that frame her face down to her chin. But her most legendary, and most obvious, trait was her body - and what a body! It was no surprise she ran most of the water caste.
"Nonsense, Kain Osman, it was only seeming for me to be present in order to make the proper acquaintance and welcome you to Virruaka. My little fortress in the stars."
"We have a lot to discuss," Kain said politely, "and I hope we can work together to better protect the frontier colonies."
There were earth caste engineers there, and they were not too happy by Kain's words. They gave a non-committal grunt at the prospect, eliciting the shadow of a frown on Kain's face. The engineers smoothly got back whatever they were originally doing.
"Of course those are Prime Minister Farsght's words, not mine." Kain turned back to Yis'ten.
"Shovah can be a tease at times, but I understand his concern. Just tell him to send me flowers next time."
"I'll run it past him."
"Please," she motioned towards one of the domes. "You must be tired and hungry from your trip. Refreshments are being served inside."
Kain refused to be immediately drawn after them, addressing a question to temptress.
"And where are the warriors I am to command? I am surprised to find that they have left greetings, welcome as they are, to other, while absenting themselves."
Yis'ten answered directly, cutting across the associate platitudes even as they began.
"To be honest, the fire and water caste do not see eye to eye. Surprising, I know, but the Shas'la are sulking in their barracks after I refused permission to bring weapons along to a meeting with a gue'la governor. They said that they would rather be naked than suffer the shame at being disarmed at their first encounter with their Gue'vesa'O!"
"Any good looking in the group?" Kain asked.
"A few, mainly for me, but I never judged you as enjoying my species."
"I like the Tau, I'm not attracted to them – with the exception of you. I just asked because I do not want to claw my eyes out when I see a nude one."
"Neither do I," she chuckled. "But this is a world absent of life, minus us. Just whom could they possibly shoot at?"
Kain understood her reasoning. For a temptress, Yis'ten was quite intelligent. Green soldiers were always the worst to deal with. They were pumped filled with piss and vinegar, always itching for a fight, and more gung-ho than a pack of ork boyz. They were more of a threat to themselves than they were to whatever enemy they might be put up against. Kain truly had his work cut out for him.
"What's that supposed to be?"
"It's a planet, boss, the mekboss wants to go there."
Ork Freebooter Kaptin Goltoof da Tresa'unter leaned forward, peering down at the wiry little gretchin before his throne. The gretchin quaked, the big shard of glass in its hands quivering and making the dirty yellow-brown ball on its surface bounce around uncertainly.
"The mekboss, eh?" Goltoof rumbled with a voice like stone tumbling down a metal shaft. "Well, I'm the Kaptin and I say where we go!"
Goltoof was a Kaptin out of his prime. He was once the most feared Freebooter on the Eastern Fringe. He had raiding parties that would pray on Space Marine worlds, and were large enough to eclipse even the mightiest Waaghs! But now, with the Tau Empire on the rebound, he was constantly on the run, and there was no profit to make there.
"The mekboss said the ships are gonna break if we don't go!"
Goltoof paused at that. Glaring gold eyes pierced the quivering gretchin with new interest.
"What did you just say?"
The gretchin's healthy green pallor had gained a distinctly whitish cast, the world in the viewing glass oscillated tightly back and forth in its grip.
"The mekboss said to tell you we got too many holes. Some are so big the boys are falling out and all the… breathy stuff is leakin' out."
Goltoof thrust his mighty jaw out truculently. "Breathy stuff? That's air, you stupid little grot!"
"Y-yes boss!"
"So we're gonna be stuck there?" Goltoof's three meter tall form seemed to sag at the prospect. No more reaving across the stars for him and his bloodthirsty crew of freebooters; they would be stuck on one stinking planet with no way off it and nothing to fight but each other.
"Bo - boss! The mekboss says there's metal on this world. We can fix the holes an' keep goin!"
Goltoof seemed to swell up visibly at the prospect. He grabbed the viewing glass from the gretchin with a gnarled claw as big as its torso and glared at it with a rapacious gleam in his eyes. The gretchin failed to relinquish its grip quickly enough and ended up dangling from Goltoof's fist by one arm.
"Anything to kill?" Goltoof demanded.
"No boss," the grot squeaked apologetically, "leastways nothing good. Tau water boys use that planet."
"So plenty of looting!" Goltoof gave out a loud laugh.
"And the mekboss said that their leader lady, Yis'ten, is down there." The gretchin got a bit cockier with its kaptin's change in behavior.
"That's even better!" He yelled with glee. "Call up the boys and Mr. Wrench'Ead! It's time for lootin'!"
Kain found the warriors beneath his command awaiting him at their barracks, just as Yis'ten had said. The warriors stood in ranks inside the quadrangle formed between their quarters, garages and armory. Each was in full armor; the jointed plates given them an insectile quality in the harsh glare of the twin blue suns. They held their pulse rifles upright before them, long-barrelled firing chambers pointing rigidly at the skies. Small mounds of windblown ash reaching up to their ankles showed they had been silently awaiting him for quite some time. Kain dropped his single carry bag and power saber with an audible clank before blowing out his cheeks in a long-suffering sigh.
"And just what is the meaning of this?" he shouted in a parade ground bark very different tone he had used with Yis'ten and the engineers. A fire warrior with the stripes of a Shas'ui, a sergeant, took a step forward and replied.
"It is my responsibility, Gue'vesa'O," the Shas'ui said, the voice distorted by their audio pickup of their enclosed helmet. "Any punishment is mine, and mine alone."
A murmur of discontent rippled out behind the Shas'ui as they spoke and the forest of pulse swayed slightly in response. Kain respected the Shas'ui's honor, but raised a hand to silence them.
"Am I led to believe that all of you refused to leave your barracks unarmed? On the backwards idea that it would offend you in my eyes not to greet me as warriors?"
"The Po'o believes that with no enemies present our weapons are only a danger to ourselves and her business, Gue'vesa'O," The Shas'ui replied cautiously.
"And she would be right!" Kain snapped. "The water caste is the Empire's merchants, diplomats and administrators! They are responsible for maintaining effective interaction between the castes, as well as communicating with and supervising the integration of alien species into the Tau Empire. As the fire caste, you are here to protect and observe them, because they are the ones keeping you from early graves!"
"But the ambassador believes us too ill-trained and unreliable to bear arms!"
"Enough! Put down your weapons at once!" Kain barked. As one, the assembled fire warriors placed their rifles on the ground. "Now take off your armor. You heard me, every piece!"
Kain watched while the warriors more hesitantly unclipped shoulder guards and breastplates, thigh pieces and curved helmets. They quickly lost their uniformity and were revealed as a selection of males and females of a young age, a few probably even closer to their first trial by fire. The variety of their physiognomy showed that they hailed from a variety of different septs. There were some dark faces from Vior'la that were eyeing him with approval, a gaggle of pallid D'yanoi that looked confused, several Sa'ceans that obeyed quickly and efficiently without hesitation, handful from Tash'var who tried to act proud of current situation, and a few from Au'taal who seemed to be completely relaxed – even if they were shivering in their rubberized fatigues.
The one that surprised him the most was the Shas'ui, who proved to be an attractive female with a more fit body of T'au and a scar on her face, she also had red hair that was tied into a bun and held with golden pins. She went the extra yard, stripping out of her armor and rubberized fatigues and folded them into a neat pile right next to her. She covered her fairly ample breasts with one arm, but stood at complete attention – even if she was shivering with every gust of wind.
Kain had to avert his eyes because so many perverse thoughts of how to punish her were floofing his mind. He walked over to the Shas'ui's neat little pile of equipment and kicked it over.
"These… objects do not make you warriors!" He shouted into her face. "The will… the ability to fight, to be a warrior, does not reside in your weapons, nor inside you armor unless you bring it there yourself! The warrior begins within, a warrior is one who still fights with whatever they have and with nothing at all if they must!"
Kain had their attention now, every eye was on him and he saw the unconscious flaring of nasal slits in approval on all of the faces. He bent down and drew his saber from the sheath and shoved the blade into the ground. The sheath was made from ironwood, hard enough to crack open an Ork Nob's skull like an egg, and was as long as his leg. He then tossed two fighting sticks from his carrying bag, made from the same material and as thick as his arm, and tossed them before them.
"Now… who among you is enough of a warrior to fight me for the right to put your armor back on?"
Two days later, a Devilfish personnel carrier skimmed over low dunes with all the smooth agility of its namesake, its graceful lines speeding across the gritty ash. Inside, Kain watched the external monitors with interest, nothing the tall double plume of dust snaking in their wake that would be visible for miles. His body ached a bit from the bruises, but they were nothing compared to what the other five warriors felt.
He'd beaten all of them, one by one, even though it had taken all night and most of the next day. The smarter ones had waited until he was tired before taking their chances, managing to get a few telling strikes on him. Afterwards, Kain had fought them in pairs in groups to allow them a little revenge. Not bad, but some of them really were ill-trained and all of them were very inexperienced.
More importantly, they were now thinking of themselves as warriors again, instead of scolded children.
The only one who seemed to have any combat experience was the Shas'ui. She knew how to fight, and because she was completely naked during the fight she knew how to slightly distract him. He chuckled, causing his bruised ribs to ache. He read her file on his trip to the planet, or at least the parts the censors allowed him to read. Shas'ui Jhi'kaara started off as a Pathfinder, the Tau scouts, during the Second Expansion and in the jungles of the Dolorosa Coil. While her combat profile told him she was a capable warrior with true leader potential, but her psych profile told him something completely different.
He turned to Jhi'kaara, raising his voice above the whine of the Devilfish's ducted turbines.
"So you're telling me no other living organisms is on this planet?"
"Nothing at all, not a plant, not an animal." Jhi'kaara's response were clipped and coolly professional but Kain could tell she was barely holding her excitement in check. Yis'ten, in her water caste fashion, had a entire personal arsenal of Devilfish transports, Sky Ray, and Hammerhead gunships
"Seems like an odd place to set up shop. Even for the water caste."
"But the colony has its purpose. The land is quite fertile, if it wasn't for the ash, and there are plenty of mines." She prodded. "That is something of an exaggeration, Gue'vesa'o, the main colony is her in the Orgap Highlands. The Fio have established many other facilities but there all small, highly automated and widely dispersed."
"Their purpose?"
"Metal extraction and purification. Underneath most of this ash are large veins of precious metals, and the ash we are going over bear huge quantities of metallic oxides mixed with silica and carbon. The Fio believes it to be a mixer over what was at the planet's core and the detritus of a civilization that once covered this planet."
Kain sparked up with interest. "My briefing material said nothing about this, perhaps you jest, Shas'ui?"
Jhi'kaara gestured at the grey dunes sliding past the monitors, "No, Gue'vesa'o, I do not jest. The ash you see out there are compounds of metal and other elements completely impervious to decay. The Fio don't know whether the gue'la – sorry humans – or something more ancient lived here, certainly a long time ago." She paused. "Permission to ask a question, Gue'vesa'o?"
"Granted."
"Your name – Gue'vesa'o Kain Russell Osman. I am aware that your tidal means "human helper," but you have to be a skillful warrior to achieve the tidal of 'o.' You must have passed at least three trials by fire to achieve such a rank…"
"I'm sure you have a question in there somewhere, Shas'ui. So spit it out."
"It's just…. Why would the Shas'ar'tol send someone like you to a place like this? Surely you would do more good in an active conflict region than being crèche supervisor in some forgotten outpost for the water caste."
"I believe it is because O'Shovah has a sick sense of humor and enjoys seeing me in pain." Kain replied. "But to be honest, I have no idea why he sent me out here, maybe to whip you greens into shape. The God-Emperor works in mysterious ways, who am I to question Him?"
Jhi'kaara looked at him in frank disbelief, and seemed to be trying to deduce just what her Gue'vesa'o had just said. She opened her mouth to ask another, probably even more impertinent, question when the Devilfish lurched suddenly, banking sharply to one side. The fire warriors were thrown against their restraining harnesses with a chorus of suppressed groans. On the monitor, Kain caught a glimpse of a blazing darkness amid the dunes that rapidly vanished down one side of the personnel carrier.
"I thought the volcanoes were extinct." Kain said, groaning at the pain in his ribs.
"There shouldn't."
The Devilfish's turbines ran quiet, and all motion ceased as the transport's reflective panels shimmered and camouflaged it with the rest of the grey wasteland. Jhi'kaara took point, followed by the five other fire warriors, and then Kain.
The grey ash ran an entire spectrum of colors, going from white to orange and then red, glowed within the fissure and it quickly cooled, causing a thin layer of metal to form. One of the braver fire warriors, a female from Sa'cean, were the first to venture onto the metallic skin. To Kain's surprise the layer did not break under the combined weight of Tau, armor and gear. Even when he jumped on it, it did not break or dent.
"Gue'vesa'o," Jhi'kaara asked, "What could've caused this?"
"I have a theory," he said as he slammed a power cartridge into the back. "I just hope that I'm wrong."
They walked in an semi organized manner. Jhi'kaara at point, and two inline of two in the middle, but the only factor keeping it disorganized was their Gue'vesa'o. He would shift from one point in the line to the other, always checked his back and sides, and had his finger firmly glued on the trigger. Jhi'kaara was about to ask him what was wrong, but before she could he called for a complete stop.
"What's wrong?"
"Wait here."
Kain crept on ahead, carefully placing one foot at a time on the metallic ground. The ground seemed to go back into the ash, giving Kain some adequate cover. Taking a quick peak, his heart momentarily stopped.
It was what he feared, an Ork Rok.
Kain had fought the damned beasts before. Sometimes his regiment fought them off world, other times he escaped by the skins of his teeth. The first time he laid eyes on one he was a private and lost complete control of his bladder, by the time the Third War of Armageddon rolled around he already had more necklaces made from their teeth he cared to admit. All of them he had left behind when he defected, so right now he had to every instinct to leap over the dune, guns blazing, and give into his sick addition once more.
The thing that stopped him was the size of the force. Kain was a capable warrior, no doubt, but he could not take on over a dozen loota boyz, five flash gitz Nobs armed to the teeth with their high-caliber snazzguns, and more gretchins than he could count. A few frak grenades could kill the boyz, and send the gretchins into panic, but then he had to deal with the flash gitz. Nobs were a challenge alone, but flash gitz were another story. For starters they loved their snazzguns, and loved using them. Not to mention there were five of them, each with their own deadly, custom weapons of mass destruction. One veteran commander with a power sabre and a pulse rifle would not be enough, but a squad of anxious fire warriors might.
He turned and headed back to his squad. Jhi'kaara was cleaning out the ash of her Railgun while the other five were communicating via private channels. All of them came to attention when they saw their gue'vesa'o.
"We have a slight ork infestation." Kain said. "A dozen boys, five nobs and a whole lot gretchins in total. First question, what do we do?"
"Take them head on, gue'vesa'o." said a recruit from Vior'la.
"That is a good idea – if you want a quick and very painful death."
"Head back to the outpost and regroup. Warn the colony." Said a recruit from Au'taal.
"The better and more logical option, Shas'la, but Orks don't exactly go by our schedule and will hunt us down before we ever make it back."
"We can out flank them," Jhi'kaara said. "Get around them and use the Devilfish's burst cannons for support."
"You are on the right path, Shas'ui, but you are forgetting one tiny detail about the creatures. They fight on who is the strongest of the pack, usually going boss, nob, boy, and then gretchin. I didn't see any warbosses, so we have to take out the Nobs to have the pack cave in on itself. It will save us time, ammo, and manpower. You," he pointed at the tau from Au'taal. "Get the Devilfish to swing around the creator. Tell the pilot to stay low and keep the jets quite, then open fire when he sees the signal. You'll know what it is, and I expect you to keep any that slip by away. Everyone else is with me."
The Au'taal recruit did as he was told headed back to the transport. The others followed him. Apart of Kain could tell what they were thinking, that he was crazy or they should turn and run, but he did not care. They followed orders and that was all he needed.
They surrounded the mouth of the creator, each at two arm's length apart from one another. That was when they got a good look at the feral beasts. The boys had ditched their deffguns in favor of their choppas – huge pieces are sharp, jagged metal – and began fighting each other in a tournament like fashion, and once there was dozen was now half that number. The flash gitz, on the other hand, still kept their number at five, but now they were picking on the gretchins. Shouting at them in their guttural language because the weapons on the rok would not work, and when the imps tried to explain the Nobs would throw them up and use them for target practice.
Kain thought for a moment to let this continue. Maybe if he was luck they would kill themselves off, but the chances of that were slim to non-existent. He saw a small cloud of ash kick up and resettle; the Devilfish was in place and awaiting orders. Using a private channel within his helmet, he gave his fire warriors their orders.
"Us your photon grenades to stun the boys, then aim for the Nobs."
Kain counted down on his fingers, and when he hit one his warriors primed their grenades and threw them over the embankment. All of them landed in soft run-off beds, making them invisible to the greenskins close by, but was able to attract the attention of the sharped ear gretchins. The grenades exploded one at a time, mere milliseconds apart from each other, kicking up electrically charged ash and shrapnel up into the Orks.
Several gretchins and two orks were killed in the explosion, and one lost an arm caused by being distracted by the explosions and losing it to a choppa strike. Kain and his fire warriors then began to open fire upon the greenskins. The devilfish's burst cannons followed suit, and plums of plasma encased the feral beasts in cocoons of instant death.
Doing as they were told, Kain's fire warriors fired upon the nobs. The only problem was that the beasts were now firing back. Huge chunks of the metal ground shattered, causing a few of the tau to tumble down into the creator with them.
Two of them, the recruit from Vior'la and Sa'crean, were unfornate enough to be sucked into the torrent of rush ash and metal, and when they dug themsevels out they found themselves on the business end of a nob's choppa. They were still burried and scrambling to get out. Try to get back over the ridge or find a good place to to make cover, anything was a better option than being gored by a greenskin brute.
The nob lifted its massive green arm, muscles and veins bulging as it gripped its choppa harder, and swung down. The two embraced each other and closed their eyes, preparing for the worst. It was probably for the best, because if they kept them open they would have seen the brute's arm being chopped off by a power saber and then being shot in the head. When they opened their eyes, they found their gue'vesa'o standing over a dead nob and pulling out it's teeth.
The nob's breath smelled was the rancid smell of vomit as Kain dug arounf in it's mouth for the best teeth. Most of them were greyish-yellow and rotten, only a few were the white he wanted, and he managed to get a few to start off with.
"Gue'vesa'o," Jhi'kaara addressed him. "What are you doing?"
"Giving into a sick habit, Shas'ui," he said as he examined the jagged fangs. "How are the Shas'las'?"
"Shaken, and covered witth ash, but fine. My question still stands though."
"I'm collecting war trophies," he said, "Orks have taken so many of my men, so I figured this is me getting even."
"That's barbaric!"
"That's war." Kain turned to his other fire warriors. "Toss a few grenades into the rok. I think I saw some gretchins dive back in."
His Shas'las' follewed his orders and tossed them into the rok, blowing out fire, ash and a few unfortunate gretchins.
Fire and iron thundered out of the void with twisting, belching black trails chasing at its back. One, three, then three fiery meteors were vomited from the sullen skies, the clouds peeled back in ragged taters where the smoking lances pierced them from above. Distance made churning smoke and fire trails seem absurdly slow-moving as their burning tips crawled arcoss the sky.
Kain watched the apocalptic sight with nothing but hate and vile boiling in his soul. From their direction told him that they were heading towards the unmanned refineries to the south.
"At least they're not heading towards the colony... yet." He sighed. "Everyone, get back onto the devilfish. Tell the pilot to get every hunting team back to the colony. Also get Yis'ten on, I need to have a word with her."
Goltoof mashed random buttons on the arm of his throne until a frightening-sounding grot voice squeaked from the speaker gril response.
"All of the roks are away boss, what now?"
"Tell the flyboys it's time to drop and give'em a boot up the arse from me," Goltoof growled happily. With easy targets to kill on this planet, the landing was going to be the most fun part and he was going to squeeze out every bit of it. Distant clunks reverberated through the hull as landers are flyers dropped away from the giant ship with all the aplomb of baby chicks falling out of a large, ugly nest.
A chaotic selection of viewscreens flickered into life around the bridge, half exploding in showers of sparks before immediately going dead. Of the remainder, some only showed static, but others showed the juddering, leaping views from the nose of the ork flyers. Boring-looking ash dunes and petrified earth bounced around on the working screens for a few seconds before one caught a ile of dead orks around a burnt rok. Goltoof's attention snapped to the screen and his impressively golden-tusked jaw champed convulsively.
"Looks like they have their fire boys!" Goltoof roared, jabbing one clawed finger at the flickering image. "Get us down there! NOW!"
The desert horizon that had once been so crisp and clear was smudged with the plumes of smoke the roks left. Po'o Yis'ten had been busy destroying anything that the orks could use to make larger war party, as well as get every ship ready for evacuation. Dealing with her own cast was simple enough, it was the earth caste overseer that was giving her problems.
"Mehmet, I must protest!" She snapped as she chased after the human overseer. His drones were buzzing around his workshop like angry hornets, and his stout staff of engineers were getting weapons ready instead of destroying them like she ordered.
"Against what?" he asked. "Defending the colony?"
"Let me make this clear to you, Fio'ui." She said. "We are going against ork feebooters, and there are a lot more of them then there are of us. Our fire warriors are too few in numbers to hold them back, and we need to get the civilians off planet."
"Fine, go ahead and do that," Mehmet said, still working on an energy core. "But I ordered the engineers to stay until colonel Osman hasd returned."
Yis'ten had dealt with the earth caste before, and even her years of diplomacy could not break through their stubborness. But of all the blunt, bullheaded, tinkering, plotting, callouse, pragmatic, and down right stubborn technician she had dealt with Mehmet was the worst!
He was an enginseer from Mars, the Imperium's main forge worlds, who defacted around the same time gue'vesa'o Osman did. He always had a facination with alien technology, but because of the cults and the inquisition acts such as that were completely outlawed by the Imperial Creed. So, like most, when he saw his chance to leave he took it. Now all he had been doing was spending millions of her caste credits on projects that she, on all accounts, were restricted of accessing.
Before she could say anything to the human, a earh caste engineer came up to her with a communicator on a secure channel. "Po'o," said the stout engineer, "it's gue'vesa'o Osman."
"Perfect timing," Mehmet said. "Tell him to come down here when, and if, he gets here."
"How far down are they taking me?" Kain had confined to a feight elevator for fifteen or more minutes, and the entire time it had been rapidly descending into the depths of Virruaka.
The last place Kain wanted to be was in another confined space, unable to do anything to help his warriors. Only two of the three devilfishes returned, one was severly damaged, and he had heard nothing from the hammerhead teams. Fortunately the skyrays that had stayed behind for training, where now holding the green tide back. But without reenforcements, a relentless foe, and their commander several hundred meters underground, it was only a matter of time until the line broke and every one above ground would be slaughtered.
The doors finally slid open, and they emerged in what appeared to be a well-lit hangar. The far end had a series of dismantled machines and battlesuits.
Three engineers and at least a dozen AI driven droids were busy in the center of the room. Kain had dealt with drones before - between one or four at a time. The technicians had once him that there were technical reasons why only a few earth caste droids could be at the same place at the same time, but they were buzzing around the room, doing whatever the engineers told them to.
Yis'ten cleared her throat. The technicians turned and the drones stopped.
Kain had been so focused on the droids that he had not noticed what they were working on. It was a fully functional battlesuit, but it was different in certain ways. The design looked like the XV89 Crisis Battlesuits, but it seemed more humanlike. It was bigger than any of the standard battlesuits, and the build had more of a human physic.
It was painted in his Enclave's colors - black over-coat with a crimson red under - and had the three rings planted on the "chest" area.
"The XV95 Hellion Battlesuit," Fio'ui Mehmet said. He snapped his metal fingers and an explosion of holographic schematics of the armor appeared next to him.
"Even though we had to use parts from the XV8, this is an improvement to the XV9's. The armor's shell is a multiple alloy of remarkable strength thanks to this planet's rescorces. We - I - recently added a refractive coating to dispense incoming energy weapon attacks - to counter any deffguns up there." He pointed inside the schematic. "Inside the battlesuit is a gel-filled layer to regulate temperature; this layer can reactively change in density."
"Is that supposed to help with control?" Kain asked.
"Nope. It's meant to help your life expensity. Against the skin of the operator - you - there is a moisture-absorbing cloth suit, and biomonitors that constantly adjust the compartment's temperature and fit. There is also an onboard computer that interfaces with your brainwaves." a small fissure rocked the bunker. If an explosion like that could do that, Kain hated what was happening up there. "Now I know that time is not on our side, so if you do not mind, Colonel?"
Mehmet gestured and the schematics collapsed and the drones started to circle Kain. They stripped him of his armor, and only left him in the flexiable padding of the under-layer. Mehmet gestured him into the opened chest cavity, and Kain chose to trust the enginseer.
The hull closed and a dark-red light lit the small space inside. It felt like a coffin inside the machine, a comfortable coffin, but a coffin none of the less. It already began to become humid and uncomfortable in there when Mehmet's voice came on the comms. "I found away for humans to operate the suits, without injecting needles into your brain. The only problem is, I have to drown you."
The compartment stared to gel-like liquid, causing Kain to struggle to get out. "Relax, colonel, this is meant to help you to become one with the suit. Once your lungs are filled with the gel, it'll allow your blood to be oxygenated directly. You'll get used to it - probably. Still working on the recipy."
Kain gasped, his lungs needed clean air, fortunately gel did as Mehmet told him. A entire spectrum of colors flashed before his eyes until it finally forcused in on the environment arond him. Now he felt like he was floating above the ground. He flexed his hand and felt his saw the machine's hand flexing in and out.
"Nice to see your natural reflexes are working. Now for your weapons." A team of drones and technicians helped apply weapons onto his left arm and back. "I'm giving you an prototype Iridium shield. It'll protect you from heavy fire, but it'll also give you a powerful kinectic pulse - just incase those greenskins get too close. On your back is are anti-infrantry missile pods - simple and too the point. But I saved the best for last."
A heavy, metal container opened, revieling something Kain really know how to use. It was based off of Commander Farsight's Dawn Blade, but crafted to mimic his power saber. Grabbing a hold of it, the weapon seemed to hum with life, and it sparked with trails of lightning when he swung it around. It was perfect.
Another tremour, bigger than the last one, shook the entire facility.
"Damn the beasts," Yis'ten cursed. "they are ruining my fortress. Mehmet, is there any way to quickly get him above ground?"
"Yep," he smiled like a cat. "There are plenty of launch pads down here."
"Then get him up there! Also, get your teams to the evac-sight."
"Do you not trust your investment?"
"I trust Osman with my life," Yis'ten said, "but I have a purpose to serve to the remaining caste on my planet, and I rather not sully a reputation I worked so hard for."
Goltoof was having a good plunder and an even better slaughter.
He already collected enough metal and riches to fix his ship up a thousand times over, but now he and his boyz could crush their boredom using the Tau defenders to do it. Their gunships and missile batteries were a pain to deal with, but without any pesky battlesuits or reenforcements to help them, his stormboys easily stormed them.
Now he wanted to get some slaves - mainly Yis'ten. She would be the crown jewel in his new harem, and just thinking of the things he would do to her made his blood run hotter and his strength increase by tenfold. What the beast did not expect was the ground opening up below him and something shooting out. At first he thought it was a defense missile as it flew across the ash sky and landed right in the middle of his boyz, destroying some unexpecting boyz, two killa kans, and Mr. Wrench'Ead in the process. So it was a mixed blessing .
Goltoof and his boyz had no idea what landed on their side, but when it started to move and speak, the ork knew whom it was. "Hello, Goltoof."
"Osman!" the beast growled in a voice so deep and vissious that it could be felt inside of the suit. "I should have guessed you were on this planet."
"The feeling is mutual, ugly." In his head's-up display, Kain could see positions where his warriors were holding back the greentide. Jhi'kaara had proven herself to be a fine commander, managing to hold the beasts back with such little support. If he could kill this incoriable creature, then the tide would turn on itself and it would be easy hunting from there. "I'll give you one chanse to surrender, and I promise you - your deaths will be quick."
The anger on Goltoof's face bubbled and boiled over into a shout so powerful that it caused the deaths of at least a dozen gretchins nearby. Ork stormboys had gotten the message though and swarmed all over the battlesuit, but with a flash of pur energy, the rocket propelled beasts were knocked into the ash where their rockets blew-up, killing more boyz and nobs, while other were converted in red mist and chunks of meat.
"I was just joking about that quick death bit, yours, ugly, will be long and painful."
Goltoof grinned, showing all of his sharp, jagged, golden tusks. He was clad in kustom red mega-armor, with a kustom power klaw on his left and a large shoota mounted on his right. He summoned all of his remaining nobs to attack, but they soon found themselves blown to bits by the anti-infrantry shrapnel missiles. Now it was just a one on one match between him and the greenskin.
A blaze of energy engulfed the waves of orks from above, brilliant white beams dancing from one band to the next, leaving burning torches in their wake. Gazing up, Jhi'Kaara laughed as she saw wide delta blotting out of the suns. The frimiliar silhouttes of Manta missle destroyers hovered above the colony like guardian angels, finally enough of them to evacuate he whole colony. What she was not expecting were more fire warriors, battlesuilts, and gunships come down to support them.
They later found Gue'vesa'o Osman's battlesuit later on, in the middle of a good crater with a dead ork. The suit's left arm was torn off and the shull was badly damaged. Fortunately Kain was very much alive - bright pink and completely hairless, but alive none of the less.
"You have done well, Gue'vesa'o." O'Shaserra - Commander Shadowsun - said. "You bring credit to your Enclave and the fire caste. We understand that you are distressed by the casualities incurred under your command."
She paused as Kain shook his bald head.
"Casualties are a fact of war," he replied. "I am distressed by being starved of reinforcements that evidently exist and the unnecessary hardships thereby inflicted on my command
An unidentified Aun male spoke, "Surely it is not your place to question the strategies of the Shas'ar'tol?"
"It is my place to question poor strategy whenever I see it, ask O'Shavah that and he will say the same. Not to mention this statergy did not originate from my honoured colleagues at the Shas'as'tol." He paused to pull a flimsy sheaf of message transcripts from inside his tunic. "I checked."
Aun'o Vor replied. "Your success in small unit engagement with the or'es'la has enabled the build up of larger reseves. When the campaign to retake Virruaka were to happen, it would have been undertaken with overwhelming strength."
"In other words, you were planning to throw lives now for an easier victory later." Yis'ten interjected. "Am I wrong, Vor?"
"As is our remit, for the greater good."
Kain rolled his eyes. Vor was one of the fossils from the old empire, when the ethereals ruled with an iron fist, and using the philosophy of the greater good as an excuss to control them.
There was an awkward moment of silence as Kain refused to respond. Aun'o Vor seemed genuinely puzzled.
"Gue'vesa'o, you act as if the war was lost, when your actions have virtually assured victory."
Kain dashed the transcript on the floor in sudden fury. "Because I was not told!"
The Vor drew drew back from the human's anger, his eyes becoming hooded. Kain breathed deeply, mastering himself before speaing again.
"You allowed me and my cadres to fight in the belief that no help was coming while you sat in orbit doing nothing. If it was not for Yis'ten and Fio'ui Mehmet, my cadres - what is left of it - secured the planet."
"Possibly," Vor admitted. "Yet your situation spurred you to the highest efforts. As you said, casualties are a fact of war. Yet you minimised your own and maximised those incurred by the enemy. Is that not a victory?"
"Of a sort," Kain admitted bitterly. "But here I thought we fought a long and bloody civil war in order to rid the empire of your backwards ways of thinking, Vor. Or do I have to tell O'Shovah what you told me?"
And for once, Aun'o Vor could not come up with an answer.
Kain turned back to the other caster representatives, mainly O'Shaserra and Yis'ten. "O'Shaserra, I would like for the remaining warriors to be put in my Enclave. They have proven themselves battle ready and capable."
"In better time, this would not be a problem. However, seeing that this is on frontier space, and the chances of more freebooters out there, I cannot allow it."
"I can raise up the money to put more Cadres together, O'Shaserra," Yis'ten said. "But I do agree with her. If these were different times, but they are not. I will though, give you the warriors from your squad. They lead the defensive while you were being outfitted."
The human's face had become an immobile mask. He revealed nothing of his inner feelings towards the ethereal caste when he responded.
"I am merely a servant to the Emperor. If this is His will, I will comply. But know this, if something like this ever happens again, there will be a second civil war."