Fire Warrior

III

08.51 HRS (SYS. LOCAL — DOLUMAR IV, Ultima Seg. #4356/E)

A call to arms klaxon trilled, oscillating whoops that made the ears ring and the head pound. Footsteps and shouting voices hurtled along the iron lattice corridor, adding to the clamour of the grumbling generarium and the hissing, gurgling duct i

Governor Severus lurked in his plush cabin aboard the flagship Enduring Blade and forced himself to focus, biting his lip until he tasted blood. The ceaseless uproar of the warship was far from conducive to contemplation.

The journey from the surface had been comfortable, he supposed. The nobilite shuttle he’d acquired and furnished years before had provided ample room, despite his companions comprising a hulking retinue of Space Marines.

Severus had first contacted the Enduring Blade a week previously. It was an irregular convention, he’d discovered, for companies of Space Marines to be seconded aboard navy warships, spending their time in isolated training and meditation away from the crew. He dimly suspected it was all part of a goodwill scheme to minimise enmity between the characteristically arrogant Adeptus Astartes and the abundant perso

The Raptors’ reputation for risk-taking and tenacity — often taken to an almost reckless degree — immediately endeared them to him. He could allow nothing, be it hesitation or pragmatism in the face of overwhelming odds, to stand in the way of his goal. Besides, the Ultramarines were famous for their application of righteousness and morality, characteristics that, in Severus’s experience, bred a proclivity towards asking awkward questions.

He’d contacted Captain Mito, commander of the Raptors’ fifth company, aboard the Enduring Blade, requesting his Chapter’s aid with a politeness he struggled to maintain. He cited the Administratum documentation he held, expansively glorifying his plans to capture and study a tau ethereal, highlighting the tactical value that such a coup might hold. He played upon the captain’s piety, stressing the holy importance of purging xenogen life wherever it was found, assuring him that in understanding the Emperor’s enemies, His glorious will could best be served. All this and more he communicated, hungry for the Marines’ involvement, and in the end he was rewarded with the pledged assistance of a tactical squad of Raptors. They arrived two days later, colossal warriors cut directly from the myths and legends of history, and he’d presided joyfully over their secret reception at his mansion in Lettica, immensely pleased at his own machinations.

The tip-off he’d been expecting arrived two days later. Beyond the abyssal gulf surrounding the Dolumar system, the tau empire’s outermost fringes were rich in colony worlds. There, left behind by the collapse of the Damocles Crusade, waged by the Imperium two hundred years previously, Severus had long ago discovered several scattered populations of humans, living peacefully beneath the patronage of the tau. He’d been fostering contacts amongst the dispossessed communities ever since. In the end, greed had overcome any sentiments of loyalty to their new masters: he’d learned of the impending arrival of an ethereal upon the colony world of Kuu’lan from one fortune-seeking fool, and had dispatched the Raptors immediately.

They’d performed admirably, despite the immense collateral damage they’d inflicted. And now the next phase of the plan was progressing equally as pleasingly: the tau response had been swift and devastating and, even better, Battlefleet Ultima had come ru

Not that he could afford the time for such things. He must concentrate; force himself to contain the energies a little longer. There had been too many leakages already.

A tiny voice in his mind, words hissing like blistering flesh, whispered: Soon.

Kor’o Natash T’yra, standing at the centre of his private swarm of control drones and sensor screens, worked his jaw thoughtfully. The serene bridge of the Or’es Tash’var surrounded him in calmness, its crescent arrangement of smooth-moulded control consoles and benches typical of air caste sensibilities. Against the airy brightness of the command deck, with its serene curvature and uncluttered spaces, the main viewscreen sucked at his attention: the inky blackness of the void punctuated sparsely by whirligig lights.

It was, he thought, like a cluster of jewels; intricate crystals of white and yellow fragmenting and tumbling, spi

He watched as impossible swarms of gue’la attack craft obliterated the few air caste fighters not grounded or damaged on the planet below, forcing his thoughts away from the abstract beauty of the sight. Every diamond, he knew, was a glowing missile exhaust, every polished sapphire the pulsefire of an outnumbered tau fighter; every crackling amber bead another life lost, another kor’ui mouthing their deathshriek into the void.

The human fleet skulked nearby, a dispersing pack of kroot hounds circling a dying preything, hungry for carrion. Every one was a beaked slab of colossal dimensions, infested by the scuttling buttresses and spires characteristic of gue’la architecture, bristling with multi-tiered turrets and ca

Staying out of range of their main batteries was proving problematic, even for his faster, more manoeuvrable Gharial-class warship, but Tyra was unwilling to disengage from orbit until the very last second. The swarms of fighters disgorged from the warships’ bellies like flies lifting from rotten meat were a more immediate threat. Tyra cast a sad glance towards the schematic charts. Damage indicators pulsed calmly.

“They will cripple us,” he said beneath his breath, “drain us, then move in to finish us.”

“Kor’o?” His first officer, El’Siet, had overheard him.

“Nothing,” he said self-consciously, berating himself for giving voice to his anxiety.

On one screen a camera drone faithfully documented a cluster of fighters, jagged black and grey slashes of metal superimposed with IR-sensed fuel emissions like trails of blood, as they strafed the smooth hull of the warship’s juntas side. Twin furrows of las-fire etched ugly wounds across the tawny hull, puncturing blast shields and sending great spears of debris and writhing kor’la crewmen venting into space. It happened again on another screen. And another. It was happening all over. Tyra shook his head sadly and gritted his teeth, prepared to make any sacrifice to linger here a little longer.

The kor’uis poised over consoles nearby murmured incessantly, forever dispatching message drones and crew orders with quiet industry. Tyra allowed their reports to wash over him.

“...second wave hitting the upper plates...”

“...snae’tas are targeting the engines...”

“...repair team to the tertiary core...”

“...toroq side of the fleet’s circling at the rear...”