Empire of Lies, page 31
He burst from the archway on the far side of the temple at full sprint, then leaned into the run and put his boosters into it. The ork was levering open the fallen XV8’s buckled plexus hatch with the hilt of its outsize mace – shaped like a crowbar, it was surprisingly effective. The ork ripped the hatch away with a roar of triumph, and reached in to haul the pilot out amongst a tangle of torn harnesses.
Farsight leapt, blade glinting in the unholy radiance of the disc. One of the creature’s acolytes cried out a warning from the rubble scattered around. The leader-beast turned, already lashing out with its mace and firing from the hip with the ugly weapon strapped to the back of its wrist. More by luck than good aim, a bolt hit the relic sword, deflecting it just as Farsight was angling it down for the kill.
The heavy mace came around fast and smashed the sword from Farsight’s grip, sending it spinning away. He slammed shoulder first into the giant ork, hard enough to barge it into the fallen XV8 with a crunch of bone.
The numeral was still changing. Seven left, now. But the war leader before Farsight was far from dead.
The fat-bellied beast bellowed in outrage, lashing out to pistol-whip Farsight’s sensor head. His hex-screens fizzed with static even as he punched the rim of his shield into its maw. It roared in anger and pain, headbutting the XV8 with a resounding clang.
‘Operational efficiency at two point two per cent,’ said Coldstar. ‘We must withdraw immediately, high commander.’
‘No.’
His chest heaved with something close to panic. He had to close the beast down. Half of his hex-screens were out, compromised by the dislocation and cracked lenses of the battlesuit’s sensor head.
Farsight sent the edge of his shield out in a roundhouse blow, hoping to connect with his adversary’s head. He was rewarded only with a metallic clang as it rebounded from the fallen XV8 beyond; the ork had slid aside at the last moment. As his battlesuit staggered, off balance, he cast around at his informationals, desperate for a glimpse of his foe.
The numeral at the top left of his screen had changed again as his teams completed their hunts. Only one ork life form, now.
By definition, it had to be the one about to kill him.
The crowbar hilt of the creature’s crude metal mace suddenly rammed its way into the control cocoon through one of the XV8’s broken seams, yanked this way and that to crack open the chest unit entirely. The battlesuit’s screen went entirely black. Its power conduit had given out, and its reserve, already expended in the duel with the giant Molochite, was empty.
Farsight felt a moment of crippling terror as the crowbar lunged forward towards his gut. Only one chance left.
He grabbed the manual release above his head, unclasping his harness with one hand even as he put his thumb on the ident sensor and yanked the lever down sharply.
The plexus hatch opened with a hiss of hydraulics, slamming right into the hulking ork’s forehead. The beast stumbled back, stunned. Farsight leapt from his Hero’s Mantle, drawing his bonding knife from its harness even as he burst out of the control cocoon. He lunged, sinking the blade to the hilt in the creature’s eye socket.
The beast toppled backwards, and Farsight rolled away even as the Coldstar thumped down to crush the creature’s body into the dirt. He came up in a crouch, eyes searching desperately for a weapon, but the creature was truly dead, thank the T’au’va.
He did not feel a thrill, then, as he walked up to the muscular corpse and pulled his knife free. Instead he felt an ebbing mix of exhaustion and slow, welling sadness that fought to claim him, body and soul.
It was done. There were no orks, no Molochites, nothing alive here but the t’au under his command.
But the cost…
Farsight looked around himself, taking in the landscape of rubble, scrap metal and dust. Smoke poured from a dozen wrecks, reaching up as pillars towards the heavens. Mangled bodies dotted the ruins, but there was no sign of the Molochites, not so much as a single cadaver.
His battlesuit, a sparking, mangled wreck, was chest down in the dust, the ork war leader’s corpse pinned beneath it. Around him, a few scattered la’ruas were forming a loose perimeter. His eyes lingered on scores of dead and critically injured t’au, their recumbent bodies mingled with those of the barbaric monstrosities they had finally expunged from the sector. Already they were being lifted gently by teams of specialist med-drones that had been despatched as soon as the hostiles count had reached zero. The machines cast their anti-gravity fields in a broad spectrum to raise the wounded with the utmost care, carrying them in exactly the same position they had fallen until they could be properly attended. The dead would be afforded the same dignity.
Amongst them, somewhere, were the mutilated cadavers of the three ethereals that Farsight had sworn to keep safe.
He collapsed to his knees, a soul-deep feeling of loss settling like snow thickening upon his shoulders. Though he felt not a single pang of physical pain, his former elation had been quenched completely.
‘High commander,’ said the shas’ui of the nearest breacher team. ‘We are victorious.’
‘That is not so, shas’ui,’ said Farsight softly. ‘That is not so.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE SPOILS OF VICTORY
TRANSIT VOID-LANE THAR’UA
MOLOCH SYSTEM
The Furthest Extent glided over the ruined landscape of Arthas Moloch. Farsight watched a display of disposition hexes from his recumbent position in the vessel’s recuperation-grade med-suite as Sun Shark bombers let a steady rain of plasma spheres burst upon the landscape. There was something calming about it, seen from above, despite the fact they were raining fire across the landscape. With each explosion there followed a silent white blossom; it was a little like watching time-lapse footage of a field of flowers opening.
The generators slung beneath the Sun Sharks’ fuselages allowed them to rain a functionally infinite amount of incinerating ordnance so long as they kept momentum. They were criss-crossing the landscape in near-perfect order, like earth caste agrarians deploying bio-germinate. But their intended harvest was death, not life.
Where the white fire of the plasma burned, furrows mingling into fields of flame, the ruins were scorched clean of ork spoor, and rid of their curse. The earth caste themselves would not be far behind. Given time, they would treat the rest of the planet with atmospheric terraforming machines that would ultimately ignite the air in a vast flash-fire, scorching away any final spores in one single killing inferno before allowing the planet to slowly recover.
Cleansing first, new life second. It was the earth caste’s ‘scour and seed’ theory made manifest. Yet there would be no new life on Arthas Moloch, at least not that of the t’au or its allied races. The place was haunted, that much had been made abundantly clear, and Farsight had already personally ordered it quarantined in all official records.
This world, and its secrets, would burn. The T’au Empire would take nothing from Arthas Moloch, but for agony, loss and grief.
That, and the relic sword that even now hummed with potential at the back of Farsight’s mind. That, and a hundred dizzying implications.
As soon as Farsight had returned to the Manifest Dream, an earth caste detail had attended him, three stocky medical personnel making concerned noises as they scanned him head to toe with their data wands. They had bustled him into a med-suite at the first opportunity with a display of sycophancy he found particularly irritating, then doubled down on their preliminary investigations, checking and rechecking with their olfactory chasms pursed in expressions of distaste and confusion.
He still lay there, now, fingers tapping at a projected screen so as to coordinate the efforts of the battlegroups as they withdrew from Molochite airspace. The chamber’s threshold alert chimed brightly, the stone dragon icon of O’Vesa glowing over the smooth round arch above.
Farsight rubbed his temples, attempting to massage away a tension headache lurking on the fringes of his consciousness. ‘Enter,’ he said. The threshold door hissed open, and the Stone Dragon stepped in.
‘I assure you I am fit for duty, O’Vesa.’
‘That is what I came to see you about,’ said the master scientist. He placed the back of his hands in a V shape, making the sign of the Valley of Woe. ‘That, and the tragedy.’
‘It is beyond awful. It is unthinkable.’
‘It is. How did it happen, may I ask?’
A heavy sigh escaped Farsight, and he rubbed his eyes. ‘That the celestial caste goes to war of its own volition is known. They answer to no one but their fellow aun. As is protocol I ensured the ethereals had full escorts, but when the enemy chose to prioritise their destruction, I was too far away to intervene. It was my failure, in the final reckoning. I underestimated the Molochites, and their understanding of the aun’s importance. I fully expect malk’la to be brought upon me, and to be stripped of rank as a result.’
O’Vesa frowned. ‘Arthas Moloch was still a victory, in many ways.’
‘A victory won at too high a cost!’ shouted Farsight. His anger subsided as suddenly as it had flared up, dampened down to a simmering sense of shame. ‘I offer contrition, old friend. I did not mean to react in such a manner. Perhaps I am not in a fit mental state for proper conversation at this time.’
‘I do not place blame,’ smiled O’Vesa. Farsight knew those slate-grey eyes had watched a hundred atrocities without flinching, each manufactured in the name of progress, but at that moment they seemed filled only with benevolence. ‘I understand, O’Shovah. The loss of even a single aun has a horrific impact on every caste. For the expedition to lose all three in a single engagement is enough to shatter the soul.’
Farsight just nodded, the grief robbing his words. His teeth pulled back in a grimace, and his eyes lost focus, their clarity robbed by despair.
The two sat there, silence stretching between them.
‘I failed, O’Vesa. I failed in the worst possible way.’
‘“The wretched have one advantage over the dead. They may yet find atonement”.’
Farsight looked up sharply. ‘You know of Puretide’s teachings?’
‘I have heard your commanders speak of him many times,’ said O’Vesa, ‘though I would not presume to read his works, as that is the business of the fire caste alone.’
Farsight kept his peace. He had often thought, in those quiet moments between wars, that the earth caste could benefit a great deal from the tenets of honour laid down by Puretide.
Perhaps, now that he was de facto commander of the enclaves, he could make it so.
He chased away the thought before it could take root, but it lingered in the back of his mind, scared off by the reflex of conventional thought but refusing to be banished altogether.
‘Are the bodies of the ethereals in state for their proper memorial upon our return?’ he asked.
‘They are,’ said O’Vesa.
‘And do you happen to know if contact has been established with the nearest Aun’ar’tol? Whether Aun’Tipiya or Aun’Tefan have called for my censure?’
O’Vesa shook his head. ‘Not this close to the gulf. The interference it causes upon our comms spectrums is quite extensive.’
‘I see,’ said Farsight. ‘Then I will face their judgement upon my return to the enclaves.’
‘There has been no talk of any malk’la, to my knowledge.’
‘I would not expect you to understand the rituals of the fire caste, nor to be privy to the decisions regarding it. Is the Coldstar’s data recoverable?’
‘Your battlesuit and the Coldstar intelligence will be ready for your requisition within the rotaa,’ said O’Vesa. ‘Incidentally, my thanks for retrieving that Molochite artefact for further study.’
‘I did not retrieve it on your behalf,’ said Farsight, his eyes narrowing. ‘It is mine, and mine alone.’
‘It belongs to the T’au’va, as does everything else, of course. Still, it is a potent symbol of your victory upon Arthas Moloch, or so the water caste claim. I assume you wish us to optimise the blade for further use?’
‘I had considered that option, yes.’
‘A more fitting hilt and a balanced housing will allow it to interface with the XV8’s gauntlet, giving you much improved reaction speed.’
‘I see. And naturally, in the course of this optimisation, you will study it extensively.’
‘That process is already underway,’ said O’Vesa with what he thought was a charming smile. ‘Without the ethereals, and with you under ongoing medical investigation, I took the initiative and began the after-action analysis.’
‘Did you?’
‘The sword is a curious find. The structural analysers are finding no correlations with existing metals thus far, other than with the medallion recovered by the ground teams. Even then it bears little resemblance on a molecular level.’
‘We still have one of the hexagrammatic talismans?’
‘Oh yes,’ said O’Vesa, nodding enthusiastically. ‘If that is what you wish to call it. I believe rather than being a “talisman”, as you put it, it is a contra-empathic field generator that disrupts neural waves. From the footage of the battle, it appears the Molochite race find these devices most discomfiting.’
‘Indeed,’ said Farsight. ‘I think it may run deeper than that.’
‘So many anomalies to study,’ said O’Vesa, barely containing his glee. ‘Foremost amongst them, and the main reason for my presence here, is the matter of your rude health.’
‘We fire caste find combat invigorating,’ said Farsight, shifting awkwardly. ‘And we fight hard, even when wounded.’
‘The extent of your wounds prior to the second engagement was such that you should already be dead, or in a comatose state post-trauma at the very least,’ said O’Vesa. ‘And yet you appear to all scans to be at the median point of your life rather than the end phase of a span that has already been extended to extreme levels. These do not correlate with your last diagnostic, which had you at advanced age and a high state of cellular deterioration.’
‘The wonders of cutting-edge fio med-support,’ muttered Farsight.
‘Not so,’ said O’Vesa. ‘I examined the records from your last stay in our care. There is something else at play here, I am certain of it. Something that happened on Arthas Moloch. Let me illustrate my point.’
The high scientist held his data wand parallel with the floor and moved it upwards gradually, drawing up a mirrorfield behind it. Farsight saw his own reflection, and felt his heartbeat quicken in his chest.
The reflected image was not that of a t’au in the winter of his life. Though the lines of care were still there, though the scars and blackened skin from his ordeal on Vior’los still marked him, the musculature, the sheen of the skin, were that of a warrior in his prime.
Farsight said nothing, gazing at his own reflection.
The face of a stranger, both young and old at the same time, stared back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NEW HERESIES
ADMISSION OF VYKOLA NIAMH HERAT 3-48
032.832.M41
+++EXPURGATED ITERATION+++
This epistle has proven extremely difficult to write. I hope it reaches you, Xyndrea, but in many ways, I also hope it does not.
It is with a profound sense of loss that I pen this missive, from what seems to me to be the most comfortable and luxurious cell on the Eastern Fringe. The t’au do not quite know what to do with me, now, and have me sequestered until the matter of my future here can be decided.
Amongst the ranks of the t’au, the return journey across the Damocles Gulf was haunted by a pall of grief so thick it was almost tangible. That time seems to me an age away, now; the preparations, cryogenic procedures, and the long watch of those who volunteered as a skeleton crew all a distant memory. Those who had done garrison duty last time around were forbidden from putting themselves forward, so that others might share the ua’lenta, a t’au concept loosely translated as ‘the Price of Years’. That said, when I looked into the matter it was not as cut and dried as that principle would suggest. I believe it was seen as counterproductive to have some of the t’au aged out of usefulness to the wider war effort. Though the water caste broadcasts maintained that all was well, as they usually do, I had a feeling there was specific intent behind the selection of who took the long, cold sleep and who kept watch.
As a non-t’au, the prohibition did not apply to me; I could have a nice long cryo bath and stew in nothingness despite the fact I was effectively a prisoner. I resigned my position as a Kindred Soul – it reflects better on the office if such a departure is voluntary, though believe me, I had no choice – and requested to go under. I needed the rest.
I am not the advisor I used to be since Arthas Moloch – not the same person, even. My legs have yet to heal, despite my abilities, but that is the least of my concerns. I fancy I’ve given Farsight more than enough guidance for the time being, and I’m not even sure I was always in full control when I was doing so. Have I been a puppet of flesh, thinking myself independent but in truth made to speak on another’s behalf? It is too disturbing a notion to dwell on. Of the time before Arthas Moloch, my memories are patchy and scant.
The Molochite Tragedy, as the water caste is calling it, saw the loss of all three of the ethereal caste sent to watch over Farsight’s expedition. You will already know that is as taboo as it is possible to get in t’au society. To lose one of these high priests of the T’au’va is considered a crippling disaster, but for the expedition to lose its last remaining members of the aun in one fell swoop? That is supposed to be utterly devastating.
