This thing has taken me four years to write. My English was a lot worse back then, so I basically had to re-do the whole thing before posting it again.

I hope you folks will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed overthinking it.

-----

[SUDDENSTRIKE]

[PROLOGUE - FROZENBLADE'S FALL]

Shas'ui Tavak's Fire Warrior team was known for getting into trouble. Trouble was also known for seeking Tavak's team. At the moment, trouble had caught up to them. Big trouble. Big trouble Ui'Tavak was sure he could do without. Trouble involving things such as blue power-armor-clad enhanced gue'la warriors, a pair of high-caliber weapons with extremely high cadence of fire, one self-guided-self-propelled warhead launcher and few other surprises, none of them good.

They were in an impromptu rooftop, in fact the ruined uppermost floor of some building in that godforsaken city. Their heavily-armored enemy was in an opposite rooftop a few buildings ahead, dumping large amounts of firepower on them every second, but no one in his team could do a much to help it. Ui'Tavak and his team kept their heads down while hail after hail of explosive deuterium-cored bullets zipped over their heads or chewed on the relatively little cover they had.

He noticed a new blip in his helmet's tactical display and turned to the door, aiming his pulse carbine quickly through the dense dust-filled air.

"Hello, comrades!" A Pathfinder emerged from the thick cloud of dust covering the door and threw himself on the floor, behind the ever-shrinking wall. He landed in a suprisingly comfortable fashion, considering that strapped on a sling across his back was one of those long and bulky new rail rifles their cadre was assigned to test, and in his arms was a pulse carbine. He chuckled ironically over the intercomm, watching the enemy fire flying through the window and impacting showering everybody with dust and debris from the opposite wall. "Resting a little, I see?"

"Yes, yes, La'Val..." Tavak replied tensely. Being under that much heavy fire was enough to ruin anybody's sense of humor. "Just keep your head down, and tell me that rail rifle is working!"

"Indeed, it is working." La'Val nodded, leaning his carbine on a pile of debris and unstrapping his rail rifle. He examined it quickly and pressed a button on its side. A blast of compressed air washed over the rails, cleaning them of the layer of dust it had accumulated in the battlefield. "Can't take on those guys on your own?"

Tavak looked around. The five Shas'la in his squad were all hugging their cover as well as they could. He looked back at La'Val. "As much as I'd like to, no. We can't. Too many of them, too much firepower, and their armor is just too good for our weapons to penetrate." He looked down at his carbine. "At this range, at least."

"And where are they?"

"Six buildings down that street." Tavak pointed. "They should be easy to find, just look for the big muzzle flashes pointed our way!"

Val chuckled again. "Yes, I suppose you can't miss that." He moved closer to the windows. "Mind if I use this crack here? Looks like they don't think anyone could fire at them through here."

"Knock yourself out." Ui'Tavak leaned his back against the wall again as bullet after bullet slammed itself just way too close for him to feel comfortable. "Try to remove one of the gue'la with the heavy weapons. I counted seven of them, at least two with those backpack-fed heavy sluggers and one with a missile launcher."

"The 'sluggers' you mentioned..." La'Val rested his gun on the crack on the wall, with all the cool only experience could give him. "... are called 'heavy bolters'. Weren't you supposed to be an expert in gue'la weaponry?" He lined up the shot as Tavak solemnly ignored the light ribbing.

The enhanced image from his rail rifle's targeting system illuminated his eyes inside the helmet. Seen close-up like that, the sight was even less comforting. "I see your problem, Shas'ui... there's too many of them, indeed." He put the rail rifle down and reached for his carbine again. "Let's compromise. I'll mark them so the rest of my squad can pick them off. As soon as they change targets, your squad finishes them off before they can mow my friends into pulp. Sounds good?"

"Oh, yes." Tavak nodded, grabbing his gun and communicating the plan to his subordinates who were still busy keeping every inch of their bodies out of harm's way. "By the Greater Good, that might be the best idea I have heard today, and it might even work!"

"Get ready..." The Pathfinder aimed the shorter weapon through the crack on the wall and an almost invisible beam of light crossed the dust-choked air, illuminating the enemy position and marking them to death. "Three..." He heard the Fire Warriors around him taking up their arms again and preparing to fire. "Two... one..."

"Fire."

Fast as lightning, five lines of fire were drawn in the air by hypersonic projectiles, coming out of another nearby building. Three enemies fell down immediately, their helmets shattered, and the rest crouched behind a wall before another rail rifle volley came in. Ui'Tavak's squad kneeled up at his order and started firing, six photon grenades shattering their enemies' cover before focusing their pulse fire on the exposed gue'la.

The survivors scrambled out of the way, pulse fire bouncing off their armor, each round vaporizing part of their ancient, holy armor. They fought with incredible skill, but the Pathfinders' sudden intrusion and Tavak's squad's quick counterattack disoriented them for a key moment. Steadily, their firepower increased once more, this time pointed towards the Tau snipers.

"Squad Gamma." A familiar voice crackled in Tavak's comm. "Your flank doesn't seem very stable, and there are more gue'la moving up your way. My team and I are moving in to help."

Weapon still raised and firing, Tavak answered, gritting his teeth as stress and stims pumped through his body: "Thank you, Shas'O."

It was like a dream. Suddenly, one XV-8 and two smaller XV-25's jumped over Tavak's building and hovered above the battlefield graciously. Then a devastating barrage of pulse fire, plasma discharges and guided missiles realized itself real upon the two surviving gue'la and the hapless squad of blue-armored troopers who had just arrived to reinforce them. Unprepared for such a rough reception, a small carnage ensued as the battlesuits capitalized on the surprise factor they had managed to seize.

Reaction was sparse and too light to be of matter, except for a single gue'la of the second squad, who had the spirit to point his bulky laser weapon vaguely at the incoming enemy and press the trigger. It was the last thing he could do before a missile impacted against his chest and destabilized the laser's power-pack, roasting him inside his own armor. But the shot had already been fired.

Tavak, Val and both their squads watched in disbelief as the bright blue beam of coherent radiation traced a bright cyan line of death through the air, missing one of the XV-25's by no more than a two inches, and leaving a streak of smoke, armor fragments and vaporized flesh as it went right through the XV-8's chest, utterly annihilating the pilot, but leaving most of the suit intact.

Maybe as a testament to Shas'O Frozenblade, the XV landed upright with grace and unsuspecting agility, before tumbling forwards and resting on top of the mangled gue'la corpses, completely motionless.


-----

Almost three Tau'cyrs later, the pilot of the XV-25 that was missed by that fateful lascannon bolt was the one leading the cadre. Her name was Shas'el Monat'yr M'yen'ka, and she found her survival to be both a blessing and a curse.

[CHAPTER ONE - M'YEN'KA AND THE CADRE]

If one was to name the unhappiest Tau being carried by the Sa'cea Lar'shi M'ka Voyl, one of the most accurate answers would be Shas'el M'yen'ka. Of course, others had their own annoyances and issues to take care of, but no one had more problems in their mind than the Shas'el. Straight out from an assassination mission in which she had come far too close to an Ork's Warboss' pneumatically-powered claw for comfort, and then quickly tossed into another mission, M'yen'ka and her cadre were still undermanned, tired, and under tremendous amounts of stress.

They did not care to complain. Stress was constant for a Fire Caste member, even more for a member of Shas'el Sa'cea Monat'yr M'yen'ka's cadre. While most of the Fire Caste was trained in the most common ways of warfare, sabotage, infiltration, ambush and assassination were the tools of M'yen'ka's and her cadre's trade. They were the ones sent in first, to disrupt and wreck general chaos behind the enemy front lines, or last, when the enemy was too stubborn to be defeated without having their leadership taken out first. As a result, they were the ones to be permanently surrounded and fighting for their lives. It was dirty, unrecognized work, but it was necessary work. Every warrior they lost to the enemy would save the lives of many more of their own soldiers.

If a mission was to be classed "suicidal", it would be assigned to M'yen'ka's Cadre or to another cadre similar to hers. She hated it, but she knew very well why that happened. Her cadre was part of an almost-unknown class in the Fire Caste war machine. Deviation from the norm was frowned upon in the Tau military, and they were highly deviant, but the conservative Fire Caste High Command had decided to find a place for them, stretching their endurance to its very limits.

Missions came in quick succession, and M'yen'ka hadn't been able to visit her home sept in more than seven tau'cyrs. All her time had been spent either in combat, preparing to enter combat, or inside some warship in transit between the stars and moving towards even more combat. Tired of collecting the traditional colored beads Fire Caste warriors received after being part of different campaigns, M'yen'ka had simply chosen to keep her ever-growing pile of beads in a box. She then shaved her black scalp lock, and her gesture of protest was quickly emulated by all combat personnel in the cadre (and even some Earth Caste auxiliaries).

This sort of uniform behavior was very rare within the cadre. M'yen'ka's fighting force was nearly entirely composed of survivors from other cadres, most of them with considerable combat experience, and all of them sporting more initiative and creativity than their Shas training would allow them. Even her support crew from other castes was also considered to be slightly eccentric. Maybe that creativity was the key to her cadre's success.

They held a rather respectable casualty rate, below most line cadres. In fact, casualties were even lower amongst the "core" of the cadre. This core was composed of veteran warriors who had already accepted their destiny. They had put the interpersonal issues that were bound to arise within such a mixed group aside, and worked solely for the good of the cadre. Those Shas'ui and Shas'vre were the ones who eased new members into the group and kept the cadre coherent even through all its hardships.

Another possible reason for their success, M'yen'ka reasoned, was their stubbornness. They knew they were marked for death, but they refused to die. Be it against the hordes of green skinned beasts, the smoke-belching machines of the gue'la, or the organic abominations that plagued the galaxy, her cadre carried out each and every mission as if it was its last. They persevered, and claimed their place within the Greater Good.

M'yen'ka was an exceptionally loyal follower of the Greater Good. Yet she frequently questioned her superior's decisions. Especially when she was being briefed, and this was one of those times.

"I understand we are going to invade a gue'la planet in the outskirts of the Empire, yes..." She said, standing in front of her cadre's Aun'ui, a curious look on her single normal eye. The other one, along with half her face, had long ago been replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic analogue. "... but what is the reason for such invasion?"

Aun'ui Lakale stiffened her back, trying to look taller than the Shas'el. Futile task, M'yen'ka towered far above all, except the lanky Kor around them in the command bridge. "The Fio and Por detected a sudden stop in all transmissions from that planet to the rest of the gue'la empire. It is expected that the planet was invaded by some kind of hostile force and had its planetary defense forces subsequently overrun. It was decided to send a strike force in to..."

"To defeat whoever enslaved the planet and thus show the planet's population the power and the charity of the Greater Good. I disagree the gue'la will be so friendly, but I can see your point, Aun'ui." M'yen'ka interrupted the Ethereal, keen on cutting the issue to its bare bones. Some of the Kor around stiffened and looked the other way discreetly.

"A correct statement." Aun'ui Lakale smiled gently, the way only her kind could do. "Very pertinent of yours, even if not perfectly polite." She knew her dreamscent was filling the room, but she also knew it had less than the desired effect on the Shas'el.

M'yen'ka simply couldn't feel much. The same incident that made her unable to pilot an XV-8 Crisis Battlesuit properly also permanently damaged her senses. She had lost an eye, most of the right side of her face, and also most of her olfactory capabilities, all because of a high-intensity laser beam slicing through her suit's armor and glancing her face.

Apparently, lasers were the bane of her cadre's existence.

It was her first time and only time piloting a Crisis Suit, years before. The medical team that nursed her said she was lucky to be alive, but they simply couldn't repair such an extensive damage without a long and intensive recovery period. She protested and was given a bionic eye, a mask to cover the hideous scars left from the hasty reconstruction, and their condolences.

For a Tau, not being able to smell things was more than a serious nuisance. It was almost a handicap, almost like being a cripple. The Tau language relied on pheromones and scent to convey some more delicate meanings, and inability to feel such things made verbal communication a dull and lifeless issue to M'yen'ka. Her world became simpler, her speech blunt, and she learned to speak more with actions than with words.

She wished it didn't upset people so much, though.

-----

"Listen up, Fire Caste Warriors." She said out loud, gathering her subordinates. "We have been assigned another mission."

In a second there was complete silence in the mess hall. M'yen'ka felt every pair of eyes in the cadre looking straight at her. It was an usual way of giving the mission briefing, in the middle of the mess hall, in front of every single member of the cadre. She liked it that way, it fostered informality and initiative, two things she found crucial to their continued success.

Five minutes of quick exposition later, Shas'vre Tavak stepped forward. "Shas'el, what kind of support we are going to have for this mission?"

"I don't know, Tavak." The Shas'el shrugged. 'Support' was a running gag within that dysfunctional group. "We are going to work with a taskforce composed of many other cadres, given this is a planetwide assault, but I assume we are getting our usual amount of support."

A voice in the crowd spoke up: "That is, none."

M'yen'ka laughed, followed by every other Shas in the hall.

"Probably, yes."


-----

As the Lar'shi-class ship crossed the interstellar space, boldly diving towards the Warp and inching closer to its destination, preparations started being made. The gigantic launch bays, lined with Mantas, were sprawling with life while the cadres transported within prepared their equipment, suited up and got ready to be deployed as soon as the M'ka Voyl arrived at its destination.

[CHAPTER TWO - TAVAK]

"Hey, Ui'Val. Do you think we can we hitch a ride?" Shas'vre Elsy'eir Sal'yot Tavak and his XV-25 team walked closer to the Devilfish. El'M'yen'ka's recon force was fully-assembled, and the Pathfinders were already entering their transports and buckling up for orbital entry.

"A ride?" Ui'Val chuckled and tapped into the Devilfish's intercomm to asked the pilot. "Alright, hop on, get ready, and make it quick. We are leaving, Shas'Vre."

"Right away, Shas'Ui." Tavak and his squad laughed as they climbed up to their positions on the handles the Earth Caste technicians built into the vehicle's hull. Useful little modifications, Tavak thought to himself as his suit clamped itself magnetically to the hull hardpoints. Those simple devices allowed the Stealth Suits to take part on small-scale low-altitude jumps from Devilfishes, giving them even more tactical flexibility in their deployment.

Manta Missile Destroyers were powerful and rightly feared by all who fought the Tau Empire, but even the most competent Water Caste propagandist had to admit they were big fat targets. Good for inspiring imagery and full-on strategic-scale attacks, but not particularly useful when you are trying to get to the surface without being seen. A particular advantage of self-contained vehicles and battlesuits was that a properly-modified Devilfish with a trained crew could ferry not only its passengers to the frontline, but also an XV-25 team.

It was a very synergetic way of working, as with a little tweaking the XV's Holographic Stealth Fields could be linked to the Devilfish's own Disruption Pods, making the entire vehicle and its passengers almost completely invisible in its descent. Quick and undetectable deployment was a definite edge in the battlefield, but unfortunately most Shas cadres or Fio laboratories had not considered that possibility just yet.

It was too "outside the box" for a self-respecting Tau, Tavak guessed. Maybe there were underlying issues they hadn't found out about yet. After all, they were supposed to be a testbed for new technologies. Still, every time he stopped to think about it, he noticed how the Tau society lacked subtlety when it came to change. The Castes were radically different, those who passed their Trials were promoted and thrown into training so they could fulfill their obligations straight away, among many other examples Tavak could list. It was an interesting subject, and also highly subversive.

He liked being subversive.

Tavak grinned wide inside his helmet. At least in M'yen'ka's cadre he could do that without being sent straight into a reeducation program. No one really cared about what people said or thought in the cadre as long as the job got done. He raised his head to look around.

"All set? All systems ready, weapons online?"

"Yes, Shas'Ui."

"Missile racks locked in place? If I see one of those burning up on reentry again I will personally smack the owner a few times in the head with a kroothound taming stick."

"Come on, Shas'Vre! It only happened once!" Everybody smirked, including Tavak, Val and the Devilfish crew.

"Right. I got my eye on you, Shas'Ui." He suppressed a chuckle. "We are ready, Val."

The vehicle's anti-grav drive powered up and it slid out of the hangar bay, slowly, into the airlock. Taval felt the difference of pressure inside his suit as the air was drained and the Devilfish lunged into the empty space above the gray planet and started its free fall.

"I'm really sorry you never got interested in being a battlesuit pilot, Val." Tavak said, his armour locked firmly into place and completely immobile. "The view out here is always breathtaking."

-----

Listen up, Cadre.

I have just returned from a meeting with the other Shas'O and Shas'El in the task force. We have been assigned to Sector 3-B. It is one of the gue'la "Hive Cities", as far as I was informed. It is a roughly spire-shaped structure in the northwestern area of the sector. Our scans revealed entrances here, here... and here, all close to the top of the structure. Those seem to be hangars for gue'la small craft.

There is another opening here, at the very top, probably a large hangar. It is closed and probably heavily fortified, so unless we waste a long time bombarding it, we will only be able to open it from inside. This will be our recon teams' priority: opening those gates so we can deploy more troops to the city in less time.

After we get inside the city, the plan is to sweep downwards, cleaning it of hostiles level by level and rounding up the civilians. We will be there to win some hearts and minds so we have to be careful and avoid collateral damage. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, trying to have gue'la understanding the benevolence of the Greater Good, but this is what we are here for.

The city's energy readings are very low and the initial orbital recon identified battle damage on the cities surrounding the spire. We have determined that the probable source of this planet's sudden halt in communications was some kind of civilian unrest that went out of hand, so we are likely to fight either militia forces or rebel forces, both armed with standard-issue gue'la equipment or worse. Which is very good for us, as far as our usual enemies go.

There is a very slight chance of finding augmented gue'la warriors, but it should not be ignored. Last time we discarded that possibility things ended badly for us and changing our weapon loadouts cost precious time. Be sure to have at least one Plasma or Fusion weapon in every team. Even if we find no heavily armored opponents, those should help cutting through any barricades or doors in our way.

That is the basic plan. The recon teams are already dropping to secure a good landing zone in the hangars. We will have other cadres securing the lower level urban areas around the hive, so we should not have any troubles from the outside. The amount of resistance we are likely to face is unknown, but probably high on the underground of the city, so tread lightly.

Tau'va, and dismissed.

-----

Tavak tried to keep his mind off the fact he was stuck to the hull of a Devilfish, whilst moving towards the surface just slow enough so the heat of the re-entry won't burn the suits up or cook the pilots inside. Frightening prospect no matter how much one trusted the Devilfish pilot or his own amour. The disposable heat shield (a rather interesting ablative design placed around the suit) was slowly disintegrating as the transport made is way into planet's atmosphere. Still doing his best to avoid listening to the sound of the wind rushing past him, Tavak started thinking about his favorite subject: the Cadre.

Most cadres were known for their flawless victories or heroic defeats, crushing their enemies and causing lethal damage before being forced to retreat. Anyone who took a look at official records or Water caste dispatches soon found out that M'yen'ka's cadre was not remembered for anything. In fact, they weren't even known for anything. The cadre itself had no distinguished name, its only remarkable characteristic was to hail from the respected Sa'cea sept. They were simply Suddenstrike's Cadre. And why that? At first, looking at the other members of the formation, one would reason it was some kind of limbo for the mentally crippled whose usefulness to the Greater Good was not quite over yet.

That concept didn't last long, however. After their first mission in the cadre, a newcomer quickly found out something was terribly wrong with their colleagues. Their functioning was often chaotic, their tactics non-existent until needed. The Shas'El gave each Shas'Vre such as Tavak an objective, and the 'Vre themselves (who had enough personnel under them to be considered cadre commanders on their own) and their groups had to develop their plans on the field. Such an offense to the Fire Caste's carefully constructed ways of warfare horrified observers, but somehow the Cadre persevered. They deployed, carried out their objectives, and returned, often half-dead, in time for their next assignment. Their modus operandi was obviously beyond most Shas' comprehension, but one thing about them was painfully apparent after a newcomer's first mission. It wasn't even remotely a normal cadre they had been sent to, and they would have very little hope to fit with society at large.

The cadre would never be used as an example in Water Caste propaganda. Much less it would be congratulated by the Aun for their valiant efforts and spectacular (if narrow) victories. The Shas'la were disappointed when they found out their battles would not be recorded in history, that everything they did for the Greater Good was not to be recognized and celebrated.

Tavak, grizzled as he was at that point, had assumed the cadre's typical attitude about their situation. He looked forward, seeing the Devilfish had started to maneuver for landing. The Shas'Vre prepared to jump off the vehicle, recalling the Cadre's official motto: "Death hungers".

Their unofficial motto was: "Let's make our enemies tastier than we are".

[CHAPTER THREE - FIRST CONTACT]

"Alright, squad... keep the 'Fish in place. Keen and I will open the doors and do some quick recon so the 'Fish can land and the 'Finders can start doing their part."

Two muffled clanging sounds echoed across the silent hangar. Outside, the harmonious profile of the Devilfish hovered silently just a few feet away from the closed entry point, engines offline and spinning under their own inertia. Tavak and Keen, his second in command, were latched on to the metallic doors by their suits' magnetic feet. The huge doors were probably as thick as a ship's outer hull, but even those could not stand the power of Tau technology. Living up to his callsign, the ever-efficient Keen raised his arm, Fusion Blaster cutting deep, precise gashes on the armored gate.

Another clang.

"The lock's gone, Shas'Vre."

"Good. Help me out with this, Shas'Ui." Tavak held on to one side of the door. "On my mark..."

The two halves slid open almost effortlessly. Through some miracle, Tavak concluded, the gue'la had kept it well-lubricated and maintained. After wandering through enemy territory far longer than it would be considered safe to anyone, even other XV-25 pilots, Tavak and his team knew very well how the gue'la were fond of rust and disrepair. In fact, he could barely believed the monstrosities the pink-skinned fools called "tanks" could function without some kind of supernatural intervention.

Tavak, of course, didn't believe in the supernatural. As he looked inside, however, he felt that same disbelief being strongly challenged by that hangar. It was pitch-dark and completely silent, two hundred meters wide by sixty meters deep. The unfiltered air was stagnant and the atmosphere was terribly eerie, almost like some sort of nightmare. A thick layer of dirt and grease covered the floor but still there was not a grain of dust in the air. Tavak made his way in, carefully. When the shadows themselves could kill him, the best idea was to walk softly. As an added precaution, his Plasma Rifle was charged. He looked around a few times, scanning the place with every filter his suit could provide him. The tension dissipated.

"Don't think they'll mind if we park here. Come in, guys."

He heard the rest of his team chuckling. The four stealthsuits still gripping the Devilfish activated their jetpacks and slowly pushed the vehicle into the hangar. Landing gear deployed, anti-grav plates deactivated, hatches opened, and in a few seconds the Pathfinders were on the floor, fiddling with their sensors to see anything in that cold darkness. Tavak took the lead:

"Right... Val, you and your guys sweep the hangar. We'll secure the exits."

Ui'Val nodded and agreement and his team split up in all directions. The four other XVs jumped off the Devilfish and the Shas'Vre's team moved forward towards the second set of blast doors. Those separated that hangar from the city itself, he reckoned. All doors locked and secured, they turned around to the Pathfinders.

"So, what do you have for us, Val?"

"Lots of dirt, not much else, Tavak." The Pathfinder Shas'Ui looked around, the hangar bright green on his nightvision sensors. "The place's been empty for twenty rotaa, at least. Lots of abandoned and damaged equipment here, a few gue'la bodies decomposing over on that corner. Civilians, I'd say. Full of holes, but no weapons. We found some minor battle damage here and there, mostly scorch marks and solid slug impacts. And we also found what's left from a gue'la craft. We think it crashed and caught fire while trying to take off, or something of that sort."

"No alternate entry routes?"

"We didn't see any. Left side is empty, the right side is completely blocked by the wreck. The craft blew up with some force, I think. That side of the hangar is completely destroyed and part of the roof collapsed. The hole leads to nowhere, though. So, nothing to see there. The only way to get in is through the doors. Most of which you already sealed shut, huh?"

"We can always open them later." Tavak shrugged inside his suit. "Well, let's take a look around. The sooner we find a way to open the upper hangars, the sooner the rest of the Cadre can join us here."

"Sure thing. Upwards, I guess?"

"Most likely. Take care. We still don't know what we're fighting against, it can't be good."

"Optimistic as always... Eh, Shas'Vre?"

"One can never be too sure."

-----

"Contact!"

"That took us long enough. What is it, Shas'Ui?"

"Not sure ye--... blast! I think we've been spotted!"

"You know the drill, take it down before it can sound any alarms."

"Shas'Vre, I think we might need some help over here! It's not just one!"

"Way ahead of you, Shas'Ui."

-----

Tavak burst through the doorway and into the badly-lit storage room, Keen and another comrade already unleashing a deadly barrage of pulse fire at the three tall figures at the other end. Familiar silhouettes, he thought. Very familiar, and not in a good way. He raised his arm, weapon lined-up. A bolt of green lightning blazed through, carving a jagged line across his shoulder plate.

The Shas'vre moved towards the enemies while the first figure fell down under a hail of burst cannon fire, its metallic hide mangled by multiple pulse impacts. The second figure was still turning around, but the third one was already facing him, weapon slowly training on him. He knew that devilish spear would soon unleash more death, and he would most definitely not want to be in the way. The last shot was just too close for comfort and to make things worse, he saw the glowing barrel pointing straight at his helmet.

He fired by instinct and, suddenly, the arm holding weapon jerked to the side and the sickly green bolt flew off-target, disintegrating part of the wall behind the Shas'Vre. The figure had been thrown backwards by the impact of one of Tavak's shoulder-mounted disposable missile launchers. He took his chance and dashed forwards into optimal range. His teammates were now firing at the second creature, which convulsed heavily under the impact of hundreds of pulse bolts before being cut in half by a plasma discharge from Tavak's weapon. Just to its left, the third figure caught the end of the plasma blast and had what was left of its upper torso disintegrated.

He'd have to thank the Fio technicians for the plasma rifle on his suit. And also for the jettisonable two-shot missile pod which happened to save him from a world of hurt. Useful little gadgets, he thought, firing a couple more plasma bursts at the creatures on the floo and making sure they wouldn't stand up again. Meanwhile, the two XV-25s jumped closer, one of them examining Tavak for any obvious wounds. "Damn it, Shas'Vre! Are you okay? Are those what I think they are...?"

Tavak looked down at the fading remains of the three metallic creatures and sighed. "Yes, they are. Bad news."

"Well, at least now we do know what we're up against." Keen said, his voice squeezing through a wide, unhappy grin.

Examining his shoulder plate, Tavak replied. "We came here expecting to find gue'la. I guess things just can't be easy for us, can they?"

-----

"Vre'Tavak? This is Val. We reached what seems to be the control room for the main hangar. In one piece, if I may say so."

"That is good news. Open the gate and tell the fleet we got a landing zone. Did you find anything interesting on the way there?"

"More signs of fighting, no survivors. Gue'la bodies pretty much everywhere. We'll need some drones to clean-up this mess, but at least we found no resistance."

"Well, we did find resistance. And I don't think we are ever going to find any living gue'la in this city."

"Tell me all, Shas'Vre."

"Mont'ray."

"Alright, that's enough."

[CHAPTER FOUR - PREPARATIONS]

Change of plans, Cadre.

As usual, the problem is bigger than we thought it would be. Two of our scout teams reported encounters with enemy patrols, definitely confirmed as Mont'ray. Possibly the same ones we fought the last tau'cyr. Yes, I know. Most of us are still recovering from the tissue reconstruction surgeries after our last stint with these abominations... but we all know they are way too close to the heart of the Empire and that we must do our best to wipe them out before they can link up with any larger forces.

I have convinced the Shas'O to assign two cadres to support us. Yes, yes. Settle down. That's right, we are finally operating with support. Anyway, our reinforcements are more or less green troops, both cadres are very new, most of them with no more than low-level urban skirmishes as combat experience. They are eager to help, but their role in this operation will be limited to defending the areas we secure and to mop-up any stragglers, so we can have reliable fallback points in case things get too dicey. As they usually do.

Our recon force managed to secure the city's main hangars and established a safe landing zone. We have to move quickly and get there before the Mont'ray organize an attack in force to overrun our position in the city. But before we go, forget about the anti-infantry weapons and load up on the big guns. I have already warned the Fio and they are on standby. Team leaders, plasma rifles. All others, two fusion blasters per team and I want to see every battlesuit carrying missile pods. Unarmored warriors, Plasma Carbines and Photon Grenades. We'll need all the short-ranged firepower we can get.

Tau'va, now get moving and reconfigure your load-outs. I want this entire cadre on the surface in one dec.

-----

Things were ominously quiet for the recon teams. Every Tau in the hive city's cavernous main hangar knew that was a critical moment in the operation. Three squads of Pathfinders, three Stealthsuit teams and three Devilfishes were hardly enough to stop a determined Necron force, regardless of how many photon grenades and kles'tak demo charges the Pathfinders had used to booby-trap the place. All secondary doors leading to the hangar were welded shut by fusion power, and the only remaining entrance was barricaded and under constant surveillance by Pathfinders and their Rail Rifles. Tavak was still worried.

"Vre'Tavak?" Ui'Val walked up to Tavak, who was perched on top of a huge cargo container overlooking the titanic hangar door. "Good news."

Tavak didn't even look away from the door. "By all means, go on."

"La'Kear managed to bring one of the gue'la's 'cogitators' online. We now have maps for the above-surface levels of this city, as well as a good idea of what's underground. We're sending them to the Cadre command right now. Also, we've managed to access a few old reports from the native gue'la government you might be interested into."

"Val, are you sure La'Kear isn't in fact a Fio raised in the wrong caste?"

"You know, Shas'Vre... I considered the idea once. But it doesn't work. He's too tall."

Both team leaders chuckled. Tavak jumped off the container and landed besides Val. "Right, now we have maps. What are those reports you mentioned?"

"Well, this is a bit odd. Apparently, our initial intel was right. This was some kind of revolt that went spectacularly wrong. The gue'la government files describe a large portion of the population living in very bad conditions and also express concern about the 'startling' mutation rate in the population. There is no mention of Mont'ray in those files, though. They end 26 gue'la rotaa ago, talking about the spread of some kind of illegal religious cult in the lower areas of the city and how that cult had to be dealt with before it made things even worse." Ui'Val shrugged. "As I said, nothing about Mont'ray, they must have arrived not long ago, Shas'Vre."

"That's what we'll see, I suppose. If anything, it means they won't be very heavily fortified. What else?"

"Command said the rest of the cadre will be dropping in soon. And what's better: they're bringing reinforcements."

"Really?" Tavak frowned in disbelief. "Haven't heard that in a while."

-----

"Shas'El Sa'cea Monat'yr M'yen'ka...?"

In the Lar'shi's command bridge, a Shas'Vre looked up to M'yen'ka. While usually fearless and self-assured as any Stealth Suit pilot, at that moment the Shas'Vre felt intimidated. The Shas'El was a large and very imposing figure to anyone, dressed in dark sapphire blue Fire Caste robes with bright green trim and the Sa'cea sept symbol on the chest. Every exposed bit of skin had scars, both from conventional wounds and tissue grafting surgeries, but that wasn't all. To make that figure even more alien, most of the Shas'el's face was a blank metallic plate with a set of red lenses encrusted on it, the only flesh exposed being the mouth, jaw, left cheek and an eye.

The eye was the worst part, it was like the Shas'El could cut through anything with that stare. The Shas'Vre felt like the many hardened layers of experience she had gathered in her career were being peeled off one by one. The Shas'El's metallic face was disturbing to her, and only the eye made it possible to recognize the fact there was indeed a Tau behind that mask. The Shas'Vre held her breath as she saw the eye examining her body, until El'M'yen'ka let out a tired sigh and looked into the 'Vre's eyes, the stare not nearly as penetrating as just a second ago.

"Yes, I am Shas'El M'yen'ka." The exceptionally tall female said, turning and moving around the holographic display in the center of the room with unsuspected agility. The Shas'vre felt relieved: the Shas'El wasn't someone she wanted to be close to. "And I trust you are the Stealth Suit pilot, leader of the liaison sent to assure proper communication between my contingent and yours is established?"

"Yes, Shas'El. I am."

"Very well. This is the current situation." She made a gesture in the air and the holographic display turned into an elaborate tridimensional map of the huge irregular spire that housed the hive city kilometers below. "We have three recon teams in the gue'la city. We found no living gue'la in the first few levels, so it's safe to assume the Mont'ray have--"

"Ah... Excuse me, Shas'El." The Shas'Vre risked being stared at again. "Did you say 'Necrons'? My Cadre identified violent warbands of Mont'au forces acting in the outskirts of the city, but no Mont'ray."

"Yes, Shas'vre. I did say 'Necrons'." M'yen'ka paused and decided to spare the Shas'Vre any more staring. "But I am surprised. The metal monsters and the Mont'au don't go well together..." The Shas'el shrugged. "All the same, more problems. I believe the other cadres on the surface will be able to deal with the Mont'au threat. At the moment our problem is dealing with the Mont'ray. Understood?"

"Yes, Shas'El. The Shas'O sent an elite detachment to deal with what we believe to be the center of the Mont'au threat, I'm sure it won't be a problem for us."

"Good to know that. Now get you and your team suited up. We'll be jumping down ASAP, and your team will be moving in with the bulk of our forces."

"Yes, Shas'El.... but before I go, may I ask you a... personal question?"

The Shas'El tilted her head to the side, curious. "Go on."

"Your face... why do you wear that mask over it? Was it damaged beyond reconstruction?"

"Well… you could say that." El'M'yen'ka gave the Shas'Vre a resigned but friendly smile. "The Fio can patch me up good as new. The problem is that I would take too long to be able to return to my duties after the reconstruction procedure. We simply can't afford that." She straightened her back and walked past the Shas'Vre, patting her shoulder. "Now move out, Shas'Vre. We don't have much time."

[CHAPTER FIVE - THE DEFENSE OF THE HANGAR]

"Incoming!"

Tavak opened his eyes, startled, as a generous dose of stimulants tossed him back to consciousness with all the subtlety of a kick to the chest. His suit was waking him up after a mere hour of uneasy slumber. Keen had been in control of the scout force while Tavak tried to get all the rest he knew he wouldn't be getting for the next few days. Tau had very forgiving sleep requirements, but it was pointless to push them beyond what was strictly necessary. Specially when free time was such a rare commodity as it was in M'yen'ka's Cadre.

Cursing silently but now fully aware of his surroundings, Tavak ran awkwardly to the main entrance as the rest of his body lagged behind the mind inside the battlesuit. There, the Pathfinders looked like statues, completely immobile behind cover, their weapons shouldered and aiming at the darkness just beyond the gates. Tavak cursed under his breath again, the stims still wrestling with his brain with the result being a very unpleasant, not to mention painful, sensation in the back of his skull.

"Sorry for the rude awakening, Shas'vre."

"Start worrying after the headache settles in, Val. Anyway, what do we have here?"

Val started walking away from the defensive position, with the Shas'vre limping right behind him. "Our forward post detected a sizable enemy force moving fast towards us. Well... as fast as Mont'ray go, I guess. They couldn't see much, but it looks like we've got their assault elements coming in."

"Great." Tavak growled sarcastically. "What happened to the people in the forward post?"

"They think they weren't noticed. Apparently the abominations walked right past them, so they're staying in position."

"Tell your Pathfinders to be careful, follow the hostiles back here and be ready to attack them from behind."

"Yes, Shas'vre." Val turned around to issue the new orders and Tavak walked away.

"Keen?"

"Yes, Shas'vre?"

"ETA for the Cadre?"

"Unknown, Shas'vre." Keen looked at his battlesuit's communication channels. No Cadre transmissions, the scout force was using only low-frequency comms to navigate around the mess of hallways and chambers that was the gue'la city. "Shouldn't take too long, anyway. The last message said they were about to leave. Since there doesn't seem to be anything on the ground that can disrupt re-entry, they should be here soon."

"Right..." Tavak chuckled grimly, feeling the stims finally losing power, and his sense of humor coming back. "I'm willing to bet she's going to get here right on time to save our backsides."

"Very dramatically?" Keen laughed.

"Oh, yes. As usual." Grinning, Tavak jumped and held on to a large ceiling-mounted crane, surveying the hangar. The gigantic containers were arranged neatly in two rows, perpendicular to the meter-thick entrance gate, which was less-than-conveniently stuck open for some reason Tavak wasn't in the mood to discover (probably had its mechanism melted into place when the city was taken over). That arrangement looked vaguely like a huge "U", with the Pathfinders tucked behind rubble in the middle of the rows, a hundred meters before the gate but still in sight of anyone coming in from that side. "I like what you've done with the place, Shas'ui."

Keen's voice was proud over the comms. "Playing defense pays off sometimes, Shas'vre."

"True. This is a very good Kauyon position. How did you get those boxes over there?"

"La'Kear hacked into the crane controls, too. That shas is a marvel with gue'la machinery."

"Indeed he is." Tavak dropped himself to the ground, his jetpack turning the neck-breaking fall into a gracious landing. "So, I take you were planning to deploy the XVs to the sides and flank the abominations right after they walk into the trap?"

"That's the general idea, yes, Shas'vre."

"Sounds as good as any plan, good work." Tavak changed to public comm frequency. "Get ready, everyone. Pathfinders, mark the targets and let them come into optimal range before detonating the kles'tak charges. XVs, get in position and ready to jump on command. The enemy should be coming any second now."

-----

Here's the plan, Cadre.

We'll get down there, meet up with the scout force, fortify the landing zone, then move on to the rest of the city. It's a very large area to cover in a very short time, so we'll have to hurry. Eliminate isolated elements, attack weakly-defended areas, and bypass the rest. Cadres Sandspectre and Fastblade will be right behind us to deal with the prey we don't deal with ourselves. Our main objective right now is to find the main staging area for the enemy, then regroup and deliver the Killing Blow, let nothing stop you.

Of course, this is urban combat at its worse. So expect it to be messy and violent. Do not expose yourselves a moment more than necessary. I think you all know full-well what happens when we do, right? Battlesuits, we'll form the spearhead. Pathfinders and Fire Warriors, clear the rooms and corridors on the way and set up firebases and fallback points as we advance. The Hammerheads will stay back and provide long-range fire and demolitions support, as the low ceiling and narrow pathways prevents them from advancing with the rest of us.

This mission will require flawless application of method, but don't let the enemy predict your movements or block your path. Circle them around or otherwise avoid them if they can't be taken out without slowing you down, and let the support Cadres deal with them. Call your shots well and report enemy positions so the others know what they'll be dealing with.

I said it before and I'll say it again: do not expose yourselves any more than necessary. This filthy gue'la "city" is hardly a fitting place for emergency medical procedures, and I shall be very annoyed if anyone becomes a lethal casualty here. We are still below nominal strength from that last operation against the greenskins and their Warboss, any more losses might cripple us until we can finally get our hands in some reinforcements.

Any questions? Good. We are almost there, so get ready. This is going to be a hot drop.

Tau'va, Cadre.

-----

"Well, now this is looking good." Ui'Val cackled as the makeshift mines were detonated in quick succession, disintegrating some of the advancing metallic creatures immediately and tossing the others around like skeletal ragdolls. The Necron attack force was apparently composed of a phalanx of hovering creatures, bladed and ranged alike, but for all their speed they weren't expecting such a well-prepared position.

"Cut the chatter and start firing, Val." Tavak and the other stealths activated their jetpacks and quickly landed on the top of the containers that marked the killzone. "All battlesuits, fire at will."

Immediately, the sound of spinning burst cannons filled the air, along with the sharp crack of fusion and plasma weaponry spewing superheated death from their barrels. Enemy bodies started falling and vanishing under the fearful barrage, most of them unable to fire off a single shot, much less have their malignant claws touch the Tau armour and flesh just ahead. In seconds the Necrons were utterly wiped out, nothing left in the battlefield but scorch marks on the ground.

The small Tau force had no time to proclaim victory, however, as a second wave of metallic skeletons slowly made their way into the killing field, now too many and too resolute for simple superior firepower to take down. Tavak ordered the battlesuits to get out of sight, the Pathfinders plinking shots at the enemy but achieving but a few downed creatures that little contributed to solving the problem of how to stop such a horde before it stopped on its own will and brought the full weight of its weapons to bear.

"What do we do, Shas'vre?"

"Just keep firing and mark us some targets. And use your grenades, too!" The Shas'vre charged his plasma rifle. "Battlesuits, with me. Area saturation is the name of the game now. Burst cannons, make them fear the rain of fire. All others, box them in and let nothing get close to the Pathfinders. Let's go!"

In unison, all eighteen Stealth Suits leapt into the air, hovering as far from the enemy as they could while still being able to draw line of sight. Aware that their cadremates' life depended on them, the XV-25s opened fire and were soon joined by the Devilfishes themselves, positioned protectively in front of the Pathfinders like armored beasts defending their offspring, risking their own lives as enemy stray shots bounced off, leaving deep gashes that threatened to burn through the craft's internal structure.

On the enemy side, things were chaotic. The Necron robotic persistence was even more puzzling due to the sheer amount of carnage being wrecked upon them. Moving as a compact block on open ground, the skeletons could do little to protect themselves from the wall of pulse fire so intense it overwhelmed their artificial bodies. Swarms of tiny missiles crashed explosively against them, concussive blasts tore them apart limb from limb and threw them all around, bright rays of incandescent matter annihilated their living metal hides with ease. It was hopeless, but they kept pushing against the tide of Tau firepower, slowly regenerating their lost parts and rising up, even if only to fall down again after firing a single shot.

Such destructive stalemate did not last long, however. A blinding flash of light reached the corner of Tavak's eye and he turned around. The entire hangar shook up with a thunderous sound, as a column of light quickly grew on the middle of the immense room, throwing tiny bolts of lightning all around. That pillar of pure mechanical hatred made manifest was disturbing to look at, a tear in the very fabric of the universe, a sight that troubled the soul itself. Suddenly, a dark, imposing silhouette stepped out of the light, ancient metal skin shining in the glare, a long staff in its hand. Around it more shadowy figures appeared, their long bladed claws so sharp they looked like they were cutting through the light itself.

This new group had barely left the light when the ground under their feet erupted into blue-hot fire and exploded with no warning. Tavak watched as the cloaked figure's companions spasmed and twitched, consumed by the stellar heat, and the main figure itself was hurled into the air, crashing painfully on the ground with a sharp grinding noise. From the hangar doors entered the Shas'el in her dark XV-22 battlesuit, hovering above where the pillar of light was just seconds ago.

She rushed towards the fallen creature, weapons carving deep marks on the steelcrete floor as the skeletal figure stood up and dodged the incoming fire as well as its shattered joints allowed it. Straightening up, it looked directly at the Shas'el in defiance, and M'yen'ka recognized the cloaked figure with a sting of hatred. It was no ordinary Necron that was staring at her. It was a Necron Lord, the incarnation of its race's malevolence and hatred, its power so great it could not be contained within its cold shell and emanated from it in bright green sparks.

No, it wasn't even an ordinary Necron Lord.

M'yen'ka had fought that Lord before, and lost.

[CHAPTER SIX - THE HUMAN HIVE]

The Shas'el dashed forward, counting the milliseconds until her fusion blaster charged up again. Her burst cannon was already spinning as fast as it could, a stream of pulse rounds slamming against and around the skeletal figure, making the living metal shiver and screech loudly in protest. It was almost like the creature was screaming for mercy, but M'yen'ka knew very well that monster was just a puppet for some evil mystery, it could not feel the pain of the blue-white blasts slowly vaporizing its body.

She watched as the gauge on her HUD labeled "FX-12" filled up completely while she was still in the middle of her jet-powered dash. Lining up the barrel of the fusion blaster with the Necron's center of mass, she unleashed the full power contained in her gun's magnetic chamber. The air between her and her target became white-hot, megajoules of radiation ate through necrodermis with ease and tore a large gap in the Necron Lord's torso.

The semi-destroyed automaton staggered backwards, almost completely torn in half, pure energy pouring out of the gash in its body. It clenched its staff and leaned on it, standing the constant hail of pulse fire coming out of the Shas'el's burst cannon with robotic determination. It raised its head so its empty eyesockets stared directly into the XV-22's lenses. Another blinding flash of green light, and the pulse rounds were hitting nothing but thin air. The Lord wasn't there anymore.

Tavak looked at his suit's internal clock: one and a half second had passed. He made a mental note never to stand between the Shas'el and her target. She looked like she'd simply shoot through whoever was unfortunate enough to do that.

-----

M'yen'ka landed with a level of elegance that didn't fit her state of mind. She was by no means calm and detached all the time... in fact, she was known for being a little "over-enthusiastic", as Aun'ui Lakale liked to say. This time, however, she wasn't "just" angry. She could feel her heart beating fast and hard, the pressure building painfully in the exposed blood vessels behind her mask. Her suit's automated systems started bleeping, detecting the blood from a ruptured vein dripping down her ruined cheek. The noise was uncomfortable, and so was the sensation of her mask spraying coagulants on what was left of her face, but she didn't care to turn either of them off. Her blood wasn't just gushing, it was boiling.

She knew she had surprised the Mont'ray. She took it off-guard and wounded it heavily, but it still managed to escape through her fingers. Again. And to add insult to the injury, it still took its time to mock her before she could deliver the killing blow. She knew she was one of the best warriors the Fire Caste had to offer to the Greater Good, and that likewise her XV-22 was one of the best pieces of military engineering the Fio ever came up with, but failing to destroy the creature whose minions threatened to wreck havoc so close to the heart of the Empire, not once, not twice, but thrice... was unacceptable.

Part of the problem, of course, was the amount of personal commitment and sacrifice M'yen'ka and her cadre had put into that hunt. They had fought these Necrons two times before, suffering greatly in both occasions. The first of those times, two tau'cyrs ago, still held the record for the most deaths in the Cadre in a single mission. They had been pursuing the abominations ever since, investigating every rumor every chance they could, pouring over reports from other Cadres, trying to anticipate their movements and predict their behavior. The only time the Cadre managed to intercept the Necrons, in the desert moon of an obscure giant planet close to the Damocles Gulf, they escaped with heavy losses once more, and without dealing any significative blow to the Necron threat.

This time their paths had crossed by sheer coincidence, and M'yen'ka wasn't going to let that chance go.

-----

"Shas'el...?"

"Yes, Shas'vre?"

Tavak cowered imperceptibly. As he predicted, M'yen'ka was not in a particularly good mood after the Necron Lord's escape. He gathered just enough courage not to hesitate and pressed on: "The hangar is properly secured and fortified. A considerable amount of assault elements of the Mont'ray force had been disabled by the time you arrived, Shas'el, and the reinforcements crushed their second wave of attack." Tavak infused his voice with every drop of optimism he could. "We took no casualties, and the missile pods were just reloaded. The teams under my command are ready for orders, the others are finishing their routine procedures and updating their battle computers with the information we have gathered here."

"Really?" M'yen'ka sighed to herself and tried to lighten up, feeling the hemorrhage had stopped. At least she knew the Lord was still nearby and heavily damaged. Had it dissolved or faded instead of teleported, it would be back to whatever tomb it raised itself from and the hunt would have been ruined. "Well, that's good." She took a deep breath, a weak smile hidden by her suit's helmet. "Prepare to move out. Your team will spearhead the first part of our offensive, then Vre'Lar'shi's team will take over and you'll be able to get some rest. That is, if all goes well."

"As it rarely does, Shas'el?"

She allowed herself a smirk and a quiet chuckle. "Indeed, Shas'vre. Now go and inform your team, we'll start to clean this city as soon as the other officers are properly briefed."

-----

The official term was "Hive City", but Tavak found "Maze City" a more appropriate name for it. Indeed, the chaotic reasoning behind the city's meandering corridors and excessive amount of extraneous compartments was an arcane science compared to the clean and functional architecture the Tau were used to. Tavak looked at the map uploaded to his suit's battle computer: in very rough terms the city was a cone, each labyrinthine floor narrower as height increased.

The hangar was at the very top of the city, right above what used to be the city's high-class areas (marked as the "Upper Hive" in the map). One of the other recon teams had scouted the immediate lower level while the Cadre organized itself, and reports were that the area had been completely destroyed by a massive fire. Considering that the spire had an almost perfectly self-contained atmosphere, such fire had probably turned the lower levels' into a noxious deathtrap. It was a frightening prospect for any sentient being: to be trapped inside a titanic, poison-filled high-strength ferrocrete coffin, with legions of murderous automata lurching all over the place.

Tavak's eyes peered curiously at the strange cylindrical structure in the center of the schematics. It was an elevator shaft that connected every single level in the city. If the scale in that map was to be believed, however, such elevator would have a diameter of at least a hundred meters and its rack and pinion assembly would have cogs as large as Devilfishes. Another staggering example of typical gue'la megalomania, he reasoned, walking ahead of his team towards the hangar's elevator entrance. Two other fusion blaster-wielding XV-25 teams were already there, laboriously cutting a hole in the center of the thick metal hatch covering the shaft. Its monumental hinges had been welded shut.

"That thing looks like a really large airlock." Keen said over the squad comms. The fusion blasters finished their work. A large circular piece of metal detached itself from the hatch and fell into the void below, leaving neat hole in its place. Keen looked at the pitch-black drop just ahead and hummed loudly, impressed. "Now it looks really creepy, Shas'vre. Before we jump to our possible deaths, for the Greater Good, of course; what do we have to do down there?"

"We will--" Tavak paused and waited. A few seconds later the faint clang of the hatch hitting the elevator platform and echoing through the entire hive city. "Huh, so much for stealth."

"With all due respect, Shas'vre... it's not like they don't know we're here already."

"True." He shrugged. "Well, for now we are dropping to plant sentry drones in the shaft, just in case the creatures try climbing up here. As soon as the other teams are positioned near the entrances to the level right below us, we drop again and secure the city level by level through the elevator shaft."

"That sounds easy, Vre'Tavak." Another squadmate said, ironically.

"Oh, yes. Like cuddling with a kroothound."

[CHAPTER SEVEN - M'YEN'KA'S PROTEST]

Tavak's prediction was correct, securing that city was anything but easy. Each level was a mess of chambers, hallways and stairs, all of them either devastated by the fire or clogged with boxes and other useless debris. Each room was a struggle to secure, as the recon teams had to check every nook and cranny, every corner and doorway, and then seal-off all secondary entrances to direct the enemy to the multiple Kauyon points set up on the way to the main hangar. Movement was so slow that the Stealth Suits, used to being deep in enemy territory without company, were always less than fifty yards ahead of the Fire Warriors sweeping through each floor.

Contact with the enemy was light. "Light" as in "not overpowering". The advancing teams occasionally found enemy elements guarding key doorways, and, although short, the skirmishes versus the defending Necrons at such close ranges tended to leave more casualties than anyone felt comfortable with. M'yen'ka was especially upset at the situation: fighting the mechanical abominations was always an uphill struggle, even more in a room-by-room deathtrap such as that filth-encrusted gue'la city.

-----

Shas'la T'au Nars'yan felt miserable. Three days of nearly-constant cycles of moving forward, spotting an enemy, retreating and laying down in ambush left him tired, hungry and coated with a thick mix of machine oil and heavy dust. The psychological burden was bad, but that grime was the worst part of it. It was so viscous Nars'yan felt like he was covered in glue every time he resumed moving after just a few seconds standing still. He thanked his armor and clothing for being watertight: his squad leader had identified that oil as highly toxic. All the more incentive not to get hit.

"Squad Gamma reports all clear." Ui'Ryon's voice sounded in the squad comm. "Let's catch up with them."

The squad stood up and started moving like a single being, their movements precise to the point of being drone-like. Nars'yan abhorred stims, but after the first day of combat he realized there was simply no other way to keep up with his squadmates. He clutched his Enhanced Pulse Carbine, a strangely-designed contraption he had been issued just before the Lar'shi M'ka Voyl made its jump into the system.

The weapon was as strange to him as he was to the rest of the Cadre. Being introduced to the Suddenstrike Cadre less than a month after the remains of his own Cadre were rescued from the clutches of Orks, and exactly eight days before the beginning of the operation in the Hive City, Nars'yan was still trying to make some sense out of what was going on around him. One moment he was inside his Devilfish, getting ready to disembark, the other he was in a medical pod being told he had been transferred to the M'yen'ka Cadre.

Two other Tau from his squad survived the Devilfish crash, but he was the first to come back to walking condition. Instead of holding him back until his friends healed up so they could all join the Cadre at the same time, he was thrown into the Lar'shi and told to get ready for action soon. The other two Fire Warriors? They were probably sent to a different scraps cadre.

Nars'yan, still attached to the many rules and regulations of the Fire Caste, spent his first four days in a daze, as Tau from every single Sept in the Empire went around with very little regard to formal discipline, treating him with such intimacy it made him blush. The Cadre itself was exotic, with a crippled commander, and far more battlesuits than even Farsight would deem necessary. And 90% of them were stealth-capable in some way.

In the next four days and up to the last few moments before the battle began, Nars'yan nurtured the feeling that none of those around him were what a Fio medical specialist would call "sane". Their personalities all seemed broken in some way, even before they joined the Cadre. They just wouldn't fit in anywhere else, so they were all grouped together under a maverick, eccentric, half-crippled Shas'el. It sounded horrible, but still more or less reasonable: it was a way to keep those misfits useful to the Greater Good, even if just as cannon fodder. Seeing his new teammates in combat confirmed Nars'yan's theories about their mental health, but not the ones about their role in the Greater Good.

He reassessed his situation: stuck with a bunch of overenthusiastic, self-destructive killing machines fighting Mont'ray in a hostile planet at the edge of the Tau Empire.

Miserable was indeed the only word he could think of.

-----

She did not know why her cadre was still on the field at that point. Yes, they were some of the best warriors the Fire Caste ever had at its disposal, in both skill and equipment, but using a cadre geared towards working behind enemy lines as spearhead against heavily armed defenders at close range nothing short of-- M'yen'ka avoided searching for an appropriate adjective to complete that sentence. It would be too... colorful to write in an official record, and it would probably leave her feeling guilty for weeks.

Her cadre had plenty of experience fighting and getting shot at by those things, and they knew casualties in that kind of fight were lucky if they survived long enough to be evacuated. Every green bolt ripped big chunks of matter out of whatever it connected with, alive or not, and disintegrated torsos were simply impossible to stabilize.

"There is only one way to deal with Mont'ray", she muttered to herself as she made her way through the Lar'shi, her considerable frame made even bigger by the battlesuit she made a point of not getting out of, forcing Tau of Fire, Earth and Air caste to squeeze aside as she walked past. Only one way, and she was going to be very clear about it. So sad she had to leave her weapons at the hangar, she thought, crossing the door to the Shas Council. They would have made it a lot easier to convince those stubborn, prideful commanders.

-----

Having an XV-22 battlesuit standing just across from you on the council table was already an imposing view. Seeing a 22 with Shas'el M'yen'ka inside trying to prove a point was just intimidating. The suit, even with its helmet off, was almost tall enough to reach the ceiling of the Shas Command Room, and its wearer made it look even bigger. Aun'ui Lakale focused her eyes on the Shas'el and listened to the end of the short speech.

"-- and that is my tactical observation." M'yen'ka put both hands on the hovering table and leaned forward. Some of the aides near their commanders took as step backwards instinctively. "This threat may not be defeated under the current circumstances. They have the terrain to their advantage, and neither my forces nor the Cadres assigned to give us support are either equipped or trained for this sort of campaign. Any further order to advance will incur more and more casualties, and we are already too undermanned to afford that."

"And what do you suggest, Shas'el Sa'cea M'yen'ka?" Said one of the senior commanders present. Lakale noticed some Tau in the room grimacing at the thought of sharing their homeworld with that armored lunatic.

"That my Cadre is called back and given proper rest time before any other operation. We had only eight rotaa to reorganize and assimilate our new members since our mission against the greenskins. We barely had time to remove the spores from our equipment before we were sent in this hasty operation in the gue'la Hive City." She paused and looked at the other commanders. "Our foothold in the hangars is strong enough for Fastblade and Sandspectre to defend with very little support from the fleet or the Cadres working on the outside. Five more rotaa is all I need to properly rest, refit and brief my Cadre. Then we can help dealing with the Mont'au forces on the surface, which is where my troops will be the most effective."

One of the younger commanders, a rather brash 'El who Lakale knew had just received his command, asked for the Shas'O's permission then stood up. "So, what I understand from this is that you wish to run away from the battle?"

"Only a fool fights a losing battle." M'yen'ka replied flatly, her eye narrowed. "But if that is your understanding of the situation, perhaps you and your cadre would like to join us against the Mont'ray in the Hive City. I admit it is a little dark and treacherous in there, but surely nothing a skilled commander such as yourself cannot handle."

He hesitated under the Shas'el's unsettling artificial stare. "My Cadre is already needed in the fight against the Mont'au."

Patrolling a flat, empty sector nowhere near any important area, Lakale thought to herself and grinned. Her relationship with M'yen'ka was often negative, but she could not help but sympathize with the rogue commander trying to make her way past politics.

The Shas'O tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair and the young 'El sat down again. He looked at the tall commander across the table, right in front of the entrance, then at the Aun'vre sitting right besides Lakale. Both Ethereals sat at their own elevated table, overseeing the debate as guests.

"I have one question before any decisions are announced." The Aun'vre said, leaning forward to see M'yen'ka more directly. "Commander Suddenstrike... you called for a meeting in very short notice. You were late in your arrival, and you are still in your battlesuit. Do you wish to justify yourself?"

The Aun's voice had not a single drop of accusation, but Lakale could see everybody in the room was trying to hide their uneasiness with various degrees of success. Suddenstrike, as Lakale expected, was impassive.

"Yes, Aun'vre. I am honored to talk to you." M'yen'ka started. Lakale already knew the rest of the answer. She had heard it many times before, and she agreed with it.

"Yes, I have called for a meeting in short notice. Because Tau under my command are dying in a futile attempt to achieve an objective that, given our current situation in the Hive City, would require far more manpower and equipment than we have at our disposal. I hope I have your agreement in that such a waste of Fire Caste lives is against the teachings of the Greater Good and thus should be stopped as soon as possible.

"Yes, I was late in my arrival. It was because I was assisting my troops eliminating a locus of Mont'ray resistance. I know I could have left earlier, and I apologize.

"Yes, I am still in my battlesuit. Depending on the Shas'O's decision, I would rather not lose any time before I can join Sandspectre, Fastblade and my Cadre in the Hive City."

M'yen'ka straightened her back and stood in attention.

"Aun'vre, Shas'O." She said, picking her helmet up from the table. "My troops are waiting."

[CHAPTER EIGHT - ASSEMBLING THE SWARM]

"I knew I should have brought my fusion blaster."

"Shas'el?"

"Nothing, Vre'Tavak. Nothing." M'yen'ka sat down on a large metal crate, keeping the XV-22's helmet on her lap. The 22 was nowhere near comfortable to relax in, as no amount of padding would hide the fact it wasn't exactly designed for sitting down, but she felt she needed to give her legs some respite. "I was just thinking aloud."

"Ah." He looked at M'yen'ka's face. It was pale, with a distinct dark-blue hue around her cybernetic implant. "With all due respect, Shas'el, I think you should have had a word with the Fio medical staff while you were up there. Even I can see that eye is getting inflamed."

"Thank you for the suggestion, Tavak." She answered casually. The incident with the Necron Lord had filled the back of the implant with half-coagulated blood, but she was not in a hurry to stop and get a Fio to drain it. Better anger management was the key to avoiding future burst blood vessels.

Tavak posted himself in front of the commander. With a pneumatic hiss, his helmet unlocked and the entire cowling was released from its socket. It was an awkward arrangement, having the armour's upper torso separate from its armoured front piece, but Tavak accounted that to the suit being only a hybrid between an XV-15 and what would later become an XV-22 like the one he had in front of him. He leaned forward and removed the cowling, looking directly at the Shas'el. The dark blue patch looked even worse in unfiltered vision.

"Feels good to have it off, doesn't it?" She spoke before he could say anything.

"Ah." Tavak hesitated and tried to wipe the sweat off his face. The smooth fio'tak forearm armor wasn't really made for that. "Yes, Shas'el. It does feel good."

"You should have seen the very first prototypes." She closed her good eye and sighed. "I had just started piloting one of those when Commander Frozenblade died. The quick-release system hadn't been perfected yet, and internal cooling was atrocious. Taking the suit off after a full day was a real chore, even with a Fio trying to pull that thing off your head."

He chuckled. "I can imagine that, Shas'el. Hopefully the mass-production units will have more improvements."

"Don't forget standard-issue plasma rifle couplings, Shas'vre." M'yen'ka smiled tiredly. "Being able to carry Crisis-level firepower on a Stealthsuit saved my life many, many times before I was assigned this prototype."

"Indeed, those are really useful, Shas'el." Tavak looked around. The hangar was huge, but the equivalent of nearly six cadres occupied it, most of them readying up for more combat, so movement was intense. He looked at the commander again. "How was the meeting with the Shas'tol?"

"Not very good." She sighed and brought a hand up to her face, touching the rim of the artificial eye. Something behind it was sending bolts of pain through her head. "Not as bad as I expected, though."

"Yes, Shas'el?" Tavak stepped on a small crate, leaning on his knee now.

"Yes. I managed to convince them to give us some time before attacking again. We have eight rotaa to mount a real offensive." She watched Tavak nodding slowly. "It's not much, but it should give us plenty of opportunity to scout ahead and test their strength. Anything is better than just bumbling around and hoping we can detect the enemy in this gigantic metal wreck."

"I understand, Shas'el." Tavak started, concerned. He was the Shas'vre in charge of the Cadre's recon group. "But I don't think we have the resources to conduct any meaningful scouting raids through the entire city in such a short time. We've already lost enough people just pushing to the middle of the Hive, and it starts getting a lot wider with tighter and more meandering corridors as you go lower."

"Yes, I know. I talked to the Fio'vre in charge of the armory after the negotiations. He secured us a full batch of those new DX-24s."

"The observation drones?" Tavak grimaced. "Little... skittery... multi-legged... things?"

M'yen'ka leaned forward, amused by the Shas'vre's reaction. "Oh? Familiar with them already?"

"Val's squad hid a couple of them in our bunks before we jumped into the system." He looked sideways at a group of Pathfinders running past. "Waking up with one of those things crawling across your chest is not a very pleasant experience."

"Really?" The Shas'el laughed heartily despite herself. "I can imagine that." She did her best to recompose herself. Stifling a last giggle, she stood up. "Well, I'll call the other Vre's and tell them the plan. You get the Fio to program the drones. We will need a very wide sweep in very little time, the drones can't be bothered to investigate isolated enemies. Make sure they know what to do."

"Understood, Shas'el." Tavak nodded and put the suit's cowling back on, not without some difficulty. "With your permission I will also make sure to 'leave' at least five of them in Ui'Val's Devilfish."

"Granted."

-----

The world was ending.

At least his world was ending.

Nars'yan opened his eyes and groaned. His head felt like it had been cracked open by an ork with a dull choppa. He hadn't been shot yet, which was a good thing, but the after-effects of the stimulants being pumped into his blood stream for three days straight were brutal. Besides the splitting headache, most of his skin felt like it was on fire. In a titanic effort, Nars'yan propped himself up in his makeshift bed and looked around.

He was inside an empty cargo container in the hangar. There were many of those around, most of them were quickly converted into temporary dormitories and medical stations after the order to return was issued. A small DX-05 "Ol'sho" drone had found its way into the container and was now magnetically attached to the ceiling, its small belly-mounted glowing device providing pale blue light to the improvised sleeping quarters.

Ui'Ryon was two beds to the right, already awake and uniformed. Nars'yan's team leader was a strange Tau. Not the stereotypical Vior'lan, Ryon was calm and somewhat amicable out of combat, but taciturn and objective in the field, seemingly as emotionally distant to the horrors of combat as he was from his home Sept. Nars'yan had learned not to underestimate that 'Ui, though, after seeing how he dealt with an ambushing monster.

It was impressive: the creature was in the middle of raising its weapon when Ryon spun around and fired two quick carbine bursts. The shots struck the metallic monster in the knee, breaking the joint and making the robot fall on its back. In a split second, Ryon had a heavy hoof on its chest, putting round after round of pulse fire into the monster's vulnerable neck assembly. As the mangled body vanished back to whichever tomb it came from, Ryon's command to move forward was still as paused and collected as it ever was.

Close-combat showdowns and split personalities aside, Nars'yan was starting to notice every warrior in that Cadre had at least one element that brought them into the whole. Be it because of stims, bionic and neural implants, or just natural desensitization after years of long combat shifts and little rest, they entered a trance-like state when in combat. Their bodies seemed to work automatically, moving, firing and dodging enemy fire by themselves, while their minds skimmed through the enormous amounts of sensory information combat provided and planned their next move. It was what the Fire Caste training always preached: efficiency in combat and flawless application of strategy at all times. A Shas'O would be glad to have troops with that ability, but Nars'yan noticed that it came at a price.

The stress had shaped some of them in strange ways. Some, like Ryon, didn't rejoice after a difficult kill and never screamed for help, they just focused on staying alive and completing their missions with not a word besides the strictly necessary, in or out of combat. Others clung to their sense of humor as a way to distance themselves from reality. Ironic, sarcastic, self-depreciative or fatalist quips and jokes were norm. Even the Commander used them in her briefings. In his few days in the Cadre, Nars'yan had heard things about the Greater Good that would make even Shadowsun ask for religious counseling. Yet, those things were considered normal for them.

Apparently they, including the Aun'ui who had no doubt been assigned to them as some sort of punishment, just didn't care.

-----

Earth Caste combat engineers weren't new in the Tau Empire. With the Tau military doctrine putting so much emphasis on quick movement, focusing on disabling hostile forces instead of capturing terrain, even traditionally "behind the lines" elements such as field engineering and medical staff ended up exposed to enemy contact in one way or another. Even more, the gue'la relied on large and heavily fortified defensive positions that sometimes could not be bypassed without serious consequences.

Most of the time the arrival of a railgun-toting battlesuit squad or a Hammerhead Gunship was enough to solve the conundrum of assaulting a fortified enemy position. Two or three hypervelocity slugs tearing through reinforced ferrocrete were generally enough to either make less-motivated forces surrender, or to shred them to pieces due to extreme spalling or drone-bomblet blasts. Either that or a single application of heavy markerlight-guided missiles was enough to blow a hole on the defensive position and allow the Tau to fight in more even terms.

Railguns and seeker missiles, however, were of limited availability in most cadres, and were restricted in their speed or maneuverability in urban situations. Remote-operated or semi-automated drones did the job, but those were unreliable in combat operations and tended to get confused and shot down very quickly under enemy fire. Fire Caste engineering teams existed, of course, and met with considerable success, especially in demolition and sabotage missions, but it was quickly found that no matter how much training a Shas'la or 'ui had, a Fio would still have the upper hand in operations involving technical knowledge and finesse, such as disposing of gue'la munitions and equipment. So the Fio had to get there and do the dirty work themselves from time to time.

Standard doctrine dictated that Earth Caste teams were to be deployed with Shas backup after the Fire Caste had cleared or otherwise neutralized the enemy in the immediate area, so the Fio would not come under fire at any point during the operation. It worked well in open, mechanized battles where there was plenty of space between the Tau and the enemy, but in the increasingly common urban combat areas where enemies could literally be around any corner or pop up from any hole in the ground, Earth Caste losses due to ambushes or swift counter-attacks were appalling.

Some commanders then focused on reducing their reliance on the Fio by either developing more efficient heavy weapon doctrines or better Shas engineer teams. A few others, like M'yen'ka and other specialized El's and O's decided to try and incorporate the Fio directly into their formations. It was a risky move, both militarily and politically. It took some maneuvering from the Aun to convince the Fio'ar'tol to allow it on an experimental basis, and, since there was no standard procedure for fighting Earth Caste formations, every cadre had to figure things out for itself with different degrees of success.

In the Suddenstrike Cadre, a few select Fio'la and 'ui were assigned to be mixed with Shas'la Warrior and Pathfinder teams. Both castes received training together, the Fio learned how to defend themselves when necessary and how to keep working even when the only thing between them and a messy death was a thin sheet of plasteel, and the Shas learned, pure and simply, how to keep their new teammates alive and functional. As an unexpected side-effect, most Shas also tended to learn more than a few technical tricks from their new friends. La'Kear from Tavak's squad was a perfect example of that.

Training felt brutal for the more sedentary Fio, but it was specifically designed to make the best use out of the remarkable strength and resiliency of the Earth Caste body. In only forty-six rotaa, most subjects had turned 80% of their non-essential body fat into solid muscle and increased their weight lifting and carrying capability by nearly three times. Speed and reflexes were also increased, albeit in much more modest amounts. Weapons training was limited to pistol and carbine, as well as rudimentary close-range self-defense, and the Combat Engineers were equipped with a hybrid version of Pathfinder armor sporting a helmet more reminiscent of old Warrior armor. The training was far from enough to turn the Fio into a real soldier, but it at least put them on par with an average Shas'saal in terms of skill, a Shas'la in terms of endurance, and far above the average Fio in terms of survivability and efficiency under fire.

To round it all up, those "Fighting Fio" (as they joked about themselves) were always employed in very close cooperation with their specially-trained Fire Caste partners. The plan, first devised by Fio'ui T'au Gae'zare of M'yen'ka's supply and repair staff, was of course met with heavy resistance from the higher Fio, but in the end it resulted in an average life expectancy increase of more than five times for Fio in urban combat situations, as well as 300% more successful missions under fire. Another unexpected side-effect was that the Fio who underwent the training were now much more comfortable and willing to interact with Fire Caste warriors than they were before, often requesting to be deployed close to the frontlines in field workshops or medical stations where their skills could be put to better use.

Tavak, who was good friends with most of the combat-capable Fio, was at one of the two forward workshops the cadre's support and maintenance corps had erected in the hangar. He had just forwarded them their orders and was now overseeing the programming of the little scout drones, staying around partly to answer any possible questions from the technicians, but mostly because he had nothing else to do and resting wasn't possible at least until his stims wore off. So he stood there, sitting on a crate, stripped of the upper part of his armor while another team fixed the many new gashes and dents his robotic enemies had inflicted in the last few days of fighting.

He observed the Fio working. They looked perfectly at home amidst the relative chaos of the hangar, their tools spread around but still within easy reach, and their normally clean overalls already blackened by dust and grease. Activating the drones required them to split in three teams: the first group assembled the legs, sensor array and power pack into the small hexagonal body (it was rumored the next model would also include a built-in compact pulse pistol) and tossed the still inert drones to the second group. That group activated the drones, uploaded their programming, debugged the system and gently nudged them towards the third group to be tested. Testing was done by connecting the drone's sensor output to a data feed and watching how the drones navigated around a circular test course filled with assorted junk collected from all over the hangar. The entire process took around a minute for each drone. Considering an entire batch of those things contained eight hundred full drones plus a few extra replacement pieces, the Fio should be busy for at least half a rotaa before M'yen'ka had a basic scouting force ready to be deployed.

An XV-15-clad trooper landed a few meters away from Tavak and walked up to him.

"Are you Shas'vre Tavak?" The voice was distinctively female, even after being distorted by the suit's voicebox.

He stood up with difficulty, picking up his datapad besides him. "That's me, yes." Tavak looked at the '15. "You must be Vre'Elan'ta."

"Elan'ta...?" The Shas'vre sounded puzzled. "No, my name is--"

Tavak chuckled. "I know your name. The Shas'el sent me your background data and I gave it a quick read." He flicked vaguely through the datapad. "Many injuries, quite some time either in surgery or recovering from one. That has to be the thickest medical record I have ever seen, so I thought 'Enduring Soul' would be a fitting name for you."

The liaison said nothing, probably raising an eyebrow inside her helmet.

"Enough attempts at wit, understood." Tavak gave her a conciliatory smile and straightened up. "Very well, I am Shas'vre Elsy'eir Sal'yot Tavak, and I apologize for not contacting you before. The combat operations have been quite frequent lately, so there was no time to find you a good place in the cadre."

"One that is really out of the way, I take?" The Shas'vre quipped and reached up to remove her helmet, revealing a fair ice-blue complexion and crystalline violet eyes. A long dark brown scalp lock cascaded down her back, sporting a colorful assortment of campaign beads. Her smile looked ironic, something Tavak took as a sign she was taking things easy enough.

"Oh, we can throw you straight in the fire line, if you really want." He laughed, bringing a few Fio eyes upon himself for a brief moment. "But really, I think you would want to put on a two-five before you do that."

"Actually... I've never had the chance to pilot one of those." She looked at the technicians patching up a large scar on Tavak's shoulderpad and rebuilding some destroyed sensor in the cowling. "They don't look very... stealthy."

"But they are. It's a very good model. Much more fit for Mont'ka and Kauyon maneuvers than the one-five, with better electronics too. The increased bulk is a bit annoying, but you get used to it. At any rate, we still keep a few XV-15s for scouting purposes..." He looked at his armor as well. It looked like those Fio were going to be as busy as their colleagues, mending half-atomized fio'tak ceramic alloy and fried circuitry. Tavak looked back at Elan'ta. "Come with me, I'll get you properly briefed on the situation. With some luck, we might even get you a new set of armor."

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow again. "I find it hard to believe anyone would be handing out experimental equipment like that."

Tavak grinned and started walking. "You have never worked with us."

[CHAPTER NINE - CONSIDERATIONS]

"Gangway!"

Nars'yan and the rest of his squad nearly jumped to the right as a swarm of spider-like drones rushed their way past them. Coming from the Fio workshops near the back of the hangar, the apparently disorganized torrent of scout drones ignored everything in their path, dodging what they could and climbing over what they couldn't in their way to the hangar doors. At least two soldiers ended up buried under the moving mass of low-density fio'tak. They emerged completely unharmed, with only their pride wounded as laughter from all over the hangar targeted them.

Even after the drones were gone, investigating the dark depths of the Hive City, Nars'yan kept staring at the entrance to the hangar. There were a couple squads of Warriors sitting behind a long line of debris, with vehicles further behind them, all covering the only possible enemy attack path. There had been a lull in enemy activity in the area, but neither Shas'el wanted to allow anything made of living metal to get even close to their base of operations. Further ahead, Shas'el Sandspectre's cadre had erected heavy barriers blocking most paths to that level of the city, while Fastblade organized patrols and raids further down, using the giant elevator to ferry his troops up and down the immediate levels. Both commanders reported sparse enemy contact, mostly composed of ambushing groups of lesser automaton in the main hallways. It was more annoying than deadly, so much so even Sandspectre and Fastblade's relatively green troops were having little trouble dealing with them.

Casualties were light, giving medical officers from all three cadres a much welcome reduction in activity levels. Some of them even found time to sleep after tending to wounded troops non-stop since the hangar was secured. Gauss weaponry produced enormous amounts of tissue damage but little effective shock, which was both a blessing and a curse for the Tau in the city. It was good in the sense that as long as nothing vital was disintegrated, anyone hit had fairly good chances of surviving if quickly stabilized. The bad side was that the subject was often awake and feeling the pain of having a limb or a large patch of living tissue literally turned into gas, and that rendered even the most powerful anesthetic ineffective in the small doses it was injected. Thus the Fio medics risked overdosing their patients, and the taskforce's stock of medications was starting to dwindle.

Nars'yan was extremely satisfied with the pause in operations. After his sour baptism of fire and the subsequent resting period, he felt a bit less disoriented. He cleaned his gear and finally had the chance to fire the new carbine down in the range set up near the workshops, under the excuse of testing the weapon after fixing a slight malfunction in the magazine feeding mechanism. Things were so calm he even had time to socialize and try to find his place in the squad. In hindsight, he felt it was absurd to go to battle barely knowing who had your back, and he was decided to do something about it.

-----

Shas'vre Elan'ta had already accepted the fact that, no matter what she said, the nickname stuck. She had been warned Suddenstrike's troops were known for their casual, flippant behavior, so the culture shock wasn't as great as she had expected. Also, she had the sneaking suspicion that she had been selected as liaison exactly because of her easy-going (as far as Tau went, that is) nature. Did her commander meet M'yen'ka at any point before? She hadn't found any record of the Suddenstrike Cadre in action, according to the logs it had been stationed in Sa'cea as garrison force for the last three hundred Tau'cyrs, making it one of the oldest cadres still in existence. Of course, it was obvious something was wrong. They weren't in Sa'cea, and Kroot would start eating with forks and spoons before the Tau around her could be considered garrison troops.

The reason for the disparity was that the 66th Shas'Sa'cea'Kau'ui, as it was known in the records, was classified as a Cadre, but was in fact a small contingent. By some obscure loophole in the Fire Caste bureaucratic procedures, that made it so operations by the M'yen'ka Kau'ui weren't recorded in official status. The orders and reports were sent in, but not added to the main Shas'ar'tol databanks, instead being stored in a local information cache in Sa'cea. The Cadre also changed name as frequently as it changed commanders, which made it even harder to locate. Before Suddenstrike, there was Frozenblade. Before Frozenblade was Shatteredstar, and a long list of dead commanders followed, averaging one each five Tau'cyrs, with very few retirements.

So, to find information about the Suddenstrike Cadre in the Fire Caste networks, one had to know its commander at the time, be in Sa'cea, and have access to classified Fire Caste information. No one below Shas'el could possibly fulfill all those requirements, so most Tau only knew about the cadre due to rumours or stories spread around. Most Shas'la and Shas'ui regarded those stories of grueling combat against overwhelming odds as something their commanders made up to impress them with the might of the Fire Caste. After all, such heroic exploits would always be on the Por propaganda dispatches, and even the most pious Tau never heard anything of that sort.

Elan'ta reasoned those 'La and 'Ui were probably very surprised when they saw the M'yen'ka Kau'ui. Even worse, eventually a cadre would be beaten to the point of destruction and its remnants be thrown into one of those suicide cadres. Shas'vre Tavak had told her they weren't unique in their role as "recycled" high-mobility reserve troops, and being sent to one of them permanently sounded like a frightening prospect to her.

-----

"Shas'vre, I think my drones found something..."

Shas'vre Vior'la Rev'al Haeza stopped moving and tapped into the squad's comm channels. "Go ahead, Shas'ui."

"They're reporting the acoustic signature of a lot of moving parts. Sounds metallic to me, and most machines in this place are offline, so..."

"Yes, I know. Looks like they've just found some clankers for us to take care of." Haeza turned his XV-8 around, its vast bulk struggling against inertia for a split second before the gravitic repulsors kicked in. "Stay put, Shas'ui. We'll get to where you are."

Using XV-8s as forward scouts was unorthodox, but not unheard of. Haeza was aware of that. Using them as support to unarmed surveillance drones was, on the other hand, a somewhat weirder situation. A situation, the Shas'vre reminded himself, he actually volunteered to.

Haeza's squad was proud to pilot some of the few Crisis Battlesuits in the Cadre's armory. The just like their armors, every member of the Frozenblade's Own was an old, grizzled and sometimes temperamental warrior. Haeza, the most experienced of the trio, was almost double his direct superior's age. Even Gal'ka, the squad's only Shas'ui, was already older than El'M'yen'ka herself. The squad itself was one of the very few units in the Cadre to have never lost a member since Commander Frozenblade was promoted to Shas'O, many tau'cyrs past, and as such were considered some of the wisest Tau in the cadre.

Of course, wisdom in battle came at the cost of a few eccentricities and not a short supply of mental disorders. Possibly as a result of stim addiction after decades of near-constant use, or maybe just plain battlesuit neurosis, Haeza's crew was famous for taking up odd missions and staying in combat even after ordered to stand down and rest. He, and the rest of his squad, might had lost some of the hot-blood of their youth, but they were still fierce Vior'lans, they knew their place was in battle, close enough to the enemy that they could hear their last gasp as they were torn to pieces by plasma power. Combat was Haeza's sole source of pleasure, a psychopathic lust for battle that even other warriors from his Sept found a little unnerving.

Even though Haeza was paradoxically level-headed, if not slightly depressive outside combat, such bloodlust when things got dicey was not, for rather obvious reasons, a very desirable trait for a commander. It resulted in the Frozenblade's Own being permanently assigned as the cadre's only XV-8 strike team, often moving ahead of the cadre's Combat Group and their lighter and more maneuverable 25s.

They enjoyed being the first to bring the Fist of Mont'ka down on their enemies, and they were always the last to leave the battlefield. They ended up battered, sometimes damaged to the point of malfunction, but they always walked out under their own power, and more often than not, with a larger kill count than anyone else in the cadre. They were a testament to the power of the XV-8 Crisis Battlesuit, and they pushed it to its limits.

For this operation, they had volunteered to follow the recon drones' path deep in enemy territory, serving as mobile data relays. An unforeseen effect of the city's maze-like geography is that the little spider drones's communication suites were simply not powerful enough to send clear signals around innumerable corners and junctions, deflecting off the blackened metal of ruined gue'la machinery and suffering interference from ill-insulated, high-energy power cables which tangled under the ceilings like some sort of electric Pech-vine. The drones needed external help before their signals could reach the Hangar control center, and assistance was generally provided by hastily-built comm-drones, circular gun-drone hulls incorporating sensor and comm equipment taken from semi-cannibalized XV-15s which the Fio found gathering dust near the back of the Lar'shi's armory.

However, with comm-drones following the DX-24s all over the city, what was Haeza's squad doing in the noxious middle levels of the city? Anyone who asked that question was undoubtedly guilty of not knowing the cranky old Vior'lan.

"Any visuals, Gal'ka?" He asked, walking as softly as the XV-8's soft-padded feet allowed him. Vre'Jaael, the second-oldest warrior of the cadre, was also approaching, plasma rifle already enveloped in the glowing mist of high-energy ions.

"Not yet, Shas'vre." The Ui' pointed to a half-open door a couple dozen yards away. "The enemies should be in that direction, under the mezzanine."

"Tell one of the drones to go there and check, then."

"Already did, Shas'vre. I'm watching its optic feed, it should give us a good view of whatever is there anytime now..."

"Good." Haeza turned around and checked his weapons for the fifth time in the past hour. He was starting to get eager with anticipation, but a battle without plans was still winnable, while a battle without recon was as good as lost. He knew that better than anyone else, from personal experience early in his career.

"Shas'vre...?"

"Go ahead." He turned his suit's optical cluster towards Gal'ka by instinct. The Shas'ui's voice was far too hesitant for it to be good news.

"I've got them on visual."

"What are you waiting for? Patch it in!"

A second later, Haeza felt the blood draining from his usually dark-gray face.

"We are going to need some help for this one."

[CHAPTER TEN - TAVAK'S RUSE]

Listen up, Cadre.

Yes, I know I said we had eight rotaa of R&R before resuming the Hunt. Turns out we can’t afford that sort of luxury. Our scouts have found two large concentrations of Mont’ray, one near the middle of the spire, apparently using the floor as a staging area, and one a few dozen floors below ground level, in what we suspect is their main base. We have them under surveillance, but they seem to be trying to repair the damage caused to their assault elements earlier.

So we have to get moving. Their force is still sizable, we will not be able to route them out if they are allowed to go back to their full strength. Group Tavak, with help of some of Group Lar'shi's heavier units, will move against the enemies near the middle, as those seem to be mostly basic Mont’ray troops with little specialized support. The rest of Lar’shi’s troops and all non-vehicle units in Group Doran will come with me and deliver the Killing Blow to the monsters hiding in the lower parts of the city. Once the enemy staging area is dealt with, Group Tavak will move on to support us against the bigger group underground. As usual, Fastblade and Sandspectre will provide support, as well as clean up after us and provide cover against ambushes, so we’ll at least have reliable positions to gravitate around in case we have to turn to Kauyon.

Remember, this will be an all-out attack, we might even be able to escape if it fails, but I doubt the casualties will allow us to try again either way. So... Gear up, Cadre. We’ll be moving out as soon as all squad leaders report as ready. Bring plenty of ammo, rations are optional.

Tau’va, and dismissed.

-----

“Hey, Red One.” Called Red Two informally, leaning back on her chair.

“Go ahead, Red Two.” Answered the lanky Shas’vre to her left. There were three Tau in that dimly-lit room hidden deep within the bowels of the Sa'cea Lar'shi M'ka Voyl. They knew each other well from innumerable work shifts, but they also spent so much time in that room that their nicknames became easier to remember than their own given names.

“Did you listen to the Shas’el’s last dispatch?”

“Of course I did.” Red One glared at Red Two, having to peer over and beyond a mess of screens and wires. The room was an improvised solution, and the three Shas’vre were seated in a trefoil arrangement, their terminals connected directly to the ship’s bridge and comm arrays through exposed data lines. “What sort of question is that?”

“Just checking.” Red Two chuckled back. “Looks like we’re finally getting close to a end for this campaign.”

“About time, too.” Red Five snapped from behind his own screens. “We don’t usually pull shifts this long. What sort of genius decides to send a special operations cadre to fight an attrition battle? Wait, let me reformulate: what sort of genius sends anyone to fight an attrition battle?!”

“Eh, the Top Hounds must know what they’re doing.” One answered, not completely sure about his own words. “The Ethereals must have a plan, either way. As for me, I’m happy enough we aren’t seeing many casualties, even with the entire cadre in the field.”

“True, that doesn’t happen very often. But still… it’s a huge waste of resources.” Two sighed, squinting at the map. The image was absolutely unmoving, to the point it was almost burnt onto her retinas. “Let the ground pounders like Shas’O Vr’ekan occupy the whole place and have their fun, like they’ve been doing so well against the Mont’au on the surface. They know very well we weren’t made for straight-up fights.”

“Yes, I know. And yes, I’ve seen the Shas’El’s argument with the Shas’tol.” Red One flexed his stiff fingers and let them rest against his console’s comfortably cool control interface once again. “But apparently, O’Vr’ekan and the other cadres are busy enough as it is. There’s nothing we three can do right now, just endure the boredom of watching two squares of unchanging satellite map… and try to help the cadre as much as we can.”

“Such is the duty of the communications officer. Was that what you signed up for?”

“Ah, shut it, Red Five. It’s not like we would be doing any better down there.”

Red One was right: not everybody was meant to live and die in the frontlines. What happened behind their own lines was just as important to the success of the operation as any other team's performance. The three unassuming Tau in that dark room were just as important to the success of the Cadre as any other set of hooves on the ground. They were the Cadre’s lifeline, providing M’yen’ka and her officers with precious real-time intel, gathered by the network of drone-satellites the M’ka Voyl spread over the planet before every operation, and taking up some of the burden of managing the cadre’s internal comms.

Without them, the Cadre would be nearly blind and mute. Without their expertise and technique at sorting through quite literally hundreds of visual, radar and infra-red feeds every few minutes, the Cadre would have never survived even their easiest missions. They got almost none of the glory of the Kill, but every single Shas in the cadre was grateful towards those who watched over them.

-----

“The lower you go, the more chaotic this place becomes...” Muttered Tavak over the comms.

The rest of his squad was quick to agree: the city layout started losing any shadow of order its top levels ever had as soon as they started moving further downwards. The middle of the hive city was a charred wreck. Hallways ending in more, narrower hallways, chambers without obvious purpose, dead ends, mazes of elevated walkways over pools of toxic gunk, huge pieces of ruined machinery blocking the way, plus that noxious atmosphere making their suits’ filters work overtime. Tavak was glad the drones were the ones who had to scout through that labyrinth. His team was taking point as the sizable attack force under his command moved right behind them.

He knew Vre’Haeza was somewhere ahead, but the twists and turns in the path dampened his signal to the point of making him disappear from his tactical overlay.

That damned darkness didn’t help, either. Even with blacksun filters set to maximum, navigating through halls covered in a solid coating of soot and grease in total darkness was both distracting and disorienting. Even those used to gue’la architecture could feel their heads spinning after so much walking. Tavak sighed and changed comms.

“Red Two, this is Vre’Tavak. Come in.”

“This is Red Two. Go ahead, Vre’Tavak.” Red Two’s soft voice echoed through his helmet with surprisingly little interference. That was good. As long as the M’ka Voyl’s vast communication batteries were still available to relay their comms, the Cadre would be able to stay coherent.

“Do you have Vre’Haeza’s position on your map? I have lost him, there’s just too much interference down here.”

There was a moment of silence. All Tavak could hear were the soft footsteps of his squad moving forward. Then the comm cracked alive again.

“Vre’Tavak, I’m transferring the coordinates of Vre’Haeza’s transponder. He should be two walls in front of you.”

“I see...“ Tavak chuckled over the comms. The two walls Red Two mentioned were three-meters thick. So close, yet so far away. “Thanks for the help.”

“Just doing our job, Shas’vre.“ Red Two’s voice was sympathetic. It helped that she had one of the cadre’s highest grades in empathetic speech. “I’ll try to plot you a quick path to Vre’Haeza. Meanwhile, take care. You’re getting very close to the Mont’ray staging area.”

“The maintenance hangar, huh?”

“That is correct, Shas’vre.” She replied, then continued out of boredom: “We have been analyzing the spire’s structure and internal arrangement.” She paused, and Tavak guessed she was bringing up the necessary data on her screens, far away in space. “The city has many hangars, like the one your team entered through. But those are just craft storage and deployment areas. There’s not much in terms of actual machinery in there. All the repair, assembly and rearming operations were executed in that internal hangar.”

“And then they’d carry the craft to their individual hangars via the main lift?”

“That’s our theory, Shas’vre.” Red Two seemed amused. Tavak was quick to reach accurate conclusions and, even more importantly, he was quick to present them. It was very odd to her that the Shas’vre wasn’t part of the intel and comm corps. He seemed born to carry out that task.

“Good to know I got something right.” Tavak chuckled again. “Thank you again, Red Two.”

-----

“Tavak, it is good to see you.” The XV-8 waved an arm, welcoming the stealthsuits to their hiding spot near the back of the mezzanine.

“Haeza, the Venerable. How are things over here?” Tavak waved back with his suit’s free arm and heard the old warrior let out a single bark of laughter in return.

“Things are quieter than I’d like, but probably a lot more active than you would.” A data link was formed between the two battlesuits and the two squad leaders swapped tactical information. “We have deployed the scout drones all over the place. Either the machines haven’t noticed them, or they know we are here but are still ignoring us for some reason.”

The stealthsuit pilot looked at Haeza’s recon information, relaying it to Keen as well. “That is a pretty thorough work for someone not used to doing recon job. Good work.” He said, impressed. Keen agreed. Even more impressive was the fact that they managed to hide in that huge slab of ferrocrete overlooking the hangar, and the Necrons didn’t do anything about it. It was like they were just idling by, waiting for orders.

“You can tell we’ve been around for a while, huh?”

“Indeed.” He looked at the maps again and pinged a point in their shared interface. “What's behind that door?”

“We don’t know. The drones found no way in, and the blast door seems to be welded shut. It’s too thick for us to get any sensor readings of whatever’s inside.”

“That sounds like a job for us, then.” Tavak turned to his second in command. “Keen, take the rest of the squad and some pathfinders and get that door open. The map shows the room is an armory. Considering the hangar we’re about to assault, we might find something interesting in there. If anything, it looks like it has two doors, so it would make for a good defensive position to fall back to and evacuate through.”

-----

“Shas’vre, I think I found something...” It was Ui’Val’s voice over the comms.

Tavak and Haeza exchanged a quick look, then the XV-8’s optic cluster nodded. “This operation is yours, Tavak.”

“Thank you, Shas’vre. Val, I’m all ears.”

”It’s a...” Val hesitated. “Actually, you might want to take a look at this yourself. Keen said you’re going to like it.”

“I’m on my way.” Tavak looked up at the old warrior besides him. “Vre’Haeza, you keep up the watch. We should be attacking shortly.”

“Very well, Vre’Tavak.” He saw the ponderous Crisis battlesuit standing straight up again, ‘head’ almost hitting the ceiling, then moving towards his squad.

-----

Two quick jumps later, Tavak landed at the armory. The blast door had its lock literally sliced through by Keen’s fusion blaster, the metal was still glowing in a pale, dead red. Inside was a mountain of crates. Crates, crates and more crates, or all shapes, colors and sizes, Tavak sighed. The gue’la could not live without crates, preferably arranged in long rows, color-coded for convenience. Oh, and cranes, he thought as he looked at the ceiling and saw the rail going all the way to the hangar they were supposed to strike. They also enjoyed cranes. Or maybe just the chains. He didn't want to think too hard about it.

The rest of his squad was jumping around, scanning the bigger crates near the back of the cavernous room. Val’s squad was at ground level, their helmet lenses squinting as they tried to decipher the gue’la’s strange technical dialect. Val waved at him, sitting rather lazily on a large red crate covered in yellow letters.

Another jump and he landed besides the pathfinder team leader. “Well, what do you have for me?”

“Just read the side of this crate, Shas’vre.” Val pointed down with one hand. “La'Kear double-checked it for me, but we haven’t opened it yet.”

Tavak looked down at the writing, assembling the yellow characters in his mind. As a ‘Saal, he had been one of the best in his class at reading alien language, but that was a skill he hadn’t practiced too much in the last few tau’cyrs. “Adeptus... Mechanicus...” Right, that was the gue’la’s specialized mechanical caste. He could see their strange circular seal on the corner. He ignored that part of the writing and concentrated on the large print in the middle.

“Is this a... oooh...” The grin forming under Tavak’s helmet was so wide it literally hurt. He opened his comms. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have just found something truly wonderful.”


-----

“Red Two, this is Vre’Tavak. Come in.”

“This is Red Two. Go ahead, Vre’Tavak.”

“For curiosity sake... what is our clearance on enemy materiel?”

“Ah...” Pause. “The same as usual, Shas’Vre: avoid if at all possible, leave the task of dealing with it to any eventual second-line units doing the clean-up.”

“In a completely unrelated subject, what is our clearance on collateral damage to abandoned gue’la infrastructure?”

“. . .”

“Red Two?”

“You are just going to blow something up, aren’t you Shas’Vre?”

“I’m not saying I am... but you might want to warn the rest of the cadre about seismic fluctuations in the near future. Thanks for the info, Tavak out.”

[CHAPTER ELEVEN - AND THE GROUND SHAKES]

Listen up, Cadre.

Our forward elements are already skulking deeper underground. We have pin-pointed their main location, all we have to do is to get in there and mow them down. That is what the Shas’tol said, at least. We all know their current record on tactical decisions, though, so get ready to face some stiff resistance. According to the recon drones we managed to sneak into that place, the Mont'ray seem to have sent all but one of their armored repair units to the main hangar to support their secondary force. That means we have one really big target and a few hundred smaller targets to deal with. Just our kind of work.

Get all your grenades and missiles ready: they are packed in close together in that cave, we'll need as many explosions as we can come up with if we want to get out of this in more or less one piece. Also, there is a large smooth wall between two rough stone pillars near the back of the cave. Intelligence is speculating that's what's left of the archeological dig that awakened the monsters, and the Fio would like to take a good close look at it after we are finished. So, as a secondary objective, avoid hitting that wall. I'm uploading each squad's entry points and target areas to their leaders, we'll move up as soon as all squads report in position.

Stay silent. Tau'va.

-----

Nars'yan leaned against the rough stone wall, clutching his rifle close to his chest as the rest of his squad moved ahead. They were very close to their starting position in the attack, and that only made him feel like every step he took on that loose gravel could be heard from orbit. That area of the Hive City was known as the Underhive, a network of random passageways and chambers apparently just as large as the aboveground part of the city. The ground and walls were irregular, carved straight from the ancient rock that supported the mighty Hive spire above, and the only sound was the echo of the Tau footsteps, reverberating five or six times all over the cavern complex. Nars'yan was sure he would be able to hear his squadmates' heartbeats if he stopped and listened hard enough.

"La'Nars'yan, left. Take point and move up two hundred tor'leks. That's our entrance." He heard Ryon's muffled voice on his squad channel. The tunnel he was sent to was just as dark and featureless as the one they were in, but at least the map showed no intersections to get lost in. He moved forward, followed closely by Ryon himself and another 'La whose name escaped Nars'yan at that moment. The rest of the squad lagged a couple yards behind, some looking over to the ceiling in search of ambushes, while others seemed more concerned with the ground itself. He didn't know exactly why, but that was not the best time to ask, anyway.

Stepping around the first bend, he stopped and looked down the carved stone staircase leading to a small underground lake. Under his helmet's advanced nightvision filters, the water looked like a perfectly flat black mirror.

"Shas'ui, was there supposed to be a lake in here?" He uttered over the comms. His fully-enclosed Mk.IX experimental helmet's main function was to filter the poisonous atmosphere into a breathable mix, but another useful feature was the built-in acoustic insulator. It made even the loudest screams completely silent outside the helmet, and he really hoped that feature would become standard-issue when those new helmets entered full production.

"No, Shas'la, there wasn't." He heard his leader's laconic voice replying barely a second later. Ui'Ryon stopped just a foot to Nars'yan's left, flicking through his battle computer maps. "Odd, three drones made their way through this passage and none of them reported any water."

Ryon kicked a pebble down the stairs. It bounced and rolled, making a lot more ruckus than Nars'yan felt comfortable with, until it landed on the surface of the lake without a sound. A few seconds of immobility later, it began to sink. Nars'yan felt a shiver go down his spine: that wasn't water, it was some sort of toxic gel, so thick that the fast and lightweight drones simply skittered over like tiny insects.

"Shas'ui", another La's voice was heard as the rest of the squad joined them at the top of the stairs. "I'm picking up a lot of flammable compounds in the air here."

"Of what sort, La'Ma'zel?"

"Mostly hydrocarbons. There are also hydrazine and trace amounts of the ultrapyrophoric compound the gue'la call 'promethium'." The Shas'la scanned the ceiling. "Maybe those things seeped through the ceiling from some sort of fuel depot up there?"

Oh, great! Nars'yon thought to himself, A time bomb, just waiting to explode! The tiniest spark and that entire room would be engulfed in flames hot enough to burn through fio'tak like paper. He looked at his team leader as the Ui pondered for a few seconds.

"Could be." Ryon motioned to two other Fire Warriors standing behind him. "La'She'ok, La'Na'gl, get down there and see if you can find any bridges or passages. If not, we will have to improvise before the 25s arrive."

-----

"Move it, move it! Everybody inside!"

"Are you sure this is going to work, Shas'vre?"

"Not really, no."

"That's not very encouraging, Shas'vre..."

"Think of it this way: what do we have to lose? We'll be dead anyway if they decide to start moving."

"I suppose you are right, Shas'vre."

"Everybody in place? Is everything ready?"

"Yes, Shas'vre. La'Kear has just finished rigging the controls."

"Good. Keen, with me. Fusion blasters, we have more soldering ahead of us."

-----

A loud, repetitive grinding noise echoed through the hangar, backed by the sound of loose, heavy chains dragging and hitting each other.

The static figures crowding the floor creaked to life, looking around them in search of whatever disturbed their peace. Even the three large spider-like floating behemoths standing near the center of the room stopped their assembling and repairing chores to move their optical receptors slowly over the surrounding ferrocrete.

A long minute passed, the noise becoming louder and louder and resonating off the walls. Every single necrodermis aberration in the kilometer-wide circular hangar peered around, searching for answers. They had no orders, and the last shred of initiative and personality had vanished from their empty minds long ago. A few of them, displaying remarkable presence of mind for their kind, raised their weapons, wicked green lights glowing in the still air.

One of the mechanical spiders looked up. Its sharp claws clicked and spun as the ancient lenses in its eyes distinguished the source of the noise. There was something on the beams that supported the hangar's flat ceiling, and it was moving. In seconds, every artificial eye in the room was trained on the hangar's overhead crane, moving slowly towards the center of the room. Tied with heavy chains to the service crane's frame was a man-sized contraption, painted in Adeptus Mechanicus' dull green primer.

Suddenly, the room was bathed in light, and the entire Hive City shuddered.

-----

"Whoa!"

"Hold on to something!"

"Is everybody alright? Any wounded?"

"I think we're all good, Shas'ui!"

"Shas'ui, comms are dead!"

"In the name of Aun'va's Flying Chair, what was that?!"

"Aun'va's Flying Chair...? Wait, what sort of exclamation is that?!"

-----

"Red One, this is M'yen'ka. What in Aun'va's Name just happened?!"

Red One winced behind his screens, all three intelligence officers working frantically to answer to situational updates from all over the cadre. He tried his best to keep his voice calm and neutral. "We don't know yet, Shas'el. Give us just a few more moments and we'll have something to report."

Whatever it was, it was powerful enough to shake some debris off the sides of the spire, sending huge chunks of loose ferrocrete flying off and landing in the middle of the operational area of the surface cadres fighting the Mont'au forces. He tried to piece together a coherent picture as new readouts raced past his well-trained eyes.

He didn't hear the Shas'el's following exhortation under Red Five's hurried voice: "The Shas'tol is breathing down my neck here, they want answers!"

"Did we lose contact with any units in the field?" Red One shot back, still filtering through the readouts and lists whose fields linked and crisscrossed in three dimensions. Not everybody could process that much information and still have any brain time left to formulate questions, but all three Tau in that room were up to the task.

"Not sure yet, Red One." It was Red Two, her voice slightly hesitant. "Whatever it was, it disrupted our wireless communications pretty bad. We can still contact the forces at the top of the spire, but anything below that is either showing as offline or has really weak signal." Pause. Red Two's eyes shot from one screen to the other in quick succession. "I think the comm drones were deactivated by the energy surge, all transmissions I'm receiving are from the upgraded battlesuit team leader comm arrays, and even those are scrambled."

"Let's hope they tell us something really quick, then. The Shas'el is not pleased!"

"Neither is the Shas'tol, I can tell you that much!" Red Five snapped. "I have them on-hold here from the Bridge, and they want answers."

Red Two swallowed hard as she watched the status lights for the units in the spire go from black (offline) to blue (online and transmitting), one by one. "The units in Tavak's group haven't come back online..."

"Didn't he ask you something about gue'la materiel just a while ago?"

"Yes, he did!"

"Well, what did they do?!"

"How am I supposed to know?!"

[CHAPTER TWELVE - THE UNDERHIVE]

"Well, that took care of the flammable lake!" Said La'Ma'zel, taking point and peeking around a corner before moving on again, his squad following closely. Whatever shook the Hive City moments ago showered the toxic pool with bright sparks. The squad simply turned on their hooves and darted out of the room. And still the conflagration and subsequent shockwave almost knocked them down on the stone floor.

"What happened, anyway?" Replied Nars'yon, almost skidding on a shallow puddle of water dripping down the ceiling. The squad had to keep moving, otherwise they would risk being caught in the oxygen-poor toxic backdraft and their suits' filters would be overwhelmed. "Can you raise anyone, Shas'ui?"

"No, I cannot." Ryon answered, taciturn as always. "Let's keep to the plan. Our route is now blocked, so we will join up with the 25's down the next hall."

"Won't that put us right in the middle of the attack?" Another Shas'la asked.

"Yes, it will."

"The Shas'el will have a better place for us…" Nars'yon said quietly. "I mean, she knows what she's doing… We don't do much help down on the floor in a battlesuit fight..."

The comm silence from the rest of the squad troubled him.

-----

"We just finished cutting a hole through the door, Shas'vre."

"Good." Tavak answered, examining the gigantic door. The explosion had jammed it. Or, most likely, melted it solid on its hinges. He charged his plasma rifle and aimed at the center of the piece Keen had just cut through. One good shot and the block dislodged itself and tumbled onto the floor, its edges glowing bright red. "Forget the radiation, we need to catch them before they reorganize! Battlesuits: move, move, move!"

"I don't think anything could have survived that…!"

"Well, I do. Those things are resilient." The Shas'vre stepped through the smoking hole on the door. An astonishing scene of destruction greeted him.

The mezzanine was gone. Peering through the turbulent smoke and dust with his filters, Tavak could see the bomb had obliterated the entire hangar. The reinforced floor was now a shallow debris-filled crater. Large chunks of steel and ferrocrete still fell from the ruined ceiling, crashing down hard onto the glassy rubble pile. The ceiling itself was a now patchwork of destroyed walls and the ceilings of the large rooms that once occupied the areas over the hangar. The fact the entire city was still standing was a tribute to gue'la engineering every Tau present had to admire.

His radiation alarm let out a shrill warning. Whatever was inside that warhead released considerable amounts of charged particles in the air, but hopefully his armor would be enough to keep him safe. Fighting the howling gust that still raged across the hangar, Tavak activated his jetpack and hovered near the armory door, surveying the damage he caused with almost childish fascination.

His armored troops hovered out one by one, and shocked comments quickly filled the comms. Tavak moved further ahead. His sensors were fogged by the residual heat and radiation, but he could still see pieces and shards of blackened metal vanishing in the darkness. One large half-buried Necron armor plate remained near the center of what was once the hangar. A glint of movement caught his eye.

"Target!" He shouted and careened to the side, hiding behind a large piece of ferrocrete that was once the mezzanine, charging his plasma rifle. Immediately, and by instinct, the rest of his troops dashed in a dozen different directions.

As the Tau dove for cover among the irradiated debris, the multi-legged Necron machine scurried to the surface. Its sole undamaged set of lenses twisted and glowed bright green and it clicked its long claws menacingly. Even with one of its legs torn off, it was still able to float unsteadily above the rubble as it scanned its new surroundings.

"Oh, not one of those…" Keen said, hiding close to Tavak's position.

"I told you they are resilient." Tavak replied, looking over his tactical map. The dots representing friendly battlesuits weren't quite where he wanted them to be, but he could probably make something out of it. "That thing probably still has enough power to kill us all if we're not careful. Burst cannons, I want covering fire. Aim for the head and keep it either busy of distracted. If it runs towards you, jump away. Fusion blasters and plasma rifles, let's get into position and sneak up on it. I want it dead in a single round of fire."

His twenty-three battlesuits acknowledged his orders and started moving. One by one, the burst cannon equipped Stealthsuits popped in and out of view, firing short salvoes at their foe. The Tomb Spyder let out a grinding noise, confused by the random firing coming seemingly out of nowhere, courtesy of the battlesuits' Stealth Fields. The pulse rounds themselves were little more than raindrops on its dense shell. Even the robot's optics, arguably its weak spot, were armored enough that the only effect the incredible Tau firepower had was to make its head jerk and bob as dozens of shots impacted against it.

The Stealthsuits slowly baited and goaded their target, fanning out in a wide semi-circle and keeping the Necron war machine in the middle. Their more heavily-armed colleagues jumped or scurried behind the Tomb Spyder, forming the other half of the circle before slowly making their way forward. Seen from the outside, it was like a beautiful dance, the Shas pilots moving back and forth slowly, teasing the monster, keeping its optical cluster focused on them, while the other team staggered and tried to stay at the every edge of effective weapons range.

The Tomb Spyder was confined to melee combat, but it was incredibly dangerous when it did lay its claws upon its target. Something that could rip gue'la vehicles apart would easily do untold damage to a "soft" target like a XV-25. Even worse, its armor was so thick over its "vital" components, it was nearly impossible for even a fusion blaster to pierce it reliably beyond uncomfortably short range. Most of the pilots involved already knew it: that creature was quick when it wished to be, and it the Necron robot decided to turn around and attack the suits positioning themselves behind it, they would have very little time to react.

"This would be a very good time for some railgun support…" Tavak muttered tensely over the comms, glancing over the map on his HUD once more. "Almost there… get ready to jump…"

Suddenly, the Tomb Spyder spun and dashed towards the compact line of battlesuits behind it, murderous bladed claws ready to close upon unsuspecting Tau flesh. The XV-25s jumped up in unison and fired, a shower of glowing blue beams of ionized particles and high-energy radiation cutting through the monster's shell and striking the vulnerable parts within, stray shots severing two more legs and one of its arms. A metallic groan echoed through the chamber, louder than the sharp cracks of the Tau weapons, and the Tomb Spyder lunged up to the air in one last attack.

This time, its claw found purchase. One of the Stealthsuits came crashing down, trapped in the monster's vice grip. Hovering unsteadily, the Tomb Spyder started bashing the Tau warrior onto the crumbled ferrocrete, every impact crushing armor and bone alike. The Stealthsuits landed in a tight circle around it, trying to get a clean shot off but unwilling to risk hitting their friend in the crossfire. The monster whirled again with surprising agility, its legs kicking the battlesuits away as it kept pummeling the enemy in its grasp.

The Tau regrouped and took good aim. Another solid barrage of incredible firepower impacted against the Tomb Spyder, vaporizing most of its hull in a mere instant. The mutilated remains of the Necron automaton fell onto the rubble, and the Stealthsuits quickly moved forward to rescue their downed friend.

"Quickly, call Sandspectre's Cadre and get them to send some people down here!" Tavak ordered, trying to pull the severely injured pilot from under the Tomb Spyder's wreckage as the other pilots worked frantically to push it off. Dark blue blood oozed from every crack in the destroyed battlesuit, and there was no sign of movement inside.

"Done, Shas'vre!" Replied Keen, crouching besides Tavak and helping him pull. "They said they should be here in just a few--"

Keen's words were drowned by the crumbling roar of another monster finally emerging from the rubble. Tavak quickly stood up and turned around to face it. This one had all its eyes and most of its carapace intact, and a long cylinder replaced its left claw, glowing with green lightning.

Tavak swallowed hard.

-----

"Finally, the transponders are coming through again!" Red Two exulted, her screen coming to life in a swarm of tiny red, green and blue dots. She had never been so happy to see a tactical update. The Shas'el had been able to contact them before simply because her suit's state of the art communications equipment was powerful enough to pierce through the innumerable layers of both rock and man-made material that stood between her and the surface. All other communications still had to be routed through the little relay drones, and those were just coming back online. "I'm starting to get situational reports, patching them through to you now…"

"Understood." Red Three acknowledged, his dark eyes quickly scanning through the massive data dump that was being redirected through his terminal. Red One's twenty-hour shift had ended shortly after the communications breakdown, and Three was his replacement. Efficient and businesslike, not to mention well-rested, Red Three had quickly taken control of the situation.

"The sensors on the ground are picking up radiation." Commented Red Five, tabbing through his own share of the data torrent being split between them. "The seismic event was centered on Vre'Tavak's area of operations."

"Oh, Tau'va…" Red Two sighed. "He probably found some big gue'la weapon in that armory and decided to test it out. Can either of you detect his group's comms? Are they even alive?"

"No data yet. This is to be expected: any drones in his area that survived the explosion are probably still being jammed by the radiation. I can pick up his battlesuit's comm array signal, but it's not strong enough to make anything out of it." Red Three examined the map more closely, as well as the data stream coming from Tavak's suit. "We know his suit has survived the blast, which is good enough reason to believe the others did as well."

"What do we report to the Shas'tol, then?" Asked Red Five, once again holding a call from the commanders on the surface of the planet. Red Three hesitated.

"Tell them it was an detonation of gue'la materiel by the mont'ray, but that our teams inside the City are proceeding as normal."

Red Five opened his mouth to argue about Red Three's definition of "proceeding as normal", but a sharp glance from Red Two convinced him to simply play along.

The mission was uncomfortable enough as it was. The last thing they wanted was to have other commanders trying to interfere. Someone calling for a retreat this far along the battle could have disastrous consequences if the Necrons in the Hangar hadn't been dealt with.

[CHAPTER THIRTEEN - "WHAT WE DO BEST"]

"Coming through!"

Tavak and the other Stealthsuit pilots scattered away from the second Tomb Spyder, but not before it managed to fire one clean shot. The green bolt coming out of the particle projector hit one of the suits in the arm and bounced off against the side armor, sending the Tau warrior reeling mid-jump and smashing hard against the ground.

A second later, the huge frame of Shas'vre Haeza's XV-8 battlesuit landed on top of the monster with a heavy clang. The Necron wobbled in protest, hurtling sideways without control and crashing on a large piece of ferrocrete. Haeza's squad landed very close by, even before the dust kicked up by the impact had finished rising.

The next few moments, as Tavak would remember for weeks, were both incredibly brutal and oddly beautiful. Haeza and his two squadmates jumped, flipped and dodged, pounding the Tomb Spyder's previously undamaged metal skin with plasma and missiles. Stray particle projector beams scorched the ground around them, and claw swipes resulted in nothing but superficial dents on the XV-8's fio'tak armor. The Frozenblade's Own had probably spent more time inside their battlesuits than outside them, and their fluid movements showed.

Six mesmerizing seconds later, the Tomb Spyder groaned and slumped, it's armored hull a mess of molten holes and explosion craters. As the enemy joined its partner in defeat, Haeza jumped over to Tavak.

"I'm sorry we couldn't help you sooner, Shas'vre Tavak." The towering XV-8 sent him. "But we had to enlarge that tiny hole you made on the door before we could get out, and we aren't quite as experienced as you at… using our plasma rifles that creatively. How are we doing here?"

"I'm only glad I was here to witness your skill, Vre'Haeza…" Tavak replied, looking over the battlefield and confirming what his tactical display already told him. "We have two casualties that will require evacuation… and I think one of them was Vre'Elan'ta, our liaison… on the bright side, she wasn't doing much liaising this deep into the city, anyway…" He let out a contrived shrug. "Plus we have a few suits with damaged armor or subsystems. All things considered, I think we can proceed. What's your opinion?"

"My opinion?" Vre'Haeza chuckled lively at the question Tavak knew the obvious answer for. "The plan is to help the rest of the cadre as soon as we are done here. Given we don't seem to have any more enemies sprouting out of the ground, my opinion is that we stick to the plan and go deeper into this place. Your trick has spared us a lot of work, but there is still plenty of mont'ray to kill."

"Agreed." He switched frequencies. "Keen, call for some Devilfishes to extract the 'Finders from the Armory. Bad enough they missed out on the fun, we don't want them exposed to this irradiated area. And tell the rest of the liaison team to retreat back to the hangar, I don't think there's anything they can do here, and their XV-15s aren't armoured enough to go where we're going. Everybody else, let's go back to the main lift and go straight down, we have a lot of ground to cover if we want to catch up to the cadre. Blast some walls out of the way if you think that'll save us time, just be careful not to hit anything load-bearing. I don't want to risk bringing the whole place down on our heads again."

"Yes, just once per mission is enough." Keen said, in a perfectly straight tone. "Any more than that is just extravagance, and we won't have it."

-----

Shas'el M'yen'ka stopped walking and called for her troops to get into combat formation. Quietly, her Stealthsuits moved ahead, aiming at the large exit downrange, and her Fire Warriors kneeled down near the gate they had entered through, covering the two small side exits. The last elements of her assault force, no vehicles included, quickly entered and took position. Silence was complete, not a single hoofstep had echoed through the still, cold, unbreathable air.

They had just arrived into a large chamber decorated with tall columns. For the past few minutes, they had been exploring rooms and corridors with strange faded symbols covering nearly every surface, and bits and scraps of gue'la equipment littered that room's dusty stone floor. This cave, like all the previous caves, looked like it had only been partially explored before the gue'la archaeologists dug too deep and awakened… awakened…

She wasn't sure of what had happened anymore. The City's records had made no mention of the mont'ray, and the incomprehensible images and scrawls on the walls also looked nothing like the solid glyphs and lines their enemy favored. M'yen'ka was not an expert in gue'la language, but even those who were better than her at it attested that the writings on the walls were half-coherent gibberish, large parts of it apparently erased from the surface of the rock. At first sight, the walls looked like they had been sanded in places, but none of the Tau failed to notice the unmistakable signs of Gauss fire obliterating the words off the stone.

-----

The Pathfinders were the first to make their move. Sneaking through side tunnels, they soon reached crudely carved platforms hanging over what looked like some sort of improvised cathedral. As opposed to the reasonably smooth and well-worn stone that made up most of the underhive, the walls to this titanic room were roughly hewn, the pillars that sustained the ceiling solid but crooked, their irregular surface marked by what looked like a mix of claw strikes and weapons fire. Up ahead were two conspicuously smooth pillars, and between them a metallic-looking surface etched with the same strange gue'la writing they had been encountering for a few floors now. The Necron Lord was spotted there, one of the large insect-like robots hastily repairing its frame. Bolts of sickly green lightning speared across the chamber.

From their vantage points many yards above the floor, the scouts quietly reported on the enemy. To the relief of all involved in the operation, it seemed like most of the Necron force had been destroyed by Vre'Tavak's willingness to almost bring the entire hive down on everybody's head. Inside that cave were the remnants of the mont'ray: some of the hunched-over, long-clawed creatures, a few larger skeletons carrying the biggest gauss weapons they could lift, a small group of hovering necrons and a smattering of their most basic robotic soldier. Most of them were damaged to some level, but they all were still dangerous. It was the situation the Tau hated the most, an enemy that was not powerful enough to be insurmountable, but still enough to cause havoc if able to dig in, repair and reinforce.

M'yen'ka could not understand why that planet hadn't been simply abandoned to its fate: clearly all the surviving gue'la were either corrupted by the mont'au that roamed the surface, or doomed by the Necron presence in their world. It was, however, a puzzle she would grapple with later. The Shas'O was unyielding in his orders to eradicate the mechanical abominations and find out what had made them surface.

The Pathfinders were reinforced by most of the Warrior squads that had accompanied the task force into the underhive, some of them taking position on the platforms themselves to add their own pulse rifles to the scouts' rail rifle sniping prowess, while the others watched over the tunnels themselves. The enemy would soon detect them, and securing an escape route was the first thing a good Kauyon position required. They would be the solid firebase that would anchor the attack, markerlights at the ready.

The battlesuits would be the fist of Mont'ka. Ordinarily, the Shas'el would have preferred a less frontal attack and plenty of seeker missile support, but the cramped conditions of this battlefield, buried kilometers under the surface of the planet, made her usual approach impossible. The XVs would have to quite literally walk into the enemy's den.

It didn't mean they couldn't take the initiative, though.

"Ready the missile pods." M'yen'ka sent over the comms as the pathfinders started marking their targets. "We will only have one salvo, so make it count. Don't bother with heavily-armored targets, take out the sentries up front, then fire into where their troops are more tightly massed. We'll mop up whatever survives. It's time to do what we do best."

On her mark, the battlesuits started advancing.

[CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THREEWAY]

The two groups of Necron warriors standing by the wide, doorless gateway vanished in a flash of plasma as the Tau approached as closely as their stealth generators allowed them without being detected. A metallic groan erupted from the cathedral as the enemy started to react. As one, the forty-eight XV-25 battlesuits massed at the entrance of the room fired their deadly payload. Nearly a hundred missile contrails streaked through the air, choking it with smoke and dust as the explosions erupted all across the cramped battlefield.

The Pathfinders and Fire Warriors finally lifted their heads, peering into the spectacular display of Tau firepower being unveiled below them. There was no time to marvel at the tightly coordinated barrage, however: even the basic sensors in their helmets were enough to tell that there would soon be targets to be marked and neutralized. A dishearteningly large amount of targets.

M'yen'ka wasn't surprised to see the missile strike hadn't been enough to cripple the Necron defensive position. After all, the enemy force was composed of the most hardened creatures left after days of constant skirmish against the Tau. She ordered the strike force to pour into the cathedral and try to secure some cover. Above their heads, three full flights of combat drones also entered the fray, their weapons far too weak to be of much use against thick living metal, but their presence enough to add to the chaos. Right behind came the XV-8 battlesuits, walking ponderously towards the enemy. Lastly, the rest of the Fire Warriors joined the fight, staying near the entrance and pressing themselves against the piles of rubble that had crumbled from the ceiling with the missile blasts.

A storm of pulse and plasma fire showered the battered Necrons, who returned fire with almost nonchalant deliberateness. Stray gauss bolts splashed against walls, made wide by the constant shuddering of enemy fire upon the mont'ray warriors who despised cover. A few of their shots struck true, eating through fio'tak armor and Tau flesh as if nothing had been there. The faint hissing of stim injectors in constant use emanated from the Tau line, which held in place as both sides were locked in that destructive embrace. Above, the unarmored Tau scouts fired round after round into the enemy, making full use of the distraction the battlesuits provided to snipe anything and everything that dared advance upon their brethren.

The Shas'el was banking on swarming the enemy with both firepower and targets, a tactic that was almost alien to her but apparently in widespread usage amongst the gue'la. Every fiber of her being told her that it was foolish, but there was simply no other way. The Fire Caste Doctrine was adverse to committing one's entire assets into a single point, but it unfortunately didn't predict the sort of situation they now found themselves into. So she marched into the battle as well, burst cannon spinning in readiness as she approached a pillar to avoid the deadly crossfire in the middle of the room.

The room was bathed in green as a whirlwind of eldtrich lightning advanced upon the Tau, who were forced to scatter to avoid being disintegrated. A few wounded warriors weren't fast enough: caught in the strange physical phenomenon, their bodies were instantly turned into ash. The battle quickly became a twisted game, with the Tau forces fluidly moving to avoid that green storm, while at the same time taking cover behind anything they could find and still attempting to return fire.

M'yen'ka knew they would lose if that was allowed to continue. She had to reach the Necron Lord. Buried behind the bulk of the Necrons and flanked by an imposing group of bodyguards, the tattered figure generated and controlled the whirling lightning through some strange trick of long-lost technology. Discreetly, hiding under the veil of her stealth suit and trusting the enemy to be busy with the rest of her cadre, she tried to make her way around the mass of living metal.

"Where do you think you're going without us, Shas'el?" She heard Shas'vre T'au Kais Lar'shi's voice through her comms. A glance at her tactical map showed her three 'Vres, Lar'shi, Tavak and Doran, following closely behind her. Formerly her bodyguards, each led an independent subsection of her cadre, but it seemed old habits died hard.

"The leader." M'yen'ka replied simply, trusting her stealth field generator to bring her close enough. "We need to kill it, or that thing will consume us all."

Her officers acknowledged the new objective and the four Tau prepared for what was probably a suicidal jump. They aimed to land right in the middle of the Necron Lord's heavily-armed retinue, and they were all a hundred percent certain the rest of the enemy force would quickly react to their strike if not otherwise distracted. Still, it was either that or certain death. So they activated their jetpacks and M'yen'ka gave the order to the rest of her battlesuits.

The sound of the jetpacks quickly built into a roar as every single mobile XV-25 and XV-8 left jumped into the bulk of the enemy as well. None hesitated to fly straight into the enemy, even thought they knew they would only be leaving the fire of the whirlwind and going straight into the frying pan of melee with their robotic foes.

But the gambit worked: M'yen'ka and her bodyguards landed in the middle of the Necron Lord's formation, and the rest of the mont'ray quickly turned their weapons towards them to defend their leader. Before they could fire with any accuracy, however, the rest of the cadre fell upon them. Fio'tak crashed against living metal as the two sides were now locked in furious, point-blank combat. Shas'Vre Haeza and his squad led the charge and towered above all, vaporizing chunks of their foes and bashing the metallic creatures out of the way as they reveled in their kind of fight.

The Shas'el quickly brought her armored shoulder to bear on the comparatively spindly Necron Lord. The monster, still attempting to sustain the deadly green storm as the two commanders' bodyguards clashed around it, simply could not dodge in time. It was tossed through the air, pulse rounds from M'yen'ka's burst cannon tearing into its newly-repaired body at close range, until it hit the smooth wall at the end of the cathedral.

The incomprehensible gue'la runes inscribed upon the wall's surface flashed bright red. The wall itself then vanished, and a blood-curdling bellow, distorted by a vox thousands of years old, echoed across the stone chamber:

"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"

-----

"To the ceiling!" Tavak heard the order and relayed it to the other battlesuits. As quickly as they descended upon the Necrons, they soared once more, spinning mid-air and adjusting their jetpacks so as to hold them upside down on the ceiling. The surviving Fire Warriors on the ground made a hasty retreat, regrouping right outside the ruined chamber, and so did the Pathfinders perched above, leaving their positions just moments before the platforms crumbled.

Through the portal M'yen'ka had accidentally activated surged forth a legion of red-clad, heavily-armored gue'la, shouting battle cries and other things the Shas'vre recognized as being blasphemies in their own language. Servants of the Mont'au. They rushed straight into the battered Necrons, quickly tearing them limb from limb with weapons that looked like they had come straight out of a nightmare, but mercifully ignoring the Tau hanging right above.

For a moment Tavak expected the Shas'el to give the order to fight that new foe, but their numbers didn't seem to dwindle even as the Necrons reorganized to face them, more and more bloodthirsty, corrupted gue'la stepping out of the portal and throwing themselves into the massacre. No one knew where they were coming from, but they certainly didn't seem to care for their numbers.

-----

"Vre'Tavak, are there still more explosives inside that armory?"

"I think so, Shas'el."

"You know what to do. Cadre, regroup, recover our wounded and retreat. Quickly. Head back to the main hangar, it's time to leave."

[CHAPTER FIFTEEN - DEBRIEFING]

Listen up Cadre,

After reviewing all the evidence, it seems that we have finally discovered what happened to that gue'la city, and indeed possibly the entire world.

There was growing discontent with the local oppressive government. Rates of mutation amongst the gue'la were increasing, and the vast majority of the population had lost confidence in their leaders. They managed to draw the attention of the agents of the Mont'au, which arrived through that strange portal in the lower levels of the city, and then engaged the gue'la defense forces.

The presence of the Mont'au somehow awakened the dormant Mont'ray, who proceeded to defeat both sides of the struggle and close the portal underneath the city.

Let it be an example of what happens to those who do not follow the Greater Good. It is only by working towards everybody's well-being that we can prosper. Those who do not… are left to face the creatures we have just seen.

This battle is finally over. Let us rest and recover.

Tau'va.

-----

Tavak was quite likely the most cheerful Shas in the M'ka Voyl. He had spent the past two days resting in the Fire Caste Quarters and watching a holographic recording one of the intelligence officers had given him. It was footage of what had happened mere minutes after their extraction from the Hive City, and he simply could not get tired of watching it.

The Fio engineers he had showed it to commented it had been a rather beautiful detonation, and he was forced to agree. The blackened, ruined ferrocrete spire shuddered and swelled for a few seconds as a nuclear cataclysm raged inside its core, and the top hangar quickly exploded into a cloud of debris. The rest of the city quickly cracked and crumbled inwards, falling into the massive hole that had been vaporized inside it, leaving a gigantic mushroom cloud in its place.

And Tavak had made that happen. Certainly, he wouldn't receive any awards for it, but not very Tau, much less Shas, would ever be able to tell stories of causing so much destruction with a single explosive charge.

He wouldn't brag about it, of course, but he needed something to take the edge off the fact the M'ka Voyl's medical bays were filled to the brim with wounded, and that so many of his comrades had fallen in that mission. He had been extraordinarily lucky, only two of his squadmates had been wounded and none killed. But so many others couldn't say the same.

One of them seemed particularly upset. A newcomer, Shas'la T'au Nars'yan, Fire Warrior. He had lost half of his squad in the final battle, some shot by the Necrons and others crushed by the collapsing ceiling. Tavak grimaced at the thought of such a traumatic baptism of fire as he approached the soldier's bunk.

"How do you feel, La'Nars'yan?" The Shas'vre said, sitting down on the bed opposite to the Shas'la's. The young Tau was laying back on his back, eyes unfocused.

"With all due respect, Shas'vre…" Nars'yan replied quietly, closing his eyes. "How do you think I feel?"

"Yes, it was a stupid question." Tavak nodded patiently. "You are sad and you are angry that your squadmates have died. You had only met them a few days before, but at some point you had developed that bond we all have with those we fight besides. You lost them without warning, in a battle we did not win."

The Shas'la remained silent, so Tavak continued:

"Also, I am sure you think you are the only sane Tau in this bizarre Cadre. You feel isolated. We are a bunch of outcasts, but you did not ask to be here. One moment you were part of a proud, cohesive Cadre… and then… suddenly… you were here. Surrounded by Tau from every possible Sept, with cultures and tactics that, even though the Water Caste learning programs have taught you about, you were not ready for.

"It's quite the shock, I know. It happened to every single one of us."

Nars'yan grunted in disbelief. How could those strange Tau have been anything but broken their entire lives?

"Yes, I know. It sounds like something you would see in an 'educational' Por transmission." Tavak shook his head and smiled, leaning towards the other Shas and lowering his voice. "But tell me, do you believe in the Greater Good?"

"Of course I do!" That had been enough to rouse the young warrior from his stupor. What an insult! Questioning his commitment to the Greater Good! He quickly sat up on the bed, looking at his superior with a look that would have caused less lenient superiors to put him through administrative punishment. Thankfully for him, Tavak simply chuckled and stood up.

"Then you will learn how to fit here. Because there is no reason for us all to be here, fighting for each other, embracing our new comrades regardless of where they come from and saying farewell to those who give their lives saving ours. Sometimes it may not make much sense, but here's what keeps us all together: an unflinching belief in the Greater Good." The Shas'vre tossed a small service bead onto Nars'yan lap. "We make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of all."

Silently, Tavak left Nars'yan to his own thoughts. The Shas'vre had more interesting things in mind, he had already counseled far too many new members of his cadre, so he knew exactly how many stages of grief the Shas'la would go through and how long it would take.

For now, Tavak could use some lunch.

-----

"Shas'el?"

"Yes, Tavak?"

"Why did we attack a planet that was already hopelessly crawling with enemies?"

"You would know better than to ask me, Shas'vre."

"Meaning, you don't know?"

"Exactly."

"Thank you, Shas'el. Tau'va."

"Tau'va."

[EPILOGUE - ELAN'TA]

Fio'vre Gae'zare looked at the naked, unconscious female Shas on the surgery table and shuddered.

As the most senior medical officer in the cadre, he had seen plenty of ugly wounds, but that one was surely among the worst he had seen a body endure and still live. He glanced at the patient's stats, then at his team, and began surveying the disaster he had in front of him.

According to the patient log, the Shas'ui who provided first aid didn't have any proper tools with him, so in typical fashion for his Cadre, he had to improvise. Gae'zare was impressed at how the bleeding had been stopped: apparently the Shas'ui used his battlesuit's fusion blaster to heat up his armoured glove, then pressed it against the exposed arteries and veins (turns out he got burned as well, nothing serious enough to put him out of action). The resulting cauterization was crude, certainly not good enough to give that 'Ui a medical certificate, but it did keep the Shas alive for long enough to the medical evacuation drone to arrive.

The drone, an old, ugly and unarmoured model, looked much like a flying stretcher and had the single redeeming quality of being really fast. Gae'zare wondered if his more mechanically-minded brethren could jury-rig a better version of that drone. Maybe if they-- No, it was not the time to think about drones. With a mental sigh, he returned to his work.

The right arm, from hand to shoulder, was just a collection of thin stripes of bone connected loosely by sinew and ligament. The fingers either disintegrated in the blast or fell off shortly after, so the only thing he could see was a blackened stump with grooves where the tendons once were. He presumed the impact was right at the elbow joint, as both the forearm and humerus were stripped bare of flesh and so brittle he was afraid a gentle tap would break them. Damage went all the way up to the shoulder, which while not completely destroyed, he noticed with a touch of sadness, was also ruined. The whole arm had to go, he decided, marking the limb for amputation.

His black eyes peered over the right side of the chest. The gauss blast ate through multiple layers of armour before striking flesh, but it was still not a pretty sight. Ribs were shining under the operation light. The surrounding soft tissue was eaten away, to the point he could see spongy-looking tissue rising and falling underneath. It was the lung, struggling to keep doing its job. By some miracle, it wasn't punctured or damaged in any way he could see. It was the only drop of good news in the sea of trouble that Shas was drowning in.

How to reconstruct half a chest?, was the unsaid question floating over his team. Vre'Gae'zare gritted his teeth: it was going to be a long operation.

-----

(And that is the end of the first story in the Suddenstrike series. I'll go pass out now...)

A very fine piece of work there Omega2, I really enjoyed reading it

Really enjoyed that, very encouraging for me to finish editing Counterpoint and Wake this month.

Your pacing is good and I enjoyed the general banter among the tau. Sometimes a little too human, but I imagine there are tau equivalents.

I downloaded and read this on my way back from Bangkok last night

- Tael.