0001
The red reminded me a lot of Mars.
Of course, I hadn't actually seen the real Mars, just the fuzzy images from vid-picts and holo-vids, but the Mechanicus always captured data accurately in a cold, methodical manner, so there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the redness of Mars that the vids presented.
However, the red was not the result of naturally occurring iron(III) oxide in the soil, but fresh human blood.
"This must be where the Iron Lords made their last stand."
The Iron Lords, one of the rare Adeptus Astartes chapters that were successors to the Iron Hands, had sent a request for reinforcements quite some time ago. The Adeptus Mechanicus, having close ties to the Iron Hands, readily agreed to send help, and the detachment closest to the Genova system happened to be us. Our fleet immediately made warp translation, but it still took us two weeks to reach here.
It seemed that we had arrived too late. By the time we made planetfall, the Iron Lords regiment that was stationed here failed to respond to any of our attempts to contact them. And when we reached the site where the request was broadcasted, we found it as red as the sands of Mars.
"At least they didn't go down without a fight," a voice said from the vox-caster in my machine. Colonel Ikeda, the commander of the Imperial Guard regiment that had accompanied House Yato, was following closely behind in an enormous tank, having commandeered the mobile fortress as his base of operations. "As expected of the Astartes."
He was right. Within the charred, broken skeleton that used to be an Iron Lords barracks were countless bodies. The Space Marines were barely recognizable, their corpses burned away in the torn, smoldering husks of their power armor. However, not all the dead were dressed in the familiar black and red power armor of the Iron Lords. Outnumbering the genetically enhanced soldiers, hundreds of battlesuits lay tangled with the bodies of their dead opponents, their blue suits crumpled, wrecked or crushed.
"Tau battle suits," I muttered as I strode over them in my giant super-heavy walker. The Knight Crusader that I was in, Ryuujin, trampled upon unfortunate corpses and armor indiscriminately, its clawed legs crushing ceramite armor into powder. I muttered an apology under my breath and made the sign of the Aquila. As much as I wanted to avoid desecrating the dead, I didn't have time to maneuver my massive machine. "Um, I see Fire Warriors."
[Our analysis reveals that there are XV8 Crisis battlesuits, Stealth battlesuits and XV88 Broadside battlesuits, knight lord.]
A blurt of binary crackled from my vox, only to be translated into Gothic upon the countless pict-screens I had floating in front of me. I suppressed a sigh, annoyed at the Tech-priest's insistence on speaking binary, but resigned. As long as the Mechanicus continued to hold sway over the Knightly houses by monopolizing weapons and armor technology, we were all but subservient to them. Admittedly, it wasn't bad, but it could get irritating at times.
"Thank you, Magos."
"Er...what did he say?"
Not having the same translation device that I had installed upon my Knight, Colonel Ikeda was left out of the loop. Unfortunately for me, the Imperial Knights of Draconis had to serve as mediators and in-betweens for both the Draconis Imperial Guard regiment that were raised and trained in the Knight world of Draconis III, and the Tech-priests that lorded over the forge world of Draconis IV. It was a tiresome affair, as was all matters dealing with politics and the two races of humans and augmented humans - actually, some would classify the Mechanicus as a completely separate race from mankind - but it was my responsibility and the Knights of House Yato always took their responsibilities seriously.
"I was right. It's a Tau army. You see those blue suits over there? They have Crisis suits, Stealth suits and Broadside suit along with lots of Fire Warriors. It seemed that they weren't holding anything back when they launched the assault."
"Hmm...they probably got massacred in melee combat the moment they breached the base."
"I agree with that line of analysis," the Magos quipped, a rare instance of him speaking with his flesh voice instead of binary. Perhaps he thought it more efficient to include the flesh-and-human commander in the conversation. Emperor knows how much time I wasted translating back and forth between the two factions. "In fact, there are two VX104 Riptide battlesuits approximately fifty-four meters to the north of the Iron Lords base. Analysis of the damage indicates that the Iron Lords engaged the two suits in melee combat and clobbered them with power fists and thunder hammers."
I snorted in laughter. "What were those Riptide suits doing, fighting the Iron Lords hand to hand?"
"They must have been pretty desperate," Ikeda remarked, also amused. The Magos, on the other hand, did not share our merriment.
"Evidence indicates that the Iron Lords sprung a trap on the Tau invaders and ambushed the two Riptide suits just when they were infiltrating the base."
"That makes sense."
We moved along, our heavy machinery clunking heavily against the solemn remains of the burnt-out base, reduced to so much rubble by the Tau's formidable firepower. I scanned the area for any sign of survivors, but there were no life-signs. The Magos concurred with me in a binaric blurt.
[Our sensors indicate no signs of life. The base is completely dead, my lord.]
"I'm not your lord, but fine. We move on. I'm guessing Archmagos Styrimidon wants us to purge the planet of xenos, so we should track them down and burn them all."
[Affirmative. Actually, Archmagos Styrimidon would prefer if we don't burn the battlesuits. He requests that we leave at least some of them intact as much as possible so that we can bring them back to Draconis IV for analysis.]
Already servitors and junior tech-priests were forming up behind the imperial army, collecting the Tau battlesuits and loading them up into vehicles that would take them to transport ships that we left back in the starports many miles back. Unlike the Skitarii who march on relentlessly in front of us, the junior tech-priests had a fleet of Trojan support vehicles at their disposal, towing the battlesuits away ruthlessly but efficiently.
We soldiers should just leave them to their work.
"Then we march on."
Yes. Sensors from the battlefleet in orbit indicate that there is a Tau stronghold eighty-eight point seven kilometers northeast of here. My lord Archmagos Styrimidon requests that we make haste. Already there is a small Tau detachment sent out to meet us.
That wasn't good. Closing my eyes and trying to calm the beginnings of a pounding headache, I switched the vox back to Colonel Ikeda.
"Sir, it looks like the xenos have noticed our presence. They are sending a small military force to meet us."
"I wouldn't have it any other way." Ikeda sounded almost gleeful. "Let's crush these filthy xenos."
We moved out from the ruins of the base, the Skitarii Vanguard forming the...well, vanguard, and leading the formation. Behind them, the numerous squadrons of Onager Dunecrawlers clanked ponderously on, their mechanical, spider-like legs allowing them to cross any terrain with ease. The neutron lasers crackled with energy, the machine spirits within impatient to get into battle, and those Dunecrawlers that were equipped with Icarus arrays continued to monitor the sky for any Tau aircraft. Following their lead were the looping forms of the Ironstrider Ballistarii. Two-legged mechanical walkers that looked like one-half of the centaurs from ancient myths on Terra, they gracefully traversed the difficult terrain, their lascannons always adjusting for optimum accuracy.
They weren't known as the snipers of the Mechanicus for nothing.
I continued to move my Knight Crusader forward, leading the small contingent of Imperial Knights that trailed the Skitarii legion slightly, our formidable firepower held back just in case anything untoward happened. Lieutenant Yamada took the Knight Paladin to my right, and Lieutenant Suzuki was in the Knight Warden on my left. In this formation we resembled a spear, but it wasn't a spear meant for close combat. If we were to be engaged, I would hold position, and the other Knights on my side would move up to lock the enemy in close combat while I lay down a suppressing line of fire with my Avenger Gatling cannon and rapid-fire battle cannon to cover their charge.
At the base of our massive legs ran the spindly figures of Sicarian Ruststalkers, their transonic weaponry and chord claws humming with uneasy dissonance. I didn't see any Sicarian Infiltrators, but if they were doing their job right, they shouldn't be here. They would be moving behind enemy lines, sowing confusion and wrecking havoc on their formations.
I didn't have to be careful to avoid stomping on them. The augmented killers were inhumanly fast, their systems pumped up by a carefully concocted cocktail of drugs to keep them in a murderous rage.
[Hmm, I wonder if those Tau battlesuits can stop my transonic weaponry,] Princeps Rho-Mannu murmured to himself as he darted under the legs of my heavy suit. [I can't wait to rip apart those suits and dissect the systems.]
"I'm sure you'll get your chance," I assured him, easily treading ground as I guided my metal steed with my thoughts. The process was a rather complicated one. House Yato, and all the Knightly houses of Draconis III, were different from most Knightly houses of the Imperium. The only House we shared a close connection with was House Taranis of Mars. We didn't need to connect with our suits via neural sockets in the Throne Mechanicum. Free of such bionics and augmentation, we could pilot our Knights freely, connecting with our suits through helmets that didn't require any plugging or neural sockets.
I didn't know how the process worked, but it included reading our brain waves or something like that. Even the tech-priests of Draconis IV didn't know how they worked, but they built our current suits based on the Standard Template Construct they unearthed on Draconis III thousands of years ago. Apparently our Knight suits were based off early prototypes that were featured in the STC, but the Mechanicus being the Mechanicus, the tech-priests of Draconis IV refused to share their find with other forge worlds.
No...rather, I should say, they were content to keep their find secret from other forge worlds, reveling in the ignorance of their peers. I didn't understand their reasoning, but then again there was a good reason why I avoided politics.
Thanks to that, House Yato, allied with House Uesugi and House Takeda, was one of the largest Knightly houses in the Imperium of Man, second only to House Raven. We were also one of the most loyal to the Emperor, second only to House Hawkshroud.
Behind our Knights was an endless column of Leman Russ Executioner tanks, escorting a single Doomhammer - The Emperor's Wrath. The Doomhammer was a super-heavy tank that also served as a massive transport, which was why Colonel Ikeda chose it as his mobile base of operations. Equipped with a devastating Magma cannon, the Doomhammer traded the fearsome titan-slaying power of the Volcano cannon on Shadowswords for transport capacity. The Magma cannon was still deadly, though, able to punch a hole through void shields and pierce the heavy armor of a god-machine from the Titan legions, even if it wasn't able to blow the damned thing up.
Speaking of which, I wished we had a Titan legion with us. The Legio Gojira, which founded a Collegia Titanica base on Draconis IV, didn't follow our fleet this time, their incredible firepower having been outsourced to the war effort in the Cadian gate. Apparently Abbadon the Despoiler had returned for the thirteenth time to end the Imperium of Man once and for all...only to fall short again. I had to admire his tenacity, though. To fail thirteen times and still refusing to give up...then again, he only failed thirteen times throughout 10,000 years, so he probably had enough time to get over each failure.
Well, I had to make do with the Doomhammer The Emperor's Wrath for super-heavy support then. I heard that our tech-priests in Draconis IV had tried to negotiate with the tech-priests of the forge world Ryza to get the template for the super-heavy Stormblade tank, but all they received were mere hints to building Leman Russ Executioners. To their credit, the tech-priests of Draconis were able to piece the hints and findings together to build a cache of plasma weaponry.
Ironically enough, we became more efficient in mass-producing cheaper Leman Russ Executioners than Ryza, something that was helped largely by two Ork Waaagh! invasions of the beleaguered forge world. However, we ended up favoring quantity over quality. While we produced many more Leman Russ Executioners at a lower cost, they completely lacked the cooling technology that Ryza's Leman Russ Executioners possessed, making the poor tanks prone to blowing up from overheating of its own main weapon. The aforementioned dreadful Executioner plasma cannon fired with the fury of a miniature sun, vaporizing any unfortunate heretic or xeno in a huge blast of superheated plasma. The price of such devastating power was the Executioner plasma cannon's tendency to overheat and blow up, three times more likely than a normal plasma cannon, in fact. To make matters worse, the damned Draconis tech-priests insisted on equipping the majority of our Leman Russ Executioners with 2 plasma cannon sponsons, which further jacked up the tanks' already-high chances of self-destructing by several notches. To the cold and calculating tech-priests of Draconis IV, it didn't matter if human lives were lost when the tank finally blew up. All that mattered was the cheap tank blowing up an enemy contingent that was worth many times the Executioner's cost.
It was more cost-efficient to fight a battle that way, and human conscripts were in plentiful supply.
That was also the reason why the armor infantry of Draconis III were mostly equipped with plasma guns. About half the infantry used heavy flamers and flamers, but slightly more than half deployed with plasma guns. Colonel Ikeda himself wielded a plasma pistol while his command team were all armed with plasma guns. I just hoped the veteran troopers didn't blow themselves up with their deadly but volatile weapons - it would be a waste of lives and good combat experience. Thankfully, Ikeda possessed an Aquila's Kurov, which gave his armored unit Preferred Enemy. In his words, his unit's plasma weapons would prefer killing their enemies than blowing themselves up (basically, the Emperor with all of His merciful grace, allowed us to re-roll Gets Hot! rolls of ones).
Above the line of armored tanks flew a small squadron of Vendettas that were seconded to us, the Imperial navy pilots tasked with blowing up enemy armor with their trio of lascannons. If the enemy had APCs, the Vendettas would crack them open with searing beams of red destruction, which allowed the Leman Russ Executioners to bath the infantry within in plasma fury.
That was the logic anyway.
Lumbering behind us were the silent behemoths of the Legio Cybernetica, Kastelan robot maniples that were escorted by cybernetica datasmiths who scurried alongside their hulking charges. Magos Sigmar, the tech-priest who constantly updated me on data and analysis regarding our mission, strode closely to the Kastelan robots, his bodyguard detachment of lobotomized battle-servitors rolling over the sands around him in a protective formation. Kataphron Destroyers, all of them. Half were armed with deadly plasma culverins because the Draconis system was famous for producing plasma weapons after Ryza's crisis, and the other half had heavy grav-cannons that could crumple any armored suit like a drink can, squashing the wearer inside into bloody juice. Considering we were up against an army of battlesuits, they were quite the appropriate weapons.
We continued on, a silent parade of killing machines that clambered over the desolate terrain relentlessly in search of prey. At least it was silent to me. Unlike the tank crews or the veteran troops ferried to battle inside the Doomhammer, I was alone in my machine, with no co-pilot or companion to talk to. It would be awkward to open up a vox to chat with fellow officers - the Draconis Imperial Guard Armored Regiment viewed us Knights as semi-deities, second only to the Emperor or the Omnissiah, and quite frankly it was near impossible to hold a natural conversation with them. Not without them gushing over how it was an honor to converse with me, or awkward silence as they carefully considered their words for fear of offending me. Emperor's Throne, we Knights weren't offended that easily.
We were only offended by the existence of Traitors, daemons, heretics and hostile xenos (friendly xenos were fine - they were extremely useful as Allies of Convenience until they inevitably betray us after our common enemy was defeated. Then again, that was why we always keep One Eye Open on them at all times).
Fortunately, my loneliness was alleviated slightly when Colonel Ikeda opened up a channel to me.
"What do you think the Tau are doing on such a world so far out in the Damocles Gulf? Didn't the Ethereal, or whatever those blue-skinned xenos call their leaders, decree this sector as the forbidden zone or something?"
"I don't know. Maybe they lifted the ban or something. Who knows what these xenos are thinking?"
Ikeda laughed. "True, that. Only the Emperor knows."
I smiled as well, warming up to the conversation and relieved at decent human contact. To be honest, I much preferred talking to the enthusiastic human soldiers of the Imperial Guard than the cold, emotionless machine-men of the Mechanicus. Even if the act of warm camaraderie was an illusion, it was still a vital human psychological reaction, one that allowed me to fight at peak condition. I had no doubt the Mechanicus was listening in to our dialogue - they probably tapped into all vox channels and recorded every word - but they rarely spoke unless it was to further the mission or issue an order.
Like now, for example.
"Lord Knight, Colonel Ikeda. We have detected enemy movement at approximately three kilometers southwest."
Magos Sigmar, the tech-priest Dominus leading the Skitarii legions and legio cybernetica robots, spoke up, cutting into our conversation unfeelingly. I frowned at his words, surprised by the new direction.
"Southwest? Weren't the enemies coming from the base in the northeast?"
"Affirmative. There is a twenty-seven point three four percent chance that they are aiming to attack us via a flanking maneuver."
"That's quite low. So what's the other seventy-two point six six percent supposed to be?"
Magos Sigmar hesitated for a moment, quite a rare occurrence for a tech-priest of the Cult Mechanicus, before he replied.
"It is entirely possible that they belong to another faction that has broken off from the main Tau Empire."
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" Ikeda demanded. In response, I received a few picts from the Skitarii Rangers that had spotted the enemy. Ikeda must have received them too, because he continued after a few moments. "Okay, I see them, but they look the same to me. They're all dressed in battlesuits. It's clear that they are preparing for an attack."
"Yes, but not us. The weapons on those battlesuits are lowered and powered down, and the ones at the back are directing their long-range artillery units at the other Tau army that is approaching us."
"That's not all," I added as I swept my eyes over the pict-screens, studying the new Tau forces. "The ones we saw back at the Iron Lords base, the battlesuits that attacked the Astartes? They were all blue. This new Tau force is entirely red."
As red as Mars. I smirked, but didn't voice out the thought. Any xenos that bore a huge semblance to the color of the Mechanicus's prime homeworld couldn't be all that bad.
"Not only that, this Tau faction is hailing us and requesting for communication," Sigmar continued apprehensively. "How should I respond?"
"How do we know if it's a trick? They could shoot at us the moment we turn our weapons away from them."
"They are Tau," I replied grudgingly. "If they wanted to shoot us, they would have fired upon us long ago from further away. I'll be honest. In a contest of range and firepower, the Tau are superior. We only have the advantage when we move in and close up on them."
In other words, there was no benefit for this new Tau force to throw away their tactical advantages and allow us to approach them. They knew as well as we did that they were completely hopeless and outmatched in melee combat. Glancing at the pict-screen again, I saw several red Broadside battlesuits pointing their heavy rail rifles not at us, but at the blue Tau army. The towering red Riptide at the back also had his ion accelerator fixed on the blue Stealth suits, most likely awaiting an order from his commander. The Hammerhead gunships beside the Riptide were also all facing in the northeast direction, and I knew from experience that if the red Tau faction wanted us dead, those Hammerhead gunships would have blasted our Imperial Knights apart with their super long-range railguns.
It was obvious they wanted to talk to us, not fight.
It didn't take me long to decide. Opening up a vox channel, I finally responded to Sigmar's question.
"All right. Power down our weapons and approach the red Tau army cautiously. Let's hear what they have to say."