AN – hi, this is my first fanfiction. ;) tell me what you think. -reddragon
Q-15 the artifact world of the Tau. This small planet was covered by jungles that stretch as far as the eye could see, these jungles held unfortold horrors for those who dared to venture into them. The only breaks in the jungle were made by ravines and mountain ranges. Which would appear without warning for those in the jungle. From the air, these areas were just as deadly due to the low lying clouds that always seemed to cover the planet with fog and heavy rain, which could last for years, and in turn flood large proportions of Q-15.
These environmental threats were all too common for Kai-ui he was a Pathfinder for the D'yanoi Sept he had been given the honor of controlling the outpost that found the artifact's of there past that would be used for the growth of the Tau and for the Greater Good, This outpost housed two units of Firewarriors a unit of Piranha light skimmers of which Kai was squadron leader and a few members of the Earth caste who where in charge of expeditions to the great ruins that were scattered all over the planets surface many that had been undisturbed for centuries.
The only way to find and track the positions of there teams and the locations of the ruins were all controlled by the Air caste which sat in low orbit around the planet, although Kai had never been on the sky caste or had seen it he knew it was there due to daily communications he would receive from the Ethereal in charge of the sky caste his name was Shova Tas he was a small Tau who commanded the utmost respect from all his troops Kai had crossed his path more than once in the past and only recently had been put under his command, Kai-ui always suspected that Shova Tas had a grudge against him ever since he had flown too close to Shova's home back on Dal'yth as he tried to impress Shova's daughter Elesy.
Kai-ui and Elesy had been close friends ever since there home world had been attacked by the Tyranid's of the Kraken fleet Elesy and Kai-ui had both lost there parents in the first days of the attack, Kai-ui had just enlisted three hours before the Genestealers had attacked there homes ripping apart there families before they even had a chance to run, Kai-ui returned home to find the dismembered bodies of his family scattered all over his house every surface was covered by cyan colored blood, the Genestealer lay dead in the middle of the living room dark purple blood oozing out from its head, Kai-ui walked up to the corpse looking into the lifeless eyes of his family's murderer.
A fit of rage came over him as he stomped on the creature's head spraying the floor and face with the dark blood it smelt like rotting flesh he gagged as the thought ran through his mind that this creature had torn apart and eaten his family, his head jerked up quickly as he looked around trying to see what had killed it, he heard a crackling noise come from the other room, he ran towards the noise pulling out his pulse pistol incase he had to defend himself he burst into the room that used to be his sisters room to find a gun droid resting on the floor sparking from a huge gouge that covered more than half of its surface he thought to himself, "these claw marks must be from the creature, the drone must have wounded it as it attacked."
Hour's went past before the eradication of the Tyranid's Genestealers started on his planet he spent the next two weeks helping at out at a victim's shelter that the fire caste had set up, this is where he met Elesy they formed an instant bond with each other due to the horrors that the Tyranid's had brought into there life being 3 years younger than Kai-ui, Elesy was moved to another family for her protection this family was made up of other children that were orphaned the Tau that looked after them since those horrific days were Shova Tas.
Ever since flying his Piranha past his house Kai-ui had felt that Shova had always given him the less important and miserable jobs and postings he had always felt that his so called crew in the outpost have had bad brushes with authority half the Firewarriors had been court marshaled for the Koloth Gorge Massacre in which more than 2000 imperial forces had been slaughtered without mercy or honor, the only tau he felt confident about were his Piranha squadron and the Earth caste scientists, Kai-ui looked out the window of his office that overlooked the main grounds of the outpost torrential rain battered against the windows as the tree's outside the compound swung as if waving to him he watched the Firewarriors running back and forth between the small barracks he even saw one fire warrior run across the grounds naked holding his pulse rifle above his head as he screamed Kai-ui thought to him self "that poor soul must have lost a bet".
Boredom often came over the troops as they sat around there barracks waiting for there next mission so gambling often occurred and so did taking pot shots at passing native animals the usual prey was the Katano's it was a small hairless creature that often fed on the local grasses, Kai-ui looked up at his droid that floated above following him like a shadow, in a clear voice he said "Com's drone one, what's the time?"
The Drone replied in a deep mechanized voice "Time is 1700 Decs"
Kai-ui thought to himself "Late as always Shova Tas" as he paced across the room, the rain started to get harder against the window due to the solid construction of the outpost the weather was often ignored due to it being dead silent inside besides the odd foot steps of the Earth cast scientists walking going back and forth from the canteen to there labs.
With a loud "BEEP, Commander Kai-ui, Ethereal Shova Tas is linking up with you for a mission brief" the Comm. Drone said with the usual mechanized voice.
Kai-ui sat down behind his desk as he pulled the communication screen closer to him making sure that the horrible weather behind him was visible, Kai-ui sighed a sigh of relief as he switched his transparent screen on, showing Shova Tas standing in front of a large tactical map behind him were rows and rows of tau warriors operating systems and talking amongst themselves.
Kai-ui said with a stern look on his face "Shova Tas this looks important what have I missed?"
Shova smirked and said in a mocking voice "oh nothing that concern's you Kai-ui, what concerns you is that our sensors have picked up a heat signal from your planet that's not coming from your base I need you to check it out, its about 12 hours away from you, south at coordinates 16786 – 88362 we have had some confirmation from our intelligence that there has been some activity in the supposedly empty areas of space around the planet it could be enemy activity or it could be an ancient artifact powering up due to a supernova, we haven't been able to see it visually due to the storm covering Q-15 at the moment. End transmission"
Kai-ui's screen went blank, Kai-ui sighed and sat up in his seat knowing that he could do nothing till the storm died down he knew the Piranhas were be best option for checking out the disturbance but he also knew that they had very week radar due to his mechanic being wounded months ago by a malfunctioning drone so they hadn't been repaired of updated in a while and due to the storm the systems would be worse and with the skimmers being open aired he didn't feel like going for a fly with zero visibility not to mention the freezing winds and the treacherous terrain didn't help the unit had already lost 4 pilots to flying into the side of a mountain that just appeared.
Kai-ui knew he had to act as quickly as possible because he had no idea of how long this storm would last and if they did find a powerful artifact it would be his and his crew's ticket off the planet.
Kai-ui looked over to his drone and said "send a message to the hangers, all crew to report to the briefing room for a mission."
The flight crew wandered into the briefing room dripping with rain, the piranha light skimmers consisted of a crew of two the pilot and the weapons operator both had served with each other for many missions and years they were all bonded together by a ceremony where there commander would bring out his bonding knife and cut his palm the next warrior would use the same blade to cut his palm passing it into the next warrior this happened at the end of there training or before there first mission. The symbol of the bonding knife is the either painted onto there armor or they would attach a bonding knife to there waist, Kai'ui's weapons operator was a fierce looking tau he had a scar that ran down the left side of his face which he got defending his brother from a genestealer all those years ago his name was Delos-ui, he was a veteran of many wars on which he served under Kai-ui.
Kai-ui walked into the room as the other pilots and crew jumped to attention, "Relax" Kai-ui said with a stern look on his face, everyone knew that they were in for an interesting day.
