10 Days Later
Rogie Trade Damian Romero, accompanied by his tech capable crewmen Kevon Trapkin were rummaging through the half ruined Tau Government center building of the primary settlement on the Tau Twilight world of Lizarius.
Damian gestured to a small personal computing device on a nearby desk.
"What do you think of this?"
Kevon grabbed the xenos device and sized it up carefully. "Might be worth something if I can decrypt it," he replied evenly. Kevin stowed the device in hiss backpack, which by now was overflowing with Tau techno-treasures, or so he hoped.
In the distance there was a sudden burst of lasgun and pulse rifle fire followed immediately afterward by the sound of mortars impacting in the distance. Damian paused to listen to the Vox traffic on his earbead.
Alpha, Bravo Squads, advance on my mark. Keep using that Chimera for cover. Just don't let them outflank you.
This is Charlie 60, we're taking small arms fire from the tree line. Looks like them lizard things. Requesting mortar fire on the following coordinates.
Echo 9 er falling back to cover, we're getting cut to ribbons by those bloody pulse rifles!
The chatter was interrupted by a hail of mortar rounds followed by the deafening roar of lasguns. Moments later cheers erupted from the Imperial side as a large plume of smoke rose in the distance.
And that's all she wrote. We got the whole bloody lot of the xenos filth. Good work men! Set up triage at the government center. Get he wounded move there and set up a field hospital. HQ will remain at the landing pad for now.
Damian smirked. His gamble had paid off. Without any battle suits stationed with this garrison, Damian knew the guardsmen would have the upper hand. But in war anything was possible. At least this time though, the expected outcome had been realized.
"Come on Kevon. We better get to our ship, the Tempest, this building is about to get a lot more unpleasant," Damian stated.
Damian and Kevon walked through the abandoned Tau settlement toward a makeshift landing pad at the town's northern edge. They saw a few guardsmen being carried away on stretchers toward the government center, many with grievous wounds and terrible burns. Damian doubted any of them would be alive for much longer.
"Not too many wounded," Kevon remarked. "Maybe casualties were light."
"Tau rifles usually kill on impact," Damian replied evenly.
When they reached the landing site, they saw a squad of guardsmen pushing a large crowd of Tau civilians into a straight line. It was obvious that they were planning a mass execution.
Sensing an opportunity, Damian decided to intervene.
"Guardsman, who is the commanding officer here?" Damian raised his voice forcefully as he spoke.
One of the guardsmen gestured to another man a few feet away who was smoke a lho stick.
"Seargent, load any captured xenos into the hold of my ship. I'll be taking them as my property."
The seargent looked puzzled for a moment, but then shrugged his shoulders before shouting to the other soldiers to call off the massacre.
When they got onboard the ship, Kevon looked puzzled himself, "Slaves?" he asked.
Damian grinned. "No Kevon. They were slaves, until we freed them from these Gue'la renegades by purchasing them at great personal expense. Now we'll return them to the Tau Empire in exchange for a lucrative reward."