"You ain't got no spine boy… Fragn' blue-turd alien-scum," said Guardsman Humbert of the Shiloh 589 Light Drop, as he kicked the drooling blue skin in the ribs, throwing the xeno's limp body against the pristine white wall of the captured xeno's medical center. This was the fourth day of the imperial invasion of this here Tau world, and the limp dick aliens infesting the planets largest continental landmass sure packed up in a hurry once the 589th rolled into their little pansy-ass hab city, hooorah! This place, this hospital, it weren't but a building filled with bleedn' heart liberals. Once the 589th showed up for a little bit of combat recon most of the staff cut bait and ran. Those who stayed behind were being rounded up for a good old fashioned who-dinger!
The guardsman in his black leather body webbing, green combat fatigues, and red checkered flannel shirt customary of the 589th watched the little blue skinned short-stock man slide down the side of the wall without so much as a word while the human warrior spat a glob of green to'bac unto the floor, "Fragn' fifthly alien-trash. Should-a burned this here planet to ash and fragn' shit on your bleached bones because da Emperor hates anything not human. Alien wildlife. Alien plants, and god-durn blue-skins who gone mute!"
Another guardsman stood nearby in the doorway, "What-chu doin' Humbert. You got yourself a liv-y there? Whoo-e, looks like we gonna have-us some fun on da' bun! Let me go get Berny and we can roast the son'o bitch with a flamer I tell you what."
Humbart pointed towards the other guardsman with an accusing finger, and turned his back upon the blue skinned freak lying motionless upon the floor, "Don't you' be doin' nothin' without my say so, you yellow back miser." The two-lunatic guardsman continued to bicker back and forth as the Tau laying upon the floor opened and closed the fingers to his left hand resting mere inches away before his glassed over opened eyes. They were numb, his entire body was numb, but he could still feel it… the warmth of the room ebbing into his aching dry flesh.
He had let it in. The voices, he had let them in. No, that wasn't quite right. He could still hear them in the background, far away, at the borders of his perception. The eternal scratching, whispers, things he could just barely make out but which seemed to disappear as he reached out with his mind to understand them. These Gue'la were different. He had let THEM in by mistake. He had let the 'real' in? This, this… was real, wasn't it? Then everything else which had happened just prior with the walking shambling corpses of long dead Tau was just a, a what… some sort of elaborate fantasy? It had felt so real at the time, but now… now things had changed. He could feel his skin, the heat, the stench.
"What-choo think'n Tovy! This some sort of one dem' their democracy's? We ain't on Shiloh no more. We in da Guard now boy. Now we can go do us some proper killin' of these here alien turds for throne and race, and ain't nobody gonna have a problm' with that."
There were two of them, Guardsman of the Corpse Emperor laughing in the background, identically dressed. Kais could hear them, but he was trapped. Move! Move damn you! His body wouldn't move, just his hand, flexing the fingers one slow grasp at a time as the whispers scratched at the edge of his mind. The chanting was there, always there. He could still hear it. 'Rip and tear. Rip and tare,' like wisps on the wind.
"Woo-e, look-y what I found here boys'" yelled another guardsman coming in from the side. He was dragging a Tau nurse by the scruff of her neck collar, her legs shot and gored dragging beneath her blood smeared white bodyglove. Kais could see her out of the corner of his eye, the vita streaking behind her body upon the floor as she sobbed. And the third guardsman? Kais could see him as well, just barely out of the corner of his peripheral vision, yet… nothing would move. It was infuriating being trapped within his own body. The only thing Kais could do was watch the deranged humans as they threw the nurse face first against the empty hospital bed before his very eyes.
"What-chu thinkn' Sarge?" said one of the Gue'la, a man with a short mustache and boonie hat. The latter of which having odd insignia stenciled upon it. From Kais's perspective, the symbol was sort of red flag crossed with two blue stripes which in turn were filled with shite stars. This human, the one with the strange hat, was speaking to the taller more muscular man dressed similarly who had arrived with the nurse. Kais watched this domineering human lean over the wounded Tau medic, his right arm wielding a combat talon against her throat.
"I'm a'think' we show her a good ol' time boys," he replied while pulling a shock maul from a side holster, thumbing a rune on its side to ignite its high-powered electrical charge. The fire warrior watched the Gue'la sergeant grin wickedly and lick the nurse's exposed neck. She sobbed and tried to break away in disgust.
"You a xeno lover sarge?" laughed one of the troopers, a younger man with a shaved head. The bearded commander instantly went red faced in anger, "I ain't no xeno lover! I just believe in showin' these here blue skins their place. So, here's what I'm gonna do boys… I'm gonna beat the blue off this here freak. Then we gonna skin her and lynch her corpse up for everyone to take a gander."
The Tau nurse started to beg, and then the Gue'la sergeant looked at Kais, "What-choo look'n at boy'?"
Kais remained trapped, unable to move, but he could still hear the scratching at the edge of his mind. The whispers were there, nudging him along, 'Rip and tear. Rip and tear.' "You better speak up you blue skinned turd because I ain't a'taken none of your stink eye, and I sure as throne ain't gonna ask you again boy.''"
"Oh come on Sarge. That one there is defective. He like a sack of shit," said the younger guardsman with a shaved head. His commander ignored the runt in the group, pushed off the Tau nurse, knelt before the Fire Warrior, and put his combat knife in Kais's vision.
The voices grew in strength. The broken Tau fire warrior could see the grizzled guardsman before his fuzzy eyes, smell his bitter acidic stench of chewed chemical herbs. Kais's vision started to flash red, his strength returning. He could feel it. The anger, the hate, it was giving him power. 'Rip and tare. Rip and tare. RIP AND TEAR!'
….
"Sarge, I told you… this one here is a retar…" the young shaved headed guardsman blanched as his momentarily distracted commander turned his head exposing his unprotected neck muscles. In that instant, the blue skin jerked to life, leaping off the floor like some sort of possessed corpse, sinking his teeth into his commander's neck. It happened in a split second. The blue skins attack bit deep, sinking into flesh, and cutting the carotid artery. Red blood erupted like a split watermain into the air, and in that one unprepared second the surviving troopers failed to act.
….
Kais swallowed a huge chunk of the human's flesh, cast the surprised man aside as blood fountained into the air, and yelled in triumph. In one fluid motion, he grabbed the combat talon from the human's feeble fingers and ran at the nearest surviving trooper who was unfortunately far to dazed to properly respond. The second man had just enough sense to start raising his lasrifle before the Tau warrior was upon him. Those precious wasted seconds sealed the troopers fate as Kais, leering on his augmented leg, jammed the knife up into the Gue'la's crotch, twisting it with all his strength.
He unleashed a war cry into the human's face, stabbing again and again into the man's crotch until the pink skins mangled intestine spilled out onto the floor. The shaved headed youth, the last guardsman still not maimed, turned and fled, "Saint Invictus, it's a frag'n monster!" he yelled.
Kais grinned wickedly and grabbed the castrated guardsman's lasrifle as he crumpled over in a scream of agony. With ease and perhaps some callousness, he shot the human youth in the back as he ran away like a coward, watching with glee as the man crumbled over with a lifeless thud at twenty paces. Kais then held the lasrifle with one hand and pointed it in the wounded surviving troopers face to whom he had just inflicted a most foul wound. The Gue'la contorted his checks to spit upon his butcher, but Kais didn't give the human a chance. With a single shot, the fire warrior blew the man's head off without a second thought, decorating the corridor floor in steaming brain matter.
Kais stood there, emotionless, cold on the inside as he took in the mangled remains of the three dead Gue'la troopers. His clothes were covered in red blood. Yet, he felt nothing. There was no shame, no anger, just… the calm. This baffled the Fire Warrior. Surely, yes, he should definitely be feeling something else. The way he had just butchered these three men was barbaric, very much un-Tau behavior, and his after thoughts felt distanced from the grimness of his reality. Yet, he felt nothing. Not even an inkling of self-doubt.
When Kais turned towards the wounded nurse lying backwards upon his isolation bed with her tattered legs it was with a sense of serenity at odds with his physical appearance. The woman, despite her pain, looked at him with a complicated expression bordering upon fear, surprise, and confusion. With neither of them knowing exactly what to say, it took the intervention of the bleeding Gue'la Sergeant pumping precious vita profusely upon the floor with each slowing heart beat to brake the tension.
"You alien scu…" he didn't get a chance to finish as Kais, operating on a trigger reflex, blasted a very large and impressive hole in the center of the man's chest cavity causing the creature to tumble backwards with a sharp exhaling grunt.
It wasn't personal. Kais just thought that the human had been dead. So, naturally when he had spoken… well… some first reactions, while startled, are hard to ignore. The nurse seemed to cower away from the seemingly random act of violence, until she saw who exactly had been killed. Part of Kais enjoyed watching her dour expression twist into a contorted approving grimace as she glanced upon the remains of the deceased Gue'la who lay upon the floor almost blown clean in two.
"What…" he started slowly while attempting and failing to mimic a stoicism which wasn't present within his mind, "is happening?"
"Happening?" she asked him, baffled, while pushing up into a sitting position. She exhaled sharply several times from evident physical paint before continuing, "The planet's been invaded. They… they attacked the hospital during the evacuation. What is wrong with you? We've been in war prep for the better part of a week?"
He eyed her and suddenly tensed as all the old memories came flooding back. Invaded. invaded? Flesh being torn from bones, things, unspeakable things come from metal walls to sunder horrified bodies cowering in huddled mobs panicking, fleeing, all in unspeakable terror, "Which planet? Is this Dolumar IV?" he asked with sharp tension.
The woman watched with much nervousness as the blood soiled Fire Warrior suddenly went very alert, scanning his surroundings for what she assumed were hidden enemies. There was something… 'wrong,' about him, but she couldn't quite figure out what exactly it was. He just seemed… high strung, like a cord on a musical instrument about to snap under pressure.
"Dolumar IV?" she asked him, baffled, "That was a year ago. This is T'ros. Who, who are you?"
The fact that the nurse didn't know Kais's name was to be expected. He was one of many patients and it was illogical to expect her to know every single person, especially those not assigned to her for specific medical care. And, this wasn't Dolumar IV. Those 'things' weren't here. He could still hear them at the edge of his mind, but they were far away. The threat of demons coming out of the walls to gore him into a nasty blue paste was a null threat.
"My name?" he asked her, first with tension, and then she saw him suddenly… deflate, almost like a balloon, lowering his rifle, the muscles in his arms resting, "My name?" he replied calmly. The nurse watched the Fire Warrior eyeball her with world weary eyes and then turn away, not with shame, but with humor.
"I don't have a name anymore," he eventually replied. Something about the way man had said it made the wounded nurse feel cold on the inside. If she had to guess… the blood smeared Fire Warrior standing before her was somehow… broken. For all her skills in the medical trade, she couldn't sense a single shard of empathy in the man at all.
"So tell me…" he asked her with a nonchalant head nod, "how many of them are there in the hospital? A rough estimate will suffice."
The nurse gave the Fire Warrior a bewildered blink. Of all the questions this man could have asked her regarding the current circumstances, the first inquiry was regarding potential combat pacification, how odd. "At least fifty," she replied, and then back peddled with a hint of cowardliness, "but we can't fight them. We have to escape and find other survivors!"
The Tau Fire Warrior drenched in human blood smiled fondly while approaching the door to his prior isolation cell, "Fifty Gue'la," he asked to no one in particular, "I'll be right back. Do me a favor and stay put."
She watched him slide his hand along the exterior locking controls causing the pressure door to close. The chambers sound dampening muted her frantic yelling as Kais knelt over both dead guardsman outside of the isolation cell. Part of him found her panicked screaming… funny, as he began to strip the Gue'la kit from their bodies. Interestingly enough, he didn't feel any sort of shame from robbing their butchered corpses. Part of him knew that it should be there, the lingering guilt, but… it wasn't, and he needed their equipment to survive.
It was quite simple really. He might potentially find Tau arms and armor somewhere in the medical facility upon a fallen corpse of his own kind. But, that was a dangerous assumption to make, and he knew that the place was crawling with enemy infantry. No, it was far better to equip inferior Gue'la weapons and make due until the place was sanitized.
And so Kais performed his grim task of stripping a primitive las rifle, ammo, and frag grenades from the fallen human soldiers. As if suddenly obtaining a sense of being naked in his thin clothe isolation ward clothes absent of all forms of body armor, the fire Warrior also inspected one Gue'la's suit of thin flak armor. He thought about it briefly and decided to steal it as well.
Standing to attention outside the isolation cell, Kais finished strapping the stolen flak armor around his waist. It wasn't the best fit, but it would do for the moment until something better could be obtained. Apprehensive, he turned around to notice the nurse leaning against the door on her blood-stained palms. She had a look of disdain upon her face as if in admonishment for his crass theft of the tainted arms and armor.
Kais noted how weird that was, how unpragmatic. Was it really so hard to understand and accept the reality of the situation? Well, in all honesty he didn't care. Without so much as a word towards the scowling woman, the Fire Warrior turned and started to walk down a nearby corridor, stolen lasrifle at the shoulder, his mechanical leg tapping ominously upon the floor with each step.
