On the approach to Planet Eradis III
Kaida had donned her battle gear again. It had been repainted in violet to match the Knights of Ecstasy, but still she felt out of place among all the super humans on board the gunship. She had felt like she had become more accepted among the other astartes of the chapter but she couldn't escape the feeling that she had little more respect than one of the human slaves on board the Mourning Maiden. She couldn't shake the fact that the Astartes in the chapter viewed her as if she was Reptile's pet; maybe this was the chance she needed to prove them wrong.
The gunship approached the planet Eradis III, a desolate wasteland that had been uninhabited for some time. They were going down to the planet on the orders of the Sorcerer Nidhiki who said there was a psychic beacon at an abandoned research facility; and it was up to the marines to find it.
The ten noise marines of Squad Reptile were joined in the gunship by Squad Brutaka a tactical squad, and Squad Myrsinus, a heavy weapons team. Squad Esskrimar would drop onto location via jump pack, and squad Pantaleon, terminators, would enter via deep strike teleportation. They would be joined by the transport tanks once the area was secured.
Such a mobilization could only mean one thing, resistance; but Kaida already knew this. She was not worried about her safety, Reptile would keep her safe. The nature of the enemy was what troubled her. It was Tau. Abandoning the Tau Empire was one thing, but Kaida never wanted to kill her own kind.
"You're nervous," said Reptile. He was grooming the plume on his helmet, making sure it looked just right before he headed into conflict.
"Doesn't everyone get nervous?" she said with a smile, trying her best to control the shaking in her voice.
The pilot made an announcement over the loudspeaker "We are approaching the landing site, the door will open in ten seconds."
Kaida filled her lungs with air over and over again, breathing heavily through her helmet filter. The last time she was in ground combat she was taken captive, and she doubted the Tau would be forgiving to a traitor. She checked her gun one last time and stood up with the marines.
"Just stay with me," said Reptile as he put his helmet on, "I'll keep you safe."
The door opened and Kaida was blinded by the light from the desert, there were no features in the entire landscape, just a sand filled desert as far as the eye can see.
There was a small defence force of Tau waiting for them, kaida could tell immediately what they were up against. Two fire warrior strike teams and a crisis team. The amount of astartes ready to assault the position would over power the defence force with ease.
"Is that all?" asked Esskrimar over the vox.
Kaida nodded to Reptile, who relayed over the Vox, "Yes, we don't think there will be any more."
"It's Pathetic," said Esskrimar, in the middle of blasting off with his jump pack, "These aliens have no aptitude for close combat at all." He landed with a crash next to squad Reptile. Squad Esskrimar followed its leader and landed near him.
Reptile turned to Squad Brutaka and ordered "Search for any survivors. The rest of us will go inside and look for the psychic source."
Approaching the entrance to the research facility, Reptile asked Kaida, "How do you know there won't be more?"
"Tau always attack together, they won't be holding anyone back."
Kaida crouched down and felt the ground she was on, soft, white sand all the way to the horizon, and they stood at the only landmark in the area. A semi permanent research station and small bloodstained battlefield.
"Are you OK?" asked Reptile.
"I'll be fine," said Kaida, "I'm just not used to fighting other Tau."
"They were willing to die for their cause... so they did. We all felt the same way at some point." They continued walking through the battlefield and passed one of the fallen Crisis suits, "My guess is that you would like to have one of those," he said pointing.
"That would be great, but I think this one is damaged too much," she remarked, referring to the hole caused by a lascannon. "…and anyway, I don't know how to pilot it."
"You can learn," responded Reptile, "The first time we find one that is worth taking back, it's yours." She smiled under her helmet; the thought of such a gift was humbling.
They approached the double door entrance to the facility. It was a pretty small, building, most of the workings and laboratories must have been located underground. Four squads, Reptile, Pantaleon, Esskrimar and Myrsinus approached.
"How do we get this door open?" demanded Esskrimar, "let us get in there and be done with this mission. One of you, with the Lascannons, you get it open."
"Lascannons can make holes; you can't blast a door away with them," replied Myrsinus, leader of the lascannon Squad.
"A Krak grenade then?" Esskrimar suggested.
Reptile bashed the door with his fist, "It's too strong, no krak grenade is going to get through that."
Esskrimar looked at all the space marines standing around him, "did none of my brothers think of bringing a melta charge?"
Kaida had looked at the door and had found the control panel to the side of it. She pressed a few buttons and by sheer luck, the Tau who had come through the door to face them earlier didn't think of locking the door behind them. She pressed one more button and the doors parted.
"Very good, little tau," commented Myrsinus as he watched the door open. Esskrimar was the first one in, as soon as the door opened wide enough for him to fit, his squad was not far behind.
"I didn't know that you could bypass Tau security," said Reptile.
Kaida shrugged, "I can't, the door was unlocked."
They walked into the facility; the first thing that struck her was how clean the place was. The floor and the walls were immaculate and had never seen combat; the space marines who entered ahead of her left a trail of sand and blood of battle.
Reptile gave out orders to the squads, "we split up and look for the source of the psychic signal. It might be a daemon sword, it might be a psyker, we don't know."
Esskrimar was pacing back and forwards "Then how do we know when we find it, if we don't know what it is?"
"Nidhiki said you would be able to feel it," explained Reptile, "you'll know when you find it."
"Feel it?" said Esskrimar "This is going to take for ever!"
"I understand what you are saying, brother Reptile," said Myrsinus, "I know what we're looking for."
"Good," said Reptile, "what about you, brother Pantaleon?"
Pantaleon said nothing, he just lead his squad of terminators forwards to the nearest door; Reptile had to step out of his way, only for Pantaleon to bash Kaida with his arm as he went past.
Knocked back a few paces, Kaida did nothing as she watched the terminator squad of four disappear behind the doors.
"Don't worry, little Tau," said Myrsinus, "he is just slow to change in his ways." Kaida was unable to think of Pantaleon as the kind of Space Marine that would ever change, how he could have turned against the Imperium was beyond her.
"Do you understand what you have to do, Esskrimar?" asked Reptile.
Esskrimar grunted as he turned around to find his squad's own path through the facility.
Myrsinus nodded to Reptile before leading his own squad down another route into the facility.
Brutaka stayed outside the facility on guard and to sweep the battlefield for any tau survivors that might be of value.
"Which way shall we go?" asked Reptile, to his Tau companion, before she pointed to a doorway.
...
They walked around the facility for an hour, the place was deserted, there was no one and nothing here. But then why were there tau that rushed out to meet them in battle? Something was going on here. Kaida expected some kind of automated defences to make the facility exploration more difficult, but they remained unchallenged.
Kaida came to a small door, she pressed the button to open it, like they had every other door they came across; but instead of their being nothing worth viewing within, there were three figures cowering in the corner. All tau, one ethereal and two earth caste. Their fear lessened slightly once they saw that it was another tau that opened the door, but fear entered their hearts once more when Kaida was joined by a noise marine.
"What have you found?" asked the marine, it was Narcius, his cold metallic voice from his implanted speaker still sent shivers down Kaida's spine. He didn't look at the tau long before he grabbed them one by one and tossed them out into the hallway behind him; they were unarmed and unarmoured, they did not fight back.
Reptile turned from where he was looking and walked over to them, "Nice to see that this place isn't entirely dead."
"What are you doing here?" asked Kaida, in tau, to the three who were pushing themselves up into a kneeling position.
The female earth caste engineer spoke up, "We are here with Aun'vre Yen'tai Len. In the name of the greater good."
"Why are you here?"
"We are investigating the possible reopening of this facility."
"Have you found anything with psychic energy?"
"Psychic energy?" asked the engineer, she glanced over at the other two Tau beside her, "you mean warp energy? we haven't checked."
Kaida caught a glimpse of Reptile from the corner of her optics, he was observing, and listening.
"Why are you with them?" muttered the ethereal, "you belong with us, fighting for the greater good."
"The greater good is a lie," responded Kaida, "the supposed cause of the Tau Empire is a false one; and you know it, because you have been preaching it."
The female earth caste spoke up, "how can you…"
"They are liars and manipulators!" interrupted Kaida, "the ethereals only 'guide' us to enforce their control."
The ethereal, shuffled over to Kaida on his knees and pleaded with her, "I am only here to serve the empire, let me help you, just listen to my…"
Kaida raised her Pulse Carbine and pointed it square at the face of Aun'vre Yen'tai Len. "You're not talking your way out of this, ethereal. My mind is free." She pulled the trigger and the Ethereal's head exploded.
The male earth caste that had been quiet the whole time yelped in shock and began to shuffle backwards; he bumped into a marine that was standing behind him, looked up and stopped in his tracks, too scared to move any more.
"You two don't have to die here," declared Reptile, as he approached the situation, "We could use people of your talents in our own operation."
Kaida repeated what he had said in Tau to be sure that both of them understood.
"I would rather die than join you," stated the female firmly.
Kaida began to translate for Reptile, "She said that…"
"I know what she said," Reptile acknowledged. "Rubex, would you?"
Rubex stood forwards with his sonic gun in hand "Of course, brother." A gigantic thud was produced by the sonic blaster and the female earth caste was thrown onto her back. The short burst of bass was enough to knock the earth caste unconscious.
The male raised his hands up, "No fight, no fight!" he shouted, it was clear that he didn't know much gothic.
Kaida said to him in Tau, "on your feet, come with us."
The male earth caste slowly lifted himself to his feet and was ready to obey his captors.
Esskrimar's voice interrupted over the vox, "I found the sword."
"Are you sure it's what we're looking for?" asked Reptile.
"Of course I'm sure, brother, don't doubt me."
"Do you feel the energy it possesses?"
"I don't know about energy, but it looks like the Tau were testing it or something. We've reached a dead end anyway, we're coming back."
Reptile had decided to keep looking for some sort of psychic source despite Esskrimar's report. They went through the last door in their quarter of the facility and found themselves in a large testing chamber.
Kaida's eyes opened wide in amazement at what she saw, this is where the tau were testing prototype weapon systems. Before her was the mighty and immobile figure of a battle suit, but not like any she had seen before. This battle suit was bigger and carried an unusual configuration of two burst cannons on each arm.
"It's a battle suit," remarked Narcius, he turned to Reptile, "is this the one you wanted?"
"It's not up to me," replied the squad leader, "Kaida, what do you think of it?"
"I've never seen one like this before," she said "it must be a prototype."
"Can you drive it?" he asked.
"I don't know, we had a basic overview of the XV8 Crisis suit, but I don't even know what the controls look like in this."
"You," Narcius said to the earth caste, "do you know how to operate this machine?"
The earth caste just stared blankly back at the marine, Kaida then translated for him, "do you know how to work this battle suit?"
"The XV9 Hazard Suit?" replied the earth caste, "No, but it should have an onboard operations manual."
Reptile had left Rubex and another noise marine in the test chamber, they watched over the two earth caste disassemble the crisis suit for transport. Stepping outside again, Squad Reptile reunited with the other squads of the expedition.
Brutaka approached Reptile, and was asked by Reptile, "any prisoners?"
"A few, but not enough to make our trip worthwhile," explained Brutaka, "the prisoners are already in the rhino, waiting for pickup. Did you at least find what Nidhiki was looking for?"
Reptile glanced back, at the research facility, "we didn't find the psychic source; Esskrimar was sure he found something, though."
"He did," replied Brutaka, " It's a Husk blade."
"Valuable, but not what we are looking for."
Brutaka looked around at the dead Tau of the battlefield, "One has to wonder," he began, "where would the tau find a weapon like that?"
"That would be fairly obvious, Eldar."
Brutaka's eyebrows skewed in curiosity, "then one would have to wonder the reasons as to why they left it behind."
Reptile walked through the remnants of battle, Brutaka walked alongside him and Kaida followed. The smell of a desert filled with corpses was stronger now and it filled Kaida's lungs with revulsion. The sooner they were away from this place, the better.
"We found another weapon in there as well," commented Reptile, "Something for my companion to use."
"Now that is interesting, what is this new weapon? A Tau battle suit?"
"A special battlesuit, it looks stronger and more powerful than what we have seen before."
"You must be looking forward to seeing it in action?"
Reptile glanced at Kaida, "I am."
Brutaka looked down at Kaida and said "If I was a Tau the prospect of using such a creation would fill me great excitement."
Kaida thought back to the suit, and how imposing it was, 'It is incredible,' the thought to herself.
Brutaka turned back to Reptile, "Myself, I don't care for that kind of fighting; there is no feeling behind driving a machine. Fighting like this frees the body and opens it up to a whole world of sensation. Fighting in one of those suits looks like being encased in a dreadnought, not what I would consider a pleasurable way to fight."
"I would never imprison a brother in a dreadnought; the tau battlesuits are no prison for the…" Reptiles head whipped around to look off into the distance.
"What is it?"
"It's a webway portal, about 3 kilometres away."
'Eldar' thought Kaida.
"Do you hear anything else?" asked Brutaka.
"They have vehicles, but I can't tell…" Reptile walked over to squad Myrsinus, and one of the marines holding a lascannon. "The eldar are coming," he said to him, pointing off to the distance, "they are coming from that hill and they are approaching fast."
The marine with the lascannon raised it up to look through its scope; he watched the hill for some seconds before letting a crack of laser energy loose from the gun. "Dark eldar," he said.
Kaida could see a small explosion off in the distance; he must have hit a vehicle.
"A fine shot, my brother," said Reptile with a big smile on his face, "Get ready, there may be more prizes to claim yet."
The other lascannon wielders moved up to stand next to their brother, they kept eyes on the hills to spot any more dark eldar attack craft approaching. Two more let off shots and one small explosion was spotted off in the distance. "Jetbikes incoming!" warned one of the lascannon wielders.
"Focus on the large vehicles; we can take care of the small ones," said Reptile, the other marines had joined the gun line, with squad Esskrimar waiting to jump from behind, and all were now waiting for the Dark Eldar to come within range. "Kaida!" called Reptile, "Stand with me!"
She ran up to her noise marine guardian and stood next to him. Reptile would keep her safe.