Unnamed Tau Controlled planet, number 1187

1120 hours (Approximate planet time)

L-Day +167

398 Kilometers from the landing zone

'It's been over a month now.' Yasir thought, thinking back to when he'd overheard Corporal Gazik talking to the platoon's officer a month ago that most of the fleet in orbit had left for some reason. There were still a pair of ships in orbit of course, and it really was of no consequence to himself on the ground, but for some reason, he got an odd feeling when he thought about there being eight less ships in orbit than before.

It was this same feeling that had prompted the thought and had drawn his attention away from the current task at hand. With shake to clear his head, Yasir looked back at Gazik. The thirty year old Corporal was peeking around a corner. He ducked back and motioned for Yasir to come and see.

Looking around the corner, Yasir saw that they were on the edge of a large paved area. The Tau's version of a public square. Save for a few abandoned tan colored civilian vehicles, the Square was empty. Yasir was about to ask Gazik what he wanted him to see when he saw it. Directly ahead of him not 50 meters away was the grey form of a dead guardsman. And next to him was another, and another, and another. Yasir counted nine bodies in all.

"Looks like we know what happened to 1st squad." Gazik said over Yasir's shoulder. The young spotter nodded and slid back behind the cover of the building.

"What do you think killed them Corporal?" Yasir asked. Gazik was taking off his greatcoat and wrapping it around the barrel of his longlas.

"Tau sniper." he said, pulling a piece of twine from out of the greatcoat's pocket. "It's the only thing that could do that." Yasir swallowed and glanced back towards the square.

"So how do we get him?" Yasir asked. Gazik finished attaching the greatcoat to his rifle and looked at the buildings around them. "We take out a drone."

~/~/~

Ten minutes later, the two Guardsmen were in the upper story of a building overlooking the square. They leaned against the wall along either side of a window, Gazik on the left, Yasir on the right. Both starring into the square.

"Tau snipers use a team of drones to patrol their area and find targets." Gazik said, starring into the square. "We take a couple out, he'll be forced to make a move," he paused, "Then we'll have him." Yasir nodded and looked into the square. The other side of the square was about 400 meters away, and buildings with hundreds of windows sat at the edge.

'He could be hiding in any of those.' he thought. Just as the thought left his mind, the wind died down, and he heard a faint humming sound, like that of a starship's engine. Gazik brought his rifle up, and Yasir fumbled to bring his binos up. He scanned the windows, and doorways, and finally the alleyways of the building on the other side of the square until he saw it. There, on the other side of the square coming out of an alleyway was a drone. It was about the side of a dog, tan, like everything else on this world, with a single red circle on the front. A thin fin sat on top. The Drone hovered at the edge of the Square for several seconds. Yasir heard Gazik inhale deeply, then slowly exhale until, just as he had at the apartment, every breath left his body and he squeezed the trigger.

The lasbolt hit the drone dead center, just below the fin. The tan machine tilted, and dropped out of the air, landing hard on the ground and remaining motionless. Gazik lowered his rifle and Yasir saw him smile for a brief second.

"There." he said. "That should get his attention. Though it'll take more than one drone to bring him out. Looking back out through his binos, Yasir saw that the square and the surrounding buildings looked exactly the same. No change at all…except.

'Wait a second.' he thought, looking at a window on the 5th floor of a building on the opposite side of the square. 'That curtain was drawn back a minute ago.' Yasir relayed this information to Gazik and the Corporal nodded.

"Good." he said, ejecting the now empty power pack and taking a fresh one from the bandolier on Yasir's chest. "Then he knows the game's begun. Let's relocate"

~/~/~

It was a full hour after they had moved up two stories before Yasir spotted another drone. This one had no weapons like the first and came out of the building next to the alleyway, moving much faster than the other one. The tan disk zoomed across the Square until it reached a fountain in the center and stopped. Yasir noticed that Gazik hadn't brought his rifle up and cleared his throat.

"Um, Corporal…" he began in an imitation of the same loud whisper that Gazik used. The Corporal held up his right hand for silence and bit his lip. After a moments consideration, he nodded to himself and turned to Yasir.

"Give me your rifle." Yasir hesitated for a second, but handed it to Gazik. Gazik in turn handed Yasir his longlas. The surprised young Guardsman looked wide eyed, first at the weapon, then at the Corporal who had handed it to him.

"Um, Corporal?" Gazik held up his hand again and spoke.

"I'm going over to that far window." he pointed to the window farthest left on the floor of the building they were in. "I'll take a shot at the drone. When I miss, you'll use the longlas to take it out. Got it?" Yasir looked out the window and saw the drone still hovering above the fountain. He swallowed and nodded. Gazik frowned and put a hand on Yasir's shoulder. "Take your time and line up the shot. Just like they showed you in training. Get a good sight picture, and squeeze the trigger. The trick," he said, gesturing to his chest. "Is to take in a deep breath, hold it for second, then slowly let it out. When your last breath leaves you, that's when you take the shot." He accented the point by slamming his right fist into his left palm. Yasir swallowed and spoke.

"Rodger Corporal." Gazik nodded and crawled over to the far window. Yasir turned his attention back to the drone in the Square. With a deep breath to calm his hands he tried to remember the litany of accuracy as he knelt behind the window and brought the rifle's scope up to his face.

Instantly, the drone jumped into clear focus through the scope. Yasir had a better view than his binos could possibly provide. He could see where bits of the tan paint had begun come off and decide exactly where he wanted the shot to go.

"Are you ready Yasir?" Gazik asked from the other side of the room. Yasir steadied himself and made sure that only the part of the longlas covered by the greatcoat was visible from outside the window. He found the spot on the drone and put the crosshairs over it.

"Ready Corporal." He inhaled deeply and held it. 30 feet away, Gazik squeezed the trigger on Yasir's lasgun and he heard the crack of the lasbolt. Yasir exhaled. The red bolt flew over the drone by several feet. Yasir continued to exhale. The drone turned to face the area that the lasbolt had come from. Yasir's last breath left him and he squeezed the trigger. This red bolt flew from the grey wrapped barrel and 200 meters through the air until it collided with the tan colored metal of the drone at the place where the fin met the body. The drone's fin snapped off and the flying disk crashed into the fountain. Yasir lowered the rifle and felt the same thing he'd felt the day the armored column had been ambushed. The feeling that something was pulling at the edge of his mouth. He was smiling again.

"Good shot Yasir." Gazik said, making his way back to him. Yasir was still looking out into the Square when Gazik grabbed his longlas back and pushed Yasir's lasgun back into his hands. "That'll teach him to rely on that 'Artificial Intelligence' of theirs. He won't waste another drone trying to find us. Next shot kills him." He started for the stairs and Yasir followed after him. Gazik stopped as he reached the first step and looked back at the younger man. "Or us."

~/~/~

Yasir looked at his chrono, 1312. He had three minutes. Gazik had moved to another building after they had shot the second drone, and now sat somewhere between the third and seventh stories in a building above and behind him. Yasir was not in the building. He was standing behind the corner they'd been at when they'd found the Square. The plan was the oldest, simplest, most common way to find a sniper. He was going to run into the Square in the hopes that the Xeno would take a shot at him and reveal his position to Gazik.

"Normally, this would never work on a Tau." Gazik had said. "They're professional snipers. They know every trick there is. So we have to trick him into believing we're trying one trick while we do another." Yasir looked down at his lasgun as he recalled Gazik's words. He'd tied his greatcoat around the front of his rifle the way that Gazik had. "He'll practically have to take the shot, we took out his drones remember." Yasir looked at his watch again. 1314. One minute left. He looked out into the Square. The piece of cover he would run for was the abandoned Tau speeder 50 meters from the building he was behind. The tan vehicle didn't looked like much. Smaller than a Chimera, and with an open cabin. It had been simply left behind by the Alien's in their retreat. His chrono beeped. Ten seconds. Gazik would be aiming out the window now, looking for the flash of light from the Alien's pulse rifle. Five seconds. Yasir took a deep breath. The chrono beeped again and Yasir sprinted into the Square.

The minute that Yasir took a step into the Square, he sprinted for all he was worth, putting one foot in front of the other as fast as he could. He could feel how exposed he was, and he knew that both an Imperial and a Tau sniper were watching him. Not thirty seconds after leaving cover, he dropped to his knees and slid behind the tan speeder. Yasir released a breath that he hadn't realized he was holding and realized that he hadn't been shot at. This was bad. It meant that the Sniper thought that they were trying to make him reveal his position.

"If he doesn't take the shot." Gazik had said. "Don't bother running again, he won't take the shot. You'll have to make him believe that you are the sniper and that you moved there to get a better shot at him." Yasir swallowed and looked up over the top of the Speeder. The building where the Sniper had originally been was directly in front of him. He made the sign for the Aquila on his chest and dropped into the prone behind the speeder and began crawling up to the side.

He had no doubt that the Alien was watching him as he crawled out from behind the speeder. He could feel again how just exposed he was. He felt the hair on his neck rise as a breeze blew through the Square. He aimed down the iron sights on his lasgun, looking at the window with the drape over it. And pulled the trigger.

What happened next was too fast for Yasir to understand until he had had time to think it over later. Not two seconds after the red bolt had left his weapon, he heard the deeper crack of the Tau's pulse rifle. The pulse beam hit it's target, and he heard a second, higher crack. Yasir looked up in time to see a red bolt fly out of a building on the side closer to him and fly into the window directly above the one he'd just shot into. Then everything was quiet. Yasir felt his body with his right hand.

'left arm, legs, face, head, no blood. He didn't hit me?" Yasir couldn't believe it. 'He had to have hit me.' he thought. He could smell something burning, he looked at his rifle and saw that where the rangefinder on his weapon once was, there was now only the charred remains of the mounting bracket. "Emperor on the throne, he hit the rangefinder."

~/~/~

Gazik, auto pistol in hand, burst through the door and into the room on the sixth floor of the building that he'd shot into. The room was mostly empty, save for a bed roll and a deactivated drone next to it. But what interested the Sniper and his spotter behind him was the tan suited body behind the window. The lasbolt had burned completely through the Alien's neck, leaving a charred hole in the wall behind it. Gazik holstered his pistol and walked up to the dead Xeno.

"Look here." he said, grabbing the Tau's head. Unlike the rest of the Fire Warriors Yasir had seen so far, this one wore a white helmet with a red line on each side. "Tau Sniper's wear these helmets. Being a sniper is a matter of pride for them, and these lines represent their rank as snipers. This one was pretty new, only one, but I've seen as many as three." Gazik pulled his bayonet from it's scabbard and used it to pry off one of the sides of the helmet with the red line. The piece broke off, and he put it in his greatcoat pocket. He glanced up at Yasir who was looking at him with a curious expression. "Trophy." he said, putting the bayonet away and grabbing the Alien's chin with his left hand and the base of it's skull with his right. With a quick motion, he twisted the head farther than it could safely go and Yasir heard a wet cracking sound. The Corporal stood and patted Yasir on the shoulder as he walked past. "Don't worry, you'll get plenty yourself."

~/~/~

INTERLUDE

Imperial Cruiser ASCENSION

In Orbit Above Unnamed Tau Controlled planet, number 1187

1556 hours (Approximate planet time)

L-Day +186

"Sir, I'm detecting a warp jump on the opposite side of the planet." Havk, the first officer of the cruiser ASCENSION,snapped out of his daydream.

"How was that?" he asked, turning lazily in the command chair so he could see the junior officer.

"Something just warped into the system opposite us around the planet sir." Havk bit his lip and looked up at the ceiling. There had been no word from the fleet since it had left to deal with the Tyranid fleet almost two months ago. 'Was it two months?' he thought. 'Maybe it was more.' He could never remember. 'Nothing ever happens out here in orbit anyway. This is probably just some merchant ship, lost and looking for the Astronomican.'

"Shall we alert the Captain sir?" The First Officer shook his head.

"No, don't wake him. No need to bother him with something like this. What is our visitor doing anyway?" The Officer looked back at the screen at his station.

"It's…It's coming around the planet towards us sir." Havk frowned. 'That's strange.' he thought. 'Still, no reason to raise the alarm.'

"Bring us around, let' s see just what kind of ship got itself lost out here." He said, standing. The Cruiser rotated slowly on it's port side, slowly turning so that the nose of the ship faced the planet.

"We should have a visual in ten seconds sir." Havk nodded and began planning what his report to the Captain would say even before he'd seen the ship. He would have to establish contact with the craft and most likely the navigators of the two vessels would have to converse before it went on it's way. It would probably take up the rest of his watch and part of the next, but at least it was something to do. Havk watched as a thin piece of metal edged out from behind the planet. 'Interesting design for a merchant ship.' he thought to himself. More of the ship came around the planet and Havk noted that it all was an odd sort of tan colored metal. 'Tan, why does that….oh Emperor no…' Havk watched as more ships came into view even as the first ship was still sliding out from behind the planet. The first ship was huge, kilometers long, and bristling with weapons.

"Sir, Tau ship off the fore bow!" Havk moved his mouth, but it was dry and no words came out. He watched more tan ships come into view, all heading for the ASCENSION. "Sir, what are your orders?" Havk stood paralyzed on the bridge. Unable to move as he watched the Tau ships move into firing range. There were a dozen of them, and more than half had moved into range and opened fire. "Sir!" The junior officer called again.

The last thing Havk saw was the meter thick glass of the front viewport shatter before he was incinerated by the massive pulse blast.

Author's Note: I you've been following this story so far, why not write a review? I want to know what you all think.