Attention all believers... and other people.

I AM ALIVE!

Even though life, school, work, and going over to Europe has definitely tried to their best to rid me, I have returned!

Here is a nice short piece for you followers and reviewers.

I don't own W40K - wish I did - Games Workshop does.

"Get ready to have burns on your burns and calluses on your calluses. You might be earth caste engineers, but you'll be in the thick like the rest of them. You'll have nothing but a wrench, plasma cutter, and your wits to get the job done."

- Fio'O Or'Xing'Ka to trainees.

Breanna II, M42.

Fio'La Milo'Zha sprinted the last forty yards to the XV202 Mako and dove behind the titan's bulk as Prometheus heavy flames blasted the area. Nearby soldiers cried out, engulfed in fire, and grimaced. Tau XV104 Riptides closed in on the enemy's land raider, but the damage was done.

Fourteen - no, fifteen, he thought, automatically adding those Fire Warrior to the running tally in his head. It wasn't his responsibility to keep track of casualties, but he found the counting helped him distinguish one battle from the next. When most of what you saw in any fight was the inside of battered gunship, battlesuits or titan, the conflicts tended to blur together. Besides, the information often ended up being useful in what was his job: maintaining the great machines in the small portion of the Greater Good's inestimable army.

The Mako had hunkered down, and Milo'Zha could hear the thrum of its rail cannons readying. The titan shifted its weight from one foot to the other, shifting tentatively to get back into the fight. It wasn't going anywhere yet, though. Most of the right hull was heavily damaged, leaving its over-sized rail cannon hanging off uselessly by its side, making it more of an obstacle than a weapon. The cannon was built into the gunship's chassis, so at least it couldn't fall off, but that only made maneuvering difficult.

Craning his neck to examine the ragged hole in the elbow joint, Milo'Zha noted that two of the bolts had been sheared off and two had fallen out. He automatically ticked off four bolts from the supplies his XV30 Construction suit carried. Specialized auxiliary arms, grafted to his armor and linked to his neural network, went to work to replace the bolts and overly damaged armor. Replacing the bolts would be straightforward enough, but the elbow's exposed interior showed significant damage. The main plasma line was leaking fluid, and the forward gear mechanism had been knocked completely out of alignment, with several of the inner workings were bent or cracked. That would be harder to fix out here.

Sixteen, he thought as a nearby Broadside battlesuit took a melta blast to the chest and exploded into super-heated chunks. He ducked under the Mako's mangled arm and began digging broken gears and units out of it. The steady stream of leaking plasma made it difficult to get a good grip on parts, but he was used to that.

Eleven to fifteen inches of tubing, a four-inch elbow gear, three Iridium balancers, a good two feet of heavy-gauge wire, the number 4 midwrench to get at that one...

His hands and the backup auxiliary arms darted in and out of the gash in a blur motion, yet his muttering was focused and even. He could bring battered vehicles back to life at remarkable speed, but he didn't get worked up about it. It was just a job.

The relex tention linr to the elbow snapped. Without hesitating he clipped it, drew a length of wire from one of his chest compartments, and spliced that onto the break. He heared a rocket salvo hit the infantry up ahead.

Twenty? Maybe more, he thought, though at this distance he couldn't tell know precisely. He didn't wish death on his fellow soldiers, Tau or others, but he liked to know where things stood. Like field repair itself , battle was a whirlwind of changing circumstances, and in Milo'Zha's experience what helped navigate that storm better than anything else was precise, accurate information.

I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I sore.

The only problem with this perspective was that it perhaps boiled experience down too much. Right now he was repairing the Mako's mangled elbow joint; earlier it had been a cracked optical assembly on a Tiger Shark; before if had been haft of a Knight's chainsword. But the routine was always the same: evaluate from a distance when possible, fight to the vehicle and reassess, then do whatever it took to fix the damn thing.

At this point in his career he'd repaired or replaced just about every part of a titan's, battlesuit's, or gunship's anatomy, many times over. Always under fire. Always urgently needed. Sometimes it was a little harder to bang together a solution than others, and sometimes he had to work under heavy bombardment or in the middle of a close combat, but it was all familiar by now. Even the Fio'Os he served under blurred together in his memory.

He replaced the main hydraulic line, then started on the trickier piston and circuit assembly. He heard the whine of incoming rocket fire and dove back behind the Mako just in time.

The titan itself wasn't so luck. Milo'Zha's work wasn't completely ruined, but the elbow was pummeled by debris, and two inch circuit cogitator he he'd been installing was snapped in half. He quickly ran through his mental inventory of parts and tools he had on hand and came up without a replacement. He did have four inch circuit cogitator, but it was twice as large and half as thick and it would never hold up to the stress. He'd have to go picking.

Hitting a series of buttons on his gauntlet, four earth caste repair drones detached from his armored back. He ordered them to repair as much as they could on the Mako while he went hunting.

Milo'Zha instantly recreated the last half-hour in his mind. At every instance of damage - armored or gue'la, friendly or foe - he noted the circuit cogitator and machinery that hit the ground, adding this long list of available scavenge to the longer list of what carried him. Then he saw it: a bit far from his position, but not unreachable, lay an XV8 Crisis Battlesuit whose's chest had been caved in by flying debris. Milo'Zha could do nothing to help the poor soldier, but that armored suit could certainly help him. A few months ago of the Crisis fio'saal had barrowed a two-inch circuit cogitator from his field supply, so he knew the armor was similar. He'd just have to find it.

Milo'Zha made a run for the Crisis. Once there, he disassembled one arm unit, but the circuits there were too small. He cursed and moved onto the chest plate, whose bolts were mired in blood. ten minutes later, he had his circuit cogitator and made his way back to the Mako, only havng to educate one Salamander Scout Marine of the inadvisability of using his skull to block a plasma-cutter blast.

He pounded the first of the Mako's sheared bolts out of its hole and had the replacement in and tightened in seconds. He started on the other one, letting his hands do the work they knew so well. He didn't feel the same thrill at every repair that he used to, but he was still damn good at it.

The last time he'd seen his old Fio'O, at least a year ago now, Milo'Zha had mentioned that the work didn't seem as exciting anymore. "Just part of being an old soldier," he'd joked. but the Fio'O hadn't laughed.

Instead, the old Tau had given him a long look and finally said, "Our machines give us their all, and we get to crawl around the battlefield doing whatever it takes to keep them in the thick of it. You ask me, that's plenty exciting."

Milo'Zha sighed at his memory as he tightened the last bolt. He watched the small titan flex its arm and move toward the front lines, then called back his drones to make his way back to camp.

Heading to report to Fio'Ui Kov'le'ka, Milo'Zha saw their chief mechanic in discussion with their gue'la counterparts, who did not look pleased. Kov'le'ka turned and pointed his direction, and the gue'la nodded curtly and strode away with her junior officers trailing her. Kov'le'ka stood in place for a moment before turning to meet him. The normally even-tempered man wore a sour expression.

"Is it going that badly?" said Milo'Zha, glancing toward the departing gue'la.

"You could say that," said Kov'le'ka. "Actually, you'd have more of a right to than anyone?"

Milo'Zha did a facial motion that was the equivalent of a gue'la raising their eyebrow in order to show confusion.

Movement at the front of column caught his eye: a gaunt old gue'la male waving imperiously, and support personnel jumping to fetch additional supplies to add to their load. Behind their wizened figure, a light automaton straightened to its full height and turned its piercing gaze toward Milo'Zha. It looked like nothing he'd ever seen. Aside from its small size, it had no arms or weapons and was draped with bags and supplies. His blood turned cold as he realized without a doubt that the machine was not looking his direction by accident: he was being assessed.

The man also turned to peer at him, and his heart stopped in his chest as the pieces came together in his head. The geezer, the piecemeal automaton, the overburdened supply vehicles - it could all mean one thing.

Jaeden Yardley, the Old Wizard, head of the Order of Free Pyskers, had come to commandeer what he needed Or'es'Ka's army.

Author's Notes

Hey guys, it been awhile, and I got some new idea for stories. Problem is writing them.

I decided that the Tau should have a form of titan seeing how the Riptides are considered to be large monsters, and in this universe they conquered Macragge. Though it does beg the question that why dont the Tau - in the canon universe - adapt the technology they apprehend on conquered Forge Worlds.

Any who, the Mako is the same used in the DoW Apocalypse mod (and not the brooding teenage, dolbak, bolbaeb, kuso-eating oomay from Legend of Korra), which any player should get if you love huge armies raising all sorts of hell. Tau automatons are simple robots that pyskers can control. Why? I don't know, because its cool.

That's all for now. Piece.