Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40,000 it is owned by Games Workshop.

Death in the East

Chapter 2

An artillery officer stood on top of a raised platform, binoculars held against his eyes with one hand, while his other hand held his officer's saber aloft. "FIRE!" he barked, while bringing the saber down sharply.

In response, the six Basilisks of First Battery of the 1032nd Konigsberg Artillery Regiment opened fire next to the officer. It was like thunder going off, and would have deafened the man but for the ear protectors he was wearing. The gun crews likewise wore similar protection even as they bustled at the Basilisks, clearing away spent shell casings and loading the next round. In a matter of seconds, the battery fired again, the thunder of their guns mingling with those from second and third batteries nearby, and the batteries of other artillery units nearby.

The liberation of Balor Prime had bogged down, now entering its third month. The spaceports and their towns had fallen quickly, but the main cities were only just coming under siege, with the Imperial Guard still struggling to sift out highly-mobile Tau forces in the countryside. The Tau had simply refused to engage the Imperial armored spearheads head-on, instead adopting a strategy of ambushes in favorable terrain and decapitation strikes against field commanders.

This had taken a heavy toll on the Imperial Guard, with the approaches to Grand Balor now littered with the burned-out husks of Imperial tanks and piles of rotting corpses. Ironically, the latter had led to the development of an unofficial and wordless agreement between Imperial and Tau commanders. That is, in the interest of preventing the spread of disease between either of their forces, there would be no interference with grave detail.

For the Imperium, this involved Hellhounds or heavy flamer-armed Chimeras setting the corpses on fire. And for the Tau, flamer-armed battlesuits did likewise. Either way, once the corpses were cleared from the battlefield, it left them ashen wastes littered with charred bones. Those same bones were then crushed underfoot as the Imperial Guard launched attack after attack, and then replaced with more bones as the freshly-fallen were subsequently burned to ash.

"Battery, adjust firing solutions as follows!" the officer barked, the gun crews responding quickly to adjust the Basilisks' aim.

In the end, with the failure of armored assault, Imperial Command had switched tactics. Instead of armor, artillery would now lead the way, concentrated fire pummeling known Tau positions, and using creeping barrages to cover mechanized assault. Entire small towns and villages had been wiped from the map, troops poking through the ruins finding the wreckage of hidden Tau supply posts which vindicated the new tactical paradigm of the campaign.

With their logistics collapsing and their casualties skyrocketing, the Tau had fallen back to the main cities. However, the approaches thereof were still heavily-fortified, with the Tau surprisingly well-suited for artillery duels and mechanized warfare. Mass infantry assault less so, but the Imperial Guard couldn't resort to such methods here, as they didn't have the numbers for it. Not in this theater, with their relatively-elite (by Imperial Guard standards) needing to be conserved instead of being thrown away in Human wave attacks.

"FIRE!"

Again, the Basilisks shook the ground and sky alike, raining down explosive and burning death on the Tau fortifications in the distance.

"The javelin flies." a stooped and withered man in green robes tonelessly said. "Alien metal and inhuman artifice are filled with malicious intent. They would take the head and leave the body dead."

General Arthur Dusseldorf glanced at the sanctioned psyker assigned to his command squad. Having pronounced his prognostication, the man had shrunk on himself, muttering mantras and prayers while tightly clutching an icon of the Emperor that doubled as his psychic focus. The meaning was clear, though. The Tau had been launching constant decapitation strikes for months now, decimating the Imperial officer corps and leading to a wide sweep of field promotions to replace them.

It had caused quite the grumbling among the more aristocratic officers, but that had ended after Commissar Yao of the 223rd Ostafrika Light Infantry had the regiment's XO flogged - with a hundred lashes no less - for canceling a planned operation, simply on account of one company officer lacking an aristocratic pedigree. Considering this had left a gap in the line which nearly led to over fifty thousand men getting overrun by a Tau counterpart, and only prevented thanks to heroic actions by the 92nd Sankt Petersburg Armored Guards (at the cost of twenty tanks lost and of which only ten could be repaired), the man should count himself lucky that the commissar hadn't simply put a bolt round through his head.

More importantly, and back to the present, the general could hear the Hydra batteries protecting the central command post opening up, along with the sounding of alarms. "Emergency!" an operator barked from his station. "Aerial assault by sixteen battlesuits! First response teams are already counterattacking, but heavy casualties!"

"Bring it up on the tactical holo!" Dusseldorf barked.

The tactical holo shifted from theater view to local view, showing the skirmish engulfing the central command post. One force of eight battlesuits was cutting through mechanized infantry towards the Hydras of the air defense station, while another force of eight battlesuits was similarly cutting their way towards the void shield generators which protected the central command post from heavy ordnance. At the same time, drones were running amok across the base, tying down troops and forcing the Imperial Guard to spread itself thin.

"...they're trying to take down our shields and air defenses." the general realized after a moment.

"A distraction…?" his adjutant asked.

"Yes…and no." the general said with a shake of his head. "They're opening the way for another force, and once that force arrives, they'll be a distraction while it hits their real target."

"Should we evacuate, sir?" the adjutant asked.

"No." the general said with another shake of his head. "We'll stand our ground…have Wotan Squad on standby."

The adjutant squad blinked then glanced at the commissar assigned to the general's staff, but when the man didn't say anything, the adjutant simply saluted. "Sir!" he said, before rushing off to relay the general's orders.

"Wotan Squad…" Commissar Edward Myrlan said with a grimace.

Dusseldorf shrugged. "They are tools provided to us by the Emperor." he said. "Dangerous tools, to be sure, but tools nevertheless. And tools are meant to be used."

"True…" Edward admitted. "...and there's no point in wasting pity on the xenos about to get what's coming to them."

"Quite…but it's no guarantee yet." Dusseldorf said, eyes fixed on the tactical holo. Imperial Guard mechanized infantry was taking heavy casualties while trying to stop the battlesuits, but they were fighting. On the holo, Dusseldorf saw squads fanning out, taking cover behind vehicles both functional and wrecked, on the ground, or even against piles of corpses. Lasguns hammered away at the battlesuits, as did the heavy bolters and multilasers of Imperial chimeras. A few Guardsmen had missile launchers, and used them well.

Two, no, three of the battlesuits gunning for the void shield generators were already down, even as the aliens annihilated squad after squad with flamers and burst cannons. Chimeras exploded or went up in flames thanks to fusion blasters and missile pods, but still the Imperial Guard fought on.

They fought and died, but they fought to the bitter end, regardless. "Emperor, take them to your side." Dusseldorf silently prayed before turning back to the commissar. "If our men can stop them from destroying either or both the Hydras and shield generators, then they'll have to abort this sortie of theirs."

"Then Wotan Squad won't have to be deployed." Edward said.

"Yes." Dusseldorf simply said.

Edward hummed, turning back to the holo, watching as the battle continued to unfold over ten minutes that seemed to last ten hours. Another battlesuit belonging to the Tau force gunning for the shield generators was taken down, while the drones wreaking havoc across Imperial lines were slowly but steadily hunted down.

As for the force gunning for the Hydras, three were gunned down before they could reach the Hydras, with a fourth getting taken out by a lucky burst of fire from a Hydra's heavy bolter. Then, to the consternation of the men watching, the Hydras began to explode one after the other, gun crews scattering as their machines were blown to shreds.

"Wotan Squad, stand-to!" Dusseldorf barked over a priority channel. "Aerial insertion inbound! Standby to intercept!"

"...acknowledged."

With the Hydras down, the main force of the Tau could arrive, another eight Crisis suits piloted by elite Fire Caste Shas'Vre and supported by a Riptide. They dropped in right in front of the central building, the Crisis suits dual-wielding plasma rifles and escorting gun drones gunning down the Stormtroopers doing guard duty. Missiles from the Riptide's shielded missile drones exploded harmlessly against the blast doors, and while its dual fusion blaster managed to burn away the blast doors' outer layers to expose the core, even they couldn't blow it open.

"Shas'O, engaging Nova Reactor overdrive." the Riptide pilot warned over the encoded line. "Stand clear."

"Acknowledged, Shas'Vre." the Shas'O replied. "We'll provide cover."

The Riptide pilot didn't reply, already engaging safeties and redundant systems while bringing her battlesuit's Nova Reactor up to overdrive. A high-pitched whine began to build as alarms whined in the cockpit, gauges redlining one after the other. "Overdrive engaged," the pilot began. "Dual fusion blaster firing now!"

There was a blinding flash of light, and the blast doors blew inward in a jet of atomized adamantium alloy. Simultaneously, the Riptide pilot brought up her ion accelerator, her battlesuit's blacksun filter already picking up multiple enemy signatures inside. More gue'la Stormtroopers, along with Chimera APCs, and even a hulking Leman Russ Demolisher.

"Enemy units spotted." she warned. "Firing ion accelerator on overdrive."

Again, light flashed, and temperatures inside the bay spiked. Then fire gusted out of the ruined blast doors, as the ion accelerator killed everyone and destroyed everything inside. "Route is clear." the Riptide pilot said, backing away and taking up a covering position, her early-warning overrides warning of approaching gue'la CAS aircraft, Vendettas or Valkyries based on their visual profiles. "Will provide cover as planned, Shas'O."

"Acknowledged…for the Greater Good, Shas'Vre."

"For the Greater Good, Shas'O."

The Crisis suits marched into the bay leading into the Imperial command center, while the Riptide provided cover behind them, its ion accelerator already shooting Vendettas and Valkyries out of the sky. Inside, the Crisis suits loped forward, crushing burned corpses and knocking wrecked vehicles aside with every step. In the distance, another pair of doors blocked their way, the Shas'O bringing up a plasma rifle to blow them open.

Unexpectedly, they opened, allowing six hooded fingers in green robes to emerge. That brought the Tau up short, as they clearly weren't soldiers. Were they to negotiate terms of surrender? Unlikely, but not impossible, and certainly not undesirable, either. The Greater Good accepted any and all willing to accept the wisdom and guidance of the Luminous Caste towards a brighter and better tomorrow.

Still, this was a battlefield, and they had to be prudent.

"You there!" the Shas'O barked. "Identify yourselves, and the reason for your presence!"

The six figures stopped, and then reaching up, pulled their hoods back. They were all gue'la, four men and two women. The man and woman - or were they boy and girl - in front were short and childish, with silvery hair that framed faces set with an expression of haughty and mocking amusement.

Plasma erupted and permacrete flooring exploded in molten shards as another Crisis suit fired a warning shot. "Cease and desist!" its pilot barked. "Answer the Shas'O's questions, or be treated as hostile!"

Then everything went to hell.

Hansel and Gretel smiled wider, the twin biomancers of Wotan Squad sharing their amusement with each other through their telepathic link. Faster than the Tau could process, they linked hands, followed by their eyes flashing white-hot as they opened the doors of their souls. Power from the Warp flooded through, filtered by their soul-binding before being reshaped by their minds into forms compatible with reality. The transmuted energy flashed through their nervous systems, nerves dying from shock only to be repaired and resurrected at the exact time, the damage to surrounding tissues similarly healing even as they burned from excessive amounts of energy.

That same excess of energy flooded from the twins' bodies, causing them to float into the air, lightning coursing over their bodies and overflowing into the air and down into the ground. In the time it took for the Tau reflexes to kick in and just as they were about to pull the triggers on their weapons, Hansel and Gretel unleashed an electrical tempest.

Sensors shorted out. Shields overloaded. Weapons locked down. Armor melted and electronics began to fry. The tempest didn't last long, barely five seconds in fact, but in that time, four Crisis suits were left inactive hulks, their pilots still alive but trapped inside metal tombs.

The remaining Crisis suits weren't idle, though. As soon as the tempest died, secondary systems and redundant features kicked in, allowing them to open fire with their plasma rifles. But in the time it took to do that, Hansel and Gretel stepped back, healing each other's injuries as the Brothers Sturm and Drang stepped forward.

Grim-faced with close-cropped hair and features that might as well have been chiseled from granite, the telekine brothers of Wotan Squad raised powerful kine fields that would have stopped an artillery bombardment. Compared to that, the plasma rifles of the Crisis suits were nothing.

Even so, the Tau kept on firing, aiming to wear the brothers down, but like the stone their features were commonly compared to, they stoically bore the fury of the alien without complaint. It certainly helped that their specialization, telekinesis, was the simplest of all psychic arts. There was nothing particularly esoteric about what they were doing, they simply channeled the power of the Warp through their souls before mentally turning that power into force where there was none.

With it, they could crush tanks with a thought, send men flying with a gesture…

…and in this case, simply stop plasma rounds in mid-air.

That, and allow friendly attacks to pass through their kine fields without needing to drop them in the first place. And so, Lorelei stepped forward, until Wotan Squad's telepath was standing just a step before Sturm and Drang. A thin woman with long dark hair, she would have passed for beautiful with her high cheekbones, thin eyebrows, and close-set eyes. Unfortunately, she was a psyker, and so most people tended to avoid her.

Momentarily muttering mantras and prayers while keeping her eyes downcast and demure, she raised her face in the next moment, and took a deep breath. Then she screamed.

Lorelei opened herself to the Warp, anchoring her soul and mind to the soul-binding with the Emperor while letting her body become a conduit to the madness on the other side of the veil. Her scream turned that madness into reality, the Shas'O screaming in turn as her blood turned into quicksilver and the mechanisms of her battlesuit went dead.

The other pilots died just as horribly. One aged to death in a single second, and in the next, his body was naught but dust. Another pilot was simply transmuted into solid gold, while the last pilot was simply…gone. Later analysis of his battlesuit's cockpit recorders showed that one moment, he was there, and the next, he was gone.

It was hypothesized that he had either been erased from existence, which would have been a mercy, or he'd somehow been folded into the Warp, which would have been very…unpleasant, to say the least.

As the battlesuits collapsed lifelessly, Lorelei continued to scream, tears of blood pouring down her cheeks. Reality began to buckle and ghostly whispers began to be heard, then Sturm and Drang reached out and pushed a button at a psi-implant at the base of Lorelei's neck.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Lorelei collapsed, her connection to the Warp simply shut by Imperial techno-sorcery. Reality reasserted itself, and the whispers vanished. Hansel and Gretel rushed forward, already beginning to patch up their fallen fellow psyker, while Sturm and Drang looked back to the last battlesuit, which was being pummeled with lascannon fire from Vendettas and long-rang ordnance from newly-arrived Leman Russ Vanquishers from the 552nd Sankt Polten Armored Regiment.

The two brothers looked at each other, tempted to join the fight with kine lances that could sheer through armor like a hot knife through butter. But, ultimately, they decided not to. The rest of the Imperial Guard clearly had a handle on things, and so there was no reason to use their powers.

First lesson of responsible psychic power use: only use it when there's no other option.

A lesson proven true when the Riptide finally collapsed, reduced to a smoking hulk by repeated hits from Vanquisher cannons and lascannons.

"T-t-t-this is Wotan Squad…Lieutenant Lorelei…speaking…" the telepath gasped into her comm-bead. "...mission…accomplished…"

"Interesting…very interesting…"

Farseer Eleria opened her eyes, seated cross-legged on a dais in her meditation chamber aboard the Dragonship Immortal's Blade. The flagship of the fleet given to her by the Court of the Young King for this expedition, it was hidden from primitive Imperial and even more primitive Tau sensors by superior Eldar cloaking technology. While the rest of the fleet awaited her command in the Webway, her ship along with its escorts was lurking in realspace, not far from Balor Prime, the better to observe the opening moves of this performance.

The Farseer smiled, turning to look at the senior warlock present, the rest of the warlocks continuing to meditate while he had opened his eyes. He spoke neither with his voice nor his mind, but the question was clear.

"The Humans have brought powerful psykers, at least by their standards, here." Eleria said, before tilting her head at another unspoken question. "No, my old friend, we shall not act against them, not simply because."

Eleria paused, casting the runes and tracing the paths of the future-present for several moments. "They may yet be enemies," she said. "But it is not set in stone. If they stand against us, they will die, but until then, there is no reason to spill their blood."

The warlock closed his eyes and bowed his head, returning to meditation. Eleria, however, rubbed her chin, eyes narrowed. Here and now, surrounded by warlocks, she could not use the Emperor's Tarot, and so settled for a sigh while rubbing her lover's spirit stone, the faintly-glowing gem affixed to a wraithbone band around her left wrist, delicate chains of gold winding over white gloves to the golden ring on her ring finger.

"What will be, will be, I suppose." she mused. "It is not for the Eldar to toss caution into the wind, and act on the spur of the moment, taking things as they come. That is the Human way. But…sometimes, wisdom may be found in the unlikeliest of places."

With that perverse thought in mind, Eleria settled back into meditation, sinking into the currents of the Sea of Dreams and following the future-present as it swirled and changed with the echoes of reality. It was then that she sensed another drawing on the currents, no, not drawing on them, following them.

A seer then, such that the Humans had.

Drawing veils of thought and imagination around her, Eleria followed the other seer's draw, and so cloaked, perceived it. It was a Human, stooped and withered before its years by the strain its gifts wrought on its body. Sympathy and pity struck at her, and once again she understood the Golden King's desire to uplift his people, so that simply having the powers they had did not wound them so.

Not all, true, but such promising Humans were few and far in between.

The other seer bowed and genuflected before an icon of the Golden King, who sat on his Throne of Gold with a stern and imperious gaze. In his hands, the seer clutched another icon, crystalline micro-circuitry woven within the Human seer's power.

"I see…I see…my lord, I see!" the seer frantically spat. "I see her, the debased witch, who hungers for vengeance! Is she friend or foe? I cannot see, I cannot see, my lord, I cannot see!"

Eleria frowned then, distancing herself and allowing a current of dreams and nightmares to separate herself from the Human seer. Was he referring to her, or someone else? If he truly was referring to her, though…

"...not the most flattering description, but hardly untrue…" Eleria reluctantly conceded. "...even in Commoragh they would see me as I truly am as a depraved profligate…though such is not necessarily a character fault among the Kin of Commoragh…"

With a mental sigh, Eleria again turned her gaze to the ever-shifting paths of the future-present.

A/N

Strange as it might sound, the character ticks of Wotan Squad are actually canon, based on the old FFG rulebooks. Biomancers tend to be haughty and even sadistic bastards, since their powers let them stay physically young and beautiful when they should already be withered husks. That, and heal from wounds that should kill or stay perpetually healthy.

Similarly, telepaths are paranoid fucks from being able to see into just about everybody else and what kind of sick fucks everyone actually is deep down. Diviners are gloomy pricks from being able to see how everyone is but a puppet of fate (Tzeentch approves!), while pyromancers are straightforward pyromaniacs. Telekines, though, are the most stable, as the way they reflect their powers cause them to become stern and stoic with strong and unyielding wills.

It doesn't happen to every psyker, but more often than not (especially since most Human psykers don't even come close to Magnymagic or Malcador the Everyman, much less Big Boss Goldload Chairsitta) it does.