Upon their return, Leman-Farsight and K'val were greeted with cautious celebration. On one hand, the operation had been a success with unfortunate albeit not unexpected casualties. On the other hand, they had just drawn the ire of every ork on the continent including the personal animosity of their warboss. Leman observed the Tau fire warriors conducting a small ceremony for those who had failed to return from the mission. It was of course alien to him for the most part, but at the same time seemed to be modeled after primitive hunting traditions that felt the slightest bit familiar to the Fenrisian primarch. These creatures had certainly proven to be valiant warriors, if he could somehow teach them to hold a knife they could serve as useful vassals for the Imperium. He stowed this thought away for another time.
The next day, Leman-Farsight and K'val set to work preparing their defenses. The goal of the orks was no longer wide-spread infiltration, but a massed assault on the Tau formations and the dreaded red battlesuit Leman was piloting. For this reason, 4 of the 6 defensive lines were abandoned, and their defenses were cannibalized to build what Leman called "the cauldron." It was a concave formation of layered defenses, arranged in such a way so as to funnel the ork forces into a depression in the earth surrounded on all sides by Tau artillery. In front of the cauldron was a series of light defensive lines which would be manned by light assault fire teams led by K'val, which were to be intentionally abandoned to attrition the enemy as much as possible while drawing the ork forces deeper and deeper into the trap. Once the bulk of the ork forces and the warboss leading them were drawn into the cauldron, they would be encircled and pinned down by a mechanized force led by Leman and then bombarded by heavy artillery teams led by Admu. The plan was risky; if they failed to kill the warboss, they would be left vulnerable with little to no ammunition or defenses left to repel another ork assault. It was all or nothing, and the Tau forces knew it. They were fighting for their lives and the lives of all Tau colonists on the planet, all of which hinged on their victory in the upcoming battle.
K'val assembled the Tau fireteams and gave a rousing speech, reminding them of their duty to uphold the Greater Good. Leman-Farsight abstained from speaking due to his unfamiliarity and… distaste for their alien ideology. Luckily, the presence of the legendary Commander Farsight alone was enough to lionize the fire warriors.
If I had a handful of my wolves, this warboss would have been dead and impaled on a stake within hours of my arrival… Leman thought. …Though perhaps that is not a fair comparison, after all I should not expect an Imperial guardsman to perform at the level of an astartes. This trial was meant to test my tactics, not the combat prowess of myself or my sons. Very well, trickster. I will show you that I can make wolves out of any man - or xenos. At the very least these 'Tau' have so far not shown a propensity for eating human flesh or daemonic witchcraft, that alone puts them above the vast majority of alien species I have faced in the past.
"Say, mister Russ…" Admu said, standing next to him in her colossal battlesuit. "I've hunted with papa before, but I've never hunted things that can… talk."
A crisis of conscience at a time like this? Leman thought.
"Dying in battle is to an ork what raucous celebration is to you and me. They relish violence and enjoy receiving it as much as they enjoy inflicting it. The only times when an ork is unhappy is when there is nothing left to fight, so I would not spare any sympathy for them. I doubt they would even understand the sentiment themselves." Leman said.
"Oh! Well then, I won't worry about it." Admu said in a chipper tone, cocking her ion cannons.
"The scout drones have reported a massive assemblage of orks advancing on our position, they should be upon us in roughly 2 hours." K'val said, turning to Leman.
"Get the fire teams in position. Once the first ork breaches the tree line, the operation will begin. Hold each defensive line as long as you can but preserve your forces. Manpower is far more valuable than ammunition." Leman said.
"Affirmative, Commander Farsight. We fight for the Greater Good, and we will triumph!" K'val said.
"Uh, yeah, that too." Leman said.
"For the Greater Good!" Admu shouted, never having been told what it meant.
The first line of the Tau defenses was a series of dug-out trenches, designed to be easy to abandon at a moment's notice. K'val commanded a large cadre of lightly equipped fire teams which had their pulse rifles pointed toward the tree line. Considering the role of her forces were to essentially act as bait for the incoming ork assault, her nerves were electrified with a combination of nervous dread and eager anticipation. However, she would not allow herself to falter. It was her duty to inflict as much damage on the green-skinned horde as possible before the final crushing blow was dealt, and she would make sure of that. She tightly gripped the controls of her battlesuit, her weapons trained on the forest. The sound of rustling leaves in the air disturbed the silence, and the entire front was immediately put on alert. After a momentary pause a scrawny ork boy was shoved out of the foliage and stumbled into the dirt, presumably by his more cautious comrades. After dusting himself off, the ork's head was immediately caved in by a well-placed plasma bolt from one of the fire warriors. The shot echoed throughout the landscape, followed by the thunderous roar of thousands of ork warriors. The treeline burst open, and a green tide poured out. A wave of orks emerged from between the trees and shrubs, armed to the teeth with all manner of blunt and explosive objects. Blue bolts of superheated plasma filled the air in front of them, riddling the marauding orks with smoldering holes. Fire warriors were rotating in and out of the frontlines to ensure maximum firing efficiency, however the numbers of orks continued to increase and were gradually overwhelming the tau firing lines. Furthermore, they were rapidly depleting the ammunition stored in this particular defensive position and would have to fall back to the next line. K'val had an idea to both buy more time and ensure whatever they left behind could not be used by the advancing orks.
"We are falling back. Have the fire teams take whatever munitions they can carry and then rig whatever is left with explosives. We will detonate them as soon as the orks overtake this position." K'val said over her voxcaster in between firing volleys of plasma at the incoming orks.
The tau fire warriors began an orderly retreat, covering their flanks as they abandoned the first defensive line. It was a maneuver which required a high degree of discipline and coordination, but luckily the fire warriors were up to the task. By the time they had reached the next defensive line, the orks had occupied the first defenses and began looting them for whatever the tau had left behind. One ork rummaged through a pile of boxes and discovered a motherlode of plasma batteries, pulse grenades, rockets, you name it. His eyes lit up, first with excitement and then by the explosion which quickly vaporized the ork grunt in a matter of nanoseconds. The horde of orks was torn to shred by a series of volatile blasts, kicking up a wall of dust and thinning their numbers considerably.
"That will teach them the consequences of menacing the Tau Empire." K'val said.
The sabotaged ammo dumps granted them a momentary reprieve which they used to fortify their position as much as possible. The dust clouds hung in the air, and the ork battle cries fell silent. For a moment K'val wondered if they had managed to stop the ork offensive in its tracks, but she knew better. She had seen the reconnaissance footage and knew this was merely a fraction of their true numbers. Moreover, the warboss had yet to make an appearance. Suddenly, a shadow in the sky blocked out the sun above them and hurtled to the ground. It landed in the dust cloud with a thunderous crash, sending the dust flying in all directions with its sheer impact. Once her visual sensors were clear of debris, K'val beheld a true monstrosity. To call it a battlesuit would have been like comparing a Krootox to a Gue'vesa. It had heavier armor than a Manta Missile Destroyer, and possibly even more firepower. On its left arm was a modified heavy burst cannon, overclocked to a dangerous degree by the pulsating dark matter reactor visible on the battlesuit's iridium armored chest. Its right arm was an immense metal claw, a primitive implement one would use to pry open metal plating. It was painted a garish yellow, and adorned with crude spikes, blades, and skulls. The jet engines on its back sputtered as it rose to full stature. A skull-faced mask at the top of the 'battlesuit' opened to reveal the glaring, maniacal smile of the ork warboss Irontoof Grizclaw.
"YA MISS ME, YA BLUE GITZ?" he said.
"FIRE!" K'val shouted.
A rain of plasma bolts and rockets descended upon the warboss, saturating the target in a blinding halo of superheated energy. After several seconds of continuous fire, K'val ordered the fire warriors to hold. The clouds of smoke dissipated, revealing a crackling barrier of energy behind which the armored warboss was entirely unscathed.
"Damn it all, he's got a shield generator!" K'val said.
"Dat wuz sum pretty fireworks, now it's my turn t' show off." Irontoof said. Dozens of hatches on the ork's battlesuit opened to reveal missile pods, firing off a dizzying barrage of projectiles into the tau lines and blanketing the terrain in fire and shrapnel. The missiles were far from accurate, but the sheer amount of them was enough to do significant damage to the tau's defenses. The warboss revved up his heavy burst cannon, and behind him an entire mechanized ork army emerged from the tree line. Orks adorned with slabs of tau armor wielding overcharged pulse rifles soared through the air on tau jetpacks, crashing into and causing havoc in the fire warriors' ranks. Primitive trucks and troop carriers with the hulls of tau devilfish welded onto them emerged from the forest, the orks seemingly unable to replicate the tau's anti-gravity drives. Regardless, the myriad of kinetic and pulse weapons which adorned them were deadly all the same. As the haphazard yet overwhelming firepower of the orks quickly broke apart the tau lines, K'val had no choice but to order a full retreat. With an army of this size and speed on their heels, entrenchment would no longer be an option.
"Commander K'val to Commander Farsight, our defensive lines have fallen, and further entrenchment is impossible! We underestimated the forces the orks could muster and I am ordering a full retreat to the cauldron. Our only hope now is to put as much firepower on the warboss as possible!" K'val shouted into her voxcaster.
Leman clenched his teeth. It was foolish to expect the plan to go off without a hitch, but this was a drastic complication. He saw the video feeds of the retreat, and the ork forces were unexpectedly advanced even by his reckoning. It was a fully mechanized offensive force, led by a heavily armed and armored warboss who clearly had an above-average intelligence - at least for an ork. Leman brought up a live map of the battlefield on a viewscreen, and aerial drones were reporting that the orks had completely routed K'val's forces. He had initially wanted to lead the defense himself, though K'val insisted that his leadership and combat prowess would be of far more use in the main assault.
That blasted bird-god has truly found the greatest ways to test my patience with his damned charades. He thought.
"We are altering the plan. Prepare the mechanized forces to attack the orks from the northern flank and order the artillery to advance until they are within firing distance of the orks. We will hit them in their north flank and give K'val's forces an opening to retreat. If we cannot bring the orks to the cauldron, we will bring the cauldron to them." Leman-Farsight said.
The anti-grav engines of devilfish troop carriers, hammerhead gunships, and piranha skimmers emitted a dull roar as they came to life.
K'val huddled behind an overturned ork vehicle in her battlesuit. One of the ork drivers had gotten too eager and drove straight over a defensive ditch, catapulting the troop carrier into the tau lines and killing several of the ork boys inside. The survivors were quickly dispatched. It was a miracle they had managed to slow the offensive down somewhat, as they were desperately outnumbered. The tau defensive line had ceased to resemble anything close to a 'line', instead becoming a porous network of hardpoints the orks were intent on besieging. Luckily, their single-minded desire to slaughter the tau had blinded them to the fact that they could simply move past them to attack their flank, but K'val was not optimistic that this ignorance would last forever. She emerged from her makeshift barricade to fire off shots at a group of orks, turning them into viscera and clouds of green mist. She ducked just in time to avoid a rokkit which then exploded behind her. She had already lost contact with two fire warrior teams, and the rest had reported mounting casualties. As she vented the heat from her plasma weapons, the ork trukk behind her was tossed into the air and landed with a loud crash. She turned around to see the ork warboss Irontoof bearing his teeth with a menacing smile that shot cold ice through K'val's veins.
"You'z aint da flashy red git, but krumpin' ya will be a good warmup!" the ork said.
He raised his immense claw as K'val raised her weapon, though she knew it still had a few seconds before it could fire after venting. Her heartbeat wildly as she felt death looming overhead. Suddenly the ork warboss was knocked off his feet by a red blur, the two battlesuits sent tumbling into the dirt. Behind her, the exposed orks were slaughtered by hammerhead gunships surging in from the north. Fresh battlesuits bolstered the existing defenses, allowing the beleaguered fire warriors under K'val's command to retreat with their wounded. Irontoof huffed angrily and slammed his claw into the ground, shaking his head as he recovered from the impact.
"Who da hell just…" Irontoof said, his eyes widening and his nostrils flaring as he laid eyes upon Commander Farsight's battlesuit. "YOU!"
Irontoof unloaded a volley of plasma at Leman, who used his battlesuit's jets to evade them. He dashed towards the warboss, bringing his Dawn Blade to bear. The demonic blade clashed against the ork's power claw, and sparks flew through the air.
That blade can pass through the brute's shield? K'val thought.
Irontoof launched a swarm of missiles at Leman, who dodged a few then used his shield to swat one of them away. The explosion obscured his vision long enough for the warboss to activate his own boosters and deliver a backhand to the red battlesuit with his metal claw.
Damn it, my senses in this form are so limited. Being restricted to an audio-visual feed alone is infuriating! Leman thought, picking himself up from the dirt. He reached for his blade which had been knocked out of his hand, only to be pulled away by the ork warboss just at the last moment.
"Git back 'ere you bloody red git!" Irontoof said, flinging the battlesuit over his head like a ragdoll. Leman tumbled through the air, using his jets to arrest his fall. Irontoof leapt into the air and Leman rolled out of the way just as the colossal ork crashed into the ground. The warboss swung his claw at Leman, who blocked it with his shield and used his jetpack to prevent himself from being flung backwards by the ork's immense strength. A blast of plasma from K'val exploded against the ork's shield from behind, distracting him long enough for Leman to parry the ork's claw and fire a plasma bolt into his chest - inside of the shield. The ork staggered backwards, roaring in frustration. He raised his heavy burst cannon and was immediately flung backwards by a fiery explosion. Leman turned to see the towering KX-139 Supremacy battlesuit Admu was piloting, her ion cannons still smoking.
"Hello mister Ru- uh, I mean, Commander Farsight!" Admu said. "Who was that big guy in the weird armor?"
"That's the warboss!" K'val shouted.
"Unload everything you've got on him!" Leman shouted.
Admu's battlesuit reared back, planting its trunk-like legs into the ground. She unleashed a whirlwind of missiles and plasma blasts from the pulse ordinance multi-driver on her back, which flew in an arc towards the recovering ork warlord. He looked up just in time to see the barrage of projectiles rain down upon him and he was immediately consumed by a colossal explosion. The shockwave shook the earth, and hundreds of orks which were caught in the blast were vaporized instantly or torn to pieces by the impact. The hectic pace of the battle seemed to slow to a halt as both sides were caught off-guard by the immense explosion. As the dust settled, the shimmering glow of Irontoof's shield dashed whatever hopes the tau defenders had for the fighting to be over soon. The ork warboss let out a bellowing, malicious laugh.
"You blue gitz just don't get it, do yah? Dis shield could take a void cannon and it'd keep on tickin'! Give it yer best shot!" Irontoof said.
Orks continued to pour into the battlefield and, despite the determination and skill of the fire warriors, the orks were simply reinforcing faster than the tau could kill them. A hammerhead gunship was destroyed by an ork trukk ramming into its side, the ensuing explosion destroying them both. The tau were being overwhelmed, slowly but surely. Leman had to end this battle now.
"Admu, cover me!" Leman said, activating his jets and dashing towards his sword. Admu unloaded her ion cannons into the swarms of orks, opening up a path for him. He planted his feet, sliding just within reach of the blade, only for Irontoof to unload a volley of plasma bolts into him. Leman raised his shield just in time, but the blast knocked him further away from his sword and the only reliable way of bypassing the ork warboss's shields. Irontoof leapt through the air with his boosters, unleashing more missiles at Leman. He slid across the ground with his jets like a sled on a frozen lake, each of the missiles narrowly missing him. Irontoof swung wildly at him with his power claw, the red-clad warrior dodging and deflecting each blow with increasing difficulty. Leman was pushing the capabilities of Farsight's battlesuit, and the strain was beginning to show. Warning lights were flashing all across his vision, as the extreme inertial load of Leman's split-second movements was pushing the suit's structural integrity to its limit.
"I'll help you, mister Russ!" Admu shouted, pointing her weapons at the attacking warboss. Before she could fire, an ork stormboy collided into her, hacking at her armor with a crude axe. "Hey! Get off of me!" Admu said, swiping at the ork with her guns. An ork trukk swerved into her, knocking the huge battlesuit onto one knee. Orks swarmed over her like ants, looking for weak points to tear into. "K'val!"
K'val blocked an ork's choppa with her arm, the weapon embedding itself into the armor she kicked the ork away, blasting a hole in the disarmed greenskin with her pulse rifle. She wrenched the blade out of her suit's arm, holding it for a split second before tossing it away. She turned around to respond to Admu, and was horrified by the sight of orks overrunning them from all sides. She was stomping and swiping at the orks assaulting her, her long-range weapons rendered ineffectual by the horde of melee troops.
"Admu!" K'val said, running to help her.
"K-K'val!" Admu said with a strained voice. "H-help… Farsight!"
K'val turned to see Commander Farsight's signature red battlesuit caught in the grip of Irontoof Grizclaw's monstrous gauntlet. She was struck with helplessness as the situation collapsed all around her, a doomed feeling welling up deep within her. She struggled to cling to whatever shred of hope she had left, finding it increasingly difficult. As she unconsciously stepped backwards, she felt her suit's foot collide with a metal object. She looked down, and immediately knew what she had to do.
"I'z gonna kill you slow, red git. I wantz to enjoy dis." Irontoof said, his power claw slowly tightening around Leman's battlesuit like a vice. The structure of his battlesuit was just barely holding on, the warning lights now blaring red all across his vision.
If I could just get my arm free… Leman thought. I could blast that damned smile off of that greenskin's face.
"I'z almost disappointed, dis was almost too easy!" Irontoof said. "Once I'm done with you gitz, I'm takin' dis WAAAGH intastellah! Da whole galaxy is gonna know da name Irontoof Grizclaw!"
"Your name will be nothing but a footnote in the annals of the Tau'va!" K'val said.
She thrust the Dawn Blade through the ork's chest, short-circuiting his battlesuit and unleashing a splatter of blood. The ork's power claw loosened slightly, giving Leman just enough room to raise his pulse rifle and blast a chunk out of the dazed ork's skull. The ork's battlesuit went limp, dropping Leman as it toppled over with a loud thud. A psychic shockwave permeated the battlefield, and all the orks fell silent as they looked towards their fallen leader.
"Irontoof's been krumped!" One of them said.
"Den… who's da warboss now?" another said.
"Well, I'm da biggest and da meanest, so clearly, it's gonna be me!" yet another said.
"You'z aint nothin' but squig manure! I'z gonna be da next boss!" a fourth said.
The bickering orks quickly devolved into shooting and hacking at one another, the previously united and well-coordinated horde descending into a cannibalistic bloodbath. The battered and exhausted fire warriors, emboldened by the sight of the slain warboss, quickly took advantage of the orks' infighting and began cutting them down with massed plasma and missile barrages. Admu shook off a dozen orks clinging onto her, stomping and firing her ion cannons at them like cockroaches.
"Take that you nasty little beasts! And don't come back!" she said, firing into the trees.
The tide of the battle was reversed in minutes, and soon the orks were running for the tree line under tau plasma fire. The fire warriors raised their pulse rifles in victory, their hearts swelled with pride. K'val outstretched her hand to Leman, helping him to his feet.
"That was… quite something, O'Shovah." K'val said with a nervous laugh. "Oh! I apologize, this belongs to you." she said, realizing she was still gripping his Dawn Blade.
"An outlier, huh? Whatever happened to standard Tau doctrine?" he said.
"Well, I guess bending the rules a bit to uphold the Greater Good… is not always inadvisable." she said.
Suddenly, the air around Leman began to crackle and spark. The familiar feeling of disorientation and sensory overload overtook him as the simulated battlefield dematerialized around him. He opened his eyes and was relieved to find himself in his body once again.
"Good show, good show!" the shrill voice of Tzeentch said over the loudspeakers. "What daring! What twists and turns! And that ending, even I didn't see that coming!"
"How was I, uncle?" Admu said.
"Oh, brilliant Admu, just brilliant." he said. Admu took a small bow.
"Tell me, Tzeentch," Leman said. "What exactly was this test meant to measure? My plan failed, it was all but dumb luck which saved us!" he said, the annoyance in his voice palpable.
"Dumb luck? Why, I detest the phrase! Lesson number two is that there is no such thing as dumb luck - only a plan that one did not intend to enact!"
What in Fenris's name does that mean?
"...And what was lesson one?" Admu said.
"Well it- …uh," Tzeentch said, stopping mid-sentence and pausing for a few moments. Leman looked at Admu, who shrugged her shoulders. Leman sighed heavily.
"Let's find out!" Tzeentch said, as the sound of a switch being flipped was broadcast through the loudspeaker. "…maybe it'll be to learn some humility…" Tzeentch muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" Leman said.
Reality began to dematerialize around them once again, and Leman found himself in darkness.
He opened his eyes and sensed a feeling of familiarity within his new body. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the light, and realized he was looking out of the visor of an astartes helmet. He was holding a chainsword in his right hand and a bolter in his left. He saw a nearby rain puddle and walked over to see his reflection. He was wearing black and white armor, draped in white robes adorned with a black cross.
"That is strange… I do not recognize this legion." Leman said. He vaguely recalled some of Rogal Dorn's sons adopting a similar symbol…
"Hey mister Russ, check this out! Pretty stylish, huh?" Admu said.
Leman turned and his eyes grew wide as he beheld an Adepta Sororitas for the first time. Admu twirled around, showing off her armor which she seemed to find very striking.
What in the Emperor's name was the Imperium getting on to while I was gone!? Leman thought.
"Uh, mister Russ… what is that?" Admu said, pointing to something. Leman turned, and his hearts dropped.
The corpse of a space marine, covered in skulls, horns, and adorned with an eight-pointed star lay in the mud, still gripping his bolter. Leman turned back to look at Admu.
"Stay behind me."