Three days. Three days since the Battle of the Broken Roof, as some of the native hivers had begun to call it and Colonel Kurtzen remained at the frontline in Hive block Borst. He had been busy in the past few days securing what parts of the hive block hadn't been crushed under falling debris and creating yet more lines of defense and supply depots. Commissar Serana Vilsk was kept equally busy, as were all the other commissars and attached preachers who were charged with organizing and pacifying those few hivers that had been captured by the Death Korps. At least those that hadn't been shot as gangers and looters.
Strangely, he almost missed her constant prattling and chipper attitude, but he conceded that the commissar's work would be vital to their defense effort, local guides and scouts being invaluable assets in the stuffy and often cramped tunnels that made up the wilderness between larger hive blocks.
As it was, he was doubly glad to be alone now for the simple reason that the space he occupied now, his ad hock cubbyhole of a command post, could only comfortably seat one. The room had once been a basement of a kind and had served as a tiny office space for the building's previous owner, a food vendor of some kind. The room was dominated by a rough metallic desk, with a similarly made bookshelf standing sentinel to its left.
The only new furnishings added to the room came in the form of a portable vox-caster set down on the floor to his right, the vox-horn resting on his desk.
On reflection, the room served much the same purpose now as it had in its previous life but instead of being cluttered with receipts and sales numbers, it was now covered with charts, casualty reports, and inventory figures.
The shrill of the vox horn brought him out of his reverie as he went to pick it up.
"Kurtzen, speaking"
"We have someone to speak to you sir, a civilian" the voice on the other end of the line came. A Korpsman, but not one he recognized by voice, probably from one of the other regiments.
"We were instructed not to take any prisoners, civilian or otherwise" Kurtzen responded, curious at the breach of regulations in an organization as rigid as the Death Korps.
"She is not a prisoner sir, an envoy" replied the Korpsman, "We captured her on a patrol sweep, Ride-master 93147-Ritter authorized her capture".
Ah thought Kurtzen, that explains the breach of protocol.
Unlike the rest of Death Korps, the Death Riders nature as cavalry scouts necessitates a more flexible approach to orders than is present in the other arms. A weakness perhaps, but a necessary one, if they are to operate effectively as scouts.
" And this envoy is from the planetary governor?" Kurtzen asked, his curiosity at the protocol breach sated.
"No sir"
"Very well I am on my way, meet me at Armory Delta in no less than five minutes with the envoy, and blindfold her, I want to ensure that she sees as little of our defenses as possible"
"Understood sir, Ave Imperator," the Death Rider said as he finished the call.
"Gloria In Excelsis Terra" Kurtzen said, finishing the honorific due to Him on Earth. Standing up for the first time in four and a half standard hours, Kurtzen did a quick stretch before he made to turn around and mount the ladder that leads up from the basement.
Pausing for a moment's consideration he reached out for the vox horn.
"Commissar Vlisk, meet me at Armory Delta, we have a prisoner to interrogate"
" I don't see why you have to be so rude!" Arsha squeaked indignantly, as the heavy-handed guardsman shoved her forward, the blindfold covering her eyes meant to obscure her vision. Of course, being an Astropath, Arsha had long ago lost the need to rely on her flesh-eyes to see, but Arsha saw no need to queue her captors into that fact.
"Move" came the muffled voice from behind her, the instruction punctuated by a light jab of a bayonet tip into the small of her back. Conceding to the indignity of her situation, Arsha did as she was bid and continued down the crater-strewn main street that served as the main artery of hive block Borst.
Strangely, the war seems to have actually improved the place, the areas crushed beneath rubble notwithstanding. Trash and debris, for the first time in a millennium, had been fully cleared from the street and burned in pyres, clearing the way for rapid movements of men and machines. The buildings to either side of her had also been changed, the most ramshackable of which had been pulled down and the resulting material was either burned along with the rubbish or used to reinforce the ever-growing number of barricades and pill boxes that festooned the main road.
Arsha continued this way for several minutes, her discrete observation of her surroundings unnoticed by her guards as she continued to observe the changes the guardsman had made to the previously derelict hive block.
Soon her captor barked a command to stop, a strong grip on her shoulder accentuating his command. "I assume that we have arrived?" Arsha asked. By way of reply Arsha was harshly turned to face left facing towards the doorway of what Arsha assumed was their destination.
Their destination was an ugly building, even amongst the ugly buildings that predominated lower hive architecture. The building was a squat thing, built entirely out of dull grey rockrete accentuated by small bar-covered windows and firing slits. The one break in the building's ugly façade was the heavy steel door that served as the only means of entrance into the structure.
"Move" came the monosyllabic instruction. Without protest Arsha walked forward into the entranceway, unable to shake the uncomfortable feeling that the building, or perhaps its occupants, were going to swallow her up.
" You could have been clearer with your instructions you know," Serana said as she joined Kurtzen at the Armonry Delta, the long-abandoned arbite outpost still managing to be imposing even after so many years of neglect.
"I don't know much more than what I told you" Kurtzen replied as he stepped over the threshold and into the building.
"Which way to the prisoner?" he asked of the door guard, his distinctive cuirasses marking him out as a member of the Deathriders.
"That way Colonel, the ride master has already begun interrogation" The dismounted rider replied as he snapped off a sharp salute to the pair, and then pointed them down the hall towards the impromptu interrogation chamber.
"Well tell me what you do know then, so we can get on with it. I was in the middle of a regicide game with that old Emperor botherer Father Aquin and I'm not losing a third game in a row to that old fart!" Serana complained, her indignity reddening her tanned checks.
"Aren't your orders to pacify the civilian populace?" Kurtzen inquired as he turned down the hall.
"What that lot of scum and laggards? They could hardly trouble a newborn grox, let alone any of your fine boys."
Kurtzen gave her a stare from behind his mask that gave Serana the distinct impression that he was scowling. "Oh don't be like that, I am not an incompetent. Me and the other commissars and priests have set a watch on the civilian quarter and have already run through the few files the cogheads could pull up on them. With civies a lighter touch tends to garner better results." the commissar concluded/
"Did you learn this at the Schola?" Kurtzen asked.
"No" was Serana's unusually brusque answer.
Grunting by way of reply Kurtzen remained silent until they reached the door that the Deathrider had marked as the interrogation chamber.
The darkened War Room rang to the sounds of shouting like how a battlefield rings with artillery fire, thought the newly minted High Marshal Gisselle of the Cenian PDF. She was seated at the head of the war room's central table, a long and deep piece of furniture rumored to have been ordered by one of the current Lord Governor's distant ancestors from far off Tanith half a millennia ago. Seated at the table to her left, the heavy baritone of the thickset and heavily mustached Marshal Ploshy boomed like the bark of a heavy mortar barrage, while to her right the shrieking trill of Prefect-Militant Æthelflæd sounded like a barrage of rocket artillery. All the while the background bickering of a wide selection of Colonels, Generals, Archons and Duxes, providing the background chatter to this battlefield of verbal exchange, the underlying crump of field mortars and rifle grenades.
It gave the newly appointed High Marshal the distinct feeling of a headache coming on. Sighing in resignation, the red-haired Marshal made a discrete gesture behind her back with her left hand, a signal to her half a score of armed guards. With a crisp salute, the captain of her elite black armored Bucellarii guard shouldered his rifle and fired.
Lasguns are manufactured in their trillions throughout the million and more worlds of the Emperor's realm They come in millions of different patterns, some firing a brilliant scarlet beam, others a yellow beam, whilst still others are rumored to fire a beam constructed from light spectrums that can't be registered by a human eye, rendering them invisible.
What the captain fired was none of these. Instead of the ruddy light of a lasgun discharge, what the captain fired produced a brilliant blue miniaturized ball of plasma, but what he held was no traditional plasma gun. The harsh white afterglow of the weapon's discharge blinded every unprepared person in the room, which is to say anyone who wasn't Gissele, who had closed her eyes in preparation, or her Bucellarii guards, whose all-encompassing black war masks blocked out the harsh glare, and left them ready to act in defense of their mistress.
"My fellow officers" Gisella began, deciding to take advantage of the momentary confusion to get a word in before any of her nominal subordinates had managed to recover. "I have been charged by the Lord Governor to resume our war of liberation against the Imperial occupiers, and as this is the will of the Lord Governor, the Immortal Emperor's rightly chosen representative over Cena Primaris, we will see it done."
Pausing, Gisella took in a deep breath and then exhaled before continuing her speech, both to center herself and to signal the captain of her guard forward.
The Captain, Severan Dirge was a large man, and in his war plate of burnished ebony scale mail, with his fully enclosed helm carved into an impassive, bearded face, he was a giant. The drawn-forward apex of his helmet that curved over his head made him appear even larger than he was, like the now-extinct Urlox, whose massive bones and adamantine sharp spines still graced many of Cena Primaris' museums and collections.
The Captain, rather than speak, maglocked the strange gun that he had just fired to his back and reached down at his belt, drawing his rifle's stunted sister from the holster at his hip. In a smooth gesture, he drew the pistol, causing no small amount of cringing from those nearest commanders, who worried that Gisella would inaugurate her appointment as High Marshal with a round of executions.
With a nearly inaudible sigh from those commanders sitting nearest to Gisella, the captain reversed his grip on the pistol and handed it, grip first to Gisella, who in turn placed it onto the table with a resounding Clunk.
"Ladies, Gentlemen, what was the cause of our recent setbacks in the face of the invaders?"
It was an oft-discussed question in the higher echelons of PDF command, but such things were oft reserved for the smoke rooms and fine ale houses frequented by the officer-nobility. Here, in the oppressive atmosphere of the ad-hoc war room, it was an uncomfortable question to ask.
"Because... because of their tricks" came the unsure response from one of the officers seated to Gisella's right. He was an unremarkable thing, mouse-faced and potbellied, the chevron marks on his right sleeve marking him out as a major.
"Because of their position," another officer said, though the speaker's identity was hidden on the throng of officers standing or sitting around the gargantuan table.
Sensing that the table was soon to erupt into a new debate Gisella decided to regain the initiative. "All good guesses and not incorrect, but there is one key factor you are not seeing, technology. Our armory, already depleted by the Tarellian raid, is comprised of the scraps that the Imperium gave us. We sorely lack heavy weaponry; we have precious few armored vehicles and many of those we do have are needed to maintain order in the agricultural provinces. A full third of our men are without flak armor, and we have precious few side arms for officers. In all these ways are the invaders superior to us, despite their small number. That is why this is so important."
At the pronouncement, Gisella held up the strange pistol for the assembled officers to examine. "This is the solution. A new source of weapons, superior even to the bolters wielded by Space Marines. It is a Pulse pistol, straight from the trade ships of the Tau"
Seated as she was on her throne of command, Aun'Sek surveyed her kingdom. Across the bridge of the Mont'ka'a Tau bodies flowed like water in a stream, collecting in their alcoves and at monitors to survey the orderly running of the ship. Indeed, reflected Aun'Sek, every caste was operating to its greatest strength. Squat Earth Caste engineers and technicians were seated at monitors and terminals, whilst spindly Air Caste pilots and navigators stood ready for maneuver orders. Water caste diplomats conferred about what tricks of speechcraft would best turn the Gue'la fully to the light of the Tau'Va, while dour fire warriors stood at the four doorways in pairs, the internal security detachment of the fleet fully present to protect her safety.
Truly it was the unity of the Tau'Va personified.
"The latest shipment of weapons has just been received by the Gue'La military, honored Aun." The gruff voice of Fio'Kanha, the expeditions lead engineer reported from his terminal at Aun'Sek's left. Shaken from her reverie by the engineer's succinct report, Aun'Sek favored him with a small but glowing smile.
"Excellent Fio'Kanha, how much material have we delivered to them in total?" she asked.
"About half of everything that the Gue'la have requested, honored Aun, just as you have requested." looking up from his terminal to fully express the respect that an Etherial deserves.
"Well done Fio'Kanha, I thank you for your diligence". Bowing his head, Fio'Kanha returned to his work, barking a series of directions to a collection of his underlings, and sending them scurrying away on some business or another.
Sighing again in contentment at the harmony displayed around her, Aun'Sek rose from her throne and made for the leftmost doorway. As she passed, the stream of Tau parted for her, each and every Tau, no matter their rank or caste, turned aside and genuflected showing the proper respect due to one of the august caste that had raised the Tau out of barbarism and into unity. Moving at the steady, rhythmic walk, characteristic of how the Ethreals did anything, Aun'Sek walked through the shining white halls of her command ship, the passages breaking abruptly at right angles and lengthening into long corridors, all the better to confuse and disperse an enemy boarding party or, if allied species were accepted aboard, mutinous crew members. Soon Aun'Sek arrived at an unmarked door, indistinguishable from the dozens of others that she had passed by on her way here.
With the press of her thumb onto the thumb scanner, the door slid open with a feint Hiss, it, like any other room aboard a Tau ship, it is hermetically sealed to protect the crew against any chemical warfare or hull breach.
Within the chamber were seven figures, all of which bore the slim whip-cord muscles that characterized the fire caste.
"Honored Aun, I am honored that you have choosen to supervise our operation," said Shas'El Throat Slicer, the old and grizzled Tau commander favoring the young Ethreal with the Ter'Klun'An, the sign of the willing servant, the traditional greeting sign given from a Fire Caste commander to an Ethreal.
"And I am grateful for your invitation. Shall we begin?"
Hey everyone, I'm sorry this one took so long but I hope you'll consider this a belated birthday present from me to you. I think we're finally roughly at the half way mark, just before the Tau intervention. Please enjoy and be open with any criticism.