When events pass according to plan, this is when you must be on your highest vigilance. It is in these moments when our greatest lessons are taught to us through defeat.
Kor'O Fal’Shia Shir'Vah was typical of admirals in the protection fleet, in that he hated leaving his bridge. Even for the honor of speaking with an Ethereal and personally briefing him on the battle plan, he still wished he could do so from the comfort of his bridge. But the thought of bringing personnel other than air caste onto his bridge tied his stomachs together. Perhaps they could have briefed from the central command center next time. He smiled at that plan, it felt like the perfect idea. He would still be in position to command his vessel but without intruders to his sacred space.
Sacred. The Ethereal wouldn’t approve of such a word but that’s what it was to him and every other Kor that commanded any vessel. Just as a battle suit cocoon is sacred to a fire warrior, his bridge was something he had worked for his entire career. He had served on many bridges, command centers and cockpits throughout that career, but none of them were truly his, despite what he would claim at the time in those positions. This bridge well and truly belongs to him and him alone. Any order given there was given under his approval. Even an Ethereal would struggle to give an order without his crew subtly looking to him for a nod of approval.
When he returned to that sacred place he finally relaxed. Everything was just as he had left it a few decs ago and it made him feel at peace. The very center of the room was the command station, a collection of sofa seats as well as a circular pad for the Captain to stand on while observing or commanding the crew. The sofas were primarily for him to sit if he was going through or sending reports but the Captain and honored Ethereal also had a seat of their own there. The ship’s second would be located deep within the ships command center so that anything but the most obliterating strikes would only take out one of the two crews that commanded the vessel.
In front of the command station were two crewtau for navigation. One was in charge of physically moving the ship and the other plotted their course, currently the plotting crewman was the most employed. With their ship on the ascent path from the ether, that space between spaces, plotting became an incredibly sensitive task having to predict and track the movement of objects and communicate the needed adjustments. The ZFR was more common and the preferred propulsion method, even when moving through but his plan required the use of both of them and so demands were increased on this one crewmember. The ship pilot was only required to make small adjustments as they came up on the plot. But his station would too become tasked to its maximum.
The weapons station to the right was a cluster of crew responsible for designating targets and plotting solutions and another cluster to monitor armor and possible weakness. They were also tasked with communicating with the watercast contingent deep within the ship who would be intercepting communications and searching the images of the ships for any hidden weaknesses ciphered by the Gue’la’s brutish language. The bridge was just one part of the whole vessel. Across the ship were dozens of centers packed with stations and crew serving their purpose. From the outside the ship seemed to fight as a single entity but it was actual the perfect representation of their Empire’s philosophy of the Greater Good. He strode over to the ship captain and stood to his side.
“Any changes?” The question was a formality, if anything requiring his attention had occurred then he would have been informed regardless of what would be interrupted. Elemental council and briefings be damned, his fleet, and more importantly the ship he stood on came first. And if any Ethereal had a problem with it then he would gladly submit to censure, as soon as both their bodies were pulled from the void.
“No Kor’O. Everything is just as it should be.” The Captain continued his own scan of the stations, looking over the crew shoulder’s and glancing at the monitors. Nothing of note was on the main viewscreen. Occasionally they might catch a glance of some shape that looked like a face or some other anomaly. Officially there was nothing in the stream, the space between spaces and anything seen was just a reflection from real space or possibly the next dimension over. But Shir’Vah held a secret belief that their could be life that existed in the inter dimensions. But it was not his place to theorize, so long as whatever was out there never made itself a threat to his fleets.
“Perfection. My compliments to your crew. My compliments across the fleet when we return to real space.” Even with most of their faces turned away from his, the Admiral could see their pride at the words of approval. Backs straighten, shoulders rolled, side glances exchanged between station mates, the simple words were a balm against the long shift that marked the end of a long journey. The added pride of hearing it for themselves before the fleet and especially before the rest of their ship, these crew would brag about it to their mates at the mess tables. Just as he had felt those long Tau'cyr ago.
“Just another microdec till we arrive. Sensors tell us we are rising through the plain and dropping speed. Projections show the warships arriving just within weapons range just as intended. Transports are rising faster while maintaining speed with us. At their rate they’ll enter normal space at the same time but several million tor’kan behind us. Exactly where your calculations said it would; right on their doorstep and instantly in action.” The captain's tone was flat, not for a lack of admiration or pride in execution of complex orders, but rather was an example of his training for this post.
It was Shir’Vah’s turn to smile. Other admirals had come up with similar equations but all before his were inaccurate or inconsistent. The common acceptable practice was to arrive in realspace rotaa out from the target and approach using stealth to achieve surprise. It was every admiral's pursuit to come up with the formula that would allow their ships the ability to appear in normal space within, or close enough to weapons range to engage their targets before they even have a chance for the crew to enter alert stations. If they could achive that, tactic theorists predicted that they could then use these dives not only as a means of travel, but in combat to flank or dodge attacks. If the Gue'la could do it, certainly the air cast could as well.
He had formulated a theory that involved the use of both drives onboard the ships, The ZFR drive brought them as close to light speed as the laws of nature allowed and was highly accurate, able to place a ship as exact as they felt like plotting. But it was relatively slow and “lanes'' had to be plotted out and maintained by pathfinder fleets. The ether drive on the other hand was lightning quick, allowing them to cross the entire empire in a matter of rottaa instead of ki’rotta however it was inaccurate and prone to mishaps at best and disappearance of entire fleets at worse. His theory was to use both: The dive into the ether and plot a rough exit point, but while still in the ether use the ZFR to regain plotting precision. If his equations could be proven correct, then he would be remembered in the history of the greater good as an Admiral that revolutionized battle strategy and might even spark a third sphere of expansion.
“Captain, we’re receiving probe data now” a crew member reported from his station. His dreams of being the father of a new era had to wait for the actions of the current to finish playing out.
“Very good. Sort through and relay to appropriate stations. Update me if there is anything of importance.” a yes sir was sounded from the station as he buried himself in his task.
“Has your crew been woken up?” Shir'Vah asked to the captain
“Yes admiral, all hands are awake and manning their posts. I’ve preempted them to stand by for action stations.” The captain responded
“Perfection captain, as expected.” The two senior officers stood shoulder to shoulder chests thrust forward and chins held high. The Water caste liked to pull security footage to show the air caste in action when distributing news of victory, this knowledge stayed in the back of every crewmember’s mind and would cause them, for lack of more poetic words, to pose for the cameras while on duty. Junior members of the aircaste would even refer to going on duty as “Getting my picture taken” as a form of comedy. For Kor’O Shir’Van his pride wasn’t just for the cameras, this would not just be a victory for the Empire, this would be his victory, his contribution to the greater good. His posting in the protection fleet had kept him far from the actions in the Damocles Gulf expansion, but here and now in the far eastern fringes of the Empire, he would make his mark.
The microdecs passed by slowly. Shir’Vah passed the same a little easier reading reports from other captains in the fleet. No one was falling behind. No one was out of position, and while all ships had lost crew in transit, the numbers were far below projections. Everything was as it should be, better than anticipated, and that started to worry him. It was a problem for everything to be this perfect, it couldn’t stay this way, there wasn’t an operation in the history of any fleet that had gone this well before. And sure enough, as the thoughts formed in his mind, almost as if it was also planned, the unexpected and impossible occurred.
“Captain, probe 1682 is sending back unexpected data” the information was sent to the Captain’s monitor, who raised it to the admiral's attention.
“Inform the Shas’O. This… complicates things.”
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Mira had heard the waiting was the worst part of war, and so far he would agree. His la’rue was standing outside the armory waiting to draw weapons. Before that they had been sitting around waiting for orders to go to said armory. When the Shas’ui returned, there was sarcastic cheering from the Shas’las, as if seeing their leader return triumphant from a duel. He smiled and waved his hand dismissively at them before speaking.
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“Alright, alright settle down. I’ve got equipment lists for you all. The strike team is being modified to better suit possible action. Nirva, you’re taking the breacher element as lead and team assistant to myself. You’ll have Sholt, Kriitan, Alvah, and Korso. My element will consist of Mira, Bakah, Thunn, and myself of course. Mira and I will take pulse carbine, Bakah and Thunn will take pulse rifles and the entire breacher element will draw CQB helmets and pulse blasters. Everyone will take pistols as well.” Even as he spoke, most members of the la’rue were picking up their gear and heading to the armory. A strange mix of excitement and nerves filled the air. This would be his la’rue’s first fight as it would be for many of the cadres’ la’rue. But there was something else proving the unease, the prospect of this not only being their first fight, but if they went into combat it would be in the void. They had trained for this of course but not to the point of naturalization as they had with other fields of combat. Now it felt as if they had plenty of time to review their training as they waited in line to receive their designated weapons and new helmets for the breachers.
The standard strike team helmet, which Mira had slung onto his pack, was a testament of the Tau’s ability to overcome physiology with technology. Tau were naturally nearsighted and so the helmet compensated for this with the display showing not only the picture being relayed to them via the primary optic but also ranges. The helmet would track their eye movements and display the range exactly where their eyes looked as well as reading out barring and location data. Messages could also be relayed and a dozen other functionalities that took years of training to use to their fullest. The Gue'vesa also used modified versions of the standard helmet, better suited for their head shape, but since they volunteered for service in the auxiliaries in their adulthood, it was very rare that they would have the technical skills to fully utilize their features.
It also contained a second video lens that contained the black sun filter. This filter allowed the fire warriors to see on the heat spectrum as well as the visible light and highlighted targets painted by marker lights or black sun radiation. The breacher helmet was a much blockier version of the strike helmet to make room for more sensors specially fitted for their close range role. These included short range highly tuned motion sensors that could not only track multiple single targets, the strike helmet version tended to merge motion contacts together, but also gave limited predictive movement. Giving the breachers something of an advantage in hand to hand combat, at least enough to allow them to disengage and return to their blasters. A 3rd lens was fitted to the helmet as well that worked in conjunction with their blaster. All tua helmets linked to their weapons to provide a reticle but the pulse blaster had two indentations in its trigger. The first, painted the target in negatively charged ions and even without the helmet's special lens, a warrior could see the slight glow it gave a target. The second indentation fired the positively charged ions, the ones that would tear through armor and rip off unprotected limbs. The harmless negatively charged ions served to attract the positive shot, giving it somthing of a seaking ability. The helmet highlighting the target gave a fire warrior one last second to adjust their shot before firing.
Making their way through the armory line they pulled the last of their equipment, long guns, pistols, and ion grenades. Plus pouches of ammunition they clipped to their appropriate attachment points. Finally they were on their way to the next waiting point: The drop ship. They marched down the ship corridors in silence as more la’rue joined them in utter silence save the sound of boots pounding against deck plate. Each warrior processed his thoughts on the job to come, Mira himself wondered if they each harbored his secret wish. That they wouldn’t be needed and they would wait out the entire battle in the drop ship, never making contact with the enemy. He also wondered if this made him a coward, but he kept these thoughts to himself as they walked. He told himself that everyone was having these thoughts and that courage was that he continued to walk forward regardless of his fear. But somewhere in his mind he could hear a voice tell him that it was all a lie. That the only ones who thought these things were cowards and that as soon as they took contact, he would freeze and flee. He was a coward and he would get his comrades killed.
When they entered the hangar, packed with aircraft from fighters, bombers, drop ships, and even some mantas, they found themselves in a sea of people. Junior air caste personnel, easily spotted by standing head and shoulders above the firecaste warriors, were directing la’rue as they could find them, and those la’rue were fighting their way to their assigned craft. The air caste were tall and lanky, most of them spent their entire lives on spacecraft so on top of being strange looking, many of them lacked social skills when interacting with other castes. But Mira had also been called a cultureless brute before by a water caste speaker so he checked his judgment of stereotypes. In the academy it was said that air caste bones were hollow and could no longer survive in normal gravity environments. At the time he believed it, but as he grew older he started to realize the redicuality of it. If they couldn’t survive with 1+Gs just standing on planets, how could they pull upwards of 20+Gs with their fighter pilots dog fighting in atmo. He chuckled to himself about the absurdity of the rumors that crop up not just in the academy. There was an old saying:
The Water Caste speaks in riddles
The Earth caste speaks to machines
The Air caste doesn’t speak
And the Fire Caste speaks in rumors
Mira understood it though, rumors were the best source of entertainment. A fire warrior's life could be summarized by waiting. He figured if he tallied up the total time in training he had spent waiting it would outweigh the amount of time he spent learning or practicing something. Maybe that was the point, one of the first things they were taught was how to spend down time meditating on the greater good followed by thinking on battle doctrine. “Any one of you could dawn the hero’s mantle and one day become a commander. Puretide taught us that since every Commander starts as a cadet, even cadets should theorize battle plans.” and so in this final dec of waiting just before the battle, Mira began to theorize on the battle.
Any action they would commit to would be in the void. While he was no expert in zero g warfare, he considered that the average fire warrior probably had more training in that environment than the average Gue’la soldier, even those that lived aboard the ships. He wondered if the air caste could commit a targeted strike to disable the gravity allowing the fire warriors to use their magnetic boots not just to stay connected to the floor but rather selectively toggle them so gain the maneuvering advantage. Something to file away and consider later. Too late to suggest that now. So what would he face? Tight corridors for sure. Both the fire warriors and the gue’la would use this to their advantage and tightly pack those corridors with gun lines. His briefs contained images of gue'la warriors carrying large shields with a notch carved into them specifically to place their weapon so that they could shoot from their mobile cover. Facing any of those would be a challenge. Pulse grenades set to detonate in the visible light spectrum rather than electromagnetic could be enough to disorientate the gun line long enough for the breacher teams to engage and form gaps. In these gaps the strike team could surgically eliminate those who are then exposed. Depending on their discipline they could reform and counter attack but the confusion would more likely lead them to fall back in good order at best but more than likely confusion would give way to fear and they would break and run for it, presenting their backs to the fire warrior gun line.
An air cast crew member came up and addressed their Shas’ui
“Are you with Cadre Inspired Wind” She asked without looking up from her datapad
“Yes, we are 1st la’rue, will you direct us to Orca 473?” Eldi had to crane his neck nearly to the limit of its extension. Partly blamed on the hight of the crewtau but mostly to do with how close she had stopped infront of him.
“Negative Shas’ui, you’ve been retasked. You will make your way to Orca 3 and report to your Shas’nel there. Please do so quickly, your orca is scheduled to depart shortly after we resurface.” Before the Shas’ui could ask any further questions the crewmember had walked away to find the next La’rue to direct. The Orac’s had large numbers painted on their sides and were stationed sequentially. Mira’s team started moving to the front as quickly as they could, maneuvering through the mass of bodies staging at each of their craft. During training, Mira remembered how cadets would get stuck on eachother; their armor would catch and interlock or in general they would bump and shuffle into each other during drills. But that was part of the training. It taught them so that every warrior serving the Empire instantly knew how to move in even much larger groups than this. How to twist and turn to efficiently move past people, when to give way and when to push through, and what bits of armor to cover with your hands as two slid past. He had come to appreciate the little things that training had taught him both directly and passively.
Eventually they made their way to the assigned Orca, where commander Shasa, leader of this entire expedition was waiting for them. The Shas’la stood in awe of this man who had used his life to protect and expand the greater good, now stood before him. While not a household name like those of Shas'Os Shaserra, Kais, Shovah or especially Puretide, he had been made famous to the members of his expedition. After graduating from the fire achedemy and reciving their assignment, they transitioned directly into preparing for this expedition under direct tutalage from O'Shasa and his staff. Shas’ui Eldi kept his wits about him enough to bow and greet the commander.
“Shas’O, a pleasant surprise to see you here. How can we assist?” The commander returned the bow and placed his hands on the shoulders of their Shas’Ui.
“Shas’Ui D’yan Eldi. A pleasure. I only wish our reunion was under better circumstances.” Mira knew that Ui'Eldi and O'Shasa had never met, yet the commander spoke to the veteran as if they were the oldest of friends.
“If you bring us orders for battle, I can think of no better circumstance.” Eldi made the sign of the couched spear as he spoke.
“I do indeed, both bring you battle orders and think of better circumstances. I think after this I will need to make arrangments for those ideas. Something involving a cantina and a drone with a malfunctioning drink dispenser gauge." The Lau'rue chuckled at the joke which earned them a small glare from Eldi. The commanders face harded when they regained their composure
"The air caste has detected something unusual in orbit above our planet. It appears to be a Geu’ron’sha scout ship.” a death chill passed over the fire warriors present, any smile that retained on their faces fell at the words. Mira was sure that he had misheard it, the commander said it so casually. That word had started to make its way into the genetic memory of the firecast over the past few decades of increasingly regular encounters and inevitable conflict. They were ruthless killers who not only rejected the greater good but were incapable of being shown its light, the Etherals even proclaiming them incompatible with the tau’va. They were weapons made of flesh and blood and nothing more. They did not think or feel or breath and so they knew no fear.
They were,
Space Marines