I don’t answer the call and send a burst of data instead, containing the footage of the Tau abducting civilians, then setting kroot hounds on any that they couldn’t stuff into the devilfish.

After completing two more passes, I destroy the other three hammerheads and ground the devilfish with precise strikes to the front bar of the vehicles. Attempting crippling blows slows my D-POTs just enough that the hammerhead railguns fire once. The focused salvo slams into the class two and evaporates on its void shield.

Delighted with the sturdiness of my delta pattern orbital transports, I answer Envoy Lynu’s call.

“Good day, Envoy Lynu.”

“Magos Issengrund, please cease your attack on our convoy.”

“Sure. They’re not going anywhere in a hurry anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t be too grateful. Your troops shall free their hostages, then leave the convoy. They will march towards the ocean on foot while under guard. They may bring as many rations as they can carry and keep their armour. They may not bring their weapons with one exception; as a show of good faith, the commander and up to four officers may retain their side arms if they possess them. Should you fail to comply, hostilities shall resume. A second chance at surrender will not be offered. Your agreement, please. You have one terran minute to decide, starting now.”

My battlegroup crosses the horizon, they’re thirty-six kilometres away, and the leman russ battle tanks are partially in range, their main battle cannon can’t normally fire that far, but the lascannon can. The hunter killer missiles on the chimeras are in range too.

“Magos, the terms of our ceasefire did not cover the native population of Marwov. We protest your intervention on their behalf.”

“Envoy. You had a peace agreement with them too, just because they can’t enforce it doesn’t make you any less reprehensible for breaking it.”

“Even so, we request reparations for this unprovoked attack.”

“Oh, I agree,”

“Wonderful then we sh-”

“Which is why I haven’t slaughtered your fire warriors. You have fifteen seconds.”

“Magos Issengrund, please restrain your fury. We need more time to coordinate with our forces.”

“I don’t believe you’re that incompetent. They will launch flares, of any colour, within five seconds or die.”

“We do not agree to such brutal terms. Please negotiate.”

A handful of flares fire into the sky and linger in the gloom.

“Well, your commander sure thinks differently. Who’d have thought they were listening in on your call?” I chuckle, “Let’s hope for his sake, he isn’t putting on a show. I will call in an hour to arrange the location of the prisoner exchange. Goodbye, Envoy Lynu.”

“Magos wai-”

I cut the connection.

“Well, at least they didn’t pretend my footage was fake,” I mutter.

My battlegroup will take an hour to reach the disabled convoy. While they approach, the tau gather up their prisoners and collect their casualties. The prisoners are pressed forward and held at gunpoint on the tau’s northern face, placing them in the line of fire of my battle group.

In response I send two class one depots to two hundred metres from their position, to their south and west, with the remainder of my group hovering just above the horizon to their west.

Before my battlegroup even travels halfway, the tau begin their march towards my battlegroup. They still have their weapons, but I don’t press the issue, as they would likely be attacked by their prisoners if they left them behind and that would accelerate hostilities.

They also have a few grav sleds they’ve piled their bodies on and I see no reason not to let them take them.

Two minutes after their rapid jog, their abandoned vehicles explode, one by one. I click my tongue, annoyed that there will be little for me to recover. Still, there should be enough hull fragments for me to study and the sparse data I have on their nanocrystalline alloy, or fio’tak, that they use for armour suggests it's as effective as ceramite, but lighter, and can be used in pressed, vehicle hull panels like plasteel.

The mechanicus might not be permitted to study it, but I can claim I recovered the data from studies done by Jund and Psi-Xi, who wouldn’t know it was banned as the last time they had contact with the Imperium was before the tau were first sighted.

Eventually, the tau near my convoy. I direct a squad of servitors forward and speak through them, using E-SIMs handy translation feature that masks my own words and produces a perfect imitation of my own voice, speaking in the tau language.

“Who is the commanding officer?”

A tau in a XV15 stealth battlesuit, the tau’s equivalent of light power armour, steps into the open. The XV15 is black, with a large cannon on one arm and two, thin, rectangular antennas stick up either side of its blocky helmet. It’s two metres tall.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I am Shas’Vre Dy’aketh J’kaara, leader of this expedition. You may address me as Vre J’kaara. Are you Magos Issengrund?”

“Yes, though I am speaking through this servitor.”

“Acknowledged, Magos.”

“Vre J’kaara, you may bring your dead, however, you may not keep more than five sidearms.”

“Magos, my weapon is part of my armour and we cannot leave our technology with you.”

“Throw them in a pile before me. I will destroy them myself in front of you. Also, there is no way the cannon on your stealth suit does not detach. How else would you maintain it, or swap your weapon loadouts. It goes in the pile.”

I pilot the thunderhawk towards the tau, once they give up their weapons, I will disembark.

“Magos, this is not a task the fire caste is capable of.”

“You don’t cross-train, even a little?” the servitor says for me. “I do not believe you cannot do basic field repairs. If you are having trouble, I would be happy to remove it for you, though if I have to do it, you may sustain extra damage to your suit.”

His shoulders slump a little, “That will not be necessary.”

“Why were you abducting humans? Why jeopardise your agreements?”

“I do not know, Magos. They were orders, I did not question them.”

“Yet you will be the one that takes the blame now everything has gone wrong, is that not so? With such a large battlegroup under your control, why did you not do your due diligence and discover the hidden details of your mission? One wonders if the fault does indeed lie with you, rather than your superiors.”

“Enough Magos, we have lost. There is no need to, as you ‘gue’ like to say, pour salt on the wound.”

I laugh, “So you did study a little, or perhaps you have the envoy talking in your ear. Not relevant, I suppose. Please place your weapons before this servitor. Each fire warrior that approaches will do so with a prisoner, who will join my side as the warrior gives up their weapon.”

“Very well.”

The fire warriors come forward and drop their weapons. As they do so, my thunderhawk lands, once they have all dropped a weapon, I disembark and walk towards the pile.

My servitors guide the humans away from the tau to await pick up from the D-POT transport flight.

“I will destroy the weapons. Stay clear. I am unsure how some components may react.”

Using my nanite swarm, I dissolve the pile of pulse rifles and the commander’s pulse cannon, keeping clear of their power cells in the rifle stock. I have the nanites take a little extra time and get some fantastic scans of their weapons as they are dismantled atom by atom.

Once they are finished, I have the nanites target the power cells, which, to my delight, do not explode, so I get good scans of those too. With my upgrades the process takes them minutes, during which the commander shuffles from foot to foot.

The swarm flows back to my mechadendrites and is sucked back up. “It is done. The weapons have been reduced to pure elements. You may take a sample if you wish to confirm they have been destroyed.”

The commander grabs a handful of metallic sand and shoves it into a belt pouch.

“Are we done?”

I scan the fire warriors. As far as I can tell there are five pulse pistols remaining, as agreed. Vre J’kaara’s XV15 has a missing forearm and his grey undersuit is visible beneath.

“Yes. You will be escorted to the coast then watched until you leave. Please discourage your high command from attacking my troops. I do not like to shoot unarmed prisoners, but I will if I am provoked.”

“Noted, Magos. I will convey your ‘advice’.”

“I did not know my translation device could convey sarcasm. I appreciate you helping me test it.”

Vre J’kaara ignores me and turns to his fire warriors. My sensors pick up the radio waves passing between his suit and his warriors. They form up and jog in perfect lockstep, maintaining their pace all the way to the coast, over fifty kilometres away.

I contact Envoy Lynu to coordinate the prisoner transfer.

Every five kilometres the fire warriors swap who are resting on the overloaded grav sleds. I’m impressed by their discipline and silent showboating, though I say nothing, no doubt surprising them when I join their run.

No point letting the puff and bluster alone.

Unlike the fire warriors, my body is highly modified and my power armour is excellent too, so the exercise is just enough to get my second, bionic heart to kick in, but not leave me out of breath.

It takes us five and a half hours to reach the coast. Meanwhile, the humans are loaded up and flown back to their homes. My servitors assist with the burials and repairing their damaged homes. I also order a single D-POT to load up with rations and emergency supplies, then have it flown to the small village. The supplies are distributed to the grieving community, then I depart.

There is no need to call Envoy Lynu as the tau reinforcements are waiting for us when we arrive.

I keep five kilometres from the new battlegroup on the coast and retreat, letting the fire warriors advance on their own. Vre J’kaara is the last to pass me and he continues past without a glance, though I notice his sensors are crawling all over me.

“Too out of breath to say farewell, Vre J’Kaara?”

I receive a short data burst containing a two second, repeating clip of a tau male masturbating furiously.

“Urgh, that is going to haunt my dreams for weeks.”

I compile an image of a boltershell with Vre J’kaara printed on the side in tau script and send the picture to Vre J’kaara with a friendly data worm hidden in the file. If I’m lucky, it will infect their ship and broadcast something useful to me.

I delete his file.

Sitting in the thunderhawk, I consider my actions and realise I didn’t even fire a warning shot. There was no negotiation and I killed dozens of tau without even blinking.

I have become a violent man.

Melancholy brushes against my awareness in gentle, lapping waves. Since I woke up in that sarcophagus, stasis pod, whatever. Since I woke up, I have only had four non-violent physical encounters: a gretchin, a crippled space marine, a child navigator, and a grox riding barbarian.

This is a pretty low bar to try and beat, yet the first time I had the opportunity to join their august list, I failed and I am struggling to really care. Sure, the tau were abducting people and totally deserved it, but that I never tried a peaceful resolution until I’d ground them into the dirt, means I am no better than the inhabitants of this violent galaxy.

I wonder, for a moment, if the family I left behind would recognise me or even be willing to let me hold them in my arms.

With a sigh, I put my troubles aside and head to my private lab where the servo skulls are, literally, going ballistic over the xeno armour; some of the servo skulls have integrated weapons.

It’s time to find out what an armour save actually means.