Ana’Li held the passive actuators in her four-fingered hand and worked it with the dermal shunt to tighten it. The piece was part of the arm servo of her stealth suit. She had been tinkering with the actuators systems ever since she had come into possession of the suit. There were only a few members of the Earthen Caste in her small cadre and they spent all their time on critical repairs. Her suit was not in that category. It worked fine, she sought to make it work better. Her “cadre” made it’s base of operations in a small agricultural plot in the Chalchuk Mountians. They had been on the run for about eight months now, probably more, since the last of the Cemephon command structure collapsed. Her and a couple of dozen fire warriors with a few devilfish had been fighting a guerilla war against the humans all that time.
She sat in an old human farm-house, a low adobe block of a building, that she had made her headquarters. All about the adobe structure hung screens and monitors. Most were off. One showed an incoming picfeed from a sentry drone and another a list of repair requests. Data cables snaked across the floor and the soft hum of solar transfer units could be heard. Her stealth suit was spread out on the table before her and her support drone floated above illuminating her work. She was perched on a high stool so that she towered over the table, the suit, in pieces, was laid out before her. Her heels were hooked onto a high bar beneath the seat of the stool so her knees were raised high about her. Her elbows rested on them while she worked. Her small blue lounge was poised on her lower lip while she concentrated on the repair.
She paused and looked out one of the narrow windows across the small agricultural plot that they had co-opted as their current base of operations. She could see firewarriors and drones moving about the farm on various errands. The forested valley where the farm lay was well sheltered from the rest of the province and a macro disruption pod they had set up would confuse any human scans of the area. A large red barn stood off to the south where the Earth Caste had set up their repair bays. The large shape of an Orca drop ship under repair sat beside it. One of the turbine thrusters open like a soft-boiled egg with cables and wires hanging out of it like jungle vines. A couple of workers wandered about atop it attending to various tasks. She turned back to her repairs.
She had once served as a bodyguard to Anemos, the leader of the Cemephon Expansion. In the few days before the expansion collapsed and the Dark Eldar forces swept across this world she had sought out her leader. Chaos had reigned in the Tau headquarters and Ana’li recalled dashing through the empty halls looking for her master. She remembered that she had paused at a window and saw the shapes of advancing imperial tanks and known that the Cemephon Crusade was over. She ran to the chamber of the etherial and found it empty save for the body of her master. Anemos lay in that dark and empty chamber in a pool of her own blood. Ana’li knelt at her master’s side. A foul poison still contorted Anemos’ face. Veins stood out of her neck like grotesque worms eager to wriggle from her skin. Ana’li cradeled her master’s head on her lap, tacky blood soaking her pant legs. Anemos moved slowly now, blinking as though in slow motion. A vast incision had been made in her belly and she had bled out onto the floor. Ana’li remembered that she had wept for her fallen leader and cursed the humans that now bore down on this place. She had been in such anguish that she almost had missed the quiet final words Anemos spoke. Ana’li had lowered her head to Anemo’s lips to hear the breathy gasping words. The fallen commander grasped Ana’li hand tightly, the slick blood making their hands slip.
“Continue” she said. Ana’li’s eye’s grew wide. “Take my mantle and continue”, Anemos’ eyes slowly closed her breath leaving.
Ana’li didn’t linger. She gathered up the body of her master and carried it back to the upper concourse where the Sha’o kept their battle suits. She gathered as many firewarriors to herself as she could along the way. They donned the last of the available suits and fled before the advancing humans. Ana’li donned her master’s XV22 suit and led the last of the firewarriors away. They carried Anemo’s body with them. Over the months that followed they moved from hideout to hideout, picking up stragglers from the Tau army as they went. They had found this place four months ago.
Ana’li swallowed hard at the memory of the leader she had replaced. She remembered Anemos’ last words, “Continue”. She looked down at the suit spread out like a costume before her. It had come to be her own now. She glanced over at the alien sword that had been with the suit. It glittered with a gold and green light. It had been a gift from the Dark Eldar to Anemos before their betrayal. Ana’li swallowed again. She wondered what exactly she had been called on to continue.
The Kabal of the Rancid Blade 