The Cemephon Expansion: Hidden in the Hills

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.

Tau Victorious

The Third Cemephon War: Turn three narritive

Welch had failed once already in his attempt to capture the xenos controlled sector.  Possession of the manufactorum was vitally important as the xenos had repurposed it to provide their own forces with munitions.  Recapturing it would, of coarse, deny them that resource while supplying his own forces with much needed ammunition; however it was the location that was critical, control of this sector would provide a front from which further operations against important strongholds would be conducted against the enemy.  Dolgath realized a second frontal assault against the heavily fortified position would be fruitless, yet Welch was intent on taking it by brute force.  Dolgath had something more devious in mind…

“Your hammer failed!”  Welch exclaimed as he paced back and forth in front of the vast viewport through which the sphere of the planet glowed below like a precious jewel ripe for the taking. 

“Yes, the tides of battle can be unpredictable…”  Dolgath responded from his chair, lost in thought.  

“Is that all you can say?”  Welch spat.  

“Guile…” Dolgath said.

“Guile, what does that mean?”  Welch asked.

“The Tau are a guileless race, as far as I can tell.  They expect another frontal assault, so let’s give it to them.”

Welch pause in anticipation. 

“A night deployment, as if we plan to attack their fortifications at dawn, only we will not be attacking their fortifications at all, we will be attacking the utility and resource feeds to the manufactorum.  Without those feeds the facilities will be useless to them and they will take the pragmatic course and abandon them,” Dolgath concluded.  

The Third War for Cemephon: Turn two mission narrative

The third war to take the embattled planet of Cemephon late in the 42nd Millenium began strong.  Shas-O Obolis was infused with a new zeal and had quickly taken control of vast swaths of territory.  The next pinch point of the war would be the securing of a manfactorum in the Gatatha Sector.  The facility could be repurposed to produce some of the basic equipment needed to continue the war effort.  Imperial forces, perceiving the jeopardy of allowing this factory to fall into enemy hands moved quickly to halt the Tau advance.  Obolis in turn saw this escalation and committed a significant portion of his Fire Warriors and resources to this engagement.  He hoped to overwhelm his enemy with a large weight of weapons before they could resupply.

Obolis was in the warm dark of his suit.  The image feeds that came from the advance Pathfinder teams showed a large number of Imperial tanks moving at speed toward his position.  He tapped a communication bar and opened a voice link to his ground forces.
“All ground forces move to engage at close range.  Crisis teams provide covering fire to support the advance.”  He paused thinking his strategy through.  “Fire Warriors, Pathfinders engage at close quarters.  Delay the advance and then fall back by numbers to the green line.  Broadside teams and Skyrays provide marker guided suppression.”

The Cemephon Expansion: Good hunting today

Obolis pushed open the large doors of the warehouse with the shoulder of his Crisis Suit.  The two doors swung open on old hinges with a raw whine.  Dust curled up from the floor and caught the green lights from the three suits now schilouetted in the doorway.  Their large frames took up most of the entryway.  Boxy and mechanical they towered sixteen feet tall, drones buzzed about them.  The suits immediately entered the darkened chamber.

Within his suit Obolis’ form seemed to float in a warm darkness.  Screens and view monitors floated in the darkness about him.  He checked the status of his other teams via a proximity map that appeared to float down at his right hip.  It was angled up toward his head.  One team was entering on the second floor of the warehouse.  They had jumped to the upper floors. He could hear them above.  Glass and masonry smashed apart as they entered.  A third team was still outside the building protecting the flank of the Tau’s approach.

The suits to Obolis’ left and right quickly fanned out, securing the large storage room, their targeting lights cutting green lines across the darkness.  A proximity light erupted on a display within his suit.  A report from a Pathfinder team bumped in front of his field of vision.  It showed several Imperial tanks crossing a bridge.  A report chirped a message to him, he recognised the voice as his old friend Matrun.

“Marines dismounting on the south side of your position.  They’re right outside the warehouse”. Obolis’s eyes grew wide.  He looked to the other side of the chamber and saw boarded up windows that would have looked out at the Del’Chan River.  A similar sized door as the one his team had entered sat in the center of the wall.   Obolis saw an opportunity; either the Marines were planning to assault the building and them within it or they were unaware of his presence.  Either way he saw a position of strength.  He quickly tapped commands into his communication consoles.  He directed two mechanized Fire Warrior teams to move from reserve to the roof of the building.  He commanded the crisis team that was still outside to come around the side of the building and flank the marines.  To the suits above him around him he spoke directly into his com.

“Heavily armed humans outside the south wall.  Fire for effect”.  At this command the suits reacted as though in a carefully prepared dance.  All three suits turned toward the south wall, their plasma guns spasming with a green light. And then a riot of color and heat erupted from their wide barreled weapons.  The fury of color issued against the south wall, the boarded windows and shuttered door.  Holes appeared in the dark wall and light issued fourth.  The marines outside had been on the verge of entering the building when the wall erupted.  Most of the marines were unfazed by the haze of plaster and wood chips blasting about them.  One or two received hits and staggered away from the wall.  The rest charged into the building, shouldering the doors open and other pulling themselves through the windows.

Obolis could hear and see plasma shots reigning down on the marines from his suits above.  He watched as a hail of plasma fire stabbed down at a marine and seemed to follow him as he entered the building.  The stabbing shots, like flaming sword, issued through the air and then exploded from the ceiling as the Crisis suit clearly tracked the movement of the targeted marine.  It eventually caught the human, slicing through his bulky armor.  The marine crashed down.  Obolis and his team dusted off and lifted into the air as swarms of marines entered the building. They continues firing while they settled on a catwalk above the marines.  Random shots came up at them and one of the shield drones exploded, overloaded from the fire, but Obolis’ team kept firing.  A door at the end of the catwalk opened and from it issued dozens of Fire Warriors.  Their transports had landed on the roof and they had quickly joined the fight.  They began firing as they came spreading out along the catwalk.  The reign of fire had become too much for the marines below.  Super heated shot issued at the marines from all directions.  Plasma shots bucked through the walls from the suits that had flanked the building.  Dozens of rifle shots poured from the catwalk above.  The beleaguered marines’ assault into the building had stopped in its tracks.   Most were dead and the last few were crouching behind scattered boxes and crates.  Obolis’ connected his suit’s targeting systems to the let marker lights coming from his Pathfinder teams and let them guide his shots.  The suit systematically targeted a marine with a green reticule, and shot him, targeted another, and shot him.  A third, the marine dropped with a crater in his head.

The number of shots from the catwalk had slowed as the number of targets disappeared.  Quiet was broken occasionally by the odd shot from a Fire Warrior sniping at wounded marines.  Obolis scanned the room.  He saw the occasional movement but the Marine’s were done.  He saw that his Pathfinders had ruined the two transport tanks that had brought the marines forward.  Directed rocket fire had made short work of them.  He powered down his weapon and tapped his com link bar opening a channel to all units in the field.
“The warehouse has been secured.  All units return to orange line stations.  Good hunting today”.

The Cemephon Expansion: One lost soul in particular

A silvery moon sat low in the sky.  It’s milk white orb sat close to distant dry hills that were bathed in the gold blue of the approaching dawn.  The towering form of a Tau Crisis suit stood amongst the tall dry yellow grass of the summer.  The white of the massive, but graceful, suit picked up the cobalt color of the dawn. A green robotic eye watched the dawn. It hadn’t been like the last time the Tau landed on Cemephon.  Obolois recalled the Honchop Horns bellowing as the massive invasion fleet had descended toward the ruins of New Boston.  He recalled the massive bombardment of the city from orbit.  Back then, almost a year ago now, the strike from space, followed by the massive landing was just as much of a message to the humans as an opening salvo to a war.  The message had been clear~ do not stand against this power.

Behind Obolis’ suit an army was gathering.  The last of several large drop ships slowly and quietly lifted from the field like balloons drifting away to the sky.  They left behind several thousand Fire Warriors, their transports and mountains of supplies for a long conflict.  He recalled that during the original invasion the conflict had not been as brilliant or as deadly or even a prestigious as the arrival.  The humans had had forced the Cemephon invasion into a waiting game, then into a war of attrition, and then into retreat.  Not this time Obolis thought to himself.  This time, Obolis swore, he would do it his way.  He had been overruled time and time again during the opening battle and then the wider campaign.  Now there was nobody to overrule him.

They were not lingering here.  Obolis turned toward the army behind him, fired his jet pack and dusted off the ground.  The fire warriors were quickly loading their supplies into hundreds of Devilfish transports.  As they became ready the transports, each with an escort of Crisis Suits and an assortment of skimmers, took off and departed for their various destinations.  He watched as his hunter teams took to the sky.  Dozens of teams moving off in the dawn light.  And as they became more distant they seemed to become as swarms of insects, some larger than others, all heading toward their various targets. This time the landing had been at night.  Under the cover of a comit’s radiation wake his army descended to the fields of Tralthus.  It was a much smaller army now, all that remained of the original Cemephon warfleet.  There were probably more veterans of the Cemephon Sphere in the pits of the Dark Eldar City than in this battle group.  But those that stood by him were veterans indeed.  They had fought on this ground though dozens and dozens of engagements.

Obolis’ suit coasted toward a hovering Pathfinder Devilfish.  As he approached a pair of heavy skimmers lifted from the ground scattering dust and battering the long grasses.  He joined the rest of the crisis suits in his team, three pair and him.  They formed up behind him and were joined by two pair of light scout skimmers.  The cadre of flyers all departed and moved toward the east.  Obolis cast a glance back toward the drop zone.  It was emptying now.  Few Tau were even on the ground.  A brace of transports circled the lonely drop zone.  There had been reports of Tau resistance on this world since he had left months ago.  In secret he sought to link up with those abandoned souls and strengthen their resistance.  To the humans it would appear that a guerilla war had just turned hot.  They would have no way of knowing that a new invasion was underway until half the world had slipped from their grip.

There was one lost soul in particular that he meant to find…

The Cemephon Expansion Part 18: We will kill his memory

Obolis observed his three fingered hand.  It was ashen blue with deeper blue age lines through the stubbly knuckles.  The backdrop to his hand was the yellow gold stone under autumn light.  The occasional crimson or amber three fingered leaf scatted by on the last of the warm summer gusts.  He wore counting beads around his wrist and was clothed in a cream colored robe with an orange sash.  He sat on one of several low benches that surrounded this small courtyard.  They curved around it’s circular edges.  The paving stones had been lain in a concentric circular pattern.  In the center they made the circular shape of the Tau home world.  He cast his eye from the edge across the courtyard looking toward the familiar glyph. A large Appra tree spread its long broad arms above the meditation place and its gold and crimson leaves created a dappled light in the afternoon.  About him were low buildings, cream color, with gentle curved half moon windows.  The sounds of a dull bell could be heard some distance off.  Obolis recognised it as the call to the third cycle meditation.

He had remembered the impacts that had brought down his suit.  They had shattered his hand and crushed his frontal vertebrae.  He remembered his broken fingers and exposed bone.  He had dragged himself from the mangle that was his ruined suit and with one good hand had hauled himself to shelter.  He was amazed at how his hand now bore no sign of the ruin that it had been.  He watched the dappled light move across his hand.

His strategy had failed.  The widening front of the Cemephon war had not been contained.  His personal assault on the newly arrived behemoth tank of the Imperial Guard had resulted in the death of most of his Fire Warriors.  He and three others had dropped from the back of a strafing drop ship into the combat zone and almost immediately had come under fire.  He recalled that as he had spiraled down from the open hatch of the drop ship, the large forms of his brothers and sisters behind him, their retros firing, his suit had begun registering impacts.  He could see the form of the massive Baneblade below him and he raced toward it.  It formed the central part of the Imperial lines.  Its massive cannons blazed away unevenly like the cannons of a woodside ship, vast gouts of smoke and fire. Thud, thud thud.  He watched in horror as the main gun fired toward the Tau line that could be seen in the distance.  The massive shell sucked the air away at the point of impact before an mammoth explosion obliterated a dozen fire warriors and a Broadside suit.  His attention was forced back to his drop zone as his personal drone was overloaded and exploded from fire.  A red frame appeared around his targeting reticule and he started firing his fusion guns at the Baneblade.  Macuil, his team partner, opened up also.  The super heated blasts seemed to be absorbed by the tank with little effect.  He noted a dozen proximity warnings as the ground reared up toward him.  He ducked toward a derelict building as the slow moving guns to the tank trued toward his teams.  His partner steered toward the roof of the building and crouched with the impact.  Macuil, on the roof already, had started heading toward the edge of the roof, the charge lights of his fusion guns solid.  Obolis followed his partner.

When he reached the edge of the building he saw that the tank had stopped moving.  It had become a bunker, fire issued from dozens of weapons on its vast iron hull.  It obliterated everything around it.  Obolis was surprised to see several human soldiers cut down in the fire fury that had erupted from the machine.  Most of the fire was being directed at the distant Tau line~ most.  He noted his second crisis team had hit the ground in the street below them.  He grimaced as he noted their lack of cover.  He knew their lone shield drone wouldn’t last long.  He watched in horror as the team of two were cut down.  A machine gun blasted through the first large form of the crisis suit.  An impact quickly dispached their shield drone in a shatter of sparks and white metal.  Further heavy rounds then rippled through the first suit like a storm through the autumn leaves.   Metal, cable, and then flesh were scattered.

The quick demise of the first suit gave the second suit just enough time to fire.  He recognised the warrior, Gallty, he thought her name was.  She was a Firewarror from one of the outer ring worlds.  Her fusion shot went wild.  He cursed because he knew she would not get another.  Her suit was hit by a lazer cannon round which obliterated it’s entire right side.  He saw the her burned body, a blackened stub where her right arm should have been, fall from the gaping hole in the crisis suit.  Her manged and torso fell forward like an overcooked banana curling out of its blackened skin.  She slumped forward hanging at at her waste, which was still lodged in the ruined suit.  She hung for a second before the actuators and servos of the suit failed and the armor collapsed forward obscuring, and probably crushing her body.

Obolis remembered his rage as he lifted his twin fusions guns, his foot gripping on the raised edge of the building roof. He and Macuil opened up on the tank.  Their precise fire hit the tank blasting apart armored plating.   Now, they being the only threat all, the fire from the tank was re targeted toward the roof they were on.  The wall and structure below them started to erupt, torn apart by shells.  As the side of the building came apart and his footing gave way he activated his jets to stay aloft.  A brace of shells hit him.  The first hit his suit and did most of the damage, a shot of pain raced through his arm.  The following shots were scattered across his sensor intakes.  His data feeds and actuators malfunctioned and his thrusters automatically failed.  Red warning signs flashed in-front of his eyes and he tried to reengage the thrusters.  It was too late, the suit fell from the edge of the building in a cascade of rubble and debris.  Its internal systems struggled to stay functioning as it fell the three stories and hit the pavement far below.  The actuators, which normally would have worked to have the suit mimic his movements, acted as a cushion when the suit hit the pavement.  In retrospect it was probably a good thing.  Macuil was hit by a lazcannon shot and killed instantly with an abruptly curtailed scream.

Obolis remembered the slow fading of his suits systems.  He watched in pain as the tracked tank before him moved on down the street.  The booted feet of Imperial infantry passed close by his felled suit.  He watched them on a static laced viewer.  They must have taken one look at the remains of his suit and dismissed him.

He looked up from his pondering and before him stood a tall Tau wearing a simple orange and white tabard.  It was Milsin, an Etherial Caste member.  His long dark hair was a long brade and his claiming eyes cast themselves over Obolis.
“What are you looking for?” Asked the Ethereal.  “Is there something that you seek from your hands?”.
Obolis rested his hand on the bench “I was amazed at the healing power of the Earth Caste.  My  hand shows no scar from the battle two months ago.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“none.”
“None that can be seen.  You seem to look for it anyway.”  Obolis nodded.  The Ethereal caste was always looking for meaning in simple things.  Looking for something under the surface.  Perhaps that was why this Ethereal, Milsin was the leader of this place.  He was always seeking healing beyond physical healing.  “You’re still thinking about the defeat at Cemephon.”
“Well wouldn’t you?” hurt could be heard in his voice.
“yes” Milsin nodded. “The loss of that world, and the horror that followed, is something that pains my soul too.  Your soul however should not be blamed for this.”  He paused as though looking inward. “We Ethereal should take the blame if any.  After all it was our Ari Ashi who lead your invasion of that world to ruin, not you.”  There was a quiet pause between them with the rattle of the dry leaves on the stone.
“I should have resisted.”
“you tried.” silence again “…and that is why you’re here.  You questioned Ari’s traitorous allegiance and still tried to win the war for our empire.  Perhaps your fault was not seeing that the more you fought the more your doomed expedition was to suffer.  There really was no way your campaign on Cemephon could have won with such a cancer at its heart.”
“But a corrupted Ethereal.  How could it be so?”
“How indeed?” Milsin nodded.  “Corrupted. And so much was lost.  So many warriors killed.  And Anemos, one of our most brightest and faithful leaders, dead.”
“Nobody ever saw her killed” Obolis looked up at the Ethereal with a harsh look in his eye.  Milsin raised his eyebrows and formed a slight frown, one of the few ways Tau had to show concern.
“Here we are again.”  he said.
“What?”
“Anemos.”
“What?” The Fire Warrior’s face in a snarl.
“Do you think she is still alive?” said the leader, seeing something of hope in the Fire Warrior.
“Probably not” his look was forlorn.
“You miss her leadership”.  Obolis didn’t reply.  The Ethereal sat down on the bench quietly as the silence and open ended question filled the space.  He breathed out in a long slow breath.

Another sweep of wind blew through the courtyard scattering orange fragments.
“You have been here for months Obolis.  It is time to return to the field”  The Ethereal said.  “I have been tasked to guide you now.  But there is something that has not been resolved here and I have been unable to get to the bottom of it.  We can not begin again until it is resolved.  I would have thought it was the betrayal of Ari Ashi, the Traitor Ethereal.  But no.  I sense that even during the campaign you were trying to out maneuver him.  You had moved past his influence then.  What holds you back now is Anemos’ absence”.
Obolis shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“It is though she were your true leader” The Ethereal said.
“She was”.  Though what Obolis said was a virtual blasphemy the Ethereal simply sighed.
“I must conclude” Milin spoke “that you do not wish to disgrace yourself by claiming that Anemos was the true leader.  Had she been, the defeat on Cemephon would have been hers rather than Ari Ashi’s.  I must conclude that your attachment to her was beyond that of an officer to his general”.
Obolis said nothing.  His mind was confused beyond words.  He had counseled Anemos to rebel against the traitor Ethereal.  But she had stayed true as her duty obliged her to.  And now he felt regret at her absence and his inability to influence her when he had the chance.  He blamed himself for her loss.
“You must move beyond this defeat Obolis”
“I just can’t” he pushed the words out.  The Ethereal nodded slowly.
“We’ll do it together.  We’ll move past this together.”
“What do you mean?”  The Fire Warrior turned to his new guide.
“You will summon the remnant of the Cemephon Expanson.  They are camped beyond the Maltran Plain.  They are ready for war again.  You will return to Cemephon, wipe out the Imperials that now threaten the world again and you will find the body of Anemos.  You will bury her in the ground”.
“What if she is alive?”
“She is not.  And you will discover that and put her memory to rest.”
“What of the Fire Warriors?  They still worship Ari Ashi despite the defeat?”
“I know it.  We will embrace the icon of the fallen Ethereal and make it our own.  We will kill is memory in our victory.  We will own his tattoos and make them proud again.  Are you willing Obolis?”
The Fire Warrior paused.  A gust pushed through the square and the two leaders locked eyes.
“I am.”

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Pure Rapture

Ari Ashi had been to the Voir Grim many times before and he rarely tired of the show.  The Tau visitor sat in Lady Hosphel’s box, high above the general murmer of the crowd.  The gilded balustrades and sweeping statues that made up the theatre’s decoration seemed as mighty demons sweeping around him.  Below, the general audience were in a rare state of calm as the curtain on this grim stage was yet to be raised.  Thick crimson and white theatre curtains, the material looped like sagging skin, hung to the floor of the old stage.  The chatter of Kabal’s social elite wafted from below.  Hosphel rarely came to the show these days.  Her attention was else ware.  She was not happy to revel in the spoils of victory.  Once Cemephon’s human and Tau populations had been rendered and the planet plundered she had moved onto a new scheme and a new plot.  He was comfortable bathing in his new life.  The life of adopted terror.

Sometimes he tried to think how long it had been since he had stepped from the webway into his new home.  He couldn’t tell really.  The Dark City’s crimson season was unchanging and the dark light of the sun seemed to wash over the city and it’s grim neighborhoods in an eternal day.  He often thought back to the heady days of his first arrival.  He had drunk in the anguish of this city and he now knew he would never really leave it.

He glanced at the program.  The wafer thin program made of pulped and dried flesh with a sickly brown ‘ink’ described the three acts of the show.  It was to be the tale of Le Barbier de Commorragh.  The Troope Coupe-Gorge had arrived from the Black Heart’s show halls and along with local favorite The Soubrett, were reviving the show that made their name.  He turned his attention back to the crowd below and let his mind wander again.

Once he arrived in the dark city the waves of hatred he felt for his own people had been replaced by a warm simmering loathing.  He remembered the throngs of Fire Warriors, their confidence in ruin, broken armor hanging from their bodies, marching in to the maw of the dark pits.  The crowds that inspected the newcomers cheered in bloody glee as the throng of soldiers were sheparded to their long doom.  There were humans too, by the thousands.  At the end the broken corps of the Imperial Guard had been in tatters and the waves of raiders swept over their lines and wrecked them.

Once Anemos had been killed the dynamic and every responsive character of the Tau army on Cemephon had changed.  He had assumed full control of the Tau war machine and had ground it into the guns of the Imperial lines.  His glee was satisfied through unique logistical games~ always his forte.  One of his favorites was shipping the wrong type of ammunition to an advancing column just before they reached the front.  Or one that he savored the best was shipping helmets to the front with bloody heads in them. Chaos and depression were rife through the front and the Imperial forces took full advantage.  The humans’ enthuseastic embracing of the confusion of the Tau was met with similarly devilish results.  Attacking human forces, eager to get to grips with their enemy, found many of the Tau had become suicidal.  Dropships, devilfish and even Pathfinders were rigged to explode when the humans got near.  Some of the Tau killed themselves out of seer horror at what they had become while others had to be motivated.  More and more Kabilite warriors poured into the planet and in chaos and confusion the planet simply turned into a feast of brutality and misery.  Pockets of resistance amongst the Tau and the humans left on the planet tried to fight their way out but they were mostly wiped out or captured.  When Ari Ahsi left Cemephon he left it as a smoking ruin of charred and bloody stubs.  The fallen Etherial had feasted on the pain of his brothers and sisters for weeks.  The Tau Empire’s good natured dreams of colonial expansion turned into the bloody bath water of the Kabal’s luxury.

The curtain rose and it pulled his attention back to the now darkening theatre.  An expectant hush fell over the crowd.  All eyes were on the stage.  There was a palpable sence of expectation yet it was suffused with a resignation, so common in the dark city, that this wouldn’t be enough.  They had all seen the show a thousand times and while the excitement was here there was also the lingering boredom of repetition in the air.  The Soubrette’s massive bloated form stood in the middle of the stage.  Her multiple limbs moved about in a graceful way that belied her opera singer’s form.  Around her were eight or nine restrained figures.  The forms were secured on a slight diagonal racks.  Barbed restraints held them in place.  Some human, some eldar, Ari noted one was a tau.  The quiet lingered in the room and then she began.

The Souberite’s opera was a combination of her voice and the tailored screams from the various members of the ‘orcestra’ before her.  Their pain was educed by her augmented and focused song.  She would choose her victims based on how her voice and its focused vibrations would affect the various parts of their bodies.  She would sing long dead songs and with her voice eviscerate them.  She began on a human female, the horrible high tone vibrating through the woman’s brain so as to induce a particular tone of scream, then to the Tau, the creature uttered a low wail, then to another which produced a guttural beat, then back to the human female for the high pitch.  The opera had begun and the waves of anguish swept across the audience.   By the time the tide washed against the Ari Ashi it had become pure rapture.

>The Cemephon Expansion: Part 17. The Genius

>Jungle vines hung through the blasted window that had once looked out across the stars. Its wide oval was about thirty feet across and where it once it held a view of dark stars it now held the prospect of an overgrown jungle. Green vines spilled forth into the command chamber of the Tau battleship. Leaves and plants hanging down over command consoles. The power had been off for about a month and so the edges of once white chamber were hidden in shadows. Dark control panels were quiet and where once the chatter of Air Caste pilots had sounded, now the chatter of exotic birds called out.

Anemos walked cautiously into the chamber. Its silence and her witness to the remnant of what this place once was, made her shiver. There were parts of the ship that still buzzed with activity. She had made sure of it. Despite the rough landing and the destruction of the main viewing chamber, the ship was still intact and she had been running the war from the tactical alcoves several decks below. Hundreds of Fire Warriors worked and planned from other parts of the ship in full confidence of eventual victory. Anemos was not as confident. She returned to this place knowing that this was at the heart of the campaign. She swallowed hard facing the reality that at the core of her command was this room and madness of the jungle crowding around. She looked toward the shadows. She was looking for her god. She knew he was here. She knew he was lurking in the shadows.

“My lord” she called to the darkness “we need to speak of the war”. There was no response. “It goes poorly”.

“I see it” the voice came from one of the dark corners. She looked closer and saw the shape of her Ethereal. “I see it in you. I see your desire”. The voice was ghostly and lonesome. She started toward the dark form and saw that he was dressed in little but rags. “You want me dead. You want me gone”

“I do not. I seek your council.”

“You seek to blame me for your failure.”

She breathed out slowly measuring her temper. He was right. She did want him dead. He had lead their forces into an evil alliance with the Dark Eldar and and their wytches and the Cemephon expansion had become their playground. Their wanton destruction and torture had become her daily observations. They all had been lead to their doom.

“I’ve seen the horror. Horrors that you’ve seen.” The voice came from the blackness.

“The field is lost. Our forces are in retreat. The northern front has collapsed and the hives cities are overrun with Imperials.” She paused. Her anger was building. “Obolis is missing. Tranthus’ break through assault on the dark gate has failed. And he is dead!” She paused letting her words sink into the darkness. They also sank into her mind. She thought of Obolis’ warning all those months ago… “Whatever walks through that gate will destroy us” he had said. She now came to see that he had said was right. The call of a Jimjok bird sounded in the jungle outside and brought her back. She could feel her own contempt. “What is your wisdom?” she spat. Her words were soaked in malice.

“You have a right to kill me” the voice from the darkness was slow and seemed to slide across the room like a filthy oil. “You have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me. I am your god and I have lead you to this point of glory”

“Glory!?”

“Glory indeed. The inky, bloody revelry of what we have made is glorious. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what glory means.”

“How are we glorious? How?” Her face was twisted in a snarl.

“Glorious in death”.

Anemos eyes grew wide. She now knew what Obolis had seen all those months ago at the start of this war was true. The Ethereal was mad. She loosed her sidearm from its holster and drew it up to fire but her finger never made it to the trigger. A ghostly shadow from behind darted over her striking her and lodging a needle through her neck. It protruded from one side through to the other. She dropped to her knees gurgling as a poison strode through her body. Her face contorted as she twisted against the toxin. She was trying to see the face of her attacker.

The voice from the inky blackness sounded again as calm and slow as cold tar. . “Horror. Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and mortal terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.” She hit the cold deck still writhing against the poison. Her eyes could only see the long black heeled boot of her assassin standing before her. She heard the rasp of her own breath. “The genius of it. The genius. The will to unleash mortal terror on your foes and love it. If I had ten divisions of those dark eldar kin, then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have warriors who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill with feeling, with passion, with judgment–with Passion! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.”

The Ethereal had stepped from the darkness and walked toward her. She could see his tattooed body. From head to toe it was covered in the insane etches that now covered her warrior’s suits in tribute to this insanity. He carried a halberd in his hand. It was the once proud and now defiled symbol of his office.

“I realized what they could stand was so much beyond what we could do.” He came to stand before her looking down at her. He stood beside the Lady Hosphel, the assassin, and they both looked down at Anemos’s prostrate body. The fire warrior was now still. Her breathing was a labored panting. “These were not monsters, these were warriors, trained cadres, these who fought with their hearts. Our kin, Anemos, the Tau, have no passion. Passion is what is needed.” And with that the Ethereal raised the long blade of the halberd. And with a swift ease he inserted it into the soft flesh of Anemos’ stomach. It easily slid through to the floor with a dull sounding. She gasped with the last of her strength and her fingers spread wide in agony.

“The genius” the Ethereal said again, repeating himself as a widening pool of Anemos’ blood neared their feet.

>The Cemephon Expansion: Part 16: Static

>Loose static. Images in digital green came together and became clearer. Obolis’ looked at the communication screen within his suit. A communications signal was forming. He couldn’t see what it was yet. The data stream was struggling to form a clear link. The tau commander looked for his tap bar. He tried to boost the reception. While in his suit it was as if he were floating in a warm darkness. When inside the suit a warrior had the distinct feeling of levitation. The grasp of the motion actuators, that sent signals to the suit itself, was so slight that he couldn’t feel them~ even though they held him firmly. He just felt the sensation of floating. All about him, or so it appeared to him, were digital screens and monitors and control pads. They too were suspended in the warm darkness as if floating and as he needed them he would draw them in close or conversely move them to a less direct view when they were less important. He had dimmed the circular view screen that surrounded his head. Normally it showed the perspective he might have seen had he been able to see through his armor to the outside. It was background now.

He had been focusing on several incoming data feeds from the many Pathfinder and Stealth teams in the field. Three video images played in the background. He brought them to the fore and shuffled them like pieces of paper, viewing them each in time. The first was an image of several Devilfish APCs advancing on a burned out agricultural dormitory in the middle of a field. There was little opposition. The next image was from an advance stealth team. The grainy strange image of an eldrich gate. He could see its dark spires guarded by the cold forms of Space Marines. He looked closer at this one and pondered it. He had sent the stealth team to that remote location at the request of the Etherial himself. He dared not question the Etherial’s orders again. The partnership between the Dark Eldar of the Rancid Blade and the Etherial (and therefore him), forged at New Boston last year, persisted. The idea that the noble fire warriors were risking their lives in aid of the Dark Eldar was abhorrent to him. However, his words stating such had relegated him to obscurity (for now). He frowned, noting the data feeds from the Southern front. The dark warriors’ (as they called themselves) lightning attacks had opened an entirely new front in the southern part of the country. There was some good, he guessed, in their razor sharp speed sweeping across miles of territory while teams of Fire Warriors followed behind securing the critical assets. Perhaps the Etherial had been right, he pondered. The southern front had pulled away many of the vast resources that the Spaces Marines were directing to halting the Cemephon Expansion. He shuffled the image to the back. The third picture was an image of a large Imperial transport landing at the city sized space port close to the eldar advance. He could see the huge insignia of an Imperial Guard regiment on the side of the lander. He checked the scale. The lander was eight city blocks long. More Imperial reinforcements. He frowned again. Perhaps another foe for the Dark Eldar to deal with.

He set the vids to repeat and then pushed them to the background. Several scrolls of text passed by to his left. He kept an eye on them also. They were repeating data feeds from the two fonts of this war. He pulled close another screen that had been pushed to one side. It was a medical report. His friend Maturn had been in critical condition for several days. The real time report showed his condition unchanged.

He looked again to the incoming data feed. It was slowly taking shape. It became clearer and solidified. It was another video feed. This one was live. The Imperials were advancing again on the Garison on the northern front. The outer pathfinders were relaying the images from their hidden positions. Several weeks ago, in the opening stages of the war, he had moved to secure an old Imperial Garrison on the outskirts of the Maximilian Hive city. He had been concerned at having such a large Imperial garrison on the doorstep of the hives cities that he controlled. The Garrison was yielded with virtually no resistance. The troops within had apparently been neglected by their masters because they had not put up any sort of a fight. He had secured the humans in their bunkers and the Water Caste had begun the process of indoctrination to the greater way. They reported similarly light resistance from the humans in this matter. Like the populations of the hive cities, the humans in the garrisons seemed to welcome the hope that the Water Caste presented to them. Hope seemed like a commodity the humans rarely saw. The Water Caste had it in ample supply.

The garrison had become a key asset in the war. Perhaps because of the efforts of the Water Caste the Space Marines seemed intent on securing it. Last week Anemos, the leader of the Cemephon expansion, had lead the successful defence of the Imperial Garrison when the Space Marines had sought to retake it. Now it appeared that the Marines were moving in to try again. He noted from the data feeds that gave narrative to the videos that a second advance into the dry hills to the west of the garrison and the hive was also occurring. The humans were widening the front of the war. They were trying to stretch and then break his lines. He looked toward a tactical display that showed his deployment of resources surrounding the massive city of Hive Maximillian. There were few resources to the west. He considered the twin advancing columns of the human forces. Repelling both the columns at the same time would be difficult. He tapped a control pad and selected several options. It sent a signal to the other commanders in the field and to Anemos seeking a council of war to discus the widening front. As the signal was sent he saw that several others of the commanders had requested the conference also.

A second video feed arrived from the same Pathfinder team as the first image. Obolis’ eyes grew wide as he saw the image. At the heart of the Imperial advance on the Garrison was the form of a massive war machine. A gigantic tracked weapon moved slowly along with the squads of Space Marines. It’s massive gun barrels swayed and turned as though the heads of a massive beast looking for targets. The scale of this machine dwarfed any resources he had. It’s presence could change the fortunes of the war. He zoomed into the image, concern showing on his brow. The widening font and the presence of this machine was cause for concern indeed. The Imperials had upped the anti. He closed out several of the other screens clearing the palate so he could focus on the changes of the northern front. This machine had to be stopped.

Then, like the turn of a ship on a tack his mind changed direction. He considered an opportunity. If this war machine broke through the tau lines at the Garrison it would roll right into Hive Maximillion with little resistance. The front would collapse. He considered the forces available to him. Many of his Fire Warriors were spread out securing a wide area of the region. Perhaps, however, there was a tool that he might use. He would have to pick well the location and his forces well to blunt this attack. He might even have to cede ground to the humans as he mustered his defences. The key would be stopping this behemoth and then moving the bolster the rest of the lines. He also considered that were he to stop this advance, were he to repel or even destroy this war machine he would at the same time be repelling the criticism that had been leveled against him. It would be difficult for Anemos and Tanthus to criticize him given such an achievement. He noted that several of the others were responding to his request for audience~ they too had seen the video feeds. He hit the key and immediately the images of the other commanders arrived, their faces seemingly in the warm dark with him. He saw that they had seen the video… but had they seen the opportunity?