03 - Savage Scars (16 page)

“Daem’ani!” a Rakarshan yelled, an unfamiliar note of fear in his voice. The
shout was taken up by a dozen other riflemen, and in a moment Lucian was
surrounded by Rakarshans.

The aliens threw themselves forwards at the exact same moment the Rakarshans
charged. The two lines crashed together in a thunderous explosion of steel and
blood. A rifleman beside Lucian was struck hard in the face by the spiked stock
of an alien’s rifle, the blade lodging itself in the man’s head. Before the
creature could pull the blade free Lucian lashed out with his power sword and
severed both of its arms in a single sweep. The creature hooted in pain as it
collapsed writhing to the ground, blood spurting from its wounds.

Even before the wounded alien had been trampled flat beneath the Rakarshans’
boots, another had stepped into its place. A rifleman leaped forwards, repeating
the earlier cry of “Daem’ani!” at the top of his lungs, his ceremonial blade
lashing outwards to gut the creature. The alien saw the blow coming and parried
it with its rifle, using it as a duel-bladed stave and slamming its end into the
soldier’s stomach. The Rakarshan doubled over under the impact and the alien
brought the other end of the rifle down across his back, crushing him to the
ground beneath the brutal strike.

A high-pitched whine from Lucian’s plasma pistol told him it had recharged
and was ready to fire another blast. He raised the pistol and this time brought
his right forearm across his face as he squeezed the trigger so he was not
temporarily blinded by its discharge.

Lucian had no time to aim his shot, but had no need to. The enemy were coming
on in such numbers that he could scarcely miss. The plasma bolt burned a hole
right through the torso of the first enemy in its way and incinerated the one
behind it. The enemy faltered in their assault, and in that moment Lucian saw
that scores more of them were pouring from the treeline.

“We’re outnumbered!” Lucian bellowed.
By at least three to one, and rising
.

The section leader was nearby, and Lucian grabbed him by the shoulder. The
man’s eyes were glowing with madness, as if he were consumed by overwhelming and
unreasoning fear of what the Rakarshans had named “daem’ani”, and a berserker’s
rage to destroy the foe. The man appeared not to notice Lucian, so he shook him
violently until his eyes came into focus. “Order your men back, now!”

More hoots and whistles sounded from the woods, and Lucian knew the small
force had no chance if it did not fall back straight away.

“Fall back!” Lucian yelled. “Move and cover, you know the drill!”

But the Rakarshans did not understand. “Damn you,” Lucian growled, looking
about for his signalman, who he knew to speak near flawless Gothic. The man was
on the ground, bleeding profusely from a wound across his chest, a dead alien
warrior sprawled out next to him.

“How do I tell them to fall back?” Lucian said as he crouched next to the
signalman. “What’s the word of command?”

“Fall back, my lord?” the signalman said through gritted teeth. “There is no
word for fall back in our tongue…”

Lucian bit back a curse and sheathed his power sword. Hooking his free arm
around the signalman’s waist, he raised his plasma pistol at the onrushing
aliens and let off another blast. The shot struck an alien square in its
roaring, beaked head, decapitating it and setting its still-standing body
alight.

The aliens nearest to the conflagration leaped back from the fire, hissing
and whistling in obvious fear. Lucian took a step back, dragging the wounded
signalman with him. “Tell them to follow me,” he growled. “You must have a word
for that!”

“Mu’sta,” the signalman grunted as Lucian dragged him back. “Tell them that…”

“Mu’sta!” Lucian yelled. “Mu’sta, ya bastards, mu’sta!”

Within seconds, the surviving Rakarshans were gathering about Lucian, two of
their number taking the wounded signalman from him and propping the man up
between their shoulders. Lucian fired another plasma bolt at the aliens, who
were even now recovering from the shock of seeing one of their number
decapitated and immolated at the same time.

The Rakarshans followed Lucian’s example, firing into the aliens even as more
emerged from the treeline. Lucian backed away, though he kept firing as he went,
and soon the Rakarshans had the idea. The corporal appeared to have recovered
his wits too, for he set about ordering the sections to deploy or cover one
another alternately. Soon the Rakarshans were halfway back up the rise and out
of immediate danger.

Lucian lowered his prey-sense goggles over his eyes again, in order to judge
the numbers of aliens the Rakarshans had fought. Zooming in on the scene, he saw
something that filled him with utter revulsion. Three of the aliens were
crouched over the body of a fallen rifleman. One was scooping up a great,
looping handful of the man’s guts and sucking on the end. Another was biting
down hard on a forearm, while the third was doing something behind the corpse’s
head that Lucian was glad not to be able to see clearly.

“You sick, sick bastards…” he muttered, unaware that the section leader had
come up beside him.

“Sir?” the man said.

Lucian turned from the horrific scene and lifted his goggles. “Nothing son,
nothing. Come on, we need to get the battlegroup organised, and I need to talk
to someone from Tacticae intelligence…”

Brielle stood in the centre of the domed viewing blister high on the spine of
the tau vessel
Dal’yth Il’Fannor O’kray
. It was like standing on the
outer hull of the ship itself, for the blister was made not of solid material,
but an invisible force field. Brielle felt a combination of trepidation and
thrill as she looked out past the gleaming white hull to space beyond. A swarm
of spacecraft traversed to and fro across the void, every possible class and
configuration represented, from pinnace to mass transport.

Brielle turned slowly on the spot, taking in the full panorama of the scene
until she came to face Naal.

“What?” Brielle said, her dark eyes glinting with mischief.

“You lied to them, Brielle,” Naal said, and gestured to the vista beyond the
invisible field. “And this is the result.”

Brielle turned from him again, her mood growing dark. Of course she had lied,
it was the only way she could see to avert disaster and dissuade the tau from
using her as an emissary to demand the crusade’s surrender. The vessels crossing
the void beyond the energy dome were preparing to evacuate huge numbers of tau
civilians from Dal’yth Prime, while a warfleet was mustering further out to
retake the planet with overwhelming force. If the tau knew what Brielle did,
they would chase the humans all the way back to Terra. The crusade had been
launched in haste with no idea of the tau’s capabilities, was riven with
internecine rivalries and massively overextended following the months-long
crossing of the Damocles Gulf into tau space.

“The
result
is that the tau have pulled back from Dal’yth,” Brielle
said. “I’ve saved thousands of lives.”

“For now,” Naal said. “But that wasn’t why you told them the Imperium has
twenty more battleships inbound. You wanted to create chaos and confusion. Why,
Brielle?”

The observation blister was plunged in shadow as a huge refugee transport
passed the
Dal’yth Il’Fannor O’kray
, a shoal of tenders and launches
buzzing around. It was just the first of several hundred such transports the tau
had rushed to the Dal’yth system with the intention of evacuating as many
civilians as possible. Brielle’s warning of how humanity treated aliens was no
lie, and the tau had taken it to heart.

“Because this has got to end, Naal,” Brielle sighed. She felt a great weight
lifted as she finally said what she had been feeling for weeks.

“Then you have to go before the crusade council as Aura requests, and settle
this.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what, Brielle? What do you—?”

“I want out!” she said, stalking away from Naal towards the invisible shield
that held the void at bay and kept her alive. “I exaggerated the crusade’s
strengths so the tau would pull back. We both know that the crusade council is
split. Gurney and Grand, if he’s still alive, want total war, my father wants
profit and the others want honour. If my father can turn the council around
before the tau can muster a big enough force to repel the crusade, this can all
be settled. And I can go home.”

Naal’s face showed his utter shock at Brielle’s revelation. The Imperial
eagle tattoo on his forehead, a relic of past military service, seemed to fold
its wings as he frowned at Brielle, then cast his glance to the floor.

“Why did you not tell me earlier?”

“You may share my bed, Naal,” Brielle said as she rounded on the man. “But we
both know where your loyalties lie.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’re for the tau. You always have been. I don’t know what led you to them,
and I know you can’t go back. But I can.”

“Brielle,” Naal sighed. “I was just a Guard captain before I joined the tau,
before I heeded the Greater Good. I was just a captain and yet I’m marked for
death across an entire segmentum. You’re the daughter of nobility, Brielle.
There’s nowhere you can hide. You have no choice.”

“My father can protect me from the likes of Grand.”

“Your father thinks you’re dead.”

“Then he’ll be happy to see me again then, won’t he?”

“Please, Brielle,” Naal said with an edge of sadness to his voice. “Look
around you. There are no inquisitors here. There is no judgement and no
repression.”

“So long as you do
exactly
what they say, Naal, come on…”

“That’s the point of the Greater Good, Brielle,” Naal pressed. “They don’t
have to tell you. You just do it, for the good of all.”

“And if you don’t?”

“You do.”

“And if
I
don’t?”

“You will, Brielle. In time…”

“You can’t really think this is right, Naal, not deep down.” Brielle reached
up and tenderly caressed the eagle tattoo on his temple. “Does this mean nothing
to you?”

Naal took Brielle’s wrist in his hand. “Of course it does. I love the
Emperor. I just hate the Imperium. The aquila represents the former, not the
latter.”

“What made you this way, Naal?” Brielle whispered, her eyes narrowing as she
tried to find something, anything, inside his.

“You wouldn’t understand, Brielle.”

“Then why not come back with me. Put it right. Together.”

“Brielle, if I did that, he’d—”

Naal’s words were cut off as the circular iris-hatch set into the deck hissed
and a column of white light shone upwards as the opening widened. Brielle and
Naal stepped apart like guilty lovers, both turning to face the tau envoy, Aura,
as he rose upwards on a platform through the hatch.

Aura looked around, casting his sad gaze out into space for a moment before
turning it upon the two humans and affording them a shallow bow. “Lady Brielle,”
the envoy addressed her in his usual formal, yet strangely maudlin tone. “As you
can see, the transport fleet gathers to deliver our people from destruction.”
Did he count Brielle in that “our people”? “And the fleet musters even as we
speak.”

Brielle inclined her head, acknowledging Aura’s statement without saying
anything herself.

“When the fleet arrives, there will be much bloodshed, on both sides. Even
now, with our enemy attacking us in such great force, we would avert disaster
and bring peace.”

Brielle and Naal shared a furtive glance before the envoy continued.

“You will go before the enemy’s leaders and demand their surrender…”

“Their
surrender
…?”

“Yes, Lady Brielle,” Aura continued. “You must inform the humans that if they
do not submit and take their place in the tau empire according to the dictates
of the Greater Good, they will be destroyed. Utterly.”

“You will be briefed and prepared for your duty, Lady Brielle. You will go
before their leaders adorned as I, as an envoy of the tau empire. This will be
your finest hour, Lady Brielle, and it will be remembered across the entire
empire.”

“Of course,” Brielle said, though her mind was in turmoil. She had been so
sure the tau would have seen sense when she had so grossly overstated the
crusade’s strength, yet they wanted not just a ceasefire or even a surrender,
but to coerce the crusade’s forces to join them…

“Of course,” Brielle repeated. “For the Greater Good…”

Sergeant Sarik’s force was pushing forwards now, driving the tau
stealth-troopers back towards a low rise as the light of dawn filled the skies.
The Space Marines had taken casualties when the tau had attacked the rear of the
column, including both Whirlwind missile tanks being taken out of action as
stealthed tau infantry used their equivalent of the Imperium’s tank-busting
melta weapons from close range. Sarik’s warriors had rallied, and over the
course of a three-hour firefight learned how to detect the presence of the
infiltrating tau.