Shas'o Read online

  ‘Until now, you’ve only thought about these canyons as obstacles to be crossed,’ the shas’o told them. ‘We’re here to learn that they can be your best ally or your worst enemy. In this hunt, you must simply return to the colony without being tagged. The Devilfish will be patrolling the desert and hostile pathfinders and gun drones are in the canyons. Question one, which way do you go?’

  ‘Through the canyons, shas’o,’ the shas’ui responded promptly.

  ‘Very good,’ nodded the shas’o. ‘Now tell me why.’

  ‘The Devilfish would easily detect us and tag us in the open.’

  ‘You discount the threat of pathfinders and gun drones?’

  ‘No, but the pathfinders will require support to stop us and the Devilfish will be highly restricted if they enter the canyons. The gun drones can be outsmarted or outfought one on one as necessary.’

  ‘I concur with your theories, shas’ui. Now let’s go and put them to the test. Pay close attention because we will be performing another hunt out here tomorrow, with battlesuits.’

  Pulse blasts criss-crossed the canyon in a flickering web of light. Every nook and cranny seemed to birth and receive its own false lightning faster than the eye could follow. After a week of successive hunts in the desert, the fire warriors were improving, the shas’o noted with approval. The blue ‘prey’ cadre in this hunt had turned on their pursuers and caught them with a classic mont’ka, a killing blow. The strung-out red cadre suddenly found their lead elements caught in a canyon too narrow to redeploy in. In thirty more seconds the surrounded warriors would be cut down and the red cadre would become prey.

  The shas’o and his team leapt from the canyon lip eighty metres above, the flat plates of their crisis battlesuits gleaming in the bright suns. Blue-white stabs of flame from their shoulder-packs steadied their fall as the canyon floor rushed up to greet them. At the last second, their jetpacks kicked in and robbed them of their momentum, their duralloy leg-claws crunching into the sands in unison. The three-metre tall armoured suits raised arm-mounted weapon pods and rapid bursts of plasma rifle fire ripped into the firefight from a new angle.

  The blue cadre ambushers were caught between the crisis suits and the red cadre survivors. Decisive action could still have saved them; enough were combat effective that a concerted attack on either the battlesuits or the reds might have still carried the fight. But the blue cadre’s cohesion had disintegrated when the crisis team landed. They panicked and fought their own immediate battles without regard to what was happening behind them. In a few seconds, the moment had passed and the red cadre carried the blue’s position. The blue’s hasty ambush became their last stand.

  ‘You cheated!’ the shas’ui was standing before the shas’o’s suit, glaring defiantly up into the monitor lenses that peppered its head. The shas’ui’s own light armour was discoloured where simulated plasma fire had killed her in the fight.

  ‘I’m sorry, shas’ui, in what way did I cheat?’ The voice came from the battlesuit’s external speakers, somewhere in its midriff.

  ‘You said that you would observe and take no part in the action!’

  ‘I did, but sometimes in combat you will also find things to be different to what you anticipated.’ The suit’s speaker made the statement flat and unaffected, yet it ended the shas’ui’s tirade as if she had been struck.

  ‘I apologise, shas’o. I did not mean to impugn your teaching.’

  The heavily-armoured suit raised one weapon-mounted arm in a curiously lifelike gesture of conciliation. ‘No, it is I that should apologise, shas’ui. The reds were fairly caught, and credit is due to you for that. I felt there was no further lesson left to be learned there. However, there was still a lesson for you to learn. Can you tell me what it was?’

  ‘No rearguard,’ the shas’ui said bitterly. ‘When I was sure we’d caught them, I didn’t detail anyone to watch our back.’

  The shas’o broadcast his findings on the hunt to all of the fire warriors present, reds and blues alike.

  ‘You have fought well, but with mistakes on both sides. Overlooking that a force of which you are unaware might come against you during an engagement is an easy mistake to make, just as easy as rushing headlong after a fleeing enemy and suffering a reverse. Natural eagerness to turn every weapon on the acquired target can obscure the need for a rearguard, or a reserve, to cover the eventuality that all does not proceed as hoped for. Learn from this.’

  The shas’ui was studying the patina of simulated pulse rifle hits on the commander’s suit. ‘Are those mine?’ she eventually asked when the shas’o’s wisdom had been dispensed.

  ‘Indeed they are. Some nice grouping, shas’ui.’

  ‘I’ll get you next time.’

  It took two more weeks of training hunts before the fio’ui took exception to the additional maintenance burden the fire warriors were incurring. As the shas’o returned to the barracks after dusk, he sighted the fio’ui’s dumpy form waiting patiently beside the gate post like some carved heathen icon.

  They had been using battlesuits again that day, and the shas’o’s was close to the limits of its endurance. The suit’s armoured casing was streaked with smears of dust and its clogged servos whined plaintively with every step. They’d found that the crisis battlesuits were excellent for supporting the troopers in the close confines of the canyons, far more practical than the larger Devilfish or Hammer­head support vehicles. The only downside was the battle­suit’s limited endurance, which meant they would need to cache extra power cells to operate in areas remote from the colony.

  The shas’o’s mind was filled with plans as he approached, but the sight of the fio’ui gave him pause. He halted the crisis suit and opened its chest cavity so that he could dismount and meet the fio’ui face-to-face. One of the earth caste would never be intimidated by a piece machinery, however martial its function, but it never hurt to show some politeness to another caste. The fio’ui was of the Kel’shan Sept, and so apt to be stubborn and mistrustful of outsiders at the best of times.

  ‘Greetings, fio’ui,’ the shas’o began. ‘You come without the por’la at your side. Am I to understand that this is a social visit with no call for negotiation?’

  ‘You understand wrongly,’ the fio’ui grumbled. ‘I have come to inform you that your… outings must stop. There is serious work to be done and my apprentices are being distracted by your indulgence.’

  ‘Training is no indulgence, fio’ui, if my warriors are to retain any value as a fighting force. Just as your own apprentices would not expect a mechanism to function if it was left unattended, I cannot expect my warriors to fight if they never lift a weapon.’

  The fio’ui thrust his jaw out truculently and began again. ‘It must stop. The aun’o demands maximum output.’ Having evoked the name of the aun’o, the engineer closed his mouth and moved to leave, as if no more need be said.

  ‘Wait, fio’ui,’ the shas’o said. ‘Even absent the por’la can we not come to compromise?’

  The fio’ui seemed a little shocked by the concept, but he paused to listen. Encouraged by his own boldness, the shas’o pressed his point further.

  ‘I have many pairs of idle hands on Arkunasha colony, not to mention numerous drones without true purpose. Teach my fire warriors how to perform their own maintenance schedules and I will have them assist in monitoring the extraction and purification facilities across the planet. You would exceed your estimated output in no time.’

  The fio’ui’s heavy brow furrowed uncertainly as he wrapped his mind around the unfamiliar concept. His voice was still gruff but there was a gleam of hope in his eye. ‘The shas’la would refuse,’ he muttered. ‘You of the fire caste have always believed manual labour beneath you.’

  ‘Bold words,’ shas’o smiled, ‘some fire warriors would demand satisfaction for their bruised honour on hearing them. I am not so ignorant and I’m re
ady to shoulder my burdens alongside my brothers and sisters. The shas’la will obey my commands, and they are just as eager to be of more value to this colony. Only caste barriers prevent their willing contribution to it.’

  ‘Very well, shas’o, I shall consider your unorthodox proposal and discuss with my own kind. I… thank you for your time.’

  The shas’o watched the chief engineer shuffle away through dim pools of illumination cast by the colony lights. He smiled to himself. Another opponent laid low by a surprise attack. After a time he went inside to prepare briefings for the next training hunt.

  Fire and iron thundered out of the void with twisting, belching black trails chasing at its back. One, two, then three fiery meteors were vomited from the sullen skies, the clouds peeling back in ragged tatters where the smoking lances pierced them from above. Distance made the churning smoke and fire trails seem absurdly slow-moving as their burning tips crawled across the sky.

  The shas’o watched the apocalyptic sight through the screens of the colony information center. A crisp line of characters at the bottom of the image announced that it was being relayed from a metal extraction and purification facility somewhere on the far side of the planet.

  ‘Still no word from the Vior’la Gal’leath M’shan?’ he asked.

  The fio’la technicians hunched their shoulders helplessly. The only ship within communication range of Arkunasha colony had dropped off the grid hours before. All their attempts to raise it had met with stubborn silence. The fio’ui was clinging tenaciously to the idea of a meteor storm being responsible for the break in communications. He gestured sharply at the screens.

  ‘Meteors, see?’ the engineer grunted. ‘They’re starting to break up.’

  A handful of smoking coals were indeed dropping away from churning masses and curving downward at a steeper trajectory. The shas’o shook his head as most of the smaller smoke trails corkscrewed and levelled out just before they hit the ground. One came rocketing straight towards the extraction facility, creating a momentary impression of something big and close before the image disintegrated into static.

  ‘Facility 7352 is no longer transmitting, fio’ui,’ one of the fio’la called apologetically.

  ‘Because those are Ore’s’la ships and attack craft, not meteors,’ the shas’o said quietly. ‘Fio’ui, I need you to tell your people to prepare for evacuation–’

  ‘You will do nothing of the kind, fio’ui,’ the aun’o’s voice rang out in the quiet information centre as he swept in through the outer doors. ‘There is no call for such precipitous action at this time.’

  The aun’o stood at the entry surrounded by a small coterie of nervous-looking water caste members. His expression was that of a tutor finding his students engaged in some distasteful, and probably illegal, activity.

  ‘My apologies, aun’o,’ the shas’o replied somewhat tautly, ‘but the protection of this colony is my responsibility and I must advise immediate evacuation.’

  ‘Because a handful of pirates have landed on the far side of the planet? Something of an overreaction on your part. Understand­able, I suppose – this must be very exciting for you.’

  ‘Apologies again, aun’o, but this is no mere handful of pirates. Or’es’la ships of that size carry tens of thousands of their warrior caste. I have insufficient forces to defeat them all when they locate the colony. We must remain mobile to stay ahead of the invaders until reinforcements can arrive.’

  ‘Don’t you mean if they locate the colony, shas’o?’

  ‘I mean what I say. It will only be a matter of time before the Or’es’la locate more of the extraction facilities, and believe me they will trace them back to us. They will travel any distance to find battle, aun’o – we must not be here when they arrive.’

  Aboard the lead ork cruiser, Warboss Gorbag Gitbiter gripped the arms of his command throne and laughed uproariously at the sight of orks and grots being hurled around the ship’s bridge. Smoke and blasts of flame accompanied their thunderous progress through the skies. The vibrations running through the ship felt like a thousand jackhammers were being jammed against its patchwork armour plating.

  Gorbag mashed random buttons on the arm of his throne until a frightened-sounding grot voice squeaked from a speaker grill in response.

  ‘Tell the flyboys it’s time to drop and give ‘em a boot up the arse from me,’ Gorbag growled happily. With nothing to kill on this planet, the landing was going to be the most fun part and he was going to squeeze out every bit of it. Distant clunks reverberated through the hull as landers and flyers dropped away from the giant ship with all the aplomb of baby chicks falling out of a large, ugly nest.

  A chaotic selection of viewscreens flickered into life around the bridge, half exploding in showers of sparks before immediately going dead. Of the remainder, some showed only static, but others showed the juddering, leaping views from the noses of the ork flyers. Boring-looking sand dunes and rocks bounced around on the working screens for a few seconds before one was lit by the stabbing flames of nose guns firing. Gorbag’s attention snapped to the screen and his impressively-tusked jaws champed convulsively. A little sprawl of silvery towers and pipes in the desert was dis­appearing in a storm of explosions. Gorbag cuffed a nearby gretchin excitedly and sent him flying.

  ‘Something to kill!’ Gorbag roared, jabbing one clawed finger at the flickering image ‘Get us down there! Now!’

  The desert horizon that had once been so crisp and clear was smudged with plumes of smoke. The or’es’la had been busy destroying every extraction facility they could find in this part of the world, apparently racing one another for the joys of reaching them first and destroying the handful of drones defending them. The shas’o glanced out to his flank, where two Hammerheads were churning through the dust, their dart-like hulls completely dwarfed by the long railguns they carried in their turrets. He looked down into the canyon lying diagonally before him, where fire warriors advanced through rocks and took up positions.

  It had taken almost a week of strenuous argument to persuade the aun’o to allow the fire warriors out of the colony at all. Eventually the aun’o had conceded that at least tracking the invader’s progress was necessary, and some reconnaissance might be in order. If the aun’o had paid attention to the forces the shas’o had chosen to take on his ‘reconnaissance’ mission, he might have questioned his intentions more thoroughly. He had brought almost a full cadre; half a dozen fire warrior squads in Devilfish carriers, pathfinders, two crisis teams and a squadron of Hammerhead tanks as a ‘covering force’. Even so they were horribly outnumbered by the or’es’la in this region.

  Flickers of light at the horizon caught the shas’o’s attention. He increased the optical gain on his battlesuit’s sensors in time to see several disc-shaped drones fly into view. Brightly glowing tracers chased them, kicking up spurts in the dust as the drones bobbed and weaved frantically to avoid them. A second later, the first of their pursuers leapt over the horizon on a belching tail of smoke, a crude looking or’es’la flyer with its nose aflame with twinkling gun flashes. The shas’o’s crisis suit immediately registered two high-energy discharges to his flank as the Hammerheads fired their railguns in unison. The flyer disintegrated into an expanding cloud of flaming debris an instant later. The rain of hot shrapnel was still falling as the horizon darkened with the arrival of the main enemy force.

  The dark silhouettes of what seemed like hundreds of vehicles came streaming into view, a mobile mass of churning dust and metal. The two Hammerheads turned tail and fled, in accordance with their orders, turning their long railguns rearwards to menace their still distant pursuers. As the enemy drew closer, they became distinguishable as a column of tanks, bikes, guns and trucks mixed together without any apparent formation. They came on with the subtlety of a battering ram, completely intent on the vanishing Hammerheads and unaware of the fire warriors lurking on their flank.
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  Invisible markerlight beams fired by the pathfinders reached out to the onrushing horde to guide in a salvo of seeker missiles. The seekers were a precious commodity, one-shot self-guided weapons being launched from a trio of Devilfish hidden further down the canyon. The slender missiles flashed unerringly into their designated targets, ripping ragged holes in the column wherever they struck. The or’es’la dissolved into a chaotic mess of vehicles, charging in every direction, careening into each other, crashing into rocks and toppling down soft dunes. The rapidly-thinning horde spilled within pulse rifle range and the fire warriors’ bright volleys crashed out to immolate individual vehicles in dirty orange explosions. Submunitions from the disappearing Hammerheads blossomed over the scene almost as an afterthought, shredding the exposed or’es’la gunners and drivers in a storm of hyper-velocity shrapnel.

  The remaining vehicles turned for the horizon and sped away as fast as their tracks and wheels would carry them, leaving perhaps half of their number as twisted wrecks on the desert dunes. The shas’o was tempted to lead his crisis teams into the field of burning wreckage to chase down the survivors to truly seal the victory. There would be no quarter asked or given by the or’es’la, and any that escaped now would fight again with renewed ferocity in their next battle. He checked his impulse and signalled the fire warriors to begin withdrawing to the waiting Devilfish. More smudges were appearing on the horizon all the time, showing that more or’es’la were converging on this position. It was time to leave and set another ambush elsewhere.

  The link to Arkunasha colony was weak and uncertain, jumping and sliding as the signal bounced off the ionosphere. Even so, the aun’o’s disapproval communicated itself readily through the tiny screen in the shas’o’s battlesuit as he trudged through a shadowed canyon along with the rest of his weary cadre. Night was falling, the time when the or’es’la stopped moving and the shas’o’s dwindling force could quietly shift between sectors. Endless days and nights of ambushes and running fights had taken their toll on the shas’o’s endurance, and his patience.