“The Aun is always the priority!”
“I haven’t the time to contest the point, alien. Your ethereal is lost. If you don’t help me now then there won’t be another chance to find him.
“If you do not comply, xenogen, then by the Emperor’s grace we shall all be dead within the hour.”
“What is this job?” Kais asked, indecision wracking him.
“I shall brief you en route. Get moving.”
Something nagged distantly at Kais’s mind, spilling into his throat unbidden. “Why me, gue’la? Why would you trust me to do this thing?”
“The counsel of an old friend. You would not understand.”
“A friend?”
“He is with the Emperor now. I’m sending coordinates. Don’t fail me, xeno.”
El’Lusha settled into the carapace gratefully, reacquainting himself with the padded interior like a meeting of old friends. A web of cool air drifted past his face and along his spine, chasing away the nascent feelings of stifling warmth.
“Geneprint acknowledged,” a pleasant AI voice — feminine in its cadence (at his request)—trilled. “Welcome, Shas’el T’au Lusha.”
He grinned at the greeting, relaxing. The familiar flurry of claustrophobia and suffocation tension, natural responses to incarceration within such limited space, drained quickly away. A HUD faceplate — slightly larger and more complex than that of a line trooper’s helmet — descended into position above his face and swung forwards. He let his eyes accustom to the bright multi-spectral world and waited until his optimal focal distance was reached. An incautious setup could result in squinting, eye strain and migraine, none of them particularly desirable in the middle of a pitched battle.
“Stop,” he commanded. The creeping faceplate settled to a halt and locked off with a pleasant chime. He noted with some irritation that it was fractionally closer to his eyes than for his last mission and mused sadly to himself upon the nature of growing old. He’d have to visit the fio’uis to see about some bionics, soon.
“Status checks,” he grunted into the microphone array, tensing the muscles of his arms and legs rhythmically to prevent cramps. A group of spongy restraints like knuckled digits closed around the back of his skull, gently but firmly restraining his head. The comm toned serenely.
“Vre’Tong’ata. Optimal performance. The new upper-left limb is perfect.”
“Vre’Wyr. All good.”
“Vre’Kol’tae. Coolants are a little unbalanced, but the AI can regulate it.”
Lusha clucked appreciatively as glowing icons representing his team mates imposed themselves over a radar plan. “Good. I’m reading a flawless status too. Next — kor’vesas. Report.”
The clipped tones of his attendant battledrones piped up.
“Kor’vesa 12.A #34 (Combat). Optimal diagnostic. Full ammunition load.”
“Kor’vesa 921.H(s2) #01 (Artillery). Optimal diagnostic. Full ammunition load.”
Their icons — glowing green discs — faded into being over the HUD. They orbited the stationary team slowly, like binary moons.
“Very well...” Lusha took a deep breath and grinned, appreciating the rush of anticipation. He’d been too long away from combat. “Lock down and interleave. Interface insertion in five raik’ans.”
The battlesuit’s servos came to life with a quiet nimble, quickly fading to near silence. A low whine came from behind him, complex machinery sliding on well oiled rails into position. He winced, preparing himself. He hated this part.
A needle, little more than a monofilament sliver of metal, punctured his skull three tor’ils above the terminus of his cir’etz scales and entered his brain.
The nausea ran its familiar jig through his guts, forcing another wince. His fingers and hoof joints curled in reflex as their connections to his motor neurones were temporarily interrupted. The feeling, he reminded himself, was not unlike falling asleep.
And then he was the machine. He flexed a limb experimentally, enjoying the sensation of reasserted control as the nausea faded. His arm — his real arm — remained limp by his side, nestled snugly in its padded bindings. Instead, sensed rather than seen, a heavy fio’tak ablative armature, complete with wrist-slung fusion blaster, flexed from the massive shoulder of the suit. He resisted the urge to chuckle.
He moved the muscles of his neck, mentally commanding his skull to rotate and allow him the opportunity to look around. His vertebrae remained straight and immobile but the optic cluster perched atop the suit oscillated and flexed — a replacement cranium just as responsive to his neural commands as the real thing. Flicking through spectral filters was as simple as blinking.
He examined his surroundings. The dropship hold was a cavern of pale, liquid smooth surfaces, unadorned by the paraphernalia of deployment seats and shas’la weapon racks. The four suits hulked in its centre.
Built like upright tanks, supported by tall, ankle-jointed lower limbs and flanked by their broad-shouldered arms (complete with retracted manipulatory digits and overslung weapons mounts), they moved their extremities with athletic grace, twisting and flexing in refined subtlety with none of the inelegant jerkiness of gue’la machinery. The primary sensor dusters, wedge boxes supported at the crest of the suits, peered around in interest. Vre’Kol’tae caught him staring and dipped her suit’s “head” in a nod — a bizarrely organic mannerism from such artificial surroundings.
To his left, Vre’Wyr’s suit raised its right limb, heavy flamer fuel lines automatically slackening to compensate for the movement, and ignited its pilot light with a quiet hiss. The cool glow cast a gallery of soft edged shadows across the walls, bulky jetpacks reduced to smooth crescents of shade.
The battledrones were a pair of satellite discs, held aloft on thrumming anti-grav fields, diagnostically manipulating the heavy weapons slung to their bellies, checking targeting facilities and functionality.
“Interface successful,” Lusha grunted, instinctively running through his missile pod tracking checks and practice locking on thin air. “Confirm preparations.” A series of affirmations tumbled across the comm.
He took another deep breath, thinking back to the ill-fated infantry deployments at first light, all those long decs ago. How had Kais felt, he wondered, standing on the brink, staring down into an abyss of unknown horrors and glories? He remembered the advice he’d given. The advice the boy’s own father had given him, tau’cyrs earlier during the be’gel incursions.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re ready for this.
But Kais had been ready. More than ready. Too ready The youth had sounded... broken, when last he spoke from the Enduring Blade. There was no other word for it. The comm-line had gone dead and his bio trace had blinked from the scans with a solitary blip. He’d stared into the abyss and it had opened up and swallowed him whole.
He was dead, then.
The tau’va preached pragmatism over indulgence. In the face of loss, the sio’t espoused, an efficient tau was expected to nod in acceptance, recognise that there was nothing to be done and no sense in sorrow, and simply get on with things. It was easier said than done.
“Kor’vre?” He pushed the unsettling thoughts from his mind and opened a channel to the dropship pilot. “Ready when you are.”
“We’re at a safe altitude, Shas’el. Splitting the deck now.”
The world fell away beneath his feet. Dividing along a central connection, the floor of the drop bay swung open — two halves of a giant trap door hinging apart in unison. As always a wave of dizziness surged over him, filling his mind with the clouds racing below: wave-borne froth vaguely concealing a dark seabed. It was an enthralling sensation.