Kais frowned, unsure how to react. Why should a shas’el know his name? Unless...

“I knew your father.”

And there it was again: that crystallisation of reality, crumbling his senses and filling him with the certainty of his own worthlessness: all he was and would ever be was a reflection, and a faint one at that, of his father.

“He was a great warrior,” Lusha continued, knuckles rapping the base of Kais’s neck in a final test of the helmet’s seal. “I served with him for many tau’cyrs. I was with him on Fal’shia when the Y’he came. I mourned his death.”

Kais replied without thinking. “I didn’t know him well.”

Immediately he regretted it, chastising his own lack of respect. If Lusha noted the overfamiliarity he gave no indication of it, nodding sagely.

“I don’t think anyone did,” he said, thoughtful.

A set of digits in the corner of Kais’s vision blurred towards zero, an interface with the dropship’s systems reminding him visually of the vessel’s meteoric descent. Lusha was still staring at him.

“Thank you, Shas’el,” Kais mumbled, indicating his helmet seals, this time careful to observe the commander’s caste-and-rank epithet. “Should I check yours?”

Lusha shook his head with a small frown. “My thanks, trooper, but no. I’m staying aboard, apparently. Shas’ar’tol command doesn’t like its officers getting their hands dirty if they can possibly help it.” He shook his head again, muttering beneath his breath.

Kais said nothing, sinking back into his deployment seat in astonishment at El’Lusha’s open disapproval of his own superiors. Had a shas’la ever dared express such sedition they could be guaranteed an intensive course in mental correction at the very least, not that any were foolish enough to do so.

“First combat?” Lusha grinned. “I can always tell.”

“Yes, Shas’el.” Kais wrung his hands together, uncomfortable at the attention. He felt betrayed by his nerves, compelled somehow to prove his preparedness. “But... I’ve served four tau’cyrs already, Shas’el. And the combat simulations at the training dome are—”

“Ahh, simulations...” Lusha grinned, “and four tau’cyrs of standing about guarding por’vres and por’els, no doubt.”

Kais nodded, embarrassed. Lusha chuckled.

“Your father said something to me, once,” he grunted, pursing his lips in thought. “Might help you.”

Kais frowned, uneasy at the prospect of hearing his father’s words from beyond the funeral pyre.

“He fixed me with those eyes of his and he said, ‘Young one... Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re ready for this.’ Then he opened the drop doors and out we went.” Lusha’s face clouded, preoccupied by the memories.

“You don’t think us ready, Shas’el?”

“No. I don’t think it’s possible to be ready, La’Kais. The best you can do is expect the worst.”

Kais peered past the commander to his friends and comrades. Their postures betrayed them: each as anxious as he, unwilling to admit their fear to themselves. Somehow that knowledge was strangely reassuring. He wasn’t alone with his terror.

“Warriors!” Lusha boomed, startling them. “Attend! In half a raik’or we’ll be at deployment altitude! This is it! This is what you trained for! This rotaa you face your Trial by Fire. Do not expect it to be easy!”

A light began to flash. The door into the drop deck gushed open and the padded restraints around each seat relaxed.

Muscles tensed. Teeth ground against one another.

“Details are unimportant. There’s been an incident — that’s all you need to know. Remember your niche. Remember your place. You are a cog in a machine! Ask no questions! Obey and concentrate!

Your mission is simple: engage and destroy. Conduct the mont’sel combat-pattern at all times; be swift and leave nothing alive. There’s a trench network at the city’s perimeter, so spread out when you’re down and clear the area. The crisis teams are setting down on the other side of the city, so don’t expert any backup. Things are not going well down there. Let’s turn the tide!”

A chime sounded. The readout in Kais’s helmet counted away the moments implacably, refusing to slow or stop in answer to his shrieking nerves. His ears roared. Nothing was real.

“Remain focused on the tau’va! In unity lies progress! In harmony lies victory! Don’t let yourselves down, Fire Warriors!”

The ship shuddered. The hover thrusters rumbled to life. A fragmented thunderstorm raged beyond the hull.

A siren sounded.

“Deployment positions,” said Lusha.

There were nine, in total. Eight clutching guns, staring and sneering through the bars of the cage, and one bustling industriously amongst the instrumentation of the chamber.

They smelt bitter, an aroma as unvaried and unsubtle as it was unpleasant, so unlike the rich pheromone language the tau enjoyed. These creatures were a race of clones, pink, frail and moist.

Aun’el T’au Ko’vash, secured behind adamantium bars, found himself searching for traces of artificial individuality with which to tell them apart: rank stripes, facial scars, tattoos. As an ethereal, the ruling caste of the tau race, it was his particular assignation in life to understand and appreciate the unity and the deficiency in all things. Nonetheless, before he’d ever encountered the gue’la, he’d never imagined a species so utterly ignorant of its own imperfections. The gue’la, he had quickly learned, were going to be trouble.

And now he found himself their prisoner, abducted in a storm of violence that he was still fighting to understand. It didn’t matter. The reality of any situation was in its present, and in the “now” he was trapped. Helpless. An exhibit.

To Ko’vash, accustomed to the sweeping curvature and bright pallor of tau construction, his prison seemed unbearably grim. Given the lack of windows and the broad steps leading down to this low ceilinged space, he guessed he was incarcerated underground. The room itself was small and stifling, bordered by consoles and machinery, all typically gue’la in their rambling ugliness. Each of the eight soldiers faced his cage with an expression — in as much as he understood gue’la mannerisms — of intense disgust. One spat noisily.

“Don’t do that, idiot!” barked a ninth, the coarse language quickly filtered and translated by the didactic learning modules the Aun, like all tau, had absorbed as an infant. From what little of it Ko’vash could see beyond its thick black cowl, this guela’s face was a mass of twitching implants and sensors, copper wiring visible through its necrotic flesh. It jabbed a finger at the perpetrator, even now wiping spittle from his chin.

“This is a sterile area!”

The soldier appeared appropriately repentant until the black-cowl turned away, although Ko’vash entirely failed to interpret the bizarre hand gesture that followed. The ethereal was beginning to learn that such wasteful displays, utterly redundant in any constructive sense, were typical of his captors.

He made a decision. Opening his eyes fully, he dropped the facade of unconsciousness and rose to his feet in a single sweeping motion. The rush of shocked pheromones from each of the gue’la was, he didn’t mind admitting, deeply gratifying. The black-cowl recovered first.

“Well, well...” he muttered, hands rubbing together. A slight smile played across his metallic lips and he gestured vaguely at one of the soldiers, eyes not leaving Ko’vash. “Contact Severus. Tell him our guest is awake.” The soldier sprinted up the stairs, not looking back.

The robed human positioned himself before the cage and studied Ko’vash intently, rubbing his chin.

“Well,” he kept saying quietly, thinking to himself, “well, well...”

Ko’vash had neither the patience nor the inclination to remain silent in the face of scrutiny. He leaned forwards slowly.