Matthias woke to the hum of alien machinery, his body aching with pain, and realised, in that moment, he had fallen into enemy hands. Bound by plastic cord against a rotting tree, every breath sent hot needles through his bruised ribs. The dank smell of damp earth clung to him.
Only hours ago, Guardsman Matthias Cardnel had been on patrol, probing an enemy entrenched near the planetary capital with his squad. Then—chaos. The crunch of foliage, the whirr of otherworldly tech, and the gleam of a single, mechanical eye.
A noise to his right made him turn. A figure clad in a gunmetal-grey synthskin suit rummaged through Militarum-standard ration canisters. Its keratinous hooves pressed into the wet grass.
‘Where have you taken me, Xenos?’ he barked, forcing more confidence than he felt. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
The Tau’s head moved a fraction. Matthias tried to shift his weight and regretted it immediately—white-hot agony tore through his left leg. A strange blue-white foam bubbled over his thigh.
‘Remain still,’ said a disembodied voice. ‘Your leg’s epidermis has been partially vaporised. Elevating stress will not help the healing process.’
The timbre was monotonic, and laced with a formality indicative of a basic grasp of Imperial Gothic. He’d heard it before.
‘I’ll not talk with a bloody drone,’ Matthias spat at the Tau’s back. ‘Look at me, you coward!’
‘Shas’vre Sa’cea Tsar’sai cannot speak your language,’ replied the monotone voice. ‘Your protests fall on unhearing ears.’
He tugged against his binds, seeking any slack to let him reach the combat knife tucked into his right boot. Pain flared in his leg, blood flecking through the aliens’ strange foam.
‘Further exertion may cause permanent damage.’
The Tau by the canisters paused, tilting its head as though listening to unheard instructions, hooves shifting on the mossy ground. It murmured something in its alien tongue—swift, tonal words that Matthias barely heard over a thunderous ignition that shook the woods.
He glanced up, heart pounding, as a colossal Tau battlesuit materialised in a crackle of light, its hulking cannon bathing the glade in a blue plasmatic glow. It had been standing in front of him the entire time, cloaked and waiting. Two hovering drones flitted around its frame. A hydraulic hiss echoed, and the giant’s chestpiece swung open.
It was empty.
‘Deception is critical to war,’ the battlesuit said, almost apologetically.
The Tau pilot sniffed a ration pack, wrinkling its nasal slit. With a huff, it tossed the foil toward Matthias. Against his better judgment, he caught it against his uninjured thigh.
‘Why am I alive while my squad lies dead in the dirt, Xenos?’ Matthias snapped. ‘You butchered them—so why spare me?’
‘We have not ‘butchered’ your kin, Guardsman,’ the battlesuit’s voice interjected, calm and disembodied. ‘Mercy is woven into the Tau’va, our Greater Good. Not everyone who falls in battle must die. They will be given their chance.’
The pilot approached him, revealing a face nothing like those Matthias had seen on the propaganda leaflets: rough blue flesh, a granite chin scarred by burns, demeanour moulded by combat. It measured him with a wary gaze, then spoke in its own language, voice low and urgent.
The battlesuit translated. ‘The shas’vre says you should be thankful for your connections.’
Matthias frowned. ‘What? Connections? With who?’
‘The Empire has contested this planet with your Imperium for three solar cycles. We do not do so alone.’
A sickening thought slithered into Matthias’s mind—human allies were among the xenos. The pilot clicked its tongue, tapping a stubby finger against the waterfall of puckered flesh scarring its face and neck.
‘Fire,’ it uttered in a growl of bastardised Imperial Gothic. ‘Saved.’
Matthias stared at the pilot, struggling to connect the single, mangled word—“Fire”—with the story behind those scorched scars. The Tau’s gaze flicked to the humming battlesuit, then back to Matthias. In its alien eyes, he read something akin to gratitude.
The disembodied voice of the AI droned from overhead.
‘A human pulled the shas’vre from the flames of a burning XV8 battlesuit,’ it said in smoother diction, as though speaking on the pilot’s behalf. ‘A man with your face. A man with your name.’
Matthias’s breath quickened, heart hammering with a cocktail of disbelief, anger, and twisted hope. Could it be true? He thought his brother was long dead. But to find out he’d allied with the xenos? Matthias’ hand, still inches from the hilt of his combat knife, faltered.
‘When the bond of fire is forged,’ the battlesuit added, ‘we repay it.’
The pilot placed a palm on Matthias’s shoulder for a fleeting moment. Then it nodded curtly before stepping away. With the fluid motion of long training, it climbed into the cockpit. Servos locked, plating hissed shut, and the machine towered over Matthias like a silent sentinel. The hovering drones spiralled around it, scanning for threats.
‘You will find little safety if you return to your comrades,’ the AI warned. ‘The Imperium seldom forgives suspicion of collaboration. Yet our lines are open… should you choose to follow.’
A blast of static-charged air ruffled Matthias’s hair as the battlesuit’s stealth field began to shimmer. In seconds, the Ghostkeel vanished into the treeline, leaving Matthias propped against the rotting log, his leg burning with pain. He stared at the empty clearing, unsure whether he was more afraid of crawling back to the Imperium—or limping toward the xenos who claimed a debt.
He closed his eyes. The taste of copper filled his mouth as he bit down on his lip, weighing for long minutes his loyalty against his life, his shame against the revelation of his brother’s survival—his brother’s betrayal. Finally, he exhaled a long, trembling breath and forced himself to stand.
He glanced toward Imperial lines, and then at the fading impact of the battlesuit’s footprints. Matthias Cardnel took his first unsteady step.
