Chapter Text
When they had been sent on this mission, Titus had carefully read through the briefing. Tau. He’d never fought against Tau before, and neither had anyone else on his squad. The mission seemed straightforward enough, the Imperium was waging a war on a planet called Linithia. The Tau had managed to manipulate the population and government into betraying the Imperium and joining their Empire many decades ago. The Imperium is here to right that wrong. The mission of Kill Team Primus is to get behind enemy lines and take out the enemy artillery so that the Astra Militarum can advance upon the main Tau force. It had seemed so simple.
“Dammit! I thought this section of the city was meant to be empty!” Darius curses as he ducks back behind a building as another volley of shots fly at them. The rest of the Killteam is similarly in cover. Titus peeks around the edge and fires back down the street. There’s a squad of Tau Fire Warriors a few hundred metres away, behind some barricades.
“Kelstros, loop around the block and see if you can come at them from the side! Ulfar you-” Titus orders, but is interrupted by Beren’s growl through the VOX.
“Too slow, I'll deal with the filthy Xenos!” Beren then charges out from behind cover, chainsword at the ready.
“Beren! Oh for The Emperor's sake, everyone cover him!” Titus shouts in frustration. He too charges out from behind cover, laying down covering fire as the whole squad charges down the street. Pulse Rifle shots wizz past Titus’s helmet. He hears Ulfar grunt in pain and say over the VOX
“Glancing hit, no injury.” So Titus doesn't slow in his charge. Kelstros lets out a shout
“Grenade!” A small Tau device arcs out from behind the barricades. The squad dive away from it. There's a deep, crackling pulse sound in the air. An EMP grenade. Titus grunts and stumbles to one knee as his armour's power flickers, his helmet's HUD going dead. Without the sensors of his helmet, he's mostly blind and deaf to what's happening outside his sealed armour. But he can pick up some things. Judging by Ulfar's frustrated roar, the rest of the squad likely got caught in the EMP blast as well. He hears small steps run up behind him and the sounds of something fiddling with the top of his power pack. His armour starts to restart his systems. As soon as he's able to, he whips around, picking up the Tau that had approached him. With barely a twitch of his hand, he broke its neck and dropped the body. He looks around as his helmet's sensors fully come back online. The rest of his squad is responding similarly.
“What were these Xenos thinking? They had us in a vulnerable state, and yet they chose to approach us within melee distance?” Darius asks.
“Does it matter?” Beren replies “They are dead. The intentions of Xenos are of no matter to us, so long as they fail.”
“And yet they were clearly trying to do something to our armour.” Titus stated firmly.
Kelstros says
“Well I do not feel any different, and the machine spirit is not alerting me to anything.” Kelstros says “Perhaps we disposed of them before they could finish whatever they where trying to achieve?”
“Perhaps.” Darius replies, unconvinced.
“Regardless, we must complete the mission. Continue advancing south.” Titus says, firmly ending the discussion. And so the squad continues on through the city. Eventually, they start to hear the artillery.
“Should we split up? It sounds like the targets are spread out, it may take a coordinated attack on multiple fronts to destroy them.” Kelstros suggests.
“I agree. We'll disperse, scout our targets, and coordinate where to set our explosives for maximum damage.” Titus confirms. The squad splits up, moving separately through the city. When Titus arrives at the far west side of the artillery line, he says into his VOX “Beren, have you reached your targets?” A reply comes through.
“Yes Commander… I've… my targets, awaiting… confirmation.” Beren's voice comes through the VOX, a little static filled.
“Beren, check your transmitter, I'm not hearing you clearly.” Titus replies.
“Of course Commander, should be fixed now.” The communication is perfectly clear now. Titus quietly moves up behind the first artillery. The Tau have been using drone operated artillery in this battle, very accurate, but not very adaptive to unexpected situations. He starts to set up the first explosive, placing it on the ground just underneath the rear of the hovering artillery. Titus decides to check in on Kelstros, who'd been starting from the other end of the line. “Kelstros come in, have you and Ulfar started placing your explosives?”
“Yes Commander, we've almost finished.” Titus is surprised to hear Ulfar's voice.
“Ulfar, I was talking to Kelstros, not you. He's In command of your end of the operation.” He replies firmly. Suddenly, Beren quickly comes over to Titus.
“Commander, I've managed to set a chain reaction explosive using their fuel depot a few targets down. But we need to go now! It'll blow any second.” Titus curses under his breath and rushes to his feet, leaving his explosive unarmed.
Beren and him rush back into the main city. “Darius, let the others know to get out of there now! Beren set up their fuel to ignite!” Titus urgently states into his VOX.
“Understood Commander, we'll meet you in the city square to the north.” After about a minute of quickly moving away, Beren's explosive still hasn't gone off.
“Beren, did you overestimate how long that fuse was going to take?” Titus growls in annoyance.
“Perhaps.”
“For The Emperor's sake, let's just rendezvous with the others, then we can work out what to do next.” They quickly reach the square, and are the first ones to arrive. After a few minutes Titus is getting concerned. “Kelstros, are you almost here? What's the hold up?”
“We are almost there, just had to meet up with Darius first.”
Another few minutes pass. Now Titus is getting frustrated. “Beren, why on Terra hasn't your explosive gone off yet?” He growls into the VOX. There’s no apparent answer as Beren seems to hesitate. Now Titus is really annoyed. He takes off his helmet in order to talk to Beren face to face, wanting him to understand his anger. “Don't you ignore me, answer me, why haven't your explosives gone off yet? Did you set them correctly?” Beren takes off his own helmet looking a bit confused, but his temper flaring up at Titus’s accusation.
“Of course I set them correctly, are you sure you set yours correctly?” Beren says accusatorially.
“I didn't get the chance after you disregarded the plan!” Titus says, stepping closer.
“I disregarded the plan? How dare you, you’re the one who ordered me to keep watch rather than set my explosives. I think you’re just trying to steal all the glory!”
“Me? Steal all the glory? I never even ordered you to do that! Are you sure all that prayer incense you use isn't making you hear things?”
“How dare you! I am not hearing things, you’re the one who’s apparently unable to understand basic communications!” Titus takes a breath, trying to calm down and sort out what’s happened.
“So if I didn't set the explosives, and you didn't set the explosives. Then we have a problem. How did this happen?”
“Perhaps there is something wrong with our VOX?” Beren proposes.
“The Tau? I’m starting to think they did succeed in their plan while we were incapacitated.”
“Then Kelstros was wrong?”
“Perhaps. Either way our priority now is finding Kelstros, Ulfar and Darius. Who knows what orders they've received and where they've gone.” Titus says firmly.
“We can't afford to split up, since we cant trust our own VOX.” Beren says in frustration.
“We’ll have to stay together, keep your helmet off. We’ll have to sacrifice its protection for communication.” And so Titus and Beren head back south towards the Tau Artillery, hoping to find their lost squad mates. Once they reach a point where they can see the base of the artillery again, they can see that some Tau infantry have also appeared. Most appear to be Fire Warriors, except one. They are wearing a different uniform and seem to be examining the unprimed explosive Titus had left behind. “What is it doing…” Titus quietly says.
“It seems to have some authority over the others, see how they are guarding it?”
“If the Tau have compromised our VOX, then they may know where the others are.”
“So we need them alive?”
“Only the leader.”