When events pass according to plan, this is when you must be on your highest vigilance. It is in these moments when our greatest lessons are taught to us through defeat.
Kor'O Fal'Shia Shir'Vah was typical of admirals in the protection fleet in that he hated leaving his bridge. Even for the honor of speaking with an Ethereal and briefing them on the battle plan, he still wished he could do so from the comfort of his command station. But the thought of bringing personnel other than the Air Caste onto his bridge tied his twin stomachs into knots. Perhaps they could have briefed from the central command center next time. He smiled at the thought. It felt like the perfect compromise: he would still be positioned to command his vessel, but without intruders in his sacred space.
Sacred. The Ethereal wouldn't approve of such a word, but that's what it was to him—and to every Kor who commanded any vessel. Just as a battlesuit cocoon was sacred to a Fire Warrior, his bridge was something he had worked for his entire career to earn. He had served on many bridges, command centers, and cockpits throughout that career, but none of them had truly been his. This bridge—this one—belonged to him and him alone. Any order given here was given under his approval. Even an Ethereal would struggle to issue commands without Shir'Vah's crew subtly looking to him for the nod that granted permission.
When he returned to that sacred place, he finally relaxed. Everything was just as he had left it a few decs ago, and it put him at ease.
At the very center of the room sat the command station: a circular pad for the Captain to stand on while observing and commanding the crew, ringed by low sofa-seats. The sofas were primarily for Shir'Vah, used when he was reviewing reports or dictating orders, but the Captain and any honored Ethereal also had seats of their own at the station. The ship's second command crew was located deep within the vessel's internal command center. Anything short of an obliterating strike would only take out one of the two teams capable of directing the ship.
In front of the command station were the navigation crew: one in charge of physically piloting the ship, the other plotting course. At the moment, the plotting crewman was the more heavily employed. With the ship on its ascent vector from the ether—that space between spaces—plotting became an exquisitely sensitive task, requiring the prediction and tracking of realspace objects, and the constant communication of micro-adjustments.
The weapons station to the right was a cluster of crew responsible for target designation and firing solutions, with another cluster monitoring armor integrity and potential weak points. They were also responsible for coordinating with the Water Caste contingent deep within the ship, who intercepted signals, sifted communications, and searched imagery for hidden vulnerabilities—ciphered as they were behind the Gue'la's brutish language.
The bridge was only one part of the vessel. Across the ship were dozens of stations, each serving their purpose. From the outside, the ship appeared to fight as a single entity, but in truth it was the perfect representation of the Empire's philosophy: many acting as one for the Greater Good.
Shir'Vah strode to the Captain and stood at his side.
"Any changes?"
The question was a formality. If anything requiring his attention had occurred, he would already have been informed. Elemental councils and briefings be damned—his fleet, and more importantly his ship, came first. If any Ethereal had a problem with that, he would gladly submit to censure… as soon as both their bodies were pulled from the void.
"No, Kor'O. Everything is just as it should be." The Captain continued his scan of the stations, peering over crew shoulders and glancing at their readouts.
Nothing of note appeared on the main viewscreen. Occasionally, a shape slid across it—something that looked like a face, or a creature, or an alien silhouette—but officially there was nothing in the stream. The space between spaces held no life. Anything seen was merely reflection from realspace… or something the manuals refused to name.
Shir'Vah held a private belief that life might exist in the inter-dimension—a belief common among any Air Caste who had seen the ether in transit. But it was not his place to theorize, not so long as whatever might exist there never posed a threat to his fleet.
"Perfection," Shir'Vah said. "My compliments to your crew. And my compliments across the fleet when we return to realspace."
Even with most faces turned away, the Admiral could see pride ripple through them: backs straightening, shoulders setting, station-mates exchanging sidelong glances. The added honor of receiving praise directly—before the fleet, and before the rest of the ship—was not lost on them.
"Just another microdec until we arrive," the Captain reported. "Sensors show we're rising and dropping speed. Projections say the warships will arrive just within weapons range, exactly as intended. Transports are rising faster while maintaining speed with us. At their rate, they'll enter normal space at the same moment—but several million tor'kan behind us."
Shir'Vah smiled. This was his moment—the culmination of a career spent perfecting his craft, then pushing it closer to the edge of possibility.
Other admirals had developed similar equations, but all before his had proven inaccurate or inconsistent. Standard practice was to arrive in realspace rotaas out from the target and approach under stealth to achieve surprise. Every admiral coveted the formula that would allow a ship to appear within—or close enough to—weapons range to engage before the enemy even had time to man alert stations.
Shir'Vah's theory involved the use of both drives aboard each ship. The ZFR drive—their near-light realspace drive—brought them as close to light speed as the laws of nature allowed. It was accurate, able to place a ship as precisely as the plotters cared to calculate. But it was slow, and "lanes" had to be plotted and maintained by pathfinder fleets.
The ether drive, on the other hand, was lightning-quick. It could cross the Empire in rotaas instead of kai'rotaas—but it was inaccurate and prone to mishap at best, and the disappearance of entire fleets at worst.
His solution was to use both. Dive into the ether and plot a rough exit point, then—while still within it—use the ZFR to recover precision. If his equations were correct, he would be remembered in the history of the Greater Good as the Admiral who changed battle doctrine forever. Perhaps he might even spark a Third Sphere of expansion.
"Captain, we're receiving probe data now," a crew member reported.
Shir'Vah's dreams of fathering a new era had to wait.
"Very good. Sort through and relay to the appropriate stations. Update me if there's anything of importance."
"Yes, Kor'O," came the reply as the crewman buried himself in the task.
"Has your crew been woken?" Shir'Vah asked.
"Yes, Admiral. All hands are awake and manning their posts. I've preempted them to stand by for action stations."
"Perfection, Captain. As expected."
The two senior officers stood shoulder to shoulder, chests forward, chins held high. The Water Caste loved to pull security footage showing the Air Caste in action when distributing news of victory; this knowledge lived in the back of every crewmember's mind. For lack of a better phrase, they posed for the cameras while on duty. Junior Air Caste personnel even referred to going on shift as getting my picture taken.
For Kor'O Shir'Vah, the pride was not for the cameras.
This would not just be a victory for the Empire.
This would be his victory—his contribution to the Greater Good. He had been born into a peaceful age, an era that produced administrators more often than heroes. But here and now, he would make his mark.
The microdecs passed slowly. Shir'Vah made them easier by reading reports from other captains in the fleet. No one was falling behind. No one was out of position. And while every ship had lost crew in transit, the numbers were far below projections.
Everything was as it should be.
And that started to worry him.
It was a problem for everything to be this perfect. No operation in the history of any fleet had ever gone this smoothly.
And sure enough—as the thought formed, almost as if it too were planned—the unexpected and impossible occurred.
"Captain," a crew member called, voice tight, "probe 1682 is returning unexpected data."
The information appeared on the Captain's display. He turned it toward the Admiral.
Shir'Vah's smile vanished.
"Inform the Shas'O," he said quietly. "This… complicates things."
***
Mira had heard the waiting was the worst part of war, and so far he agreed.
His la'rua stood outside the armory, waiting to draw weapons. Before that, they had waited for orders to go to the armory. When the Shas'Ui returned, sarcastic cheering rose from the Shas'la, as if their leader had returned triumphant from a duel. Eldi smiled and waved it away before speaking.
"All right, all right—settle down. I've got equipment lists for you all. Our strike team is being modified to better suit possible action." She glanced over them as she read. "Nirva, you're leading the breacher element and serving as my assistant. You'll have Sholt, Kriitan, Alvah, and Korso. My element will consist of Mira, Bakah, Thunn, and myself. Mira and I will take pulse carbines. Bakah and Thunn will take pulse rifles. The entire breacher element will draw CQB helmets and pulse blasters. Everyone will take pistols as well."
Even as she spoke, most of the la'rua were already moving—collecting kit and filing toward the armory. A strange mix of excitement and nerves filled the air. This would be his la'rua's first fight, as it would be for many across the cadre.
But something else fed the unease: the prospect that their first fight might be fought in the void.
They had trained for it, of course, but not to the point of true naturalization as they had with other environments. Now they had plenty of time to review that training as they waited in line to receive their designated weapons and the new helmets for the breachers.
The standard strike-team helmet—which Mira slung onto his pack—was a testament to Tau ability to overcome physiology with technology. Tau were naturally nearsighted, and the helmet compensated by layering range, bearing, and positional data wherever the user looked. It tracked eye movement, relayed images from the primary optic, and supported a dozen other functions that took years of training to master.
Gue'vesa also used modified versions of the standard helmet, better suited to their head shape, but since they volunteered for auxiliary service as adults, it was rare for them to possess the technical training required to fully exploit its features.
The helmet contained a second lens as well—the blacksun filter. This allowed Fire Warriors to see into the heat spectrum and highlight targets painted by markerlights or blacksun radiation.
The breacher helmet was a bulkier version of the strike helmet, built to house additional sensors tuned for close-range work. These included short-range motion sensors capable of tracking multiple individual targets, and even offered limited predictive movement—enough to give breachers an edge in hand-to-hand combat long enough to disengage and return to their blasters.
A third lens was fitted to the breacher helmet, one that worked in conjunction with the pulse blaster. All Tau helmets linked to weapons to provide a reticle, but the pulse blaster featured two trigger indentations. The first painted the target with negatively charged ions, visible even without the special lens as a faint glow. The second fired positively charged ions—the shot that tore through armor and ripped unprotected limbs away.
The negative charge drew the killing shot in, granting it a seeking quality. The helmet's highlighting gave a Fire Warrior one final second to adjust aim before firing.
By the time they reached the front of the armory line, they drew the remainder of their kit: long guns, pistols, ion grenades, and ammunition pouches clipped to their proper attachment points.
Then it was time for the next waiting point. The dropship.
They marched the corridors in silence as more la'rua joined them, each warrior processing his own thoughts about the work ahead. Mira wondered if the others shared his secret wish—that they wouldn't be needed. That they would wait out the battle inside the dropship and never make contact at all.
He wondered if that made him a coward.
He kept those thoughts to himself. He told himself everyone had them, and that courage meant moving forward regardless of fear.
But somewhere in his mind, a voice whispered that it was all a lie—that only cowards thought such things, and that the moment they took contact he would freeze and flee, getting his comrades killed.
When they entered the hangar—packed with aircraft ranging from fighters and bombers to dropships and even mantas—they found themselves in a sea of bodies. Junior Air Caste personnel, easily spotted by standing head and shoulders above Fire Caste, directed la'rua toward assigned craft.
Air Caste were tall and lanky. Most spent their lives aboard vessels, and many lacked social polish when interacting with other castes. But Mira had been called a cultureless brute by a Water Caste speaker before, so he checked his judgment of stereotypes.
In the academy, it was said Air Caste bones were hollow and could not survive on one-G planets, confining them to ships. At the time, he had believed it. As he grew older, the absurdity became clear. If they couldn't stand under normal gravity, how could they endure twenty G in atmospheric dogfights?
He chuckled quietly at the ridiculous rumors that spread through academies—and beyond.
There was an old saying:
The Water Caste speaks in riddles.
The Earth Caste speaks to machines.
The Air Caste doesn't speak.
And the Fire Caste speaks in rumors.
Mira understood it. Rumors were entertainment, and a Fire Warrior's life could be summarized by boredom. If he tallied the hours spent standing by during training, they would far outweigh the time spent learning or fighting.
Maybe that was the point.
One of the first lessons taught was how to spend downtime: meditate on the Greater Good, then think on battle doctrine.
"Anyone among you could don the hero's mantle and one day become a commander. Puretide taught us that since every Commander starts as a cadet, even cadets should theorize battle plans."
And so, in this final dec of waiting, Mira theorized.
Any action would be in the void. While he was no expert in zero-G warfare, he suspected the average Fire Warrior had more training in that environment than the average Gue'la soldier—even those raised aboard ships.
He wondered if the Air Caste could disable gravity during boarding actions, allowing Fire Warriors to use magnetic boots not merely to anchor themselves, but to toggle traction and gain a maneuvering advantage.
Too late to suggest now.
So what would he face? Tight corridors. Gunlines. His briefings showed Gue'la carrying large shields notched to brace weapons, firing from mobile cover. Pulse grenades set to detonate in the visible spectrum might disorient such lines long enough for breachers to create gaps. In those gaps, the strike element could surgically eliminate exposed targets.
Depending on discipline, the enemy might reform. More likely, confusion would become fear. And fear would become retreat.
An Air Caste crewman approached their Shas'Ui.
"Are you with Cadre Inspired Wind?" the crewman asked.
"Yes. First la'rua," she replied. "Will you direct us to Orca 473?"
"Negative, Shas'Ui. You've been retasked. Proceed to Orca Three and report to your Shas'nel. Please do so quickly—your craft departs shortly after resurfacing."
Before further questions could be asked, the crewman was already moving on.
They advanced through the mass of bodies, armor brushing armor. Training paid dividends: how to twist, when to yield, when to push, and which plates to shield with your hands.
Eventually, they reached their assigned Orca.
Commander Shasa waited.
The Shas'la stared in awe. Eldi bowed.
"Shas'O. A pleasant surprise. How may we assist?"
The Commander returned the bow and rested his hands on her shoulders.
"Shas'Ui D'yanoi Eldi. Commander Sen'ti spoke highly of you on Jafl. I only wish our meeting were under better circumstances."
"If you bring us orders," she said, "there are no better circumstances."
"I do." His expression hardened. "The Air Caste has detected something unusual in orbit. A Gue'ron'sha scout vessel."
A chill passed through the warriors.
Mira was certain he had misheard.
Gue'ron'sha.
The word had recently carved itself into the Fire Caste's genetic memory. Ruthless killers who rejected the Tau'va itself. Weapons made of flesh and blood. They did not think or feel or fear.
They were—