INTRO
So I wrote a little prose piece about a unit of Tau pathfinders. This is the introduction. If people leave comments, I'll post more of it.
At dawn they were seven.
The one who led them, Bright Star in his mother tongue, wore the loss of the three they had lost openly, like an invisible medallion. His face, once youthful and serene, had begun to show signs of age: tiny crow’s feet near his eyes, and a slight down-turn to the corners of his mouth.
Not that the warriors under his command felt they had time to discover these changes: they were at war, in the most tribal, traditional sense. They fought for their clan’s resources, so that they might be preserved from the invading heathens who lay claim to their home. They had time only to breathe, to bleed, and to kill.
These seven, these Fire Warriors, were the hope of Tau, they told themselves. These seven would set the world to rights.
Bright Star motioned his second, Walks Impatiently, to take a look across what the invaders’ called Anacosta Ravine. Walks Impatiently did, taking the binoculars from his leader with a quickness that other cultures would have considered rude. He saw what his leader had seen: a brilliant red outcrop of stone, jutting high above a flat land which crumbled quickly into a serene and dreamy place.
The valley was full of color – brilliant greens of all shades, intermingled with white and pink and saffron, broken strangely by outcroppings of gigantic brown mushrooms with colorful tops – some black, some white with yellow spots, some amber with red spots.
“Does it not remind you of the forests of Au’Temba?” Bright Star asked. “Do you remember how they set up those rope traps to use against us?”
“I do,” Walks Impatiently said.
“We might catch a few of them that way. We will not kill them all, obviously, but we would damage their morale.”
“A decent thought, Captain.”
“But,” Bright Star said with concern, “We do not have enough men to crate a proper canvas.”
“We do not. We need to signal our desire to the Cadre, and they send us reinforcements.” The disdain was clear in Walks Impatiently’s voice.
“Which would not come. Yet we can do more with traps than you give us credit. Speak your mind. I value your advice. I do not know how best to proceed.”
Surprised by his commander’s candor, Walks Impatiently gave the matter more thought.
If the seven could find a series of animal paths which were obvious, the gue’la war machine would doubtless find them, too. Simple traps could be manufactured there with a reasonable expectation of success. However, the gue’la had pathfinders; doubtless some of their traps would be disarmed, but that process would slow the whole. It was, after all, these seven’s order to harass the war machine as it trundled on toward Can’aa, by any means necessary.
The architects of Can’Aa had seen war on the horizon and made very strong precautions against aerial or orbital siegecraft. Can’Aa was flanked by the ocean on one side and lay amid the vast untamed wildness of the Valleys of Wondrous Life, which spread for hundreds of miles in all other directions. These Valleys, though indeed a wonder, were also where this worlds’ most dangerous organics dwelt: toxic ants, aggressive stinging insects, packs of wild felids and a slew of microbial deaths.
Even so, the Empire was taking no chances. The enemy had surprised them on Va’Aa’Tu, clearing vast swaths of jungle to take the Tau Empire’s research outpost. And they had murdered those scientists as if they had been hated foes, and not the quiet scholars they doubtless were. The enemy had proven its intent and would, without the presence of the Empire’s pathfinders, march through the Valley to Can’aa.
So said high command.
“Traps, I think, are out. We should only prepare them as afterthoughts. Our first goal should be to infiltrate along that ridge—“ he pointed to an outcropping of gargantuan white mushrooms— “And use our signal jammer.”
“You think to use it so soon? I would wait until they’re close, so it catches them by surprise.”
“If, sir, we set up the signal jammer and they are able to trace
its origins, and we trap the area surrounding it, our traps will be that much more successful. Don’t you think?”
Bright Star nodded. He was taken by a complex wash of emotion: elation that a superior plan had been conceived, but irritation that it had not been his own.
He said, “Good. But I question your choice of location. Why not the red butte? Surely the gue’la see it as well as we do. Do you not believe they would choose to use it as a visual landmark as well as we?”
“Aye, sir, but I believe that is where they will set up their base before plowing through the valley. They believe in fighting war with imagery. If they can make it known to us that they have captured a landmark, they will.”
Bright Star smiled. He wondered, as he often did, why Walks Impatiently had not been made shas’ui when Snowcap passed on. He supposed it had been a mistake and nothing more: a clerical error on the part of the Cadre. Yet still the order had been clear and irrefutable: Bright Star was in command of this squadron of pathfinders, and he would lead them until such a time as he was no longer fit.
As the pathfinders moved to reconnoiter with their fellows, Bright Star was stuck by a moment of creativity. Filing it in his mind for later use, he silently vowed he would make a priority of capturing the enemy’s grenades.