Nothing. Nothing but the distant squeals of rodents and the drip-dripping of leaking water.

No conquest without control. Pursue success in serenity.

Fine. Breathe deep. Relax. And—

He loped around the corner with a growl, gun held ready before him, mind racing. His vision exploded with whiteness: a nebulous heat signature too vast to understand. He winced and deactivated the filters, expecting at any moment the thumping impact of hell-fire shells or las-bolts. The world fragmented and returned to normal with a flicker, filling his HUD with redness.

“Oh, sweet T’au...” he whispered, aghast. His stomach turned over and he took two gulps of air, forcing back the bile in his throat. The other shas’las chimed in expectantly.

“What is it?”

“What’s there?”

“Kais? Report!”

What could he say to describe it? It was carnage.

It was only a small chamber — that didn’t help. He could feel the heat from the walls without even entering, just staring from the doorway.

They were humans, at least: that made it slightly less difficult to stomach. The vivid ruby of their parts was almost unreal, an exaggerated fictional parallel to tau blood. Had the scene before him been rendered in cyan and grey rather than rich j’hal-petal red, then the brief weakness in his knees that he felt might have overcome him. He’d seen so much brutality and violence since the trial began that some self-assured part of him had expected never again to be surprised, never again to feel that ugly rushing of blood and bile that he’d endured all those tau’cyrs ago when his father stared at him in disappointment. He’d never imagined something breaking through the numbness in his heart again with the power to astonish and revolt him, but here it was.

A thin strand of redness parted company with the ceiling and fell, a syrupy teardrop that pattered lightly against the slick grille decking.

He couldn’t guess how many gue’la there had been, originally The shreds of clothing and weaponry lying embedded amongst the pulped meat was silent testament to their multiplicity, a dozen different articles of fabric and leather lying shredded within the gore. It was as if the chamber had decompressed suddenly, hurling the flesh from its helpless inhabitants across floor and walls and ceiling. Anonymous strands of gore dappled the interior, sluglike lumps of tissue and muscle that slithered glutinously with the pull of gravity, flopping obscenely to the deck to vent their liquid cargo into the gullies on either side. Clumps of hair broke up the light catching wetness, half-sliced skulls stared in mute horror, eyeballs plucked and dangling, tongues bitten and lacerated in grisly astonishment. An arm, messily dissected at the elbow, grasped uselessly at the air, three fingers shredded to a pulp. A pink foot flopped from a fleshy stalactite above Kais’s head with a wet slurp and a squelch.

A quiet voice at the back of his mind nodded that at least he now knew what they hid within their boots.

It was insanity. It was flesh frenzy, made real. It was as if the room itself was a stomach or a womb, its arterial walls wet with warmth and blood.

The other shas’las arrived behind him, impatient with his silence. Some of them had to be helped out of their helmets so they didn’t choke.

Severus sat behind the code-chattering servitors and smiled.

They were bold, these tau. He’d imagined beings of far greater restraint and self-repression; in the last years the Imperium had openly flouted their territorial treaty and the xenos had rolled over and taken it, uncomplaining. He’d expected this operation to be swift and decisive. He’d expected a diplomatic surrender — leaving him to wearily orchestrate some way of prolonging hostilities.

As it was, there was no manipulation required. He hadn’t imagined in a thousand years that they’d summon the courage and recklessness required to attack an Imperial warship, the fools. He almost pitied them. Almost.

Their aggression quickened his pulse, filling him with visions of combat and war and bloodshed. His mind throbbed with it. Not long now, he reminded himself. Not long.

There had been too many leaks. The texts had been quite specific regarding the levels of concentration required, and he’d thought himself ready. Ten long years he’d prepared for this, and still the sheer strength of it had almost overwhelmed him. Contacting the Administratum had been difficult enough, a thousand tiers of bureaucracy to stunt the progress of his proposal and frustrate his efforts. Then, when finally the funds were made available and the idiots on Terra had given him their official and enthusiastic sanction to continue, there had begun the laborious task of raising up his prison-citadel and his grinding, smoking factories, finalising every tiny detail. There had been moments of doubt, he couldn’t deny it. But the text was there in black and white, alien symbols shifting and writhing with hidden power, and he’d known — he’d been certain.

It would work. With enough blood, with enough screams, the final seal would shatter and...

Yes. It would work, he was sure.

But the force had still taken him by surprise; he couldn’t be sure how many times the pressure had vented through him, releasing gobbets of crackling empyrean to scurry away in a melange of pseudomatter and amorphous outlines. It was getting beyond his ability to restrain, and the crew was growing suspicious. It didn’t matter. Not long now.

And the Ultramarine librarian — oh, what a gift! He’d become aware of the scrying, scratching mind-eyes of “Brother Delpheus” almost immediately, slamming closed his defences to prevent the inquisitive righteousness of the disembodied thoughts. The fool would be useful, when the time came. When victory and defeat were on the very brink of resolution, when the air was thick with crisis and triumph, he’d use that feeble little skull mercilessly.

He’d bring the ethereal to him. He’d gather up the most powerful pawns involved in this chaotic, maddening little game, and he’d use them. He’d spark a war and douse the system in blood. He’d shred the mind of human and tau alike to plant the seeds of his legacy and then, when all the finely carved pieces were in place, he’d break the seal and rise, rise, rise.

In the end, Kais was certain the team was pleased to be rid of him. The awe was turning to fear, he could see; a nervous timidity at his presence that the other shas’las were finding it harder and harder to conceal. They walked further away from him, they disliked him prowling the shadows behind them, they talked less and muttered more.

He heard the word “Mont’au” mumbled indiscreetly more than once.

Two had been lost to a gue’la ambush, rushing around a blind corner and erupting messily beneath streamers of gunfire, bodies jerking and shuddering as they toppled backwards. After he’d fragmented the humans, blithely rolling unarmed grenades along the corridor and gunning down the troopers as they quit their cover to flee, he’d been uncomfortably aware of the others glaring at him as he silently helped himself to the dead shas’las’ ammunition and supplies. It was standard procedure — cool and efficient — but nobody expected it to be easy. He suspected the others thought of his detachment, his numbness, as being somehow... unnatural.

Since discovering the mysterious abattoir chamber their military bravado had quickly waned. It was as if they’d seen the face of something real, something that convinced them of the ugliness and horror of their roles and left them in no doubt at all: this wasn’t a game. This wasn’t a safe little simulation in the battledome or a harmless domestic service operation. This was war.