Intro:

The era of the Great Rift saw the galaxy drown deeper into war and darkness. These times are not for those who are of conscience and principle. Yet these figures must endure the unremitting flood or else be swept away by it.

One such figure, a paragon of righteousness, is Commander Farsight. Few among his race have attained his heights of martial glory or were driven by their nobility and circumstance to dark and desperate extremes.

For all his achievements, Farsight sees himself as unworthy of his legend and the legacy of his master. He strives to cling to his great master's teachings and to do what's right for those under him. However, the coming war will test Farsight's nobility and self-discipline like never before. Should Farsight fail, then it will spell the doom of everything he sought to protect.

Prologue:

Farsight was in a battle against the Orks on the world of Wurrbork, testing out his new XV-86 Supernova and its advanced AI. He boosted down to land feet first into groups of Orks charging up a scrap mound. Farsight gracefully lopped around his suit to send three plasma blasts into a trio of Orks, sending them plummeting headless down the mound slope. Farsight shrugged off the Orks' attacks with his suit shield and armor and then waded into them with his sword. He adopted the Stance of the Seven Deadly Cuts and slew the Orks until they broke and fled. Farsight launched himself after the fleeing Orks and gunned them down one by one.

Before Farsight could relocate to another part of the battle, he was hit by a mind science blast from an Ork weridboy. The force of the attack sent Farsight flying, but he adjusted himself in mid-air and landed on his feet. The contra-empathic field invented by O'Vesa (Talisman of Arthas Moloch) had dimmed the potency of the mind science attack. Instead of dealing damage to the suit's primary systems, the blast only did superficial damage.

The minders around the weirdboy backed off as the Ork psyker prepared to unleash another attack on Farsight, seemingly a more powerful than the first. Before Farsight could launch himself forward, the weirdboy vomited a wave of green energy on Farsight. As Farsight was overtaken by the green wave, images appeared from the dancing twisting energy. He saw the Dawn Blade wet with Ork blood. He saw a towering figure whose eyes were like lanterns. The figure was surrounded by smog, and from the smog, the figure's taloned hand reached out to grasp a dark, pulsing star.

The next image horrified and revolted him. He saw an image of himself in a bloodied suit that was bedecked with the skulls of Orks, humans, and T'au. This nightmarish sight dissolved into a vision of Orks swarming over the Enclave world of Vior'los, followed by the emergence of the image of an immense starship.

The weridboy's head exploded, freeing Farsight from the attack. As Farsight was regaining his composure, he remembered that he had received such visions of the world of Arthas Moloch. If there was one truth he had learned from that world, is that the galaxy is a far darker place than the Ethereals would have the T'au believe.

Farsight pondered the identity of the dark figure he saw and what does it all mean. He ordered the suits AI "Supernova" to record and save what he saw so that he could analyze it later before he could speak of it to his comrades.

Farsight's pondering was interrupted by a report from Shas'O Sha'vastros. The Enclave forces had eliminated the Ork engineers, but they discovered something in their workshops that might bode ill for the Enclaves

Far away in deep space, hidden from T'au sensors by technology reversed engineered from their own stealth tech, was the Deathwatch frigate Bleak missive. Aboard it a group of Deathwatch marines monitored the war on Wurrork transmitted to them from advanced servo-skulls that also utilized reverse-engineered T'au stealth tech to hide their presence. Among the group was Watch-sergeant Lyora of the Imperial Fists and Codicier Cachecis of the Sons of Medusa. These two were not who they appeared to be. These identities were among the many masks these two wore over their long lives.

Cachecis reported to his "brothers" that Farsight underwent the catalyst event foretold by the Emperor's Tarot. The Xenos warlord would soon embark to the dead world where the Deathwatch could end him and end the threat of his Enclaves.

During the group's conversation, Cachecis and Lyora communicated through subtle sign language that they must meet at the hidden shrine.  Fifteen minutes later, they did so. The two shed their loyalist identities revealing that they are Alpha legionaries. Lyora was Lord Glass, and Cachecis was Sylas. But even these names were not their true names but another layer of identity among many worn by the marines of the Alpha Legion. Within the shrine, hidden in the depth of the frigate by obscuring technology and rituals, the two prepared to conduct a communion ritual to contact the Dark Artificer.

Sylas wound around his wrists wires from the shrine's walls and began the ritual. Toxic smug filled the room, and the wires burned red hot. Lord Glass spoke through Sylas, reporting that everything is proceeding as planned. As the Inquisitorial prophecy foretold, the Xenos warlord received the vision. He discovered the Orkish devices. His feet were firmly set on the path, and they will shadow him.

After the fifth beat of Lord Glass' hearts, the response came. Sylas writhed as if he was electrocuted. His eye lenses flashed red, and from his vox emitter issued hideous blurts of scrapcode. Lord Glass recorded the binaric screaming. As Sylas recovered from the ritual, Lord Glass began the process of deciphering the scrapcode. He replayed it at one-fifth of the speed at a five-point five band.

The scrapcode noise transformed into Vashtorr's voice, his message. He praised the Alpha Legion marines for being the most optimal and the surest of cogs. He instructed them to modulate his message by another one fifth band to receive the coordinates to the location of the deployment.  The fragment they are assigned to retrieve is the first among the key fragments; it was the catalyst of everything that followed. Though he has sent other agents to retrieve it, he cannot leave its claiming to chance, nor would he entrust one set of agents to claim it. The Alpha Legion will act as a failsafe.

With their orders clear. Lord Glass tells Sylas to send word to the other Alpha Legionares aboard. The code word is "Looking Glass". The Alpha Legion will prepare for war. Hydra Dominatus!

Chapter 1:

Although the Farsight Enclaves were founded on systems taken from the Imperium, the region they reside in has ever been plagued by Orks. For all of the years of its existence, the Farsight Enclaves have never been able to score a lasting victory on the Orks that menace their borders.

Farsight knew that the only way to defeat the Orks was to uproot and purge them from every world they infested. If given the slightest chance, the Orks would rise again and again. Farsight hoped that the death of Warboss Grog Ironteef would bring an end to the War of Dakka. That did not happen. Instead, the reins of the War of Dakka were passed to the notorious warboss Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub. The Bad Moon warboss desired to make Grog Ironteef's dream of outshooting the "gun runts"a reality. He was prepared to use his obscene amounts of wealth and his army of Mekboyz to make it happen. Then he would conquer the Enclaves and perhaps the whole T'au Empire, transforming it all into his personal kingdom.

Nazdreg established strongholds on both sides of the Damocles Gulf, and even within the hostile space in the Gulf itself. He sent a call to Mekboyz that any Mek that joined his Waaagh! would be given unlimited access to the loot of the War of Dakka. They would be free to express their mad geniuses in any way they wished. Naturally, the Mekboyz didn't pass over this generous offer. They flocked to Nazdreg's banner. What followed was a series of apocalyptic wars that saw the T'au face the brunt of the Orks' twisted and destructive technological genius. Hundreds of Orks were teleported aboard T'au vessels. T'au ships were trapped inside titanic force field bubbles. The Enclave worlds faced wave after wave of Ork invasions that were supported by town-sized superfortresses, plasma-puking airships, grav tunneling machines, and other forms of mad technological horrors. Each war was more costly than the last.

Nazdreg's Waaagh! Threatened to overrun the Enclaves. So Farsight and his fellow Enclave commanders analyzed the Ork strategies and invented a counter. The Orks sought to outshoot the T'au, focusing all their efforts and resources on ranged combat. In response, Farsight's forces would adopt the Way of the Short Blade. The T'au forces would engage the Orks in close-range firefights. The forces would be supported by armored transports and airpower so that they would have uncontested mobility as they launched hit-and-run attacks on the Orks. Farsight ordered that Mekboyz be designated as primary targets to be hunted and slain. Moreover, Farsight created a specialist recovery Air Corps whose mission was to sweep battlefields clean from any scrap the Orks could use.

Soon the Orks found themselves overwhelmed in close combat where they traditionally used to have the edge, and their technology level drastically fell as the scrap stores dwindled and their Mekboyz number was thinned. The Ork firepower weakened, allowing Farsight to combine the Way of the Short Blade with traditional T'au ranged warfare to launch devastating Mont'ka attacks that flipped the momentum of the war to the T'au's side. Nazdreg attempts to counterattack and break the T'au onslaught failed. One by one, the Ork strongholds on the Enclaves side of the Gulf were obliterated.

Nazdreg fled to his greatest stronghold located in the world of Dregorkk. There he ordered his remaining  Meks to create a weapon of vengeance. If he couldn't rule the Enclaves worlds, then neither would the T'au. The breakthrough he needed happened on the world of Wurrbork. Prior to being evicted from the world by Farsight's forces, the Meks there invented an apocalyptic weapon. They called the Tellyfragga. It was based on their force field and teleportation technology. It was a cannon that unleashed a froth of force field bubbles that ripped their target to its constituent parts and then beamed it to the Warp to face complete annihilation.  The cannons would be mass-produced and installed on the Ork Kroozers. Any planet subjected to their firepower would be ripped apart. After being given the prototypes by the Meks, Nazdreg had four planets in mind to test these new weapons on.

Farsight and his men discovered the existence of these weapons from the plans left behind in the Mek workshops on Wurrbork. Farsight needed to act fast.

Chapter 2:

Farsight originally intended to rest his troops before marshaling his forces for the next phase of exterminating the Greenskins. The discovery on Wurrbork made it not possible; Farsight could not afford any delays.  The ZFR drives of the Enclaves advanced beyond those of the T'au Empire. However, even with their advanced drives, the Enclave ships would be able to catch up to the travel speed of the Ork Warp engines. Should the Orks finish creating their weapons and equipping their fleet with them, the Enclave fleet would not be able to catch up to them before they reached the Enclave worlds. Farsight was forced to gather as many forces as could be rapidly assembled and sailed toward Dregrokk. It was not lost on Farsight that the world was within the same system as Arthas Moloch. He was sure that it was no mere coincidence.

The world of Dregrokk was teeming with trillions of Orks. All the largest tribes were gathered for his counterattack. Keeping the densely packed Orks from spiraling into total infighting was a challenge. Nazdreg knew that he was in a race against time. He needed to complete the weapons and launch his Waaagh! soon or risk losing control over the hordes. Rather than be pressured by this challenge, Nazdreg welcomed it. He was energized to speed up the work.  As the industry of the Orks worked night and day to create the cannons, Nazdreg thoughts were about how he would teach the Red Runt Farsight who is boss and how he and the boyz would ravage and loot the Enclave Worlds.

Explosions in the upper atmosphere alerted Nazdreg of the coming of T'au. Finally, he thought, it was time for a proper scrap. However, what the T'au did next validated his opinion of them as backstabbing sneaky gits.  The T'au ships blasted apart many of the chains that connected the Ork docking platforms to their space elevators, sending them drifting to smash into each other, creating havoc among the massed Ork kroozers.

The T'au fleet landed large amounts of land forces on the world's surface by exploiting the mayhem in space. The largest of landed forces focused on Nazdreg's capital scrap city named, Dreg City. Secondary forces were deployed elsewhere on the world to fend off Ork tribes from streaming to defend the city. Squads of Pathfinders and stealth suits targetted and destroyed the generators powering the Ork aerial defenses, reducing them to useless junk. This allowed the T'au aerial forces to deploy great numbers of suits and troops and then supported them with overwhelming firepower as they pushed deeper into Dreg City.

The T'au attack was as vicious as it was sudden, but Nazdreg knew that as the element of surprise faded, the T'au would get swarmed by the countless Orks on the world. The T'au, in his reckoning, had bitten more than they could chew. So he was interested in one thing, finding Farsight and krumping him. He reasoned that Farsight was among the largest of the T'au forces that was supported by the large ballistic suits. Word among the Orks that the Deathskulls were leading a Big Mob of Gargants toward this T'au force. Nazdreg would not suffer any other Ork stealing his glory kill. He took with him the best of the best of his Nobz and his shootiest boyz. His boyz got into their kustomised wagons, and Nazdreg led them aboard his enormous battlefortress the Gitcrusha.

Once Nazdreg and his boyz left the heart of Dreg city, a Manta destroyer hovered over the Mek workshop and laid down a punishing barrage of fire before deploying The Farsight Eight.

Orks poured from all sides to swarm the Eight. Farsight and Brightsword met their charge and sliced them to pieces with the Dawn Blade and fusion blasters. Torchstar followed closely behind, thwarting the Orks attempts to encircle the Eight with streams of fire. Sha'vastros, Bravestorm, and Ob'lotai acted s the pillars of the assault. Sha'vastros and Ob'latao sent a storm of ordnance into the Orks while Bravestorm smashed anything that escaped the storm with his onager gauntlet. O'Vesa, despite being of the Earth Caste, was no less deadly than his peers. With his Riptide suit, he acted as a one-man rear guard blasting apart mobs of Orks and their machines.

Due to the combined lethality of the rain of death pouring from the Manta and the Eight's accurate suppressing firepower, the Ork hordes failed to muster enough momentum to overcome the Eight. The Eight smashed their way into the Mekshop. O'Vesa and Ob'lotai stayed at the breach to fend off the Orks mobs while the remainder of the Eight confronted the mobs of Meks within.

It was then that Nazdreg realized that he was tricked. He saw that Farsight was not among the T'au forces pushing into the city. His understanding of Farsight's tactics made him conclude, to his fury, that Farsight had distracted and outmaneuvered him to strike at his precious  tellyfraggas. It was Nazdreg's turn to surprise Farsight.

Having grown tired of being evaded and out-ranged by the T'au, Nazdreg had Meks install immense shokkjump projectors into his Battlefortress. It allowed him to jump on top of his enemies in a blink. He activated the protectors, which tore open a green portal. Gitcrusha accelerated through it. A green rent appeared in the workshop that ejected Gitcrusha to smash down in front of the Eight. It took a moment for the Battlefortress to shake off the violence of its translation then it rumbled toward the Eight.

Gitcrasha sent out a storm of indiscriminate and incredibly deadly firepower that annihilated mobs of Orks and forced the Eight to engage in evasive maneuvers. Still, they do not escape the barrage unscathed. A beam hits Arra'kon. It melted through his suit and burned a deep wound into his side. Torchstar and Brightsword took some hits. Ob'latoi was incapacitated by a lucky shot. Farsight himself was hit by a volley of rokkits and sent hurling into a mound of scrap.

Farsight erupted from the scrap mound, ordered Brightsword to his side, and ordered Sha'vastros to lead the push toward the tellyfraggas. Farsight and Brightsword boosted toward the Battlefortress. The advanced AI of his suit allowed Farsight to weave through Gitcrusha's storm of firepower and land on its deck. Farsight slew three Ork Nobs with a blast from his plasma rifle and a slash of his blade. Then he engaged Nazdreg and his Nobz. As Farsight blocked and parried attacks from an enraged Nazdreg, he was assaulted by the Nobs. One of them managed to fire his pistol point blank into his suit, penetrating it and wounding Farsight. But this duel was merely a distraction. While the Orks were engaged with Farsight, Brightsword destroyed the Battlefortress' shokkjump projectors machinery and sent a warning to his commander before thrusting out of there. Before Nazdreg could land a killing blow, Farsight jetted out of the Battlefortress. An immense green flash of light surrounded Gitcrusha, followed by hideous sucking and ripping sounds and the roar of Nazdreg. When the light cleared, in place of the Battlefortress, there was a glowing crater.

After Nazdreg's apparent death, the Orks collapsed into anarchy and infighting. This allowed the T'au to destroy the Tellyfraggas and retreat off-world with their wounded. Among the wounded was Ob'lotai. The AI engram suffered extensive damage that might render him unrecoverable. The thought of losing one of his longest and most trusted companions weighed heavily on Farsight.

To honor the T'au that lost their lives in the war against Nazdreg, Farsight vowed to end the Greenskin threat once and for all. Farsight planned on exploiting the Orkish infighting to surgically dismantle their hordes. But before Farsight could begin this stage of the war, reports reached him of the translation of a corrupted human fleet into the system's edge. The Enclaves fleet, already pressed by the swarming Ork vessels, found themselves facing a threat far greater than the Orks.

Intermission:

The arrival of the forces of Chaos robbed the Enclave forces of their chance of dealing crippling blows to the Orkish hordes before they could reunite and remobilize. The Enclaves fleet could not linger long over Dregrokk. Doing so would risk being converged upon by two hostile fleets.

As Farsight watched the movement of the Chaos fleet, the image of the lantern-eyed monstrosity flashed in his mind. It was reaching out to him with its iron talon.

Farsight and the Eight debated their next course of action. If the Chaos fanatics and Orks were allowed to encircle their fleet, some of their warships might be able to escape the battle, but all the T'au's support vessels would surely be destroyed.

Retreating back to the Enclaves worlds was out of the question. This would risk drawing the Greenskins and the corrupted humans after them. Worse, the T'au drives were no match for the Warp drives of the Orks and humans. Outrunning them was impossible. They might even leap past the Enclaves' fleet and burn the Enclaves before Farsight could return there.

O'Vesa suggested making a common cause with the humans. Humanity and the T'au have allied before against the greenskin threat. Farsight dismissed this suggestion and explained to O'Vesa that many types of humans exist. All previous encounters with this form of humanity proved to be extremely hostile. Their minds were corrupted by their unrestrained use of mind science. Even should these humans offer their aid to Farsight, he would refuse it.

The image of the lantern-eyed monster flashed in Farsight's mind again, followed by the image of himself as a bloody savage warlord with skulls attached to his form.

The Enclaves' forces did not have the numbers or firepower to defeat both hostile fleets in space, even if they received reinforcements from the Enclaves' worlds. But perhaps they have a chance at beating them in a ground war. If drawn into a ground war, the Orks' aggression would see them fight against the tainted humans as much as the T'au.

Dregrokk was out of the question to be the theatre of war; it was still teeming with countless Orks. So Farsight picked the place of breaking, Arthas Moloch. Farsight ordered the Enclaves' fleet to launch a baiting counterattack at the hostile fleets and then withdraw toward Arthas Moloch. This would give the support vessels a chance to run to safety. Once the T'au forces arrive at Arthas Moloch, they are to prepare for a guerilla warfare campaign against both of their enemy forces.

There was something that Farsight did not share with the Eight. Arthas Moloch contained a force of unrivaled destruction. Should the T'au fail to defeat their enemies conventionally, Farsight would unleash this force on them. This would be his final resort to preserve the lives of his men.

Another desperate measure was taken by Farsight. He ordered O'Vesa to invoke the Ta'vash'j'kaal ritual. The messenger drone would be sent at once. It might be the Enclaves' only hope for survival.

The messenger drone flew at incredible speeds toward the T'au Empire. It contained Farsight's request for aid.  It appealed to the Ethereals to remember all the times that the Enclaves came to the aid of the Empire and to remember that despite everything, the Enclaves are fellow T'au. Farsight requested that the Ethereals repay the aid given to them. Moreover, in exchange for military assistance and for the Enclaves to remain independent, Farsight offered his unconditional surrender. Farsight believed that the offer would be too tempting for the Ethereals not to accept. It was unthinkable for him that the Ethereals would abandon fellow T'au to cruel deaths.

Chapter 3:

The commander of the Unhallowed Ark and its Balefleet was the Black Legion Daemon Prince Ughalax , the Soul Eater. He had already claimed one key fragment for the Warmaster and was in the process of contacting Abaddon for his next orders when the sorcerers conducting the ritual were all possessed by Vashtorr. Vashtorr bestowed on Daemon Prince new orders and the location of a crucial key fragment.

Ughalax 's forces were terrifyingly immense. His ark was a nightmarish colossal war engine flanked by Levithan battleships and their escorts. His ground forces were comprised of his own large Black Legion warband, more than twenty allied CSM warbands that included the World Eaters and the Night Lords, countless traitor guard regiments, Chaos Knight houses, and many maniples of Chaos Titans from Legio Vulturum. It was a force capable of conquering entire systems.

Ughalax arrived at the target system and watched the two Xenos fleet tear at each other. He thirsted to battle the Xenos, but his duty to the Warmaster was far greater than his bloodlust. The Slaved sorcerers had pointed out the location of the key fragment. Even without them, Ughalax daemon eyes could see that Arthas Moloch was bursting with Warp energy. Ughalax was going to order his Balefleet to bypass the warring Xenos fleets and head to the target world. To his annoyance, the World Eaters broke formation and charged toward the Xenos fleets.

Ughalax was amused when he saw that the T'au fleet retreated before the converging Ork and World Eater ships in the direction of Arthas Moloch with the Orks in hot pursuit. It seemed that the Daemon Prince would slake his thirst for glory and fulfill the Arikfane's mission as well.

When the T'au fleet arrived at Arthas Moloch, they deployed all the T'au troops and personnel they could before fleeing the planet's orbit with only AI and skeletal crews in control. Farsight adapted his tactics away from Mont'ka to a Kauyon similar to the style of his peer Shadowsun. The enemy numbers could not be fought directly. Only a campaign of mobility and stealth, of hit and run and ambushes, could avail the T'au. Farsight needed to buy as much time as possible for the Ethereals to send their aid and perhaps for another solution to appear that was less damning than activating the Great Star Dais.

The T'au did just that. They constantly fought on their own terms, disappearing before the enemies closed on them. They baited the Orks and Chaos forces into each other or into clear killing fields to be slaughtered. They used their superior airpower to harass their enemies. The T'au were heavily bleeding the two forces.

Ughalax was not concerned about his losses. His forces were immense enough to conquer systems. He can afford the mounting losses. What concerned him was the challenge of locating the key fragment. The radiance of Arthas Moloch blinded the Slave psykers. It was as if looking for a candle inside of a blazing star. Ughalax was forced to segment the planetary operations into grids and then divide his forces to scour each grid thoroughly. Naturally, the fractious nature of the forces of Chaos reared its head.  The forces that were loyal to the Warmaster, the Black Legion, and those who personally swore to his banner held to their duty. Other warbands did not. The Word Bearers pretended to follow orders but instead focused their efforts on seizing sacrifices from Xenos and even their fellow warbands. The Thousands Sons forsake their duty to investigate the intriguing mysteries of Arthas Moloch. Most disobedient of all were the World Eaters. They flung themselves into the most bloody and brutal war fronts, unconcerned with anything else. The fact that the World Eaters grievously bled the T'au and the Orks did nothing to lessen Ughalax's ire toward them.

Ughalax analyzed the T'au's war effort. He noticed that their resistance was stiffer in the northern part of the planet. Either their command centers were located there, or they were hiding something. The Daemon Prince ordered his forces to move toward that region. Slowly the Chaos hosts made their way to the Great Star Dais.

For their part, the Orks were having the time of their lives. They poured ceaselessly like waves on Arthas Moloch. One warband of Blood Axes even managed to board and rampage on The Unhallowed. Though it did not end well for them, the Orks infested the Ark with their ecosystem. Planetside, flights of crude Ork aircraft took it as a personal challenge to outrace and krump the T'au aircraft.  The Ork mobs flung themselves gleefully at T'au cadres and Chaos warbands. The Ork losses were horrendous, but the green tide easily absorbed it. The T'au, on the other hand, could not. It was inescapable that the T'au would be ground down by attrition. Ork warbosses rose from the conflict fed by the diet of victory and violence. The growing masses of Greenskins were beginning to become more coherent and organized under their rule. This resulted in the T'au finding less and less space to maneuver. Farsight was steadily growing angry and self-loathing as the T'au losses kept mounting, and the aid of the Ethereals was nowhere in sight.

Tragedy struck for the Eight. A temporary air base successfully baited a force of Chaos Knights into a Dread Mob. What should have been a victory for the T'au turned into a disaster when the retreating Chaos Knights moved in the direction of the air base with the Orks chasing after them. The air base could not evacuate its major aerial assets in time, so it requested aid. Commander Brightsword and his Cadre arrived to aid the air base's garrison. He and his forces drove back the Ork and Chaos Walkers long enough for the air base to evacuate all of their surviving assets. However, as he pulled his forces into a fighting retreat, Brightsword was slain by a missile barrage.  Farsight stoically bore the news of his comrade's death, but on the inside, more of Farsight's hope turned to ash.

*Note: This is like the third or fourth time Brightsword was killed. Don't worry. Another clone will take his place

Farsight felt the death of every T'au warrior as if they were his bondmates. He watched as his forces diminished and forced himself to listen to every final distress transmission from overrun T'au forces. The death of so many of his men was taking a terrible toll on Farsight. His own Eight were reduced to six, and the reminder was worn down by spiritual and physical wounds.

Angry began to consume Farsight. Anger at the mindless violence of the Orks, anger at the corrupted humans and their mysterious agendas, anger at himself for condemning his men to death by a thousand cuts, and most of all, anger at the Ethereals for not aiding him and his men. Dark thoughts intruded on Farsight's mind of the gruesome punishments he would inflict upon his enemies and the Ethereals. Visions of murder danced in Farsight's mind, disturbing him with their vivid intensity. He saw himself in a colossus version of the Supernova suit wielding an axe and a plasma cannon that obliterated entire tank formations with its shots. Chained on the suit's hull were the skulls of the Ethereals. Farsight felt revulsion at his waking nightmare, but a part of him howled in exaltation and glee. Farsight snapped from this vision and whispered that this shall never be. They are not this.

The Ork and Chaos forces closed in on the T'au and their base of operation at the Great Dais Zone. Farsight and his most skilled commanders responded by launching Mont'ka strikes at the commanding structures of the forces flooding toward the Dais. Ork warbosses and the Night Lords warlord, the Flensing Prince, were eliminated by these attacks. In the short term, the elimination of these leaders would cause the hordes to fall into infighting as they attempted to reestablish their command structures. This would buy time for the hoped-for Empire aid.  In the long term, it would alert the rest of the enemy forces on the world to the T'au location and increase the flow of hostiles. This was just as well. It would mean that the majority of the T'au enemies would be in the range of the Dais should Farsight commit to his last resort.

Anger now was on the brink of fully consuming Farsight. His renewed aggression, which disquieted his comrades, saw him launch daring assaults at the enemy. His aggression proved to be infectious for his troops. He led his warriors to the forefront of each bloody battle. Farsight dueled and beheaded the Emperor's Children champion. He claimed the head of a Chaos Knight baroness. He painted the interior of a Stompas command deck with its warboss' blood. Farsight suit was drenched wholly with blood of his enemies.

During a battle against a huge Orkish horde, Bravestorm's suit was catastrophically damaged. His life support cacoon had to be removed and put in stasis. In the aftermath, the Ethereals' response reached Farsight. An advanced messenger flew from space to Farsight's location.

The hologram of Aun'Va was projected from the drone. Dread pooled in Farsight's soul.  He knew what the expression on Aun'Va face, the self-assured disapproval, meant. Aun'va spoke at once, expressing the Empire's gratitude for the Enclaves' aid and commending Farsight for his offer of surrender. The Farsight's men, that did not know about Farsight's selfless offer, gasped in shock.

Aun'Va continued by saying that he saw the essence of the Greater Good in Farsight's offer. Then Aun'Va changed his expression into a stony one and adopted the posture of the elegant teacher correcting his student. To his burning anger, Farsight immediately knew Aun'Va's answer before he spoke it.

Aun'Va told Farsight that despite the merit of his offer, it proved beyond a doubt that he didn't understand the Greater Good or the sacrifices done in its name. Farsight had made his choice when he turned his back on the Empire, and he was now an irredeemable Vash'ya. For that, he can never be forgiven. The entirety of the T'au of the Enclaves is condemned for letting Farsight lead them astray with his deviancy. Before ending the message, Aun'Va bid Farsight to do as much damage to the Orks and the humans as possible before dying so that they would do a small service to the Empire. The enraged Farsight blew up the messenger drone.

All that remained now was his last resort. Farsight was now on the brink as he meditated on his next course of action. Peace was denied to him as his body quaked with barely contained wrath. Not even his attempts at venting his rage in battle were effective; it only made it worse.


Chapter 4:

The Enclaves' fleet was mobile and skilled enough to evade being encircled by the numerous ships of the two enemy fleets or be drawn into battle. This would last as long as the fleet's fuel stores lasted. The fleet kept their comm technology fixed on Arthas Moloch, waiting for the Farsight order of extraction. Indeed, Farsight gave the order. The fleet sailed from deep space toward Arthas Moloch, preparing to launch a high-risk extraction of their brethren and trying not to consider the odds they were setting themselves against.

Farsight's ground forces began a full-scale fighting retreat. Ambushes and traps were sprung to slow the pursuing enemy forces. The T'au forces sent parting shots into the onrushing hordes before retreating to safety. However, such were the numbers set against the T'au that more than one cadre was surrounded by the Orkish and Chaos hordes and overrun. Their air transports blown up from the air before they can be evacuated. Farsight and his suit teams launched counterattack after counterattack to aid the withdrawal. As Farsight fought, a growing impulse tempted him to cancel the retreat and order a full-scale counterattack on all fronts. Farsight discarded this impulse as madness, but curiously each time he beheaded an enemy, this impulse returned. Fortunately for the T'au, as their enemies closed in toward them, the close proximity of the Orkish and Chaos hordes caused elements of both factions to engage each other, giving the T'au cadres the space to escape and regroup at the Great Star Dais boundaries.

Farsight was inching closer to the abyss. He was fighting a desire to exit his suit and allow the spirit of all those he failed to tear him apart. Farsight dismissed this notion and grasped unto the memories of the teachings of his old Master Puretide. He felt his anger dim a little. Just a few steps in the plan remained. When the two forces are lured to the Dais, the resulting bloodshed would release the Molochites. The ensuing mayhem would allow the T'au to escape the conflict and be evacuated by the fleet. The forces of Chaos, concluded Farsight, were seemingly interested in looking for some prize on the planet. In addition to their thinning numbers, the Chaos humans have little incentive to pursue the T'au. The Orks, on the other hand, were virtually endless. The Orkish warband that kept pouring unto the world far exceeded their horrendous losses planetside. However, the Orks were distracted with fighting all over the system. With no warboss of Nazdreg's caliber to direct them, the T'au would be able to slip away. A note of bitterness sounded in Farsight's mind. It was only a matter of time before an Orkish warlord inevitably rose to unite the Ork warbands in an Waaagh! and again threaten the Enclaves.

During the retreat, one of the scouting stealth teams found something odd. They found the wreckage of a single-pilot aircraft belonging to the Space Marine chapter called the Dark Angels. Crystalline growths were bursting out of it, and they were radiating with anomalous energies. Analysis of aircraft revealed that it was possibly more than 10K years old. Having no time to investigate with their enemies bearing down on them, the stealth team noted the location of the aircraft and sent out a report before dismissing it as among the many mysteries of Arthas Moloch. 

Lord Glass had prayed for the Chaos Gods that he would seize the key fragment before Ughalax. His faith in the Ruinous Powers was rewarded when his monitoring of the planet's communications picked up the stealth team's report. Its location was where he had suspected, the ritual Warp portal that the T'au fundamentally misunderstood and called the Great Star Dais, much to Lord Glass' amusement. With Ughalax himself taking to the field and the Orks threatening to crash upon the Dais like a tidal wave, Lord Glass could not waste any time. The window for claiming the key fragment in the name of his dark deity Vashtorr was closing. 

Lord Glass activated his Alpha Legion cell. Of the thirty-four marines aboard the Deathwatch frigate, ten were Alpha Legionaries. The activated cell took the loyalists by surprise. Bolters and traitor blades slew some before they realized what was happening. Some were torn apart and consumed by the ship's Vashtorr-Imp-possessed machinery. Some were slain by booby traps. All that remained of the loyalist were Watch Captain Tholonius of the Ultramarines, the hulking Watch Sergeant Osgor of the Minotaurs, and battle brother Ralephon of the Blood Angels. The trio of loyalist staged a defiant last stand against Lord Glass and his Legionaries. Had word of their courageous yet doomed defiance reached their chapters, they would have been sung as heroes. Alas, they were slain by traitors, and Lord Glass left the ship exposed to the Chaos and Ork ships. The Black Missive was obliterated by Xenos and heretic fire, erasing any trace of the treachery and heroism that transpired aboard it.

The first of the enemy forces to reach the T'au battlelines were the World Eaters. They rode aboard their assault transports or clung on their chains as they charged headlong into the jaws of the T'au firepower. The T'au fired storms of plasma, supersonic rail shots, and Ion blasts at the World Eaters. The Hundreds of World Eaters were subjected to an energy barrage that their corrupted transhuman bodies could not overcome. Such firepower would have broken most assault forces but not the Scions of the Red Angel. The T'au firepower did not slow the World Eaters' charge. The mad crimson marines charged forth with limbs missing or even as their whole bodies were burning with plasma fire, all while roaring praises to Khorne. The World Eaters Land Raiders and Rhinos hit their mark gun blazing and disgorged their frothing chain axe-wielding passengers.

*Note:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQmIBHObtCs

The T'au inexplicably were showing reluctance to fall back as their Kauyon strategy dictated. They stood their ground even as the World Eaters closed the gap. Some Fire Warriors let out warcries of their own and charged into the rushing World Eaters. The results were as unsurprising as they were brutally gruesome. Then the Berserkers and Eightbound smashed into the T'au battlelines in earnest, forcing the T'au finally to break into a fighting retreat. This scenario repeated itself as more Chaos forces stormed the T'au battlelines.  The T'au showed degrees of uncharacteristic aggression that slowed them in their Kauyon retreat. Some cadres refused to give ground altogether and were overrun and butchered. The Fireblades struggled to organize the T'au battlelines after suffering unexpectedly heavy casualties. 

Ughalax himself arrived at the field at a head of a massive armored Black Legion formation. The T'au firepower did little to slow his advance and his allied warbands. The T'au were getting pushed back further and further toward the Dais. Black Legion and Night Lord Terminator teams teleported amidst the T'au battlelines to scythe the surprised Xenos with point-blank bolter fire.

The arrival of the Orks escalated the brutal fighting to new levels of savagery but there was some advantage for the T'au from it. The Gargants charged straight at the Chaos Titans. The Chaos Titans, in turn, met their charge, recognizing the Ork God machines as worthy sacrifices to the Dark Gods. Ork Stompas and Chaos Knights fought each other in huge numbers around the dueling god machines. 

Lord Glass descended with his legionaries aboard a drop-ship. They still wore the color of the Deathwatch. The dropship shrugged off anti-air fire and made it to the target location. The Alpha Legion marines disembarked and headed toward the Dark Angel aircraft, now identified as a Dark Talon. A mob of Ork barred their way, but the Alpha Legion gunned them down, and Lord Glass himself slew Ork after Ork with mighty swings from his blade. With nothing standing in their way, the Alpha Legionaries had a gaggle of industrial servitors cut the Dark Talon and its crystal growths from the earth and carry it to the dropship. Lord Glass then flew the prize to the Unhallowed Ark and cast it into its captive Warp Portal, fulfilling his duty to his master Vashtorr.  Thus ended the Alpha Legion's involvement in this war.

The Chaos and Ork forces took the Kauyon bait and were converging on the Dais. However, Farsight struggled with containing his rage. He wanted nothing more than jet thrust into the rushing hordes. His men were similarly afflicted. His stern commands prevented his warriors, including Torchstar and the usually level-headed O'Vesa, from charging to their certain deaths. Farsight realized that there was an external force working on his mind and that of his warriors. This strange force sought to possess the T'au and stoke their rage and aggression. Farsight would not allow that to happen. He would not let his people succumb to the Mon't'au. He stood on the battleline and set an example to his men. When the first waves of the World Eaters and Orks started crossing the Dais, Farsight ordered his men to fire. As the T'au slaughtered the first waves, Farsight was informed that other Ork and human forces were moving to encircle the Tau battleline. 

Enough blood was slipped on the Dais to invoke the effect that Farsight both dreaded and sought. A red glare whose radiance defied technological sensors and sickened all who witnessed it emerged from the Dais, followed by a rain of blood and gore that thickened until boulder-sized wads of flesh smacked on the Dais. From the clotted mess manifested the Molochites . Horror and bloodlust warred inside Farsight's mind as he saw the brazen hosts of the Molochites fall upon everything within their sight, human, Ork, and T'au.

The battle descended into total and complete anarchy as more of the forces of Chaos and Orks flowed in and crashed into the daemon tide. It was then that Ughalax received a message from Vashtorr's daemon imps. He was informed that victory was already seized, the key fragment was secured. Ughalax gave the order for the withdrawal. These Xenos were not the true enemy. This world was not the true battlefield. His duties to the Warmaster and the Arkifane now lay elsewhere. However, Ughalax, in a display of contempt toward the World Eaters, whom he considered no better than savage animals, abandoned the World Eaters behind to cover his forces' retreat.

Farsight's Kauyon was successful. The forces of Chaos and the Orks were getting mauled by the daemons opening the way for the T'au to flee the battle to the fleet's extraction zone. However, time was running out. The enemy forces were close to fully encircling the T'au battleline. Worse, the fighting between the Ork and Chaos god machines was moving toward the T'au retreat line. Moreover, the T'au fleet control over the northern hemisphere would not last long. The Chaos and Ork warships will eventually gather in enough numbers to force the T'au fleet to abandon their extraction mission.

Then it happened. When Farsight slew one of the crimson daemonic creatures, Farsight's mind was fully overcome with bloodlust and rage. He gloried in every severed head, they were all a kill tally for his revenge debt. Visions of slaughter flowed from the Dais' Warp portal into Farsight's mind. He saw himself in a battle suit the size of an Imperial titan wielding an axe befitting his status as a bloody lord of war. Numerous skulls rattled on chains attached to his suit. Among them, the skulls of every Ethereal to ever lied to him and their people.

Dark thoughts emerged in Farsight's mind. A mighty warrior such as he needs not to retreat and leave all this bloodshed and glory to others. The very notion disgusted him as cowardice. Why does he always have to sacrifice for the sake of others? Why did he have to carry the burden of their lives on his shoulders? Always these weaklings weighed him down, robbing him of achieving his potential. Farsight ignored the pleas for orders from his men. Such weaklings always looked to him for salvation. No more!

Farsight leaped at his enemies, slaying human, Orks, and daemons in his path. With each kill, he drowned further in his rage. Through the fog of bloodlust, he saw T'au warriors similarly as afflicted as he was. This pleased him. Let the strong among them survive so that they would be worthy of fighting beneath his shadow. Farsight would fight only for himself. He would be the Monat, the army of one.

A memory flashed into Farsight's mind cutting through rage. Puretide had three students—Shadowsun the cunning huntress, Farsight the swift blade, and Kais the loner. Ever the monat, Kais stood apart from his fellow T'au even his bondmates. Farsight always pitied Kais. In his loneliness, Kais would never experience the bonds of loyalty and duty that gave the T'au purpose in battle.

Farsight clung to his memory of Kais like a drowning man and pulled himself from the madness. The hexagrammic talisman of his suit was radiating intense heat. Self-loathing and horror tormented him when his lucidity was greeted by his men's cries of madness and desperation from his comms. As Farsight drowned in his rage, his men suffered, and the time window of extraction shrank to minutes. 

Farsight realized that his people needed not a bloody-handed warrior but a leader to protect and lead them to safety. In the act of tremendous willpower, Farsight cast away all the hatred and rage that poisoned his soul. There was still time to salvage the retreat. Farsight poured all his strategic skill into the task. In a commanding voice empowered by his willpower that all the T'au obeyed, he called out to his men to stop fighting. There be no more fighting this day for the T'au. Let the humans and the Orks destroy themselves. The T'au would not linger here and let the strange mind science of this place turn them into puppets of bloodlust and rage. Farsight, however, did not tell his men about his fears that he was the catalyst of this rage affliction, that he was the chink in his troops' spiritual armor. 

Farsight shepherded his people through the retreat corridor. He would lead his men to safety or die in the attempt.

Aftermath:

One of the major Ork warbosses Beastboss Bolgrog Bigtusk was having the time of his life as he rode down the Chaos gits. Now this was a proper scrap. Ork shootas and choppas thudded and sliced into black and red power armor and the Chaos beakies in turn repaid the Orks with swings from infernal talons and chain axes to tear apart their green flesh.

Bolgrog got word that the T'au were being unsporting. They were legging it zogging fast from the battle. The Beastboss considered chasing them down, but the big scrap expanded into blocking his path. It didn't bother him. He is going to let the gun runts run. It was a tiresome effort to try to wring a proper scrap out of those slippery gits. The Chaos Boyz and the daemons, on the other hand, were more than willing to give the Orks a good fight. In fact, they were just as eager as the Orks and met them head-on.

However, the sight of daemons falling on the Orks and humies to hack them apart with their hellish blades disgusted Bolgrog. He despised the daemons as unnatural things. He was about to give his lead Wurrboy an order to do something about it when a World Eater charged him. Bolgrog swatted the marine's chain axe aside and delivered a mighty headbutt that shattered the marine's faceplate and floored him. Bolgrog then crushed the World Eater's head beneath his heel. With this minor distraction handed, Bolgrog ordered his lead Wurrboy to gather the Wurrboys and zog the swirly portal fing.

Then Bolgrog charged into the World Eaters. He shrugged off the wounds they inflicted on him and began to smash, krump, and choppa his way through them. Power-armored corpses piled around his feet. Responding to his thunderous roar, his lads rallied around him and flung themselves at the daemons. During the scuffle with the daemons Bolgrog felt the building of Waaagh! energy. Ere we go, here it comes.

A storm of green lightning fell on the Dais, creating a massive shockwave that plucked the daemons up and tore their bodies apart. The daemons howled in rage as their physical forms were evaporated. The Warp portal winked out of existence by the blast before the energy of the Waaagh!

Though the few Chaos survivors continued fighting, the battle of the Dais had come to a sudden stop. Bolgrog met with the big Mekbodd named the Da Smoggboss. He told him that the daemons were all gone, the gun runts legged it, and most of the Chaos boyz were legging it too. He also reported that The gargant warboss had given the Chaos Titans a good krumping. 

Bolgrog got an idea. Fighting Chaos boyz was more fun than fighting the gun runts. He won't be wasting time chasing the T'au gits anymore. There was nothing left for the Orks on Arthas Moloch, so they agreed to chase after the Chaos boyz. The first boss to frag the Chaos boyz leader gets to be the leader of Waaagh!

Farsight returned to Arthas Moloch a month later with a limited expedition force. O'Vesa and  Ob'lotai housed within an advanced drone accompanied Farsight to the surface. There were no signs of any corrupted humans, and whatever Orks left behind degenerated into low-tech tribes.

Farsight recalled the retreat from the planet.  Scans of the planet during the retreat revealed that the Orks banished the Molochites with their mind science before they could deal considerable damage to either the human and Ork forces. Farsight despaired that his last gambit had failed. Then he and his men were surprised when neither the Orks nor Chaos forces pursued them. The Chaos forces performed a fighting retreat and left the system with a colossal Ork Waaagh giving them chase. Orkish presence in the system dwindled and faded as they sought their sport elsewhere. 

Farsight noted the look of concern on O'Vesa face. Ever since he experienced his madness during the fighting on Arthas Moloch, his fellow Eight felt worried for him. The fact that he confessed the visions that afflicted him only deepened their concern for him. However, his confession had brought peace to his mind. Calm and peace that he didn't experience for sometime. It was as if he ejected a parasite he didn't know he was carrying. Farsight attempted to lessen their worries by revealing why he had returned to this dead world. He returned to investigate the strange life and energy signs on Arthas Moloch. Something fundamental had changed here, and he would know what. When the T'au fought here, they did so with one eye closed. They were blind to many aspects of the wars fought here. There were things beyond their current understanding. Contrary to what the Ethereals want of their people, Farsight would not suffer himself and his people to be ignorant. Ignorance was dangerous; Arthas Moloch proved it beyond a doubt. Farsight has to see the changes on this world with his own eyes and unlock its spiritual puzzle.

Ob'latoi expressed his willingness to aid his commander in any way possible to unlock this puzzle. At this, Farsight felt humble gratitude. It would have been easy for his men to lose faith in him after the events of Arthas Moloch and other occasions. They could have turned on him when he led them away from the light of the Greater Good. Yet they did not. They trusted in him, and they still believed in him as their leader.

As Farsight neared the Dais, he noticed the heaps of corpses and wreckage of war machines, including even titans. Something strange was happening to them. The corpses and wrecks were decaying and rusting at a rate faster than should have been possible on a dead world.

O'Vesa commented on how remarkable it was. Arthas Moloch was a dead world down to the microscopic level. The internal microbiome of the corpses would not have been able to decay them at this rate. O'Vesa theorized that Arthas Moloch was somehow developing atmospheric moisture and microbial biosphere. 

Ob'lotai commented that perhaps it was always here, but something was suppressing it. Something that was removed. Farsight felt that Ob'lotai's suggestion was true, but it unsettled him.

When Farsight reached the Dais he and his men were shocked. It was shattered as if by the strike of a titan with a hammer. There was more. Amongst the ruins, Farsight noticed, to his wonderment, rugged plant life growing up from the previously dead soil. Ob'lotai asked Farsight what it was. Farsight answered hope. It was the beginning of hope.