Chapter 13: T'au and the Fading Shot
The moon of Istranon was a cold, jagged sphere of metal and ruin, barely worth the effort of retaking—except for the fact that the T'au had fortified it as a forward base. Lucien Artor Vale, now Lieutenant of the 87th Vostrian Steelbacks, arrived with his platoon by Valkyrie drop, the hangar door shaking from high-altitude winds as it descended into combat.
Lucien's jaw was tight, his eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his officer's cap. He still wasn't used to the way men looked at him—like he was touched by something greater, like he couldn't die. He didn't feel invincible. He felt afraid. Every mission, every drop, he still expected to meet his end. Yet he hadn't—not once.
"Sir," said Sergeant Harven, his second-in-command, buckling in beside him. "Intel says they've got XV88 Broadsides covering the crater approaches. We'll be lucky to make it ten feet."
Lucien exhaled slowly. "Then we'll make it eleven."
The platoon grinned nervously. They didn't cheer. Not anymore. The silence of men who'd seen friends torn apart was heavier than glory. But Lucien had a presence now—a subtle gravity. He didn't shout. He didn't bluster. And somehow, things just… went wrong for the enemy.
When the Valkyrie doors opened, tracer fire arced up like furious stars. Lasbolts, pulse rounds, plasma flares. But no one hit Lucien. A pulse round meant for his skull bent off-course and struck a crate instead. A tripmine failed to detonate as he stepped over it. One of the Broadsides—gleaming blue and gold—exploded when its coolant lines ruptured just as it powered up.
His boots slammed into the earth and the dirt kicked up around him like smoke from a stage. His heart raced, blood singing, adrenaline and fear dancing with every breath.
Nearby, Corporal Dresk shouted, "Sir! They're retreating from the eastern ridge—we can flank through the maintenance tunnels!"
Lucien nodded. "Good. Move."
What he didn't say: one of the Broadsides had tripped and crushed its own recon drone. Another's optics fogged over from a rare humidity shift. A T'au Fire Warrior's weapon jammed, and another was struck by falling debris as if the very walls betrayed them.
The Imperium's soldiers whispered now—not prayers to the Emperor, but to him.
Behind enemy lines, the platoon pushed forward like a blade in a soft gut. Lucien led, never once taking cover longer than needed, moving with grace, like the battlefield bent around him. Sometimes he wondered if it did.
Then came the Shas'vre.
A commander in advanced stealth armor—a true leader of the T'au—appeared from shimmering nothing. It fired a burst that should've atomized Lucien's chest. But the shot missed. Not because Lucien dodged. Because the enemy's targeting lens cracked from an unseen pressure shift at the exact moment of firing.
Lucien dropped to a knee, rolled, and fired a las-round that punched through the stealth suit's joint. Sparks flew. The commander screamed.
Harven caught up, panting. "Did you see that?"
Lucien didn't answer. He only stared at the blood on his hands, his lasgun, the fallen alien.
It wasn't skill. Not entirely. Not luck, either. It was something more. It took from others. He could feel it now—his uncanny success growing only when others failed. Not just the enemy… sometimes even his allies suffered small setbacks to feed this strange force wrapped around him.
A distant voice rang in his ears. He remembered it from before—before this life. A girl's voice? Or his mother's? "Everything comes at a price."
Later, when the T'au base lay in ruin and the Steelbacks took the field, a report passed through unofficial channels. A man in dark robes, hood drawn low, stepped from the shadows of the command post and watched the young lieutenant without blinking.
"That one," the stranger whispered. "Something rides his soul."
In the candlelit chapel of the transport ship, Lucien knelt, not in prayer but in thought.
He didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted to live. But the universe had chosen him—or cursed him. He didn't know which.
Yet fate wasn't done.
Behind him, Sergeant Harven muttered, lighting a lho-stick. "You know, sir… They're starting to call you the Ghostblade. Say you're the Emperor's own shadow."
Lucien stood slowly.
"Then let's make sure the enemy keeps believing it."
He left the chapel as the candles flickered, casting shadows that bent just a little too far.