Shas'Ui Sammus'hai Mont'yr (Tau Fire Warrior)

Name: Shas'Ui Sammus'hai Mont'yr
Career Path: Fire Warrior
Rank: 2
Classified Competance: Precise Hunter (gain Expose Weakness talent, +3 BS)
Demeanor: Alien (An amalgamation: Fixed and Melancholic due to being a Tau without the presence of an Ethereal).
Homeworld: +++classified+++

WS 39
BS 49**
S 29
T 42*
Ag 42*
Int 43**
Per 40**
Wp 45*
Fel 36*
*denotes purchased advances

FP: 2/2
Wounds (Critical): 14/14 (0)
Movement: 4m/8m/12m/24m
Fatigue: 0
Insanity: 4/100
Corruption: 0/100

Skills:
Acrobatics (Ag)
Athletics (S)
Awareness (Per)
Charm (Fel)
Command (Fel) +10
Common Lore (Int)
- Tau Empire
- War
Commerce (Int)
Deceive (Fel)
Disguise (Fel)
Dodge (Ag)
Evaluate (Int)
Gamble (Int)
Inquiry (Fel)
Intimidate (S)
Linguistics (Int)
- Tau
- Kroot
- Low Gothic
Literacy (Int)
Logic (Int) +10
Operate (Ag)
Medicae (Int)
Parry (WS)
Scholastic Lore (Int)
- Tau Empire +10
Scrutiny (Per)
Stealth (Ag)
Survival (Per)
Tech Use (Int) +10

Talents:
Crack Shot (+2 Crit. Dmg)
Expose Weakness
Fire Support (+0 BS full round - call in seeker missile)
Hard Target
Hatred (Orks)
Heightened Senses (Smell)
Marksman
Nerves of Steel
New Allies
Rapid Reload
Sprint
Supporting Fire
Technological Insight (Lasts 1+DoS Rounds)
Unshakeable Faith
Weapons Training (Fire Caste)

Traits:
- Blunt (All Tests made to detect Tau by daemons or through the use of psychic abilities suffer a -30 penalty)
- Darksight (Blacksun Filter; immune to photon/flash grenades and other devices that cause the same effect)
- For the Greater Good! (Once/encounter gain +10 to any test while following an order from another Tau character; if the order places PC in substantial danger to benefit the group as a whole the benefit becomes +30 at GM's discretion)
- Heightened Senses [Smell] (Begin with the Heightened Senses (Smell) Talent)
- Lessened Senses [Sight] (After 100 meters, any Tau character relying on their eyes without aid suffers a -10 penalty on all perception-based tests, including ballistic skill)
- Non-Imperial (-10 Common, Forbidden and Scholastic Lore relating to the Imperium of Man)
- Precise Hunter (Classified Competance; gain the Expose Weakness talent)
- Speak Not Unto the Alien (-20 Fel w/humans - allies excluded; -2 Ship Morale)

Armor:
Tau Combat Armor (6 All; 7 AP Off-Hand Arm/40% chance headshots will hit pauldron instead)
- Blacksun Filter
- Microbead
- Translator Unit (May attempt to understand unknown languages at untrained -20)

Weapons:
Pulse Rifle, Good Craftsmanship (basic; 225m; S/2/4; 2d10+3 E, pen 4; Mag: 36, Rld: half; Gyro-Stabilized, Markerlight, Reliable)
"Rail Blaster"/CREAW Gun (basic; 40m; S/2/-; 1d10+6, pen 4; Mag: 15; Rld: Full; Scatter)
Pulse Pistol, Best Craftsmanship (pistol; 40m; S/2/-; 2d10+2 E, pen 4; Mag: 16, Rld: half; Gyro-Stabilized, Never Jams)
Tau Photon Grenades (x6; 6m; Blast (12))
Krak Grenades (x3; 6m; 2d10+4 X, pen 6; Concussive (0), Vengeful (9) vs Vehicles)
Frag Grenades (x4; 6m; 2d10 X, pen 0; Blast (4))
Reloads x3

Gear:
- Markerlight (mounted on Pulse Rifle; Full Round +20 BS test to mark a target - allies gain +20 to hit vs. target).
- Pulse Accelerator (installed inside Pulse Rifle; Range increased by 50%)
- Target Lock (installed inside helmet; Reaction does not negate benefit of Aim)
- Vial of soil from homeworld (Keepsake)
- Ork Tooth Trophy Rope (Memento)
- Gimono (out-of-armor clothing, think a bastardization of the Karate Gi and Kimono).


Notes: Look into upgrading Ra'va (armor, weapons, sensors, etc.)

XP: 250/11,250
XP Expenditure:
Characteristic Advances:
- Ag (simple, 250xp)
- BS (simple, 100xp)
- BS (trained, 250xp)
- Fel (simple, 250xp)
- Int (simple, 100xp)
- Int (trained, 250xp)
- Per (simple, 100xp)
- Per (trained, 250xp)
- Tough (simple, 250xp)
- WP (simple, 250xp)

Rank 1:
- Awareness (100xp)
- Charm (200xp)
- Command (200xp)
- Command +10 (200xp)
- Common Lore (War, 100xp)
- Hatred (Orks, 200xp; elite advance)
- Logic +10 (200xp)
- Medicae (200xp)
- Nerves of Steel (300xp)
- New Allies (300xp)
- Scholastic Lore (Tau Empire; 100xp)
- Speak Language (Kroot, 100xp)
- Speak Language (Low Gothic, 100xp)
- Sprint (200xp)
- Stealth (200xp)
- Tech Use +10 (300xp)

Rank 2:
- Athletics (100xp)
- Hard Target (200xp)
- Schol. Lore [Tau Empire] +10 (100xp)
- Scrutiny (100xp)
- Sound Constitution (200xp)
- Technological Insight (300xp)

Rank 3:
- Crack Shot (300xp)
- Fire Support (400xp)

Spoiler:

Fifteen of the disgusting Ork Boyz sprawled across the rocky earth. Dark purple skies with cloudy hues of pink and blue floated above them. The Kroot had started to feed and Sammus'hai watched with disinterest. He found the feeding habits of the Kroot nowhere near as repulsive as the existence of the Orks; the latter being one of a very select few sentient species who were not considered eligible for participation in the Greater Good.

The Greater Good, Sammus thought to himself with a slight sadness. They had been separated from the Ethereals for a long time out in the Enclaves. While Sammus still identified and agreed with the concept with all his heart, he was starting to disagree with his race's methods in obtaining it.

He belonged to one of many Fire Warrior Cadres under the leadership of the revered hero Commander Farsight. They had pushed farther out into the galaxy than any Tau before them. They had seen the true threat of the Ork menace and what it would do to their people if left unchecked. The danger it posed to the Greater Good was palpable. The Etherals had branded them rebels a few cycles after they had refused orders to pull back. But still they fought. Still they bled. Still they won. They had to, for the Ork threat on their borders was too much. They all knew it, even if the Ethereals didn't.

They had been fortunate; the barbaric Orks could not resist their traps. In almost every encounter in this campaign, they lured the enemy in, annihilated targets of opportunity with their sharpshooters, bled the Greenskin's ranks dry and then unleashed their Kroot auxillaries.

They aren't ours. We aren't theirs. Everyone deserves to determine their own fate. It was true. The Kroot did not belong to them. They fought alongside them as equals, and nowhere in the entirety of the Tau Empire was that claim more true than within the Farsight Enclave. The symbiosis of the two species relationship very much secured their existence when war was concerned. Sammus had grown close to a few of the Kroot in particular, sharing ideas with them, watching them grow, watching them fight, learning from them as they in turn did the same from him.

One Kroot approached him, six long filthy Ork teeth in his hand.

"These belong to you." He said, his voice like rocks cracking together. "They were your kills, Shas'Ui."

Sammus nodded and took the teeth. They would make excellent additions to his collection. The longer he stayed on this battlefield, the more Kroot customs he noticed himself adapting - his ever expanding Ork-tooth necklace being one of them. As his hatred for the Orks grew so too did his admiration for the Kroot and their spirit of independence. The begnning of an inner dialogue centered around his position in life and the idea of making his own destiny began to prove more and more enticing.

"Gather weapons and ammunition," he said to the Kroot gathered around. Unlike the Tau, the Kroot could actually make some use out of the haphazardly constructed wargear fielded by the Orks. "We move out shortly." It had taken him some time, but he finally felt comfortable speaking the rough, cracking language of the Avianesque warriors. As it was, the vast majority of them spoke Tau, who was he not to reciprocate the effort?

"The galaxy is just ahead of us. Let's take it, my friends." The optical lense of his faceplate slid down into place, fitting exquisitely into the armor of his helmet. Fully geared up and ready for war, Shas'Ui Sammus'hai Monty'r moved down the hillside to the next ambush point. It was time to send more Orks back to the dust.

***

Sammus sat alone in the field-quarters set up earlier by a drone team. The synthetic polymers that made up its outer walls made it all but invisible to the naked and tech-assisted eye. The purple sky above the Hunter Cadre was beginning to turn black. Aside from the assigned Fire Warriors and Pathfinders currently on perimeter watch, the majority of the Cadre was inside of their quarters cleaning their kit and attending to personal business.

The planet was called Arakunuh and the Ork barbarians had occupied it for almost three standard years. It had been a hard fight, but they were all but ready to exterminate the last of the enemy and begin anew. The Tau understood the Ork physiology more than most, and in knowing that they knew how to eradicate their population from the planet. The Greenskins were a fungus for the most part. When they died their bodies produced and broke down into spores - thousands - and where they fell more would grow, sooner or later. The Tau understood this and had begun cleansing ambush sites, Ork strongholds, and anywhere the creatures lived or died with chemical fire. It had proven to be incredibly effective.

There was even talk of a new breed of microscopic drones being produced that could infiltrate the soil of a planet, find the Ork spores and erradicate them before they could spawn. But, until that was fielded the fire would have to do. Their Cadre had one more stronghold to take - the last of a series of Ork bastions held by a Warboss called Oily-Fuggin Tusk Hed.

Sammus' carapace armor and helmet adorned on a rack in one corner of the room. He sat in the center, legs folded with his hands on his knees meditating. His index fingers touched his thumbs and the remaining two fingers on each hand stood straight out. Across his lap lay his pulse rifle. Never out of reach, never out of touch. His top knot stood tall on the back of his head, the black hair braided down his back.

Open your eyes, Shas'Ui... they are coming.

Sammus' eyes opened quickly and he jumped up. What was that? Was that his imagination? His weapon was in his hands and the ammo-readout read full capacity. Something did not feel right. He had learned long before to trust his instincts - especially on Arakunuh - as they had saved his life more than a handful of times.

Only the dead hear a Krootox in the distance and think it no threat. The old Kroot fable played over in his mind. He could even hear Vehr'sek - his old friend - the huge Kroot Stalker's voice as he thought it. He moved to his black carapace, marvelling at the paint job for a moment as the different hues of purple betrayed the utter blackness it projected. With the press of two small runes on his digi-arm readout the armor opened up and he backed into it as it closed over his chest. It felt like safety. It felt like security. It felt like home.

His suspicions were confirmed as soon as he placed the helmet on his head.

"Hammerhead firing solution confirmed. Execute! Pathfinder squadron Vaun'a set up markerlight solutions on all heavy vehicles; Broadside suits redeploying. Open firing solutions on targets of opportunity immediately-"

"Deploying drone squadron 4254-A - the rest of my squad is dead or missing. There are hundreds of them. Thousands. Need reinfor-"

"For Vior'la! For Farsight! For the Greater Good! Give them everything you've got, Fire Warriors! Burn them down under your hooves!

++Static+++ "They are-" +++Static+++ "overrun! Pulling back with Kroot harrassment cover-" +++Static+++ "No! Shoot it! Shoo-"

Sammus was already moving to the entryway when Vehr'sek busted in.

"Where you been? Fun's beginnin." The Kroot "smiled" as much as one of their kind could and then let out a fierce cry into the night sky.

***

Sammus'hai and Vehr'sek took in the scene. His Fire Warriors were in various states of readiness. Some had their armor and weapons equipped and others had only their weapons, firing into a fast approaching tide of green wearing only their bodygloves or Gimonos. He saw two that were completely naked, but they had there weapons in their hands and were laying down a withering hail of suppressing fire. Truer warriors he had never seen before.

Confused and chaotic radio communiques were echoing through his helmet and he knew he only had moments before the Orks were on them. How they had taken them so completely by surprise was perhaps even more troubling than the numbers they were throwing at the Tau. From the looks of it alone, if the situation was the same across the line, the Orks had mustered every last bit of adrenaline-fueld crazy they had for this attack. He needed to buy some time to organize his Hunter Cadre.

"Pathfinders, speak." As Sammus asked for the sit-rep, Vehr'sek took off to organize his Kroot. Several of them were gathering around, none of them looking less than excited about the coming prospects of battle. Vehr'sek wasted no time putting them into groups of six and sent them into the surroundings hills. They would snipe from a distance, waiting for the call to flank into melee should the Fire Warriors need to pull back rapidly.

"Shas'Ui, the Orks have caught us sleeping it would seem. The long-range sensors went down just as soon as the dust storm started. There must be something in its composition that interferes with our equipment." Somewhere nearby, the report of an enormous weapon sounded.  Sammus' helm-comms immediately dimmed as to not harm his hearing. It had come from the aptly named Black Cliffs to the right flank. In the distance, a large charging Ork Nob with a backbanner burst as though made from liquid. Without having to look, Sammus knew that the railgun in the Pathfinder's hand already searching for a secondary target.

"One less to deal with, sir. They will be on us in less than a minute - the majority cannot get over the cliffs and will make for the opening in the ridge line. Heavy armor is moving in as well. No responses from the rear echelons. I fear we are on our own, Shas'Ui."

Sammus affirmed the message and ran to his squads, setting up overlapping firing lines directed at the mouth of the ridge they were occupying. Already they could hear the rumble of hundreds of Ork boots and armor charging from the valley below. They could smell them in the air. And if they could hold them at the mouth of the ridge, they could win this battle.

***

"We hold here!" His Hunter Cadre was pouring pulse weapons fire on the advancing Orks. Bodies were piled up along the opening in the ridge line that sloped gradually into the valley below. The Pathfinder teams and Kroot in the hills around them had given them as much support as they could until the Orks with the crude rockets strapped to their backs landed among them. A vicious melee had broken out between the Ork Stormboyz and the Kroot and Tau Pathfinders.

Sammus'hai caught a glimpse of a group of three Pathfinders teaming up on two Stormboyz, unloading their pulse carbines on full auto until the beasts finally dropped, only to be flanked by three more. He saw a group of six Kroot stalkers, led by his old friend Vehr'sek, facing off twice their number and somehow holding their ground. Everyone was fighting an intense personal battle and Sammus knew he would have to wait - and hope - for his support to emerge victorious.

His calls to headquarters for immediate reinforcements were met with silence. His Fire Warriors fought with a disciplined excellence learned through years on the front. Overlapping fields of fire had halted the Orks at the choke point they needed to breach. The wrecks of two Ork Trukks lay turned over amid the destruction - halted by haywire grenades and then taken out with rail rifle. They were holding the line, but it could not last.  

The first few waves had been different than what he expected. Instead of charging in with everything immediately, it appeared that the Orks were testing the capabilities of the defenders - pushing in carefully only to pull back and regroup. The Stormboyz had only recently been sent in and Sammus was sure they had not sent in their entire force. When the Orks finally dropped the hammer on this assault, it would be over. He needed an edge.

Think, Shas'Ui. Think...

He fired off two more shots at an Ork Boy with a crude flame unit strapped to his back. The pulse rounds penetrated the pressurized fuel tanks and he exploded in a ball of flame and shrapnel, covering a piece of the ridge mouth in a ball of fire. He was about to fire a few more shots for good measure when a glint of light on the hill caught his eye. One of his Pathfinders, horribly mangled, was hunched dead over his Drone Control unit.

"Warriors, keep them entertained!" A collective "affirmative" greeted his ears as he took off in the direction of the downed Drone Controller.

***

The run to the Drone Controller took no more than twelve seconds, but each footfall felt like an eternity. Sammus knew his brave warriors were dying with each step he took. Each footfall spelling doom for another one of the Tau and Kroot he had come to know as more than just comrades. They had become family. And now, his family was bleeding.

Not knowing the full extent of what the Orks had thrown at them, and were waiting to throw at them, was a mistake the Tau could not afford to make. Without proper intelligence, the battle was already lost. The battle is not lost yet.

Blood shot onto Sammus' armor as he pushed his deceased comrade off the drone controller. An Ork chain weapon had made brutal work of the pathfinder. On its own, the chain itself would have had trouble getting through the armor, but with an Ork brute throwing his strength behind it, it may as well have been made of paper. Pushing the death to the back of his mind and focusing on the task at hand, Sammus kneeled down and wirelessly linked into the controller. The status of the remaing drones blipped into his HUD. Most were downed or off line. Some had no reading at all indicating that they had been completely destroyed. But there was hope yet.

Four drones still had positive readings, sitting in standby in the back of the camp. Why they had not been activated and brought to the fight Sammus could only wonder, but he had them now. He punched some commands into the console. His helmet showed them as green as they rose in formation in the camp. Behind him he could make out their small shapes as the four machines rose to a hover. He needed to see what was beyond the ridge line; he needed to see what was yet to come.

The drones immediately responded to his commands, taking to the air and following the path of least resistance to the top of the ridge and beyond. One shield drone and three attack drones: that was all he had. It wasn't much but it was all he needed. For the moment it seemed the Orks had halted their advance. His Fire Warriors had regrouped behind the ridge mouth using what cover they could, taking advantage in the break in the fighting to outfit themselves in their armor or reload their weapons. A flame unit had been brought up and hosed down the front of the fighting line. It served two purposes: one, it would kill any surviving Orks and it would provide some relief from unarmed foot units. Someone was going to get a promotion for their quick thinking - should they survive.

Back at the base of the hills, Sammus saw through the optical units of all four drones simultaneously. His own world was partially drowned out and muffled as his focus was given over to the sights of four separate entities. All three of the attack drones had full magazines in their twin-linked underslung pulse carbines. The shield drones stayed in the middle of the pack, projecting a wall of energy that would stop all but the most stubborn of attacks. The rocks flew underneath him, as the drones moved in a tight formation, covering a wide range of sight. They moved over battles fought and away from battles still raging, until finally they were on top of the ridge. The sun was setting in the distance and the sporadic burst of blue mixed with the staccato bang of Kroot fire rang out to him....


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