The three of them had finally recovered a little. Leaning against the wall, they closed their eyes heavily, unwilling to recall the madness and chaos from moments ago.
"Was that... something from the Warp?" Shadowsun forced the words out, her voice carrying a tremor as though she were about to cry. It was not weakness, but the natural fear response of a living body.
"You saw a corner of the Warp—only a corner. But you were lucky. I have a very good relationship with her. Otherwise, you would have been dead for sure."
"So she isn't The Emperor."
"The Emperor is another one."
"Oh... Greater Good..."
Shadowsun lowered her head and fell silent. Farsight and O'Vesa likewise closed their eyes as if resigning themselves to fate. "We hope your... our Emperor can protect my people..."
"Now that's more like it! This is the beginning of cooperation. You have to at least pretend to believe in The Emperor first, so the Imperium won't treat you quite so radically." Lin Fan patted Farsight on the shoulder and signaled Rebecca to send the news to the fleet. They had already cleared out the Warp rift.
The human and T'au fleets crossed Damocles Gulf and arrived at the frontier worlds of the T'au Empire.
They also found the Mechanical Ark of Kaos, the great sage. This miracle of the Machine God was devouring a frozen asteroid and storing it in its holds.
But the T'au were apparently not doing well. Shadowsun connected to their communication channels and could hear nothing but the panicked sobbing of the administrators.
In the end, they could only piece together, from the fragmented reports, news of T'au's destruction and the deaths of all the high-ranking Ethereals.
The moment Shadowsun heard the news, she felt dizzy. She could not imagine