While fierce fighting erupted within the Eye of Terror, the once relatively peaceful Damocles Sector grew increasingly restless.
Several companies previously stationed there were redeployed, along with dozens of regiments, to join the campaign in the Eye of Terror.
The local regimental command did not relax its vigilance. Instead, it declared level-two martial law, increased naval patrols, and began enforcing a curfew.
The T'au Empire had not truly "perished." The Ethereal Council had sacrificed itself to secure the evacuation of a large number of surviving forces, who had remained within the Farsight Enclaves under the protection of the goddess T'au'va.
The fall of their homeland had devastated the T'au. Even with the Ethereals gone, they remained united, swearing to reclaim their home and rescue their people.
And now was the perfect opportunity.
As one round of naval patrols ended, before the next began, a group of T'au warships emerged from the Warp, quietly appearing on the outskirts of the Homeworld Au'Tal.
The patrol fleet stationed there was already quite familiar with the T'au Empire, but all that knowledge came from the previous war.
The Farsight Enclaves had taken in large numbers of exiled Hearthkyn. With their help, the T'au warships had also been fitted with Gellar Fields and the Warp Engines used by the Hearthkyn.
While Damocles military command was still guarding the routes along which the T'au Empire's fleet might appear, as well as the "Startide Nexus" so vital to them, Farsight's expeditionary fleet had already used Warp technology to arrive somewhere they had never anticipated.
Farsight stood aboard his flagship, frowning as he gazed at the former Homeworld in the distance.
Au'Tal. Though he had never visited that Homeworld, its beautiful scenery had been renowned throughout the T'au Empire.
On the Au'Tal before him now, the precious flowers