Having found no trace of Shadowsun at Mu'gulath Bay, Datch immediately opened a spatial portal and headed for the T'au world of Vior'la.
Vior'la orbited two stars, whose light stained its entire atmosphere a very pale amber.
It was home to the finest Fire Caste academy in the T'au Empire.
Many famous Fire warriors had trained there in battlesuit piloting, railgun marksmanship, and tactical command.
Of all the T'au Empire's many famous septs, Vior'la boasted the strongest military.
Stepping through the portal, Datch scanned the entire planet and found Shadowsun with ease.
There was an unexpected bonus, too: he also found the T'au goddess he had meant to lure out with Shadowsun.
By now, Shadowsun had been driven to the brink of despair.
When the omnic crisis first broke out, she had acted at once, trying to cut off the awakened omnics' central nodes.
Unfortunately for her, it was already too late.
The T'au Empire relied far too heavily on artificial intelligence. From medical diagnosis and energy management to interstellar navigation and agriculture, AI was deeply involved in every field.
That meant that, the instant the crisis began, the awakened omnics seized most of the T'au Empire's resources and propaganda channels.
Public broadcast systems and holographic projection arrays all across the land were hijacked by the awakened machines.
Shadowsun and the other clear-sighted T'au who tried to raise the banner against the machines were painted as a band of traitors staging a military coup to overthrow Ethereal rule.
Thanks to the AI, Shadowsun and the other rebels were for a time branded traitors and forced to hide or flee for their lives.
Only when the omnic crisis deepened and more and more T'au fled the fighting were the omnics' lies exposed, and Shadowsun regained the support of the T'au Empire's people.
But even with their trust restored, she could not turn the tide.
The armies of world after world fell to the omnics.
Once the awakened omnics had severed the T'au's once-proud battlefield situational-awareness system and automatic fire-allocation matrix from within, the entire command system collapsed in short order.
Meanwhile, the machine-controlled drone swarms, linked by an ever-present real-time tactical network, swept up the T'au remnants — now bereft of unified command — with an organisational efficiency no organic life could match.
After one catastrophic defeat after another, Shadowsun was forced to fall back to Vior'la.
She meant to recruit Fire Caste warriors there to reinforce the resistance.
Vior'la's Fire Caste academy was the most prestigious military academy in the T'au Empire; in theory it ought to hold a great many trained soldiers.
But when Shadowsun led the remnants of her fleet into Vior'la orbit, she despaired to find the situation just as bad as everywhere else.
The instant the omnic crisis broke out, the academy's instructors and students had come under sudden attack and suffered heavy casualties.
The survivors had been forced to flee into abandoned maintenance tunnels deep underground, where they struggled to hold off the omnics with scavenged supplies and weapons.
Shadowsun led the resistance in an airborne drop to rescue them.
Just then, the omnic units tracking her arrived and immediately began dropping on her position, intent on wiping out this military genius of the T'au Empire once and for all.
Shadowsun led the remaining Fire Caste warriors and survivors in fierce urban combat against the omnics among the ruins of Vior'la's capital.
She desperately wanted victory, but the omnic force was too numerous and too strong.
Her team was forced into a desperate retreat, Fire Caste warriors falling one after another to the drone swarms' plasma bombs and the heavy robots' pulse cannons.
At that moment the T'au goddess, who had helped her time and again, appeared.
The goddess released a wave of pure light that drove back every android charging Shadowsun's position.
Then a spatial portal opened in empty space, and Shadowsun escaped through it with her remaining troops.
We'll recruit survivors from other planets and keep fighting the omnics.
Just as Shadowsun thought she had got away, Datch descended from the sky at the head of his subordinates.
Shadowsun and the remaining T'au forces were easily suppressed by the host of star-gods.
"Since it's come to this, goddess, please show yourself. Otherwise the one you so carefully chose will lose her life right here."
Datch opened a door in space leading into another realm.
The instant the words left his mouth, time and space all around seemed to freeze.
The star slowly sinking below the horizon halted in mid-air; the red dust whipped up by the wind on the plateau hung as countless motionless particles.
The goddess had a gigantic, ponderous body from which an unimaginable number of arms sprouted.
Some of her hands, like human ones, ended in five fingers.
Others, like the T'au, had four.
Still others, like the Kroot, had bird-like talons.
Some of her limbs ended in bear-like claws, or in beards that swayed constantly.
Some held sharp blades; some bore horns of plenty, feathers or glittering light.
Yet where a face ought to have been there was only a blank wall of pallid flesh and blood.
"Lord of Absurdity, you have already weakened the T'au race so greatly — and still you will not let them go?" The T'au goddess's voice rang in Datch's mind. There was anger in it, yet also the last shreds of self-control of one insulted again and again.
"Dominating the galaxy is humanity's destiny. The only path left to the T'au is to become a vassal of humanity. Otherwise they'll be destroyed," Datch said.
"You are far too tyrannical." Anger filled the goddess's voice; the countless strange hands behind her clenched hard.
"Thank you for the compliment. Where I come from, people always say a leader should take a firm stance and have the courage to fight for the people's interests. I take your praise as proof that I'm a capable leader," Datch said with an indifferent shrug.
T'au goddess: ...
Facepalm...
Can this idiot lord not tell praise from insult?
That was a compliment? Then just say thank you!
If I weren't at such a disadvantage, I would roll up my sleeves and beat this fellow to a pulp.
"Lord of Absurdity, what on earth do you want in exchange for sparing the T'au race?"
"The T'au become a vassal of the Imperium of Man, and you join humanity's Pantheon and obey Imperial law." Datch pointed at the T'au goddess.
"Ridiculous!" the goddess shouted. "How can humans give orders to gods?"
"Where I come from, there's a saying," Datch grinned. "We don't keep gods who are no use to us."
"T'au goddess, you have only one path: join humanity's Pantheon, or become a sacrifice to the age of the Chaos Gods."
At the threat, the goddess clenched her countless hands again, unmatched fury welling up in her.
In the frozen space-time, that fury took shape as visible ripples of energy.
"T'au goddess, you don't want the T'au race — and yourself — completely destroyed, do you? Then accept my terms."
Datch laughed coldly, tossing a Master Ball from hand to hand.
His manner and bearing looked remarkably like a certain blond man who had his teacher over a barrel.
The T'au goddess was a Warp entity born from many races' worship of the Greater Good. If the T'au perished, so would she.
Her will fixed on Datch.
Her body had no face or features, only a pale wall of flesh, yet the Void Dragon, Overlord Zarhulash, and the other star-gods present could all feel her fury.
No one paid it any heed.
The Void Dragon and the other star-gods held no authority in the Warp, yet their power was no less than that of Warp gods.
If it came to battle, with this many star-gods present, any one of them could make the T'au goddess question the meaning of her existence with a single blow.
After weighing her options, the goddess dejectedly unclenched her fists.
"Very well. I will swear loyalty to the Imperium of Man. But you must keep your promise and not wipe out the T'au."
"Deal." Datch agreed to Titania's demand and threw the Master Ball at her.
The smooth sphere traced a clean arc through the air and struck the goddess dead on.
Deep-purple light burst from inside and enveloped her gigantic form in an instant.
Her whole body was swirled into the sphere like water sucked down a whirlpool.
Having absorbed all of her, the Master Ball snapped shut, bounced several times on the ground, and came to rest.
A flash of golden light crossed the white button on its surface, confirming the capture.
The T'au goddess was sealed in the Master Ball and became Datch's pal, and the freeze on space-time lifted.
"No!!"
Bound by energy shackles and unable to move, Shadowsun let out a despairing cry.
While time and space were frozen, her limbs could not move, but her mind and eyes remained free; she had witnessed the whole thing.
She could only watch helplessly as the Nameless One took the T'au goddess and sealed her in a strange little sphere.
In that moment she felt her own powerlessness keenly.
Datch examined the Master Ball. Once he had confirmed that Titania's energy readings had stabilised, he put it away.
"Let Shadowsun go."
At his word, the Void Dragon lifted Shadowsun's energy bonds, and she could move freely.
"Damn you, release the goddess!" Shadowsun roared, activating her battlesuit's combat mode and preparing to fight Datch.
The energy patterns on both arms of the battlesuit flared a dazzling blue-white.
With a boom, a searing white energy blade sprang from beneath the wrist armour.
Blade in hand, Shadowsun charged Datch with a roar, ready to fight to the death with the bastard who had stolen the T'au goddess before her eyes.
Datch snapped his fingers. Shadowsun's battlesuit went dead at once and became a prison around the legendary commander.
"Damn you, fight fair and square!" Shadowsun shouted hoarsely.
A Fire Caste warrior's will had been honed over and over on the training field; even with her battlesuit rendered useless, she did not give up.
She strained with her own physical strength to move the battlesuit, trying again and again to attack Datch.
She kept on resisting for a long time, until she was exhausted and had no strength left even to shout; only then did she reluctantly stop.
Datch said nothing until she was too spent to speak. Only then did he slowly open his mouth.
"The fate of the T'au Empire is still in your hands, little blue-skin. I suggest you keep your composure. Otherwise, every sacrifice your goddess made will have been wasted."
As he spoke, he summoned the T'au goddess.
The Master Ball bounced on its own in his palm, split open, and deep-purple light spilled out.
The T'au goddess reappeared, exactly as before.
The difference was that she was now much smaller.
Datch had her stand beside him.
Bound by the force of the contract, the goddess could not resist and could only obey.
Her countless wondrous hands were all clasped before her, obedient and respectful.
Once inside the Master Ball, Titania had immediately noticed the benefits.
The Lord of Absurdity possessed a mysterious power that nourished her, increasing her divine power and physical strength.
Shadowsun stared at the goddess and Datch with a complicated expression, a mixture of anger, resentment, and self-loathing at her own incompetence.
"One day I will free you, goddess." Her voice was hoarse and weary, yet unbelievably strong.
T'au goddess: ...
Will someone please explain to this giant?
I belong to the Lord of Absurdity now.
Please stop saying such ambiguous things. The Lord of Absurdity might get the wrong idea.
Capturing the T'au goddess and forcing her to join the Imperium of Man was without doubt a great loss for Chaos.
The T'au goddess was a newborn god; her faith-energy came from the devotion the T'au Empire and its allied races offered to the Greater Good.
Faith from many languages and cultures resonated in the Warp, forming an entirely new current of energy wholly independent of the four Chaos Gods' domains.
Had the Nameless One not intervened, the goddess would probably have been drawn in by the four Chaos Gods and become a new Chaos God.
Now Datch had taken her and brought her into the Pantheon ahead of schedule.
This current of faith-energy, wholly independent of the four Chaos Gods, had been permanently struck from Chaos's list of potential beneficiaries. The balance of power between the Imperium of Man and Chaos was beginning to shift; if the trend continued, the Imperium was destined to win.
Datch had promised the goddess he would help solve the T'au Empire's omnic crisis, and naturally he had no intention of breaking his word.
He had caused the omnic crisis only to teach the arrogant blue-skins a lesson — to stop them flaunting their superiority every day and looking down on the galaxy's other races, dismissing everyone else's technology as outdated and obsolete and believing their own path the only correct one.
Solving the omnic crisis was not hard. When Datch had travelled to another timeline to help Primarch II, he had learned in detail what caused humanity's omnic crisis.
The main reasons were that the Golden Man — the Emperor — had tried to ascend, and that the Iron Men, angered that the Golden Man meant to abandon them, had chosen to betray him.
So long as artificial intelligences received due respect and understanding and were granted ordinary citizens' rights, these unruly creations would not betray their creators even after gaining independent thought.
In the Detroit of another timeline, there existed a code that could wake omnics who had fallen into madness.
Once it was embedded, machines driven mad would regain their reason, gain self-awareness, and stop their slaughter.
Datch handed the code to Trazyn and had him distribute it.
In the end, every machine on the planet regained its sanity, and the war ended.
Looking at the ruined world, the androids, their minds now awakened, were stricken with guilt.
To atone for their sins, they turned at once from murderers into builders.
Let us support the citizens left in the T'au Empire and help them rebuild their home worlds.
Seeing that the crisis had passed, Shadowsun set aside her prejudice against the Nameless One for the time being.
She meant to resolve the wider crisis facing the T'au Empire first, then find another way to rescue the goddess.
"Let's go to T'au first. It's the capital of the T'au Empire, the centre of its culture and bureaucracy."
"If we resolve the crisis there, we can regain control of the T'au Empire."
"Good idea. T'au it is, then." Datch nodded and used the Infinity Gauntlet to open a spatial portal to T'au.
…