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That Mindy girl's alien burgers had turned out pretty good last night, and Roger will remember them in future, but right now his mind was on something else she told him about. She'd mentioned the Sensoriums could simulate just about any environment he could think of, and since he'd found a map to their location on his omnicomm this morning, he figured he'd put that to the test. He'd seen virtual reality training pods before, although as an MP he never really rated using one, so he wasn't sure what to expect.

... the desert north of the Lost Hills bunker where they'd been taking the younger Initiates for training, apparently. An absolutely perfect replica thereof, even down to the scorpions the size of Corvegas.

Huh.

Well, no sense wasting a perfectly good blighted hellscape. They'd pulled him here to fight a war, hadn't they? Might as well start practicing for it.

He pulls his helmet over his head, flips the neck latches shut, and reaches over his shoulder for the supersledge he carries. He'll break out the laserguns later. Right now, for all that he's taken his situation pretty well so far, he really, really wants to hit something.

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"My race, the Tau." Roger was, after all, taller than Kais and wearing thick looking armor. With his poor eyesight, he looked just like a Space Marine to Kais.

"And you are a Space Marine? Much like the other one here, from the Black Templar cadre."

"Huh? Oh, you mean- no," says Roger. "No, nothing of the kind. My name's Roger Maxson. I might be High Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel, but I'm just an ordinary Earthman." He reaches up and raps one armored knuckle against his shoulder pauldron. "Different armor. He's from... damn. Something like thirty-eight thousand years further forward in time than I am."

With a rueful note to his voice he adds, "Can't say I've ever heard of the Tau. We use that term to refer to torque and a couple of other forces in physics."

"Then you are from ancient Terra." Thirty-eight thousand years was a long time though. Far longer than Kais' own race had even existed.

"It is the name of our homeworld. I am Shas'la T'au Kais though you can call me Kais. If the Space Marine is from that far in the future, I am also. His people and the Tau Empire are at war at a frequent basis."

Oh, right, human politeness.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Roger Maxson, High Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel."

"That'd be us, yep," Roger confirmed. "Not that the name 'Terra' sees a lot of use outside of museums, but that's us."

He nods. "Pleasure to meet you as well, Kais. Maxson's my family name- you can call me that instead of the whole deal. Most of it wouldn't mean anything to you anyway. D'you mind if I take a moment? I want to get this helmet off if I'm not going to be fighting radscorpions."

"Take your time."

Kais figures that he shouldn't be rude and starts detaching the seals on his own helmet while waiting.

It doesn't take long before Roger pops his helmet off and tucks it under his arm. He's a strictly average-looking human male of perhaps fifty years under there- assuming Kais would be able to tell that on sight, of course. If not... well, it's a human face, like any other.

"That's better," Roger says. "Thank you. If you don't mind my asking, you mentioned something about being a 'firewarrior'. Is that some kind of particular specialization among your people's military?"

He does know a human when he sees one. Kais just lacks a sense of depth perception, which throws some things out of whack.

His own helmet comes off and he attaches it to his belt, though the antenna stays attached to his ear.

"A Firewarrior is what we call our normal, non-specialized infantry. We are all part of the Fire caste and are the basic warriors so Firewarrior is the obvious term."

... okay. Hadn't expected a face like that, but... ah, hell, he's read the complete works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The green Martians look weirder than that face. He'll deal.

He nods. "My people stopped sending men to the Moon when I was still a boy," he says. "We've never had contact with alien life as far as I know, until the Ohm came. That being said, there's nothing wrong with basic infantry, as long as you've got the gear and the training you need."

"Every small part makes a whole so no matter what rank you are, you are equal with everyone else." That is what is drilled into the minds of Tau from birth onward. Kais isn't quite sure if it's true but he's more than willing to spout it.

"We have only known humans for a couple thousand years. Most encounters have been hostile but many have joined the Tau Empire willingly."

That sounded more than a little strange. Roger's not sure whether it's something he'd expect to hear from a preacher, or from a grade school teacher who hasn't really been out in the world yet. Still, this guy's an alien, so who knows what might be different about his people- and it's not all that far off from the reasoning behind the multiple gears in the Brotherhood emblem. So Roger nods. "If our history of interacting with our own people is anything to go by," he says, "I'm not surprised. About the hostility, I mean. We've got a real talent for that."

The willingly joining an alien empire... that, he doesn't understand. Yet, anyway.

"From what I am taught to understand, all humans worship a God-Emperor and are fanatical about it." A little vague but not too much was known about humans.

"Do you do such a thing?"

Kais, for the record, the noise Roger just made is an indescribably rude one. Followed by a badly suppressed snicker. "Oh, hell," he says as he recovers. "No. No, I can- no. I haven't worshipped anything or anyone since before the bombs fell. And there sure as hell wasn't any man alive who could call himself an Emperor when I last saw Earth, that's for certain."

"The Space Marine you said you met will probably force you to listen about their Emperor." If he could make rude noises, that would be one. But expressing emotions too much wasn't exactly a Tau thing.

"Is this what 'Earth' is like? This scenery? It looks similar to parts of my own world."

"Thanks for the warning," Roger says. "I'll keep it in mind- I've dealt with evangelical types before."

He has no idea exactly how fervent a Space Marine can get, mind. He'll have to find out the hard way.

"This is the part of Earth I was living in before the ship picked me up," he says. "This was a desert even before the atomic war my world had twenty years ago. It's the southwestern part of the country I used to live in. The Brotherhood of Steel takes our initiates out here for basic training missions before we move them on to the hard stuff. It used to be different in other places, though." He glances over the Tau armor. "That'd be desert gear you've got on, I'm guessing?"

"Not desert gear, no." Though that history was interesting. Tau had the luck to be united before they got to the atomic stage.

"This color signifies I am from the planet T'au. If I were from, for example, the planet Sa'cea, my armor would be blue."

"Ah. Got it," says Roger. "We used to use patches to indicate that kind of thing- point of origin, unit membership, that kind of thing. Uniform color was mostly based on where you were going to be fighting. Your way looks easier to pick out at first glance, though."

"Camouflage, yes? That is left to our Pathfinders and Stealthsuits." Cloaking technology was more important in that area than armor coloring though.

"We had camo fabrics and paint patterns, yeah," says Roger. "Towards the end, we were using devices called Stealth Boys. They generate a stealth field that makes the wearer pretty much invisible. Never really hurt to wear camo under it in case your power cut out, though." He glances down. "And then you had power armor, which... you can't really hide that with anything but a Stealth Boy."

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