Shadowsun: The Last of Kiru's Line is a 2013 Warhammer 40,000 novella written by Braden Campbell.
Commander Shadowsun, child of the famed Kiru and protégé of the legendary Commander Puretide, is destined to lead the next phase of the Tau Empire's expansion... if she can survive the trials before her. Crash-landed on an enemy-held planet, with foes all around and a seemingly impossible mission to complete Shadowsun is determined to achieve victory, even at the cost of her life. But when she receives a message that tears her world apart, Shadowsun must make a choice unthinkable to most tau: to abandon her duty for the sake of family, or continue to fight for the Greater Good.
This novella contains examples of:
- Adaptational Name Change: The planet Dieper III is referred to as Diepr-3 in the novella.
- Bears Are Bad News: The apex predator of Diepr-3's ecosystem is a bear-like animal called an ursaloth. At the start of the book, the creature attacks Shadowsun's escape pod, mistaking it for some kind of animal, nearly resulting in her drowning when the ursaloth tosses her pod into a lake after puncturing it with its claws. The ursaloth later returns during Shadowsun's trek through the swamp and causes the deaths of numerous Fire Warriors.
- The Bus Came Back: A meta-example with the Dieprian Mountain Men, whose last appearance had been in the 3rd Edition of the Codex: Imperial Guard released in 1999.
- Career Vs Family: After learning that all of her sisters have died in combat and she is the last of her family's line, Shadowsun spends the remainder of the novella trying to decide whether she should continue being a military commander or retire to a civilian life in order to raise a family and continue her bloodline. She ultimately chooses the former.
- A Day in the Limelight: As the title suggests, the book focuses on Commander Shadowsun, being primarily told through her POV and giving some insight into her character.
- Didn't See That Coming: The circumstances which led to Shadowsun's flagship crash landing on Diepr-3. Given how sparsely populated and underdeveloped the planet was, Shadowsun assumed she was invading some minor Imperial outpost and was unaware that she was landing on a world considered holy to the Imperium. She is completely unprepared for the massive defense cannon that takes down her ship in one shot, nor the presence of an entire Imperial Guard regiment eager to prove themselves in battle.
- Dirty Coward: Shadowsun initially considers Hollett one after he begs for his life and surrenders rather than "die with honor" like a soldier captured by the enemy should. This gets subverted when it's revealed that the true reason Hollett is desperate to live is because he has a daughter back home and doesn't want to leave her orphaned.
- Ignored Expert: Having been stationed on Diepr-3 for his entire military career, Hollett is the closest thing to a native guide that the survivors of Shadowsun's flagship have after they capture him during a battle. When he warns Shadowsun that traveling into the swamp would be a mistake, she decides to ignore him and do the opposite of what he says after his previous advice led to her troops getting ambused by a squadron of Valkyries. This act costs her the lives of nearly all her men.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: The reason that Hollett turns traitor and helps Shadowsun shut down Diepr-3's defenses. He realizes that the Dieprian Mountain Men have no hope of defeating the Tau, especially since the only thing keeping the Tau from carrying out an Orbital Bombardment is Shadowsun's presence on the planet.
- The Last of His Kind: Shadowsun learns from Aun'va that both of her younger sisters were killed in action during the time that she had been away on her campaign, meaning that she is the last of her family's bloodline.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Shadowsun ignoring Hollett's warnings about going into the swamp results in her getting nearly all of her surviving Fire Warriors killed by the swamp's dangerous fauna.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Hollett claims that most of the Imperial Guard regiment stationed on Diepr-3 view their posting as a waste of time since they are basically looking after a nature preserve for no other reason than "this land is considered holy because the God-Emperor once made a pit stop here during the Great Crusade." The Tau's invasion was the first time that any of the Imperial Guardsmen there could remember ever having to fire their planet's defense cannon.
