The Manta moved silently through the Atmosphere, into the waiting void, and the Kill-Team could see the enormity of what had come to Beseritor. Massive, mighty Kraken completed their languid orbits around the Hive Ship; spore ships waited to unleash another round of their deadly cargo; and the enormous Hive Ship, slap bang in the centre of the fleet, starting to gorge itself on the biomass being siphoned from Beseritor. With skilful flying, the Manta Spaceship manoeuvred past all these threats and entered the Hive Ship through a gigantic entrance.

Not wanting to land, for fear of alerting the Hive Mind to their presence, the Cargo Hold was opened and the Kill-Team and their Tau compatriots jumped down to the ground, which was a hard, flesh like substance, and then it was just them, and the void. After a long march, Brother Drakhaus managed to trace a psychic link to the centre of the ship, and the Astartes and Tau entered one of the capillary tunnels that led further into the Hive Ship. It was not difficult for Brother Drakhaus to realise there was a massive psychic presence nearby; it was more that it was difficult to pinpoint exactly, because it was everywhere.

The Strain started to tell, being this close to a massive psychic power, on the Space Marines. They found themselves getting distracted, things flitting across their vision… although the one who had it worse was Brother Drakhaus, who felt like the weight of the world was crushing down on his mind… it was much harder for him to access the Immaterium than usual. The Tau, not being psychic creatures, were unhindered by this problem and moved down the corridors with no trouble at all. Brother Drakhaus informed the Kill-Team that the Hive Mind was scanning the ship at irregular intervals.

As he told them this, he felt another intrusion into his mind, and he was not able to turn this one aside, so he knew that they had been detected, and he informed everyone to expect an attack. Soon enough, they began to hear chittering coming from the walls, and lots and lots of movement and then, when they were in the middle of about 8 exits, the Tyranids attacked. A Horde of Genestealers swarmed towards the Kill-Team and their Tau companions. They were met by a storm of bolter fire, flashes of promethium and the pulse fire from the Tau. However, this was not the only attack the Tyranids had planned.

 
As the Genestealers distracted their opponents, A group of Ravenors burst up into the midst of the Kill-Team, and the Tau, their rending claws, covered in a toxic mixture, tearing into the ranks of the Tau fire warriors. However, they also meant that the Genestealers could close on their opponents, and the entire encounter devolved into a horrific melee. Brother Curro, his power sword and Chainsword a swirling vortex of death, leapt into the Ravenors, cutting them down one after the other, whilst dodging most of their attacks.

Brothers Haakon and Elyes managed to take down another Ravenor between them, before being swarmed by Genestealers and borne down under their weight of numbers, their armour scored by hundreds of rending claws. Brother Drakhaus, his psychic fury undimmed by the shadow of the warp, directed his power into the Ravenor attacking him, and its smoking carcass dropped to the ground. Brother Calremus, realising the Genestealers were probably the most dangerous, directed shots of flame into their midst, sending numerous Xenos to the floor, screaming their last.

The Tau Fire Warriors, unsuited to close combat, were swarmed and torn apart under the claws of the Genestealers and Ravenors, whilst Commander Flamewing managed to fire his missile pods into the two Ravenors assailing him, blowing them back into the wall, whilst the stealth suits, unseen by the Tyranids, exacted a terrible toll on the Genestealer horde with their burst cannons. Slowly, the tide turned, with the Battle Brothers of the Deathwatch living up to their reputation as Xenos slayers, ably assisted by the Tau by their side.

When the Tyranids were finally destroyed, the Kill-Team took stock of their situation. Brother Elyes managed to heal most of the wounds they had taken, and the Tau, whilst they had lost their Fire Warrior support, they still had Commander Flamewing and his stealth suits, which they immediately set to scouting ahead of them. After gathering themselves again, the Kill-Team started moving forward, further into the heart of the Hive Ship.

Brother Drakhaus was suffering from being this close to the Hive Mind, but he still managed to deflect many of the scans that came their way, knowing what failing one of those would cause them to happen. However, he was not infallible, and the fatigue took its toll, and as they moved even closer to the centre of the hive ship, they were assailed, from above, by a horde of Gargoyles. One moment they were absent, the next they were flapping around their heads, firing their toxin sacs at random.

The Toxins managed to take down one of the Stealth suits, their venomous and acidic attacks melting through the Stealth suit, which became visible as it fell down, dead. The rest of the Battle was over shortly, the Gargoyles not being too much of a threat, with the Kill-Team taking down numerous Gargoyles with each attack, bolt shells blowing them out of the air, chainswords cutting them down, ably supported by Commander flamewings’ airburst launcher, which sowed chaos and destruction in their ranks.

Brother Drakhaus could feel the weight of the Hive Mind bearing down upon him, and he knew they were close, and that there was no point trying to deflect the psychic scans anymore, they were just too powerful. He was just about to inform the Kill-Team and their Tau allies that they had been detected when they turned into a massive chamber, and saw the object of their quest. The Hive Queen, massive bulk reaching all the way to the top of the gigantic chamber, tubes connecting it to the ship, feeding it the biomass from the planet below.

The Kill-Team could see that the Hive Queen was not a threat in herself, in that she was busy concentrating on subjugating Beseritor, and that was taking up most of her formidable willpower. However, she was not defenceless; A Hive Tyrant, known to the Kill-Team as a Dagon Overlord, was present, as was three tyrant guard, and upon seeing the Kill-Team, they started advancing towards them. Brother Haakon immediately started carving open an area of the floor to hide the Nuclear Warhead, and the rest of the Kill-Team started giving him time to complete this.

Brother Elyes immediately shot at one of the “feeding” tubes, and his bolter, obviously blessed by the emperor this time, managed to make a crack into the sides of it, something no mere boltgun should have been able to do. This immediately got the attention of the Dagon Overlord, who focused his obscene mental powers and blew Brother Elyes across the room like a ragdoll, his body hitting the side of the chamber with a sickening crack. The rest of the Kill-Team was appalled by the sheer power of the creature, but they were space marines, and they would complete what they came here to do.

Sustained fire from the rest of the Kill-Team, helped by Commander Flamewing and his stealth suits, managed to take down the tyrant guard before they could reach them, but Brother Haakon still needed time to fully arm the nuclear warhead before they could make their escape. Brother Curro, knowing they needed another few seconds, launched himself into close combat with the Dagon monster, his power sword cutting impressive gashes into the creature.

However, this was a Dagon Overlord, and it’s attacks were brutal… firstly it sent the Stealth Suits fleeing in terror from a Psychic Scream, which also badly affected the Kill-Teams cohesion, before setting about carving Brother Curro into little pieces, ending with Brother Curro being flung into the ground at the Dagon Overlords’ feet, surely dead. However, this had given Brother Haakon enough time to set the warhead, and the marines managed to recover their fallen and started making a fighting retreat towards the Tau Manta Spaceship.

As they made their way through the ship, they could see the Dagon Overlord gaining on them, although they managed to knock it back with some grenades and bitter holding actions, but they could see the hordes of Tyranids coming in from behind it, gaining on them. As the Genestealers were about to catch onto them, carrying their Battle Brothers as they were, the two stealth suits opened fire and managed to drive the Genestealers back, giving the Battle Brothers a moments respite.

Commander Flamewing, hefting his plasma rifle in respect, informed the Kill-Team that the Tau would hold this line for as long as necessary, to give the Kill-Team time to escape. The Kill-Team, understanding sacrifice, even from a xenos, raised their weapons in respect as well, and then moved away… hearing the sound of explosions and plasma fire for a long time before everything went silent. They moved through the silent tunnels of the Hive Ship, until they could see the opening, and the Tau Spacecraft opened its hold to receive them.

Then, like a nightmare, Ravenors burst up at the exit of the hive ship, and the Dagon Overlord came on like a nightmare from behind them, his psychic power hitting Brother Haakon in the back like a freight train, sending him face down on the floor, unmoving. Brother Drakhaus, screaming at the insanity of it all, drew his own psychic power and blew the Ravenors into the void. Brother Calremus and Drakhaus, the only two left standing, threw their Battle Brothers into the void towards the open hold, before leaping out after them.

Amazingly accurate fire from the Tau Ship managed to keep them safe until they had reached the Manta, and just as they were about to tell the Tau to seal up the ship, Commander Flamewing, having lost an arm, and with many other wounds on his Battlesuit, blew through the Tyranids, his jetpack going past the safe point, and flew into the Manta, smashing into one of the walls and then laying still The Tau quickly gathered up their fallen Commander and took him to one of their medical stations, and the Manta quickly stealthed itself and moved away.

 
The Tyranid ships searched high and low for the Tau ship, but the cloaking technology was just too good, and so the Battle Brothers, for they had all survived, miraculously, were on hand to see the explosion at the centre of the Hive Ship, and the immediate effect it had on the ships in orbit. And then, the sight that the Battle Brothers thought they would never see, the Imperial Fleet arrived and started blowing through the confused Ranks of the Tyranids, and the last thing the Battle Brothers saw as they went back into the atmosphere of Beseritor was the Hive Ship being systematically blown apart.

As they moved towards Hive Primus, the Kill-Team could see the almost numberless swarms of the Tyranids, but without the guiding will of the Hive Mind, they were reverting back to their natural behaviours and turning on each other… the swarm was paralysed and would be easy pickings for the imperial guard. When they returned to the hive, and after wishing the Tau well as they left, they learnt that the entire lower hive had been lost, with the troops having been reduced to about 25% strength.

However, the Tyranids were no longer a military threat, there was a lot of infighting and the shadow of the hive mind had gone, so the astropathic communications were now getting through. The fight was not over, but the war had been won, it was all about cleaning the Tyranid infestation off the planet, rather than survival. The Kill-Team gathered with the imperial Commanders of Beseritor and watched the explosions in Orbit, as the Imperial Fleet took apart the Tyranid fleet with extreme prejudice.

However, the Kill-Team was not finished with the Tyranids on the ground level; they were not going to accept defeat on in this first engagement without dealing them a punishing blow. So, whilst the infantry was retreating to their next prepared positions, the Kill-Team grabbed a few platoons of sentinels, and a chimera transport to carry them, and went Carnifex and Synapse creatures hunting. Time and time again, the Sentinels popped up to shoot the larger creatures with their heavy weapons, and time and time again the Kill-Team managed to keep the larger hordes from overwhelming them.

So successful were these assassinations that the Tyranid attack lost momentum as the Hive Mind needed to send more and more Synapse creatures into the hive to take control. This allowed the majority of the infantry and armour to make their way back to the second position… a much more defendable position that had been fortified during the last week. The Kill-Team was even able to move a little bit more leisurely towards the end, as they could see the massive horde of Tyranids massing, but with no order, milling around going back to their instinctive behaviour.

When the Kill-Team made their way back, they knew they had bought themselves a couple of days, at the most, but that it was more days that could lead to their salvation. After some high level consultations with the Imperial Governor and General, the Kill-Team took up their positions on the West entrance to the second level, this time making sure that the best troops were on the front lines… this was not going to be a holding action before retreating, these were the best positions they could hope for apart from the entrance to the hive spire… and the hive would be lost if they were at that position anyway.

 
The Kill-Team also managed to convince the general that the Hydra batteries would be much more useful if they were deployed into more of an anti-personnel position, rather than anti air… four linked autocannons, amazingly, does quite a number on less well protected infantry. They did keep enough of them in the large hangers, just in-case they had to launch their remaining air wing… although given how the skies were completely taken over with gargoyles, this would be a very risky proposition.

After a couple of days, with the troops starting to get a little antsy and afraid at what was coming, the Kill-Team, and other observers, noticed that the Tyranids were starting to act in a more concerted fashion, which gave them a clue that the attack would be starting soon. With the 5 members of the Kill-Team anchoring the line, the West Ramps defences were soon online, with everyone checking their fields of fire, to make this an incredibly painful assault for the Tyranids, all the while knowing that they were greatly outnumbered.

And then, suddenly, the Tyranids were attacking, launching themselves up the massive ramps towards the PDF defenders. However, the strength of firepower that was concentrated in this area took its toll, with wave after wave of Hormagaunts being slaughtered on the ramp, getting no-where near the imperial position. However, the number of bodies soon began to cause an issue for the imperial defenders; it was hard to make out the live Hormagaunts from the dead ones, so the line started moving up the ramp, getting closer and closer.

It was then that the larger Tyranid creatures entered the fray, Tyranid Warriors directing their smaller brethren, two mighty carnifexes starting to move up the ramp and, behind all of this, a Horrifying Hive Tyrant, which started to fire deadly warp energy, or its heavy venom cannon, blowing up tanks one by one. Brother Drakhaus, reaching into the highly volatile warp, due to the shadow hanging over it, managed to realise that there were three Hive Tyrants controlling this attack, but this Hive Tyrant was the only actually joining the attack, probably due to their presence.

Brother Elyes, taking a bead on one of the Carnifexes, fired off a burst of bolter fire, hoping to cause the same amount of damage as the last time he fired, but his aim was off, and the fire went wild. Brother Curro, aching to get into melee combat, pulled out his bolter and also fired at the same Carnifex, but the bolts did not have any penetrating power against the Carnifex, and exploded against its carapace, doing no damage.

With their bolters all but useless, except in the luckiest of circumstances, Brother Calremus took up his missile launcher, and fired a krak missile at the monstrosity, dealing it a nasty wound, although it kept on going regardless, but the Kill-Team could see parts of its carapace were cracked and smoking, it had been hurt. The rest of the Kill-Team decided to focus more on the Tyranid Warriors, attacking creatures that their bolters could harm, and also trying to take out the Synapses that were holding the horde in place.

Bolt after bolt exploded into the warriors but, despite the Kill-Teams best efforts, none of them went down, and the horde continued to advance. Brother Calremus, seeing that the Carnifex had been hit by a lascannon shot, fired another krak missile at the powerful monstrosity, causing another wound, but mitigated, somewhat, by the Carnifexes natural regenerative powers. Brother Drakhaus continued his assault on the tyranid warriors, blowing chunks off one of them.

Brother Haakon, taking aim carefully against one of the warriors fired one single shot, which flew through the air like a guided missile and hit the Warrior square in the forehead. The mass reactive bolt round blew through the cranial fortification, exploded out the back of its head, and the warrior slowly teetered, as if it could not believe what had happened, and then it fell over dead. Brother Curro followed up this example of extreme marksmanship by directing a controlled burst into the hide of another Tyranid Warrior, although it was not enough to kill the Xenos.

Whilst the Kill-Team had been focused on the monstrous creatures, the hordes of Hormagaunts had managed to pass through the withering fire from the PDF position, and charged into combat, leaping on the men of the 1st Company and ripping them to pieces… but Brother Haakon, commanding voice ringing out, kept them in position and, those not engaged, firing into the Hormagaunt ranks. Brother Curro leapt amongst the Hormagaunts like an avenging angel, slicing them to pieces and clearing an area, allowing the PDF troops to reinforce the area, preventing a potential rout.

Knowing that the Carnifexes were getting close to the PDF lines, Brother Curro, firing his fourth missile at one of the monstrosities, aimed and fired… and this time it struck true… the missile streaking through the air and entering the carnifexes body through a hole in its carapace, the back of the Carnifex exploding and the creature stumbling forward a few more steps, its brain too dumb to realise it was dead, before it fell with a last roar.

 
The Tyranid warriors, out of the three remaining, two charged into combat with the Kill-Team, their boneswords flashing and dicing, ready to feast on the blood of an adeptus Astartes. Brother Haakon was the point of their anger, and he suffered some grievous wounds, but managed to resist the pull of the boneswords enough to stay on his feet. Brother Curro, a little lighter on his feet than Brother Haakon, easily dodged the attacks aimed at him, feeling the familiar sensation of Battle coming over him.

Brother Drakhaus, hefting his force staff, charged into the flank of the creature attacking Brother Curro, his force staff slamming into the warriors’ side. Brother Drakhaus could feel the alien mind fighting against his immense willpower, but he prevailed, and the force of his willpower was sent burning through the Tyranid warrior, until it reached its brain, where it promptly exploded and fell down dead. Brother Elyes, realising how dangerous the boneswords were, fired into the combat featuring Brother Haakon.

His shots found the mark, despite the furiousness of the melee and the kinetic power of the bolts, combined with the poison soaking them, were just enough to kill the Tyranid warrior, leaving only one of the warriors standing. However, the Kill-Team realised that the Hive Tyrant was picking up the slack, and had been murdering vehicles since the start of the fight, they knew they would have to take that out next. Brother Curro, seeing the second Carnifex about to charge, and knowing the damage that it could cause, took his opportunity, and charged it first.

He flew through the air, his jetpack firing behind him, and hit the Carnifex square in the chest, the force of the connection jarring the bones of Brother Curro, but he managed to knock the Carnifex off balance slightly, enough to take its attention from the imperial line, onto Brother Curro himself. With the Carnifex threat to the line averted, Brother Calremus had bigger game in mind, sighting down the missile launcher and sending a krak missile directly at the Hive Tyrant.

However, the missile exploded slightly behind the hive tyrant, and so, whilst it wounded the monster, all it really did was get its attention. Before Brother Calremus’ astonished eyes, the Hive Tyrant seemed to vanish into a shadow, before the shadow zipped across the ground, and it became real again… but much closer this time. Brother Curro, having had experience fighting a Carnifex in close combat, easily avoided the wild swings from the creature, moving easily through the attacks.

 
Brother Curro, reaching into his reserves of strength, beyond that of mortal men, and utilising specialised training from the Adeptus Astartes, rammed his power sword into the torso of the Carnifex, parting carapace, bone and flesh, before pulling it out and cutting deep into one of its legs with his chainsword. If there was ever a Carnifex that looked surprised, this was one of them… its proto brain could barely believe the damage that had been done by this small thing, and it focused its attention completely on the Astartes.

Brother Calremus, knowing his only had three missile left, fired one more of them at the Hive Tyrant, this time catching it square on, and causing a shout of rage and pain to emerge… and causing it to entirely focus its attention on Brother Calremus. Before Brother Calremus could do anything, the Hive Tyrant was launching its psychic arsenal directly at him. However, the strain of having to direct so many Hormagaunts was obviously very distracting, as the power almost fizzled out before it his Brother Calremus, and he emerged pretty much unscathed.

Brother Curro again attacked the Carnifex with all his might, cutting through one of the massive claws that was attacking him… causing the Carnifex to loose a cry of pain, before dodging the attempted riposte from the Carnifex. Brother Calremus fired the second to last of his missiles at the Hive Tyrant, again causing a massive wound, which led the Hive Tyrant to shadow step into close combat with Brother Calremus, scything talons and rending claws attacking from all angles, cutting deeply into Brother Calremus’ armour.

The rest of the Kill-Team, those not involved in life or death melee struggles anyway, saw Brother Calremus impaled through his body and arm, lifted up by the Hive Tyrant, and then flung aside like so much detritus… they did not know whether he was alive or dead, but they knew he was, at the last, grievously wounded. With this immense display of superiority, even Brother Haakon could not stop the PDF troopers from retreating, and the Imperial position began to unravel, although the reverse companies were moving in from the back.

Brother Elyes, his normal taciturn demeanour unravelling at the sight of his Battle Brother falling, unclasped his bulkhead shears and, gripping them in two hands, charged into the back of the Hive Tyrant, burying them in its back, and making the Hive Tyrant rear backwards in agony. Meanwhile, Brother Curro continued his brutal assault on the Carnifex, cutting deep into its leg… it was obvious to anyone watching that this Battle would be over soon.

 
Brother Haakon, knowing that taking down the Hive Tyrant was pretty much the only way to end this assault now, fired a full auto burst of his bolter against the Hive Tyrant. The strength of the Emperor was with him, as all four of his bolt shells hit the Hive Tyrant, breaking through its already battered Carapace and exploding deep within its body, the detonations repeating, one after the other, until it fell down, completely dead. With the fall of the Hive Tyrant, the effect on the Tyranid horde was immediate, and its effects were felt along this entire length of Battle line.

The entire offensive up the west ramp fell apart, as all the Tyranids started spontaneously fleeing. This coincided with the reserve companies arriving for the imperial Forces, and the reinforcements followed the Kill-Team in a reckless charge down the ramp, killing Tyranids by the hundreds and driving them back. The Kill-Team also realised that the attack on the East ramp had faltered as well, so they moved back to the top of the ramp in-case the horde was moving away from the east to attack the west ramp.

However, as soon as they arrived at the top of the ramp, another crisis presented itself. On the vox, from one of the observation posts, the Kill-Team was informed that a ship had just appeared in mid-air and was approaching the hive. Just as the Kill-Team wondered if it was on a collision course, it stopped in mid-air, all its weapons firing down into the Tyranid horde outside the hive. The Kill-Team were hailed by the Ship, which identified itself as a Manta Spaceship, from the Tau Empire, requesting docking rights in the Spire.

Brother Haakon, who had been appointed leader on this mission, decided immediately that an enemy of my enemy is my friend, gave the order to let them land and, seeing the Tyranid Horde milling around in confusion, told Imperial Command that they were coming up to meet with the Tau. After a quick dash up the spire, the Kill-Team entered the hangar with the Tau Ship, which had been covered by the Imperial Troops. The Cargo Hold opened slowly, and the Kill-Team could see a Tau Commander, and Brother Elyes realised they had seen this Commander before!

This was the Tau Commander that they had attacked at the end of their last mission… although the Tau Commander did not know that and greeted them by revealing his face, making himself vulnerable with this action, intended to show that he meant no harm. The Kill-Team moved across the hangar bay, as did the Tau Commander, and they met in the middle, with the Tau Commander nodding his head in their direction.

The Tau Commander told them that they had been tracking some suspicious Tyranid activity for a while now, and that they had come to this planet a month ago, hoping to kill a lot of the vanguard organisms and stop the invasion of the planet. However, they had underestimated how deep the infection had spread, but they still managed to kill quite a few of them, out in the wilds, but could do nothing in the Hives. After explaining himself, the Tau Commander, called Flamewing, invited them into the ship to hear his proposal, and to meet his Commander. Intrigued, the Kill-Team accepted.

They were taken to, what was obviously, the Commanders Quarters and were introduced to Asun O’Zal, one of the legendary Ethereal Caste of the Tau… and the Kill-Team could see what a calming effect his presence had on the entire ship. The Ethereal told them the plan… that they would use their stealth systems to take the Kill-Team up to the Hive Ship, where they would find their way to the Hive Queen, and blow her up, causing the invasion to lose all direction and saving Beseritor. Commander Flamewing and his escort would go with them, to make sure the mission succeeded.

The Kill-Team, whilst suspicious of any Xenos, had been wondering how they were actually going to manage to win this war with the Tyranids, and this high risk mission was something they could appreciate. After a little discussion and debate about what was known of a hive ship (nothing) and a few other minor details, the Kill-Team accepted. They left the ship to inform the Imperial Governor that they would be taking the fight to the enemy and just to keep holding the line as they had planned.

The Governor was, understandably, a little shaken by the events of the past few weeks, but agreed to keep pulling the troops back to more and more defendable areas, to try and hold off the horde for as long as possible. The Kill-Team then boarded the Manta Spaceship, and the stealth technology came online, and they flew out into, and through, the hordes of Gargoyles that were blanketing the skies of Beseritor. After they had cleared those, the Kill-Team settled themselves in for a journey into the heart of the Tyranid Horde, on a mission whose results would decide whether this world was held, or would fall.

The Kill-Team quickly fell into planning mode, with the Imperial Governor, the General in charge of the PDF and the Commander of the Arbites joining them in their conference. With none of the imperials having any experience of the Tyranids, the bulk of the planning fell to the space marines, although they had to argue some of their suggestions very hard to get them accepted. Their first plan, which had the Imperial Governor reacting in horror, was to move most of the planets nuclear warheads into the partially built second hive, move the criminal elements there as well, and then detonate it when the Tyranids attacked.

The Rest of the nuclear warheads, 5 of them, were to be loaded on Marauder Bombers, and were to be used when the Tyranids attacked Hive Primus, although they had to compromise to only use them 4 miles outside the Hive, otherwise the damage to the hive, and the world of Beseritor, would be too great to recover from. They declared martial law, and any elements of the population that were not involved in essential labour (weapon production etc) were to be utilised in building defences inside and outside of the hive.

They also managed to get the Imperials to agree to start producing more of the toxins that Brother Elyes had managed to concoct, although their manufacturing base was not too involved in medicines, so it would be a slow process… but the Kill-Team figured that having some toxin was better than none. They also, immediately, put in process a mass recall to the hive, knowing that to try and defend the outlying villages, towns and farms would be impossible, and would spread their forces impossibly thin… this plan was heartily endorsed by the Governor, keen to preserve as many of his people as possible.

With this agreed, the population was mobilised in way that no-one on Beseritor had ever seen before, and within a few days the hive was surrounded by stake filled pits, with the Kill-Team gambling that the first few assaults will be overconfident, given that the Genestealers had probably sent a lot of information to the Hive Fleet… they were going to use that information against the Hive Fleet. They knew that the Hive would eventually adjust its tactics, but they hoped to have dealt is quite a nasty blow before that happened.

 
The Kill-Team then turned to the sticky subject of what to tell the Rogue Trader to do… they realised that he would be useful in orbital defence, but they realised, after some debate, that he should be sent to other worlds in the Orpheus Salient to try and spread the word about what is happening on Beseritor, because they realised they could never defeat the Tyranids fully, they could blunt their ground forces, but they would be overwhelmed eventually, they needed help from the Battlefleets in the area.

They also did an inventory to see how long they could last in the event of a prolonged siege… early estimates came back that, even with intensive recycling of everything (corpse starch etc), they could only afford to feed the population of the hive for 2 months… which the Kill-Team, in a fateful way, mentioned they were unlikely to last anyway, without outside intervention. The Kill-Team also made the decision to move their HQ down to the Arbites Headquarters, arguing that the spire of the Hive was too vulnerable to attack, and that the Arbites had some pretty impressive fortifications.

So, over the course of the next day or two, all command and control equipment was moved to the Arbites HQ, and the PDF forces of Beseritor were moved down onto the bottom level, with the worst companies taking the brunt of the forces, and the better companies acting as a mobile reserve. They also fortified the entrances to the upper hive; they were going to make the Tyranids fight for every inch of ground that they wanted to take. This activity continued, even as the satellites and orbital defences went dark, as the Tyranids scourged the atmosphere of imperial presence.

However, the Kill-Team had the enginseers make some adjustments to some of the Marauder Bombers, they were no longer ground attack vehicles, they were high altitude scouts. Using these planes, the Kill-Team was able to keep an eye on the tyranid fleet, and to see where it looked like they would be landing. Of course, they lost quite a few planes in this way, but the intelligence they provided was vital, and would be used by the Kill-Team to strike back at the swarm.

So it was that on the third day after the Tyranids had arrived at Beseritor, that the sky was filled, from horizon to horizon, with spores and troop ships, all bringing their deadly cargo down onto the planet’s surface. The few ground to orbit defences that Beseritor had did their best, but they were unable to make even a little dent in the pure numbers being flown, dropped and expunged from orbit.

Another couple of days passed; with no satellites the Hive was mostly blind, having to rely on the information spotted by the High Altitude bombers. What information they could gather, indicated that a large number of Tyranid creatures were on course to reach the Second Hive, under construction and filled with most of the planets nuclear warheads. The day after this intelligence arrived, there was a massive explosion from behind the horizon, but so massive was this explosion that it could be seen and felt from everywhere on Beseritor… Hive Secundus was no more.

Brother Drakhaus, tapping into the swirling eddy of the warp, could hear the anger from the Hive Mind at the destruction of a large portion of its forces… less protected and trained psykers were driven mad by the psychic power unleashed upon the destruction of that part of the swarm. Immediately, the speakers began blaring that the Xenos had destroyed the hive, and that only service to the emperor and immediate obedience would stop the same happening to Hive Primus, which did a lot to restore morale amongst the PDF troops.

However, the day after that was the day that the Kill-Team knew would come. As dawn broke on another day on Beseritor, all that could be seen, for miles around, was a massive swarm of Tyranids, millions strong, and all with one goal in mind, Hive Primus. The nuclear armed bombers were immediately dispatched, all 5 of them, with the Kill-Team noting that there were not many gargoyles in close support roles; they were more in high altitude at the moment. The operation was almost a perfect success, the bombers flew out on all 4 main points of the compass, and they were there in a minute, if not less, not giving the Hive Mind time to react.

One of the marauders did not complete its mission, with its nuclear warhead not arming, but the other four were timed to perfection. In almost synchronicity, the nuclear weapons went off in the heart of the horde, blasting massive holes in the swarm of Tyranids, and cutting their numbers down to size. However, there were still millions of troops, and they converged closer together as they moved in on the Hive, and before the Hive knew it, it was surrounded, and the Tyranids were massing at the 4 entrances.

The Kill-Team realised that they had made a miscalculation, the airfields for the bombers and fighters were in the land surrounding the hive, which meant they could only keep one wing of their airforce, the rest would have no place to refuel or rearm… so they were sent the order to spend their armaments on the horde, and then try to take down any flying creatures or organic ships with their own lives.

 
With the Tyranids surrounding the hive, the Kill-Team handed over strategic planning and redeployment to the Imperial Governor and the PDF General, and made their way down to the Northern Gate, taking up prime defensive positions, redirecting the PDF Forces, and then waited for the Tyranids to make their entrance. With the gates being welded shut, there was no visibility about what was outside… all they could hear was scuttling and heavy footfalls, interspaced with explosions from some of the artillery pieces firing from further up the hive.

Then, they all heard it, a massive smashing boom, as something with immense weight and power crashed against the northern gate, and they were getting reports that this was going on at all the other gates as well. A massive claw ripped through the metal gate, and then so did another, and then the sound of metal being ripped from itself, as the gate started to be torn off its hinges. With a final sound of metal screeching, most of the gate came off, and the Tyranids flooded through.

Hordes of Hormagaunts and Termagaunts came through the ripped gate, the first wave obliterated by the buried mines, but they did clear them for the next wave. A storm of las-fire met this attack, but the Hormagaunts were too fast, and there were too many of them, and they were on the front of the PDF units in seconds. The Termagaunts put down some fire, being guided by an inhuman intellect; they started firing at the troops behind the emBattled lines, preventing the quick reinforcement of the position. At the back of this wave, came three Tyranid Warriors, who were directing the swarm’s attack.

Amidst the storm of las-fire, the sounds of bolters could be heard. Brother Elyes immediately fired off a storm of mass reactive shells into the Carnifex, but was astonished when it barely noticed the attack, carrying on barging towards the imperial line. The Tyranid Warriors, having seen this attack, fired towards Brother Elyes, but their Deathspitters could only graze him, which emboldened the troops around him, who were locked in bitter combat with the Hormagaunts.

Brother Drakhaus and Brother Curro answered this attack with a storm of bolt fire, their shots tearing into one of the Tyranid Warriors, the bolts exploding against its carapace, doing a grievous wound to the warrior, which was only enhanced when the poisons of Brother Elyes started coursing through its veins. The Hormagaunts, breaking through the front of the imperial line, threw themselves onto the Battle Brothers and started tearing at their armour.

 
They did not inflict that much damage, although one particularly lucky hit did strike Brother Curro, and the Kill-Team realised that they had to kill the Synapse creatures, there were just too many Hormagaunts for the Imperial Line to deal with. With the line engaged in combat, the Carnifex started a run, powering towards the Imperial line, the weight of its strides shaking the very foundations of the street. Brother Calremus dropped his missile launcher, shook off the Hormagaunts and pulled out his heavy flamer, ready to cause destruction.

Brother Elyes, pulling out his Chainsword, started ripping Hormagaunts to pieces, slicing them in two as they leapt at him, cutting through their bodies easily. Brother Curro, shouting a war cry of the Storm Wardens, fired his jet pack and slammed into the Carnifex, stopping its charge and drawing its attention to this much smaller foe, rather than the imperial line. Brother Curro commenced his attack, dodging inside the reach of the Carnifex and, with a feat of strength, chopped his way through the carapace, causing a couple of wounds.

Brother Drakhaus smote the Xenos, the lightning crackling around the Hormagaunts and sending their smoking corpses to the ground. Brother Haakon and Elyes began hacking and shooting at the Hormagaunt Horde, finally starting to make a dent in the almost uncountable masses, with the fire from the Armoured Units and PDF troops helping to bring them down. All of this was almost a sideshow, with the main event being Brother Curro locked in combat with the massive Carnifex, the pivotal fight that would determine who carried the day at the northern Gate.

Brother Curro, himself large for a space marine, still found himself dwarfed by the massive bulk of the Hive creature he was fighting. He used this size disparity to his advantage though, dodging between the clumsy swipes and strikes from the Carnifex, and inflicting measured attacks and wounds. The Carnifex, although it could regenerate, could not match its smaller opponent, and even when one of its attacks looked like it would connect, Brother Curro managed to re-direct it into the ground.

As more and more attacks found their mark, the Carnifex went into a rage, but even then Brother Curro was more than a match, avoiding the thrashing creature, before moving inside its guard, planting his power sword under its chin and firing his jetpack. The momentum, and the power of the strike, ripped the skull off the Carnifex, and Brother Curro flew up in the air, the head of the Carnifex transfixed on his sword, a perfect rallying cry for the Imperial Defence.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Kill-Team had been doing their best to keep the rest of the Tyranids off their Battle Brother, striking down Hormagaunts and attacking the Tyranid Warriors, taking them down with methodical pace, one after the other, making the attack lose more and more cohesion as each warrior was destroyed. Eventually, the attack was repulsed, but the Kill-Team was already aware that the south and west gates had been lost, and that troops were being moved in to plug the breaches. The Kill-Team, aware that this level was lost, countermanded that order and started pulling the troops back to the next level of the hive.

In the ensuing chaos of the furious melee that broke out, neither the Mist Reaper nor the Kill-Team caused any damage, and even though the monster was directly in their face, the Kill-Team still had a hard time seeing it. Brother Haakon, calling upon his leadership skills, managed to infuse the entire Kill-Team with his ethics as a space wolf, making them much more willing to brawl, and quicker to react to close quarter combat, a boon at this moment in time. The rest of the Kill-Team felt their reactions quicken, and Brother Curro bellowed out a challenge to the monster.

The Mist Reaper struck first, however, cleaving through Brother Drakhaus’s armour in multiple locations, trying to infect the space marine with its horrific toxins, something that Brother Drakhaus’s enhanced resistances repelled. However, the assault had done a lot of damage, but Brother Drakhaus was unbowed and readied his own attack. Brother Curro launched into the attack, slicing with his power sword and chainsword at the creature… but the creature was too agile and weaved between the swings.

Brother Elyes, standing further back, readied his bolter and fired a burst at the creature, which was concentrating so hard on avoiding Brother Curro’s attack, that it was hit twice, in the face, by the mass reactive bolts. However, even this hardly slowed it down at all, letting the Kill-Team know that this was going to be a very hard fight. Brother Haakon moved around the side of the creature and tried to drive his knife into the side of the creature, but it avoided this attack easily.

 
However, the Kill-Team, working in concert, had managed to distract the creature enough that Brother Drakhaus, waiting for his chance to strike, was able to smash the creature on the right leg with his force staff. Pitting his immense will against the alien mind of the Mist Reaper, Brother Drakhaus focussed his power through his staff, sending it coruscating through the Mist Reaper, and dealing it a grievous wound that sent it reeling away. The Lictor recovered quickly, however, and set its xenos sights on the Librarian.

Brother Calremus fired his stalker bolter from the back of the Kill-Team, and buried an accurate shot in its torso, his special kraken rounds tearing through the armoured carapace and dealing yet another wound to the creature. Brother Curro, seeing the incoming attack against Brother Drakhaus, reached into his heritage as a storm warden, and his reactions quickened as he picked off the first attack from the Mist Reaper. However, the Mist reaper was very agile, and the rest of its attacks go through both Brother Curro and Brother Drakhaus’s guard.

A Rending Talon flew across Brother Drakhaus’s face, creasing his armour back into his face, and tearing off his nose, the blood splattering across the monster’s talons. The follow up attack, smashed into his left arm, appearing to almost completely sever his arm, sending him flying sideways into the wall of the substation, with massive arcs of blood spraying for a few seconds, before the marines body stopped the blood flow. To all intents and purposes, the Kill-Team was sure that Brother Drakhaus was dead.

Seeing this fate sent the rest of the Kill-Team into a period of cold fury… they wanted this thing dead even more than ever now. Brother Curro, letting out his roar of fury, challenging the mist reaper, then launched into the attack, striking so swiftly that even the enhanced agility of the Mist Reaper was not enough, the chainsword cutting through the mist reapers carapace and into its torso, the chainsword screaming as it bit through flesh and bone.

As the Mist Reaper was reeling from that blow, Brother Curro’s ancient power sword came around from the opposite side and sliced a massive, deep gash In one of the Mist Reapers talons… and the Kill-Team was sure they could see a look of fear on the monsters face. Brother Haakon took a step back, out of its reach, and fired a burst from his bolter, sending the mist reaper staggering back from the force of the shots. The explosions from the bolt shells ripped the leg off the Mist Reaper, and the rest of the shells exploded in its torso.

 
Almost in slow motion, the Kill-Team saw the mist reaper fall, being driven down by the bolt shells, missing a leg, the life finally went out of its eyes, and it dropped to the floor. Brother Elyes wasted no time in collecting the severed leg for further study, and the rest of the Kill-Team spent a few moments putting more bolts into the body, and then Brother Calremus used his heavy flamer to make sure it was dead, having heard stories of these things feigning death to great effect. Brother Elyes approached Brother Drakhaus, fearing the worst, but was amazed that the librarian was still alive. It was, said Brother Elyes afterwards, a sign of the emperors grace and mercy.

Brother Drakhaus pulled himself up, looking completely battered, his armour full of rents and holes, his helmet gouged. The Kill-Team took some time to reflect on their victory, whilst Brother Elyes was tending to all their wounds, and also starting his study into a contact poison based on the lictor’s gene structure, although he knew he would have to wait until he was back at the Arbites HQ. The Kill-Team was about to head further into the underhive, to search for further xenos taint, when they heard what appeared to be a riot starting in the main hive, their enhanced senses picking out what they needed to hear.

Then their vox units, which until then had been silent, started crackling into life and they started hearing reports coming in from all Hive Primus about insurrection, rebellion and destruction. The Kill-Team quickly narrowed down the three priority reports coming in, the small arms manufactory, the armoured manufactory and from the arbites HQ. Taking a quick decision, based on where they were, Brother Haakon decided to move against the Small Arms Manufactory, reasoning that small arms can be used by anyone, which gives them a larger manpower pool.

The Kill-Team quickly moved out of the underhive, boarding their requisitioned chimera, and made all speed to the small arms manufactorum, using their maglev boots to rest on the top of the chimera so they could fire at the rioters. Whilst they never managed to completely break any of the rebels on the way there, their efforts did make it easier for the clean-up crews who arrived on the scene later. They made good progress to their goal, and when they arrived at their destination, they could see a mass of people in the streets, pouring fire into the small arms manufactory, and they could see some las-fire from the PDF forces entrenched in the manufactorum.

 
They quickly took in the scene; identifying the major threats… they could see some heavy stubber teams setting up in a raised position that would enable them to pour fire on the PDF’s position, which would quickly swing the fight in the rebels favour. They could also see a group of rebels moving steadily towards the left side of the building, their heightened senses picking out the tell-tale evidence of high explosives. The order came to the driver of the chimera; to just plough through as many rebels as it could before it got stopped, getting the Kill-Team into position quicker than would normally be possible.

To the rebels, it appeared that their doom had appeared, almost too quickly for them to realise. The chimera ploughed into the back of their ranks, squelching numerous rebels under its tracks. Brother Curro waited until he was in range, and then, using his jetpack, launched off the top of the chimera and landed smack bang in the middle of the group of rebels armed with high explosives. Striking left and right, Brother Curro sliced two of the rebels into small chunks, before informing the rest of them that their doom had appeared. The Rebels, under the control of a malign force, did not break… instead they attacked.

Launching themselves at the space marine in their ranks, the rebels tried to plant their live explosives onto Brother Curro. However, such was their shock at the sudden appearance that the only thing they managed to do was for one of their number to slip on the entrails of his fellow rebel, fall onto the ground and blow their own head off. Brother Calremus, as he had so many times in this mission, turned to his heavy flamer, sending controlled bursts of promethium into the horde of rebels, sending them, screaming, into the arms of their xenos overlords.

Brother Haakon, using the mounted heavy bolter, started laying down suppressing fire against the heavy stubber crews, his accurate pinning fire making almost all of them go to ground within a few seconds, and delaying them from setting up their weaponry. Brother Drakhaus, reaching into the warp, fired the emperors wrath into them, sending even more burning and screaming before they died. Brother Elyes had taken it upon himself to protect the rest of the Kill-Team, so was laying about with his chainsword on any rebels who sought to climb onto the top of the chimera, slicing them to pieces and kicking their remains back down.

 
As the Kill-Team was performing their deadly work, an obviously infected human stepped out of the ranks of the horde and challenged the imperials to single combat… his fearless actions giving the rebels a boost, and making the imperials less effective as they cowered in their entrenchments. Brother Curro continued to slice and dice the rebels before him, cutting down two of them and sending the other one running, screaming, back the way he came, his indoctrination broken by the sheer fury of the Battle Brother. With the explosives troops defeated, a cheer went up from the imperial lines.

Brother’s Calremus and Drakhaus, acting in concert as only those who hail from the same chapter can, sent more waves of flame into the horde of rebels, which was thinning noticeably from their attacks. Brother Haakon sent another round of suppressing fire into the stubber teams, this time succeeding in stopping all of their actions in setting up the heavy weapons. Brother Elyes continued to defend the chimera, chopping and slicing the rebels as they approached, causing so much damage that the rebels pretty much decided to ignore trying to gain access to the chimera.

Under command from the infected human leader, the horde swung most of their fire against the space marines, autogun fire, stub revolvers & las fire all flowing around them, mostly missing, and those that hit causing very little damage, with the marines not even bothering to take cover, so contemptuous were they of their enemies’ fire. Brother Curro, hearing the challenge from the leader, fired his jetpack, landed in front of the infect human, bellowed out his own challenge, and then attacked. His attack was brutal, but the infected human, despite having chunks taken out of his torso, was still alive after the attack.

Seeing the horde teetering on the edge of breaking, Brother Calremus brought out his missile launcher, and sent a frag missile into the heart of the horde, sending bodies spiralling into the air, and creating a massive crater where their bodies should have been. Brother Haakon, having suppressed all the stubber teams decided to take them down. In a display of absolutely amazing accuracy and devastation, all the stubber teams were taken down with just one fully automatic burst, a feat which even the most prideful devastator would admit was something special.

 
Brother Curro, in a fight with the leader of the horde, managed to parry his attacks relatively easily, before unleashing his own attack. The leader had turned around to his men, trying to bolster their ranks… he raised his arm to show he was still in the fight, but then the arm fell to the ground, he turned around in shock, only to stop suddenly, and then his torso slowly, but steadily, parted from his legs, and he slid to the ground, quite dead. With this, final nail in the coffin, the horde finally broke and fled the scene, the imperial cheers in their ears.

After a quick conversation, over the vox, with the captain of the PDF forces here, the Kill-Team decided on their next objective… the arbites HQ. Doing the same thing as they had done before, taking pot shots at rebels causing trouble, moving through areas of heavier and heavier resistance, but speeding towards their objective. After around 30 minutes of travel, the Kill-Team arrives at the arbites HQ, and are gladdened to see that the Headquarters has not fallen yet, although it has been breached, and the sound of fighting comes from inside.

The Kill-Team immediately falls on the rear of the horde of people still streaming inside the arbites HQ. Ordering the driver to ram into the gates of the arbites HQ, the Kill-Team began their slaughter… Brother Curro and Elyes hacking into the horde with their chainswords and power weapons, Brother Calremus and Brother Drakhaus continuing their reaping with their heavy flamers, one mechanical, and the other mental. Brother Haakon continued his spree with his heavy bolter, picking off squads of rebels in single bursts, opening the way for the rest of the Kill-Team.

This completely devastating attack shattered the horde, sending them running from the Battlefield, and opening the way to the inside of the arbites HQ. The chimera rams into the doorway, not doing much damage to the reinforced rockcrete and steel door frames, and the Kill-Team disembarks into the building… they are immediately engulfed in chaos and debris, but their auto senses manage to make sense of it. Brother Drakhaus fired his holy bolter, sending streams of exploding shells into the ranks of the enemy, his accuracy allowing him to avoid any arbites in the area.

Brother Curro fired his jetpack, flying through the building into the most densely packed group of enemies. Landing with a crunch, he sent the rebels flying into the air, and in a blink of an eye, cut them down with his melee weaponry, saving the arbites that were on the floor nearby from an untimely death. What he saw then, however, was something he had never seen before in all his years of fighting.

 
An Arbites sergeant, maybe the one who had sent them the vox transmission, was almost flowing through the combat, moving with almost inhuman grace and guile, sliding through groups of the enemy, leaving them gutted husks as he passed. His preternatural awareness saved him a couple of times, dodging shots fired from enemies that he should not have been able to see… it left quite an impression over the Kill-Team, with many of them suspecting the sergeant of being infected by a genestealer… but they had bigger problems at that moment.

Shots flew from the rebels, bouncing off the ceramite plating of the Kill-Teams’ power armour, doing very little, if any, damage. Brother Curro continued his assault, cutting down one rebel after the other, his body also a weapon, crushing humans beneath his bulk. Brother Calremus, acting after his Battle Brothers, heard some chittering coming from a room off to the side, followed by the sound of something being eviscerated and decided to investigate, moving towards the room, and fired a krak missile into the room. He placed his launcher on his back, and hefted his heavy flamer.

Brothers Haakon and Elyes, noticing the movement of their Battle Brother, took overwatch positions facing the room, noting that the Battle seemed to be calming down, with the powers of Brother Drakhaus and Brother Curro’s melee skills carving through the remnants of the horde. Brother Calremus, not taking any chances of what is in the room, fired his flamer into the enclosed space, the promethium easily setting the room ablaze, and getting a highly satisfying screeching coming forth from the room.

Brother Calremus finally saw what was making that screaming, as four genestealers came charging out of the room, scythed limbs poised to tear through his power armour. However, Brothers Elyes and Haakon had his back, and their bolter fire ripped through the skin of two of the genestealers, sending the abominations back to where they were spawned. This still meant two of the genestealers were on him, eight scythed limbs coming at him, slicing through his power armour with impunity, causing some painful wounds to the Battle Brother.

Brother Curro disengaged from his Battle with the remnants of the horde to come to his Battle Brothers’ aid, charging in and cutting through one of the genestealers legs, a horrific wound, but still not enough to down one of the creatures. However, this did allow Brother Calremus to quick draw his bolt pistol and down that creature. The rest of the Kill-Team quickly finished off the remaining Genestealer.

As the Kill-Team was dusting themselves off from the latest skirmish, the Sergeant ran over to them, which immediately put the Kill-Team on their guard… they had seen his almost inhuman reflexes, and suspected some xenos taint. Their suspicions were proven unfounded, however, when the “Sergeant,” out of view of his fellow arbites, suddenly changed form… this human was a Callidus assassin. He quickly sent them over ciphers used by Inquisitor Quist, which Brother Haakon immediately recognised.

In their quick conversation with Sergeant Mithras, the Kill-Team learned that he had been sent by the Inquisitor, who was worried about Xenos Infiltration. He had been tasked with investigating the Arbites, but he had found no suspicion of taint, and pronounced them clean, which meant the Kill-Team could go about their business without worry. The Kill-Team promised to get in contact when the current crisis had been resolved, and they knew that they had a powerful ally within the arbites. After giving quick greeting to Commander Quintilla, the Kill-Team set off towards the Armoured Manufactorum.

As the Kill-Team was leaving, their voxes crackled a result of the long range of the message. It was from the Rogue Trader, Captain Diaz Lan of the Horizons Pride, letting them know that Battlegroup Vishnu was moving towards the edge of the system, after their sensors picked up multiple contacts moving inbound. In consultation with the Kill-Team, it was decided he would follow the Battlegroup, but more in a shadowing capacity, rather than in a combat capacity. They pushed the Chimera out from the doorway, and managed to get it working again.

They quickly made their way towards the Armoured Factorum, noticing that the PDF units were in much greater vision than the rebels, and that the arbites had started to regain control of the streets… it was obvious that the Space Marines actions had turned the tide in two key locations, and that the rebellion was burning itself out. However, it had come at a price; with the Kill-Team finding the Armoured Factorum a burned out husk… explosions had ripped through the entire factory… it was now useless.

With the riots calming down, the Kill-Team made their way back up to the Spire, for a meeting with the imperial governor, who informed them that the assassin had tried to kill him again, but quick actions from his bodyguard had saved him, albeit at the cost of their own lives. The Imperial Governor was obviously a little stressed; demanding to know what was going on in his hive. He visibly paled when he was informed that it was a Tyranid Infestation.

The Kill-Team let the Governor know about their fighting in the underhive, and that the murders would stop now that the Mist Reaper had been killed, and the Governor praised their contribution to this Hive, and promised them honours after the crisis was over. The Kill-Team was joined by the Arbites Commander, and they went over their situation. They had lost the ability to make armoured vehicles at a rapid pace, but their ability to manufacture small arms, heavy weapons and maintain order (arbites) had not taken too much damage.

The Kill-Team also learned, after some direct questions, that the Governors’ astropaths were having trouble sending and receiving messages, and that some of them had been hearing a whispering in the warp… all signs of impending tyranid invasion. Closing his eyes, Brother Drakhaus extended his senses into the immaterium, and realised that the psychic pulsing had not stopped, and focusing further, realised that it was coming from very close to the hive spire, only a mile below the governor’s office.

After some more conversations about the events of the day, the Arbites Commander was dismissed, and Brother Elyes took this advantage to travel with her, back to the arbites laboratory, where he began synthesising a specific poison to this strain of Tyranids, using the Mist Reapers Leg, and the Genestealers limbs. Meanwhile, Brother Drakhaus had been thinking back on his arrival at the hive, and realised that one of the nobles who had greeted them, had his noble house on the same level as the psychic pulse he was detecting.

The Kill-Team informed the Imperial Governor that the infestation was not over yet, and, using their newfound influence, managed to convince him to sanction a meeting between the Battle Brothers and the main noble of the house, the one giving off the psychic call. The imperial Governor also gave them a few platoons of the PDF, and some arbites to make sure they could carry out their mission in peace. With this, the Kill-Team made their way to the noble house, announced ahead of time, and were taken through the expansive grounds to their meeting.

They are met by the Patriarch of the Noble House, Patriarch Barbosa, who has come to the meeting with his trusted assistants and some experts at law, trying to keep the Battle Brothers from suspecting him, not knowing they had a librarian with them. He met them in the middle of a crystal dome, with some xenos artefacts clearly on display, this nobleman was showing them how far above imperial law he was… not that the Kill-Team was bothered by this in the slightest.
 
Patriarch Barbosa stepped forward with an outstretched hand, “How May I help you?” he inquired. Brother Haakon stepped forward, raised his bolter and stated “you can die!” Before firing. His bolts were aimed true, but before they could strike the Patriarch, a shimmering field of energy deflected the shots away, to smash into the Crystal dome. The Energy Field appeared to be infallible, deflecting all the attacks that the Kill-Team could direct at the Patriarch… until, as if by the blessing of the emperor, the energy field shorted out.

Brother Calremus, not wanting to take any chances with what this could be, loaded a krak missile and fired, even though one of this Battle Brothers, Brother Curro, was in hand to hand combat with the Patriarch. The Missile flew true, landing at the feet of the Patriarch, in an intense fireball that burned away the Broodlord’s human façade. When the explosion cleared, however, Brother Curro was still standing, singed perhaps, but still cleaving at the newly revealed monster with the Emperor’s Vengeance.

The remainder of the Kill-Team hit the Broodlord with whatever they could, hastened by Brother Drakhaus shouting out a warning that he could feel a massive psychic build-up from the creature… but they could not take it down in time. Brother Elyes felt the full force of the attack, as the creature pulled warp energies into itself, focused it into a beam capable of cutting through tanks, and directed it straight into Brother Elyes. He flew across the room in a shower of sparks and Warp energy, to land heavily against the crystal dome.

However, this attack had taken a lot out of the Broodlord, and with its energy field down, it was very vulnerable. Shouting praises to the emperor, and Promises of vengeance, the Kill-Team fell upon the Broodlord, bolter fire, chainsword blows and psychic powers being enough to finally send it crashing down to the ground… the entire combat was over in less than half a minute. The Kill-Team could then hear the shots coming from around the Noble’s estate as the infected humans tried to escape into the city proper, only to be met by the PDF and Arbites.

With the cleansing of the infection over, the Kill-Team returned to the palace of the imperial governor, to inform him of the success of their mission. However, they good news was shattered by a single vox transition from the Rogue Trader, Diaz Lan. “Battlegroup Vishnu has been destroyed… incoming tyranid fleet on the outskirts of the System, expect Beseritor is their target. Currently moving ahead of their forces, but will be there soon… may the Emperor Protect!”

After an oath taking session that led the Battle Brothers to rekindle the bonds of kinship and, in some cases, friendship, between them, they made their way to liaise with Diaz Lan and his ship, the Horizons pride. The Kill-Team is informed that their weapons and items they have requisitioned will be waiting for them on board the light cruiser… they are also informed that a magos biologis team will be accompanying them on their mission. Brother Elyes had been reaching out to some of the contacts he has within the Adeptus Mechanicus, and one such team had agreed that, if it was xenos, and specifically Tyranids, it would aid their research.

With no further ado, the Kill-Team boarded the horizons pride with Diaz Lan, who informed them that, because of the shadow of the warp hanging over the Orpheus salient, it was unlikely that word of their coming to Beseritor would reach there before they arrived. Given that it was a month long voyage through the warp, Brother Drakhaus and Haakon, who was the Kill-Team leader for this mission, spent a little time on the outside of the horizons pride, practicing their Zero G combat techniques.

During the voyage, the Kill-Team kept themselves busy with various weapons drills, Brother Curro taking it upon himself to drill some of the troops that served on the horizons pride, which Captain Lan was very grateful for at first, but as the number of injured continued to rise from these drills, his gratitude started fading. Brother Elyes spent most of him time keeping to the shadows around the gun decks, providing many a mother a wonderfully scary story to tell her kids about the monsters in the dark, and what they would do if they did not eat their protein mush.

Brother Calremus spent most of his time in ranged weapon drills, Lan trusting him enough to realise that he would not puncture the walls of the ship with his missile launcher, given that Brother Calremus had swapped his heavy bolter for a heavy flamer, expecting that the more enclosed environs of a Hive city, even one as odd as Hive Primus on Beseritor, would favour this close range destroyer. He also spent time calibrating his stalker bolter that he had requisitioned, not wanting to lose the ability to fire long range either.

 
Brothers Haakon & Drakhaus spent most of their time with the Captain, trying to discover more information about Beseritor than they had been told. He did learn that the Captain was quite close friends with the imperial governor on the planet, and that would ease their presence on the planet. But, other than the rising casualty list coming from some of Brother Curro’s “bouts” the trip was uneventful and relatively routine… something that Captain Lan commented on at one of their dinners, saying that it appeared the Kill-Team was good luck.

As the horizons pride translated out of the warp, they were immediately hailed by Battlegroup Vishnu, headed by the Cruiser invictus. The captains of the respective ships obviously knew each other, and whilst they were not friends, they had a sort of professional respect for each other, although Captain Karrandan did tell Diaz Lan that he would catch him for the smuggling one day. Captain Karrandan did, however, have something important to tell the Kill-Team… since they translated to warp over a month ago, there had been more than 200 similar killings, and hive primus was teetering on civil disorder.

The Kill-Team also learned that the Battlegroup had been noticing blips on their sensors for the last few days, but they were not there when the Battlegroup investigated. Given the situation of Beseritor, the Battlegroup were not willing to put it down to errors in the machine spirit. The last piece of information they learned was that something, very small sensor signature, had managed to make landfall in the last two days, and nothing had been reported from the sighting stations on the planet. With this to ponder, the Kill-Team asked Diaz Lan to land on the planet so they could start their investigation.

After a journey time of a day to get to Beseritor, and after Captain Lan had received permission to land, and had been told that they would be met by the imperial governor himself, the Kill-Team boarded the Aquila lander with Diaz Lan himself and settled in for a short ride. They came into land on the tallest landing platform, a dazzling structure surrounded by glittering glass to stop the harsh winds at this height from sending everyone on the landing pad over the edge to their death. As the lander settled down, the Imperial Governor, a group of high ranking nobles and various other functionaries stepped out to greet them.

 
As the ramp extended from the lander, the Kill-Team got their first look at Hive Primus… but they immediately realised that something was wrong and they all looked above to see an indistinct shape hanging off the side of the hive, a high powered rifle in its hands. With only seconds to react, each of the Kill-Team acted. Brother Haakon launched himself on top of Diaz Lan, figuring he was the target. Brother Curro called out a warning and Brother Calremus focused his eyesight to get a better look at the assassin.

Brother Drakhaus, reacting with years of experience, took out a screamer and set it off, sending everyone to the floor, their senses overwhelmed by the object. Brother Elyes was the last to react, moving his boltgun up and sending a shot towards the assassin. His shot blew through the protective glass around the landing pad, and almost hit the assassin, before the assassin fired. The shot, which the Kill-Team could see clearly, approached the glass, and then phased through, before burying itself in the ground next to the head of the Imperial Governor… Brother Drakhaus’s action had saved his life.

With his shot missing, the Kill-Team saw the assassin moved away round the other side of the spire and away from their vision. The bodyguards were quickly moving the governor and the nobles back inside, as the governor signalled for the Kill-Team and Diaz Lan to follow him. They did this, noting that the imperial palace, near the very top of the hive, was absolutely gigantic, with each of the Battle Brothers thinking that so much more could have been eked out of the space, rather than wasting time with all this frivolity.

Reaching the imperial governors personal sanctum, the Kill-Team was informed that this was the third assassination attempt in the past month, and that the Imperial governor would be grateful if they could put a stop to them. The Kill-Team nodded their assent, but then asked to see some of the bodies of the recently killed people, as well as the body of the second assassin, which the imperial governor informed them was being held at the arbites headquarters. With this, the Kill-Team had all the information they needed, and so requisitioned an arbites chimera to take them to the headquarters.

The Chimera moved through the sparse crowds in the noble area of the hive and plunged down a few levels, the crowds becoming thicker and thicker as they neared the arbites headquarters. As they approached, they saw that the arbites had a honour guard welcoming them.

 
The Kill-Team would have been embarrassed, had such an emotion been understandable to them, so they just took it stoically and advanced through the honour guard. They met the Commander of the arbites, Quintilla Zetkin at the door. Quintilla was very awed to meet members of the adeptus astartes, with her predecessor being decapitated during the Battle to take control of this planet, over a couple of decades ago. She put the entire station at the Kill-Team’s disposal, and they immediately went down to the morgue.

Once down there, the Kill-Team dismissed the ranking medicae, and let Brother Elyes, the apothecary, and the magos biologis, examine the corpses. They realised that whatever had ripped the slain apart had been either biological or had been some sort of flexible metal. They also examined the corpse of the second assassin and after a full body scan and help from the magos, realised that the muscle had been super accelerated and, that this was caused by genestealer infection… with both of these hypothesises in place, the Kill-Team knew they were dealing with the great devourer, the Tyranids.

With this information, Brother Haakon was able to plot the “ripped apart” kills and discern a relative pattern to the attacks, which was leading down from the top of the spire to just above the underhive… although this hive had not yet had the time to create a true underhive, filled with the scum and villainy that the rest of the hive could not stomach. Their liaison came in and informed them that another death had been found, and Brother Haakon was able to confidently predict where the body had been found, much to the arbites dismay.

Taking the chimera, the Kill-Team moved down to the latest kill, and quickly deduced that the attack had come from outside, and that whatever tyranid creature it was, was fast, nimble and deadly. The Kill-Team, knowing they had to contain this situation, managed to follow the spoor of the creature, Brother Haakon’s wolf senses proving invaluable at this point in time. The followed it into the underhive, advancing cautiously through the vaunted tunnels and sub-power points.

Their auto senses, and auspexes, picked up movement ahead, from beneath a pile of trash. Brother Drakhaus advanced boldly into the room, and picked up the thrashing body of a hive kid, who was trying to hide from things beyond his nightmares. As Brother Drakhaus was trying to get some information out of the hysterical child, flesh hooks slammed out of the darkness and dragged the child, screaming, into the dark tunnel beyond.

The Kill-Team surged into action, flame, bolt rounds and psychic powers flying down the tunnel, catching the child in their crossfire, but not doing any damage that they could see of the creature, not that they could see the creature in the first place. They did, however, see some light glittering off the roof of the tunnel as the creature moved into a large substation. Cautiously, knowing to respect this enemy, the Kill-Team advanced into the substation, scanning all areas as they moved. The creature, a horrific strain of lictor, called “The Mist Reaper,” dropped down on them from above.

The Kill-Team dusted themselves off from their last encounter, treatment was administered to the wounded by apothecary Elyes, and the Kill-Team went back to the land speeder to continue on their mission. After a long, monotonous, period of travel, the Kill-Team began to realise that the trees were thinning out somewhat, and that the terrain was becoming more mountainous, it appeared that their destination would soon be within their reach.

After some rather vertical movements, up and around the rocky terrain, the Kill-Team realise that it appears the last active delirium trellis is actually inside the mountain. Tunnels criss-cross the face of the mountain, and without any hesitation, Brother Drakhaus directs the team into the left most of the tunnels. After having seen the vespid tunnels in the towering glades, the Kill-Team was left with no doubt that these tunnels were made by the same xenos creatures.

After moving, cautiously, through the warren of tunnels, the Kill-Team notices an exit to their current tunnel, and their enhanced vision notices what appears to be a fire pit, with various charge packs for las weaponry hanging above the pit, recharging. They also notice other las packs laying in the direct sunlight, recharging from the strong morning sun. The Kill-Team advance to the end of the tunnel and see twelve imperial guardsmen, their uniforms in various stages of disrepair, lounging around the fire pit, with two of their number busy slaughtering a mountain cat.
 
Seven of the twelve guardsmen, seeing the armoured space marines burst into view, quickly gather up their meagre belonging and run deeper into the mountain. The two busy slaughtering the mountain cat, just carry on as if nothing has happened. The three remaining, their minds completely destroyed by the effects of the delirium trellis, see the Kill-Team as food, and so charge them in a frothing frenzy, wielding their lasguns as clubs.

Brother Calremus raised his heavy bolter to hose down the idiots, but his penchant for violence was stopped by a command from Brother Drakhaus, who called for both the Kill-Team, and the charging guardsmen, to hold fast. the guardsmen ignored this command, and set about the Kill-Team with the butts of their lasguns, having about as much effect as someone who clubs at a mighty tree, expecting it to fall down. The Kill-Team showed remarkable restraint, although Brother Calremus backhanded the guardsman in front of him, sending him flying back with a broken neck.

The rest of the Kill-Team manage to subdue the charging guardsmen quite easily, with Brother Drakhaus and Haakon easily picking the guardsmen off the ground and cutting off their air supply, knocking them into the blissful embrace of unconsciousness. They restrain the guardsmen, not really wanting to harm, whom they assume to be, faithful servants of the emperor, just under the effect of a xenos device. With the mad guardsmen dealt with, the Kill-Team moves to take up a defensive position, whilst Brother Drakhaus moves to question the two remaining guardsmen.

This proves to be a very frustrating endeavour, with the guardsmen’s mind having mostly gone, but using his powers of persuasion, not to mention his powers of patience, the Librarian finally manages to tease some useful information from the two guardsmen. They learn that the guardsmen follow someone calling themselves the Mountain King, who killed a commissar to take command of this group. They also learn that this group has the trellis, and is using it to try and commune with the emperor.

The Kill-Team try and convince the guardsmen to lead them to this “mountain king” but their minds are completely focussed on gutting the remaining animals, even leading them to start butchering thin air. The Kill-Team moves on from this distraction, following the path mentioned by the guardsmen that will bring them to the mountain king and, more importantly, the trellis.
 
After an hour of moving through the cave system, and realising from the sounds coming from around them that the remaining guardsmen are moving away from them, probably to go to the mountain king’s side, they come across a rather strange sight. Brother Curro realises that this room, where they seem to be collecting random detritus is a throwback to their feral roots, where they collect the infamous ghostfire flower for the frenzy inspiring pollen that it produces.

Finally, though, the Kill-Team emerges into a cavernous area of the cave system, the arching ceilings reaching at least 20 metres above their head, and immediately notice a large throng of imperial guardsmen, praying before a delirium trellis, before which sits a man in a tattered commissar’s robe… this is obviously the mountain king. He is currently in the throes of beating a servitor, screaming “why can you not translate divinity!” into its face, before pushing it away, sending it scurrying back to the trellis.

He then notices the Kill-Team, and his face turns pale, but he still screams out “no, don’t do this, don’t take this away from me… we are so close, we just need a little time!” obviously expecting the Kill-Team to take the trellis away from him, he is surprised when Brother Drakhaus, expertly reading the situation, asks the “mountain king” if he would like any help with understanding the trellis. The Kill-Team is remarkably patient with the Mountain King, listening to his rambling, agreeing with his thoughts, and they manage to calm him down from the rather eccentric state he was in.

After further negotiation, the mountain king agrees to allow Brother Drakhaus and Brother Calremus closer to the trellis, to allow them to interface with it and help him in his dream to contact the emperor. The rest of the Kill-Team takes up a defensive position, ready to unleash hell on the guardsmen if they attack… the Kill-Team know what Brother Drakhaus is going to do, and they suspect it will not go down well.

They manage to hide their intentions quite well, the Mountain King is completely unaware and the rest of the guardsmen are taking their cue from him. Brother Calremus interfaces with the delirium trellis using the data slate that he had brought with him for this very instance… a rush of xenos energy and information rush through his eyes, into his head, but his conditioned mind is enough to fight back the attack… but he does wonder just how corrupt the servitor is if it has been getting the same treatment.
 
After Brother Calremus gives the go ahead, Brother Drakhaus raised his hand and called upon the emperors blessing, before launching his psychic energies into the delirium trellis. However, unlike the last couple of times, this time the reaction was something different and Brother Drakhaus knew it almost immediately, but his knowledge was not quick enough for him to shout a warning, as the trellis reflected the attack back to everyone within 30 metres… this included the Mountain King.

As coruscating energies exploded back at them, Brother Calremus, Brother Drakhaus and the Mountain king were all hit. The Brothers of the Kill-Team were only slightly singed by the power of the smite, but the mountain king did not fare as well… his body fell to the ground, lighting up like a celebration on an imperial world, leaving a smoking corpse on the ground. This completely broke the guardsmen, whose hold on sanity was tenuous enough anyway, and they grabbed up their lasguns and prepared to fight.

Brother Curro, gambling that as the emperors chosen, as the mountain king had anointed them, he would be able to cow at least some of them, called out that they were the emperors chosen, and that it was ordained by the emperor himself. This had the impact of causing half the guardsmen to fall down to their knees in worship, praying to the emperor for deliverance and refusing to take part in the fight… the rest of the guardsmen, having taken up their lasguns, fired.

Brother Calremus was the first to react, and his reaction was completely and utterly devastating. His heavy bolter chewed through the massed ranks of the guardsmen, sending bodies flying, exploding apart as the mass reactive bolt shells did their terrible work. Brother Drakhaus took advantage of the slight hesitation in the imperial guard and ran towards them, his long strides covering the distance in seconds… he stopped and gathered his thoughts, preparing to unleash the powers of his mind on the guardsmen.

The guardsmen finally managed to recover enough from the sudden onslaught to fire back, and a mass of lasgun fire hammered into the Kill-Team. However, their sacred power armour held back enough of the blast, and it barely rocked them back on their heels, but this had no effect on the guardsmen’s resolve, so focused as they were on gaining revenge for the death of their king. Brothers Curro and Elyes, seeing the horde baring down on them, fired controlled bursts of bolt shells into them, cutting down a fair few of the guardsmen as they charged.
 
Brother Drakhaus, however, was in range to unleash his powers in their most devastating form, sending flaming avatars of the emperor into the ranks of the imperial guard. This sent many of the screaming, on fire, into the hands of the emperor that they were so keen to meet. This damage must have shook them, because their charge against the 3 members of the Kill-Team did nothing, with Brothers Elyes, Haakon and Curro coming through completely unscathed.

Taking advantage of their enemies’ ineptness, Brothers Haakon, Curro and Elyes tore into the rapidly diminishing horde of guardsmen, taking down a fair few of them with their savage fury… for Brother Haakon, especially, it brought back glorious memories of combats past, and he tore into the guard. Seeing the fight turning, Brother Calremus aimed his missile launcher, loaded with frag missiles, and fired into the middle of the remaining guardsmen. This blew apart their enemies, but had the side effect of slightly injuring all the Battle Brothers in close combat.

The Battle Brothers were remarkably restrained about this bout of friendly fire. They realised that a greater good was done by destroying the remaining guardsmen, and that the damage done to them was minor, and easily healed. The guardsmen who had not engaged in combat had not come off much better than their brethren, with over half those who had knelt, praying, coming through the storm of bolter fire, missiles and psychic powers. Those who had, however, would recall the moment the emperor smiled on them, for the rest of their days.

The Kill-Team, after destroying the phased delirium trellis with the use of a few more smites, were approached by those guardsmen who had survived, and they asked if the Kill-Team would like to see their most honoured prisoner. The, rather surprised, Kill-Team indicated their assent. They are led into a side cave where they see, tied up and gagged, a water caste envoy of the Tau, whose, when he sees the Kill-Team, eyes light up and he starts moving in his bonds, trying to speak. The Kill-Team, after a slight debate, decide to let him speak.

The Kill-Team is most certainly surprised by his demeanour, thanking them for rescuing him for this group of “unbelievers” and telling them that he has to get back before the human general in their possession is shipped off-world for interrogation/indoctrination. It does not take the Kill-Team long to realise that he appears to be subject to the delirium trellises affects, and decide to keep him in this way of thinking for as long as possible. They agree to escort him back to his base, as long as they are unseen for as long as possible.
 
The Kill-Team, after a little more discussion, realises that they have to, at the very least, stop a general of the imperium from defecting, whatever the cost, as his knowledge of the canis salient could prove costly to the imperium’s position there. They also realise that letting the Tau have a Delirium Trellis is probably not the best, so they decide to try and destroy that if they get the chance. With their mission parameters set, the Kill-Team loaded everything they had into their land speeder, and set out for the Tau base.

Three hours later, the Kill-Team’s land speeder bursts into view, hurtling at increasingly insane speeds. The Kill-Team’s posture speaks of their annoyance with their Tau guest, who has literally not stopped speaking since they started off, and the relief is almost audible when he tells them to stop, and he will lead them to a place overviewing the Tau base. The Kill-Team can see that the Tau have been clever, there are no forested approaches anywhere near the Tau base, with 100 meters of deforested land in every direction.

They can see that it is heavily fortified as well; they spot the manta spacecraft on the landing pad, the fire warriors moving around the perimeter, the heavy railguns overseeing each and every entrance. They also see the imperial general moving towards the manta spacecraft, with a couple of fire warriors for escort, and they see the Tau commander in his Battlesuit, holding the only piece of the trellis they were able to get… the Kill-Team having got there before them in all instances.

Knowing there is not much time before the general leaves, beyond their reach forever, the Kill-Team grabs their longest range weapons; loading kraken rounds into their bolters, a krak missile into Brother Calremus’ Missile launcher and they take aim. As soon as the missile left his launcher, the automated radars and defences from the Tau’s base went off, sounding the alarm. The Kill-Team watched as the missile flew, straight and true, to detonate at the foot of the general.

When the blast cleared, they saw that the general had been turned into a fine mist by the krak missile, and that it had also managed to damage the Tau commander, and his fire warriors. The rest of the Kill-Team fired off their boltguns, further injuring the Tau commander, before deciding that their work here was done, and taking cover further back in the cliffs. This was just in time, as the automated defences sent a massive volume of fire up at their position, but all it did was gouge some impressive dents into the hills.
 
The Tau water caste had been taken back to the land speeder by the Kill-Team before this shot, so he was still blissfully unaware that his “followers of the greater good” were not as they seemed. The Kill-Team managed to convince the water caste that they were going off-world to meet with the human leadership in the greater good, so they needed to get back to the guardsmen, before calling for extraction. They did, however, “accidently” knock out the water caste envoy, their patience for his rambling had expired long before then.

After returning to the guardsmen, the Kill-Team hunkered down for a couple of days, after sending out their vox signal to the Spear of Fury to come and pick them up. Their caution meant they were able to avoid a couple of long range Tau patrols, until the thunderhawk entered the atmosphere and arrived to transport them back. Brother Dane, still the pilot for the thunderhawk did not say a word as a very cheerful water caste Tau envoy entered, nor did he say anything about the imperial guardsmen. The Kill-Team were, however, sure that if they had been able to see his face, that his eyebrows would have, at the very least, been raised slightly.

The thunderhawk docked with the spear of fury and then quickly made its way to the edge of the system and translated into the warp. The next two weeks of travel passed quickly for the Kill-Team, their time spent mostly in prayer and meditation, although they did have a relatively good natured dinner with captain Jaresh, although it was tempered by his dislike of Brother Drakhaus… but even Brother Captain Jaresh had to admit that the Kill-Team had comported themselves with honour and done their duty, as much as it pained him to.

The Kill-Team arrived back at Watch Fortress Erioch, refreshed and renewed by the journey, which had gone by without a problem, even Captain Jaresh had to admit that most journeys were not that smooth. After the Spear of Fury docked, they could see that Inquisitor Quist was waiting for them, eagerness present on her normally controlled façade. She led them to one of the debriefing room, with the Tau water caste looking around in awe at his surroundings. His happiness was only increased when Inquisitor Quist started conversing with him in the Tau language, as it just increased his delusion.
 
After the water caste had been escorted out of the room by some of the inquisitors acolytes, Inquisitor Quist turned back to the Kill-Team and gestured for them to report their mission debrief. Again the eagerness appeared on her face as the Kill-Team presented the control desk from one of the delirium trellises, and she began to examine it with the practiced hand of someone who had dealt with situations like this before. She obviously had never seen anything made of this metal before, and the Kill-Team waited patiently, and silently, for her to turn back towards them.

She listened carefully as the Kill-Team explained how they had managed to disable the trellises, nodding at their utilisation of the tools at their disposal. She showed less enthusiasm towards their treatment of the guardsmen, but they managed to extract a promise from her that they would be rehabilitated back into the guard, rather than just purged for having xenos taint… as they pointed out, the crusade needed every able bodied guardsman in the fight against the Tau, the Tyranids and the forces of chaos.

After the rest of the debriefing was concluded, during which the Inquisitor was told about the general who they had assassinated, the outpost they had saved, the effect the trellises had on the Kroot, which especially interested the Inquisitor, as a way of sowing discord in the Tau forces. With the debriefing finished, the Inquisitor advised the Kill-Team to have their armour seen to, and then to enjoy their time before the next mission… she said this in such a cheery way that it left the Kill-Team shaking their heads.

A month passes in the Watch Fortress… various Kill-Teams are sent out on missions, but the Kill-Team spends its time keeping ready to be called upon again. During that month, however, they manage to get involved in a feud between Watch captain Servais of the Raven Guard, and Watch Captain Brand of the Storm Wardens. During a particular intense conversation between both of them on the merits of their way of doing things, the Kill-Team is drawn into the discussion as well. Brother Curro, unsurprisingly, sides with his fellow storm warden, with Brother Calremus taking the opposite side.

Whilst this conversation/argument was going on, Brother Haakon saw Inquisitor Quist [DENIED, INQUISITION SEAL MAGENTA… PLEASE CONTACT INQUISITOR QUIST TO ACCESS. HAVE A NICE DAY]

Meanwhile, Brother Elyes and Brother Drakhaus joined a rogue trader, who was sitting alone, but who gratefully introduced himself as Diaz Lan, one of the Rogue Traders who had signed up with the imperium, and was currently being used as a liaison between the crusade and the Deathwatch. After some rather awkward small talk, neither side being that good at it, the rogue trader started talking about the planet of Beseritor. Apparently, this planet was one of the success stories of the crusade, but Lan had heard some odd information coming from the planet.

He had petitioned the watch commander to investigate the findings, but the watch commander had much bigger problems than a few reports on an otherwise pacified planet. The Rogue trader informed the Kill-Team of all this, and then mentioned that perhaps a request from a Kill-Team to go and investigate these findings would pitch the balance in his favour. Brothers Drakhaus and Elyes promised that they would bring these findings to their Kill-Team, and, after discussion, would come back to him with an answer.

The Kill-Team eventually agrees that Beseritor is definitely worth checking out, and in their next meeting with the watch commander, they bring up the request. The Watch commander knows who this has come from, but as they are debating the merits of this course of action, a serf runs in, holding a gene coded dataslate. The Watch Commander opens it, and watches as the words “Send Them!” appear on the dataslate, with the exact co-ordinates of Beseritor. He looks at the Kill-Team, and then nods… “Beseritor it is then.”

After a discussion regarding which area they should proceed to next, the Kill-Team decide to head to the “towering glades,” partly because it was the closest to their current position, but also because it was not behind the known line of Tau penetration on the planet. The trip there is pretty uneventful, the Kill-Team can hear sounds of fighting at various points on their journey, but they know what their mission is.

The Kill-Team arrives at their location, and immediately notice that there is a pall of silence over this area, more so than usual given the normal level of noise that can be found in the forests of baraban. This immediately puts the Kill-Team on their guard, and they deploy cautiously and slowly. They soon realise that the reason why this area is so silent is because of all the corpses around, whole vespid and various body parts of the vespid law strewn around the glade.

The Kill-Team realises, based on the tunnels they can see in the trees, that this area was a vespid breeding ground. They notice, as well, the delirium trellis that has become phased into this reality, and also notice that it is wilting, blight spreading over its entire surface, literally seeming to melt slowly before their eyes. That does not make it any less dangerous however, and the Kill-Team is assailed with a feeling of warp tainted corruption washing over them.

All but Brother Elyes manage to resist this corruption, and the rest of the Kill-Team is too busy focusing in on other areas of the glade, they do not notice Brother Elyes becoming much more withdrawn than his usual cheery exterior would normally be. Getting very restless with the lack of progress, Brother Curro decides the best solution is the obvious solution, and fires his jet pack, holding his chainsword above his head, and launches himself at the delirium trellis.
 
With perfect balance, a very skilled jump and very impressive weapon skill, Brother Curro manages to fly directly below the trellis, chainsword cutting through the strange metal before landing easily and cutting the trellis control table in two. Or, that is how it would have happened had the ground not been riddled with vespid tunnels. The ground, which would be difficult for an armoured marine to walk upon, breaks underneath the momentum of Brother Curro, sending him spiralling down into the tunnels.

After a very undignified tumble, Brother Curro finds himself upside-down, resting on his ample head, before slumping down to the ground, picking himself up, and launching himself back up out through the hole he had made. Meanwhile Brother Drakhaus had realised how unstable the ground was, but not in time to shout out a warning to Brother Curro. As Brother Curro was picking himself up from the ground, Brother Drakhaus began to make his way towards a strange high pitched sound that his enhanced senses had managed to pick out.

So focused was he on this sound, small as it was, that Brother Drakhaus made a slight misstep and went plummeting down into the vespid burrows, but without the jetpack to easily get out. Brother Calremus immediately went to his chapter Brothers aid, but also misstepped and ended up falling into the vespid tunnels as well, his heavy bolter digging into the ground and having to be pulled out, to both the crimson fist’s annoyance. They take a look around, see nothing particularly of interest, and then make their way out of the burrows, finding an exit that leads closer to the high pitched sound.

Whilst this is happening, Brother Haakon and Brother Elyes have been investigating the wounds on the vespid, coming to the rather unsettling conclusion that they had eaten and shot each other, obviously as a result of being affected by the delirium trellis. This is then substantiated by Brothers Drakhaus and Calremus who, after finding their way out of the tunnels below them, spot a fire warrior corpse, which had been killed by vespid weaponry.

Brother Calremus, after searching the fire warrior, takes a bite out of his skull, to access the memories stored there. He is transported into the mind of the fire warrior, just before the vespid started shooting. He was there with a Tau in a commanders Battle suit, before he was hit and killed. As he falls back Calremus can see the commander and his squad performing a fighting withdrawal as the vespid turn on them, and then each other. Then the memory ends.
 
Finally finding the source of the high pitched yipping that has been annoying them for a while now, the Kill-Team realise it is a nest of baby vespid. Not hesitating for one moment, Brother Calremus takes a frag grenade, drops it into the nest, and then walks away whilst the nest explodes behind him. Body parts from the small vespids litter the ground around the nest, job done. With the nest and trellis destroyed, and with more knowledge on the Tau presence on baraban, the Kill-Team decides to move on, and this time to cross into Tau held baraban.

The discussion turns to the types of precautions they are going to take when they enter the Tau held area of baraban. They realise that the Tau have access to a lot of skimmer technology, so the sound of the land speeder might not tip them off. In the end, they decide that speed is of the essence at the moment, and so decide to risk a speedy entry and exit from the south-eastern forest, which is where their information tells them to go next.

They manage to time their entry into Tau held space so that it is just going dark… it does not really affect space marines, and so they continue on the long journey to the south-eastern forest. They all get the feeling that they are being watched… most of them suspect the Kroot, being an arboreal species, have made their homes in the trees, but with darkness and the speed they are travelling, they are not able to do any search at all, they rely on the land speeder to get them to their location ahead of their enemies.

As they near their destination, they find the foliage getting much thicker, so much so that they have to abandon their land speeder some 20 minutes march from the objective. Utilising the stummers that they have brought with them, the Kill-Team move, mostly silently, towards their objective. When they arrive, they shine the archeotech lanterns around and realise that the trellis, not being part of this reality, now lay partly merged with two large trees. However, the Kill-Team did not have any time to think about what to do, because they came under attack!

The attack came so suddenly that only Brother Calremus was able to react, the only thing that had tipped him off was a slight rustling in the forest canopy, before the Kroot came rushing down the near vertical trunks, before leaping off with a raucous war cry. His heavy bolter spitting out rounds at an almost unbelievable rate, he laid down fire against the Kroot. But such was the speed of the ambush, that the Kroot were able to dodge all his shots, the mass reactive shells creating carnage in the dense foliage.
 
Having dodged the only attack coming their way, the Kroot launched themselves from the trees, landing on and amongst the members of the Kill-Team and laying about with their mono blades. The attack was vicious and almost overwhelming; with Brother Elyes taking a serious wound that would have killed a lesser man, but just managing to stay on his feet due to the severity of the blow. His faith in the emperor, however, was stronger than any xenos and he straightened up under the assault, ready to kill.

Brother Drakhaus and Brother Haakon both took wounds from the surprise attack, relatively minor wounds in the grand scheme of things. Brother Calremus, the only one who had managed to react, almost dodged one of the Kroot attacks around him, but was slightly too slow, and ended up with a gouge in his helmet, as the Kroot blade was just deflected by his armour. Brother Curro also took a few little wounds from his attack, but he came off easily the best… and now it was time for the Kill-Team to strike back.

Brother Calremus dropped his heavy bolter, apologising to its machine spirit for this rough treatment, before drawing his bolt pistol and blowing a chunk out of the Kroot attacking him, but not enough to bring it down. Both Brothers Elyes and Drakhaus were confounded by the movements of the Kroot and their attacks went wild, or were dodged by the agile xenos. Drawing his sacred sacros claymore from his back and striking in one flowing movement, Brother Curro smote the Kroot where is stood, a look of surprise on the Kroot’s face as the giant claymore cleaved it in two.

After making their surprise attack, not wanting to stand and trade with the Kill-Team, the Kroot launched themselves back up into the dense foliage, readying themselves for another drop attack. Brother Calremus put his bolt pistol away, grabbed his missile launcher from his back and sent a krak missile streaking into the trees, on a vector that he had seen one of the Kroot using. The next thing the Kill-Team saw was a branch come hurtling down from the trees, and falling alongside it was a collection of Kroot limbs.

Brother Drakhaus, for the second time this mission, called upon his innate psychic gifts, and the favour of the emperor, to send a massive jolt of lightning into the trees. The warp guided energy slammed into two of the Kroot who were about to launch an attack, sending white energy coursing through their bodies. But these Kroot were tough, and so, whilst scorched, they were still in the Battle.
 
The rest of the Kill-Team, looking warily up into the foliage, started to cover likely avenues of approach from the Kroot, and waited for the inevitable attack. This proved a wise move. As the Kroot attacked, they were met with a fusillade of mass reactive shells coming in their direction. Three of the wounded Kroot, mad with rage, were blown apart before they landed, the bolt shells destroying their bodies before they hit the ground. Brother Calremus, on the other hand, had his missile launcher to hand as a Kroot leaped at him.

Calmly, as though he had come across this situation many times before, Brother Calremus took aim and, just at the Kroot was about to reach him, fired. The krak missile took the Kroot in the stomach, but had not armed yet, so the Kroot was taken on a trip into the trees until the missile hit a trunk, whereupon the Kroot was turned into paste by the explosion. Brother Drakhaus, channelling his psychic power through his force staff, brought it down on the head of the Kroot in front of him. The power exploded out of the staff, and suddenly the Kroot ceased to exist.

That brought the combat to an end, and the Kill-Team took stock, healed some of their injuries, via the apothecary, Brother Elyes, and then took out the lanterns and located the delirium trellis again. Not being able to understand some of the language being seen on the screens of this now active trellis, they record the stream of data using their data-slate for later investigation by the ordos xenos. Brother Drakhaus then utilises his smite powers again, sending the lightning into the trellis, which shuts it down after the same pause they found in the first trellis.

The Kill-Team then makes their way back to their land speeder, reloads their weapons, applies repair cement to some of the more battered parts of their power armour, and then sets off towards the third and final objective, located in the western mountains. Unbeknownst to the Kill-Team, however, the Tau had become aware of their whereabouts and some elite stealth suits had set an ambush around halfway towards the Kill-Team’s destination. The Kill-Team were taken completely by surprise as their land speeder was hit by concentrated burst cannon fire, flipped and sent them all flying.

Brother Curro was the only one to land on his feet, expertly twisting his hulking body to avoid the fate of his Battle Brothers, who had landed face first into the ground. The Kill-Team, their in-built suit augers blinded by an unknown jamming signal, were still aware enough to notice a slight flickering in the woods to the side of their route through the forests.
 
With Brothers’ Curro and Calremus calling out co-ordinates, Brother Drakhaus pushed himself up from the floor and moved into the cover of the large trees around the glade, moving steadily towards the Tau that the Kill-Team had located. Brother Haakon stayed prone on the floor, drew his bolter and fired off a 4 round burst towards the Tau’s location… but with no real sense of location the shots went wild. Brother Curro decided that if the stealth suits wanted to stay at range, then he would close as fast as he could to give them the emperors justice.

Firing his jump pack, Brother Curro more than halved the distance between himself and the stealth suits, moving almost unbelievably fast. the Tau, equally spaced around the glade to provide the largest field of fire, opened up on the Kill-Team, their burst cannons chattering out an impressive volume of fire. Brother Calremus took a large quantity of their opening burst, and was wounded in a few places, but his enhanced biology kept him standing where other, lesser men, would have fallen.

Seeing this, Brother Drakhaus was glad he had kept to cover, as the shots that were fired at him chewed up the tree, with the couple of shots that penetrated through, bouncing off his armour. Brother Calremus unveiled his missile launcher, loaded with krak missiles, and took aim at one of the stealth suits, as the missile flew. The missile hit the stealth suit hard, blasting it off its feet, not killing the tough machine and pilot but damaging the stealth field, and inflicting a grievous wound.

Seeing this, Brother Elyes took aim and fired a few rounds at the, now unveiled, stealth suit, puncturing the suit in many places and exploding the body of the stealth suits pilot, ending the threat from that direction. Firing his jetpack again, Brother Curro sailed into the sky and landed right next to one of the stealth suits, and though Brother Curro could not see the Tau’s face, he thought that a look of surprise and horror would not go amiss. Brother Haakon fired another four round burst, but with the stealth fields, again missed and just chewed up the scenery.

Knowing that the Kill-Team had their locations, the stealth team moved through the scenery, making the Kill-Team lose sight of them, and putting them back on the defensive… all except the stealth suit in close combat with Brother Curro. Brother Calremus unloaded the krak missiles from his launcher, and reloaded it with frag missiles, figuring that the wider blast radius would allow him a better chance to hit the stealth suits.
 
Brothers’ Drakhaus and Elyes scanned the trees, looking for signs of the stealth suits, trying to work out their location… a snap shot from Brother Elyes, who had seem something at the corner of his vision, connected with a stealth suit as it moved, but they could not see anything. Brother Curro, on the other hand, could see the shimmering up close and personal as he lined up his attack, chainsword whirring, the teeth ready to bite into xenos flesh… until he missed, and all it bit into was the ground.

After dodging, the stealth suit moved away from the heavily armoured space marine, and fired at Brother Curro who, by the emperor’s grace, went completely unscathed from the attack, and now knew where the stealth suit was again. Another 5 hyper velocity rounds from a burst cannon thudded into Brother Calremus, but his armour and natural resilience denied the xenos weaponry, and he came through the fire unscathed. Deciding to turn the tables on the xenos, Brother Calremus launched his frag missile in the direction of that stealth suit.

Brother Calremus was sure that he had hit the Tau, but was unsure of just how much damage he had done to it, so he kept his missile launcher aimed in that general direction. Concentrated fire from Brothers Drakhaus, Elyes and Haakon finally brought down one of the stealth suits, the suit punctured in many places, the Tau pilots life slowly draining away, as it became visible, they each put another bolt round deep into the suit, setting off a chain reaction of explosions.

Brother Curro finally realised where his target was, 24 metres away to the left, and with the war-cry of the storm wardens bellowing from his lungs, he charged. Slicing down with a vicious strike, he felt resistance as his chainsword tore through whatever was underneath the stealth field. Brother Curro felt sure that he had inflicted a grievous wound on the Tau. Brother Calremus missed with another missile strike, but he was able to work out the location of the remaining stealth suits, which he voxed to his Kill-Team.

This allowed Brother Elyes to pump a few bolt rounds into one of the locations, hearing the satisfying sound of explosions, but being disappointed not to destroy the xenos completely. Brother Calremus took the brunt of the remaining fire from the stealth suits, with them trying to eliminate his hated missile launcher. One burst cannon shell broke through his front armour, another his right shoulder and finally, smack bang in the forehead. Brother Calremus was hurt badly, but he was still active, and he was going to make those xenos pay.
 
This harm to one of their Battle Brothers, roused the rest of the Kill-Team to a killing fury, added to their frustration at fighting such tricky foes, meant they were not about to let this chance get away from them. Concentrated fire from Brothers’ Haakon, Elyes and Drakhaus cut down one of the stealth suits, and Brother Curro hacked into his invisible foe with abandon, slicing through the cockpit and killing the pilot inside. With that show of force, the last remaining stealth suit decided to make an exit, blending into the foliage and going off to report his failure.

Having only just arrived at Watch Fortress Erioch in the past week, the newest Kill-Team of the Deathwatch was still trying to find its place in the current hierarchy, they had not been allocated to any particular watch captain, and so they were allowed the time to become more acquainted with the location, until they were called upon.

Brother Calremus spent most of his time training, running elaborate simulations that always ended with a massive slaughter of orcs. As a crimson fist, Brother Calremus hated the greenskin race as only one of their number can, and he hoped that he would run into some of the vile xenos during his long watch.

Brother Drakhaus, when not spending time training with his fellow crimson fist, Brother Calremus, spent most of his time studying the mysteries of the warp and the mysteries of his own gift. During that week, he struck up an accord with epistolary axineton, who was impressed by the dedication shown by such a new recruit to the Deathwatch.

Brother Elyes, on the other hand, spent most of his time studying the information he had been gifted regarding the gene-seeds of the Battle Brothers in his Kill-Team. This truly made him feel honoured, and he knew that, as a dark angel, he was best placed to keep those secrets that must be kept. He spent the rest of his time contemplating his place in his chapter, and what it meant for him to be in the Deathwatch.

Brother Haakon spent most of his time praying for the guidance of his primarch, leman russ. He knew that this watch would be a trying one, not only was he a natural leader of the astartes, but he had to lead a dark angel, and one who knew the secrets of his gene-seed. He put these thoughts behind him and focussed on his training, losing himself in the complex tactics that he was devising

Brother Curro was impressed by some of the training facilities and by some of his fellow Battle Brothers at the Watch Fortress. Whilst he did not lose any of the duels he called, he was tested on numerous occasions. When he was not duelling, he could be found walking around the corridors of the Watch Fortress, unwilling or unable to stay in one place for long.

A chapter serf appears before each of the Battle Brothers and informs them that their presence is requested in the surveillance theatre. Brother Curro finishes off his training routine with a slice of his chainsword that decapitates the servitor, before turning to face the serf, staring at him long enough for the serf to start to feel uncomfortable, before nodding and following.

They are met, on the way, by Brother hyzeron, a guardian of the chamber of vigilance, who greets the new arrivals and then goes on his way. As they enter the surveillance theatre, for the first time, they are struck by the cavernous size of it, the hundreds of monitoring stations on each wall, but their gaze goes to the relatively diminutive woman who stands up to greet them, formally welcoming them to the Deathwatch.

A few servitors fly down with hastily printed reports, which the inquisitor looks at quickly and then dismisses them and places them on the top of what is a very large “to-do” pile. Also present is watch commander mordigael, whose attention seems to be elsewhere, but who is also watching his newest Kill-Team quite closely. He nods a greeting to each Battle Brother, before turning his attention back to one of the monitors.

Inquisitor Quist stands, looking very haggard and weary, causing a comment of “humans” from Brother Curro which is ignored by the inquisitor, as apologises for taking over almost the entire surveillance theatre as she realises this is not good form. The Kill-Team are eager to know what has brought them here though, so Brother Drakhaus waves it off in a semi-familiar fashion.

Inquisitor Quist then fills the Kill-Team in on the situation, with the “dark daggers” falling from the sky, the fact that the imperial guard sent her one in a box, but nothing was in it when it arrived, and the more pertinent fact that the omega vault opened when this report was fed into the fortresses cogitator. She then shows them some of the data that they have correlated with this report.

She then shows them a pict of the pitched Battle between the imperial guard and the vespids, which shows the impossible shadow that should not be, on the ground, after looking from a wider viewpoint. Brother Elyes makes the observation that whatever it is, it is not acting on either side of the conflict, because the shadow is not just covering one side, it is covering the entire glade.
 
When inquisitor Quist shows them the archeotech laterns of clear imperial craftsmanship, the underlying thought around the group is “lanterns… what?” they manage to keep the meeting professional however, and inquisitor Quist asks for their aid, by the sacred agreement between the Deathwatch and the ordo xenos.

Brother Calremus, typical of a devastator, questions inquisitor Quist about the likelihood of running into Tau armour… only to be told that baraban is not a world that either side is really making a push for, and as such it tends to just be mostly infantry, axillaries and reserves who can be spared from more important conflicts, just to make sure that either side does not get the upper hand. This makes the presence of command units even more unusual.

After several questions regarding the nature of baraban, including whether there are old ruins on the surface (no), and whether there is any information on baraban from the time when this area was the Jericho sector (also, no), Brother Calremus asks about the landing zone, and he is informed that they will be making a stop at imperial outpost epsilon 420.

Brother Curro hypothesises that this mission is “your typical locate and destroy,” only to be told by inquisitor Quist that, actually, this mission is more of an investigation, and that they are leaving it up to the Kill-Team to find out what is going on, and then make their own decisions based on the available information. Brother Curro gets a thoughtful look at this, and then comments “well, as long as my chainsword gets to drink the blood of the xenos, it has already been far too long.”

After learning about how they would be getting to baraban, the Battle Brothers are left alone for their oath taking, and then escorted to the armoury for their pre-mission arming. After a muted discussion, it was determined that the leader for this mission was to be the librarian, Brother Drakhaus… with each member of the Kill-Team thinking that if there were ghosts, then a librarian was just what the mission needed.

The Kill-Team was also very happy to learn that they were to be gifted a land speeder storm for this mission, although they then realised that none of them could pilot it, meaning the land speeder launcher had to be scrapped to allow all 5 of them to fit into the vehicle with the pilot who had been seconded to their team.
 
Other than their usual armaments, some of the picks from the Kill-Team was anti-plant grenades, a missile launcher with various missiles, many stummers by Brother Elyes (whose armour really hates being quiet!) and various clips of special ammunition. Brother Drakhaus also requisitioned the a chain blade for his bolter, because, although he would use his force staff in combat, you just never know what is going to happen!

The Kill-Team boards the spear of fury after their solemn oath taking and arming ceremony. They are greeted, warmly, by captain Jaresh, who originally hails from the black Templars chapter. His warmth, however, dries up quickly when it comes to Brother Drakhaus, and the tension between the two marines is noticeable to all on the bridge. However, captain Jaresh is too professional to let this cloud his judgement.

The Kill-Team are informed that the warp translation to baraban will take approximately two weeks, but that the warp lanes at this time are very stable, so the crew do not expect any problems on their travels. The Kill-Team get into a routine of praying, training and dining with each other, and they meet a very young (for the Deathwatch) Battle Brother called Dane.

They learn that Dane followed captain Jaresh into the Deathwatch, and that he looks up to the captain in awe. During the two weeks, however, he does tell them a story regarding baraban, and each Battle Brother from the Kill-Team comes away with a key piece of advice… do not always believe what your eyes are telling you on baraban… there is something wrong with the soul of the planet that can cause even astartes to succumb.

After an, as promised, uneventful two weeks, the Kill-Team boards the thunderhawk gunship that is to take them to the surface of baraban. They learn, to their general amusement, that Brother Dane will be the pilot. They strap themselves in, make sure the land speeder (and pilot) are securely fastened, give their oath to the emperor one last time and then sit and wait, viewing the holopict information of the terrain outside.

Brother Dane informs the Kill-Team that he will only be providing transport for this mission, as it is imperative that he returns to the spear of fury so that it can take up an orbit around the moons, to avoid detection by the Tau warships in the sector.
 
After a short trip, the Kill-Teams’ power armours’ shock absorbers are tested as Brother Dane brings the quick descent to a screaming halt, answering their queries with the proclamation “the outpost, it’s under attack!” with his ship under the Kill-Teams command (to a point), Dane waits for their decision. With a quickness of thought that he was chosen for, Brother Drakhaus orders the thunderhawk to drop as low as it can… the Kill-Team are going to exit the flying gunship in the land speeder!

This gamble proves to be worth taking, as although the land speeder struggles to get the anti-grav aspects working, it does just before the land speeder was due to crash into the ground. For the second time, the shock absorbers in their power armour are given a workout, but the daring move does allow the Kill-Team to close to within 80 meters of the horde of Kroot assaulting their designated landing zone.

Battle Brother Elyes was the first to react, leaning out the side of the land speeder to send a holy rain of bolter fire into the Kroot horde. The mass reactive shells explode into the bodies of the Kroot, sending them spiralling backwards into their Brothers, their broken bodies limp as they landed on the floor. Brother Drakhaus leaped over Brother Elyes to take up the land speeders’ heavy bolter.

He laid down a serious volume of fire, cutting a few of the guardsmen in half as well, but reaping a large toll of Kroot as well. The Kroot, who had been focused completely on overrunning the outpost, suddenly became aware that the tides of Battle had turned, and turned their attention towards the space marines, who they knew were the greater danger. They raised their Kroot rifles and fired.

Most of the shots went wide, but a few pattered against the armour of Brother Curro, who had moved to the front of the land speeder and was firing his jetpack in anticipation of the carnage to come. He was just about to launch into the air when a large volume of fire impacted against his armour. Ancient and powerful though it was, it could not stand up to that volume, and Brother Curro was injured and his suit was breached.

So shocked was Brother Curro, that he could only fire back a couple of shells from his bolt pistol, which nevertheless blew a few Kroot back into the arms of the earth. Meanwhile, Brother Calremus had been aiming his missle launcher at the heart of the Kroot horde, a blessed incendiary missile ready to fire… he breathed in to steady his aim, and let fire.
 
The missile flew true, right into the heart of the horde. However, the blessing performed on that particular missile must have been faulty, because although the blast was great, all the Kroot picked themselves up and carried on fighting. A few did catch on fire as a result of the missile, but so did a few guardsmen as well, their screams mingling in with the squawks of the Kroot.

Seeing that Brother Curro was going to make the reckless charge in spite of (or, more likely, because of) the wound he suffered, Brother Elyes came to his aid, using the medical pouch and his own inherent knowledge to patch up Brother Curro, quickly bringing the Brother back to full fighting strength, ready to cause the xenos ten times the pain they had caused him.

The pilot, on the urging of Brother Drakhaus brought the Kill-Team even closer to the fighting, being, at the most, only 20 meters away from the fierce fighting still raging at the outpost. Brother Drakhaus brought the power of the warp to bare, summoning a fiery creature in the form of his primarch and sending it straight into the Kroot horde, many of whom died from the great heat that emanated from the beast. A few guardsmen were also caught in the blast.

Brother Curro, his hatred of the filthy xenos who dared to wound him blazing through his veins, launched himself up into the air and then, descending like a wrathful angel from on high, dove directly into the remaining horde of Kroot. Brother Curro’s chainsword wrought a horrible swathe of destruction, and the force of the impact also claimed the lives of many a Kroot, as well as a few guardsmen unlucky enough to be close to the landing site.

The Kroot, assailed as they were by a flaming avatar of destruction, high reactive exploding shells and now an avatar of death who had plunged out of the very sky to destroy them, lost their nerve and with squawks of fear, ran for the trees. Some of them made it, the rest were killed by the guardsmen left standing, or by the fires that still burned some of their flesh. The guardsmen let out a cheer at the site of the Kroot routing.

The Kill-Team could be satisfied that their actions had stopped the death of many guardsmen, their quick thinking and merciless tactics had turned the course of the Battle, turning a massacre of the imperial guard into a massacre of the Kroot instead. Those guardsmen remaining would thank the emperor for the rest of their lives for the intervention of their holy angels of death.
 
The rest of the Kill-Team then brought the land speeder to a halt, exiting the vehicle and looking around at the carnage. The guardsmen left alive were staring in awe at the living avatars of the emperor who had saved them, and there was a lot of awestruck muttering going around the humans. Brother Elyes, aware of the pain that some of the guardsmen were in, started walking around the outpost, offering his services.

This, in some cases, had the opposite effect, as the records of that day show that there were 15 cases of fainting, all caused by the guardsmen in question literally losing the ability to maintain consciousness when a massive 8 foot tall astartes in power armour came up to them, and offered to tend to their wounds. However, his aid was still greatly appreciated, and those who were treated by the astartes of the dark angels chapter never again had to buy their own drinks, as they had that story to tell.

The rest of the Kill-Team was still taking stock of the situation when they were approached by a lieutenant of the imperial guard… and a quick glance around showed that he appeared to be the highest ranking officer around. He nervously greeted the Kill-Team, awed by their very presence, and knowing that he and his men owed them their very lives. He was quick to offer them aid in whatever had brought them to this blighted world.

After retiring to the old colonels bunker, the lieutenant began to answer the questions the astartes put to him. He told them about the dark daggers falling from the sky in the glade nearby, how they were ambushed by the Kroot whilst on a routine patrol… all the while making sure to tell them that he had definitely put the right forms in to get another colonel out to the guard post, because he did not want them seeing him as a usurper, fearing what they would do if that was the case.

The Kill-Team learns that the colonel is mia at the moment, but more importantly, they learn that the glade is only a couple of kilometres to the north east of the outpost. They also ask questions about what the colonel had seen, what his thoughts were of what he had seen, and other interesting but meaningless information. They also learned that all of the “dark daggers” that the guard had collected had vanished into thin air within a few hours of their collection.
 
After a few more minutes of talk, the Kill-Team gathered back to the land speeder and, with the grateful waves of the lieutenant and his men behind them, set off towards the glade. Even with the directions, it took them a good couple of hours to find the glade, as the land speeder had to make many course adjustments to avoid the large trees and other dense foliage that made their home on baraban. They finally arrived at their destination, and immediately noticed the criss-cross pattern being shed across the clearing.

The marines immediately set about creating a perimeter around the glade, with overlapping fields of fire and designated kill zones. They leave Brother Haakon in charge of this process whilst the rest of them move around the glade, trying to figure out how to reveal whatever is throwing this shadow. Brother Drakhaus, being a librarian, gets a sinister sense of unease and warp spawned madness from this general location.

He tunes his senses to this feeling which enables him to follow the shadow strands, with his eyes, down to a part of the glade (near the edge), where there is no shadow being cast. Brother Drakhaus posits that this is because whatever device is causing the shadow is located there. Meanwhile, Brother Calremus is taking a typical devastator marine view towards the problem, shooting a frag missile directly up in the air, in the middle of the glade. Unsurprisingly, it does not hit anything, but the explosion can be seen from kilometres away.

It finally falls to Battle Brother Curro, getting restless and annoyed at the lack of progress, to suggest that they use the archeotech lamps that the omega vault spat out. This enables the Battle Brothers to get their first look at the delirium trellis, which Brother Drakhaus, filtering his mind to get the knowledge they need, recognises from some of the more obscure tombs he had been perusing before the mission.

The lanterns reveal both the trellis and the control desk, from which the trellis appears to grow from. It is of obvious alien manufacture, and uses a metallic glass to construct the trellis that none of the marines have ever seen, or heard about, before. They begin to see patterns in the trellis, unique to each of them, but their superhuman willpower allows them to shrug it off, for now. They also realise that these must have been here for a long time, but that there were no “ghost” reporting’s until after the fighting started.
 
After a long discussion about the correct route to take, this included, among others, ideas such as:
• Finding a Tau hammerhead tank and using that to destroy the trellis
• Taking a piece of the trellis from the ground and using that to destroy the trellis (somehow)
• More and more explosions, because there has to be a max load of explosives that would destroy anything
All of these were ignored due to not being practical, based on what they had with then. Then, Brother Drakhaus had an idea. He would call upon the blessing of the emperor and jolt the trellis with his holy lightning, whilst the lamps were keeping the trellises firmly in phase with this reality.

The rest of the Kill-Team readily agreed with this plan, and Brother Calremus stayed close to his chapter Brother whilst he prepared his mind for the stress to come. Readying himself, Brother Drakhaus called upon his innate powers, manifested them into lightning inside his body, and then expelled the warp lightning from his body and into the control unit of the delirium trellis. The control unit seemed to absorb the lightning into it, and nothing appeared to happen for a couple of minutes.

Then, however, the lightning that the control unit had absorbed proved too much for the xenos device, and spirals of lightning began running along the entire delirium trellis, sparking from point to point, and slowly but surely, bringing the delirium trellis back into phase with their current reality. After looking around at the pure vastness of the trellis, they are about to start cutting themselves out of the trellis dome, when they hear a beeping coming from the control unit.

After making sure it is not about to explode, the Kill-Team approaches. Brother Drakhaus, after making some internal calculations, realises that the display screen, from which the beeping is coming from, is showing a representation of the entire planet of baraban. Brother Curro is quick to point out that the flashing lights, of which there are three, appear to be locations on the planet, and the Kill-Team suspects, rightly, that this is where other active delirium trellises are located.
 
After figuring out the vast distances that are between these trellises, the Kill-Team decides that these devices are too powerful to leave in the hands of the Tau, and that even though their primary objective had been completed, that they were going to stop the filthy xenos even having the chance to study these delirium trellises. They finished chopping the control unit from the trellis webbing, load it into the back of the land speeder storm, and then start towards their next trellis… for the emperor!