Aboard the Eternal Crusader, home of the Black Templars, it is New Year's Day, and the Great Feast Hall is full. Full, but there is little merriment. As is traditional, First Feast is a chance to intone the names of those lost, record the victories won, and assess the risks ahead. In 995 that latter includes assessments of intel from sympathisers within the Officio Monitarium Mechanicus. The Officio have seeded the imperium with observation devices, overt and covert, and their wealth of evidence contains some alarming possibilities. A mysterious energy pulse of unknown origin has been detected in the distant, eastern Sub-Sector of Nor, and at the same time here has been a marked increase in small scale encounters with Tyranid splinters, remains of the defeated Kraken Hive Fleet. Whilst the first is marked for investigation, the second must be acted upon. At the feast, The Shield Crusade is declared, Castellan Ara Xerxes is raised to Marshal, and with 150 of his iron brothers, boards the afterlife class assault cruiser Purgatory. He and his men are launched into the warp, their task to defend the vulnerable worlds of Nor - there is little other help that the Imperium can send.
The Nor Sub-Sector and neighbouring Eastern Scatter are accessible only via Garland's Landing - a 'pinch point' in the warp. Arriving at the orbital moorings, Purgatory serves as a temporary operations base, whilst the Research Clerics attached to The Shield Crusade gather intelligence material:
Battle Report
Encounter on Object AA-572
Date of report: 775994.M41
At 456994.M41 The Scott
Guild prospecting vessel Lucky Strike landed
on a barren planetoid beyond the Eastern Fringe coded AA-572. Having landed,
the vessel released a remote imaging drone, and deployed a five-man surface
investigation team.
Having spent less than twenty minutes on the surface, the surface team, whilst near group of craters beyond a pair of crude monoliths, spotted distant movement. A group of ‘lizard-like’ creatures made a rapid approach, reportedly ‘spitting’ worm like 'projectiles' at the surface team that caused a casualty. The team took up a defencive position, and focused las-fire on the approaching creatures. This temporarily checked the approach of the ‘lizards’, but the surface team were all lost. They bought enough time for the Lucky Strike to take off, and the pilot, Albie Schwatz, was the sole survivor.
He arrived back on Scott – the principal mining centre of the Nor Sub-Sector – about six months later. Intelligence assessments of his reports, and analysis of the images collected, suggest that a splinter of the tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken is active in this system.
Assessmentatus Stratigica:
This report has been logged with the Office of the Inquisition, as required of all reports of Tyranid activity. However, it is noted that this report covers an encounter beyond the bounds of the Imperium, is in an area of known tyranid activity, and the encounter was small scale. It has been circulated to all nearby Imperial Forces for possible investigation, but is rated as a low priority.
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