The Liber Cluster

[Conn Eremon]

Name generators are your friend, Ace. Here's a handy Scarlet Sentinel one.

[Nomus Sardauk]

Name generators are your friend, Ace. Here's a handy Scarlet Sentinel one.

Don't make me hurt you Conn.

 

@ Ace Debonair: How about... Veteran-Sergeant Mercer Grey?

[Ace Debonair]

Name generators are your friend, Ace.

Ooooh, nice.

Here's a handy Scarlet Sentinel one.

That, however, is producing some rather family-unfriendly results, quite aside from the low quality of joke names it has.

 

So yeah, I'mma skip that one.

 

@ Ace Debonair: How about... Veteran-Sergeant Mercer Grey?

It's good, but how about something Welsh?

Pretty sure the Sentinels have a Welsh-themed world to recruit from, right?

 

 

So, after playing with that name generator, that gives me:

 

Captain Temel Leudoberct of the Black Falcons

Chaplain Cyprianus Abbatelli of the Angels Exultant

Captain Makhmud Sigurdsson of the Iron Ravagers

Veteran Sergeant Douglas Llywelyn of the Scarlet Sentinels

Chaplain Corentin Judikael of the Blades of the Lion

 

And that'll do for now, so on with the write-up!

[Conn Eremon]

Oh whoops, thought it was just a "Benedict Cumberbatch" style spoof generator, didn't fully test it out though.

[Ace Debonair]

Oh whoops, thought it was just a "Benedict Cumberbatch" style spoof generator, didn't fully test it out though.

It's all good, that first name generator is solid gold.

[Conn Eremon]

I've gone through many (serious) name generators and the like, but Behind the Name has always been my absolute favorite and one I regularly stick to.

 

It's a link worth holding onto, alongside the Wiktionary.

 

Very few names, placenames or words have I made or used that did not come from a dive into both those sites.

[Reyner]

Chaplain Thoros of the Blades of the Lion? ;) Overcharges his crozius in blazing red energy! I need to build me some Blades soon.

[Nomus Sardauk]

@Conn Eremon: Remind me, what are these names for again? I swear I have the memory of a sixty year old... -.-

[Reyner]

The names are for Ace Sanguinius:

Alright, I've run out of names again.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for the names of the following:

 

The Black Falcons Captain of the 6th Company

The Angels Exultant Chaplain of the 2nd Company

The Iron Ravagers Captain of the 1st Company

A Scarlet Sentinels Veteran Sergeant of the 1st Company

A Blades of the Lion Chaplain (I haven't picked a specific company for these guys yet, oddly)

[Nomus Sardauk]

The names are for Ace Sanguinius:

Alright, I've run out of names again.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for the names of the following:

 

The Black Falcons Captain of the 6th Company

The Angels Exultant Chaplain of the 2nd Company

The Iron Ravagers Captain of the 1st Company

A Scarlet Sentinels Veteran Sergeant of the 1st Company

A Blades of the Lion Chaplain (I haven't picked a specific company for these guys yet, oddly)

 

 

...I'm not having a good day.

[Doctor Perils]

Sanguinius, have you ever considered making a sort of East/West India Company type thing along with the Scarlet Sentinels?

[Nomus Sardauk]

I did once but couldn't think of how to implement in a way that would be in-character for the Sentinels.

[Olis]

Sanguinius, have you ever considered making a sort of East/West India Company type thing along with the Scarlet Sentinels?

 

I believe you're thinking of the East India Company. There's been four different West India Companies belonging to four different countries, none of them British. Not to be pernickety or anything... ^_^

 

I did once but couldn't think of how to implement in a way that would be in-character for the Sentinels.

 

Maybe you could have a detached company travel to the Greater Imperium and pursue operations there, effectively being an autonomous entity with its own trial and tribulations while the rest of the Chapter operates normally. You could even have the company 'lost' while on expedition and replaced amongst the Chapter, only to have the survivors return decades later, all ragged and jaded, and find their seats already taken by younger astartes.  

[Conn Eremon]

One could also create an East India-inspired, Cluster-based company separate from the Scarlet Sentinels.

 

In fact, that would make a great Rogue Trader dynasty. Perhaps these families were utilized in much the same way as they were in the Great Crusade, effectively long-range scouts, conquistadores.

 

Say one particular fleet found a resource-rich substratum of systems at the far end of the Cluster, and utilized their Warrant and right of conquest to build a mercantile empire upon this collective.

 

Say there were already people there, perhaps once Imperial and perhaps willingly and voluntarily Imperial again. But the burgeoning Cluster administration is still so very distant, and the Warrant carries great weight. And so it was not difficult at all for the patriarch to be granted lordship over this Subsector Sindhi, a title and role passed down from heir to heir for generations.

 

And perhaps this Rogue Trader family is on good terms with the Scarlet Sentinels.

[Doctor Perils]

One could also create an East India-inspired, Cluster-based company separate from the Scarlet Sentinels.

 

In fact, that would make a great Rogue Trader dynasty. Perhaps these families were utilized in much the same way as they were in the Great Crusade, effectively long-range scouts, conquistadores.

 

Say one particular fleet found a resource-rich substratum of systems at the far end of the Cluster, and utilized their Warrant and right of conquest to build a mercantile empire upon this collective.

 

Say there were already people there, perhaps once Imperial and perhaps willingly and voluntarily Imperial again. But the burgeoning Cluster administration is still so very distant, and the Warrant carries great weight. And so it was not difficult at all for the patriarch to be granted lordship over this Subsector Sindhi, a title and role passed down from heir to heir for generations.

 

And perhaps this Rogue Trader family is on good terms with the Scarlet Sentinels.

Aiaiaiaiaie... That's what you get for playing Europa Universalis IV... More ideas then you can shake a stick at...

 

What about saving this idea for thread 2.0?

[Teetengee]

Dang, Conn beat me to it.

[Ace Debonair]

Quick Status Report in case anyone's wondering what the holdup is:

I'm still working on the Lion's Den battle, which is proving to get more and more complex with every passing hour.

 

I'm up to 4,721 words, and currently I'm only halfway through writing the Final Showdown.

My original plan of 2,000 words or less was perhaps a little bit hopeful - at this point I think I could only manage that with a very dry, very soulless summary.

 

And again, sorry this is taking me so long.

[Nomus Sardauk]

No worries Ace, after all

 

*Cue Vietnam flashbacks to writing the Barluarte Raid for so, so long...*

[Olis]

And again, sorry this is taking me so long.

 

Don't fret. It's fine. No-one's given you a deadline (for once :P ). And one final, climactic fight is bound to use a lot of words. Just make sure it doesn't stretch to 20,000. It'll take forever to read it. :P

[Ace Debonair]

 

And again, sorry this is taking me so long.

 

Don't fret. It's fine. No-one's given you a deadline (for once ).

 

 

There's no deadline?

I sure wish I'd realised that last night, I would have gone to bed much earlier.

 

Well, in that case, I might even have time to adjust some of the writing once I'm done. I've used the terms 'brutal melee' and 'withering hails of fire' about six times each so far.

 

And one final, climactic fight is bound to use a lot of words. Just make sure it doesn't stretch to 20,000. It'll take forever to read it.

 

I'd like to say 'don't worry, it won't reach 6,000', but I'm not in the habit of making promises I can't keep.

 

 

EDIT:

 

5,790 words and counting - there's now only the last two steps of the battle and a brief (comparatively) section on the aftermath thereof to go.

[Cryptix]

Guys, I just got an idea.

 

A Spanish Imperial Fist chapter with the First Company made of superfluous Dreadnoughts and prideful Chaplains in Terminator Armor, has 6 battle companies, refuses to use devestators (they're too far from the fight to receive true honor!) and makes other chapters look bad so they look good.

 

Their name? El Custos de El Caesar!

[Nomus Sardauk]

Sorry Cryptix, we're not accepting new Chapters at the moment. Although that does seen like a potentially interesting concept.

[Ace Debonair]

Right then.

Sorry this took so long.

And also a word of warning; this post is HUGE. Almost 7,000 words, in fact, because I had so many Sereiki Leaders to deal with in one battle.

Next time someone comes up with a bunch of badass enemy characters for us to kill off, we really need to not leave them all alive till the very end.

I guarantee there's mistakes and flaws all over the place, not to mention endless repetition of phrases, and me totally missing the character of every Chapter involved, but that's where you all come in; C&C of this battle is very welcome.

Also, I detest writing spaceship battles.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Animals are at their most dangerous when cornered." - Ancient Terran Proverb

-=-=-= The Lion's Den =-=-=-

Pict-Capture LC-AMR#667-909AHK: Al-Rashid Ibn Khroda, the Ashen Warlord

With the Eighteen Worlds Crusade now technically over after the Declaration of Conquest, the disparate Imperial forces consolidated their gains. Though every inch was paid for dearly in blood, the eventual Imperial victory was inevitable and the Sereiki Lions were forced to relinquish their grasp on the worlds of the Liber Cluster.

However, the threat posed by the Sereiki Lions was very real. Al-Rashid Ibn Khroda, the wily, dangerous leader of these renegades, had not been present on any of the eighteen worlds reconquered by the Imperium. Intelligence on Khroda, or the forces under his command was piecemeal, often contradictory, and mostly unreliable. What little could be verified and trusted all pointed to one undeniable truth - the Sereiki Lions were far from defeated.

In the wake of the Eighteen Worlds Crusade, Chapter Master Janus Aetius of the Lords Inviolate made the call to arms, rallying Chapter, Regiment and Battlefleet alike to one last battle: to conquer the region of space called 'The Lion's Den', a dense asteroid field drowned in clouds of radiation and littered with innumerable mines, sensors and other traps, through which only the servants of Khroda could navigate safely.

Twice previously, attempts to raid the Den had been made by the Imperial Navy, and twice they had failed. This time, Chapter Master Aetuis vowed, would be different. With eight Imperial Battlefleets, a full twenty-one Imperial Guard regiments, and representatives of every Chapter of Space Marines present in the Liber Cluster answering his call to battle, Chapter Master Aetius outlined his plans and began to move his forces against the Sereiki Lions.

But to say the Sereiki Lions were not prepared for such an attack is not only untrue, it does great disservice to illuminating how much of a threat these renegades posed to the Liber Cluster, even on the precipice of extermination. Before the assembled loyalist fleet could even reach the Den reports of Sereiki forces, Ash Wolf and Coyote units, striking at unprotected cities on the Eighteen Worlds flooded in.

Thinking quickly, Aetius dispatched the Black Judges, Conflagrators and Eagles of Glory from the Imperial staging point at Moc to put down the reckless insurgents scattered across the worlds, with two regiments and a Battlefleet accompanying them to enact a more permanent vigil over the disputed territories. Of the affected worlds, Molmaga, Gauntfell and Shenac were identified as the primary targets and were likewise labelled as the objectives for the forces sent to secure them. Several other worlds were afflicted with 'Lone Wolf' units, although these cases were resolved either without the aid of the Crusade force or much, much later after the principal fighting was concluded.

This left nineteen regiments, seven Battlefleets, and eleven Chapters with which to strike at the Lion's Den.

The opening stages of the battle were largely anti-climactic. Knowing the Lions would have laid traps for them, Crusade elements simply surrounded the Den and began firing upon it, blasting asteroids into tiny splinters and slowly eroding the cover of Khroda's forces. Sheer massed firepower displayed to the Lion's a staggering level of commitment - waves of nuclear torpedoes, bright sheets of lance battery fire and other cataclysmic weapons of mass destruction competed to inflict the most damage to the asteroid field.

With the boundaries of the Den slowly collapsing around them, the Sereiki Lions were finally forced to abandon their shelter, and instigated a vicious counter attack. Intelligence had suggested the Lions possessed a number of spacecraft, but the truth of the matter was that they had stolen, built, or captured enough ships to almost match the numbers now arrayed against them.

Swarming out from underneath the Lions' Den renegade ships, fast and heavily armed, let fly return volleys that completely destroyed the engines of the Battleship Wrath of Terra, and badly damaged the Black Falcons' Strike Cruiser Scythia's Glory. However, quantity did not always reflect quality, and as the Lions' first wave began taking fire from the Imperial vessels, their relatively lacklustre armour saw them take numerous losses.

The ships on the rimward side of the Den moved quickly, following the Lions under the asteroids and allowing the Imperials to catch several of the Lions' vessels in a cross-fire, turning the tide in favour of the Imperial forces. Of those that turned to fight the pursuing Navy ships, many were subsequently destroyed as they fruitlessly maneuvered to engage a rearguard action. While some did succeed in waylaying the chasing group, none lasted long enough to disengage or flee.

However, the Lions still had one card in their hand to play.

An Ark Mechanicus.

The particular example that the Lions held was a vessel of truly unfathomable size and power, a singular ship the Liber Cluster had never seen the likes of, besides the rarified privileges of the Adeptus Mechanicus Explorators. Descending from the centre of the Den, clouds of masking radiation miles long cascading from its hull like reverse waterfalls, the Ark engaged the nearest Imperial vessels, scoring debilitating strikes with ease.

It was defended by a fleet of entirely different vessels - most certainly well-constructed, but following no identifiable STC pattern. Clad in layered heavy armour, yet maneuvering with frightening agility, these ships were decorated with unknown symbols and bristled with heretek weaponry. They fired weapons of unidentifiable design with devastating effect, scything through the armour of nearby Imperial cruisers still turning to face the new threat with beams of blue, black and ultraviolet.

Furthermore, two of the escorting ships were clearly emulations of Strike Cruisers, though they bore along the length of their hulls menacing guns of unhallowed and alien design alike. Fully half of Battlefleet Prelius was destroyed by the Ark Mechanicus and its defenders before the rest of the Imperial forces could even adjust to it's presence. Alongside the heretek ships, stolen or commandeered Imperial capital vessels followed the Ark Mechanicus out of the Den, strengthening their line in the face of the Crusade.

It is often said that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and often with good reason. But Janus Aetius was a Lord Inviolate, and his grasp of grand strategy was without equal in the Cluster. Immediately, he adjusted his plans, barking orders across the fleet comms. If Al-Rashid Ibn Khroda still lived, then he was likely aboard the Ark Mechanicus. And if Khroda was where the Chapter Master believed him to be, then by the Emperor he would be wrenched from his seat of power and cast down. Aetius' oath was his bond.

The Den of the Lion

Following the final events of the Crusade, the asteroids and proto-planets that populated Khroda's old haunt became an astartes protectorate - specifically that of the Lords Inviolate.

Little more than a quarantined zone, the Den, as this area is still referred to even in modern times, is subject to a regular patrol. Each sweep, a show of strength from the Liber Cluster and it's Angels of Death, is mandated to clear out pirates, smugglers, xenos and any other living being that would ignore the beacon-wards.

What little remains of the climactic battle - abandoned hulks for the most part - lie in testament to the ferocity of the void battle.

The Imperial Forces moved on Aetius' order, firing up their engines and approaching the Ark Mechanicus.

The Lions did not make it easy, however. Their fleets formed blockades and continued to harry the Imperial forces. The heretek vessels fired a barrage of boarding pods filled with merciless, blood-crazed servitor-abominations who wrought absolute havoc aboard the Battlefleets and accompanying troop ships.

It was the Space Marines who would turn the tide - the Scarlet Sentinels and the Doomsayers, foremost specialists of void warfare, eager to prove their mastery once again. Launching boarding parties of their own even while scourging the enemy with lance fire, the Sentinels and Doomsayers were able to disable or destroy more than half the Heretek's vessels without any further support.

The Black Falcons, the All-Seers and the Heralds of Letum would counter the boarding parties launched by the hereteks, themselves boarding and helping secure the Navy's vessels against the malign will of the heretek hordes. Across the Crusade fleet, boarding actions were met with counter-boarding actions and the hordes of chrono-gladiators, murder-servitors and heretek arco-flagellants saw combat with post-human astartes for hours at a time, the decks slick with blood and oil. While the Space Marines were technically superior troops, the viciousness and single-minded nature of the assaulting forces with only truly stymied by the restrictive corridors of the ships they were on, reducing the advantage of numbers in favour of the defenders.

The Doomsayers continued to board enemy vessels, taking the fight to several of the Lions' support ships, with the majority of the Scarlet Sentinels' fleet accompanying them, firing devastating lance barrages. These two Chapters, more than any of the others, were responsible for destroying or seizing a good number of Lion-affiliated ships, the majority of which would end up replacing losses to the Battlefleets.

Now the Crusade fleet of the Liber Cluster moved strategically against the Sereiki Lions, it's ships closing like a steel maw on the Ark Mechanicus, weapons flaring as they fired volley after volley against the great vessel. With the Ark's firepower focused elsewhere, Chapter Master Aetius ordered any available Space Marines to charge and board the Ark. A weak spot pin-pointed by the Scarlet Sentinels to the fore of the Ark's hull allowed the Iron Ravagers' Battle Barge Iron Will to blast a hole in the void shields - and eventually the adamantium skin of the beast itself - with its bombardment cannons.

Many of the Astartes ships were damaged badly by the Ark - it possessed extremely formidable firepower. The Scarlet Sentinels, Doomsayers and Iron Ravagers therefore made the destruction of these weapons their priority, accompanied by the Lords Inviolate Strike Cruiser Sacred Duty. While these ships, supported by elements of the Imperial Navy, scoured the length of the Ark for weapon emplacements to destroy, Aetius began the boarding operation in earnest.

The First, Second and Third Companies of the Lords Inviolate were deployed by drop pod from their Battle Barge Bellum Perpetuum, fired through the hole breached in the Ark and slamming into the hangar deck below with terrifying force. The battle brothers vacated their pods and immediately began fighting off the waves of void-suited Sereiki troops that assailed them. Ash Wolves and Coyotes without number soon swarmed the Space Marines, supported by batteries of Dervish Stalk-Tank walkers and lightly-armoured troop transports, all bristling with guns. As the enemy ranks surged forward to engulf the Lords Inviolate, Janus Aetius and his Lords Inviolate held the line and awaited reinforcements.

Reinforcements, following swiftly on the heels of their cousins, came in the form of the Angels Exultant. Never ones to shirk a good fight, the Angels had blasted the hole in the Ark's hull even wider, allowing them to deploy the Second Battle Company by drop pod right in the middle of the Coyote infantry forces, with the Third and Fourth Companies following in Thunderhawks.

Three hundred of the wild sons of Sanguinius, roars of primal fury on their lips and red-hot rage in their hearts, tore into the ranks of the Lions' soldiers with uncontained hate. The effect was profound - the Ash Wolves and Coyotes in their path scattered, and rightly so, endlessly trying to avoid the entirely one-sided melee the Angels craved so deeply. But even aboard such a mighty vessel as an Ark Mechanicus, there was insufficient space for Khroda's men to flee the wrath of the Angels. For Each Angel that was struck down, hundreds of Coyotes were slain in furious melee.

One downside to such feral wrath was that the Angels were easily baited by the cunning insurgents. The Angels Exultant were drawn into impromptu killing fields and worn down by copious amounts of fire. The Lords Inviolate moved to reinforce their brothers, but found themselves confronted by ever more Ash Wolves, sporting grenade launchers, flamethrowers, and missile launchers, keeping up streams of constant heavy fire that even Power Armour could not shrug aside undamaged.

In the face of concentrated fire, the enemy began to push the Space Marines back. More than a hundred Astartes lay dead and still the Ash Wolves swarmed forward with their Coyote brethren, their ebb-and-flow tactics withering all attempts to stand and fight. These shifts in the battle, over the course of minutes, allayed the morale in the mortal elements in the Lion forces, which threatened to break every time the Angels Exultant pushed back against the human tide.

Furthermore, the Lions had deployed their air-forces, including a fleet of heavily experimental stealth-pattern VTOL aircraft armed with autocannons and incendiary rockets. These swooping aircraft targeted the newly arrived Lords Inviolate's tanks, seeking to immobilise or destroy them on the hangar decks so the Coyotes could swarm the damaged vehicles to battle the crews inside before they could strongly affect the battle.

Alongside these aircraft came the Kodiaks - dropping in from their Valkyries, these elite forces of the Lions were geared for close combat and, with adequate support and care, were capable of matching even Space Marines in melee, if only for a limited time. They avoided engaging the Angels Exultant, who were preoccupied with their Coyote and Ash Wolf compatriots, instead spearheading each fresh assault on the Lords Inviolate, their brute force and ferocity serving them well.

But the Lords Inviolate and Angels Exultant were not alone. And the Ark shook with the impact as the Chapters of the Liber Cluster deployed for war around their beleaguered kin.

On the right flank, the Heralds of Letum swept into the fray. Dropping in from their Thunderhawks and with the roar of their Caestus Assault Rams, Stormtalons and Stormeagles in the ears of those below as they sought to establish air superiority, launching volleys of fire and constantly repositioning, keeping the Ash Wolves on the defensive.

With them marched the Iron Ravagers First Company, under Captain Makhmud Sigurdsson. With terrifying precision and co-ordination, the Ravagers picked the enemy apart, unit by unit, their Terminator armour a stalwart bulwark against the advancing Lions. Kodiaks and Ash Wolves alike were swept aside in face of this implacable foe, even as the Tactical Squads supporting them continued acquiring and eliminating targets with their typical cold precision. Here and there, Dreadnoughts marched amongst the marines, taking the brunt of the enemy fire in their stride as they smashed and burned their way through all that opposed them.

On the left flank, Sereiki forces scattered wildly as the Blades of the Lion - proud scions of the First Legion - raced into the fray, their bikes lancing at unprotected enemy forces and their assault marines carving bloody paths through any resistance, seeking out threats like the Kodiaks, or leaders of the Ash Wolves or Coyotes. With characteristic skill, the bone-hued marines would ruthlessly cut down any foolhardy enough to challenge them in combat.

Amongst them, almost un-noticed by design, marched the warriors of the Black Falcons, their 6th Battle Company and forces from their Scout Company striking where and when they were least expected, countering the Ash Wolves' strike-and-fade tactics with their own decisive attacks and calculated feints, drawing them out of their defensive positions for the Blades to strike down. Shadowing forward elements, the Falcons acted as force multipliers, aiding and bolstering nearby units.

As the Space Marines began to carry the day on the flanks, the Lions redoubled their attempts to break the Lords Inviolate and Angels Exultant in the centre, concentrating their firepower on the battle-worn Marines. Under this withering hail of enemy fire, brothers fell. Some were not long in the service of the Emperor and yet to build a reputation of their own, while others had seen battle on dozens of worlds, against a myriad of foes. The centre of the beachhead began to falter, both Chapters readying themselves for a final countercharge.

It was then that the Sereiki Lions' comms were flooded with the sound of a thousand voices, raised in song to the Emperor. The Aetheric Swords, their vehicles broadcasting the Undying Choir and their Marines adding their voices to the endless hymn, deployed right into the heart of the battle, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Angels Exultant, their Librarians conjuring their psychic might and sowing panic amongst the renegade forces.

As though reinvigorated by the presence of their brothers-in-arms, or perhaps by the sound of the Undying Choir ringing out around them, the Angels Exultant fought all the harder, their usual berserker rage set aside in favour of a clinical, tactically-sound advance, scorning the obvious traps and decoys set by the increasingly desperate Coyotes and Ash Wolves in favour of their own swiftly executed ambushes and hails of bolter fire. The Aetheric Swords matched the fervour of their brothers in battle, supporting the Angels with rapidly advancing Rhinos loaded with tactical squads who would deploy, strike hard, then re-embark in their vehicles and seek out the next target.

And all over the central battlefield the Lords Inviolate, their once-pristine armour now flame-blackened, covered with blood, cracked in dozens of places and bearing the scars of battle, moved with their brothers. They were seemingly in the vanguard of every attack, at the forefront of every defence, their stoic, unflappable nature and mastery of the arts of war keeping them fighting even against the most fearsome foes the Sereiki Lions had to offer. When the Swift Fox demolition forces began setting and detonating explosives amidst the carnage, slowing the advance of the Space Marines, it was the Lords Inviolate who would be first to advance once more. When the Thug-class siege tanks began bombarding the Imperials from the farthest side of the hangar, it was the Lords Inviolate who took the gravest wounds, and it was the Lords Inviolate who continued to urge their brothers onward, through the storm of incoming fire.

Chapter Master Aetius, with his Honour Guard, found himself further supported by elite squads from the Doomsayers and Scarlet Sentinels' First Companies. With the ferocity, guile and long experience of veterans, these squads were unassailable bodyguards for Janus Aetius and his remaining Lords Inviolate, facing down Crowpath pattern tanks or platoons of Ash Wolf grenadiers alike.

When the Space Marines cleared enough space for the Imperial Regiments to begin boarding the Ark Mechanicus, victory for the loyalists seemed truly inevitable. However, for once the advantage of numbers was not with the Imperium. The Sereiki Lions had, during their occupation of the Eighteen Worlds, press-ganged or otherwise recruited a truly staggering number of soldiers, quite aside from the forces that Khroda had marshalled himself in the days before the Lions came to the Liber Cluster. The battle raged back and forth all across the innumerable hangars, manufactorums, forge-complexes, narrow corridors and habitation towers within the Ark. The Imperium managed to secure a large portion of the fore of the ship, but the battle would rage on for hours all across what little the Imperium had reclaimed of the ark.

And then, in the seventh hour of the battle, came news that brought a fresh sense of purpose and energy to the Imperial Forces. Al-Rashid Ibn Khroda hade been sighted by a task force of Black Falcon scouts, heading into a hangar at the farthest end of the Ark. While the scouts waylaid him as best as they could, a journey of several hours even without the war occurring all around them lay ahead of the decapitation force. Khroda was here, alas he was still several kilometres away from the main Imperial thrust.

Chapter Master Aetius, at the head of the Space Marines that had ploughed as far into the ship as any, now led the Imperial warhost through the Ark in a relentless, implacable advance. Every Chapter playing to their strengths matching the brutality, cunning and shrewdness of the renegades with their sheer unyielding might and backed by regiment upon regiment of Imperial Guard. This was not the stalemate of prior conflicts - now the Imperium's wrath was given focus, direction and a terrible, unstoppable impetus.

However, the Sereiki Lions were capable of great spite to match their great ambition, and as the loyalist army pushed for the heart of the Ark, the defiant Lions made the desperate decision to destroy the Ark Mechanicus and all aboard it.

Yet even though Imperial forces intercepted Khroda's transmission giving the order to trigger the self-destruct sequence, no such order was carried out. No alarms sounded and the only response to Khroda's command was a worryingly empty silence from the ships' core and engine rooms. For while the battle had been raging on all around the Ark, and the Sereiki Lions had focused so completely on repelling the intruders, the Blackjaw Kindred had quietly infiltrated the ship from the far side, cutting a much smaller breach of their own and headed for the engine rooms.

Finding little resistance save for servitors, indentured crew and the odd heretek-magos there, the Seventh Circle under the leadership of Patriarch Tr

[Olis]

Wow, what a slobber knocker. There are bits and pieces I'd alter or add to, but I believe PMing you proposed changes may be more worthwhile instead of running through it with quotes like normal. You down for that, Ace?

[Ace Debonair]

Whatever you prefer, it's all good.