A Cursory Excursion

The command deck of the battlebarge Baal's Fist thrummed, each bulkhead alive with the immense power required to sustain the vessel as it flowed throughout the ship. On each level of the multi-tiered space were rows of cogitators, the innumerable serfs and servitors required to maintain control of the ship toiling mutely in the dim green light of their data slates. None of them looked up to address the familiar slow intonations of Fleet Commander Adeon as he spoke from the command throne situated at the center of the surrounding gallery.

 "Cushing sector, hmm?" The astartes mused, peering listlessly into the void that was projected on the forward bulkhead only the occasional feedback sputtering across the image spoiled the illusion. "Yeah, I have heard of it. Before this whole debacle with... Well, you know.”

"Back in the dunes, if your brother did what he did... Well, that would be rights to blood. I miss those days. My damn eye; just always going on with what it’s doing.”

“Of course that was before..." thoughts of the past and the questionable future stirred in the angel's mind, his genetic gifts for quick thinking more burden now than blessing. He paused, the air around him silent in response, "Zariah did what he could to protect him. I don’t blame him for what he has done for my brother... But when will enough be enough. Warden Erotium seems to be the only one that sees him anymore.”

The man droned on and would continue until a productive task would come to his mind. The seemingly still and immobile hulk in mark III artificer power armor would of course break into frantic commands and booming shouts as soon as the moment was deemed right, not one moment before and certainly never a moment too late.

Suddenly, the stewing mound of apex genetic engineering and peerless manufacturing lurched with life for just such an occasion. The air in front of his throne exploded into shape with a crack of electric blue, the ship displaying streams of sensor readings and fleet predictions in a swirling miasma sphere of data that would stupefy a lesser man, the astartes' cyclopean stare processing the telemetry quicker than a mortal mind would ever be able to.  

To anyone unaccustomed to such an event, it would have startled them by the sudden blast of activity.

“Captain, estimated arrival time to the Cushing sector?” Asked the Fleet Master.

“Current estimations place the arrival of the fleet to the Cushing sector at approximately 12 standard Terran hours, sir.” The human captain positioned at his side answered smartly, anticipating the master's needs with little deviation of his habits over the years of the crusade.  

“Very well," the angel nodded, his eye still shining with the lightning hues of the ship's holodisplay, "Inform the fleet of our arrival and ensure Captain Rageul is aware of the approach to give him time to prepare.”

The diligent adjunct was sipping from a cup of recaf , the task already done before his had even ask of it. He was very well used to the habits of Fleet Master Adeon indeed.

“Yes, we must be done with this task quickly." The captain was candid in his association, a life spent fighting beside the Blood Angels had shed him of the awe that struck smaller men. The ships cogitator banks showed little traffic in the outer worlds, nothing likely having survived the warp storm.

 "A system lacking in enemies does not give much opportunity to end this cursed rebellion. I can only imagine this will be a cursory excursion at best, my lord."

The Fleet

108^th Expeditionary Fleet

Master of the Fleet Adeon 

2 Rerolls / 10 Ld

Baal’s Fist – Battle Barge

Adeon's Flagship

Terminators & Honor Guard

Extra Shield & Extra Turret

10 Ld

STATUS - ACTIVE

The Angelicum – Styx Heavy Cruiser

Astartes Crew

8 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Sorrow – Murder Class Cruiser

Astartes Crew

8 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Revelation – Murder Class Cruiser

Astartes Crew

9 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Thirstwater – Murder Class Cruiser

Astartes Crew

10 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Crimson Space – Slaughter Class Cruiser

Astartes Crew

8 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Warrior's Creed – Slaughter Class Cruiser

Astartes Crew

9 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

STRIKE CRUISER ESCORT

Legionnaire- Gladius Cruiser

10 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Unity - Gladius Cruiser

9 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Crusader's Spirit - Gladius Cruiser

8 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Artemis - Gladius Cruiser

10 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

FRIGATE ESCORT

Blood Drop - Firestorm Frigate

Astartes Crew

9 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Mercy - Firestorm Frigate

Astartes Crew

10 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Spinshot - Firestorm Frigate

Astartes Crew

8 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Storm - Firestorm Frigate

Astartes Crew

9 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

Warrior - Firestorm Frigate

Astartes Crew

10 LD

STATUS - ACTIVE

A Light in the Dark

The nascent Imperium burns as former brothers clash in the void, their cataclysmic violence ushered to new heights by impossibly ancient evils beyond reality. Across the galaxy worlds and lives end, countless tales of barbaric triumphs and heroic defiance left untold and unrecorded; lost in the tides of immeasurable strife.

The machinations of the World Bearers to isolate the Ultramarines behind the veil of unleashed insanity that is the Ruinstorm left many sectors in the Eastern Fringe cut off from the Astronomicon, their systems left to fend for themselves between the gulfs of uninhabited space. Too dangerous to enter the tumultuous warp and unable to decipher astropathic communications, many of these systems simply ceased to exist; destroyed by internecine fighting reminiscent of the Old Night or otherwise being swallowed up in the disfiguring currents of the warp storm surging around them. But it was these same undulating currents that also released their grasp, expelling whole sectors back into reality as the warp tide receded.

The Cushing system was one such place. Once the hub to several commercial trade routes, Cushing's automated beacons returned to imperial registrars throughout the sector just as suddenly as they'd disappeared when the Ruinstorm erupted. Any celebrations would be short lived, however, as any sentient contact with the system went unanswered. All sanctioned channels were silent. There were no choirs left to echo back into the void.

Nevertheless, the system once housed a sizable orbital to support the surge of sectoral traffic during the Great Crusade; the Benevolence shipyard was well known to local sector captains as a relic of the Dark Age and capable of the advanced repair as well as fabrication of stellar ships. Such an item would prove an absolute objective to the nubile Imperium Secundus, the prospect of a fallen Imperium outside the Ruinstorm leaving little hope of reinforcement in the ongoing Shadow Crusade.

Preliminary scans of the system have shown the Benevolence to still be orbiting Cushing's hive capital. While structurally intact, the drydock appears to be damaged by an unknown conflict and it will likely take some time and resources to bring the shipyard's sophisticated warp drives back online.

Regent Sanguinius has ordered elements of the 7th Company of his Blood Angels legion to secure the shipyard and investigate any remnants of imperial forces in the system.

Given wholly to the warlust inherent to their progenitor's blood, the once coherent fleets of the World Eaters now found themselves splintered into raiding groups, descending on the vulnerable worlds of the Imperium Secundus with a savage unchecked ferocity.

One such group, ostensibly registered as scrambled elements of the LXXII Chapter of the World Eaters legion, emerges from the warp at the edge of the system. Their ships begin a full burn towards the Benevolence; even blood maddened they too recognize the importance of denying the shipyard from loyalist control.

So begins the Cushing campaign.