Discovery
Buteo's view of the scene was uncompromising from the vantage of his improvised communications roost.
He'd made planetfall two rotations before the others in a single man skiff. His mission was to infiltrate the industrial sector of Hive Kalon and begin extensive communications monitoring in the local area. The Ordo Xenos knew from long experience the ways of the cults of alien worshipers. They tended to congregate in industrial sectors of Hives, and the manufactorum and production lines of Mechanicus Forge Cities. Cult leadership often believed, not incorrectly, that the incredibly vast production needs of the Imperium would provide both cover and protection to their actions. Should a few cultists be exposed among the workforce they could be written off as singular heretics. More workers could always be found, as could more recruits for the cultists. If, however, a vast amount of workers were found to be partaking in such activities, some of the more unscrupulous line bosses could be convinced to look the other way for fear of missing quotas in the time necessary to replenish the workforce. Others could be... Replaced.
Unsurprisingly, such methods could backfire as often as they succeeded, resulting situations like the one that had led to the Kill Team to be dispatched to this world. An assembly hub overseer had begun noticing subtle irregularities. Some in shipping manifestos, others in minor discrepancies on order forms, then minute upticks in damaged machinery reports, petty thefts from storerooms, increased hazmat requisitions... Taken alone, no single incident could ever be pointed to as anything abnormal. The problem was the sheer scale with which the Imperium operated. During the course of six standard months the combined documentation revealed that enough raw material had been misplaced or mishandled to fill a sizable warehouse. The overseer had resolved to bring the matter to the local Tithe Clerk and pray to The Holy Throne she hadn't just filed a false report.
The slow cogs of bureaucracy ground ever onward. The Tithe Clerk dispatched an inspector to verify the claims. The inspector ceased contact two days into the month long audit. An Arbites task force was dispatched, the brutally efficient lawmen descending on the facility and making multiple arrests. It was during these apprehensions that the first definitive intel was gathered. A small shrine dedicated to The Emperor had been discovered, secreted deep within the bowels of one of the deepest supply docks. It had once been a meter tall statuette of Him upon The Throne. Now, the head was detached, held forward in the seated figure's outstretched hands. Blue paint had been daubed in blasphemous alien sigils across the statue and shrine, all leading to the severed neck where the paint appeared to run like congealed blood. The area was put under immediate quarantine and urgent requisitions were relayed to both Ordos Hereticus and Xenos.
The representative Inquisitor from the Hereticus was the first to arrive on site. Not uncommon, as most civilized planets were graced by at least some presence of the zealous organization. During the three days proceeding the Inquisitor's arrival, subtle signs of unrest had begun surfacing throughout the hive. Hushed grumblings during roll calls at various assembly lines . Angry shouts at passing Administratum clerks. Increased reports of ganger activity from the underhive. On the third day, the graffiti appeared. Always within easy sight of many eyes, though hidden enough that a common citizen could pretend they had not seen it, always applied in some shade of blue, always extolling the greater virtues of a collective uprising against the oppressive upper classes. Within an hour of the Inquisitorial landing craft docking at the star port, low security vox-casters around the city's industrial hubs began to broadcast brief recordings warning the populace that "The Man of Heresy" was coming among them.
The man in question was Hereticus Inquisitor Torque Mada, a balding man of middling height, mild paunch, proud zeal, and a hidden strength that came from years of persecuting the faithless and damned. The growing reports of unrest were paradoxically calming to him. It signified many facts the miscreants may not have wanted exposed at such an early juncture. The culprits were organized, but not yet dominant, as their thwarted attempts to hijack any halfway secure vox-casters had shown. They were numerous, though not so many that the group were comfortable moving in the open. There was an agenda, and fear that he would disrupt it, if the damned recordings that had heralded his arrival were any indication. With even these bare facts Inquisitor Mada breathed easier. If this was a cult, their exposure had not driven them to ground. They had become brash with the attention, perhaps believing the base citizenry could be roused to such fervor that the cause would be given merit. Whatever the reason, his quarry had chosen to make itself more visible, thus saving him countless hours having to establish that an organization existed at all. With confidence Torque Mada descended through the assembly hub to the location of the tainted shrine.
Thirty minutes later he was hurrying back to his landing craft with all haste, regretting the necessity of the three days it had taken to traverse the system from it's outermost planet. Launching from the starport the craft docked with an orbiting Ecclesiarchy pilgrimage vessel, his primary base of operations within the sector. Once aboard, he moved swiftly to the ship's dedicated Astropath quarters and instructed the blind psyker to deliver two messages. He sent the first to the Shrine World of Angelum IV, the Adeptus Ministorum seat of power within the sector. With it went an assessment of what he now deemed to be a xeno worshiping cult that had wormed it's foul roots into much of the hive, perhaps the planet as a whole. That they had become brash was a clever front, a diversion from the far larger work of the cult in the shadows. What exactly that work was remained unclear. Mada requested two detachments of Sisters of Battle from the Order of the Sundered Hall with the aim of rooting out and destroying the cult, as well as a small army of Ecclesiarchy Confessors to re-educate the populace in the aftermath. The second message did not leave the system. Had he not been an Inquisitor, one steeped in over a century of duty and service to the organization, he would never have known the location existed to which he now sent an urgent communication.
The innermost planetoid of the system was a tidally locked ball of pitted rock with no atmosphere to speak of to protect it from the intense radiation sustained by such a close orbit to its parent star. The side facing the sun itself was scarred continuously with solar winds and searing heat, while the "dark" hemisphere was little better. Deemed to have little to no value by the early mining colonists that plyed the system, the rad-blasted planet was ignored by all. So it had remained until an abrupt increase in piratical activity throughout the sector. Though the Imperial Navy had regained control and eliminated the problem, the numbers of opportunistic alien species that had been detected among the pirate fleets had prompted a response from the Ordo Xenos. Under the strictest of secrecy, the Ordo established a Deathwatch presence on the tiny, forgotten planet. Watch Station Almosia was tucked deep within the rocky body on the perpetual night side, forever casting an observant gaze over the system from then on. Proximity to such severe solar activity helped conceal any sign of the station's existence. The observation post was manned by one Watch Captain and a single Astropath at all times, clandestinely monitoring the system and nearby shipping routes.
The recipient of the second message was Watch Master Cyrus Hekoran of the Ultramarines, First Company, serving his third Vigil over the vital fort. The veteran marine was not one for hasty decision making. He began work correlating the message against compiled vox-grabs and other communication interceptions, as well as known void craft entering or exiting the system during the previous Standard Year. Inside of twenty minutes his suspicions had been confirmed. The report from Inquisitor Mada was the missing piece that allowed actual sense to be made within the peculiar patterns of data that the Watch Master had witnessed accumulate in recent months. There were minor but persistent indications of xenos presence within the system, perhaps more than one species vying for the attention of the Imperium's citizens. Such an affront could not be allowed to fester. Returning to the only other soul in the station, Cyrus bade the Astropath to craft a message of their own. Unless he was mistaken, the infestation would require more than just the Sisters of Battle to exterminate, ferocious warriors though the devout women were. The expertise of a Kill Team would be sorely needed for force multiplication. Between the righteous fury of the holy Sisters and the cold wrath of the Deathwatch, the xenos and their cultists would be utterly purged.
All of which had culminated in Kill Team Esteban, under the command of Esteban Haniel, receiving dispatch orders whilst performing refit and resupply over an Armory World on the outer edges of the sector. Being a dedicated team rather than individual marines on separate Kill Missions, they were gifted the use of a rare, compact Nova-class frigate for prosecution of their duties. The frigate, simply dubbed Guidance, was a combat capable strike craft that housed an arms forge, medicae unit, training halls, and cryogenic hibernation pods for long journeys through the warp or void. Enabling the team to be highly self sufficient for lengthy periods of time, resupply was still needed eventually. The Captain had settled on the Armory World as a suitable port of call.
Esteban was a dour, uncompromising marine that radiated a calm lethality. His shoulder pauldron marked him as one of the Sons of Caliban, one of the many descendant chapters to be created from the Dark Angels genetic stock. The message had arrived from the Watch Master as the final supply barges were offloading their cargo into the Guidance's hold. A swift course through the sector had been plotted, an estimated four days until orbit. With maximum efficiency and no fanfare the frigate carved across the void to the nearest entry point to the stable Warp routes.
Exactly inside their E.T.A. the strike craft eased out of the turbulence of the Warp and slid towards the fourth planet in the system, parking itself in geostationary orbit above Hive City Kalon. As preparations for landing were being finalized, Buteo had been sent planetside to gather more intel and establish a secure communications outpost in preparation for a expected lengthy mission deployment. The Raven Guard was in his element, a dark shadow drifting through the Hive's darkened sub-streets and alleyways, observing, but never being observed. By the end of the second planetary rotation since his landing, he had identified a centralized industrial spire with two fully abandoned floors at the very top that was perfect for his purposes. Involved in a chemical fire at some point, the floors had been sectioned off and slated for immediate repairs and reintegration into the supply chain. Along the way, the orders had been misplaced or were even still working their way through the ponderous bureaucratic system, a repair team to be sent possibly long after the sender of the order had perished of old age. As such, the cordoned off area was perfect for the team's requirements.
After assembling the mass of communications equipment, Buteo had made contact with the orbiting Guidance. Minutes later, the telltale streak of the team's Thunderhawk making atmospheric entry were visible to his enhanced vision and the sensors of the auger array set up along one wall. The transport cleared the void-shielding of the Hive, when voices suddenly began transmitting on multiple channels Buteo had already marked as suspicious. Instantly he attempted to hail the Thunderhawk, but it was too late.
He could only watch from his vantage as several compromised anti-aircraft guns along the city's outer walls opened up, spitting streams of shells and flak towards the descending transport ship. The pilot servitor banked and rolled, executing every evasive maneuver possible, but it was nothing like enough. Pierced through by shrapnel and direct hits, the pilot opened the back hatch in a last ditch effort to provide the marines an evacuation option. Buteo saw figures launching into freefall in the open air, seemingly aiming for the rooftops nearest them. With a supreme force of will he wrenched his attention back to the comms array. It was imperative that the transmissions leading up to the attack be tracked.
He had barely started to identify signal locations when a systematic communications blackout began dropping across the Hive, centered near his location in the industrial districts.