-[X] Send 1st Calavar Void Army to Central (Secure control of the Hulk, recover technology):
--[X] Space Hulk: Whereas most of these floating flotsams are simply ventilated by the patrolling Crusade warships this agglomerate has the stern of a military vessel protruding from it, and has recently picked up new debris and battle scars. Hunting it down will be a chore but it does seem to be haunting this region though possibly is being increasingly attracted South.
-Freeblade Knight and retinue (Paladin with handful of Armigers and a reasonably large army for an independent)
Finding the Space Hulk once more was an exercise in patience as the Patrol Squadron and other shipping kept an eye out for unfamiliar contacts. First one and then another were found but these were false alarms. Even when the target, given the ident-phrase "Dark Home", was sighted for certain it warped away before the correct assets could be brought in.
But the Calavan forces only had to get lucky once. The destruction of most of the active Warp drives in the Hulk by a careful series of cannon shells despite intermittent and ineffective counter fire caused it to be tethered to the area rather than roam as it had. With a distinct area of operations set it was time for the infantry to do their job.
With the Profit of Skill providing overwatch and fire support the newly formed forces of the First Calavar Void Army were sent across to land on the random mass of the Dark Home. Shelter Exoskeletons disembarked down the ramps of Harbinger gunships, joining their fire with that of the turrets that bristled along the craft for this exact purpose. Towering Orks in leaky scrap suits howled with glee as they fire with reckless abandon: rockets corkscrewing into the ground and Calavan targets, streams of tracers darting both ways, and bodies being flung off the uneven mass by the impact of weaponry.
This minor group of greenskins were quickly dispatched as the second, third, and forth waves of Calavan soldiers were landed in the glow of far off stars to be greeted by their predecessors dotted with the emergence spires of the sealing foam used in their underlayers.
Pushing into the target vessel was more difficult as the environment necessarily became more constricted. Snarling Orks clashed with exoskeletons in fierce battles of strength, something the Orks were terrifyingly even in. But as dangerous as each greenskin was the Humans who fought them outnumbered them ten times over and where an Ork grappled with an exoskeleton over the remains of another the rest of the squad hacked at the alien with their own swords.
To the surprise of all involved, the Orks were the only enemies found on the wreck. Within the unfamiliar frigate stone faced Human soldiers met the new arrivals with distrust, bearing a dozen colors and markings under the symbol of their current master. Mercenaries, sworn levies, and troops seconded as "payment" to a Freeblade Knight.
This Knight was revealed to the Calavans as more than just a man when a squad travelling down the transfer halls in the ship came across a walker locked in combat with an equally massive monster. An Orkoid creature at fist look, further study showed the sickly taint of the Great Enemy across it's rippling hide even as an oversized chainsword hacked at the unnaturally durable hide. It was distinctly unsettling and awe inspiring in equal measure to see a machine that fought like a man rather than the simple movements of the Shelter exoskeletons, as the Knight wove away from bites and parried claw strikes with it's weapon. The addition of the firepower of several platoons of exoskeletons sent the foul thing scurrying back into the depths of the ship to avoid the righteous doom the defenders carried in their hands.
A salute from the Knight led to the two sides formally introducing themselves. The Knight Scion, now known as Dervaius Noctris of the House of Noctris of the world Gotin in the Eostina Subsector that neighbored Lativa to the West, wasted no time in unveiling his plan as well as the danger that all aboard were in. The Hulk was irregular in it's Warp dives and so his frigate needed to be cut loose from the mass before the next dive by means of the plasma charges his Sacristans had already prepared. The predators of the Warp were forced to play by the rules of the Materium when inside the area of effect of the Gellar Field but they were endless and only gaining in number.
Odds that were insurmountable for the band of survivors were quite manageable for a fresh section of void equipped soldiers led by a quintet of Knights.
Dervaius was profuse in his thanks for the rescue of himself, his ship, and his retainers. The story of how he got in those circumstances was quite short: hired by a Rogue Trader nosing close to the Silent Stars that made up the southeast border of Lativa in search of archaeotech, had to make an emergency exit to avoid getting annihilated by a single Escort, and ended up in the Warp for a year or so before getting relieved by the Calavan forces.
When he heard about the state of the Subsector he simply nodded and volunteered his services. Some payment would be earned, of course, but his honor would let him do nothing else.
[Gain House Noctris Lance (Army Attachment): A Knight Paladin, three Knight Warglaives, and a Knight Armsman (an Armiger armed with weapons for supporting the Paladin with local resources, in this case a Punisher Cannon for infantry control and a trio of oversized rocket tubes equipped for wire guidance and capable of nuclear deployment) backed by a million or so soldiers hardened by constant combat against the denizens of the Warp.]
[2M in Army damage and suit maintenance]
[+1 to next exoskeleton design from study of rudimentary Ork systems and combat data from the Shelter Armors]
