Pendor is destroyed after being engulfed by the Heart of Darkness, a growing Warp storm.
Imperial Navy fights battles on many fronts
This xeno fleet relied heavily on “spores” that were comparative to the destructive power of Imperial torpedoes and fighters.
Early in the year, Fleet Corvus is stretched thin dealing with multiple xeno threats in the Sculptor System. Taking advantage of the Imperial Navy’s woes, a small Tau task force attacks and seizes a huge mining base floating on the edge of the asteroid belt in the Sculptor System. (Tau seize Decora Mining Base)
Months later, an Imperial task force near the Elara System is mauled by a fleet of xeno vessels that appear to be “organic” in nature. The task force’s flagship, Imperatoris, is targeted by a swarm of vessels. Major fires sweep through the ship, and the 
flagship explodes at the end of the battle, enveloping a third of the xeno fleet in a plasma-fueled fireball. The surviving Imperial ships withdraw, and the xeno fleet heads uncontested toward the Elara System. All contact with the system is soon lost. (Mysterious xeno fleet attacks Imperial flotilla)
On 3 963 738.M41, an ork flotilla ambushes a Navy patrol in the asteroid belt of the Sculptor System. One Imperial frigate is lost, and a critically damaged Luna-class cruiser, Spear of Argos, only escapes by hiding among the asteroids until Imperial reinforcements arrive. What worries Imperial authorities: One of the ork shops is the infamous Da Butcher, which destroyed an entire Imperial flotilla single-handledly some years before. (Orks ambush naval patrol in Sculptor asteroids)
Imperial and ork flying aces duel in the skies
Flying ace Emil Thuy strafes the crimson Dakkajet of Fast Eddy Rikken Orker.
On Hegira, the dread ork flying ace, Fast Eddy Rikken Orker, is shot down by an Imperial Navy pilot named Emil Thuy. This victory is a propaganda bonanza for Imperial authorities, who quickly portray Lt. Thuy as a major Imperial hero. (Ork flying ace shot down outside Susa City)
The defeat of Rikken Orker has unintended consequences for Lt. Thuy. Far from dead, Rikken Orker reappears and uses a captured Imperial voxcaster to take to the airways and declare a very public grudge against the young Imperial officer. What’s more, the greenskin begins hunting Thuy for a rematch.
The ork achieves his goal—twice. In their first rematch, Thuy stalls his plane during a dogfight and crashes. In the second rematch, Rikken Orker is shot down. (Ork flying ace challenges Imperial pilot to the death)
Rumors of the Underhive
The Lady Belliose has disappeared near the Dryillian Quarantine Zone.
• The long-planned campaign to overthrow the rebellious government on Adydos III is cancelled as gathered military forces are diverted to the Burning Frontier.
• The Lady Belliose, a merchant vessel owned by the prominent merchant lord, Count Johann Feracci, disappears while traveling near the Dryilian Quarantine Zone.
• Sixteen senior Imperial officials in the Bonadan System are arrested for accepting bribes from the dreaded Balar Slavers. It is rumored that Rogue Trader Adeon Drake plays a role in implicating the corrupt officials.
(Rumors of the Underhive: A Gathering of Wolves)
• A renegade Chaos warband, known as the Dark Wolves, begins operations in the Corvus Cluster. Their activities draw the attention of the Space Wolves.
• The Ecclesiarchy worries that the Tau are subtly discouraging the Imperial Creed on the xeno-controlled world of Media III and seeking to replace it with their philosophy of the “Greater Good.” Confessor Guidonis Bernard calls for a Holy Crusade against the planet and its misguided Imperial citizens.
• The world of Vinea is infested by Grots. Apparently, an ork ship crashes on the planet, killing all its ork crew but leaving Grot survivors. No longer enslaved by their larger cousins, the diminutive greenskins quickly become a nuisance to Imperial authorities . . . at least a nuisance for now.
• Imperial authorities attempt to suppress news that there has been no communications with the industrial world of Tophet for nearly six months. With a population of approximately 150 million, Tophet is disturbingly close to the Dryilian Quarantine Zone.
* Two companies of the Blood Ravens Space Marine Chapter arrive on the disease-wracked world of Dozaria.
• One of the Imperium’s most powerful warships, a Retribution-class battleship, reinforces the Imperial fleet in the Corvus Cluster. The ship’s name: Covenant of Hope.
• Confronted with more pressing military threats, the Astra Militarum announces that it will delay the planned extermination of a new xeno species found in the Etheria System.
Falling temperatures will turn Metaluna into an ice world within a few years.
• The Administratum informs all Imperial worlds in the Corvus Cluster that their recruitment tithes to the Imperial Guard are increased by 15 percent.
• Temperatures plummet on the world of Metaluna, a planet undergoing ecological disaster as it enters the Esskay Nebula. The unusually dense concentration of gases in the nebula is reducing solar radiation to the planet, and it’s unlikely the planet’s population can be evacuated before it freezes to death.
• The forge world of Calamitous, located in the Corvus Cluster’s neighboring Subsector Yaisdra, is sanctioned by the Adeptus Mechanicus and Ordo Hereticus for the study of xeno technology. Many of the senior Mechanicus leaders of the world are executed.
• The feral world of Pendor is engulfed—and destroyed—when the warp storm known as the Heart of Darkness suddenly expands by dozens of light years.
• A Tau survey ship is fired upon as it enters orbit above the Eldar Maiden World of Lilarsus. The Tau take the hint and withdraw immediately.
• The patriarch of House Feracci, Count Johaan Feracci, is granted a charter by Imperial authorities to explore the quarantined world of Prysmos, which recently exited a radioactive ion cloud that wiped out all human life on the planet in M36. It is unknown if Feracci’s expedition has left for the long-lost world.
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Click here to return to Part 2.
Artwork Info
Artwork of exploding planet courtesy of NASA.
Click here to see more of the wonderful artwork of Dan Slider.
Click her to see more of the wonderful artwork of Tony Warne.
Click here to see more of the wonderful artwork of The-First-Magelord.
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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our gaming adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.
Categories: Strategic Update
THE CORVUS CLUSTER 