Orks charge across open desert during their assault on Hegira’s capital city.

IMPERIAL VOXCAST (6 247 744.M41)—The past six weeks have seen a renewal of ork aggression against the beleaguered defenses of Hegira, a mining moon in the Sculptor System.

New assault on Susa City

A massive aerial attack on the ork-held Barad Mine, intended to disrupt a future attack on Susa City, appears instead to have provoked the greenskins into marching a 100,000-ork army toward the moon’s capital city.

The 4th Vothite Artillery Battalion was responsible for sizable ork casualties in the latest xeno assault on Susa City.

On 3 151 744.M41, the orks reached Susa City and launched an attack on the Sadis District, an evacuated suburb to the west of the city. The attack was met by the 6th Krandor Regiment, 73rd and 75th Vothite Volunteers Regiments, and the 4th and 8th Vothite Artillery Battalions.

Despite repeated assaults, the extensive fortifications around the suburb proved too much for the xenos. The Vothite artillery, mostly mechanized Basilisks, unleashed a heavy barrage of Earthshaker Cannons on the ork attackers, leaving part of the battlefield looking like a moonscape and littered by thousands of corpses.

“The vast majority of orks never made it within 100 meters of our defenses,” said General Tiberius Vectrix, supreme commander of Hegira’s Imperial forces. “Those few thousand that did were stymied by extensive lines of tanglewire, mine fields, and the staunch defense of our front-line troops, deployed in strong fortifications.”

“Despite the size of the attack, the orks proved no serious threat to the safety of our capital city.”

Ork submersibles bombard Port Hinga.

Ork activity noted on Byrgius Sea

In a decade of fighting, Hegira’s military forces had never seen any ork interest in naval operations on the Byrgius Sea, the only large body of water on the mining moon.

But that changed on 3 197 744.M41, when two ork submersibles appeared offshore of Port Hinga and bombarded the city’s main docks.

“The unanticipated attack by the xenos threw the civilian populace into a panic,” one Imperial voxcast reported. “Meanwhile, the city’s minimal defense forces took 20 minutes to deploy a response force to the docks, and sentry guns along the shore were activated and allowed to fire at full intensity—until the guns ran out of ammunition or their gun barrels melted under the heat of sustained fire.,”

One submersible was damaged. Unable to submerge, it fled the area but was later bombed and sunk by a squadron of Valkyrie gunships. The second submersible disappeared under the waves and apparently escaped.

There was moderate damage to port facilities, as well as to some habitat blocks near the port. At least 200 casualties were reported.

City officials will respond to the attack by strengthening port defenses, Vectrix said. What’s more, PDF troops will convert a dozen  mining trawlers into gunboats that will patrol the sea, intercepting future submersible attacks and providing an additional warning system should the orks consider a sea crossing as a new invasion route into Imperial territory.

Orks make gains in Sea of Dust

A large force of orks recently launched a series of attacks in the Sea of Dust—and managed to make modest gains along the shore of the Byrgius Sea.

The vast majority of ork aggression is centered around Susa City, while other orks are busy fighting amongst themselves in a low-grade civil war against the ork Warlord “Rumlar Grimrekkah.”

But, under the command of a warlord calling himself “Gradzod Steelgutz,” a 65,000-ork warband that calls itself the Steelgutz apparently intends to make a name for itself in an otherwise backwater corner of Hegira.

On 3 217 744.M41, the Steelgutz launched an attack against Redoubt #13-A, a fortified position on the Bygrius Sea that anchored the western edge of the Imperial defense line in the vast desert known as the Sea of Dust.

After 13 hours of fighting, the redoubt fell, and over the next two days, the Steelgutz advanced 70 kilometers up the coast. The advance ultimately was stopped by Imperial reinforcements.

But on 3 231 744.M41, the Steelgutz attacked again—this time to the east. The ork assault hit a weak point in the Imperial defenses, allowing the Steelgutz to capture a second redoubt, roll up part of the Imperial defenses, and widen the xeno saliant.

“With so much of our Imperial forces deployed in Susa City, a second front opening in the Sea of Dust is very disturbing,” Vectrix said. “The situation currently is under control, but we must hope that the orks continue to focus on the prize of Susa City. There, our defenses are up to the task.”

END VOXCAST

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