* * * 

To call the planet of Canopus a backwater world is an understatement. Its inhabitants are the ancestors of mistreated laborers who stole a cargo ship in 450.M39 and fled the totalitarian authority of the Imperiuim. Their dream was to establish a more compassionate and prosperous society for themselves.

They sought the most isolated, uninhabited planet they could find. They found it. Canopus is far above the galactic plane where most of the galaxy’s star systems orbit. It is a barely habitable world, but one that has never been visited by any Imperial ship—and it is the fervent hope of its colonists that its isolated location will go unnoticed for millennia to follow.

Alas, their hopes have been dashed. On 6 633 745.M1, orbital scanners warned of a fleet arriving in the system. But even more alarming was the realization that these visitors were not Imperial ships—nor vessels of any known xenos.

Indeed, what took orbit above the planet weren’t ships at all. They were gigantic. biological organisms that somehow survived and traveled through the vacuum of space.

These were representatives of a splinter feet of Hive Fleet Behemoth—a species of xenos that answered repeated vox transmissions from the colonists with an invasion of creatures soon to be known across the galaxy as Tyranids.

What followed was humanities’ first invasion by the Tyranids—a battle that was mercifully short and passed unnoticed by the galaxy as a whole.

* * *

All the farms in the region had been evacuated, its homesteaders gathered into the small town of Patano and put to work on the perimeter defenses.

The town’s mayor, Mattius Yaede, wiped his sweaty forehead and continued to scan the desert horizon with his monocular.

“Has there been any broadcasts on the emergency vox channel?” he asked his bodyguard Domoro.

“You know the answer to that,” the big man said.

Mattius sighed. His bodyguard wasn’t much for talking, but when he did, there was always a tone of impudence in his voice.

Yet Mattius did know the answer. Within hours of the xeno invasion, broadcasts from the planet’s major cities and larger towns had reported attacks by hordes of xenos. And, one by one, the broadcasts had gone silent.

Today was 6 663 745.M41. It was the third week of the invasion, and the vox channels were all silent. As far as Mattius knew, his small community was the last bastion of humanity on the planet.

* * *

Tomas Jyre struggled with the corrugated plasteel panel that he and a half-dozen men were raising into place on the town’s outskirts.

It was hot, and there was no wind. The mood of those around him was somber, accompanied by a powerful sense of fear and fatalism. The thin walls being raised would not stop an army that had turned cities silent.

“Dust on the horizon!” a guard shouted from near the gate, where scaffolding created a walkway high enough for men to see and fire over the wall.

“Get the welder here!” Tomas shouted. “We’ve not got much time. Now get this damned wall section in place.”

Alina Jyre was stacking food packets in the school’s kitchen when the alarm sounded. A wave of fear washed over her.

“Mommy, are the monsters here?”

Alina turned and looked down at her seven-year-old daughter, Sadira. So young. There was concern on her small face, but no sign of the terror that her mother felt.

As Alina answered, she was surprised by how calm she sounded.

“I don’t know,” Alina said. “But Father is at the wall, and he and the other men will keep them away.”

Behind Sadira, her older daughter, Zelie, just 14, stood stone-faced. She was old enough to understand what this day might bring.

It broke Alina’s heart. “Now, when the alarm sounds, you children are supposed to go sit in the pantry room. So get going.”

As the two girls turned away, they didn’t see their mother’s face fall. The plascrete walls fo the pantry were no obstacle for an army.

* * *

“I want first squad at the front gate, second to its left, and third to its right,” Mattius told the militia officers who’d gathered for a last set of orders before the enemy arrived. “Fourth and fifth will be stretched out on the back perimeter of the town, and sixth squad will wait in the inner redoubt as a reserve.”

The men around him looked grim. They weren’t soldiers. They were water-collection farmers, miners, and laborers who worked the transit depot for goods that crossed the surrounding countryside.

“What about the Chimera?” Domoro asked.

“I’ve been thinking about that. It’s too big to maneuver inside the walls, and it won’t be able to use its gun until the enemy is inside. So, we’ll deploy it outside. It’s relatively fast, so it can maneuver—keep away from the monsters and fire at them from a distance. That’s the best use of it, I think.”

“Do we have any chance?” one of the officers asked. The men around him looked at him with disdain. They didn’t need to hear what they already knew.

Mattius thought a moment before he answered. 

“I won’t lie to you. There’s a lot of xenos coming at us. It’s not impossible that we can hold them off for a time. If we kill enough of them, they might even go looking for easier prey.”

“But who knows what these xenos think . . . or if they think. They may just throw themselves at us until they’re all dead. Or they may wander off.”

“The reality is that we’re only going to buy ourselves a little more time. One more week with our family. One more night of sleep. One last good-bye with our loved ones.”

Click here to read Part 2 of this narrative battle report.

Artwork created with AI software found on NightCafé .

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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our hobby adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.