Editing Slaugth (Hektor Heresy) (section)

===In Aenarion's Absence===

It wasn't before Aenarion walked onto his command bridge that his men explained to him what had happened in his absence. It turned out that after listening to the recorded message he left, his officers saw straight through his simplistic deception, realising that their commander merely wanted to protect them. However, Aenarion's men did not want to live in dishonour after abandoning their Autarch, and so they decided to clear a corridor for him to escape from the planet, should his mission fail. In spite of their overwhelming numerical disadvantage, they brazenly attacked the orbital defence fleet. But instead of engaging in a broadside exchange, which would surely leave them completely annihilated, Aenarion's men decided to board the enemy flagships using the Warp Spider technology so favoured by their commander. 

Using ingenious manoeuvring to avoid enemy fire, they approached the enemy ranks closely enough for a Webway jump, after which boarding squads in Warp Spider equipment teleported aboard the biggest enemy ships. Those squads rushed straight towards the command bridges; most of them were slaughtered on their way there, but some managed to reach their destinations. Once faced with the enemy commanders, they laid down their arms and asked for a chance to explain the real reasons for Aenarion's attack on the Eldar homeworld. Motivated by curiosity if nothing else, the enemy officers agreed to hear them out, after which they were presented with copies of the evidence against the Slaugth that the Autarch intended to show to the senate. But, unlike the corrupt and hypocritical senators, the officers in charge of the orbital defence turned out to be honest patriots, merely misguided by the disinformation coming from the high ranking traitors. The evidence presented to them by the Warp Spiders was enough for most of them to swear fealty to Aenarion and his cause. 

While the orbital fleet was taken care of, the fate of the Autarch remained obscured. To find out whether his mission was a success, the Farseer of his fleet conducted an elaborate ritual that allowed his third eye to peer past the walls of the Senate Spire into the great Assembly Hall. His visions confirmed his worst fears: the Senators that ruled the entire Eldar race turned out to be either outright traitors or spineless cowards. Sensing that the commander's life was in great danger, he ordered a shuttle outfitted with heavy weapons to be sent to his rescue post haste. And while the rescue operation was a great success, the overall outcome of the Autarch's mission was undeniably grim. 

Officially proclaimed a traitor, Aenarion no longer had a place in the empire he fought so hard to save. While there was a faint hope that some admirals could join his cause, his potential forces were dwarfed by the fleet answering to the cowardly Senate. The Autarch no longer saw any hope for his race and was contemplating surrendering to the enemy. However, one of the former orbital defence commanders who joined him, a pale Eldar whose skin was criss-crossed by a web of scars, suggested that there was still a way to turn the situation around. And although it involved Aenarion losing his soul, the Autarch was long past the point of caring about such trivialities.