Editing Pacification of the Harakien Sector (section)

===Early Exchanges===

[[File:Space marine by badluckart-d5hcblm.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Captain Jeanne d'Orléans]]
A series of raids and counter-raids ensued.  Although both sides built up their forces in this period, the Space Marines were largely absent from the initial phases of battle.  Uli Dreier's squadron of one hundred space marines remained based at Destino, taking on key missions, but the bulk of the fighting in this phase was done by newly arrived first-line Imperial Army formations.  The most decisive clash was in 968.M30 on the Desert World of Suferenta, where a mixed corps of Ciban Chasseurs and Markian troopers clashed with the Harakien 6th Advance Detatchment of the 3rd Division.

Both sides arrived at Suferenta without detecting the other, intending to scout the world and perhaps seize what opportunities they found.  Only once the troops had debarked did the Harakien and Imperial naval forces engage briefly, then withdraw from the system thinking that the priority was to protect their transport vessels.  On the ground, the opposing commanders quickly made contact near the world's main settlements.  An early Harakien breakthrough resulted in the over-running of the Imperial Headquarters and the death of General Phillipe Anjours at the blade of the detachment commander, Zhir Nerantu. The Harakiens slaughtered the Imperial command company with swift and brutal efficiency. The detachment settled in to watch the results of their decapitation of the enemy. 

To their shock, the human forces remained mobile and coordinated despite the loss of its headquarters.  The breakthrough forces were quickly encircled and destroyed, before the Imperial army launched a rapid counter-attack, capitalising on their superior airpower.  An airborne company of Ciban Chasseurs, led by the young Captain Jeanne d'Orléans, dropped in behind the Harakien lines and wreaked havoc in their rear area.  Vids from this raid, and countless re-enactments, would become fodder for Imperial propaganda for decades to come.  The Chassuers were a hand-picked elite force and contained a mix of veterans and the most promising candidates.  Although they quickly ran low on ammunition the fates were with the Imperials.  Scores of tanks, skimmers, and flyers had whipped sand into the atmosphere, dropping visibility to next to nothing.  In the haze of this sentient-made sandstorm, the towering Captain d'Orléans and her elite drop-troopers took a bloody toll in hand-to-hand combat. The frenzied enemy commander, Nerantu led a desperate counterattack. Though he stood longer than the others, he was no match for the prowess of d'Orleans.

The Harakiens fought furiously, but their fate was sealed.  If Jeanne d'Orléans claimed not to have made a count of the Eldar ended by her power sword, it was soon rumoured among the Imperial troops that the Captain had killed too many enemies to know their number.  On the front at large, the terrible conditions were on the side of the army with the larger numbers and the greater armour.  Despite the courage and skill of the Harakiens, they could not change the shape of the battlefield that had entrapped them.  To their lasting credit they fought to the last and no prisoners were taken.