Editing Setting:Cloudburst/People (section)

==Watch Captain al-Hasat of the Storm Dragons==
{{Topquote|I understand rivalry, and I understand animosity. I can tell them apart. Some Chapters have one or the other, some have both. Our enemies have them too. Balancing them perfectly is an art form. I have mastered it. It’s like heating gas molecules: predicting the movement of one is impossible, but if you control the space into which they flow, they take the shape you want even if keeping track of specific bits can’t be done.|al-Hasat}}

The Deathwatch may entrust their members with higher autonomy than most Chapters, but that doesn’t mean they have no hierarchy. Watch Captain al-Hasat is the longest-serving Watch Captain in the history of the Cloudburst Sector, and commands second behind Watch Commander Domack himself. He understands the importance of hammering the hierarchy of the Deathwatch into his Kill-teams before they ever have to put their lives on the line.

When the Deathwatch asked the Storm Dragons for a Brother with proven improvisational skills in battle against aliens, al-Hasat’s name was at the top of the Storm Dragons’ list. Quite beyond his ability to stay cool under fire, al-Hasat has a superb sense of battlefield scale, and excelled in the Dragons at balancing the assets he had against alien forces without overcommitting.

His most glorious moment, and the moment that sealed his aptitude for his future role in the Deathwatch, was when he successfully led a team of only twenty-one other Storm Dragons and three platoons of Scions in the defense of the Red Glow Promethium Refinery in the Stutlu system against a horde of rampaging Orks for over two months. He did so by carefully sabotaging the mountain passes that led to the site with metal-detector-triggered mines and claymores, and ordering his troops to avoid those specific spots in the area to give the illusion of gaps in his defenses. When the Orks arrived and set off the bombs, they pushed through, causing more casualties and sealing gaps in the rock. Al-Hasat’s forces engaged at the first sign of movement within vision range, which forced the Orks into charging to minimize casualties. Al-Hasat had known they would, and so concealed grenades on tripwires in their path, causing further chaos and decreasing their numbers further. Finally, when the Orks came into range of his primary weapons, their numbers had dropped forty percent before they were able to fire a shot.

The victory over the Orks came quickly, then, and al-Hasat continued with ever more impressive feats of tactical success as he rose to become the second in command of the Second Company of the Storm Dragons. When he entered the Deathwatch, he served as a Tactical Brother for ten years. Eventually, he caught the eye of the Watch Commander before Domack, and Domack elevated him to Watch Captain. Al-Hasat’s tactical skill may have elevated him above the ranks of his own Chapter, but the Deathwatch only recruits the best of the best, and so his skills were useful but not unique in his new home. However, it was only after he had entered his current rank that he learned of another skill he had never exercised before: logistics. Perhaps taking well to the image of his Primogenitor, Roboute Guilliman, al-Hasat is a natural logistician, with a head for mobility, numbers, safety, and cost that serves the Deathwatch well. Despite presently having fewer Watch Captains than it has in the past, Watch Fortress Dascomb is operating efficiently and smoothly, in part because of al-Hasat.

His talent for logistics makes it easier for Dascomb to draw recruits from far afield, and cover the costs of so doing. He has been able to draw recruits from other Segmentae, and as far afield as Macragge and the Halo Zone Pacificus. One focus of his is combining Marines from Chapters that traditionally do not work well together, in the hopes that this will force the Imperium’s many moving parts to combine and function better when the time arises.

Technically, his rank eclipses that of Captain Roganuharu, by dint of longer consecutive years of service. However, al Hasat does not wish to be a Watch Commander, and would instantly recommend Roganuharu for the position if ever the need arose.

Before his elevation to Watch Captain, Domack had intended for al-Hasat to serve as a Keeper, which al-Hasat would not have minded, but both are satisfied with his current course. When he is not commanding a Watch Station on Domack’s behalf, al-Hasat fights in the field with his Kill-teams, and prefers the use of a Power Sword, Combat Shield, and Plasma pistol, along with a large cache of grenades and explosives. He also has a custom Auspex affixed to his left arm, a gift from Cognomen’s Magi for rescuing two of them from a shipwreck caused by colliding with an errant asteroid near Watch Station Vault.