Setting:Cloudburst/Elumanie
| System | ||
|---|---|---|
| Galactic Position | Cloudburst Sector, Celeste Subsector | |
| System Overlord | None | |
| Worlds in the system | Eight, all uninhabitable | |
| World Type, Name | Elumanie 5 | |
| Tropospheric Composition | Nitrogen 88%, Carbon Dioxide 12% | |
| Religion | N/A | |
| Government type | Astra Militarum | |
| Planetary Governor | N/A | |
| Adept Presence | Adeptus Astra Telepathica | |
| Climate | Thin, dry gasses, uneven ground, no tectonics | |
| Geography | Lossos is a barren, stable rock, with what once was a network of mining tunnels | |
| Gravity | Lossos has .42 Terran Gravity | |
| Day Length | 29 Terran Hours | |
| Economy | Gelt Thrones and Silver Thrones | |
| Principal Exports | Watch Components, Nitrogenous Gasses, Carbon Nanofibers | |
| Principal Imports | Food, Soldiers | |
| Countries and Continents | N/A | |
| Military | Celestial Guard, Inquisitorial Stormtrooper Detachment | |
| Contact with other Systems | None yet | |
| Tithe Grade | [REDACTED] | |
| Population | 200 humans, unknown number of xenos | |
Description[edit]
Lossos was once a world of productive mining. A peaceful, if boring, life of mining, harvesting, and processing was once all the people who lived here, descendants of a former Arbites prison colony, had to look forward to on Lossos.
That changed, when the Space Hulk Predator slammed into the world in M41.999. The Hulk, a five-kilometer-wide agglomeration of several wrecked starships and small asteroids, fell from the heavens and flattened a small Imperial mining camp. Hours later, the shockwave blew the walls off buildings around the tiny globe. Panicked Astropathic signals for evacuation followed minutes after.
When Astra Militarum Search and Rescue teams arrived eight weeks later, after the message finally arrived at Celeste, they reported the Hulk was surprisingly intact, and appeared uncontaminated. However, the only active electronic signal on the planet came from a mining truck radio, four kilometers from the impact crater. All contact was subsequently lost with the Search and Rescue team, despite orbital cameras making it clear that they were still active and moving on the surface below, looking for survivors. There was no response, no matter how often the ship in orbit hailed them.
Next to arrive was the Inquisition, responding to the Navy request for aid. Inquisitor Afiram Proterr of Celeste, an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor of 80 years’ experience, led his force of 400 Stormtroopers and 9 Throne Agents down to the world below. They were approached first by a pair of starved-looking Techpriests, who begged on bent knees for food and shelter. Proterr promptly shot them both and searched them, and what he found confirmed his worst fears. Both men had been implanted with Genestealer nerve bundles. His Stormtroopers prepared a defensive perimeter, but it was far too late. Mining trucks and Guard vehicles surged to life all around them, driving towards the Stormtroopers with murderous intent. The jig was up, and the bundle-implanted Guard and miners slaughtered over half of Proterr’s men before the canny Inquisitor managed to evacuate his surviving Stormtroopers into the Hulk.
Inside, they encountered something worse. Thousands of Genestealers sat in biostasis in the hold of one of the freighters. The shock of the crash had awakened their steward organisms, but it would only be a matter of time before the horde outside came to awaken the one inside.
The surviving Genestealers and Implants outside mustered for a suicide charge. They needed only to kill the landed Imperials or reach their slumbering kin to escape, since one of the freshly implanted Guardsmen was a pilot. The hive mind drove them on, into the teeth of the surviving troops’ Hellguns. Hundreds of miners and Guards died in minutes, their souls freed of the Hive taint.
Still, numbers proved telling, and the surviving Stormtroopers were forced back, deeper into the Hulk. At last, Proterr realized what needed to be done. The Stormtroopers formed a cordon around him as he knelt and dedicated his soul to the Emperor. Abruptly, the Genestealers nearest him stumbled and fell, their minds wracked with toxic confusion – Proterr had used his mighty Warp powers to sever their link to the Hive Mind for precious seconds. His Stormtroopers surged out into the corridors of the Hulk, desperately killing the aliens and their thralls. This included their own, whom had been taken by the beasts.
After ten torturous minutes, the Genestealers had been pushed back out of the Hulk, and run headlong into the arms of the 150 troops Proterr had been smart enough to station at his landing site. Pincered and unled, the surviving Genestealers and Implants were cut down in moments.
Proterr did not survive his sacrifice. Now bereft of their Inquisitor, the surviving Stormtroopers rallied behind Throne Agent Illaten, his apprentice. Illaten has frantically requested any reinforcements the Sector Conclave can send, to cordon off the Hulk and kill the remaining Genestealers. What Illaten did not know is that several Stormtroopers who survived the final battle were already infested, and though they cannot break away from their guard duties to enter the Hulk and awaken their masters, a few creative accidents may be enough of a distraction to allow them to slip into the vast Hulk, unnoticed.