Xana Incursion
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The Xana Incursion was a battle of the Horus Heresy in which three independent loyalist forces attacked the Xana System as it concluded negotiations for alliance with the traitors.
Overview
Fought in 009.M31, it began when Terra received word that the renegade Forge World of Xana on the western fringes of the Imperium reached an accord with Horus to supply his armies. The bargain was to have been sealed with the delivery of three new Ordinatus Ulator weapons.[1] The Amphion, a Gloriana Class Battleship, led an armada of five capital ships against Xana's formidable orbiting fleet as a distraction, while a Callidus Assassin under the guise of the Davinite priest Unvacar Noon sought to assassintate Raxhal Koraddon, the Sons of Horus commander sent to collect the weapons, to disrupt the deal and convince Xana to return to the Imperial fold.[2]
Koraddon's warship, the Cicatrice Tyrannis, was intercepted on the edge of the system by Endryd Haar and his warband of Blackshields, who masqueraded as Koraddon and his honour guard in an attempt to steal the Ordinatus engines.[2] They arrived in the midst of the battle, landing to meet traitor Archmagos Gilim Raijan.[1a] 'Noon' had previously spoken to the real Koraddon and noticed that his voice was different, refraining from assassinating him until his purpose was known.[2] Raijan, confident that the Imperial attack would be fended off, readied an army of explosive-collared captives to use as a demonstration of the effectiveness of the Ordinatus Ulator.[1a]
Meanwhile in space, the Imperial warships were aided by the sudden arrival of the Dark Angels warship Dark Sovereign, which swept aside the traitor system orbital stations and destroyed much of the supply fleet of macro-transports above Xana I. The Dark Sovreign then launched Dark Angels and Shattered Legions warriors at targets across the Xana System.[1a]
Enraged at the prospect of the Ordinatus engines being seized by another force, Haar ripped Archmagos Raijan's head and confronted 'Noon', who revealed himself as an agent of Malcador, whose ultimate goal was to recover weapons for the defence of Terra from a secret weapons facility under the prison-forge of Xana-Tisiphone. Haar agreed to serve the Sigillite for a chance to truly hurt the Warmaster, killing members of his own warband who disagreed. Erud Vahn disabled the collars on the prisoners used in the 'false war', allowing them to fight back against their captors.[2] The surviving members of Haar's honour guard captured the Ordinatus Ulator and ransacked Xana-Tisiphone as the remainder of the Blackshield company aboard the Cicatrice Tyrannis commenced a ground assault.[1a] In one of the most shocking and mysterious events of the battle, traitor storage containers holding the bodies of loyalists killed at the Drop Site Massacre were hit by an unknown pulse signal. As if activated, the bodies of the deceased loyalist marines became reanimated and burst from their containers, slaughtering all traitors in their path until they were themselves killed.[1a]
The Dark Angels and Shattered Legions fought through waves of Dark Mechanicus Battle Automata and Adsecularis before destroying much of the forge complexes of Xana II. Haar's Blackshields withdrew aboard the Cicatrice Tyrannis after a counter attack of advanced and unfamiliar patterns of Battle-Automata emerged from the Sheaol penitentiary and destroyed the Ordinatus Ulator Nepothax in an attempt to recapture it.[1a]
In the aftermath of the battle, Xana's alliance with Horus was heavily delayed and they undertook raids against both Imperial and traitor assets.[1a] A possible side-effect of the raid was the release of the fallen Magos Dominus Anacharis Scoria, who would eventually seize Xana and turn it into the first of the Hell-Forges.[1b]
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