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Fornax Aleph

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Map Basic Data Planetary Image
px Name: Formal Prime px
Segmentum: Segmentum Pacificus[2]
Sector: Sabbat Worlds[2]
Subsector: Newfound Trailing Group
System: Unknown
Population: Unknown
Affiliation: Imperium
Class: Hive World
Tithe Grade: Unknown

Fornax Aleph is a Hive World in the Sabbat Worlds.


History

One of several planets targeted for reconquest during Operation Newfound, the second phase of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, the Imperium's encounter with Fornax fully illustrated the bizarre aspects of fighting in a sector exposed to the influence of Chaos for so long.[1a]

The assault force, under the command of General Jater Elbeth, arrived on the 303rd day of 757.M41, but met no resistance whatsoever. In fact, the world was entirely devoid of life, human or animal. Within the deserted hive cities, the Guard forces found half-eaten meals and half-finished letters, but no damage, no signs of combat, and no bodies. As far as could be determined, the planet's several million inhabitants had simply vanished.[1a]

Elbeth's force dug in, preparing for the formal acquisition of the world by Crusade command. It was a nerve-wracking ordeal, given the mystery of the previous population's disappearance, and other strange signs. Elbeth communicated to Warmaster Slaydo that several of his soldiers had reported hearing eerie screams in the dead of night from outside the cities, though no source could ever be found.[1a]

To Slaydo, Warmaster. My lord, there is no one here at all.
Transmission from Iron Snakes force commander, upon arrival at Fornax Aleph.[1b]

On the first day of 758, all communication from Elbeth and Fornax Aleph ceased. Eighty days later, the Iron Snakes forces assigned to the Crusade arrived and achieved planetfall. They too found a world devoid of life, including Elbeth's forces.[1a] A ship that may have been the assault force's Battle Barge Claudia tumbled into the system's sun, apparently unmanned, and the only sign of the Imperial assault force was a single Vitrian Leman Russ Battle Tank discovered eighty stories up on the roof of a hab stack. Inside the tank, the only trace of its crew were the vox set, with the headphones missing and the wires fused at the end, and the driver's dessicated hand, still clinging to the steering column inside its glove.[1b]

Slaydo ordered the Iron Snakes to withdraw, but on the 130th day of 758, a meteor struck the world in the northern polar region, causing severe planetary climate change. Shortly afterward a massive horde of daemons and other warp-creatures appeared on the planet, pouring out of suspected warp-portals in the north. The Iron Snakes took the Emperor's wrath to them, three hundred Space Marines against a daemon-infested planet.[1b]

The Imperial reinforcement fleet finally arrived during the first month of 759, to discover the Iron Snakes battered, but victorious. The planet had been reclaimed for the Imperium.[1b]

Since then, there has been no plausible theory offered to explain the disappearance of the original population, or Elbeth's force. As of 765.M41, the Imperial re-colonisation of the planet had been proceeding smoothly for several years, and no further problems have been reported, except scattered reports of the same strange screaming being heard during the night.[1b]

See also

Sources