Tales from Zalthar

Special thanks to mark :)

Carolynn stood in the lee of one of the few whole Great Crystals. its mass keeping him out of the vicious, driving winds that scoured his Home-World of Zalthar a Lorelei Crystal rich mining planet, a place that had seen much pain through its last fifty seven cycles.
The Horror that had many shapes and forms, shared but one name, Death. Death it had bought to a place where suffering was as much a part of life as the act of breathing. Hours of relentless toil in the Lorelei Crystal Mines, off-shifts soaked in alcohol, then snatched fever dreams before it all began again. Too many people stacked in the overflowing Hives, 3 or 4 to a room in some layers where, like even the fierce glow of the nearby Gas Giant, the arm of Imperial Edict did not reach. Here evolution reigned supreme and unchallenged. You were fit, or you did not survive.
Some, like Carolynn, escaped the Rat-Runs of the Hives, preferring to take their chances in the “Ceramite-Cities”. Prefabricated Space-Station Life Modules, made from the same composite as a Marines Power Armour, bought on Zalthar’s Black Economy and erected in some of the many ravines and disused Mine Workings to form impromptu “Villages”. Proof against the harsh Climate and Glass Storms, each was run by its own Clan, in turn controlled by its current “Over-Lord” and their retinue of Body-guards, Mercenaries’ and Hired Guns. Each Clans accountability to the “Council of 5” prevented anarchy, its laws were short and simple, one clan - one Vote its Politics’ . Death or Banishment, that amounted to the same thing, differing only in duration, were the deterrents from breaking such simple Laws.
It had been 56 cycles since he had left behind the stench of the rotting Hives, and not once had he wished to return. Life in the cites was harsh, but the air was clear and the dangers tended not to stab you in the back or smother you in your sleep. Work was in the open too, with many working as Carolynn did, as Morac herders. The Morac was one of the very few species native to the harsh climate of Zalthar. It was similar in appearance to the Armadillo of old Terra before the Long-Night, but was considerably larger, standing almost 3 meters at the shoulder and covered with a skin thick enough to stop a point-blank Bolter round ! These moved in vast herds, some a 1000 or more strong, feeding off the Ice-Grass Plains, or at least the patches that remained between 
the Mines and the Hives. Life following the Herds was tough, a life spent continually moving for 9 cycles, then 2 off, down time back at the city.

With so little time to waste 9 cycles pay, drinking was fast, arguments faster, fights, the fastest of all, especially when the out-runners on a 1000 + Herd al l checked in with pockets stuffed with Rad Bonds. The local currency. the Zaltharian Credit was too unstable too be of any real value, in a piss-poorly run economy, it was all to easy to print off several Million more to balance the Books. They had been part way into such a debauched 2 cycles when Death had come for them from behind the Stars.

The Planetary Defence Force had put up a stoic Resistance, its ships, supported by pitifully few Imperial Allies, the Treaty of K’nars’ stated they should match the local Forces Ship for Ship, so 12 didn’t really cut it with the head of the PDF, Commander Dowling. Swathes of the Tyranid Splinter Fleet were consigned to the Void before even reaching Zalthar. But, the few that got through was still terrible to behold. All manner of vile insectoid creatures, all of one mind, and that mind screamed Death through it’s myriad synaptic links. The PDF stood at every turn, not one of the Tyranid Strikes went unchallenged, as through a desperate war of attrition they sought to bleed Zalthar dry.
The Council of 5 untied the Clans under one common goal, to save the Morac Herds so that the planet would not starve. But this was easier said than done, for the Morac had no natural predators on Zalthar and were woefully ill-equipped to defend themselves, other than balling-up as they did in the Glass Storms. Powerful and lethal, , they were caused by plasma from the nearby sun penetrating the planets thin atmosphere, which in-turn super-heated the frequent sandstorms to create razor sharp shards of glass, sent hurtling around the planet . The Morac were also too painfully 
slow to out-run the agile Tyranids, and only saved by what many still claim to be a miracle, a single strand starch molecule found in the Ice Grass, proved devastatingly toxic to the Tyranids Metabolism, dropping even the formidable Warriors in a matter of minutes.

This was seized upon by the PDF in their hour of need, and immediately put to further good use. The obsolete Needle Guns that had been replaced by the PDF’s new Hellguns, were bought out of storage and re-supplied to the Troops, along with new Needle Rounds. These were each Adamantium -Tipped, therefore capable of piercing the Tyranids Chitinous Carapace, where they then delivered 4 times the lethal dose of Toxin. Packs were made to drip feed the Toxin directly onto the Blades of Chain Weapons, and a new, Rapier-like Sword was put into production. It had a very fine tube through its centre and a Pommel Mounted switch that operated a Hydraulic System, that delivered its payload of Toxin to the heart of any penetrating wound.

PDF Needle Gun
Range    S     AP         Type

   18”      3      4          Assault 3, Poisoned (2+) vs. Tyranids
Zaltharian Rapier
Range      S       AP     Type

  -            User    1       Melee , Poisoned (2+) vs. Tyranids

“PoisonPac” ®Range       S                 AP                      Type
 
-            Both As Primary Weapon     Can only be used on Chain Weapons,

                                                                Confers Poisoned (2+) vs. Tyranids

For 18 cycles the Planetary War raged on. The Void War had been mercifully brief, Commander Dowling then able to deploy each ship as a Strategic Asset. Thus he conferred the Power of their Batteries to provide Orbital Strikes against the swarming masses of Tyranids, spreading as a malignant growth across the surface of Zalthar below. What began as a free-ranging conflict of fluid, mobile tactics, soon became entrenched, the PDF forced to fall back to bastions surrounding the Hives. It was vital these not fall, as with Morac off the Menu, the Tyranids needed desperately to capture a source of nutrition, to off-set the very real threat of falling to ever increasing cycles of cannibalistic behaviour, and failure of the Tervigon to spawn new broods whilst fasting. 

Even the Ceramite-Cities regrouped in four of the largest abandoned Lorelei Crystal Mines on Zalthar. With the Ceramite Pods outer-most, they formed vast laagers, several Miles across, manned by Herders and the PDF side-by-side, their precious Morac penned within. The Herders work now meant spending long hours trekking the country for Ice Grass to feed their wards.

The Cycles came and went whilst the fighting never stopped, but the PDF’s continual vigilance and refusal to give ground finally paid off. On the 4thday of the 18^th Cycle, the final Tyranid fell !
What was left though, was a haemorrhaging world, bankrupt and bleeding. Lorelei

Crystal export had ground to a halt, an Imperial Quarantine being enforced with more ships and effort than was put at Commander Dowling’s disposal for the Defence, which angered him greatly. But not half as much as the lack of support forthcoming for Zalthar’s recovery and ongoing need for a Coherent Defence. At $40,000 Imperial Credits per Astral Tonne, Zalthar and its Lorelei Crystal Mines were rich, and currently easy pickings for whomsoever might choose to step in and take it. It seemed to Commander Dowling, all his plea’s for Aide were falling on deaf ears. Only sketchy responses from the Ultra Marines and Black Templar’s had come from the repeated calls for urgent assistance. Another difficulty presented itself too, a response from a Chapter, known as Dragon-Kin, professed Loyalists, steeped in the shape of the Ruinous Powers. Un-defined by the Inquisition, their offer was rebuffed, though they seemed well disposed to fighting for Zalthar’s Independence no matter what. To Commander Dowling, it was yet another itch that was going to have to be scratched. 

Unbeknownst to him, there were other eyes that watched Zalthar with covetous glee, eyes of two very formidable opponents indeed , for they were Primarchs, sworn to the Great Devourer, Servants of the Corrupted Path and Bearers of the Octoid Star. No less than Angron, the Red Angel, and Mortarion, Angel of Death, schemed beyond the Stars in the Eye, readying their forces for a Primarchs Prize.

Commander Dowling launched an second Expeditionary Force to evaluate the situation on the surface of Zalthar, to enable the relief of the current Garrison of PDF Troops, to gather much badly needed Intel, and Plan for a more Robust Defence, integrating the Ultra Marines and Black Templar’s, as well as deploying a formidable Knight Titan, with which Scouting would be faster and infinitely more reliable. Able to Triangulate Bike Borne Beacons. It also possessed sufficient Cogitative 
Engineering to translate these Bikes Beacons positions into a 3 Dimensional Topographic Map of Zalthar, not an easy job as it is over 3 times the size of Terra, though this was compensates for by adding the PDF Fleets Scanners into the mix, enabling whole Continental Masses to be accurately plotted in just days. The Bike Mapping was swiftly confined to the Hives and adjacent territories, where the fate of the Planet would be most cruelly tested yet again, for ominous echoes’ flowed from the Warp .

It began, as these things often do , with three seemingly unconnected events. First, a Lorelei Crystal Cargo-Shuttle vanished, an event whilst not common was certainly not unheard of. Due to the sheer number of flight hours, many of these shuttles were fully 
Cybernetic, and therefore poorly equipped to deal with unexpected events, these would often cause the Cogitation Matrix to collapse, stopping all systems and leaving the shuttle dead in the Void. If it then drifted off one of the major lanes for sub-Warp travel, it would remain lost, save a chance encounter with another vessel also off-lane, unlikely to say the least. Such “loss” events were factored into Fleet Operations’ for the Shuttles and a replacement launched at T-1 14^th of a cycle at 2/3rds operational speed, therefore due to arrive at the same Terminal at the same time the lost vessel would have Docked . Ready to re-load for the outward journey…..

The 2^nd, was an un-licensed open vox channel detected from Hive C4. So hastily were these towering and deep structures thrown together, most were never given names per-se, just administrative codes and maximum capacities for crisis events, figure that were abased before building had even finished in most cases. Take the worst slums of pre Long-Night Terran Rio or Soweto, bury them 150 storeys, then pile another 200 storeys on top, and you have some idea as to the size, shape and smell of a Mining Hive. It is also easy to see the allure of the tough yet liberating appeal of the “Ceramite-Cities” that coaxed many a brave soul such as Carolynn from the miasma of the Hives. The open-vox was traced and terminated by one of Commander Dowling’s elite “Kill Teams”, it having been detected and its position Triangulated by the Knight Titan, using 2 modified Bike Beacons set to receive rather than send, on the stray vox’s own wave-length , the Knight itself providing the Triangulating point.

The 3^rd event was a the connection formed far away from Zalthar. The Crystal Shuttle sat now in the hold of the masked Chaos Cruiser, Temperous Soul , as a Dark Mechanicum Priest slowly recalibrated the Cruisers Guidance Cogitators and instructed his Masters ships Navigators how to adjust their position relative to the Light of the Astronomicon. This he also factored in the transmission from the open-vox signal, ensuring that the Daemon Packs set to Deep-Strike, would be guided straight to the Heart of one of Zalthar’s largest Hive-Cities. The sheer panic and slaughter that would follow would be simply delicious.

Since birth, to a mother who disappeared when he was aged 28 cycles and a father he never knew, Carolynn had begun to realise he was different from his peers, possessed of a 6^th sense that only in later life he had learnt were 1, latent Psychic Powers and 2, had to remain hidden at all times at any cost. Standing beside one of the few remaining Great Crystals, his power increased 10 fold, particularly his prescience, the ability to see into events yet to pass, but with little clarity. It was like catching something in your peripheral vision. You can feel as much as see its presence, and it was now how Carolynn sensed that other eyes were focused on Zalthar. Corrupt, hateful and greedy eyes, bent on savage ends for the sake of the Chaos that ensued. War was coming again to Zalthar, but a war far more terrible than the creatures from Behind the Stars, for this War would be fought between Men and the Gods themselves. For this War would be an Apocalypse !