Khnum's Assassination

With Lu Yueh’s betrayal known to Khnum and the First, Khnum ordered his flagship to the Crimeani Sector. A central location where the Warmaster currently administered the setup of a new administration for the subsector.

As soon as the Watchers entered the warp the ship began experiencing technical problems. First, the Watchers communications were jammed quickly after sending out a message to inform the warmaster of their arrival, this was followed by defensive systems shutting off before eventually the Wisdom’s Geller Field began to flicker. Khnum, his chief techmarine Mekhit, and his staff rushed off to fix the generators before they fully collapsed.

During the ensuing chaos, the Watchers were ambushed by kill-teams sent by the Consuls Exemplars who had been masquerading as Blight Wardens that had begun slaughtering crew and Astartes of the First. At first, the Watchers slowly began to push these kill-teams back, but from the shadows came the Consuls’ second surprise. The Consuls had located and unleashed Khnum’s biggest secret, the Medjund, disgraced members of the First Legion who shunned the teachings of their Primarch; blood thirsty and insubordinate, these beasts would have been more at home among the ranks of the Hounds of Surmah and so when not in active service, Khnum locked them away in special cells deep within the bowels of his flagship.

Equerry Petamn, in response to the ever growing threats, led a small expedition to rally their brothers and crew members in order to bring them back to the contested areas of the ship under Watcher control. While Petamn took his leave, the present members of the Djenn began to fortify what space they had kept control of while attempting to rally their forces. Fighting off raids and sabotage attempts from the Medjund, the Watchers took casualties as heavily as they inflicted them.

During Petamn’s attempt to escort as many crew members back to safe zones he came upon a daemon constructed by the Consuls. It had no formal name outside of its classification number, GL-41-V1. Petamn found the daemon after he entered a room with dozens of torn apart Watchers. It was a terrifying weapon that would have driven most normal humans to insanity upon first glance.

Petamn knew that if his gathered forces engaged the entity they would take heavy casualties that they could not afford. In a moment of delusion or perhaps bravery, he fired upon the daemon drawing it attention as he bolted towards the hangar bay, ordering one of his squad mates to have Carone the Dreadnought awoken and to meet him there. As he raced down corridor after corridor, the daemon was always just a step behind him. During his flight, Petamn encountered a portion of a Consul kill team, they brought forth flamers and bathed the walkway in fire, confounding the daemon as Petamn narrowly avoided the flames. The daemon tore through the Consuls before returning bounding after Petamn.

A few close calls later, Petamn arrived in the hangar where Carone emerged and faced down the daemon. The daemon and the dreadnought were evenly matched at first, but slowly the daemon gained the upper hand. When the ancient Watcher was about to break, Petamn unleashed the wrath of a heavy flamer he had torn from a weapons locker, its concentrated flames severely wounding the creature. With this brief respite, Carone was able to banish the entity back to the Warp; the knowledge gleaned from this fight would later serve the Watchers well in the years to come.

As Petamn’s group returned to safety they were greeted by the bodies of dead brothers, both traitor and loyal. High Steward  Imothes had been responsible for maintaining most of the defensive line aboard the Wisdom. This is when the Equerry found out the Medjund had withdrawn their attacks, this change in action puzzling the gathering Djenn as their opponents had been gaining ground rapidly despite their smaller numbers.

Before the group could figure out exactly what the Medjund were planning, a distress signal came from the crew trying to repair the Gellar Field generators. It became clear that the attacks on the rest of the crew had been a feint while the real target was the Gellar Field genertors shielding the *Wisdom* from the harsh energies of the Warp. Imothes gathered what forces they could spare as he made a mad dash to the Primarch and the device that was the only thing keeping them from succumbing to the Warp.

Meanwhile, Khnum had been beset by two Consul kill-teams and a plethora of Medjund, taking the brunt of the fighting as techmarines and tech priests did their best to repair any damage to the fragile device. The Consuls pushed and goaded the frenzied Medjund towards the Primarch as they did their best to destroy the Gellar Field generator themselves.

Khnum, in horror, began to cut through his wayward sons. However, despite the great sweeps of his khopeshes cutting through several Medjund at once, he was still too bogged down to attempt to push forward to the kill-teams. And it was in this moment that the kill teams brought forth a lascannon to bring the final blow down onto the Gellar Field Generator, the loyal Watchers present trying in vain to bring down the heavy weaponry before it could target the barely functioning device.

Right as the Consul wielding the lascannon was about to unleash its destructive power, the team was cut down as Imothes and his forces charged through their rearguard, slaughtering them to a man. Sensing defeat, the Medjund abandoned their allies and began to pull back into the shadows of the *Wisdom*. With the reinforcements present, The Gellar Field was able to be repaired and fortified enough to complete their journey.

In sorrow and rage, Khnum ordered the Watchers to pursue and eliminate all the remaining Medjund. Slowly, the First tracked down and killed each member of the Medjund. The fighting was fierce and the Watchers took many more casualties before Khnum reached the leader of the Medjund, Setten, in the bowels of the *Wisdom of Techu.*

When Setten was brought before Khnum, the Medjund began to curse his father. Delivering a cruel speech to the Primarch standing before him preparing his judgment. Setten berated his father, calling him foolish for abandoning sons who did what they were meant to do, kill and conquer. The Medjund rebuked his father’s views further. Calling him and the Loyal Watchers of Akhet a waste of good genestock that would have been better suited to have been purged like the Ninth and Seventeenth Legions.

At the end of Setten’s speech Khnum stood still. He did not make a noise as he moved towards the Medjund. Everyone present expected the Primarch to kill the traitor on the spot. However, instead of striking at Setten, Khnum dropped to one knee and hugged his son. Bringing him in close, he told him, “I have always loved you my son. Even if I could never fix you.” Once finished, Setten began to chastise Khnum further, but it was then that Khnum unsheathed his khopesh and cut Setten’s head off in a half swing.

As the bedlam abated, a scouting party found five more Medjund in the center of the halls they once were confined to. These Medjund were different as they remained unarmored and knelt as though they were in the presence of the Emperor himself. Khnum was brought before them where they told him that they could not be part of the Medjund’s twisted game. Even if they were castaways, they were loyal to their father, and they would take their own lives before it meant willingly harming him.

So touched by their speech, Khnum told them to rise, and welcomed them back into the Legion. Earning the title of the Five Reborn as they rejoined their brothers. A single bright light during a period of darkness where their cousins were headed towards the same fate that Sanguinius and Lorgar had been cast.

The journey eventually came to a halt, and the *Wisdom of Techu* exited the Warp. Escorts of the Justicars awaiting their arrival, hailed them immediately curious to the damage the gloriana had suffered. Khnum simply stated that he had an urgent message for the warmaster and requested repair teams be made available for the *Wisdom of Techu.* After that, Khnum prepared himself for the conversation that awaited him and the fate that may now befal his brother.