13th Black Crusade - The Might of the Despoiler: In the interplanetary void of the Cadian System, Abaddon's true assault gathered pace. Like a spear cast from the depths of the Eye of Terror, the Black Fleet flew true for Cadia, the chief bastion of resistance remaining within the Cadian Gate.The Black Fleet's outriders were but fodder to shield the grim-prowed warships that came behind. Interplanetary haulers and cargo-hulks, they were barely armed, but their crews possessed all the fiery zeal of recent converts to the way of unbelief. Beyond this swarm came score upon score of blasphemous war vessels: the ebon Cruisers of the Despoiler's own court; Plague Ships, their lumpen hulls belching vile fluids into the void with every course correction; the cabal-ships of the Thousand Sons; and the blood-red leviathans of the World Eaters. And amongst them, vessels of malefic legend, the virulent Terminus Est, the Fortress of Agony and the ominous bulk of the Will of Eternity -- last known survivor of the Blackstone Fortresses of the Gothic Sector.Few under Abaddon's command knew his true purpose in grinding Cadia beneath his heel. Most gave it little thought. For the dark prophets of the Word Bearers and their teeming disciples, this was destiny, foretold by the Chaos Gods long ago. For the Night Lords and their ilk, this was the hour in which terror would reign. For the Alpha Legion, this was but another stage in a many-faceted and eternal design, no more or less vital than a dozen other strands. Other warlords came to spread the blessings of their gods, to forge their own legends or to slake ten thousand standard years of hatred in the blood of the Imperium's defenders. Others still had no lucid motivation. The madness of war was upon them, and they would fight until its fury was spent.All who sought to stall that onslaught's passage paid with their lives and their souls. The remnants of Battlefleets Corona and Scarus, themselves bloodied during the first wave of the 13th Crusade, met the outliers of the Despoiler's fleet in the outer orbit of Vigilatum. Their crews fought to the last, mantras of faith upon their lips even as the atomic fire of breached Plasma Reactors consumed them.Still Abaddon's fleet swept on.As the first Chaos Cruisers entered the Iron Graveyard -- the drifting remains of a Cadian Sector fleet lost during the very first Black Crusade -- their rimward flank evaporated beneath sustained Nova Cannon fire. Admiral Dostov had concealed the surviving Victory-class Battleships of his battlegroup amidst the lifeless wrecks, and they now sought retribution for their comrades lost at Vigilatum. Had valour alone been enough to light the forges of triumph, Dostov would have smithed a mighty blade in that hour. But Abaddon could have suffered tenfold the losses Dostov inflicted before it even sparked his notice. Fresh bones soon littered the Iron Graveyard, and still Abaddon's fleet swept on.On Cadia, the revelation that Abaddon yet had a Blackstone Fortress at his command threw Creed and his fellow Imperial commanders into a flurry of activity. The Blackstone alone possessed sufficient firepower to cleave Cadia's crippled orbital defences, and then scour all traces of life from the world itself.One hope remained. From the very moment Abaddon had revealed the Blackstones' true potential back in the days of the Gothic War nearly a thousand standard years before, the Cult Mechanicus had laboured to counter the Warp-beam's fury. Conventional defences alone were of little use -- neither shield nor armour could abate the raw, unmaking energies of the Immaterium itself. Necessity being the whip-crack behind invention, a partial solution was found. By amalgamating the sciences of the Void Shield and Gellar Field, it was possible to emit an energy canopy to destabilise and dissipate the Warp-beam projected by a Blackstone Fortress. Cadia's null-array had been completed shortly before the first onset of the 13th Black Crusade. Unfortunately, none of the projection emplacements had survived the siege intact.Thus far, Creed had focussed his reconstruction efforts on restoring the defences necessary to fight a conventional war. With word of the Will of Eternity’s approach, this now changed. Every Adept of the Machine God on Cadia was tasked with breathing new life into the null-array. Bastions and emplacements painstakingly restored to function were stripped anew. Tech-priests and Enginseers laboured without rest, passing far beyond natural tolerances as they strove to achieve the impossible.By the time Abaddon's fleet was within a solar day of orbit, it was clear that those efforts would not be enough. Cadia was rich in flesh and bone, in faith, and even in determination. But time? Time had run out. Magos Klarn dourly reported that even at best projections, Kasr Kraf's null-array could not be coaxed even to partial effectiveness. More time was needed, and there was none.It was then that Sven Bloodhowl of the Space Wolves proposed a solution -- or at least the hope of one. His Battle Barge, the Firemane's Fang, was the sole motive vessel left in orbit around Cadia. His Firehowlers would take the ship into the heart of Abaddon's fleet, board the Will of Eternity, and do what they could to slow its progress.Such was the counsel of desperation, but in dark times desperation must be embraced, and transmuted into strength. Thus Bloodhowl's Great Company did not undertake this mission alone. All told, near two hundred Battle-Brothers of the Adeptus Astartes embarked the Firemane's Fang. Only fifty-eight hailed from Sven's own brotherhood. Others came from companies that had been torn asunder during the initial invasion of Cadia, lone Battle-Brothers and shattered squads determined to strike one last blow against the Despoiler's forces and claim revenge for their fallen brothers. So too went the survivors of the Cadian 13th Regiment, accompanied by a full maniple of Martian Skitarii.The garrison of Kasr Kraf cheered as the bright star of the Firemane's Fang broke orbit, but contact was lost almost at once, and the cheers faded soon after. Creed's mantra of "Cadia stands" echoed along the redoubts and bastions of Cadia. Few embraced it at first, though all dissenters were careful to avoid voicing their doubts. Cadia had already severed Abaddon's left hand; perhaps the right could be similarly crushed, but even valour needed firm ground on which to stand, and the Will of Eternity had the power to strip that away.Creed knew the mood of his soldiers, for their doubts were his also. Inactivity gnawed at him, so he combated it with action. As the projected hour grew steadily closer, Creed remained on the move, touring the defences of Cadia Secundus, greeting his officers with firm handshakes and clear eyes, addressing the assembled ranks of veterans and initiates alike with confidence that could have moved mountains, had he only set it to that purpose. That confidence billowed in all who heard his words, holding back the fears each man and woman felt. Cadia stands. The words took on new meaning in Creed's wake. Cadia would stand for the Emperor, but it would also stand for Ursakar E. Creed.None could have guessed that Creed's fears were every ounce as heavy as their own. Perhaps more so, for with each passing solar hour, he grew ever more convinced that the light of the Emperor no longer touched upon the Cadian Gate, that the Father of Mankind had abandoned them all to the darkness. Creed chided himself for his doubts, reminded himself that such thoughts were those of the apostate, the Heretic. Yet still the doubts remained, hidden from all. Or almost so. Though the two never spoke of it, Jarran Kell knew the darkness gathering in Creed's mind, but he kept that secret, as he had kept many others over the years.The vanguard of Abaddon's fleet arrived at dawn, greeted by a salvo of fire and defiance. The crippled warships in orbit levelled their last fury against the Black Fleet, joined in wrath by the planetary batteries Creed had worked so hard to restore. Plasma Drives flamed and went dark, delivering Traitor vessels into the merciless embrace of Cadia's gravity well. The sky blazed with pinpricks of fire, each marking the creation of another martyr or a Heretic's long-overdue demise.But this was merely the forerunner, the prologue. As the last of Cadia's hobbled fleet blazed into darkness, a new moon appeared in the sky, an eight-pointed star of abyssal stone, broken only by the angry red glare of a single, cyclopean eye.All of Cadia held its breath. The Will of Eternity had come at the appointed hour. Bloodhowl had failed. His sacrifice, and that of his Battle-Brothers, had been for nothing.The eye blazed. A beam of searing light leapt planetward, and dispersed amongst the clouds.Cheers erupted across Kasr Kraf, none more heartfelt than those of its Lord Castellan. Only Magos Klarn remained silent. He'd personally inspected the Kasr Kraf's projection grid less than a solar hour before, only to find his Adepts slain, and alien technology interwoven with the array's circuits -- technology that goaded the troubled Machine Spirits to trebled efficiency, making that one array capable of shielding all of Cadia. The mystery rankled at Klarn, who even without the deaths of his acolytes would have distrusted any binharic miracle that did not arise from his own hand. But as the cheers faded and the skies blackened with Traitor drop-ships, he tore his attention back to the breaking storm. The mystery would wait.The Siege of Cadia Secundus had begun.