Infestation of Drashin - History: A Tyranid infestation had taken root in the Drashin System while the Imperial Fists led by Darnath Lysander were prosecuting a war against the Orks of the Magor Rift in what had come to be known as the Crusade of Thunder.But at less than a hundred light years from Terra, the infestation of Drashin placed the rapacious xenos a mere stone's throw from the Imperium's heart. Accordingly, and at Chapter Master Vladimir Pugh's order, all Imperial Fists strike forces, including the Crusade of Thunder, were summarily recalled to confront this threat.The renewed war against the Orks would have to wait.When the Imperial Fists battle barge Storm of Wrath arrived at Drashin under the command of Captain Lysander, it found a world heaving beneath the mass of Tyranid swarms. The roots of the infestation could be seen even from orbit, millions of dark carapaces blending together to form roving lakes that left nothing but bare rock and wasteland in their wake.The crisis on Drashin had begun some solar weeks earlier, when an unnamed space hulk had materialised out of the Warp on a direct heading for the planet. Judging by its crude hull adornments, the vessel had lately been under Ork command, but other than a marked deceleration in its approach, there had been no sign of life aboard as it crashed through the Adeptus Mechanicus picket fleet and collided with Drashin itself.Much of the space hulk had been destroyed by the Mechanicus ships, or else had burned up in the planet's thick atmosphere, but enough of it had survived to wreak calamity on the planet below, causing the world to shift slightly on its orbit and throwing up a cloud of particulate matter than had choked away the sun.Drashin's planetary crust was incredibly brittle, and the impact had all but obliterated an entire continent, leaving jagged obsidian platelets scattered across a seething ocean of magma. Worse was to come.As a crust of cooling rock hardened around the space hulk's hull, the Tyranid swarms had emerged from rents in the vessel's flanks. The magma oceans around the impact site had provided little in the way of bio-mass, but the jungles further to the west had proved a more tempting target.Before help could arrive, a swarm already glutted on the Space Hulk's previous occupants had blossomed to many times its original size.Under the circumstances, orbital bombardment -- or even Exterminatus -- would have been the prudent course. However, the relief force's orders had been explicit: the Tyranid infestation was to be ended with minimal harm to the planet itself.The captain of the Spear of Vengeance, another Imperial Fists battle barge that had answered the call for aid, did not know the reason for the order, only that it had come from Terra itself. It didn't matter; Lysander could guess.There was an Adeptus Mechanicus archaeological outpost on Drashin's northern pole, and had been since before the captain's unintended sojourn in the Warp. Whatever it was the servants of the Omnissiah were looking for, it was clear that they didn't want it accidentally destroyed -- even in circumstances as dire as these.The price of such restraint was quickly paid. Even with the arrival of the Astra Militarum's Catachan XXXI Regiment, millions of Imperial citizens had perished, with millions more on the brink.By the time the Imperial Fists had arrived, the determined Jungle Fighters had slowed the Tyranid advance, but only at the cost of a further two cities and many thousands of their own warriors.Now the swarm was deep into Drashin's largest continent, and the Adeptus Mechanicus' polar base remained secure only through the efforts of the Legio Magna 's Titans, and a muster of Knights from House Krast.As matters had transpired, Chapter Master Vladimir Pugh's task force -- comprising some four companies of Imperial Fists -- had arrived only one Drashin day before the Storm of Wrath. Pugh knew that there had been instances of Genestealer infestations aboard space hulks since the Sin of Damnation incident involving the Blood Angels nearly four hundred Terran years previously in 589.M41, but seldom before had there been any record of a full-fledged Tyranid swarm aboard such a vessel.Pugh had taken this to mean that the space hulk's mangled skin concealed at least one Norn-Queen -- though how one of the brood mothers of the Tyranid swarms had come to be aboard the vessel, he could not fathom -- and had elected to lead a strike straight at the infestation's heart.Unwilling to risk a Drop Pod descent onto the space hulk's magma-strewn surrounds, Pugh had led an assault via Thunderhawk gunship. Nearly half a solar day had passed, but no communication had been heard from him since.Brooking no further delay, Lysander vowed to follow in Pugh's path, to bring aid to his Chapter Master if he still lived and to avenge him if he did not. Yielding command of the Tactical Squads to Sergeant Tor Garadon once more, Lysander led the Centurions and his two Dreadnoughts to a Thunderhawk and departed into the atmosphere.