Cyclops Cluster - The Death Guard unleashed: When the XVII "Sun Dragons" deep range Cruiser squadron of the Armada Ultima finally forced their way through the Warp-turbulence which had dogged their attempts to reach Lascal in answer to their homeport's distress call, they emerged into a scene of still-burning carnage. The extensive war fleet mustered at the Armada's high orbital anchorage over the fifth world of the system had been a sizable force; some forty ships-of-the-line and more than a hundred Escorts and some heavier units in form of the Ozymandias, the Star Tamer and the Sceptre of Iron, three -Retribution-class Battleships that had proved their worth; and yet all had been blasted to ruins, some of the larger hulks still bleeding fiery plasma from their ruptured reactor cores or frozen air escaping from their lifeless and rent hulls.What was perhaps even more shocking was that further scans identified precious little wreckage as belonging to the enemy -- an entire war-fleet annihilated with barely any losses. This made for a most terrifying picture: an attack of such overmastering power, overwhelming strength and suddenness that resistance had barely had time to organise before being entirely wiped out. Further in, the Sun Dragons discovered that a new debris belt now surrounded their homeworld of Lascal V, whose origin was soon discovered: the remains of the high fleet anchorage station. Additional scans revealed the surfaces of the core worlds dense with the radiation of weapons-fire, the garbled echoes of distress signals and the characteristic fog of war.Carefully the Sun Dragons proceeded further in-system, as the area was still potentially dangerous due to active Void Mines, unspent ordnance and tumbling pieces of wreckage that could easily damage the Cruisers. Ever mindful of an ambush, the Cruisers continued, weapons ready for an attack that never came. Their Auspexes revealed what every man and woman amongst the bridge crew had feared: Lascal had not been merely invaded or conquered, but purged of any living soul and left for dead. The system's primary world, Lascal IV, once a burgeoning Imperial colony with a population numbering in the tens of millions, was now a poisoned orb, its atmosphere thick with toxic green and black strata betraying the tell-tale signs of mass biochemical bombardment.Solar Auxilia landing parties in full environment gear launched from the Sun Dragons' Cruisers to the palace of its Imperial Governor and several known defence bunkers. All returned ashen-faced, with the same tale of utter destruction to tell. The dead in their thousands covered the land, struck down in their stride by blistering airborne poisons and murderous nerve-agents. In those few places such as the Governor's palace, which had been sealed in time, a more direct hand had been required to destroy those seeking shelter within. Ferrocrete walls had been shattered by direct cannon fire, bulkhead doors torn from their mountings by the merciless gauntlets of Power Fists, and everywhere was rank slaughter and the litter of spent bolt shell cases, unmistakably Legiones Astartes in pattern.Most, however, had not been that lucky and had perished through over-exposure to the airborne necro-toxins; and as the landing parties would soon discover, even an Astartes constitution had proved insufficient against these vile poisons, for the bodies of a number of Iron Hands Legionaries were discovered amongst the dead. As if any more evidence was needed, the landing parties discovered the impaled and bloated corpse of Lascal's governor in an auditorium of his palace; there, above the cast down Aquila, flew a ragged banner bearing the death's head and black sunburst of Mortarion's dread Legion.As the Sun Dragons left the charnel house of Lascal behind them, news of what they had found quickly spread amongst the worlds of the Cyclops Cluster. Already fraying from each other in fear, pure terror now took hold among these worlds. At planets such as Endicott, Moravasis and San Pardor, news of the "Murder of Lascal" or the "Lascal Massacres" as they became swiftly known escaped to the general population -- perhaps purposefully leaked by agents of Horus and fifth-columnists already planted there by the Traitors' spy network -- civilian insurrections and rioting degenerated in open rebellion which toppled the Imperial authorities from power and left only chaos in their wake. But barely had similar dissent been put down in the orbital habitats of Dominica Minor, when news reached the seat of the Cyclops Cluster's notional political leadership, the Guildmasters, that the reaper's scythe had visited two more star systems, the mining colonies of Grist and Rabbasan, and left none alive. Both systems lay in a near direct path to the galactic South via the Warp-routes between Lascal and Dominica Minor. The Guildmasters now had precious little doubt that they would be next.Frantically, the panicked Guildmasters tried to invoke their Terran-bestowed primacy and call for fresh forces to be mustered from their dominions and vassal worlds, but their orders were mostly met with silence or scorn. Looking elsewhere for aid, they discovered with horror that the Mezoan blockade was now reinforced with dark-hulled warships of unknown origin. Worse yet, the Forge Lords of M'Pandex had turned from the Emperor's light and reached out to seize control of several worlds through their implacable cohorts of half-dead adsecularis troops, butchering any who would stand in their way.The horror only increased when they learned that Gethsamaine's Imperial Commander had bent knee before the Traitors, and delivered up his world without a shot being fired in its defence. Other worlds such as Vargas and Bleak Harbour had quickly mirrored his movement, while the feral natives of Zavarich had massacred their Imperial overseers and abased themselves before the Sons of Horus as if they were gods descending from the heavens. It was to the Guildmasters of Dominica Minor suddenly apparent that, with a surgeon's skill, the Cyclops Cluster had been dismembered and laid bare before onrushing death, as much by human weakness as by the sword of the enemy.