13th Black Crusade - The Fall of Cadia: Cadia shuddered, impossible forces jarring it loose of age-old orbit. The survivors clinging to the ruined fortresses of Cadia Tertius barely had time to scream. Those beneath the vast impact site perished first, super-heated wind roaring in their ears before it seared flesh from bone, and reduced bone to scattered ash.The Blackstone Fortress' remnant struck, gouging a crater hundreds of miles in breadth. Mountains crumbled to dust. Seas vanished into plumes of scalding steam. Continental plates rumbled and groaned as they shifted beneath titanic forces not seen since Cadia first cooled from the star-stuff of the galactic void.The tremors spread, tidal waves and screaming particulate winds their heralds. Coastal bastions that had survived bombardment and siege drowned beneath the unnatural tide, ripped from their foundations and dragged beneath the squalling seas. The island of Ran Storn vanished entirely, its shell-ravaged landing fields drowned beneath the waves. A thousand miles inland on the continent of Cadia Secundus, the enduring spires of Kasr Vark at last fell, smashed apart by waters of the Caducades Sea as the tidal shelves buckled.Forests that had been old when Mankind first settled Cadia burned away in the briefest of moments. Crustal platelets shattered and split, the furious life-blood of the world boiling forth. Long-dormant volcanoes flared to life along the Rossvar Mountains, pyroclastic flows consuming all in their path. The great killing fields of Tyrok, site of Creed's ascension to the rank of Lord Castellan, split asunder and vanished into magma-lit gloom, swallowed by the world's torment.At the Elysion Fields, half a world away from the impact site, they heard the roar of the winds, and saw the dark onrush of particulate clouds that blocked out the sun. The canny sought what cover they could amongst the pylons and ruined war machines. The slow-witted perished, torn apart by the vaporised bones of Cadia. The prayers of Battle-Sisters and Chaos Cultists alike were snatched away by the planet's dying breath, unheard by any deity or saint. In the nodal cavern, the ceiling cracked wider yet, raining boulders down on Creed's bloodied victors.The winds grew, hurling tanks across the pylon fields, crushing those who had sought shelter beneath them. Ancient pylons gave up their grasp on the bedrock, toppling like petrified trees. The pylon field's beam of dark light flickered as the monoliths fell. The retreat of the Immaterium faltered, and then slowly reversed.The storm raged for solar minutes that seemed eternities, and then fell away into hurricane winds. They blew over a world forever altered. The continent of Cadia Tertius was gone, obliterated by fire and drowned beneath howling seas. The Krian Fault, bane of Cadia Tertius since the Age of Strife, had ruptured one last, fateful time, and the planetary crust split apart. Cadia Primus was half-drowned, its forested mountainsides now isolated islands scattered across a new ocean. Cadia Secundus lay wreathed in fire, its continental plates sinking as the pressure of their neighbours forced them steadily inwards. None of it mattered. Cadia was already dead.But even then, there was worse to come. As the aftershocks of impact rippled through the dying rock, more pylons shattered against the dust-strewn tundra -- not just at the Elysion Fields, but at the lesser sites of Kasarn, Trosk and Vorg. As the pylons fell, the nodal web stuttered, and then withered entirely. The dark light beam, Cawl's spear into the heart of the Eye of Terror, flickered once more, and died. A new sound pealed through the howling winds -- the dark laughter of gods too long denied their prize. The crimson maelstrom of the Eye of Terror pulsed anew, and reached out to embrace sundered Cadia.Cawl felt the nodal grid pull apart, the remaining pylons no match for the pressure of the resurgent Immaterium. Through his third consciousness, he dimly acknowledged the screams and the grinding of tortured rock. Then he slaved all his attention to the task at hand.The Archmagos' secondary consciousness translated the alien whisper of the pylons to a static-filled ﬂow of Lingua-technis. Gaps appeared in the binharic equations, untranslatable fragments glowing with green fire. They had not been there before. Their presence confirmed the growing instability of the grid.No! He would not fail, not after coming so close!As Cawl's tertiary mind approximated translation for the unfamiliar code, his primary consciousness tightened its grip, as if to hold together the grid by will alone. His optics scoured the shuddering cavern for any trace of Trazyn -- but of the Necron, there was no sign.Curse him! And curse Veilwalker too, for setting him on this course. Failure changed nothing. Worse, it had jeopardised the pact. A ten thousand standard year geas, now thrown into jeopardy by perfidious xenos!Rage overwhelmed the logic calculations of Cawl's tri-fold mind, passionless composure wilting beneath the realisation of his folly. The pylons were not the Omnissiah's work. And yet, blinded by pride, he had sought to bind them to holy purpose. He had erred, been seduced from the precepts of Mars by vainglory.Skeins of binharic code slipped into dust beneath Cawl's grip. Equations breathed through his mind, more alien now than recognisable. He felt the nodal grid convulse, the last bindings falling away as critical pylons fell, a dark cancerous presence ﬂooding across Cadia's surface, rapacious, unstoppable. As the last binharic skeins slipped free of his grip, Cawl finally recognised his folly. The door he had sought to close forever had swung open wider than before. Tri-fold mind atremble, he disengaged from the dying grid."Cadia is lost," he breathed.Save for the presence of the pylons, the Immaterium would have claimed Cadia long ago. The long-dead Necron artisans who had set the pylon fields in Cadia's living rock could not have foreseen the Eye of Terror's cataclysmic birth, could not have known the vital bulwark their works would become. But now, with the pylons' fall, the tendrils of the Warp laid their first loving caress upon Cadian realspace, and the daemons of the Dark Gods spilled forth.These were not the flickering manifestations so lately loosed upon the world, their presence in realspace under constant challenge by the pylons' power. These were the servants of the Ruinous Powers, hale and whole, fed by the raw stuff of Chaos. They first appeared amidst drowned Cadia Tertius, where the Blackstone Fortress' demise had torn a rent in reality's veil through the sheer loss of life. But as the Eye of Terror slipped its ancient bounds, the rifts multiplied, dragging the beleaguered world into the bowels of the Immaterium.Dark laughter echoed across skies still choked with particulate matter. Cadia's surviving psykers, at last freed from the tyranny of the pylons, came under new assault from the perils of the Warp. Most were slain at the hand of former allies, their possessed bodies ripped apart by laser and Bolter fire as flesh reshaped into new and terrible forms. Only those with a will of iron held back the daemons clawing at their thoughts, and only Katarinya Greyfax found the strength of mind to repel them entirely.And yet, in that darkest hour, hope was reborn, for the restoration of the Immaterium saw also the renewed ascension of Celestine and her Geminae Superia. The Light of the Emperor restored, she led the survivors out of the chamber and into the wasteland of the Elysion Fields. None recognised the sight they beheld. Magma wended its sluggish path amidst the fallen pylons, consuming the bodies of the dead and their armaments of war. Here and there across the plains, sporadic fire rang out as the first daemons clawed their way onto the war-torn fields.As the scant survivors of the Elysion Fields converged, drawn like flaremoths to Celestine's light, the Cadian 8th Regiment once again looked to Creed for leadership. For the first time since he had joined the Whiteshields, so many standard years ago, none was forthcoming. The Lord Castellan looked out upon the ruin of his world, his Cadia, and knew only despair.Recognising that Creed's mind now roamed distant fields, and determined not to allow authority to fall into Celestine's dubious hands, Greyfax seized command. Using what remained of the planetary Vox-net, she issued the evacuation order. Cadia had fallen -- even if it endured the physical trauma of the Blackstone's collision, the Warp would soon claim it. Victory in the Imperium's name was worth the sacrifice of thousands, of millions, but the Inquisitor knew no victory could any longer be had on Cadia. Every living soul abandoned upon its sundered shores was but a sacrifice to the Dark Gods. Greyfax expected Celestine to challenge her order, to exhort Cadia to one last, glorious stand. But the golden saint merely took wing north through the howling winds to carry her blade against the daemons assailing the surviving Adepta Sororitas.Thus began the last exodus of Cadia. From across the globe they came, in landing craft and transport vessels barely fit to fly, Plasma Drives burning hard for the safety of Phalanx and the rag-tag fleet sheltering in its shadow.Not all came safe to their destinations. The overburdened engines failed amidst the howling winds, condemning their cargo to stomach-lurching freefall until the oblivion of impact. Others were peeled apart by winged daemons, or simply had their weakened hulls implode under the fantastic pressures. The Cadian 27th Regiment perished to the last man as their Tetrarch Heavy Lander's pilot succumbed to Warp-cast madness and ploughed the limping behemoth into the remains of the Trados Mountains.Heldrakes and Harbingers, operating far from the trailing edge of the Black Fleet, risked the savage winds to spill more blood for the Dark Gods. Dogfights unfolded amongst swirling dust storms as the last of the Imperial Fists' Stormhawk Interceptors sought to clear the skies. Yet they were too few to keep the foe contained, and the evacuation fields of Elysion became shell-riddled mausoleums.Elsewhere, the evacuation was dogged by the panic of stampeding masses. Just as the Immaterium came to consume Cadia, terror sought to devour its remaining populace. Some regiments kept their order. Others disintegrated into mindless mobs, clambering atop overloaded transports in their desperation to escape. At Kasr Luten and Kasr Gorsk, officers ordered their Kasrkin to fire into the crowds, and disorder became full-blooded riot.At the Elysion Fields, the evacuation became a fighting retreat, every transport a target for soul-hungry daemons. In the north, Celestine's Adepta Sororitas slowly gave ground, but at a high cost to their foes. To the south, the tale was the same -- the daemons there were held by a ragged line of Guardsmen, buttressed at either end by Garadon's Imperial Fists and the Black Templars of the Cruxis Crusade. But despite their heroism, it soon became clear to Greyfax that the evacuation fields would soon be overrun. Flight-worthy voidcraft were too few, and growing scarcer with each passing moment. Some would have to be sacrificed for the rest to escape.It was then that Creed at last roused himself from despair. The Lord Castellan's Own would hold Cadia one last time, he decreed. They would buy the time needed, as Cadia ever had, with an offering of blood and bone. Orders were issued, their bleak consequence plain to all who heard, but the Cadian 8th Regiment did not blanche at the duty placed before them. There was not one amongst them who did not feel the cold hand of fear, but none broke ranks or attempted desertion. Creed was Cadia, but more than that, he was of the 8th. He had led the regiment safely through fire and death where others had been consumed. There was not one amongst those ranks who did not owe the Lord Castellan their lives, and all accepted that the debt was due.As the last Imperial transports soared into the hellish skies, the 8th fought and died amongst the ruins of their world. The Sisters of Our Martyred Lady and Marshal Amalrich's Black Templars were the last to depart, their bloodied survivors crowding aboard transports sent from the Iron Revenant to reclaim the Knights of House Taranis. Greyfax departed with them, her suspicious eye ever upon Celestine. But as the landing thrusters flared, the Inquisitor thought she heard a bellowed cry, clear and proud over the howling winds and the roar of cannons. It was a deep voice, bowed by the horrors of war, but not broken -- defiant to the last."Cadia stands!"Creed waved his maimed hand in the air, signalling his troops and bellowing to be heard over the fury of the wind. "Fall back! Fall back!"With a shudder, the Cadian line shrank towards the evacuation fields. The winds rose, stirring the dust-storm to new heights. Suddenly Creed was alone. A ﬂame-chased shadow passed overhead, the cog-toothed skull of the Adeptus Mechanicus emblazoned on its ﬂanks. Las-fire lanced from its prow, provoking daemonic screams from deeper within the dust-storm. Then engines roared, and the transport thundered skywards. The last transport. Cadia was now little more than a graveyard, haunted by the stubborn and the dead.Creed stumbled. Despite the medics' valiant labours, his wounds still bled. He felt his strength ebbing as his lifeblood seeped into the greatcoat's fabric. One last effort. Then he'd rest. One last effort.The storm parted – not before a daemon, but a metal giant in a scaled cloak. The wind snatched away Creed's hurried shot. Light glittered upon the figure's upraised palm, iridescent polygons billowing in a hypnotic dance."Ursarkar E. Creed." The giant's words slammed down like tombstones. "This need not be your end. Eternity awaits."The giant's laughter followed Creed into darkness.