Askellon Sector - The Portal Raids: In 731.M41, soon after the Vaxi Atrocity, an Imperial Navy long-range patrol squadron engaged in a three-standard-year sweep of the outermost star systems of the Asphodel Depths Sub-sector came upon a string of ruined settlements across a dozen of the settled moons of the Phobetor System. No bodies were found, and by the nature of the damage suffered to the hab structures it was evident that the Aeldari were responsible for the attack. The commodore in command of the patrol -- Abin Kybras -- cared not which strand of the alien culture had carried out the attacks, though his suspicions were that it was the "Dark Eldar," for this particular Aeldari sub-faction was known for launching raids upon Human worlds for no apparent end than to take prisoners and to spirit them away to their home dimension of the Webway for no reason any sane man could fathom.The patrol's report was logged via long range astropathic communion, and the squadron continued its lonely mission. As it penetrated the very edge of the trans-sector Wilderness Space, however, it found ever more evidence of Dark Eldar activity and, following these, determined a pattern. It was clear that the attacks were following the sub-aetheric Warp conduit leading to the Aventine System, a route known as Celaeno's Descent. By this point, it was estimated that the aliens must have carried away tens of thousands of the Emperor's subjects, and it became increasingly obvious that each attack represented an escalation in scale and daring.Worlds that should have been capable of defending themselves were falling, for their Planetary Defence Forces had been stripped in the solar months preceding the Vaxi Atrocity and left the worlds defenceless. With those defence forces reduced to bones now bleaching upon the irradiated murder-plains of Vaxi, entire sub-sectors were laid bare to the attentions of the Dark Eldar.It was then that a dire realisation hit home, and Kybras ordered his fleet to abandon its mission and make for Aventine. The drives were worked far beyond tolerances despite the protestations of the Enginseers, and three solar months later the patrol set in at Aventine. There they discovered the system's outer worlds, none of them highly populated, but each one a productive sub-domain, colony, or mining operation stripped as bare as the first worlds they had found.Aventine itself was under attack, not by any space-borne Dark Eldar force, but one which travelled from world to world by way of its own trans-dimensional means through the Webway. Aventine's capital was under attack, and there was nothing the squadron could do to stop the vile aliens dragging its population through their swirling portals.The commodore knew his duty, and though his office required him to remain stoic, he knew he was showing mercy in issuing his next order. The squadron might have had insufficient crew to launch a defence of the city below, but it could certainly intervene, as well as granting a quick death to those who would otherwise not receive any such fate.Solar minutes later, the skies of Aventine were split by the black entry containers of a hundred orbital plasma warheads. Each detonated with the power of a star, burning to ashes every last alien within a hundred kilometres as well as the captives they were attempting to drag through their dimensional portals. That day, Commodore Kybras demonstrated that Mankind could be every bit as cold-hearted as the cruellest of Dark Eldar, if the Emperor so willed it. That it might have poisoned Aventine's populace against the authority of the Imperium and lead to the rise of even greater threats would be a menace for another day.