Taros Campaign - Day Three – The End at 23-30: With the Imperial Navy unable to assist, the 23rd Elysians had to rely on their own Vultures. After returning to base, the gunships re-armed and refuelled to set off again back to the battle. The gunships would provide constant rolling air cover for the men on ground, but the distance between their base and the battle meant they could never stay for long. Still, throughout the day and night the Vulture gunships skimmed in and unleashed their firepower before returning to base. The night was illuminated by the fiery streaks of missile launchers and the distant crump of warhead impacts.After two days and nights of fighting, Hydro-Processing Plant 23-30 had been pounded into a shambles. Tau heavy weapons and Elysian counter-fire was reducing the area into a growing pile of junk metal. It was a ravished landscape, pitted by mortar craters, covered with the wreckage of twisted and charred pipes, littered with splintered steel, ash and the bodies of the dead. Tracks were barricaded with the husks of burned-out Sentinels. Half-demolished water and chemical storage tanks, their contents long since spilled into the sand, stood sentry over the battlefield. Within this steel jungle crawled the survivors, crouching in cover, their uniforms ragged, dirty and bloody. They were all tired, exhausted from two days and nights of constant fighting. The skirmishing and threat of a renewed Tau attack in the night had kept them all awake. There had been little rest for anyone.After Day Two's long-range bombardment, the surrounding Tau forces now closed in to finish the job. Well aware of the relief column closing in, the Tau set about reducing the perimeter quickly. When dawn broke, the Tau mercilessly unleashed their biggest weapon. A Manta swooped in over the hydro-plant, casting a shadow over the Guardsmen beneath like a great bird of prey. The Elysians had no answer to the Manta's firepower. Its Drone controlled Burst Cannon turrets raked the site in a cascade of fire. With the Guardsmen pinned down by such heavy fire, the Battlesuits moved in, followed by Fire Warrior teams. It was a confused third day of fighting in the ruins of Hydro-Processing Plant 23-30. Under the wings of their Manta support, the Tau finally closed in and used their heaviest weapons at point blank range. The Elysians fought back hard, but even with their Vulture air support attacking the Manta they could not hope to win such an uneven battle. Slowly the Tau cleared the ruins, section by section. The Elysians fought bravely, then fell back or died, until only small pockets of resistance remained around the control complex and holding the causeway to the primary treatment centre. In mid-afternoon, the Tau commander requested a ceasefire and asked that the remaining defenders surrender. He informed Colonel Balach that there was nothing to be gained by continuing the pointless slaughter. The battle was lost, his relief was not coming - to die now was to die in vain. Colonel Balach, now wounded himself, refused to surrender and vowed to fight on. By nightfall he was dead and the 23rd Elysian regiment was all but annihilated.The Tau Fire Warriors rounded up the survivors and wounded, including General Syckava, disarmed them, and loaded them into the holds of their Mantas. More of the huge transports landed and began to collect the Hunter Cadres for redeployment. They left behind a twisted, smoke-enshrouded battlefield, littered with wreckage and the dead. Operation Comet was over - it had been defeated.