Lions Sable - The Forgotten Wars: It began innocently enough. While in pursuit of the remnants of an Ork fleet in 580.M31, elements of the Angels of Vengeance entered the Gothic Sector. Under the guise of scanning for remnants of the Greenskin fleet they had been commanded to destroy, the Angels of Vengeance searched for clues that might lead them to any Fallen.This was standard procedure for all Unforgiven Chapters -- to pursue their secret goals whilst ostensibly following mission edicts as passed down from the High Lords of Terra. Gathering long-range scans and widely collected reports, the Angels of Vengeance Strike Cruiser uncovered nothing untoward save for an encrypted signal beamed from the Mining World of Lemnos. Once decoded, the message described exactly what the Unforgiven were seeking.The world of Lemnos was embroiled in a bitter war over mining rights -- a battle of greed, rather than ideology. As Imperial tithes were being met, there were no orders to intervene, and the matter was to be left for the Planetary Governor to handle.Rival noble factions were using private armies to enforce their ownership over the richest veins of mineral wealth. It was of these battles that the signal spoke. The mysterious message was sent in one of the older battle codes used by the Dark Angels and provided just the kind of clues that fit the modus operandi of one of the Fallen.According to the message, the leader of one of the mercenary warbands fighting on Lemnos was turning the tide of battle almost single-handedly. He also fought in what seemed to be an old mark of Power Armour. Their Chapter Librarians detected multiple readings of Fallen. The original target -- a towering man known as "the Mauler" -- had raised alarms with his superhuman feats of strength in battle.When subjected to a remote psychic probe by an Angels of Vengeance Librarian, the telltale signs of someone bearing Dark Angels Legion gene-seed appeared. Terminators from the Angels of Vengeance' 1st Company were sent in to apprehend him. There were, however, other readings picked up from the vicinity as well. One of these signals flickered -- a phenomenon associated with Warp Storms, although none were reported at that time.This was the first recorded encounter with the unique signals that would later be associated with Cypher. Whether he had been there first and brought in another Fallen or was working with the Mauler from the beginning is not known. The strike team was successful in capturing the Mauler, although in doing so, they sustained high casualties.As The Rock was in an adjoining sector, it was not long before the Mauler was secured in its deep dungeons. Persuaded by the harsh methods of the Interrogator-Chaplains and the relentless mind-probes of the Librarians, the Mauler eventually revealed that he had been known by another, older name.Here was Brother Sytrx, a Dark Angel returned to the fold. Before finally recanting and being relieved of the burden of living, Sytrx revealed more. He named a dozen of the Fallen that he had seen in the sector. Elements from the Angels of Vengeance, the Dark Angels and the Lions Sable followed these trails.Each stop along this new journey -- from planetfalls to the boarding of a derelict Space Hulk floating in the midst of deep space -- led the Unforgiven towards still further clues. At each point, some new revelation was ascertained. As each new scrap of information was reported back to The Rock, a larger and more sinister plot was slowly revealed.Originally, the Unforgiven had begun their mission seeking only to apprehend individuals. What was revealed was a corruption spread through six star systems of the Gothic Sector. Running through the collusions and inter-planetary trysts was a coherent and sinister thread that bore many of the hallmarks of an elaborate plot by the Alpha Legion -- although that group of Traitors had, at the time, erroneously been declared destroyed by the Inquisition.Weaving through the clues and crisscrossing trail of evidence scattered across the Gothic Sector was the individual with whom Dark Angels Librarians had a fast-growing obsession -- the one called Cypher.