Operation Arjax 1

 

The spacehulk Shard of Tartarus- Lord Magwar determined the time was right to further explore and sieze the Spcaehulk Shard Of Tartarus.  The Alpha Legion had already fought and cleared a number of sections in order to gain control over the ark of omen spacehulk and had sealed the rest of the Shard of Tartarus off.  Lord Magwar was now going to reopen some of those areas and begin a systematic capture of the Shard of Tartarus.  Lord Magwar dubbed these clearing operation campaign Operation Arjax.

Three newly raised Stygian Guard regiments were diverted from front line combat assignments in the Stygian Wars.  Lord Magwar deemed the front stable enough to divert these troops and the Alpha Legions puppet Stygian Emperor agreed.  These regiments were sent to The Shard Of Tartarus space hulk were they unloaded to take part in Operation Arjax.  Lord magwar knew that clearing a Space hulk was likely to be a very bloody and expensive prospect.  He therefore sought to lessen the cost to the 7th Hydra company of the Alpha legion by expending the lives of a few thousand allies.  The first new section within the Hulk to be opened up were the mixed remains of a mechanicus mining and Imperial ore carrying transport.  heavy defenses were emplaced at the ingress points and the Stygian Guard began advancing into the mixture of asteroid and dead ships.

The Stygian Guard quickly encountered a genestealer infestation within the newly opened domains of the space hulk.  Squads of stygian guardsmen were ambushed and annihilated by the predatory aliens.  More Stygians were lost as they searched for squads for whom they lost vox contact only to encounter the genestealers themselves.  Nearly a full battalion was lost the first day of clearance.  The second day saw the loss of another battalion.  The third day saw the Stygians finally inflict significant losses on the predatory genestealers as they grew overeager in their hunting.  Still the Stygian's lost nearly half another battalion.  In three days nearly an entire regiment had been wiped out and morale crashed.  Many refused to make another sally into the gallowdark under the current conditions.

Lord Magwar then ordered a number of his Alpha legion marines to accompany the Stygian troops in further forays.  This was done to both raise morale and have his fellow space marines enforce swift but brutal discipline on any refusals.  Another factor was the nature of the genestealer threat as it was now understood.  Lord Magwar wanted the threat of genestealer infection against the crew of the Shard of Tartarus neutralized as quickly as possible.  Alpha Legion Marines then began leading squads of Stygians back in.  The superior senses of the marines alerted them to danger often before an ambush could be sprung and they were then able to direct the squads to effectively wipe out the ambushing xenos.  Other times the Alpha Legion would use the Stygians as bait in order to draw out their foe so they could be eliminated.  slowly bit by bit the area was cleared with the stygian death toll dropping remarkably.  The Stygians lost no more than 2 companies worth of troops over the next week of operations.  Soon almost all the genestealers were hunted down and eradicated.

As the Last of the Genestealers were hunted down, Alpha Legion kill teams were sent in to hunt down the Genestealer patriarch and end the threat for good.  After two days of hunting the Alpha Legion located and pinned their prey.  Using warpcraft and heavy weaponry they killed the Patriarch and finished off all the remaining genestealers.  They then directed the Stygians in setting up defenses in the newly swept territory and helped seal it off from access to other deeper regions of the space hulk.  The first phase in Operation Arjax was complete.