Disclaimer: I don't own Code Geass or Warhammer 40k.

A/N: In response to Sunzi's review: hmmm…a strong alloy, difficult to replicate, and used to build giant robots…I guess you're right. Hahahaha. I honestly never thought about it that way…and I call myself a Gundam fan…

Chapter Seventeen: The Storm

Drop Bay, Black Knights Destroyer Caerleon
Forty-Eight Hours After the Arrival

Fully-armored and armed, the one hundred twenty members of the 10th OPAW silently awaited the order to drop. Though they appeared standing, a good number had simply locked their leg servos and took the opportunity to relax. Many opted to grab whatever sleep they could before the battle, with only their Knightmares' slightly slumped posture and the comparatively-dull glow of their eyepieces betraying their unconscious state. The few still awake occupied their time with reviewing intelligence reports, brushing up on Eldar language and etiquette, or even talking quietly to one another over private channels.

Even the distinctive bright crimson of the Guren-Seraph was lost amidst the sea of Cherubs. Kallen diligently scanned the troopers around her, offering a few words of advice or reassurance to the particularly nervous-looking ones and discussing some last-minute logistics with Captain Schuelke. Like her fellow immortals, she had slept only the bare minimum required to function ever since arriving at Terra. The power nap on the shuttle to the Caerleon had done wonders, but experience told her that the newfound energy wouldn't last long. Though she hid it admirably, she felt every bit as apprehensive about the upcoming battle as the soldiers around her.

Kallen grimaced under her helmet as she washed down the last mouthful of her combat rations from her Knightmare's food dispenser with several swigs of recycled water. Though infused with various flavors in an attempt to make it more palatable, nothing could mask the texture. She and the others of the 10th OPAW were slated to survive on nothing but barely-edible though highly-nourishing goop for at least the next few days. She had eaten little else ever since arriving on Terra, and to her horror, she was starting to get used to nutrient paste.

"We have entered the outskirts of the Warp storm," announced a feminine voice over the drop bay speaker, "Deployment in fifteen minutes."

Though there was a good chance that the announcer was actually female, the voice over the intercom was produced by sophisticated software. Yet, it still spoke to some deeply-rooted part of the soldiers' psyches and soothed their pre-battle jitters. Metal clamps emerged from the drop bay ceiling and latched securely around the occupants' shoulders. Primarily intended to aid deployment, the clamps nevertheless conferred the secondary benefit of holding the 10th OPAW's members in place as the intense Warp current outside visibly shook the Caerleon.

"All hands, be advised we have exited the Warp," the voice informed them, "Brace for sudden evasive maneuvering."

Time had not been kind to Altansar's once-formidable military forces. Exhausted and already teetering on the brink of annihilation when their Craftworld tumbled into the Eye of Terror, they were further ground down by the unrelenting assaults of She Who Thirst's numerous minions. Finally escaping the maddening realm between the Materium and the Empyrean at the end of the forty-first millennium, the warriors of Craftworld Altansar traded one savage conflict for another. Badly mauled in the savage fighting of Abaddon's Thirteenth Black Crusade, they began their slow limp towards Terra. Hiding behind the guns of the powerful Imperial Navy and facing nothing worse than an occasional disorganized pirate attack, Altansar spent the intervening millennia restoring its military to its former glory.

In heeding the Crystal Seer's prophecies, the Altansar Seer Council stripped away the majority of their defenses and sent them to aid the beleaguered Imperial forces. As hundreds of Eldar warships descended on the unsuspecting Chaos force, the Craftworld and the billions of souls it housed was protected by a meager fleet and prayers to the Eldar pantheon for protection.

Abaddon the Despoiler couldn't have asked for a better opportunity.

Vicinity of Craftworld Altansar
Sixteen Days From the Terra System

When the Caerleon re-entered the Materium with a flash of green, the battle for Altansar's skies was already well underway. Their sensors blinded by the primordial soup of Chaos or confused by the sheer amount of ordnance crisscrossing the battlefield, neither Eldar nor Chaos paid the new arrival any attention. The tiny destroyer likewise ignored the clashing ships all around it, instead gunning its engines and speeding towards the Craftworld at the battle's center.

The Caerleon's crew was sent flying forward in their acceleration harnesses as the warship screeched to a stop, temporarily reversing direction while drifting into a sharp turn before speeding forwards once again, all within a fraction of a second. Any normal ship would have been immediately torn apart, and the destroyer's hull creaked ominously throughout. A shoal zone in the Warp storm had spontaneously formed a mere three thousand meters ahead of the destroyer, swallowing up several Chaos warships. Unable to handle the stress of the sudden transition into the Materium, their hulls simply disintegrated. Several attack craft lucky enough to escape the sudden deathtrap were dashed against the debris the shoals spit out.

Though greatly outnumbered, the Eldar defenders fought with all the savagery of cornered animals. Robbed of their agility by the Warp storm's various hazards, their ships clustered around the Craftworld and loosed withering hails of munitions at the approaching Chaos fleet. The Caerleon barely avoided ramming into a mortally-wounded Void Stalker on a suicide run. Even as lances and torpedoes blew off huge chunks of its armor, the mortally-wounded warship determinately continued its course. What few weapons remained operational blazed away at the Chaos ships, and some of the surviving crew members even clambered onto the outer hull with heavy weaponry, taking potshots at any Chaos attack craft that swooped down in hopes of easy kills. A stray bolt of Warp lighting cleaved the dying ship in two, but inertia carried the hulk forward.

The Void Stalker's lights finally flickered and died as the ship spent the last of its energy to fire a lengthy burst from its sole remaining pulsar lance. The deadly beams blew a Chaos cruiser clean in two, sending neighboring ships scattering. Several enemy attack craft failed to clear the area in time and were smashed to bits by fast-moving debris. Some of the lances punched straight through the unfortunate cruiser's hull and struck the ships behind it. A heretic Lunar-class cruiser, ablaze and venting atmosphere through multiple hull breaches, slowly spun out of formation and into the no man's land between the two fleets. The crippled hulk collided with the wreckage of the Void Stalker, and both vanished in a burst of superheated gasses and debris.

The Caerleon paid the scene no mind, instead inverting and diving towards the Craftworld's surface. The destroyer leveled out at the last moment, just before hitting Altansar's atmosphere, and swung open its drop bay doors.

Drop Bay
Black Knights Destroyer Caerleon

"Light's green! Get ready!"

The clamps' purpose became abundantly clear as the floor beneath the 10th OPAW's feet suddenly retracted. Looking down from many kilometers above the surface, even the sharpest-eyed of the group could see nothing but the highest of Altansar's surface spires. As the Caerleon began circling the Craftworld's enormous girth at insanely high speeds, even those few details began blurring together. Several squadrons of Chaos attack craft had ascended to the very edges of Craftworld Altansar's atmosphere, not to intercept the Caerleon, but instead in preparation for their attack runs. They, and the Eldar aircraft rising up to intercept them, appeared as mere specks to the destroyer's passengers.

Had the atmosphere not been drained from the bay beforehand, a series of deafening booms echoing throughout the drop bay would have deafened anybody not wearing significant hearing protection. A bank of explosive bolts blew, and a rank of metal clamps—along with the OPAW troopers attached to them—fell away from the ship. A stream of highly-compressed gas propelled the first wave of troopers clear of the Caerleon as the second group's bolts detonated. Twelve by twelve, the troopers of the 10th OPAW were shot towards their battlefield.

With an ease that came only with extensive practice and hard experience, the 10th OPAW troopers subtly shifted their arms and legs to put themselves into re-entry position. Heads tucked into their chests, arms crossed over the folded weapons clamped to their torso armor, and legs held straight and together, they mentally counted down the seconds before hitting the atmosphere. The metal clamps separated from their Knightmares with a puff of compressed gas and tumbled away, many of them entering the atmosphere ahead of their owners.

"Re-entry in t-minus five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Mark!"

Kallen Kozuki always led from the front, a trait that endeared her to the troopers, and consequently the Guren hit the atmosphere ahead of the 10th OPAW. A faint pinkish haze appeared around the distinctive crimson Knightmare and the dozen Cherubs just behind it. The haze gradually darkened into a bright red as the second wave of troopers entered the atmosphere. By the time the third wave began re-entry, the initial wave had completely disappeared within opaque red fireballs.

Eldar Defense Line, Surface of Craftworld Altansar
017.M51, Day Two of the Siege of Altansar

"More coming from the left flank!"

The task of retrieving soulstones, normally a priority, was shoved aside as the remaining Guardians rushed to re-orient their firepower. Bodies were left where they lay or propped up against the trench walls to put them out of the defenders' way. Grav Platforms silently pivoted in their foxholes and loosed a fearsome barrage of heavy weapons fire as infantrymen lined up at the trench lip. The precious few grav tanks afforded to the defensive position—mostly Falcons and variants thereof—roared over the trench, guns blazing as they zig-zagged to avoid enemy fire.

The ground shook as a wall of Chaos Leman Russ tanks rumbled over the horizon, stopping every few seconds to unleash an enormous wave of battle cannon rounds at the Eldar defenders. The first volley reduced several Grav Platforms to smoking craters in the ground and blew the turret off one of the Falcon tanks sent forward to intercept. Eldar retaliation was swift, the remaining Grav Platforms launching a barrage of Bright Lances and Krak missiles that decimated the forward ranks. Sanity-stripping litanies filled the air as thousands of Chaos troops clambered over the flaming hulks and began charging across the no man's land.

"Fire!"

Monomolecular disks tore through the horde, ripping through flak armor like tissue paper and cutting down a great many cultists. Driven insane to the point where pleasure and pain blended together, many of the casualties screamed in ecstasy as the high-tech shurikens tore gashes in their flesh and scythed off limbs. One of the heavier Grav Platforms stationed further behind Eldar lines rang out, and a monofilament mesh descended upon the charging mob, dicing dozens and mutilating dozens more. The defenders wrinkled their nose in disgust as many of the victims died with rictus grins of incomprehensible pleasure on their faces.

Edelion squeezed his Shuriken Catapult's trigger as fast as his physiology and the weapon's design would allow, hardly bothering with aiming. The advancing horde was so dense that any shot in the general direction would hit something. One of the cultists fell, his legs cut off below the knees. Rather than scream and thrash in pain, the man looked up with a leering grin.

"Again!" he begged, a trail of spittle running from the corner of his mouth.

The Guardian granted the cultist's wish, putting a shuriken right into the man's face. A grin began forming as his head slid apart.

"Incoming!"

Edelion barely threw himself to the ground in time as the next volley of shells slammed into the ground around him. A nearby explosion tossed several Guardians and parts of Guardians high into the air, and many surrounding Eldar nearly collapsed as the screams of damned souls echoed through the Warp. Though heavy, the incoming bombardment had lessened somewhat, the repeated flanking attacks by friendly armor taking their toll.

"They're coming over the trench!"

The Guardian looked up just in time to see a cultist of indeterminate gender vaulting over the barricade. Edelion threw himself against the back wall and fired upwards three times. Two halves of cultist, sliced from crotch to crown, hit the wall with a wet smack. Another cultist slipped on the rapidly-expanding pool of blood. A neighboring Guardian, without a hint of hesitation, stepped forward and planted his foot onto the cultist's chest. Another cultist grabbed the Eldar from behind as he prepared to deliver the killing blow. The two struggled for several moments before the Guardian slumped down, a knife buried in the gap between mesh armor and helmet.

With a savage cry, Edelion rushed forward and slammed the butt of his Catapult into the man's stomach. As he staggered backwards, the Eldar soldier cracked him across the face with the butt of his weapon. With a wet crack, his head spun far further than any human neck would allow and the cultist fell over, dead. As the first cultist staggered onto all fours, Edelion planted a foot in the center of his back and stomped down, breaking the man's spine with an audible crack.

"More!" the cultist screamed.

Edelion stomped his opponent again, this time crushing his skull. The Guardian whirled around as a lasbolt splashed off his armor. He saw stars the next moment as a traitor Guardsman—the lack of iconography marking him as a recent convert—hit him across the face with a lasgun butt. The Eldar soldier staggered back, his ears ringing, and barely managed to bring his own weapon up in time to block the Guardsman's downward swing. The Catapult's internals were irrevocably shattered by the impact, but Edelion found a wrecked weapon far preferable to a dashed skull any day. His vision still swimming, the Guardian stood little chance as the Guardsman suddenly let go of his lasrifle and looped his hands around Edelion's neck. The Guardian's faceplate shattered as it impacted the Guardsman's knee.

Edelion blinked rapidly to clear his vision, barely recovering in time to grab the Guardsman's forearm as the knife plunged downwards. The blade slowly drew closer to the Eldar's now-exposed face and even drew blood as it nicked his cheek. That was about as far as Edelion's opponent got before a chainsword from behind severed his spine. A second swing decapitated the human. The head flew away, smacking into the side of the trench before hitting the ground and rolling away. The corpse stayed standing for a moment longer, even taking a staggering step backwards, before collapsing, revealing Edelion's savior. The Storm Guardian seized him around the shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

"This trench is lost! Fall back!"

Skies Above 10th OPAW Drop Point
Craftworld Altansar

"Attention all units: we have cleared the upper atmosphere. Prepare for descent."

The opaque red glow gradually faded back to a transparent light pink haze before disappearing entirely. The heat shields separated from the Knightmares with a thunk and fell away as the troopers finally moved from re-entry position. In rapid succession, they uncrossed their arms and opened their legs, spreading their limbs wide as they flipped themselves over. The freefall became a gliding descent, the OPAW troopers subtly adjusting their body positions to bleed off velocity as they dipped lower and lower into the atmosphere.

"Deploy energy wings on my mark. Mark!"

The burst of green light as a hundred and twenty pairs of energy wings deployed and activated at once was visible even from the ground. The Knightmares hovered in midair for a moment before taking off towards their landing zone at high speed. As they flew, the squad leaders used the time to adjust their formations—some drift inevitably occurred during atmospheric reentry—and to ensure everyone had actually made it through the atmosphere unscathed.

Eldar Defense Line
Surface of Craftworld Altansar

The Warp storms summoned by Fulgrim's forces wrecked utter havoc amongst the Eldar defenders. The shockwave had outright killed many, delivering their souls straight into the maw of She Who Thirsts, while many others collapsed as their psychic abilities turned against them. Many more went insane and began attacking their fellow Eldar. The disturbed Warp currents disabled many of the Eldar's electronics and sensors, crippling their space fleet and many of their vehicles. Other dangers were more direct: spontaneously-appearing shoal zones and Warp lightning strikes exacted a fearsome toll from the survivors.

None of the aforementioned dangers compared to the daemons. The Warp storms and the dark rituals that brought them forth weakened the veil of reality, tearing it in many places, and allowed all manner of horrors to flood through. Ravenous Warp-beasts rampaged through Altansar unchecked, and innumerable servants of The Great Enemy flooded through hoping to bring back Eldar souls and curry their master's favor.

"Shoot it! Shoot it!"

The Guardian frantically struggled to no avail against the Daemonette's viselike grip around her ankle. Ilhiec managed to flip around onto her stomach and dug her fingers into Altansar's soil, slowing her kidnapper's walk towards the Warp rift. Several of her squadmates took aim and fired, but their efforts were severely hampered by the desire to not hit her. Many shurikens uselessly buried themselves into the ground, though several tore deep gashes in the creature's upper arm. Apparently catching on, several other Guardians contributed their firepower.

The Daemonette thrashed and screeched in agony—or perhaps ecstasy—as its arm finally separated from its body and fell to the ground. Purple blood dripped onto Ilhiec's armor, but she was beyond caring at that point. She scrambled onto her feet and half-sprinted, half-stumbled back towards friendly lines. Her escape came to a premature end as a second Daemonette phased into existence behind her and grabbed her.

Ilheic screamed in horror as the Daemonette stepped forward and opened a Warp rift. Her vision swam as waves of sensation—pleasure and pain dialed up to mind-melting levels—rolled out of the tear in reality. Ilheic dug her fingers deeper into the ground, but all she accomplished was leaving deeper grooves in the dirt. Blood-curdling screams echoed from the trenches as all manner of unnatural beasts descended on the soldiers within. Daemonettes dragged many into the Warp, and the Guardian squeezed her eyes shut in a futile attempt to shut out the screams of the condemned Eldar. Ravenous Warp predators pounced on others, rows of razor-sharp teeth tearing through mesh armor to reach the flesh within.

"Oh, Master will show you so many new things!" the Daemonette giggled.

The sanity-blasting sound was abruptly cut short as a shadow blindsided the creature, knocking it over and shattering whatever passed for its ribcage upon landing. The Daemonette writhed in a mixture of pain and pleasure as the new arrival aimed its weapon downwards. A faint bdew bdew reached Ilheic's ears, and the daemon ceased moving. A long shadow fell over the Guardian, allowing the shaken but grateful Eldar to get a good look at her savior.

The new arrival wasn't awfully tall: Ilheic could see that he would stand up to her shoulders if they both stood at full height. However, he wore a menacing suit of battle armor that greatly enhanced his presence. The Guardian could swear she saw the armor's colors subtly shifting with its surroundings, but she dismissed it as her imagination. Every line was angular and aggressive, the limbs somewhat lanky but still proportionate with his body. Ilheic could only guess as to the function of the two rectangular structures on the legs: they were attached only at the outer edges of the feet, but extended up to the suit's knees. The shin guards extended past the knees, topped off with a wicked-looking spike. Ilheic reckoned the two kite-shaped pods hung from the suit's hips were meant for storage: the top looked like it opened up, and the bottom tip looked like it could split apart. The waist seemed almost too thin compared to the rest of the suit, especially compared to the flared-out torso, which gradually blended into two wing-like structures currently folded tightly against its back. A roughly rectangular pod hung onto the lower torso, and Ilheic could not discern any method of attachment. Two blade-like protrusions extended from each shoulder, but their purpose appeared merely aesthetic. The forearm guards flared beyond the shoulders to the upper arms, and Ilheic noticed sword handles poking out from the inner wrists. Three swept-back spikes flared out from the head, one from the scalp and two smaller ones from each cheek, and two blade-like protrusions extended from the temples. Ilheic nearly overlooked the eyes, which were sunken into a slit on the lower half of the head.

"Who are you?" Ilheic croaked out.

"Sergeant Matthew Reller, 10th Orbital Planetary Assault Wing," her rescuer replied in a slightly tinny voice as he helped her stand up, "Are you all right?"

The remaining Eldar in the trenches could only watch in badly-concealed amazement as the one hundred twenty troopers of 10th OPAW rapidly cleared out the area. Meson bursts flooded the forward trenches, vaporizing cultists and daemons alike with frightening ease. Others slid along the soil seemingly by sorcery, circling the Chaos forces and spraying crimson bolts of energy into the hordes. Given only the barest minimum of armor, if any at all, the cultists were felled by the dozens. Still others darted between the wreckage of armored vehicles littering the no man's land, rushing to aid the few surviving Eldar tanks. The soldiers clambered atop the Leman Russ tanks and opened fire, their weapons easily piercing the tanks' thin top armor and slaughtering the crew. A few hefted nondescript weapons that proved deadly effective against the Chaos armor: a breeze, a flash of pink, and a Leman Russ was gone, along with a portion of the ground it rested on.

"Don't let them regroup! Keep up the pressure!"

With agility unexpected for such a bulky Knightmare, the Guren-Seraph leapt into the air without the assistance for its gravitric impellers. Nearby, a Cherub's hadron bolts pierced the flank of a Leman Russ tank and cooked off its ammunition, blowing its turret out of its mounting ring and sending it flying. Kallen spun in midair and used the airborne turret as a springboard to propel herself forward. Dozens of lasbolts harmlessly splashed off the Guren's hadron fields, the incoming fire quickly slacking off as Kallen began her descent. Dozens of enemy soldiers threw down their weapons in panic and fled as the Knightmare landed on a Leman Russ tank, crushing it with sheer force of five-fingered claw that replaced the Guren's right hand glowed red as Kallen sliced through the battle tank's armor like so much tissue paper. She threw herself off the tank as a neighboring Leman Russ' turret rotated to face her. Rolling off to the side then launching herself forward, Kallen crashed into the tank's vulnerable flank, leaving a visible dent in the armor. A sharp-eyed OPAW trooper sniped the shotgun-armed crewman clambering through the hatcher as Kallen slammed her palm against the Leman Russ and activated the Guren's signature weapon. The tank rapidly bubbled and inflated before exploding, the shrapnel shredding nearby cultists and peppering neighboring tanks.

"Who's next?" Kallen asked nobody in particular as she turned around, right hand still aglow.

The reddish glow surrounding the Guren's Radiant Wave Surger suddenly grew in size, creeping up its arm unit it encompassed the entire limb. With a fierce roar, Kallen unleashed a massive blast that temporarily blinded many onlookers and engulfed the bulk of the Chaos forces. Promethium tanks went up like melta bombs, lasgun charge packs cooked off, and ammunition racks detonated. Anyone caught within quickly swelled up and burst, showering their neighbors with gore. Those caught in the outskirts of the blast fared little better: many cultists screamed as their clothes, hair, and skin were set alight by the heat. Leman Russ tanks ground to a halt, their engines overheating and even melting. Hatches were fused shut, condemning those within to a slow death by being cooked alive.

The blast slowly faded, leaving a desolated wasteland behind. The few survivors threw down their weapons and fled. The soldiers of the 10th OPAW combed the battlefield, mopping up enemy stragglers and recovering the Eldar dead. Dead and dying servants of Chaos had the nasty tendency to spontaneously become portals for daemons, so the enemy wounded were methodically executed and the dead shot again just in case. The Eldar defenders watched the proceedings with caution for several moments before slowly climbing out of their trenches to join the Black Knights. As her subordinates set about their grim task, Kallen made a beeline for a Dire Avenger that seemed to be calling the shots.

"The Crystal Seers spoke of your arrival," the Aspect Warrior greeted, skipping straight to the straight to the point of the matter, "The Seer Council has already been informed, and they marshal Altansar's remaining forces as we speak."

"Then there is little need for further conversation," Kallen replied, "Now the counterattack begins."

A/N: And there we go! The Craftworld Invasion arc will probably be the longest arc yet, spanning at least six to eight chapters, including this one and the previous one. Lots of brutal combat, huge battles, Kallen action, and maybe a few surprises. I hope it'll live up to your expectations! Anyhow, the last of the info-dump omakes!

Omake: Encyclopedia of the Black Knights, Volume Ten: Foreign Relations

As secrecy is their greatest asset, the Black Knights tend to avoid contact with the other civilizations of the galaxy. They engage their enemies in secrecy and utterly annihilate every bit of evidence as to their involvement afterwards. Only in times of great need would they considering forming alliances.

Chaos: The Black Knights have waged an on-again-off-again guerilla war against the followers of Chaos for millennia. Invisible to the Ruinous Powers, Black Knights assault troopers sow great confusion amongst the enemy without fail. Even as early as the Age of Strife, task forces lurked in the shadows, annihilating Chaos cults and disrupting their rituals. Occasionally, the Fleet will risk discovery and assemble enough fighting strength to strike at excommunicated Forge Worlds and other vital supply hubs. On a handful of occasions, hundreds of Psychic Special Warfare operatives quietly disappear at once, and many never return. Though records are tightly sealed, rumor persists that the missing operatives embarked on missions to Daemon Worlds, or even the Eye of Terror itself. This policy of containment began failing as time marched on and was abandoned completely as the Despoiler's armies slowly overran the galaxy. As the Imperium's armies began a long retreat to Terra, the Black Knights recalled their forces and headed for the birthplace of humanity.

Dark Eldar: The Black Knights generally avoid areas known for heavy Dark Eldar activity. Little contact has been made beyond occasional clashes with pirate fleets and mercenary bands, and such conflicts usually end fairly quickly. Whenever such a clash occurs, the Special Forces Division immediately shifts into damage-control mode. Through intercepted communications, planted intelligence, and false-flag operations, they provoke the involved Kabal's enemies into attacking it. When all else fails, elite Raider teams infiltrate Commorragh itself and assassinate particularly troublesome Archons and Hierarchs. Such operations are meticulously timed to coincide with inter-Kabalite conflicts, either a pre-existing one or one especially manufactured to mask the Raiders' movements. Such a course of action is considered the most extreme of last resorts, having occurred only a half-dozen times since first contact with the Dark Eldar.

Craftworld Eldar: Like their Dark cousins, the Craftworld Eldar have only had sporadic contact with the Fleet. Throughout history, the Black Knights and Eldar militaries have indirectly allied with one another, having been sent to aid the same side in the same conflict. The vast majority of such conflicts end with both forces returning home without ever having encountered one another. As the Despoiler's innumerable hordes slowly conquer the Milky Way, such indirect alliances become increasingly common, and some war hosts inevitably detect their shadowy allies. However, the Black Knights forces are usually reported as sent from one of many minor Craftworlds that fell off the grid since the Fall of the Eldar. Only in the most desperate circumstances is a formal alliance considered, and such alliances dissolve just as quickly as they form. For reasons known only to the Eldar, they have not seen any reason to disclose the Black Knights' existence to anyone else.

Imperium of Man: The Black Knights are best described as the Imperium's fifty-first millenium equivalent of UFOs. Imperial forces have sighted the Fleet's warships before, and have even occasionally recovered artifacts emblazoned with the Black Knights' distinctive insignia. The Ordos Xenos diligently tracks these sightings but remains divided as to their identity. Some believe the Black Knights are previously-unknown Necron military forces, while others argue they are an entirely new alien species. Inquisitorial ships have sighted the Ikaruga before, but only for brief moments and at enormous distances, leading to the station's classification as an Eldar Craftworld. Besides safeguarding the final STC, the Black Knights took up the mantle of humanity's hidden protector. Roving the cosmos, the Fleet clashed with fearsome xeno empires and left choice bits of STC data for the Imperium's forces to find. Such efforts were not always successful: the device planted on Verdigris IX, for example, was lost when the Mechanicum began rapidly industrializing the world. Upon rediscovery, it was stolen by the Orks and in turn stolen by the Dark Eldar.

Necrons: In addition to hundreds of minor skirmishes and campaigns, the Black Knights have fought three full-scale wars against the Necron dynasties, each more brutal than the last. Such conflicts inevitably devolve into bloody stalemates: the Black Knights do no possess the numbers and firepower required to directly assault Necron Crownworlds, and the Necron legions' crushing numbers lack the mobility to effectively pursue the Black Knights. As of the fifty-first millennium, the Necrons remain the only ones to have fired upon the Ikaruga and to have destroyed a Yggdrasil-class dreadnought in combat. The First Necrotic War, fought against the Nihilakh Dynasty, only ended when a number of Raider teams sacrificed themselves to take down several Overlords, allowing the Fleet to escape in the confusion. The Second Necrotic War, against the Ogdobekh Dynasty, ended with both sides mutually withdrawing from the battlefield. The third, and most recent, Necrotic War pitted the Black Knights against a sizable harvest fleet from an as-of-yet-unidentified dynasty, though intelligence officials believe it was either the Sautekh or Oruscar Dynasties, and ended with the harvest fleet's annihilation.

Orks: Remember all too well the horrors of M32's annihilation war between the Imperium and the Beast, the Black Knights avoid contact with the Ork empires whenever possible. When confronted with a Waaagh!, standing orders are to avoid engagement and lure the enemy towards a neighboring Ork empire if at all possible. The strategy has thus far proven quite successful, and any pursuers quickly forget the Black Knights in favor of the fight before them. If no nearby Ork empire is available, painting another Warboss's symbol onto a few asteroids and crashing them into their pursuer's ships and planets proves quite effective. A roving Ork Waaagh! once stumbled upon the Ikaruga, but the sheer ferocity of the surrounding fleet's defense lead them to believe the Black Knights' home was a Necron construct.

Tau: As one of the newest races on the galactic scene, the Tau have not yet encountered the Black Knights. All forays into Tau-occupied space ended in failure, culminating in the infamous "Lost Expedition," launched late into the Time of Dying. Shortly after the fleet reached its destination, a massive Warp storm engulfed the remnants of the Tau Empire. Every ship in the task force, among them a pair of Trundholm-class cruisers, is officially listed as "MIA."

Tyranids: The only major conflict between the Black Knights and the Tyranids occurred in the middle of M46. Picket ships stationed in the galactic fringe detected the approach of a major Hive Fleet. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that Abaddon's Fourteenth Black Crusade was in full swing, the Black Knights set out to intercept it. Several battle fleets assembled beyond the edge of the galaxy, safe from all prying eyes. While hit-and-run attacks drew away the escorts, General Kozuki lead OPAW units in infiltrating and destroying select Hive Ships. As the Hive Fleet reeled in confusion, the main force attacked. Though the Hive Fleet was shattered before reaching the Milky Way, the Black Knights still occasionally engage and destroy splinters of the fleet. The latest of these campaigns took place mere months before the Third Necrotic War and once again saw Kallen leading assaults on enemy Hive Ships.