Chapter Master Potitus of the Sky Lords recovered from his injuries suffered on Paradorn, and with his forces relieved by the Novgorod Guard, the small Sky Lords force boarded their strike cruiser Eagleclaw and prepared to make an emergency jump to the Hadron Expanse. Thanks to the small size of the battlegroup and astartes mastery of the warp, the strike cruiser arrived at Hussaria just in time to face the arrival of tau forces at the imperial colony.
The Alliance, taking advantage of the strategically stretched imperium, had invaded Hussaria with elite Federal Forces. While these had gained the Alliance a strong position on the major world, with the capture of Svartan, the federal forces were ill equipped to move across the ocean towards the city of Narke, and onto the capital at Orebro. To cover this vast distance the tau moved in their forces, led by the Expeditionary Force of Commander Malkaor. These fast moving mobile formations would be able to swiftly take the islands in front of Narke, enabling a quick move on Orebro for hopefully a swift capitulation of remaining imperial forces.
Malkaor got a shock however, as his forces encountered the elite astartes of the Sky Lords, barring the way at the tau landing sites on the west coast of the main Hussaria continent. Malkaor would have to deal with this threat, so sent in his armoured suits backed up by tau infantry men.
The tau were not expecting the Primaris force deployed in front of them, and very quickly the tau commander regretted his forward deployment of broadsides, as massed repulsor and centurion fire ripped them apart, even while the centurions fell to the tau weaponry firing in reply. Worse was to follow, as the Repulsors proved difficult to destroy, and one managed to get past the line of suits to obliterate several tau infantry units. Another tau infantry force, sent around the flank of the space marine force to secure vital objectives, was simply mown down by gattling cannon fire.
The tau were now in some trouble. Pinned down on their beachhead and suffering horrendous casualties, only the riptides were now an effective fighting force. Malkaor ordered his commanders to conduct a suicide mission - for the greater good. Realising the cohesion of the astartes force centred around their librarian and chapter banner, the tau commander on the ground conducted an assault, leaping behind the enemy lines and gunning down both. In response, chapter master Potitus charged the tau battle suit, utterly destroying it and its pilot with his double power fists.
The daring attack had however stabilised the situation. The tau eventually managed to bring down the repulsor tanks, and now moved forward to deal with the dwindling astartes force. Scouts were blasted off objectives by deep striking battle suits, while the riptides moved in to deal with the now surrounded chapter master. Potitus charged, but was unable to destroy the giant war machines. As they retreated and cut him down in a hail of fire, a lucky shot from his modified storm bolters did fell one of the Tau engines, but the other made sure of his demise by stamping on him. Even so, the chapter master of the Sky Lords would live to fight another day, his modified power armour saving his body and after dark Sky Lords aircraft evaded the Alliance sensor net to salvage their brethren, both living and dead. The Repulsors however had been reduced to scrap, and without any reserves to commit, the space marines were once again forced to withdraw, abandoning the scant defence force on Hussaria to its fate. Orebro soon fell to the tau onslaught, but the price had been high, and Malkaor was keenly aware of how close to victory the imperium had come, and resolved to conduct a thorough investigation of what went wrong on the shores of Hussaria.
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