Betor Infested

Inquisitor Hathek was joined on 1206.009M42 by his colleague Inquisitor Nikopolidis, following Hathek's general mobilisation order. He had arrived from Alphe after defeating the Catechism, and agreed to aid the forces mustering there. Already Porphyrian and Praetorian regiments, originally routed to reinforce Cunningham on Tarsis Major, had been redeployed to Betor and were taking up positions around the major inhabited zones.

Just as the two inquisitors were liaising with the planetary ruling council and discussing defence plans, the Tyranids suddenly burst from the arid inner regions of Betor and attacked the three major settlement zones with renewed vigour. In the south the aliens fell upon a newly deployed Porphyrian regiment, causing horrific casualties and forcing the Imperial Guard to abandon their newly created defences. In the northeast the Praetorians put up a brave fight to hold the line against the advancing horde, but here to the Imperial forces had to withdraw to second line defences. At the same time contact was lost in the north west as tyranid incursions were reported all over the sector.

Nikopolidis also narrowly avoided a horrible death as his column was assaulted by an overwhelming Tyranid horde near the city of Marsenberg which was overrun some hours later. Unused to fighting this particular Xenos, his Ordo Hereticus troopers were easy prey to the Tyranids, and Nikopolidis and his retinue beat a hasty retreat into the wilderness of central Betor.

Within hours of these renewed attacks Inquisitor Hathek convened an emergency meeting. He knew from his experience of Orvicare what was to take place, and his fears were realised as several astropaths suddenly screamed, vomited blood and died. Seconds later the sky went dark as thousands of mysetic spores rained down into the hinterlands of the planet.

The Tyranid invasion proper had begun, and Hathek raised the threat level to 6. Intelligence from Hathek's blackship, silently orbiting the planet, reported at least five hive ships in orbit. These were concentrating their drops in three distinct regions in the region of the recent attacks. Hathek was unable to glean much more however as the blackships soon had to flee once they were detected by the hive fleet. they immediately made the short jump to Alphe to report the invasion to the Imperial High Command (IHC-Aleph). This was now a full scale Tyranid incursion.