Parataea raided, Parius resupplied

In late 11.011M42 the Tau colony of Parataea came under attack from the Shattered Silence kabal of the Dark Eldar. Until now, the Tau had been relatively free of Dark Eldar raids as they were not considered "good sport" or useful as slaves. More to the point, Tau were decidedly less valuable. However the raid on 2611.011M42 was particularly savage, with the Tau suffering heavy losses. Many of the colonists began to think twice about their continued presence in the Perseus Deeps. Something would have to be done.

The Tau holdings in the Perseus Deeps had been suffering ever more frequent raids from Dark Eldar, Necrons and Chaos forces alike. Shadowstrike was aware of the need to consolidate the Tau's grip on the region and proposed a program of fortification and colonisation to establish a string of new Sept worlds. He was aware that some of the minor worlds that could not be defended might have to be abandoned in the process, but the new colonies would be proof against anything short of a major crusade and provide a suitable staging point for future expansion.

One obstacle to these plans were Chaos pirates launching out of bases in the rim worlds. They had been preying on supply convoys carrying the materials and troops needed to establish the new Septs, so when intelligence assets discovered the base of a pirate clan on Aornis the Tau were quick to retaliate. A small battle group managed to approach the planet undetected and deploy an air wing of Barracudas and AX-1-0 Tiger Sharks into the atmosphere. Clouds of hellblades hurriedly scrambled to intercept them. Despite being badly outnumbered the Tau pilots had the edge over the poorly trained and disciplined pirates. In a short space of time the hellblades were all destroyed or driven off. Meanwhile, whilst the main attack had distracted the bases defences a second strike force of barracudas equipped with air to ground missiles had evaded the fighter screens and strafed the base unchallenged, destroying it utterly. The pirates on Aornis had been utterly neutralised and the Tau convoys were once more able to reach Parius unmolested.