Dark Eldar move on Drift

At the end of 01.012M42 the eldar were once again encountered in the Vastrid subsector. Following their victory on Achreom a week previously, the Space Wolves had made the short hop to Drift and set up a base. Before long they were assualted by a much larger force of Dark Eldar, who clearly had an interest in the world. The Space wolves defended their positions stubbornly, but the Dark Eldar, identified as a faction of the Rillietan, were able to inflict significant damage on the Space Wolves' forces, preventing them from expanding their bridgehead.

Meanwhile, unknown to the Imperium, two other forces of eldar were in action on drift. A force of Eldar, possibly acting independantly of the Rillietan, was ambushed by the Shattered Silence Kabal while reconoitering the dark side of the orbitally locked planet. It appeared to be a simple slave raid, as the Dark Eldar prized eldar slaves above all others, but demonstrated the unfathomable factionality of the alien race, once the evidence of the battle was discovered by Inquisitor Huron. Huron renewed his efforts to understand the motives and objectives of the eldar, but by now it had become clear the xenos were not acting in any way as a coherent force.

At roughly the same time, on 3001.012M42, the Tau fleet managed to track down a Dark Eldar fleet of the Shattered Silence Kabal, after months of investigation and intelligence work following the ruthless scourging of Parius. The Tau got their revenge, massacring the Dark Eldar fleet and hopefully improving the security of the smaller Tau colonies in the Perseus Deeps. This was a setback for the Kabal, but by 0102.012M42 they had become the richest and most powerful Dark Eldar force acting in the Aleph Sector.