Although allied to the Crusade and supportive of Vorushko's aims, the Grey Knights maintained their full independence of action in the Foramen campaign. While Vorushko rallied support on the Imperial worlds of the Perseus Deeps, and Cybixx continued his research on Vandrax, the Grey Knights decided to make sure that Hathek's "loyalists" would be unable to consolidate their positions on Destino.
Lacking enough forces to effect a full invasion, the Grey Knights detached a small force to raid and destroy the defences on Destino 3. With two precision strikes, the Astartes force was able to circumvent the Imperial fleet with ease, and drop forces directly on the defenders of the defence laser positions around the Imperial base. Still under construction, the Adeptus Mechanicus were the unlucky recipients of the "visitation" from the Ordo Malleus, and were given no time or opportunity to make their case to the Grey Knights. They were simply assaulted and systematically destroyed by the elite astartes force. At the beginning of 018M42 Hathek's loyalists found their position on Destino distinctly compromised.
Ever since the Foramen passage through the CIcatrix Maledictum had opened, the eldar had been watching. Initially they merely engaged in spoiling attacks as the forces of the Imperium battle those of chaos for control of Paradorn, the anchor of both the Foramen Majoris and Foramen Minoris. Lacking in forces, the Aeldari had come to the conclusion that their best hope lay in the Alliance forcing a passage through from the galactic south.
Following the obvious reluctance of the Tau to even get involved, and General Elliot's woeful display at Destino, the eldar finally decided to intervene in force. The craftworld of Kel Sandros once again disregarded its former policy of manipulation of events, and decided to shape the outcome themselves.
Without warning the Kel Sandros forces appeared from the webway and sent a significant force to the third planet, attacking the mainly Librian garrison forces on the world. However their intent was not to destroy infrastructure or invade the world itself, but to deal a blow to the forces the Imperium would be able to commit to any counterstrike, as on Paradorn 2, Aeldari seers were carefully reopening the ancient and dilapidated webway portal.
The attack bought the eldar time, and despite finding the Librian defenders a surprisingly tough nut to crack, they were able to force the Imperium into defending their bases, diverting the Imperial fleet from its patrols and allowing the rituals to continue unmolested. By the end of 01.018M42 the eldar had a fully functional webway portal on Paradorn 2, and would be able to deploy significant forces rapidly should the Imperium - or anyone else - try to remove them from the world. The thorn in the side of the Imperial hold on Paradorn had now become that much sharper.
