Crusade inch forward at Boltarean

While the battle for the Foramen raged in the spinward region of the Aleph Sector, the imperial battlegroups, mostly under the command of the Crusade, continued their war in the Hadron Expanse. The inner worlds of the Boltarean system had already been conquered by chaos, but the crusade were growing concerned that the system lay on the only reliable warp lane to the Zadoc subsector, where Hylas and New Cerberex maintained a tenuous supply route back to Corticant and Bastien in the Perseus Deeps. The Crusade resolved to take Boltarean from chaos, however long it took.

The Angels Repentant and the Volscian Guard agreed to take on the mission, as they already had a reasonably secure foothold on the outer ice planet. Their plans were boosted in 06.018M42 with the arrival of Enkvist's fleet. Without Jellicoe in overall command of Imperial naval forces in the sector since his defeat to Thok, the battlegroups of the sector were now left without central command, at least temporarily, so Enkvist took it u[on himself to bring much needed aid to imperial forces in the Expanse.

Unable to find Admiral Barham of the loyalist expedition, and largely ambivalent to the squabbles between Inquisitors Vorushko and Hathek, Enkvist arrived at Boltarean and immediately lent his support to the Crusade, allowing the Astartes to conduct a full on invasion of the ice planet of Boltarean III.

The defenders of the world were garrison forces of the Emerald Serpent - the Darrantine Guard, who fought hard, but ultimately could not prevent the Crusade from establishing a foothold on the planet. The next day the combined Volscian and astartes force launched their main assault at the only populated settlement, and outpost base on the western hemisphere of the frigid planet. With air support and astartes forces, the Darrantine Guard soon folded, abandoning the base and yielding the world to the Crusade Imperium. Those traitorous guard that did escape the fighting, were either hunted down in the weeks to come or died in the inhospitable wilderness of the frozen world.