Ongoing activity in the Rifts of Hecate

The war on Hexis had become important once more because of the ongoing campaign to explore and exploit the Rifts of Hecate. During late 021M42 the various factions already in the Hadron Expanse continued to pursue their aims in the newly uncovered region, and clashed frequently. The forces of the Tau empire, building their own base of exploration on Garmenes, clashed with the Hobgobbos of Grunk Prime while trying to gather resources from Ferrosium. Garmenes was deficient in easily obtainable metals, while the tau had become aware that Ferrosium was in fact a large scrap planet. Millenia before this world had been occupied by humanity, and though now uninhabited, there were plenty of resources to be plundered. The tau overwhelmed the orks with their firepower, collected a large haul of metallic components and returned to Garmenes, their base construction much advanced.

Meanwhile on Ferrosium, the Dark Angels had noted there were two factions of orks looting the ruins of the larger world. They had not come into conflict as yet, but the Dark Angels followed an intelligence lead to where the "Bloodfang" tribe were based. The astartes made a lightning assault on an ork encampment, dispersing the greenskins and uncovering the Bloodfang orks' plans to construct a fleet of space vessels. Rather than simply attach weapons to asteroids to make unweildy ork "roks", these orks had their sights set on a mighty fleet of "kroozers" and even a "deadnot" - a giant battleship that if completed, would present a real threat not only to the Imperial aims in the Rifts, but wider in the Hadron Expanse.

More skirmishes continued throughout the rest of 021M42, with even reports of a confused engagement between the Death Guard, Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Guard elements. Reports of how this came about were difficult to obtain, as it appeared the Adeptus Mechanicus involved were pursuing their own agenda, and were not part of the overall Imperial effort to create a bases at Ferosium and Helios Majoris. the Imperial Guard reported back to the HQ on Ferossium Secundus that the Death Guard had been contained and the Adeptus Mechanicus had withdrawn, and the matter was officially closed and marked secret. If there was an agenda to be uncovered it was for the Inquisition to discern it.