Having lost Tanis I to the Tau the Imperium were not about to give up on the system. For General Percival while the victory at Hexis was a welcome base in the Hadron Expanse, the expansion of the Tau Empire needed to be stopped, and if the xenos empire took hold of Tanis the strategic situation for the Imperium of Mankind in the Expanse, as well as the expedition to the Rifts of Hecate, would be seriously impaired.
Percival was unable to provide much in the way of reinforcements and barely had enough troops to garrison the base on the outer planet of Tanis VII. Orks were still present on the second ice world in the system but in late 02.022M42 a small force of Adeptus Custodes agreed to carry out a surgical strike on Tanis V. This should provide enough of a perimeter for Percival to land fresh troops, and establish a base of operations at the very least.
On 2402.022M42 the Custodes attacked, taking the tau by surprise and inflicting heavy casualties, including the tau commander. Losing their cohesion the tau withdrew from the base that had been selected for the attack, allowing the Imperium to start work on their own forward base. They hadn't been able to clear the entire world of the xenos, but had gifted the Imperium with a bridgehead from which to conduct further operations. The question now was whether the tau would counter attack.
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