Battles in the Rifts of Hecate

As 05.023M42 began the fighting in the Rifts of Hecate continued. The Imperium and Tau were less active as they fought their other wars in the Perseus Deeps and Zadoc subsector, but the other factions were no less active in their quest for domination over the key worlds near the Hecate Gap. 

On Mezria IV the orks landed, presumably with the intention of finding another world to plunder, but ran straight into a horde of xenos creatures. The tyranids had not been inactive in the Rifts and had been preparing the world for consumption by the Hive Mind. The orks battled furiously but where quickly overwhelmed by the tyranids and destroyed. This action raised the alarm amongst the necrons who realised that significant necron artefacts would be lost were the planet to be consumed by the alien menace. Launching a raid into the Mezria IV system the necrons attempted to obtain their ancient artefacts before the tyranids destroyed the world for good, but they were unsuccessful in the face of overwhelming tyranid force. Having dealt with the orks and necrons the tyranids proceeded with their plan, and by mid 05.023M42 the worlds of Mezria IV had been utterly consumed, their biomass and surface crust turned into building blocks for more tyranid life forms.

Mezria IV wasn't the only world to suffer raids as the necrons became increasingly concerned by the lower races' activity in the region. Lacking the strength to simply push their enemies aside the lords of the necron race decided on a strategy of search and retrieval, and another force was sent to the chaos controlled world of Calthingum to rescue more tomb secrets from a world that had once been part of their mighty empire in ages past. This time the necrons were successful, forcing aside an Iron Warriors army that had been investigating the ruins of the necron civilisation. One tomb at least had been saved from the predations of the lesser races.

the necron raid presented the Drukhari with an opportunity, or so they thought. With the main armed forces of chaos distracted by the necrons, the chaos settlements clustering around the tomb complex on Calthinghum's southern hemispheres ought to be easy pickings for a slave raid. However the dark eldar had miscalculated, and as soon as their raiders left Commorragh and appeared on the world, they found the cultists were not as defenceless as they had believed. A host of daemons was summoned to oppose the raiding Drukhari, and despite taking down a Keeper of Secrets, the host of other worldly beings devastated the dark eldar raiders, and few escaped back into the webway.