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A fracture of my near defunct looking blog:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/271756.page

So the setting looks something like this: The Imperials occupy a world with a relatively small dormant necron presence just outside what would be the proposed Tau 3rd sphere should the expansion be completed, and are currently running one of the few actually productive research/ field test stations for future weapons. As a small tendril of an unknown splinter Hivefleet move against the Tau, and in the innumerable scuffles one of the larger ships capable of self sustained warp travel becomes mortally wounded. As the Tau move in for the kill, it hurtles itself into the warp for the most foreign target the Hive Mind knows of...unknown to the Imperials, who felt the Necron's presence on the world would hide it from the Tyranid's psychic detection, as well as provide a steady trickle of relics to study and weaponize, a small Tyranid scout fleet had previously tracked an Imperial supply convoy to the planet. Feeling it's lack of psychic presence, the hive mind simply took note and moved on to other more bountiful gains.

Nearly drained of resources and drifting in and out of consciousness, the hive ship reaches it's target, and like a dying whale sought to commit one last act - to beach itself. Unknown to the Imperials, aboard the alien ship that was suddenly looming through their atmosphere, an act of desperation was taking place. It's reserves of biofuel expended and never meant to really make planetfall in the first place, the large tyranid scythe ship was left with only one biomass left to tap for fuel. Stasis cells were quickly realigned for consumption, and digestive acids were poured in on the sleeping cargo. Deck by deck the hive ship cannibalized itself, even near completely tapping it mass reserves of spore pods to find the power to complete one last mission. Warriors were reabsorbed by the thousands, gaunts by the tens of thousands, the ship striving for the psychic fuel to make landfall. Collapsing on it's now voided space the remnants of it's carapace were shifted and realigned to cover the massive rents in it's armor made by the Tau's massive space-borne railguns. It streaked through the atmosphere as a giant flaming blue/green mass, trailing fireballs like a comet to it's icecloud as it's hull disintegrated and sheared off. Just before reaching it's final resting place anything that hadn't been consumed was loaded into the last of the pods and dropped into the jungle below, like a string of lights guiding an aircraft to the runway. In a massive crash the ship plunged into the trees, skidded just over a km, and went silent.

News of the crash spread quickly among the imperial ranks. Within minutes airmen of the planet's sole hangar scrambled to their bombers, prepared to hit the planet with anything they had to prevent their world from being consumed by whatever may slither out of the thousand degree wreck. As the bombers moved to taxi, the comms
squalked with orders from high command. Much to the Guardmen's dismay, on punishment of death the target was not to be hurt. The mago-biologis of the planet knew what they had was too valuable to pound into oblivion. By some incredible stroke of luck, their planet had suddenly become host to a massive Tyranid ship, sitting on dry land in galactic no-man's land. Such a unique occurrence could not the squandered. Anything the massive beached biohulk could gleam in the nature of their most alien enemy would be invaluable to the Imperium of man, not to mention make them fabulously wealthy.

In what may be their death warrant the world's Researcher Marshal deemed the area to be quarantined. Soon the air was filled with not attack craft, but research vehicles, and as they circled the wreck, while reporting numerous small pockets of various forms of Tyranids simply roaming mindless and complacently, deemed the hulk herself lifeless and dead. Where most citizen's of the Imperium would pale in the face of the notion of a tyranid's presence, the men of this planet in fact felt assured, for surely soon such a huge Imperial force would be amassed here the Tyranid hives would be hunted to the last. Quickly the Astropaths were beleaguered to contact Terra herself, among hundreds of other Dictorums and Lord Generals of whom the relic may prove of highest importance. As the psychic choir began to grow and swell to push through and beyond the Necron's psychic void, a strange alien psychic babble, not that unlike those heard briefly before a planet was to be swallowed by the Shadow in the Warp, could also be heard. It was theorized the Tyranids were attempting their own psychic choir, and it was wondered if the Necron presence hadn't completely severed the bug's tie to the Hive Mind until such a time they manged to push through...the horrible truth would only later be discovered.

As the astropaths continued to struggle through the necron void, deep within the still cooling biomass of the stranded ship a presence stirred from it's deep sleep. At first only slightly aware, the noise of an astropathic choir was drawing it from it's sleep. Like a moth to light the growing psychic energies caused the presence to hunger, a hunger which it was well aware it could not feed. The presence of the Hive Mind was weak, almost extinguished, but it was present, and it was waiting.

It started as a feeling of fear, the horrible realization not all was well, something was gurgling to life in the mind of the planet's psychers. The distant and often ignored tyranid babble was becoming more coherent, something cohesive was clearing it's throat, preparing to speak, huffing and bellowing, causing it's minions to stir and return it's call. And then it came. From far across the planet's surface the best had awakened. The giant ship let loose a psychic bellow, and then another. For the astropath's it was already too late. The beast began to howl, it's opening shrieks and cresendo's frying the minds of hundred's of the weaker psychers across the planetscape. It quickly found the psychic roots of the choir and and responded with a maddening howl directed directly at their minds. In what could only be described a whip crack motion it lashed out, severing them from one another with a noise that drown out all others. In but a flick of an invisible warp-driven wrist thousands of astropaths were either simply dead or drooling near lifeless forms, dangling from their receptor chairs, some wracked by siezures, others becoming aware and desperately trying to fight their way out of the psychic apperatus before being swallowed whole by the monsterous presence befouling the planet's crust, a mind mumbing jolt of overamped psychic energy being delivered directly to their brains across time and space. The astropathic choir itself - not the men but the massive psychic conductive antenna at it's core, melted down as electricity jumped from astropath cell to astropath cell. The observational security cameras recorded little but arcing purple electricity and ozone clogged smoke before dying themselves.

In space above the last life lines would not be spared. The massive deep space comm-sattelites, the staple of secret Imperium bases, and the only line of communication between planet bound ships and the world below should astropathic communication be cut off for some reason, (or as it was typically by the necron void-presence) not be typically available, were wracked by a psychic induced warp-storm. Delicate telemetry matrices dissolved, ground-space laser focusing and receiver lenses shattered, and in a last horrific act, the warp storms wracking the sattelites weakened and spread. The entire planet was now enveloped in a hazy super-atmospheric purple gray fog.

Like a grim laugh in the face of death, the alien ship's nerve core bellowed psychic howls and taunts of victory for week's before eventually falling silent. Unknown to the human inhabitants of the planet, the shrieks were in fact not directed at them, but at the necrons sleeping deep within the planet. If something - anything - were listening, it would be made aware the invasion force now situated on the planet's moss and pete covered surface.

Within the nerve center the lightening that had once arced and swept across floors of biomatter and giant crystalline pillars faded away, the eyes within the walls that once stood as silent observers first closed, then began to bleed. The waterfalls of greenish and yellow snot ichor pouring out the sides of the fallen mammoth, present since it's arrival, gradually slowed until crusting themselves shut. Gradually a horrible stentch of dead rotting carcass filled the air for hundreds of kilometers surrounding the mass, and it's massive carapace began to dry and peel in massive curls.

Completely cut off from communications, the remote lush orb drifts through space. At times the twisting ether above the atmosphere blotting the red sun out entirely, other times becoming nigh detectable for weeks before abruptly erupting in a halo of space bound lightening and burning energy. Given the amount of time it was assumed the astropaths had managed to make contact with someone, if not several telepathic relays across the Imperium, but who and where was unknown. Help should be inbound - hopefully before the next supply convoy was scheduled in several years, as the budding colony had become all but self sufficient, and supply lanes closed as to not lead foes to their secret locale.

Deep below the planet's surface, ancient beings began to stir.

The lights flickered and dimmed. A few moments went by and then the room plunged into darkness. Someone groaned. Since the Hiveship had fried the Telepathica relay power had been almost reliable on a good day. All across the complex the engineers had been working around the clock, replacing fuses, laying new lines, and more often than not employing a fire extinguisher. Rumors were circulating even the reactors hadn't had sufficient ground to handle the massive telepathic energy flux they suffered. But it had been getting better. Officer's quarters, the operations decks and flight control towers had all been rewired and appeared to be functional again. The work had been endless, and it was really no wonder. The complex was massive, the sole base of operations for the planet's entire garrison, numbering some 7 million men.

Dating back to the times of the first Hive Fleet, everyone there knew what their purpose on the forsaken rock was. They were man's last line of defense, the foundation of a venerable ark. They had one mission, find out how to kill all the bugs, and if they couldn't do that, they were to bury their heads in the sand and hide. And they were sat atop a Necron tomb world. But, whatever the planet produced in the warp, the bugs didn't like it, or for all anyone knew couldn't even see it. They we're thought to be safe. All that had changed. Everyone was frightened senseless. It was obvious their careful planning, system sweeps ahead of convoys and silence on the Astropathica relay net had all been in vain. The bugs knew they were there, and there was a giant carcass rotting in the jungle to prove it. Should the Imperium of man cease to exist, digested in the Tyranid biomass, they would go screaming with it.

Not all was lost however. They had made sufficient advances in several forms of technology, at least enough to keep funding up, the base growing, and a steady supply of troops and their families arriving, never to leave. Their remote location and secret status had shielded them from something else, too, those of the eyes of the Ordo Xenos. The unbreakable will of man had bent, some speculated snapped, as the High Lords of Terra themselves had secretly entered into a research treaty with a large number of races belonging to the Tau empire. They had no other choice. The Galaxy was being devoured by the Universe's bastard children, a locust swarm so large thinking of it's size could drive men mad, and they were all trapped within. It was a war of attrition against an enemy of unknown size, where casualties were counted in solar systems, and every corpse made rose from the ashes, joining the enemy in the form of legion.

The Tau contingency on the planet was not large in comparison, numbering only in the hundreds. Their advances, while slow, had been steady, given their access to fresh data pouring in from man's war with the bugs on the eastern fringe. Many speculated the Tau were taking the lion's share, ferrying away with their hard won works and leaving man to fend for himself, but human advancements had been enough to satisfy the agreements that had been made. Nobody had ever expected they may have to actually fight the bugs themselves tooth and nail. The experimentation thus far had mostly taken place on a large number of corpses that had been shipped in, and occasionally even live specimens, all kept in stasis by the Adeptus Mechanicus assigned to their small "colony". Everything was about to change. The Tyranids, although cut off from the hive mind's will, were single minded creatures. While behaving in a feral pack mentality when observed, fears would soon become nightmares as the extragalactic race instinctively vied for dominance and solidarity.

The base was evolving rapidly. Researchers became Laborers. Routine patrol men became miners and well riggers. Chimneys began to rise from the once stoic clean look of the facility to break the sky, the Mechanicum was racing to bring basic production facilities online. The Fabricator Princeps of the base ordered the unfinished sections of the perimeter wall to be finished in double time. Morale shrunk. Everyone knew if the Tyranids wanted in they'd have no trouble. The base was surrounded by small mining tunnels, the water supply was irrigated down a man made river from a well station several Km away. The power was geothermic, and the lower dungeons of the large facility were all carved right out into the rock. The most popular joke quickly became 'all the Tyranids needed was a large worm and they would all be dead'. Men were executed daily by the small contingency of Commisars and Arbites, their minds gone and swallowed by terror, or frothing at the mouth having succumbed to the hive mind. The worst were those that declared themselves prophets of the communities impending doom. Many vainly attempted regicide or suicide bombing before being gunned down by their comrades.

Strange Creatures circled in the Night Sky, howling in the distance and baying like wolves, chittering like rodents.

The planet had no indigenous life.

Several requests for AA fire at the circling hordes had been made, all denied. Standard reserve was just a few hundred. The Mechanum had been scurrying to unpack and assemble the machinery necessary to produce autocannon shells, but such had not been scheduled to happen for several years. The equipment had been originally dumped directly onto the base framework while it was being constructed; inside a massive orbital bombardment crater. Necessary components were buried under tons of other equipment, as well as most of the heavy weapons. The simple fact of the matter is they had been near purely relying on stealth. If they were discovered It was assumed the base was too small to hold against any sort of siege force. Defense Lasers were years from even being started. And everyone knew it. The reality was one of blood and glass. Their

When help eventually arrived, it wasn't what anyone had been expecting. A passing deep space Tau war fleet had passed several light years away, and the warp disturbance had been so grave their scanners had abruptly placed their vessels under high alert without warning. They made due haste for the psychically dead orb, curious what had happened on what was listed as a large dormant Necron tomb world that had only recently burgeoned underrepresented growths of plant life after collision with a massive cloud of comets.

Bleary eyes peered up into the early morning sky as news quickly spread. Through the haze and the dull swirling borealis dozens of oddly shaped craft could be seen descending into low orbit. Tau Cruisers, Vespid Translations, Kroot Warbirds, Asoto War Cities, Stake Sleeks, and Nicassar Dhows all slowly made their way through the early morning light, the sun glinting off their metallic hulls. In control towers around the base panels and readouts chirped and whirred to life, their glowing surfaces posting pages of warnings as instruments failed to translate all the different scans permeating the planet's surface. More systems churned and buzzed as dozens of weapons locked on from their orbital positions, cover for the inevitable landing parties.

Landing Craft streaked and soared through the atmosphere, dancing and churning in a blinding display of Xenos Architecture.

The research outpost was not the only entity watching their unannounced new arrivals. Far away, beneath the autumnal jungles of the polar north , ancient runes blazed to life in a holosphere. Dim lights flickered and hallways were illuminated for the first time in untold milenia. Calculations were made, and the grand chamber was flooded with light. A giant robotic arm scanned down a row of giant open-centered squares, arranged like books, each comprised of a precious material; marble and jade and metallurgy man has never seen. The arm stopped over a smaller selection, and hefted a creation of gold flecked quartz, a mere twenty feet high, with seeming effortless capability. The frame was swung out into the central hallway, and sped back to the grand audience chamber. Upon arrival, it was lowered into place between two large pillars, each a seeming creation of mechanical madness, covered in lumps and odd shapes, power surged along cables and lights, their purpose or significance lost to time, blinked and reported on systems buried even further towards the planets core. A massive sound reverberated through the ancient caverns and lights dimmed and flared.

Within the frame, strange shapes began to emerge. A green glow of lasered energy suffused the hallowed shape, lines cris-crossing and pulsing in and out of reality. A grid flared to life, and took on a 3 dimensional myriad spanning out to infinity. In the distance, a strange door emerged through a blued green fog, floating in space, seeming not to be connected to anything. The hexagonal door moved it's way into the frame and with a great clang locked into place. The throbbing sounds of power dimmed, the apex of their great crescendo complete, and the columns went dim. The door shimmered as nano-technology released and transitioned from solid metal to a strange water-like substance, rippling and flowing in the air. The blackness within was abruptly broken as din orbs around the chamber flickered to life, and two great braziers spit forth flame. There was not much space within.

Sat atop a throne was a venerable Necron general, countless times older than the galaxy itself. A moment passed, and his eyes flared with green flame held within glass orbs filling his eye sockets. With a roar he came to his feet, plucking his ancient weaponry from aside his throne. Accompanied by a hiss the double tiered tombs around him belched steam and began to open, revealing further tombs, some mere closets in comparison, others nearly as large as his. His personal retinue emerged first from all around him. Pariahs, Immortals and Infinities, rare relics of the creative forces of C'tan yet to reemerge, stepped forward at his beckoning. Lightening and energy corosed along his heavy staff as it blazed to life, wielded in one hand, a large plasma caster held aloft in the other. The Necrons surveyed their chamber, unchanged after their relatively brief passage through the caverns of space and time. The metal-riven shapes stretched and rubbed their heads in eerie silence, remnants of their one organic forms, idiosyncrasies invariably married to their soulless psyches.

"Where are we?", a metallic voice inquired in deep C'tan.

The Necron Lord responded "unknown." in a guttural growl a few moments later.

He gestured with his stave towards the room before him, through the shimmering surface of the nano seal. The fluid rippled, and a portion lent itself towards the cathedral floor several feet below their nightmarish picture-frame portal, solidifying into a series of large steps, complete with no-slip tape.

"If I could grin I would.", the Lord intoned.

Metallic laughs sounded around him and through the chamber as his bodyguards rapidly deployed out into the chamber beyond, via way of nanostep. Lasers swept from the front of weapons around the chamber, scanning the depths of the cavernous ceiling for unknown threats. The Lord paused briefly to consider the leather padded strap on his Plasmacaster, his fingers scanning it's smooth surface and bone studded length. It was made from the skin of an old foe. Dark energies played over his face like heat in a desert, and his mouthslot appeared to smile briefly for a moment. Abruptly the Lord snapped back to reality. The memory past, he placed the strap over his shoulder, loosing his grip on his weapon as he strode through the nanocurtain.

In the chamber beyond, his soldiers had been busy. A large projection of the galaxy hovered in the air, maps and charts, looking much like an ancient astronomers, indicated their place in the known universe.

"So," he growled as he scanned a cascade of runes that appeared from nowhere to dance before him, "the children of Terra and the Bastard Throne beckon with their new playmates. Someone should have told them this is hallowed ground."

Again a chorus of chuckles and metallic snickers emanated from antique skulls. Behind him in the tombs his personal command staff would soon wake, bringing bodyguards and staffs of their own.

Thousands of miles away, the first emissaries from the Tau fleet were touching down on Landing Pad 1.

From a high tower the goings on in the courtyard were being watched through one way glass. The magnetic reactive paint left shadows of the industrial markings on the tower panels outside. The air hummed with machines and tubes running through the wall, producing various forms of shielding.

"Sir," A plantive hand rose to silence the hulking man at his side. In the courtyard below emissaries of the war fleet had attached in an honor guard formation around members of the ambassadorial detatchment.
Already the psyche next to his own had flickered repeatedly. "Something on your mind?" The form did not answer for several moments.
"So who or what is in charge here now?"
"No doubt the Spikes know what their presence means. I'd imagine whoever is killing the most at the moment."
A member of the honor guard stood at attention, talking over his shoulder to the armored figure next to him while standing at attention. His cohort sniggered and directed a question in return.
"Do you think they'll even stay?", the hulking figure inquired.
The Inquisitor closed his eyes, and the large marine felt the air around him go static before closing his own. He felt the Inquisitor's mind wander.
"No doubt they know of our presence, is there?", a moment passed, "The Deathwatch...", he mused. The marine's mind rushed as he reached out himself, revealing his presence to the null of the world around him. He'd felt it before, campaigning across a dozen dead worlds chasing Emperor knew what. But there was a new feeling here, a stain, some sort of residue resulting from a massive psycher-ship of an organism unleashing psychic war on something cold and mechanical, The void itself, he mused to himself.
"A rock ravaged by a warp storm. Who could resist?", he answered hos own question, and the Inquisitor next to him drew a breath.
The savage of a man next to him hadn't been the same since the attack, and the lumbering form was left in silence to wonder if he had somehow stung his compatriot. The psychic waves had taken a lot out of the man, and the marine captain next to him wondered if it hadn't targeted him directly. Few men survived staring into the eye of the beast, even if it took years for them to die. He knew the risks present and weighed them heavily while the Inquisitor's gaze returned to the parade grounds. The human parties had been swept side to meet with the bases own contingent of Tau.
"What are we even doing working with the savages?", the captain sighed, "Deathwatch sent to make sure man's dealing with the Xenos doesn't cede into the heretical, Emperor knows they'll just massacre us all."
"If they haven't already," intoned the Inquisitor, "for all you know you've nothing to worry about, for your already dead. The "savages" are thought to be the...fastest...way to an end, a means. If were to resurrect the ancient technologies we seek , we'll be needing them."
The huge marine spat, and the Inquisitor frowned. A moment passed, "You know, sometimes I wonder if you aren't an agent of the Ordo Tech Priest on Mars.", he knew his joke would be taken as nothing but an insult of office before the Inquisitor even spoke.
"Technology -", he abruptly cut off as he realized the marine was moving to leave.
"You'll be lucky if I don't shoot you myself.", the marine barked over his shoulder.
"We need each other!", the Inquisitor called to the robed form as the door slid open.

Several moments passed. The Inquisitor spat some obscenities to himself at the congregation of forms on the landing platform below in an Alien tongue.
"What seems to the the rabble?" a frail voice inquired from it's seat in the shadows. A floating dias drifted over out of a silk partition at the far side of the room. The Astropath's form was twisted and a crust of blood had dried in a rivulet down the side of his face. A vein had burst out the side of his head, even from inside the psychically shielded room his mind had not been protected from a war of wills between the planets psycher population a and a warp crazed bioship. It hadn't stopped bleeding since the attack, even with the expert medical attention afforded to the members of a research station, it continued to produce a slow ichor crust from it's rent remains. A wound his mind had suffered, manifest now on the face of his spirit.
"Nothing..." the Inquisitor's voice trailed off.
In the courtyard below, a Spike of the diplomatic delegation had paused. Cradling an arm length archaic firearm in one arm, his stared up at the side of the industrial tower hiding the Inquisitor's retinue. Wearing a large battle scarred mask it was impossible to tell, but the Inquisitor could swear their eyes were locked.

Deep within the bowels of the fortress other forces began to stir. Sprawling, vast and mostly unoccupied, the Inquisitors would note the days as they recorded a rise in violence, suicides, and citizens MIA within the bastion's own walls; the first signs of a population besieged by an invasion. With the Tyranid's noted burrowing capability, most of the lower habitats had become vacated, for fear of dying alone in the dark. As the days went by, the population migrated to the above ground spires, taking up residence in any space available. Areas designated for future laboratory or munitorium zoning quickly became allocated to the flow of people and their belongings surging from the cities below. This, of course, caused the once quaint subterranean neighborhoods to become red light districts near instantly. Gangs formed, comprised mostly of groups of citizens hoarding or attempting to hoard mass munitions to ensure their own longevity, among other things.

And naturally the gangs were just the tip of the ice burg. Cult of Chaos, fueled and inspired by the warp storm, began to preach heretical faith, their members setting up altars to the dark gods in dark, now long forgotten and unchecked dorms of the underworld, sometimes just vanishing entirely into the vacant abyss. Some people simply seeded to the dark powers feeling their destruction was imminent. With so many skilled scientists and the new influx of a mass population of xenos, narcotics flooded the streets. And then there were the weapons. Much to the beguile of the Imperium and causing a look that could only be thought of as disdain on the faces of the Tau, the various Xenos began to sell weapons to the Mechanum, and inevitably the general population. With such a massive influx of fresh mobile soldiers from the fleets above, hunting parties began to form, venturing across planet to hunt the deathfauna filled jungles of the now feral Tyranids. Men didn't return, and married that with the intense close everyday Xenos contact, rumors of species changing sides and defecting ran rampant.

The bodies of the slain 'nids were transported back to the yet unnamed surface bastion, and despite regulations, their corpses were hung in public, in city streets, and chained to monuments in civil squares. The reality was just too stunning for some. Not even a year had passed, and nothing dragged out of the woods matched any description in the arcanums and libraritoriums. They had already mutated off their standard biopatterns and begun to form new, better adapted species. People began to report hordes of "Tyrannic Ants", as well as other pests and rodents, but with such a large Xenos presence it was hard to tell what came from where. Sections of the populace began to believe the hanging of corpses was the act of genestealer cults, attempting to, or possibly having already, breached the walls with foul Xenos genetics. The prevailing sense of panic continued to grow.