Even in the null field of her chambers aboard the Impedimenta high inquisitor Clarissa felt the constant droning. Her psychic powers were formidable and the fields ancient, even so they could not block the gibberish of the warp completely. Not this close to the Hyperion system. As they had approached the system several of the ships astropaths had gone in to horrible seizures, sputtering horrible chaos induced rants of blasphemy. The weak ones had been culled at once. Navy stormtroopers had been given the order to fire at any psyker that showed signs of madness. She was convinced they had killed several out of sheer nervousness. Clarissa cared little however, by being connected to the warp with their weak minds they put the Imperium of mankind at risk, and she would let nothing put the great works of the emperor in peril. Ever since arriving at what had been designated as a safe zone outside the system she had stayed in her chambers, the null fields were taxed to their limit keeping the raw power of the warp out. She longed to be free of the voices. But first they had to get a message through to the planet, if anyone was still alive to decipher it...

It was hours before dawn on the outskirts of the Primaris Hive on Hyperia. In the dark billets of the Hyperion Planetary Defensive Force 14th company Colonel Williams could get little sleep. With the dim light globe fight if and with a cup of caffeine, long since cold, in his hand he was going through the dispatches one more time. He had poured over them for weeks along with the rest of his command staff. The full might of the 14th company, some 500 soldiers plus support staff were to guard a shipment of critical supplies to Fuschian Hive Secundus.
He knew all too well the reason for the heavy escort. The forests and mountain passes of his beloved home world had grown dangerous in the last couple of months. As if encouraged by his dark thoughts a deafening thunder blasted through the air as the warp-storm that had ravaged the system reminded them all of its power. The warp-storm. This blight on their system that cut them off from the rest of the fething imperium of fething mankind. It had come as quick as quick as the torrential downpours that plauged this area of the continent and it had been lighting up the sky in a sickly purple light for months.
Every week there were reports of citizens mutating in the most horrifying ways, so far the hives and major population centers had been mostly spared. But the rural areas had not been so lucky. The hives with their shields and the watchful eye of the ecclesiarchy had the means to control the outbreaks but the countryside had become a place where only the most brave, or foolhardy, would venture. This had resulted in attacks on the pipelines connecting the hives to each other and now the Fuschian hive was running dangerously low on critical supplies, amongst them massive plasma cells to keep its generators running. Without those generators the hive would be defenseless, not that there would be much worth defending. A hive without power would be like a human being without its blood, a lifeless husk inhabited only by parasites.
Williams thought back and chuckled when he realized that he again had been using feth a curse word picked up by a unit that had been on some R&R on his planet a few years earlier. A full regiment of Imperial guard. He had made sure that his troops got some of their best as teachers for the weeks that they stayed. Their coarse customs and language had rubbed off however and now the words were heard every now and again from the veterans in his regiment. As his chronometer buzzed to show him that it was now 3 am he decided to try and get some sleep. Tomorrow they would head for Hive Secundus. And in his dark mood he knew that the regiment going with the transports were not for show.