dreadnoughts

Dreadnoughts

The first of the two Dreadnoughts to serve the Watch Fortress Dascomb is a former Third Company squad marksman of the Dark Angels named Lucien Insly.  Brother Lucien was a member of the Dark Angels in good standing for many decades after his Initiation, and served as a capable but unlauded member of his squad for fifty years before his talent was uncovered.
While assigned to a mission to purge a cabal of Dark Eldar that had taken to capturing and enslaving the farmers of the Agri-world Vanlos 3 in the Drumnos Sector, Insly distinguished himself.  When the Dark Eldar began using complex hit-and-run tactics to evade the Astartes retaliation, Insly kept detailed records and notes of their attacks, compiled on the fly during the course of his normal duties.  In his head, he martialed the data he had collected to precisely array his squad against the Eldar to cause maximum disruption of their plans.  In conjuction with the local PDF and Imperial Guard forces, Brother Lucien was able to accurately determine which Dark Eldar present were the leaders of the enemy force.

This, in turn, led to his revelation that the reason the Dark Eldar had pressed their attack even after the Astartes had arrived to stop them was because the Dark Eldar leader’s subordinates were quietly trying to get him killed fighting the Imperium so they could replace him.  Rather than play along, however, Insly instead used his combination of hard-won intelligence and marksman’s weapons to begin killing those lieutenants instead, over the course of several days’ hard fighting.  The Dracons and other officers of the Archon who led the attack were caught off-guard by this, having underestimated the mon-keigh’s skill.

As soon as Insly began this purge, the Dark Eldar raids faltered.  Other Dark Angel assets in the system took note and pressed their advantages.  Within three weeks, the Dark Eldar force was all but rent in half, with the now-paranoid Archon and his few surviving Dracons bickering and blaming each other.  The Dark Angels struck, shelling the Webway gate the Dark Eldar had used to arrive on the planet from orbit, and stranding the Dark Eldar on the planet.

Inquisitorial Ordo Xenos quarantines sealed the planet off, allowing the Dark Angels to be reassigned elsewhere, while the task of ferreting out the surviving aliens fell to local forces under Inquisitorial guidance.  Brother Lucien Insley was commended for his creativity, and elevated to Squad Sergeant, though he preferred to retain his Stalker bolter rather than upgrade to a plasma weapon.

With every new chance to learn from the Dark Eldar and turn their own flaws against them, Insly proved himself adequate, and within a few decades more was considered the premiere hunter of the Dark Eldar in the Third Company and possibly the Chapter outside the Inner Circle.  When he had the chance to serve the Deathwatch, he did so, and served with distinction in the Galactic North for over ten years.

He eventually met his end serving in the battles against the Corumbino Nebular foes who continue to snipe at Imperial ssets when they get the chance.  After a grueling battle against a Dark Eldar construct of malice and dark energy, Insly was cut in half at the waist.  Eventually, he was resuscitated into a Dreadnought Construct after obtaining grudging permission from The Rock, and restationed on Dascomb as, at the time, its only Ancient.

The other Dreadnought assigned to Watch Fortress Dascomb is a Silver Skulls Techmarine who has granted the immense honor of internment in the station’s other Dreadnought sarcophagus.  The Silver Skull, named Elder Brother Keyne, was once a master of what the Deathwatch and Ordo Xenos refer to as anti-desanctification.  This is the process of salvaging technology that had been stolen or defiled by aliens and returning it to proper working order.  The Orks are the most obvious perpetrators of this defilement, but not the only ones.  Like all proper worshippers of the Machine God, Keyne loathed the mere thought of aliens defiling Imperial technology, especially weapons and ships.  The task of laboriously scraping off Ork ‘improvements’ to their looted humie flash is one at which Keyne was a genuine master of the art.  Shuttles, pistols, even a staggeringly rare Conversion Beamer; Keyne has restored a vast array of lost tech, much of which went straight into the arsenal of either the Deathwatch or the Silver Skulls themselves.

Keyne was a normal Techbrother of low rank and experience when he learned of his skill.  The Skulls had successfully boarded and retaken a captured Imperial ship that had been taken by Ork Freebootaz.  Keyne’s team was able to restore the ship, a Viper-class, to Imperial working order with such speed and efficiency that Mars itself took note.  When the Skulls later encountered a mongrel band of multi-racial pirates and slavers on the outer edge of the Maelstron, driven out by the expanding empire of Huron Blackheart, it was Keyne who led the team of Techmarines the Silver Skulls sent to analyze their weaknesses and eventually defeat them.

When the call came to lend an experienced xeno killer from the Tech Brotherhood to the Deathwatch, there was no real question who could be more qualified.  Keyne served with distinction for four years before his internment into the Dreadnought following a failed attempt to defeat a Khornate daemon that had boarded his ship during a Gellar Field malfunction.  After the Field came back online and finished the weakened daemon off, the Deathwatch quickly interred him, lest his precious knowledge be lost forever.  The Silver Skulls have barely tolerated this, but acknowledge that there is little to be done about it all, and it is better than Keyne simply dying gainlessly.