Spite

The members of Operation Aegis were not able to hide
their work from everyone, and over two years ago Aun’Kar
and Tal’ek learned of the Gate beneath Javar Prime. Using the
most zealous members of the Vengeance Sept, a radical group
of Tau Sympathisers among the human population of the
Canis Salient, Aun’Kar sought to tear asunder the defences
built during Operation Aegis. The zealots took control
of a massive cargo ship, the Silent Pilgrim, and, consigning
themselves to death, crashed the vessel headlong into a major
fault line in close proximity to Javar Prime. Although this
appeared as the random act of an extremist group against
the forces of the Crusade, in reality it was done in the hopes
that the ensuing tectonic calamity would split the adamantine
walls and crumble the rockcrete structures guarding the Gate.
Their actions caused untold catastrophe across the surface
of Spite, yet the Wards protecting the Javar Gate remained
intact. Not only did the earthquakes fail to breach it, but the
wards’ strength halted the breaking earth in its tracks. Thus,
the devastation ends just outside Javar Prime, as though the
city had been saved by a miracle.
...
In 815.M41, a violent group of Tau Sympathisers struck
a great blow against the Fortress world. This “Vengeance
Sept” crashed a container ship called the Silent Pilgrim
into a major fault line on Spite. Speculations run wild
on precisely what the Vengeance Sept did to prepare the
ship, but it crashed with a furious explosion that triggered
seismic activity of an unprecedented scale. Entire cities
were swallowed by the resulting earthquakes and ash still
clogs Spite’s sky from a devastating chain of volcanic
eruptions. The fault line opened up into a massive seismic
scar over five thousand kilometres long. This hellish rift
has been dubbed the Sorrow.
The Sorrow is not only an ugly reminder of the
Vengeance Sept’s attack; it is also a dangerous no-man’sland.
A dozen scattered excavation sites dot the fissure.
Each site employs thousands of workers, sifting through
rubble and blasting away boulders in Ebongrave’s ceaseless
attempts to find the wreckage of the Silent Pilgrim. The
labourers are almost all displaced refugees, conscripted
from nearby cities and monitored by Purgation Platoon
soldiers. One such site exists at the apex of the Sorrow,
just outside Javar Prime.
Hundreds of kilometres separate each dig. In these
abandoned zones, giant batholiths extrude like jagged
teeth; new volcanoes erupt unpredictably and violently.
Within this hostile terrain, desperate men and women
inhabit the still-collapsing wreckage of decimated cities.
...
Military command of the Canis Salient occupies dozens of
kilometres. Scant years ago, a nigh-impregnable semicircle of
fortifications surrounded this area—known as the Black Zone.
However, Ebongrave’s forces were not spared the effects of the
earthquakes caused by the impact of the Silent Pilgrim. Although
thousands of conscripts and penal labourers have died from the
gruelling pace of reconstruction, gaps the size of canyons and
unstable crumbling patches still blemish the walls. Night and
day, the workers teem like ants over the ramparts.
Despite being second priority for repairs, inside the
perimeter, Crusade life goes on. Regiments muster between
crumbling walls, and the crush of tank treads slowly wears
broken roads flat again. The interior of the Black Zone remains
a maze, twisting out in corridors that would make ground
assault a nightmare. Ebongrave constantly changes the assigned
locations of the Black Zone’s resources, ensuring no one but
himself knows the complete layout at any given time. There is
hardly a single open space that has not served as an execution
ground for one purge or another during Ebongrave’s reign. If
rotting corpses do not actively hang in a yard, one has only to
look closely to see the remains of old nooses or the neat lines
of bullet holes left from old executions.
…
The Achilian Bastion squats in the centre of the Black Zone.
Built by the original Lord Militant, the Bastion was once a
towering edifice of command. Now, its protective ramparts
dwarf the rockcrete structure. Within, the Bastion runs deep
into the earth. Its subterranean layers could house every
soldier stationed in the Black Zone; a hundred separate
armouries hold enough ammunition to last through years
of relentless siege, and every day Ebongrave slowly adds to
his stockpile of weapons, rations, and supplies. Just as the
Lord Commander keeps the full layout of the Black Zone to
himself, he hides the full accounting of his stores from any
one individual. This is not greed on Ebongrave’s part, but
utter certainty that one day he will have to tap these resources
to defend himself against sedition.
Beneath scores of sub-fl oors lies Ebongrave’s command
bunker. Fifty feet of solid bedrock separate it from the floor
above, connected by a single passage through the stone. No
less than five redundant vault doors