Helpers

Volani and Krawos froze. They did not dare look at Lin Fan, but sensibly bowed to him before turning and leaving.

The invasion of the VK-01 system had been temporarily repelled, but the situation in other systems was far from encouraging.

In the earlier T'au Empire reports, the Hash swarm had been divided into five forces.

The main force personally led by the Norn Queen had already scattered. The remaining smaller swarms were led by node organisms such as Tyrants, Neurotyrants, and Haruspexes.

Two forces swept past the eastern edge of the T'au Empire and headed north, only to run into the Stormlord's military exercises. They were torn apart by Gauss arcs and turned to attack the more weakly defended northern sectors of the T'au Empire.

The other two forces headed south, still retaining relatively complete formations.

The last two splinter fleets of the Hash swarm were not alone. In this vast, poorly controlled expanse of space, there was never any shortage of opponents.

Orks were everywhere, and the small war kingdoms they had established were engulfed by the swarm.

There was a particularly formidable Ork warlord on one of those planets, and he put up a powerful resistance against the swarm's assault.

But the good times did not last. By retreating again and again, the swarm fed the Ork warlord's pride.

The final battleground was set within a complex network of caves. Lictors lurked within, waiting for the warlord to become separated from his guards.

Under the swarm's deceptive retreat, the bloodthirsty Ork warlord strayed farther and farther from his heavily armored guard, only to be surrounded and assassinated by the Lictors.

The moment the warlord died, the Orks immediately descended into infighting. They were busy fighting the bugs while also beating up other Ork bosses amid Scrap Mountain.