The Battle of Morox – Echoes Beneath the Veil
Segmentum Tempestus – 013.M32
Night on Morox is never silent.
The loyalist advance slowed as darkness reclaimed the plains, not by order, but by instinct. Engines idled. Vox traffic thinned. Even the wind seemed to draw back, as though the world itself listened.
Sanctum Nullis stood whole, but changed.
The Gate no longer flared with visible power, yet its presence pressed upon the mind like a half-remembered dream. The ground around it had cooled to black glass, fractured by veins of dull crimson light that pulsed in time with the unseen rhythm below. Tech-priests labored without pause, their augurs returning data that contradicted itself moment to moment. Depth readings folded inward. Time stamps looped. One servo-skull returned from a routine survey bearing scorch marks… dated three hours into the future.
Containment protocols were enacted. Perimeters widened. Wards were raised not only of steel and gunline, but of prayer and sigil. No one said it aloud, but every commander knew the truth:
Morox had not been secured.
It had been disturbed.
Beyond the loyalist lines, the traitors did not flee in disarray as expected. They withdrew with purpose, abandoning material but preserving cohesion, vanishing into the ash storms of the outer wastelands. Recon patrols reported impossible sightings columns that appeared where none had marched, silhouettes moving against the wind, artillery signatures without firing echoes. Every report ended the same way: loss of signal, abrupt silence, or a request to repeat orders already given.
Then the Veil answered.
It began with the sentries.
At the third watch, men along the eastern cordon reported movement beneath the sand slow, deliberate shifting, too broad for armor, too rhythmic for machinery. Auspex showed nothing. The ground did not break. The pulse beneath their boots simply grew stronger, syncing with their heartbeats until some swore they could feel it thinking.
At 0412 local, the Gate flared once more.
Not with light,but absence.
A void blossomed at its core, swallowing sound, color, and thought alike. For seventeen seconds, Morox forgot itself. Weapons failed to cycle. Vox networks filled with overlapping voices speaking in no known tongue. Some heard commands from dead officers. Others heard nothing at all and screamed.
When reality snapped back into place, the Gate was dormant once more.
And something had changed.
Scout elements pushed into the ruins beyond Sector 17-Null at first light. What they found was not a renewed traitor assault, but signs of preparation: ritual geometries carved into rockcrete, sacrificial remains arranged with care, war engines abandoned not in haste, but offering. Whatever the enemy had lost at Sanctum Nullis, they had traded it for something else.
Something unfinished.
High command issued a single directive across all loyalist forces still planetside:
Hold Morox. Do not pursue. Prepare for counter-incursion.
The Shifting Veil had not been a weapon.
It had been a signal.
And somewhere beyond the storm-wracked horizon, the enemy was listening.
Beneath the dust and ruin, the Gate’s heartbeat resumed slower now, deeper, and unmistakably awake.
To all who were present: Thank you again for attending the event! Without each of you, this event could not have been the success it was. Your participation brought the story yet again to life. We hope to see you all again in June for the next chapter of the campaign.
