As the after echo's of Bolter fire and the sharper crack of the zenos plasma cannons faded his thoughts turned to what could be done next other than die well which looked almost inevitable. it quickly became apparent that the situation was grimier than it appeared at first several ships had left warp in system and where inbound. The
Fiat Imperialis had identified all of them as Imperial but not of classes deployed to the segmentum fleet unable to identify them as positively friendly and all the ships being of cruiser class or larger had withdrawn to observation range, being only a frigate and a lightly armed one at that.
The incoming squadron closed with the fortress monastery and where identified as three heavy cruisers and an ancient grand cruiser, by the sesorium of the fortress monastery. The squadron made no attempt to hail the Fortress monastery or to in any way identify itself but from beyond the weapons range of the Fortress monasteries great guns several salvoes of torpedoes where launched. In response to this hostile act Brother Dravidus demanded that Brother Maleficius try to activate the Fortresses point defence it already having been discovered that the great guns where not yet operational.
This Maleficius seemed rather reluctant to do as he was more interested in the persistent knocking which was apparently coming from the service ducts above the gunnery suite, which Brother Dorn believed was one of the Zenos scout devices seeking access to deliver the coup de grace. Maleficius was not very successful only managing to get the use of one lone point defence cannon which failed to hit any of the incoming missiles as the machine spirits of system had not forgiven Brother Dravidus for the slaughter of there kin in the command centre for heresy. The missiles impacted and where revealed to be five boarding torpedoes and a number of dummies and low yield suppression missiles. The last to impact where the Boarding torpedoes which hammered through the fortress monasteries great landing bay doors disgorging five tactical squads of as far as could be seen on the the fortress monasteries internal cameras normal space marines thought the armour was of an unfamiliar mark and the tactical deployment though sound not codex as far as Brother Dorn could see.
Brother Ulfrik as acting sergeant ordered a warning about the Zenos to be sent to the unfamiliar space marines and they replied saying that they where a strike group form the Grey Angels chapter, which Brother Dorn nor any one else had ever heard of. This made Brother Dorn suspicious chaos was oft given to ruses and as far as he was aware most surviving Imperial grand cruisers where in the hands of the
Arch-enemy Who ever they really where their arrival did draw the extensive Zenos force who where besieging the command centre away leaving only a watch group of the small flyers which had been initially encountered scattered around the muster hall.
Ginger