Hungry Void

The Hungry Void was a brutal, two-year long Imperial campaign, from 708-710.M36, that nearly saw the destruction of the Marauding Eagles Space Marine Chapter. This involved the purgation of a mysterious derelict vessel, known as the Glorious Colonizer, declared lost in the warp two millennia earlier. When the the Chapter sent hunter-killer teams to perform purgation operations of the drifting derelict, they began to mysteriously disappear. After nearly two years of sending expeditions into the mysterious vessel, the Ansis (Chapter Master) emerged - the sole survivor. He would not speak of what they encountered within, and ordered the vessel to be towed to the system's nearest star. After the vessel was cast adrift into it, the Ansis fell to knees, dead.

History
The campaign of the Hungry Void almost destroyed the Chapter. At its end, only 111 Battle-Brothers of the Marauding Eagles were still alive. Even the archives of the Chapter and its oral tales speak little about this terrible war. The fact that it took only two years, from 708-710.M36 is often assumed to be wrong by outsiders who learns of it. Yet, it is truth.

The campaign began when a Rogue Trader's star-ship, the Glorious Colonizer, stumbled out of the Warp in the Gautgund's system. This vessel had been presumed lost in the warp two thousand years ago, but it had now returned. Boarding it, the first teams of Astartes reported early on that it was empty but all communication was lost two hours after they had entered the Glorious Colonizer. The subsequent forces sent into the hull recorded that all was calm and that there was no proof that their Brothers had entered into it mere hours before them. After one hour, all communication ceased again. The Chapter's fleet deemed the Brothers lost and tried to destroy the starship, but none of their weapon managed to hit it, apparently dissipating into the ether near its hull.

Wallia the Wise, the Ansis at that time then headed the counsels of his Master Archivist, Récarède the Son of the Storm. The mighty psyker felt that there was a hungry void, all-consuming, hidden deep into the Glorious Colonizer. Whatever was it source, it was craving for flesh and soul. Récarède believed that the horror inside would consume the Chapter, then Gautgund and travel then to another inhabited system to gorge itself. The Storm had to be brought to battle if the Chapter was to destroy the hidden horror.

Wallia gathered his Chapter, 1,000 Battle-Brothers before the Rogue Trader's tomb had come to Gautgund and ordered that each Brotherhood choose one of its most veteran warriors, one well-versed in their specific lore and beliefs, to remain on Gautgund with the entirety of the Stormdagger's Brotherhood and a junior Apothecary, Archivist and Techmarine. Outcry followed, but the wisdom of the Ansis prevailed against the uproar of the Hilds. The Brothers who remained on Gautgund saw their Brothers enter the Glorious Colonizer and silence immediately surrounded them.

Expecting the vessel to make move, they waited but nothing happened. Finally, two years after almost all the Chapter had entered it, a wave of nightmares plagued the natives of Gautgund and even the Aspirants and Neophytes of the Marauding Eagles on the planet. Immediately afterward, radio silence was broken. Wallia was calling from the Apothecary to come and reclaim the gene-seed from his fallen Brothers. The Ansis was the sole survivor of the boarding party and he refused to talk about what was hidden deep into the starship's core.

Once the dead Astartes had been brought back to Arnwarin, Wallia ordered the Glorious Colonizer to be hauled to a dying star near the Gautgund Sector, without making use of the Warp. The travel took twenty years, which allowed the shaken Ansis to see the beginning of his Chapter's rebuilding. When the Colonizer reached its destination, Wallia ordered it to be thrown into the system's sun. At the very moment the cursed star-ship was destroyed, the brave Ansis fell to the his knees, dead before he touched the ground.