Conquest of Uttu Prime

"It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war."

- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty, Necron Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim

The Conquest of Uttu Prime was a military campaign led by the Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Necron Sautekh Dynasty against the Imperial world of Uttu Prime in the Vidar Sector in the late 41st Millennium. Despite the intervention of a force of Space Marines drawn from the Imperial Fists Chapter, the world was lost to the Necrons and was integrated into the personal domain of Zahndrekh within the larger Sautekh Dynasty.

History
Nemesor Zahndrekh's ultimatum had given the Imperial defenders of Uttu Prime one solar month to withdraw, as was required by the ancient Necron codes of battle. Yet, when the deadline had passed, the foolish humans had not availed themselves of this most generous of offers. Indeed, whilst the Necron fleet held in intentional abeyance in orbit around Uttu Prime's desert moon, four regiments of the Imperial Guard's Catachan Jungle Fighters and three companies of Imperial Fists Space Marines had come to reinforce the contested world. So it was that when Zahndrekh finally launched his assault, he did so against a planet with formidable defences. However, when his courtiers argued against prosecuting the war to completion, the Nemesor merely issued a grating laugh and sent the interstitial command that set his fleet in motion.

Zahndrekh initially ignored Uttu Prime's outlying cities, focussing his assault on Fort Anan, the planetary capital. Zahndrekh's first attack wave was a dozen squadrons of Doom Scythe fighter craft. They swarmed over Fort Anan's fortifications, death rays raising great furrows of twisted metal and stone as they ploughed through bastions, ferrocrete walls and the luckless human defenders therein. To their credit, the humans put up a spirited resistance. Hydra Flak Tanks and Defence Lasers scoured the skies, driving off or blasting apart many of the swarming Necron aircraft. Yet each time a Doom Scythe was destroyed, another immediately peeled off from the main group to exact vengeance. Soon, Fort Anan was stripped of aerial defences, and the landings began.

Transport craft followed in the wake of the first attack wave. Night Scythes flew low over the wreckage of crashed Necron flyers and Imperial bastions. Small arms fire scattered across the Night Scythes' armoured hulls as their flickering invasion beams delivered Zahndrekh's assault troops into the heart of the humans' defences. Phalanx upon phalanx of Immortals and Necron Warriors stalked through the fresh ruins, Gauss Weapons blazing in unnaturally precise volleys as they drove the Catachans back. Here and there, an officer's barked orders held the Guardsmen in line, but wheere those commanders fell, the Imperial lines went into full retreat.

It was as the attackers' lines reached the Planetary Governor's citadel that the Imperial Fists finally made their presence known. Thunderhawk gunships screamed through the skies, shredding the oncoming Necron Warriors with Heavy Bolter fire and blasting Immortals limb from limb with missile strikes. As the gunships touched down amongst the rubble to disgorge Space Marines into the fray, the Necrons shifted to defensive protocols and awaited reinforcements. Alas for the Imperial Fists; from his vantage point in orbit, Zahndrekh had marked the approach of the Thunderhawks long before they had made their presence known planetside. Thus, even as the roar of Bolter-fire echoed through Fort Anan's ruins, a shadow fell over the battlefield as the Necron Megalith descended.

The Megalith was no ordinary war engine, but a vast floating fortress. Green fire lanced out from its flanks, blasting Thunderhawks from the air or crippling them on the ground. As the shadow grew larger, chunks of the Megalith's understructure broke away, the blocks falling lazily to the ground. They were no mere wreckage, but Monoliths detaching from the mothership's hull. As each touched down, it added firepower to the barrage assailing the Imperial Fists.

The Space Marines must have determined that they were doomed, but duty and stubborn tenacity made them redouble their efforts. Lascannon and Multi-melta fire flickered through the ruins, the beams converging to pierce the Monoliths' necrodermis hulls. Assault Squads threw themselves at the Necron phalanxes, Chainsword teeth screaming as they ripped through living metal bodies. However, the Megalith was now close enough to the ground to bring its invasion beams into play. Ghoulish viridian light flickered over the battlefield as the teleport beams activated, delivering Doosmday Arks, legions of Necron Immortals, as well as Zahndrekh and his personal Lychguard, into the thick of battle.

Those Space Marines that yet survived now withdrew to the Planetary Governor's citadel, but three Doomsday Arks converged their fire on the great adamantium gate. For a handful of moments it glowed an angry red, then burst into fragments with an ear-splitting crack. As the Imperial Fists fell back deeper into the citadel, Zahndrekh raised his Warscythe in salute to the doomed foe. Then the scythe swept down and the Nemesor led his triumphant army of the undying through the ruined gate. Shortly thereafter, Fort Anam had fallen. The rest of Uttu Prime would soon follow, and another world would be added to the territory of Gidrim -- and the growing personal domain of Nemesor Zahndrekh.