Editing Hektor Heresy (section)

==Blood-Red Roads==
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<center>'''WHERE WAS HEKTOR?'''</center>
[[File:Hektor the Warmaster.jpg|160px|right]]
The Warmaster's long absence from the front is an enigma still to be unravelled.  What is known is that the Heralds of Hektor were not idle, with small detachments busy across the growing warzone, but their gene-sire was absent for months.  When Hektor returned to the Traitor conclaves and battlefields of the Heresy, he had lost one eye and gained a terrible sense of purpose.  The new Warmaster no longer spoke of an eventual peace and reconciliation.  He called on his followers to tear down the false Imperium and build the future on the broken bodies of their foes.
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Hektor's plan to destroy the remaining loyalist Legions had failed.  The War Scribes and Thunder Kings, though betrayed from within, had combined their forces at Atalantos and would soon begin attacking into the Segmentum Solar.  Golgothos' sons were decimated, but the survivors moved like the scythe of death itself.  The grim sons of Alexandri Ibirien held firm at Terra and the Eyes of the Emperor were poised to rejoin the fight.  Even the Scale Bearers had begun to rouse themselves from grief and were seeking vengeance.  However, the traitors were bolstered by the gifts of Chaos and three of the loyalist Primarchs were far from the main theatre of the war.  Cromwald Walgrun had cut off the Steel Marshals' march towards Sol and Onyx's Stone Men still drifted through the darkness of the Warp.

Aubrey's failure to either recruit or slay Gaspard Lumey was particularly galling.  Fifth Legion was still scattered among the stars of the Galactic North, but their return to the Segmentum Solar would make an attack on Terra impossible.  Given the situation, Hektor set the Traitor Legions to the task of seizing humanity's birthplace.  The Iron Rangers and Black Augurs, still holding the blockade lines around the Solar Sector, would launch feints before the Lifebringers, refitted after the battles leading towards Kuniat, launched the main drive to open a road to Sol.  Meanwhile, the Lions Rampant, Sons of Fire, Eternal Zealots, Justiciars, and Hektor's new allies among the Mastodontii would gather for the final battle.  The Heralds of Hektor themselves would be kept fresh, for they would make the first landings on Terra.

Loyalist councils of war were even less optimistic.  Malcador the Sigilite had secretly departed Terra and roamed the Imperium, finally giving Terra accurate reports on the situation in the Segmentum Solar.  The Sigilite's reports of the Steel Marshals stalled and the Stone Men missing convinced Alexandri that his position was hopeless, but the Primarch's stubborn nature forbade surrender.  Only the senior commanders of the Silver Cataphracts were informed that their new mission was simply to rain ruin upon the Traitors until the cost of war was more than any man could bear.  Fearing that the Eyes of the Emperor were too soft to carry out such orders, Alexandri ordered the Nineteenth Legion forces holding perimeter worlds to Mars, claiming with some justification that the Red Planet was key to Loyalist fortunes.  The Vardhana, still reeling from the Voidwatcher's brutal psychic assault, did not question the Regent's command and led his men to Mars.

Elsewhere, scattered Loyalist forces drew up plans of their own.  Arelex Orannis and Brennus were hard at work bringing the great War Scribes fleet back into service.  Not knowing the extent of the crisis, and fearing that his homeworld would suffer Aubrey the Grey's wrath, Gaspard Lumey mustered his men at Dolsene and set forth for Ciban IV.  By a quirk of fate, Roman Albrecht had also decided to make for the Segmentum Pacificus, hoping to gather fresh supplies and warships from the loyalist Forge Worlds there.

===Battle of Felton's Gap===

Before losing contact with the Steel Marshals, Cromwald Walgrun set in motion a plot to kill or at least gravely wound Roman Albrecht. The Lion of Sommesgard was an outstanding swordsman in his own right, but he had no intention of crossing blades with his warlike brother. Instead, Walgrun planned to deploy a trio of Hezeyar assassins. Assisting in this effort would be the traitor Gustav Wild, a warrior from the Steel Marshals who had defected to Hektor's service at the Olmer Conference.  Wild had already provided key insights into Roman Albrecht's strategic decision-making, helping to set the trap of the Lion's Cordon. According to the traitor, the Steel Marshals would be most likely to make a sharp course change once they realised the scope of the cordon. Wild saw the Marshals' two most likely destinations as the Atalantos Sector in the Ultima Segmentum and the Al-Sherar Sector in Segmentum Pacificus, but could not pick one or the other. Even had Hektor not commanded the Lions Rampant to muster near Sol for the attack on Terra, the window for attacking the Lord-Knight was closing. Gustav Wild also predicted that the Steel Marshals would split their forces into two groups, each protecting a group of astropaths capable of projecting a short-range beacon for warp navigation. Quick-moving Warp Runners were able to confirm this suspicion: a portion of the Steel Marshals fleet had entered the Warp from the Hebex System while the rest remained in-system to protect a warp beacon on the Feudal World Felton's Gap. Long-distance auspex indicated that the Marshals were encamped at a feudal castle and had butressed its medieval stone with modern plascrete.

Cromwald Walgrun guessed that his brother would take personal command in the more dangerous role, guarding his Legion's withdrawal, and immediately issued orders for an attack on Felton's Gap. Taking advantage of the talents of the Xenos Hezeyar to move swiftly through the Warp, the Lions Rampant broke Warp in the Hebex System with the Marshals still encamped about their beacon. As the Traitor fleet moved toward Felton's Gap, Roman Albrecht ordered his outnumbered fleet commanders to avoid battle, reasoning that his warships were better used threatening the Lions Rampant during their planetary assault than in a futile engagement in open space. This prudent strategy forced the Lions to slowly conduct landings far from the Steel Marshals concentrations, then expend their fuel reserves moving overland to attack. If the Lions Rampant attack had been in earnest, Roman's strategy would have limited their mobility and forced the traitors to fight a static battle of the type favoured by the Steel Marshals. Unfortunately, despite the scale of forces deployed to Felton's Gap, Cromwald Walgrun's attack was only intended to occupy his brother's attention.

The decisive stroke was delivered by the Hezeyar assassins. These strange creatures ritually ended their own lives to bring forth a trio of powerful Slaaneshi daemons. The Neverborn sought out Roman Albrecht in his borrowed keep and attacked the Primarch. Few creatures in the Galaxy could hold their own against three Greater Daemons - but Roman Albrecht was among them. The Lord-Knight met his foes' unnatural prowess with the skill and speed of a thousand men. Honor's Blade struck down one of the three before the Primarch's bodyguard were even aware of the attack, and a second swiftly followed. The third of the would-be assassins fled in search of an easier target. Tragically, the daemon was able to slaughter many of the astropaths who laboured at their psychic beacon before Roman Albrecht could catch it. As the Traitor forces withdrew from Felton's Gap, the Steel Marshals pressed their Librarians to take the place of the fallen astropaths. This desperate effort saved some of the Marshals' ships traveling the Warp, but others were lost forever.

===The Vaults of Moravec===

Kalkas Tygian's loyalists had suffered severe reverses.  A powerful Sonic Disruptor at Pavonis Mons prevented Choristers from controlling servitors on the Tharsis plateau but outside of this protected region, few Forge-Temples had survived the onslaught of the Autopostates.  Although the loss in material had been severe, many tech-priests had fled to the great Forge Temples of Tharsis, and the halls of Olympus Mons were crowded by Machine Cultists hard at work crafting new weapons of war.  When the Eyes of the Emperor arrived, the most pressing crisis was the fate of the Ring of Iron, the Red Planet's great geosynchronous shipyard.  Forces of the Autopostates were storming the Ring's secondary elevator complex and the loyalist defenders were hard-pressed.

Eyes of the Emperor battle-brothers quickly stabilised the loyalist position in the elevator.  Unlike the Mechanicum's Skitarii and Taghmata formations, the Space Marines were not reliant on support from robots and servitors, so the Choristers' ability to pervert the Omnissiah's order was less hazardous to them.  However, the Eyes of the Emperor lacked the numbers to simply push the Abominable Intelligences from the face of Mars, and new Choristers were being constructed every hour.  In order to turn the tide, Shakya Vardhana had been entrusted with a terrible secret - the location and access codes to the infamous Vaults of Moravec.  Accompanied only by Kalkas Tygian himself, the Primarch ventured deep beneath Olympus Mons to open the Vaults.  Within, the two risked their sanity by investigating lost techno-arcana.

Perhaps sensing the danger to their plans, the Autopostates launched a great attack on Olympus Mons as the Vaults were opened.  Although the Fabricator-General's Legate, [[Zorr Yenser]], was a being of profound tactical insight and possessed immense computational abilities, he lacked the intuition and grace of a master general and deferred to Phirun Soun for command decisions.  In the second month of the siege, Shakya Vardhana and Kalkas Tygian emerged from the Vaults of Moravec with plans for a great Ordinatus engine, and the defenders desperately held on while the great weapon was constructed.  Their sacrifice was not in vain.  The newly-forged Ordinatus Mars was unleashed on the attacking Choristers and sundered machine from daemonic essence.  Soulless, mindless metal fell to the earth while the daemons were banished to the Warp.  Olympus Mons was saved, and with it Mars, but the armies of the Mechanicum would be occupied in mopping up operations for years to come.  Meanwhile, their Space Marine allies returned to Terra to prepare for Hektor's coming.

===Bloodied Brothers===

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<center>'''UNBROKEN'''</center>
[[File:Scale Bearers inverted.png|200px|right]]
The terrible defeat at Diamat had left the Scale Bearers leaderless, scattered, and almost destroyed. Fragments of the Legion had gone rogue, falling in with the Traitors, becoming bandits, or pledging to the Bulwark. Most planners, Loyalist and Traitor alike, wrote the Scale Bearers off as a significant factor in the war.  But Rychad Owain gathered up what was left of Tyran Osoros' great Legion and led them to the Forge World Tigris. For long months, survivors and fresh recruits trickled into the Scale Bearers' camps. Hardly a trace of the old organisation remained, and Owain was forced to create new formations on Tigris. Cloaked in obscurity, the Scale Bearers transformed themselves into a rapid strike force before returning to the war.
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Still enraged by betrayal, the Entombed continued their rampage into the Segmentum Solar. Although the main body of the Justiciars had been recalled to prepare for the attacks on Sol, a small force had stayed behind to report on Golgothos' movements. Forewarned, Traitor formations largely avoided the wrath of Golgothos, leaving worlds which had declared neutrality or simply lost contact with the greater Imperium to suffer. The Civilised World Carballido II was among those attacked by the Entombed and, as was common, issued a wide-spectrum distress call - but their plea was answered.

Rychad Owain's Scale Bearers were threading their way into the Segmentum Solar, hoping to link up with a significant Loyalist Force or at least conduct disruptive operations in the Traitor's rear areas. When the Scale Bearer's astropaths picked up Carballido's report of marauding Space Marines, Owain suspected Traitors on the rampage or renegades. In either case, he could hardly stand idle while the people of the Imperium suffered. The Scale Bearers hastened to Carbaillido and briefly clashed with the Entombed there. However, Rychad Owain was able to convince Golgothos to negotiate and the two battered Legions made a cease-fire. In the course of a few laconic exchanges, the Entombed and Scale Bearers reforged their brotherhood and exchanged information. Rychad Owain agreed to use his smaller, more agile forces to cover Golgothos' advance. In return, the Primarch pledged to make his way to Terra to lend his strength to the heart of the Loyalist cause.

While the Entombed departed the system, the Avenger-class ''Swift Plunderer'' and its escorts lurked in orbit around the super-hot planet Carballido III. Here, the warpships could vent their heatsinks without drawing undue attention, allowing them to hide and prepare for battle at the same time. Their patience bore fruit when a pair of Justiciars Strike Cruisers and their accompanying escorts broke Warp and vectored in-system to investigate the aftermath of the Entombed attack. Caught off-guard, the traitors retreated towards the sun of the system in the hopes of performing a slingshot maneuver to gain the advantage on their foes. As they rounded the star, the Justiciar fleet found itself facing the bulk of the Scale Bearers fleet, on line and in formation for an assault. The nature of their gambit meant the traitor ships were unable to change their headings ran straight into the ambush fire. The Scale Bearers finished the Justiciars flotilla quickly and left no survivors.

===A Hall of Brass===

When the Stone Men set off on their long voyage to the Atalantos Worlds, their Navigators had to strain to pick out the light of the Astronomican.  Within a week of relative time, the Voidwatcher's sorcery had completely blotted out that reference point and the fleet was blind.  With one exception, the ships dropped out of the Warp and made for a planet where they could refit.  These scattered forces went the way of many of the Marines who lost touch with their Legion, fighting petty wars with little bearing on the greater strategic picture or turning their coats and going over to the Traitors or the Bulwark.  The only ship to carry on regardless was Onyx's flagship, the Mount Everest super-battleship.  Propelled by its ancient warp drive and the Primarch's admantium will, the Mount Everest plunged forward through the nightmare of the Warp.

Accounts of the great ship's voyage differ wildly.  Although the Mount Everest would not emerge from the Warp for a year by the accounting of realspace, Captain Jabal of the 31st Battle Company recorded a journey of just three weeks.  By comparison, Scout-Sergeant Tantalus began his journey as a five-year veteran of the Legion and emerged crippled by old age.  It is known that the Mount Everest's Gellar Field fluctuated during its voyage, leading to Warp manifestations that would have destroyed a lesser vessel.  A leading explanation for the survival of that Onyx's flagship is that psycho-reactive crystal structures in its armour that hardened against the influence of Chaos in response to the Primarch's own determination, though even more outlandish ideas have been advanced.  Regardless, the Mount Everest did not disintegrate, but its complement was harried by daemonic incursions.

Onyx himself was the focal point of the daemons' attention.  The Primarch was assailed by waves of smouldering Neverborn under the command of foul Balheizihr, the Brazen Bull of Khorne.  As his bodyguard died around him, Onyx fought not only to survive, but also to contain his anger.  Balheizihr finally came to grips with Onyx and began to throttle the Primarch, searing the flesh of his thick neck and mockingly asking if Onyx would die or give in to rage.  Either way, the Brazen Bull declared, the Stone Men would belong to the God of Fire and Blood.  Yet Onyx the Indestructible found a third way.  He endured.  The Primarch suffered Balheizihr's burning touch for unknown ages, grappling with the daemon until the Mount Everest returned to Realspace in a most unlikely location.

===The Fall of Destoona===

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<center>'''THE PARTHORUM STREAM'''</center>
[[File:Parthorumstream.jpg|160px|right]]
The Parthorum Stream is a vast Warp phenomena, the convergence of two currents that permit rapid and reliable Warp travel along an area of space 250 light years in length.  Although there were other roads to Sol, this was the most easily navigated and significant.  During the first decades of the Great Crusade, Hektor Cincinnatus and his young First Legion had led the Imperium into this critical region and the lessons they had learned fighting the Xenos-led Osroene Empire had shaped much of the First's Compliance policy.  Throughout the fight for humanity's domination of the Galaxy, the Parthorum Stream had been a critical artery for supplies to the Expedition Fleets.  During the Heresy, it was fought over in a long series of battle starting with Onyx's raid at Kuniat and culminating in the horrifying demise of Destoona.
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''"He wills it!"''

- battle cry of the Justiciars

Loyalist tenacity on the edges of the Galaxy meant little to Hektor's drive on Terra.  Spoiling attacks by the Iron Rangers and Black Augurs had diverted Loyalist reserves before the full strength of the Lifebringers was committed to capture the worlds of the Pathorum Stream and open the road to Sol.  Alexandri of Rosskar was careful to preserve his own Silver Cataphracts through the early engagements.  The Regent let the multi-millioned garrisons of the Parthorum Sector fight and die without the support of Space Marines.  Despite their importance, most of the worlds in the Sector were ill-fortified.  Alexandri gave them up to the depredations of the Traitor Legions without regret, but he could not let the enemy take Destoona, so close to Sol, without paying a steep price.  As Johannes Vrach steadily advanced, tens of millions of Rosskan Strelky - Auxilia recruited on Alexandri's pitiless homeworld and hardened by campaigning alongside the stern Silver Cataphracts - were shipped to Destoona to prepare for a climactic battle.  As they awaited the coming assault, the Strelky worked tirelessly to build chains of fortified bunkers around massive anti-ship laser batteries.  Though the works were a pale shadow of the defences at Terra, Alexandri was confident that Johannes Vrach would have to call on the Traitors' reserves in order to take Destoona.

This confidence was well-placed.  After receiving reports from Warp Runners scouting ahead of his Legion, the Lifebringers Primarch contacted Hektor to advise the Warmaster of the changing situation and request support.  The Warmaster selected Uriel Salazar's Justiciars to assist in the battle for Destoona.  This Legion was hardly bloodied in the conflict to date and had been reinforced by militia caught up from the wake of the Entombed's rampage.  Salazar and Johannes Vrach met at Udoya to discuss strategy, and jointly decided that they would try to limit the losses among their Space Marines and keep these elite troops for the terrible fight to come at Sol.  Vrach's Lifebringers would secure a landing zone near Destoona's south pole and silence the defence lasers covering the approaches, but the bulk of the campaign would be carried out by mortal forces under the command of the Justiciars.

The Traitor plan had hardly begun when an unexpected complication emerged.  While Johannes Vrach's heavy ships engaged Destoona's ground-based defences in support of drop-pod landings, the warfleet of the Entombed broke Warp and, joined by a small force of Strelky warships monitoring the system, started moving in to attack Traitor shipping.  Golgothos' sons had suffered terrible losses at Caria, but they still possessed a considerable number of powerful warships.  Although the Justiciars' cruisers were on hand to repond, being tied down to slow-moving transports negated their speed advantage and left them in a slugging match with Entombed batle barges.  Deft handling under the direct command of Uriel Salazar prevented massive losses, but the Lifebringers ships were pulled off station early, leaving the just-landed Space Marines to carry out their mission without the support of naval firepower.  Surprisingly, Golgothos did not continue the fight to the death.  The Strelky ships sacrificed themselves to cover the Entombed retreat, and soon the Traitors had complete dominance of the space in the Destoona system.

On the surface of Destoona, Johannes Vrach directed his Space Marines in a hard-fought campaign to secure their objective.  The Strelky showed no fear of Space Marines and their heavy fortifications were costly to reduce, but they could not bring their overwhelming numerical advantage to bear without deserting fortified positions elsewhere on the planet.  By the time the Traitor fleet returned to Destoona, the Lifebringers had, at no small cost, won a landing zone and the vast ranks of macro-transporters began disgorging Salazar's horde.  Even in the face of certain defeat, the Strelky fought coolly, making their foes pay for each inch of Destoona's soil.  Finally, as the defeat of the Loyalist Auxilia loomed, the garrison launched a virus-bomb attack and seeded Destoona with tailored pathogens.  Of the great horde of mortal warriors brought to Destoona by the Traitors, scarcely one in ten thousand survived.

Yet the gene-sons of Johannes Vrach were immune to such attacks and, led by their Primarch, scoured the acrid wastes for surviving Strelky carrying out irregular attacks.  Many point to this period as the time in which Vrach fully embraced his destiny as Nurgle's champion, for he had now felt the touch of devastating disease-weapons and seen the misery of a world stripped bare of its bacteria.  Regardless, by the time that Destoona was declared ready to serve as a sterile supply bay for the final assault on Terra, the surviving Lifebringers were changed, grossly swollen with pestilence and revelling in the service of their new god.

===The Rosskar Conference===
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<center>'''RAZOR'S EDGE'''</center>
[[File:Lumey.jpg|160px|right]]
The speed at which the Fifth Legion crossed the stars without the light of the Astronomican and the huge forces that they deployed at the end of the Heresy point inextricably towards pre-planning. But to what end? In the records of the Void Angels Chapter, the answer given is that Gaspard Lumey worried for the safety of his homeworld and made plans to hasten to its defence in the event of a crisis. There is some reason to believe this story. Ciban IV had been invaded by Xenos shortly after its rediscovery by the Imperium, putting a severe test on the then-small Fifth Legion, and Lumey's sons had put their backs to the wall again when WAAAGH! Rok'Ed stormed towards the Al-Sherar Sector. Yet these calamities were long in the past by the time of the Heresy, and some in our Order wonder if Gaspard Lumey been plotting his own revolt while he stewed in exile. And if this dangerous theory is true, then how can such faith be put in the Void Angels and their many descendants?
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''I have every confidence that this war will be won, so let us think about what comes after.''

- Roman Albrecht

While the Pathorum Stream was being secured, three great forces came together in the Segmentum Pacificus. Gaspard Lumey's vast armada arrived in the Al-Sherar Sector and began to learn the truth of the civil war. The Primarch did not long delay before deciding to muster the full force of his Legion and its allies. While great masses of Auxilia were embarked from the populous worlds of the Al-Sherar Sector, Fifth Legion's warships joined forces with those of Al-Sherar and hunted down the Mastodontii still sowing terror in the Segmentum Pacificus. It was in this pursuit that they encountered Roman Albrecht's hamstrung Steel Marshals, and, remembering the long-standing brotherhood between their Legions, lent assistance to the Lord-Knight's fleet. Gaspard Lumey sent a dispatch containing the strategic situation as he saw it and inviting his brother Primarch to Ciban IV to discuss a joint strategy. Roman Albrecht politely refused, explaining that the relief of Rosskar must take priority.

Albrecht's decision to relieve Rosskar makes little sense in terms of the immediate strategic priorities of the war. Although the planet had possessed a substantial population and non-trivial war industry, it had been ravaged by the minions of Pallas Eugenesis and now could contribute little other than what was left of its defending armies. Even these soldiers were of questionable value, as replacements could be raised elsewhere and the Loyalists in Pacificus were constrained mainly by the available shipping. However, Roman Albrecht argued that if Rosskar was left to die, it would poison the fruits of victory. By saving Alexandri of Rosskar's homeworld, Lumey and Albrecht could show that the brotherhood of the Primarchs had been shrunken, but not broken. Largely unmoved but unwilling to directly oppose the Lord-Knight, Gaspard Lumey dispatched his trusted lieutenant, [[Fabrice Diallo]], at the head of an army of forty thousand Space Marines and their supporting Auxilia, to join forces with the Steel Marshals in the Rosskan expedition. The Fifth Legion's Primarch would remain at Ciban IV and supervise the muster of fresh troops for the main campaign against Hektor.

Even without Diallo's contingent, the Steel Marshals would have been more than a match for Pallas Eugenesis' Selenar invaders, and the Eclipse Queen fled the Rosskar System before battle commenced. Roman Albrecht commanded a swift and victorious campaign, though several thousand Space Marines died to end Rosskar's torment. More significantly, even as the relief battle raged, the great bulk of the Mount Everest broke Warp in the Rosskar Solar Duality and Onyx the Indestructible hailed his brother Primarch. The reunion of Onyx and Roman was joyous, and Gaspard Lumey broke his usually sour disposition to travel to Rosskar and meet with his brothers.  Although their meeting is remembered as the "Rosskar Conference", the talks were informal and mainly consisted in Onyx and Gaspard Lumey forcing Roman Albrecht to accept formal leadership of their Crusade against Hektor. Less publicly, Albrecht bowed to his brothers' wishes and acknowledged that, if it was necessary after the war was won, he would take the Throne of the Imperium.