Editing Hektor Heresy (section)

==The Battle of Terra==

Within the Solar System, fevered preparations took place for a final battle. Alexandri's Silver Cataphracts squeezed humanity's cradle for the last scraps of war material. The Regent and his officers operated under the belief that the Space Marine Legions outside the Solar System had either sworn to Hektor or been removed from the calculus of warfare. This fatalistic proposition led the Silver Cataphracts to draw up the so-called Molochansk Plan. The vast forces under Alexandri's command would resist in order to draw Hektor's main strength onto Terra. Once the battle was fully joined, the full range of rad and bio weapons would be unleashed in order to kill everything on the planet. Although some of the Traitor forces - and especially their warships - would survive, the Molochansk Plan was intended to so damage Hektor's forces that they would be unable to hold the Imperium together after winning the civil war.

Two Legions joined the Silver Cataphracts in the defence of Terra. From Mars, Shakya Vardhana and Kalkas Tygian scraped up what forces could be spared from the battle with the Autopostates and led them to reinforce Alexandri. These warriors were well-aware that the battle would be desperate, but they were not informed of the full madness of the Molochansk Plan. However, the last Legion to arrive at Terra drastically altered the strategic situation. Far from Sol, Malcador the Sigilite had encountered the remnants of the Entombed and offered them the chance for more than just blind vengeance. Golgothos and his warriors would have willingly participated in the Molochansk Plan, but they proved that its guiding principle was false. There were still Loyalist Legions fighting Hektor outside the Solar System.

Hektor Cincinnatus was even better-informed of the situation but he believed that his forces could still triumph. Control of the Parthorum Stream brought his warriors to the gates of Terra. True, the Solar System was guarded by a mighty Loyalist host, but once the Traitors had assembled their main strength for a final battle they would hold a decisive advantage in numbers. Time, however, was on the Loyalists' side. Hektor had already committed some reserve forces to containing a Loyalist counter-offensive led by Arelex Orannis and Brennus from the Galactic Core, but a larger threat to the Warmaster had emerged from the Segmentum Pacificus. Three Legions under Roman Albrecht's banner, including the fresh Fifth Legion, were moving to the relief of Terra. Knowing that Albrecht's forces could not be pinned in place and destroyed, Hektor resolved to storm Terra as quickly as possible then face the remaining Loyalists from the security of humanity's birthplace.

===Outer System Battles===
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<center>'''THE SCION OF EUROPA'''</center>
[[File:Kleisthenes.jpg|160px|right]]
Commander Kleisthenes was one of the oldest surviving Heralds of Hektor when the Heresy began. He had been recruited to the Legion during the first decade of the Great Crusade and was born on one of the human enclaves in the Outer Solar System. Though no record of his precise birthplace survives, by tradition he is considered a child of Europa. In the 41st Millenium, only the vaguest hints on his true story have survived generations of censorship, but a fair representation of his likeness can still be found on medals of "Saint Kleisthenes" worn by pious Imperial Navymen in the Segmentum Solar. For these loyal defenders of the Imperium, the truth of their hero would be too blasphemous to know, but they are permitted to learn a better story about the heroic Master of the fallen Scions of Europa Chapter. Our Order gives all it can.
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{{See also|Battle for Europa}}
It is a common misconception among those who have never traveled the void that attacking a solar system involves fighting for each world from the outside in. Even within the relatively small confines of a solar system is space vast almost beyond imagining, too great to be commanded by weapons based on a planetary body. Furthermore, the attacker need not crawl across the plane of the system, instead breaking warp at the poles of the system and moving directly to the inner system. However, when the Traitor Fleet entered Realspace at Sol, the outer system held important secondary objectives. Hektor dispatched Chapters of Space Marines to subdue Loyalist bases that might otherwise have sheltered light fleets operating against Traitor transports.

Most of the Outer System bases were taken without a shot being fired. Alexandri of Rosskar had drafted every human fit for military service in the Solar System and shuttled his conscript armies to key locations - mostly on Terra herself. Those left behind consisted of children, the elderly, and the infirm, and their fates varied according to the whims of the Traitor forces to whom they surrendered. Perhaps surprisingly, the malevolent Black Augurs proved relatively gentle occupiers who had little time for torturing and abusing prisoners. In contrast, Mastodontii forces taking part in this operation quickly abandoned any sense of military efficiency and wallowed in atrocities.

The main Loyalist redoubt in the Outer System was stationed on Europa, an icy moon orbiting Jupiter. Europa's reserves of water had long sustained human life and farms nestled beneath the moon's thick surface ice. Along with civilian stations, a substantial naval base was sustained on the moon, complete with hardened void shielding that would prevent its destruction by orbital bombardment. Loyalist planners deemed Europa the best prospect for a holdout, but few believed the redoubt could long resist a determined assault. For this reason, Alexandri dispatched a mixed force of loyal Space Marines whose gene-sires had followed Hektor into rebellion, believing that if the seed ran true a betrayal would be less damaging on Europa than on Terra. The force was led by Commander Kleisthenes, a Herald of Hektor who had been present on Terra at the outbreak of the war and sworn loyalty to Malcador rather than his own Primarch. Kleisthenes was accompanied by approximately three hundred of his fellow "Wolves of Dawn", seven hundred former Mastodontii, and four hundred marines who had defected from the other Traitor Legions. This brotherhood of lost men fought on beyond even superhuman endurance, grimly holding Europa Station until they were finally overwhelmed by weight of numbers.

===Assault on Terra===
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<center>'''THE HAND OF CHAOS'''</center>
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The appearance of the Traitor Legions made clear the great gulf that now separated the two sides of the civil war. The Heralds of Hektor had been greatly changed in spirit, no longer humanity's champions but instead darkened and bitter souls who fought more from spite rather than for glory. But they were still recognisable. When Inferox, Uriel Salazar, and Johannes Vrach set foot on ancient Terra, they did so as daemons devoted to the Ruinous Powers and their gene-sons were little better. The Voidwatcher and his Black Augurs had set aside any restraint and let the corrupting power of the Warp flow through them, corrupting and empowering their ranks. The Mastodontii, always fearsome in appearance but gentle in spirit, were now twisted sadists in bestial bodies. More exotic still were Aubrey the Grey's Eternal Zealots who had begun to transform themselves into alien forms, and the Lions Rampant of Cromwald Walgrun who were modifying their own bodies in pursuit of more rarified pleasures. Of the Iron Rangers and Rogerius Merrill, little was seen but the marks of their passage gave no reason to mistake them for their past selves.
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Loyalist forces in the inner Solar System were concentrated on humanity's homeworld. Squadrons of military voidships sworn to the Entombed, Eyes of the Emperor, and the Silver Cataphracts had combined with those under the Emperor's own command into a great fleet for the defence of Terra. These powerful warships were supported by thousands of orbital weapons platforms and joined by every civilian vessel that could be converted to military usefulness, but they were still grossly outnumbered by the combined Traitor fleet. Hektor Cincinnatus commanded ships drawn from across the vast and wealthy Segmentum Solar and beyond. Inferox and Aubrey had looted the great shipyards of Nahardul, adding exotic warships born from the imagination of the War Scribes techmarines to the Traitor armada. Due to the great disparity of forces, the Loyalist fleet fought a delaying action and its remnants withdrew to Mars.

The main objective for both sides was the Imperial Palace, a vast hive city that covered half of ancient Eurasia. Within the heart of the complex were the twin keys to the Imperium; the Astronomican and the Emperor of Mankind. Despite more than a trillion Loyalist warriors at his command, Alexandri gave little protection to other areas of Terra. Civilians in old Merica, Afrik and the Pan-Pacific had been issued arms and organised into militia, but if they were attacked no assistance from the Loyalist army would be coming until after the main battle was won. Although the most important installations on Terra were protected by void shields and adamantium, Hektor's campaign for the planet still began with a heavy orbital bombardment. After days of concentrated attack by the Traitor fleet, thousands of drop pods were dispatched to the surface. The battle for Terra had begun.

Hektor had chosen his own First Legion, the Heralds of Hektor, for the honour of leading the Traitor assault. The initial target was the spaceports close to the Imperial Palace, with the Warmaster himself at the historic Lion's Gate spaceport. Despite fierce resistance from the Imperial Army, the Traitor Marines quickly seized their objectives. With these in hand, enormous macro-landers began their slow descent, bearing untold numbers of Chaos cultists and Traitor army regiments. Due to their bulk and clumsiness, the macro-landers were targeted by loyalist defence lasers and the defenders were occasionally bouyed by the sight of a Traitor lander losing power and plummeting to earth. However, such small victories did little to reduce the tide of attackers. As the balance of forces on planet tilted in favour of the invaders, Hektor divided his forces into three. The main force would besiege the Imperial Palace. A secondary element under the command of Aubrey the Grey went into the depths of Terra's catacombs and sought to outflank the loyalist from below. The third element, perhaps self-selected, was made of the Traitors too far-gone to follow discipline. These monsters were unleashed on the rest of the planet, where they committed atrocity after atrocity for no apparent purpose other than the increase of human suffering.

At the head of the drive to the walls of the Imperial Palace strode Uriel Salazar and his grey-armoured Justiciars. Their steely indifference to the arms of the defenders disheartened the warriors of the Imperial Army and Alexandri's plan for a staged withdrawal began to turn into a rout. Only the intervention of the Eyes of the Emperor stemmed the tide. Shakya Vardhana confronted his traitorous brother and the two stood motionless for a few moments as their gene-sons clashed, before Uriel Salazar withdrew from the field. Although the Vardhana's arrival steadied the Loyalist lines, the sheer weight of numbers drove them back. The tens of billions of warriors who had survived the long retreat to the Imperial Palace now grimly manned its outer walls and steeled themselves for the siege.

Beneath Terra's surface, the Traitor advance seemed to be losing focus. The Eternal Zealots faced little organised resistance and mainly contended with problems of navigation in the labyrinths below. However, the Legion did find tens of billions of under-hivers, humans who were beyond the pale of Imperial citizenship and therefore given no protection by the Loyalist armies. Aubrey the Grey commanded that these poor souls be offered up as a great tribute to the Ruinous Powers and hastily constructed altars were soon running with blood. Psychic reverberations from this depravity touched the mind of Malcador. The Sigilite immediately realised the peril of leaving Aubrey to his terrible work: if the Traitors below were not stopped, then they might open up a rift to the warp and give Hektor's Legions an endless supply of daemonic reinforcements. There was no question which of the defending Legions was best suited to oppose the Eternal Zealots. In the cramped conditions of the catacombs, the Entombed would shine despite their limited numbers. Golgothos led his sons into the abyss.

===Eternity's Gate===
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<center>'''TRIAD FERRUM MORGULUS'''</center>
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All of the mighty Titan Legions commanded war engines of staggering power, but the three great Legios based on Mars were stronger by far than their cousins from other Forges. Their importance in the Heresy is underlined by their split between the Loyalist and Traitor camps. ''Legio Tempestus'' obeyed the commands of Hektor Cincinnatus, ''Legio Mortis'' stayed faithful to their battle-brothers in the Entombed, and ''Legio Ignatum'' fought for Kalkas Tygian but was partially consumed by the Autopostate's Giorea plague.
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The outer walls of the Imperial Palace were a vast and daunting barrier. Indeed, to refer to these structures as "walls" is somewhat misleaing. While they certainly form a barrier to the Palace, the walls are an interconnected series of fortresses that are in places over a hundred kilometers deep. Void shields protected the whole complex from orbital bombardment and most land-based artillery lacked the power to force a breach. Hektor Cincinnatus was under no illusions about the strength of the fortifications he faced, but his plan did not hinge on the walls. The Warmaster believed that the defence of the Imperial Palace depended most of all upon the Loyalist Space Marine Legions, and in particular on the Silver Cataphracts who formed the bulk of the Astartes defending the palace. Rather than concern himself with the reduction of the fortifications, Hektor aimed to force a battle in which the Loyalist Marines would be devastated. Without super-human soldiers on hand to shore up a breach, the Imperial Army and Militia forces would succumb in short order. He chose the ancient Valgrat redoubt as his killing ground and set his forces in motion.

Valgrat had once been a major outpost of Ursh before that despotic state was conquered in the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]]. The excellence of the fortress's construction prompted Mechanicum engineers to simply incorporate it into the defences of the Imperial Palace rather than start anew. By the time Hektor returned to Terra, Valgrat had undergone significant modernisation but the Warmaster's masterful eye was drawn to it immediately. He noted that the fortress provided a great defensive position not only against attackers outside the Imperial Palace but also those within. The Traitors staged a series of deceptions to conceal their true intentions, including major assaults by the Justiciars and Sons of Fire. However, there is little doubt that Valgrat was the main axis of advance. There, Hektor Cincinnatus commanded the dread '''Legio Tempestus''' to strike at the fortifications, with the Life Bringers and a great host of mortal soldiers ready to assist them. No few Titans were destroyed by the defenders, but scores of god-machines broke apart the Loyalist defences and in their wake billions of mortal soldiers swarmed into the breach. Alexandri of Rosskar did not hesitate to send his gene-sons into this terrible battlefield and the Silver Cataphracts brought great honour to their gene-father through their feats of arms at Valgrat. But despite the valour of the Cataphracts, they had fallen into a trap. Hektor's own First Legion and the quick-moving Lions Rampant had carried out a rapid redeployment to join the battle. Imperial forces caught counter-attacking into a strong position held by superior forces were devastated. Only the Silver Cataphracts held their discipline in the retreat from Valgrat, and even their casualties sky-rocketed as the Heralds of Hektor and Lions Rampant burst forth from Valgrat. The Imperial reserve was devastated and the main defensive line compromised. In the wake of this defeat, Alexandri of Rosskar worked tirelessly to keep the Loyalist withdrawal from turning into a complete rout. Harried all the way by Traitor forces pouring through the lines at Valgrat, the Silver Cataphracts retreated hundreds of kilometers to their new defensive positions. Only the dense hab-blocks of the Imperial Palace, which prevented accurate strikes from Traitor aircraft, saved the Loyalist defenders from annihilation. Just a few weeks after Hektor's main offensive at Valgrat began, the Traitors had encircled the inner Palace. Of the mighty army that had once stood against them, scarely one in a thousand remained, though the warriors of the Space Marine Legions had fared much better than their mortal comrades.

Perhaps seeking to capitalise on his victory or warned of the imminent arrival of Loyalist reinforcements, Hektor Cincinnatus made a challenge before Eternity's Gate, the great portal to the inner Palace. The Warmaster called on the defending commander to come out and face him in single combat to decide the battle, thus preserving the lives of billions of warriors on both sides. Perhaps Hektor believed that Alexandri would never answer such a challenge and thought to shame him in the eyes of his men, but it was the Emperor of Mankind himself who stepped forth from the Palace, shielded by golden-armored Custodes. The Warmaster grimly saluted his creator and the duel began. Although the two were hardly equals, the Emperor refrained from using the full scope of his power against his creation - his son. So the two fought mainly with sword and spear, treading the ground so recently fought over by their immense armies. By chance, a dying soldier of the Imperial Army reached up to grab Hektor by the ankle, seeking to aid his beloved Emperor in this pivotal moment. The Warmaster glanced down for just a moment, giving the wretch a look of pity before ending his life with a kick. This sight moved the Emperor's heart. His son was trapped in a spiral of darkness, forced by fate to slowly destroy that which had been best in himself. The two warriors caught one another's gaze for a moment, then there was a flash of the Emperor's power and Hektor Cincinnatus was no more.

===The Emperor's Sacrifice===
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<center>'''THE SAVIOUR EMPEROR'''</center>
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Many of the veterans of the Battle of Terra - and bloody as it was, billions survived - would remember the Emperor's great contributions to the defence of humanity's homeworld. Tales of His duel with Hektor and final sacrifice in the depths would become the stuff of legend, then fade to myth and become religion. The horrors of the Heresy mocked the rational ideals of the Imperial Truth and across the stars the people of the Imperium began to embrace the simpler truth that the Emperor was their Saviour and their God.
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The Emperor of Mankind had little time to grieve his fallen son. Even as the great Traitor host reeled in dismay at Hektor's death, a new and more terrible threat was unfolding below. Golgothos the Fervent had been defeated in battle by Aubrey the Grey and his broken body dragged from the Dreadnought hulk that had sustained it. The dying Primarch was forced to watch as his Traitor brother's foul sorcery rent the Warp and unleashed a tide of daemons. Leaving Alexandri of Rosskar to oversee the repulse of Hektor's demoralised army, the Emperor and Shakya Vardhana took their bodyguards and teleported as close to Aubrey's position as they could. The instability of the Warp beneath the surface scattered the strike force, leaving each warrior alone to fight against the emerging daemonic horde. Despite the terrible odds against him, the Emperor fought His way to Aubrey's altar to find his former son transformed by the power of Chaos, as much a daemon as the entities flooding through the rift in the Warp.

Aubrey lingered long enough to utter a few mocking remarks then fled to the Warp, his new home. Through a titanic effort, the Emperor was able to seal the breach to the Warp, but doing so exhausted His psychic might and the master of mankind fell beneath the marauding daemons. His torn body, barely alive, was recovered by Shakya Vardhana and carried to the Golden Throne. There, the shriveled form of Malcador the Sigilite was disengaged from that ancient device and the Emperor of Mankind was interred to begin his lonely watch over humanity. For the Loyalists, the day had been won but the price was almost too great to bear. The Emperor was barely alive and unable to guide His Imperium, Malcador had given up his life, and Golgothos had been murdered on an altar to the dark gods. Before the loyalists was the path of vengeance and a new crusade to drive the Traitors into the Eye of Terror. The mighty war-fleets of Roman Albrecht, Gaspard Lumey, Onyx the Indestructible, Brennus, and Arelex Orannis would join the victors of Terra in the [[Great Scouring (Hektor Heresy)|Great Scouring]], and afterwards the survivors would be left to carry out the Reformation of the Imperium.