Battle for Europa

This article is about a battle in the /tg/ Heresy project, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40k universe.

Hektor Heresy
Date	014.M31
Scale	Orbital Stations of Europa
Theatre	Sol
Status	Phyrric Chaos Victory
Belligerents
Chaos	Loyalist Astartes
Commanders and Leaders
	Kleisthenes
Strength
	700 Assorted Loyalist Space Marines from Traitor Legions
Losses
12,000 Space Marines and roughly 500,000 other military casualties	700 Space Marines and roughly 2,000 Imperial Army soldiers
Outcome
Chaos captures Europan space docks at comparatively great cost

This page covers the battle fought at Europa during the Hektor Heresy Sol Campaign. If you're looking for the main project page, go to the /tg/ Heresy

The Hektor Heresy was a galaxy-spanning conflict between the Imperial forces loyal to the Emperor (referred to as the Loyalists) and those who sided with Hektor Cincinnatus (the Traitors). The Traitors were sponsored by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and strengthened by their gifts. The Heresy brought the Great Crusade to an end and ravaged the Imperium.

A Traitor's Welcome

In the beginning of the Hektor Heresy, Alexandri of Rosskar was given the task of defending Terra and its surroundings. He quickly built up Terra itself and prepared the Sol system and its surroundings for a siege. Within Sol itself he largely stripped the majority of the system of its defenses to bolster those surrounding Terra itself and the Imperial Palace in particular.

The number of troops defending the planet also included a number of loyalists who had defected from the 9 traitor legions and some from the banished V Legion. Alexandri was desperate for troops, but did not fully trust the 700 Astartes hailing from traitorous or otherwise untrustworthy sources so close to the palace itself. He instead opted to post them at the secondary yet strategically important location of Europa.

Europa itself was mostly unimportant. It had an abundant water supply and thriving community underneath its thick crust of ice, but that was secondary to the seventeen space ports orbiting the moon. Four of them were capable of holding capital ships, and one known as "Gamma Port" even hosted a dock built to hold a Gloriana-Class vessel. It was imperative that the ports be held both to deny the traitors the ability to refit, repair, or resupply their vessels within the system and to have access for the loyalist forces racing against time to arrive at Sol.

Command of this mission was given to Commander Kleisthenes. He was the first Astartes from a traitor legion to swear to the Emperor as well as an experienced leader from the Heralds of Hektor. Under his command were three hundred defectors from the Heralds, 150 Astartes from the V Legion, seventy Life Bringers, fifty of the Eternal Zealots, forty members of the Sons of Fire and Lions Rampant, thirty Iron Rangers, and twenty survivors of the Mastodontii.

Preparations

Kleisthenes knew and accepted that this mission would likely end in the deaths of every Astartes under his command well before the first shuttle was boarded to Europa. The ports were far too massive to defend, even with 700 Legionaries against a dedicated attack from Hektor's host. Bearing this knowledge, he set about relocating all supplies to submarine storage on the moon of Europa proper. The commander of the Imperial Army charged with defending the moon was ordered to guard these caches against all but confirmed loyalist Primarchs.

Kleisthenes had learned much under Hektor's command, and understood the importance of picking the battleground and using your men to their greatest potential. He chose Europa's Gamma Port for both its strategic importance and the labyrinthine layout of its interior. He then set the Europan troops to the task of filling a majority of the landing bays within the 16 lesser ports with detritus to deny the traitors a complete foothold.

With the initial and hardest work underway he called his nine commanders and asked each of them candid advice on his plan to defend Gamma Port. Kleisthenes re-emerged after two days of discussion with a solid and detailed plan. Many of the orbital ports had every door and bulkhead sealed and the equipment sabotaged in methods that would be quick to fix but take time to find with the help of what techpriests remained. A long and detailed list of this work was sent to both Europa and Terra so that loyalists could rapidly bring the facilities back to full operation but the traitors would be mired for days locating and repairing faults.

With that work underway, Kleisthenes returned his focus on preparing Gamma Port itself. He and his task force went to work sealing and sabotaging bulkheads and doors to create more fixed corridors to fight in and deny their enemies the strength of their numbers, as well as stocking their ambush sites.

As they were finishing their work they received word that the traitor forces were mere days from Sol itself. Kleisthenes ordered the Imperial Army troops to either leave for Europa itself to protect its inhabitants or Terra itself as per their initial instructions. The 1st Battalion of the 17th Europan Foot Regiment surprised all by refusing this order. The unit volunteered in their entirety to stay and assist in the defense of Gamma Port. Kleisthenes reminded them that all were likely to die in the defense yet the men remained steadfast and Kleisthenes accepted their number into his defense.

The Assault Begins

As the enemy host arrived several fragments split from the main force to take secondary objectives within the Sol system. One of the much larger fleets centered on Europa. As they descended on their target, landing craft were launched to find and take a multitude of smaller docking bays only to find them unable to be landed upon. Frigates, Cruisers, and the handful of Battleships began to dock with the various ports only to find the doors sealed. The boarding crews began taking the time to painstakingly cut through bulkhead after bulkhead to clear their respective objectives.

Gamma Port stood out quickly as different from the rest. Almost as soon as the traitors cut the first bulkhead they were fired upon by Astartes of the V Legion. As the enemy began to charge, the loyalist host retreated and sealed the bulkheads behind them. This pattern repeated a multitude of times, with men and Astartes alike charging into the fray while those at the back ever pushed forward in mindless pursuit of combat. The early hallways filled quickly with a press of bodies. Men were crushed underfoot whenever a bulkhead was opened with the sheer pressure and rush of a charge. Cutting the next bulkhead open was increasingly difficult as the force of the push from the rear caused whatever poor soul operating the fusion cutter less and less room to maneuver. Eventually they reached a point where the force could advance no more on Dock 5. The fusion cutters were either lost underfoot or could not be brought to the front. As the mass pressed and slammed fruitlessly into the bulkhead of Dock 5 Gamma Port was rocked with explosions.

The traitor forces were too concerned with attacking their quarry and overlooked properly searching their surroundings. During the preparatory stages, Kleisthenes had lined the hallways with antipersonnel explosive devices. They went off in corridors packed with personnel as shrapnel tore through flesh and bone alike. This attack was not able to entirely end their enemies yet created a devastating blow to the traitor forces. Unfortunately it was not without cost. Dock 1 was horribly damaged in the explosion and rapidly venting atmosphere while Dock 3 was nearly destroyed outright and would have to be completely rebuilt. The traitor Army host took the brunt of the casualties and nearly 95 out of 100 men were killed in the blasts. The Astartes took far fewer losses and are estimated to have lost only a few dozen from lucky hits of metal fragments though the trap still wounded many more.

The traitors learned their lesson and proceeded more slowly and with much more caution after they regrouped. Once clear of the dedicated docking areas they found the loyalists waiting for them in the form of Kleisthenes and the men of the I Legion. They were vastly outnumbered yet fought in tight corridors where the enemy could not flank Kleisthenes' formations. As the enemy charged they found themselves pressing through a wall of bolter fire and into a second wall of plasteel, ceramite, and spearpoints. As the Astartes of the I Legion began to be pushed back from the shock of the assault the traitors found themselves caught in crossfires as Astartes from other Legions began to open fire from upper level walkways, side rooms, and intersecting hallways. Three days on Terra passed as the Traitors attacked time and again. Every inch they gained cost them in a heavy toll of blood. However they did advance. Each successful push would lose the Loyalist one or two casualties and put the Traitors into another crossfire.

The Battalion of Europan Army troops did not merely sit idly by during this time. Gamma Port featured a convoluted jungle of servitor access tunnels and crawlspaces to move equipment, cargo, and supplies separate from the common-use pathways. Gaining access to these tunnels would allow the traitors freedom of movement throughout the port. Holding them allowed Kleisthenes' Astartes to quickly move throughout the Port and was used to allow his Astartes to move from one firing point to another unhindered. Kleisthenes ordered his mortal allies to hold the tunnels at all costs. Working in his favor was a safety measure where the tunnels would be sealed to prevent pedestrian traffic and controls were all located either at the Port's central command station or inside the tunnels themselves.

Redemption

On the third day, the traitors had sufficiently pushed to enact Kleisthenes' next phase. The Astartes of the I Legion continued their defense, bolstered by the flames of the IV Legion, the chemical weapons of the XII Legion, and the sorcerous ways of the XIV Legion. Yet members of the V, VIII, IX, XII, XIII, XVI, and XX Legions abandoned their roles in creating a crossfire to adopt a new strategem. Rather than create a single corridor of combat, Kleisthenes turned the battle into a quagmire for his foes by having his Astartes operate in smaller teams to use hit-and-run attacks and lure segments of the enemy forces into traps and ambushes. They would move through the access tunnels to single out and attack the traitor leaders and create infighting among the enemy ranks. Though the enemy themselves was focused on attempting to push through Kleisthenes' obvious defense, they were also finding themselves forced to stop and hunt down various smaller teams throughout each area they captured. Often they would find an area safe only to be attacked from there hours later. Losing focus on their goal slowed their advance to a crawl.