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Doom of Katara

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The Doom of Katara was a conflict on the forgeworld Katara, fought between the Imperium and Khornate forces.

Overview

The conflict started by a sudden Khornate Chaos Cultist uprising in the capital hive city Creontiades. The Titan Legion Legio Pallidus Mor was deployed along with the Imperial Hunters to provide defense, due to reports of Traitor Titans being sent to the planet. Remaining under the command of Marshal Adrel Syagrius, the Pallidus Mor was deployed to the Hive City of Deicoon, the city nearest Creontiades. Their mission was to defend the bridge over the Kazani Strait that connected Creontiades to the mainland. With fire support of the Katara 66th, the Pallidus Mor engaged the traitor Titans, which they identified as the Iron Skulls. The Iron Skulls outnumbers and outgunned the Pallidus Mor, forcing them to retreat back across the bridge. As a last resort, the Pallidus Mor opened fire on the bridge's support, destroyed the bridge and plunging it (and several traitor Titans) into the sea below. The Legio then returned to Deicoon for rearmament and repairs.[3]

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the conflict. Another group of cultists had lied in wait in the underhive of Deicoon. When the princeps of the Pallidus Mor were away from the Titan's repair yards (visiting with the city's governor), the cultists ambushed the city. The Princeps, Moderati, and Secutarii of the Pallidus Mor were overpowered and captured. The cultists took them to a defiled chapel on the city, with the intent to corrupt them and their Titans. Soon afterwards, a civilian militia called the "Company of the Bridge" lead by Ecclesiarchy Confessor Lehrn Ornastas, assaulted the chapel and freed the members of the Pallidus Mor. Upon being freed, the Pallidus Mor armed themselves and fought their way back to their Titans. The Chaos Forces, expecting to have corrupted the Pallidus Mor, were caught off-guard by the Legio's counterattack. The majority of the Iron Skull's Titans had moved onto Therimachus to attack the Imperial Hunters.[3]

After defeating the traitor Titans at Deicoon, the Pallidus Mor received requests for assistance by the Imperial Hunters. Their brother legio was being overwhelmed by the Chaos forces. Deciding to take the fastest route, the legio moved through the Klivanos Plain. The Plain was a volatile region, with large and unstable Promethium reserved beneath its surface. Despite losing a Warhound, the Legio successfully traversed the region. They were too late to rescue the surviving members of the Imperial Hunters. The Pallidus Mor readied to engage the enemy forces, noticing that they were forming a defensive line to stall for time as another Chaotic ritual was being prepared. Realizing they could not retake the city before the completion of the ritual, the Pallidus Mor instead fired into the city. Firing salvo after salvo, the Legio leveled the Hive, turning the very ground below it into a sea of magma and rubble.[3]

Knowing that they may need more firepower, Princeps Captain Krezoc ordered the redeployment of Ferrum Salvator, despite its repairs being incomplete. She then ordered the Pallidus Mor to retreat from the sea of magma that once was Therimachus. During the retreat the Pallidus Mor suffered more losses as Crudelis Mortem was destroyed, causing a large wave of magma which in return destroyed an enemy Banelord. In its death throes, the corrupted Titan fired at Glorias Vastator, critically damaging its reactor. Most of the Titan's primary crew members assembled in the command chambers and launched to escape the blast of the war machine's reactor. The crew managed to reach and activate Ferrum Salvator just in time to engage and destroy the final enemy Titan at point-blank range.[3]

The victory was a pyrrhic one. The vast majority of the Titans sent to the system by the Pallidus Mor (as well as the Imperial Hunters) were destroyed, two of the planets three Hive cities were destroyed (Creontiades was leveled to the ground upon the arrival of Imperial Guard reinforcements), the forgeworld was reclassified as a Penal World (on the verge of being chosen for Exterminatus), and the planet's surviving loyalist population was interred and formed into a Penal Legion. The surviving members of the Pallidus Mor and the Titans they could salvage prepared to return to the Nuntius Mortis, formally ending the combined battlegroup with the Imperial Hunters.[3]

Sources