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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.[1]

Overview

The conflict started by a sudden Khornate Chaos Cultist uprising in the capital hive city Creontiades. First discovered when the cultists attacked Ecclesiarchy Confessor Lehrn Ornastas. While Confessor Ornastas managed to repel the ambush and reported it to his superiors, his warnings were ignored. The cultists had been waiting for the planet's Imperial Guard Regiment/PDF, the Kataran 66th "Kataran Spears", to be deployed elsewhere. When the 66th was deployed to repel a tyranid invasion of the planet Khania, they launched their uprising.[1]

The sudden attack of the cultists from within the hive city caught the city's defenders unprepared and the cultists quickly took control of the hive. The Kataran Spears, along with the Titan Legions Legio Pallidus Mor and Imperial Hunters, were sent to provide defense of the rest of the planet and retake the city. The Titan legions were assigned due to reports of Traitor Titans being sent to the planet. Under the command of the Imperial Hunters's Marshal Adrel Syagrius, the Pallidus Mor was deployed to the Hive City of Deicoon, the city nearest Creontiades, while the Imperial Hunters were deployed to Therimachus. The Pallidus Mor's mission was to defend the bridge over the Kazani Strait that connected Creontiades to the mainland. With fire support from the Kataran Spears, the Pallidus Mor engaged the traitor Titans, which they identified as the Iron Skulls. The Iron Skulls outnumbered and outgunned the Pallidus Mor, forcing the Imperium's defenders 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 defenders then returned to Deicoon for rearmament and repairs.[1]

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the conflict. The next day, after the Titans had left (leaving only the Kataran 66th to defend the coast), the cultists used a ritual to summon a brass bridge to replace the bridge over the strait. They then marched across, opposed only by a retreating 66th. the 66th had attempted to contact the Pallidus Mor to warn them that the cultists had made it to the mainland, but received no reply. 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 repair-yards (visiting with the city's governor), the cultists ambushed the city. Just like in Creontiades, the cultists swiftly took control of the city and captured its leaders. The Princeps, Moderati, and Secutarii of the Pallidus Mor were overpowered and captured. The cultists took them to a defiled chapel in the city, with the intent to corrupt them and their Titans. Soon afterwards, a civilian militia called the "Company of the Bridge" lead by Confessor 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. The Pallidus Mor engaged and destroyed the few enemy Titans remaining, while the Kataran 66th took down the city's defensive macrocannons, which the cultists were using to fire at the Pallidus Mor. The Imperial forces then escaped the city before taking any more causalities.[1]

After defeating the traitor Titans at Deicoon, the Kataran Spears and Pallidus Mor received requests for assistance by the Imperial Hunters. The Imperial Hunters were being overwhelmed by the Chaos forces. Deciding to take the fastest route, the Imperial forces 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.[1]

Knowing that they may need more firepower, Princeps Captain Ferantha 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 Gloria 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.[1]

Meanwhile, back in Deicoon, the Company of the Bridge had reentered the hive city. They had seen loyal Imperial citizens continuing to fight against the cultists within the city and moved to kill as many cultists as they could. Marching straight through flaming debris and choking ash from the earlier battle between the Titan legios, they reengaged the cultists. Confessor Ornastus eventually located the leader of the cultists, a former colonial of the Kataran Spears. The confessor and the cultist engaged in a duel. While the cult's leader nearly killed the confessor, but the cult's defeat at Therimachus caused all of its members to turn and scream in agony, with the cultist leader flinging himself off the roof he and Ornastus were dueling on. The loyalists then began rounding up surviving cultists and publicly executing them.[1]

The victory was a pyrrhic one. The vast majority of the Titans sent to the system by the Pallidus Mor and Imperial Hunters were destroyed, two of the planet's 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 Titan legions, and the Titans they could salvage, prepared to return to their ships to leave the planet.[1]

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