Battle of Ashkhelon
The Battle of Ashkhelon was a battle of the Great Crusade.[1]
Contents
Overview
The conflict began when widespread panic and hysteria broke out across Ashkhelon III's planetary control bastion, dubbed the Ashkhel. When Imperial response teams arrived, there was no sign of the world's 11 million inhabitants. Further help was requested, which was answered in the form of the Space Wolves and Mechanicum forces. They were led by the Space Wolves' 11th Great Company aboard the Battle Barge Void Wyrm and the Mechanicum Battleship Axiom of Trinity.[1]
When the Imperial forces landed on Ashkhelon, they initially met nothing besides signs of past violence. However soon enough the Space Wolves encountered screaming and hulking mechanical monstrosities. Fighting between the Wolves and Skitarii and these mechanical horrors broke out, with Wolf Lord Varald Helsdawn leading the defence. The creatures were powerful, comparable in strength of a battle-automata, but the Imperials endured. Soon enough the Imperials determined that the mechanical horrors were being directed by a single intelligence, dubbed the Heretek Omega. More disturbing was the fact that the creatures were able to endlessly replicate themselves.[1]
The Rune Priest Corym Skaarsol managed to stalk one of the damaged mechanical creatures down into the depths of Ashkhelon III. This gave the Legion a more proper target for their wrath, and the canyons below the Ashkhel were subjected to a merciless orbital bombardment. The Space Wolves, accompanied by Sicarian Ruststalkers, made their way into the canyons shortly after. Battling vast numbers of formless horrors and "living" bio-plastic walls, the Imperial forces made their way to the centre of the enemy. Here they found the dead of Ashkhelon, neatly laid in vaults. In the central chamber they also found the Heretek Omega, revealed to be an ancient Artificial Intelligence that had been awakened by Ashkhelon's excavation teams. After a bitter battle, the Imperials managed to destroy the AI and avenge the dead of Ashkhelon.[1]
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the incident Ashkhelon III was a Dead World, quarantined by the greater Imperium.[1]
Long after the Battle of Ashkhelon, the Forge World of Ryza was invaded by Chaos forces during the Horus Heresy. Amid this invasion, Chaos Cults enacted a ritual in Prosperity, one of Ryza's most important cities, which resulted in rivers of corrupting blood and the local machinery transforming into monsters, seemingly guided by a single, malevolent intelligence inhabitating the local datacode. The mechanical monsters massacred the entire city within a night before vanishing alongside all corpses. Later research into the event pointed out that the destruction of Prosperity showcased similarities and even connections to the horror of Ashkhelon, though the Imperium ceased any further investigation once this was pointed out. On Ryza, it is feared that the cause of Prosperity's death still lingers in the planet's "darkened recesses" and is biding its time to rise again.[2]
See also
Sources
- 1: The Horus Heresy Book Seven - Inferno, pgs. 90-91
- 2: Adeptus Titanicus: Campaign Compendium, pg. 66, Ghosts of Ashkelon
