Hanged Man's spaceport
Hanged Man's spaceport - So named as the ruling caste of the pre compliance government were strung up on gibbets after a pro-imperial revolt ushered in a near bloodless conquest by the XIIIth. The bodies of the ruling elite were left to hang in the aftermath as a show of determined loyalty by the new council. The gibbets have found renewed purpose with the outbreak of the heresy, local imperial rule forever busy hunting out traitors and agents of the warmaster both real and imagined.
Primary spaceport of the planet, from which almost all war material and troop musters ascend to orbit, nowhere else on the planet has the infastructure to support direct loading and provisioning of void ships.
If the traitors hope to join the march on terra with the planets bounty intact, the spaceport will be critical. Loyalist command is well aware of the space port's value and it is likely the only way for the loyalists to make a fighting withdrawl should it come to that.
However, the docks themselves are vulnerable to coup de main assaults and a bold traitor commander could look to seize this directly from orbit. Reports of clandestine meetings in the underhive and work stoppages amongst dock crews could be the result of lecticio divinitatus activity but could also be the work of a traitor fifth column ready to throw open the gates of the hive and welcome their masters in the traitor host.
Phase 1
As traitor drop pods fell across the ramparts and mass lander's set down just outside the range of the wall guns, the loyalist reponse to the traitor invasion was muted. Approximately 20 minutes earlier, coordinated mass teleports from the traitor fleet had managed to put astartes kill teams within striking distance of most of the major command centres within the spaceport. Local command was devastated, and while the astartes and many imperial army units on the ground maintained a fierce resistance, the disruption was near total.
While many of these kill team were soon liquidated by incensed body guard units, others escaped into the hive, causing further disruption and chaos well behind the loyalist lines for days to come.
By the 3rd day, a massive column of armour and light titan support closed with gate Alpha. A brave counter attack by the white scars and the ultramarine garrison did briefly disrupt this assault, it did not halt them for long. By the end of the 5th day, the gates had been breached and the traitor forces on the walls linked up with their armoured support now pouring out of the stove hills. Loyalist forces continued to resist, in particular the 18th legion and Mechanicum assets who helped hold battery Kappa until well into the 9th day, when their ammunition supply was finally exhausted.
The worst was yet to come for the defenders. Down in the festering subsids and underhive levels, common to almost all imperial hive cities, a contagion was spreading rapidly and civil disorder of a level not seen since the Horusian riots 5 years prior was boiling over down in the hive sump. Confronted by hordes of plague fanatics, rioters, insurgent horusian's and the first sickly manifestations of daemons, the defenders sealed what hive gates they could and fell back to the inner spires.
The order to begin what became known as the 'great rout' was given on the 25th day, although it would only be on day 40 that the steady march of units south into the rad wastes ceased, as new traitor landings cut off the remaining escape routes. Those imperial forces left inside the hive either surrendered, went to ground amongst the civilian population or were anhilated in last stands by the victorious traitors. A few valiant defenders did manage to overload reactor safeties and atomised several minor hive spires and landing platforms, however the main dock facilties only took light damage in the opening stages of the invasion and would soon be repaired.
Maps
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Spaceport
'I don't know exactly what's going on down in the subsid, but its bad! We've lost contact with 3 watch houses in the last hour alone. Get me clearance teams down here with flamers and suppression gear and lock down the turbo lifts, or we're going to have a war going on down here to rival the show upstairs' - Arbites Captain Julian Alphard, MIA
'Track bearing 086 and fire at will. If we don't stop those tanks they'll be through the gate in no time.' - Lieutenant Attriax, Battery 3, Fort Guilliman. KIA.
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