Defence of uplink station 14

Salamanders legion elements hold the line against traitors of the emperors children in order to protect one of the vital satelite uplink stations needed to guide the ark mechanicum on an escape vector through the traitor fleet.

After brutal close quarters fighting in and around the station, salamanders forces withdraw having scuttled the uplink to keep it out of traitor hands.

Units under the command of the 3rd legion Champion Damion Aleander launched a full scale assault on station 14 in the early hours of the second day of the battle for the titan yards. Loyalist command was reliant on a number of these uplink stations to connect the holy augries of the ark mechanicus

'Divine by Zero' with the remaining satellites in orbit in order to plot an escape course for the ancient vessel.

If enough of these stations could be captured or destroyed before the ritual of data conveyance could be completed, the launch would be delayed or even aborted. Aware that the station was defended by the salamanders warband who had previously humbled him during the rad wastes campaign, Aleander led an impetuous charge, determined to right the slight on his battle honour.

The defenders, stretched thin by the calamitous loses of the first day and needing to hold a significant reserve of forces for the second day, had left a small unit of recon marines to hold the station itself.

The smoke and electro-mag chaff thrown off by titan grade weaponry up and down the line meant that the handful of defenders did not spot the traitor assault until almost too late. With grim resolve, the small unit died to a man defending the station, buying much needed time for remaining forces of the salamanders to counter attack.

A huge clash of arms resulted, as both sides fed squad after squad into the close packed melee around the station, the close in fighting reminding veterans on both sides of the bloody fights of the dropsite massacre.

The 3rd legion champion sought out the loyalist warlord, the two leaders clashing upon the central dais of the station as their bodyguard units hacked and hewed against one another. Rhy'Kar, chosen of the salamanders, narrowly survived a storm of precise blows from his opponent, his newly fitted augmetics slowing the legionary down and almost costing him his life. With a mighty blow from his hammer the loyalist commander managed to knock the traitor champion from the dais, his wounded body falling amongst his bodyguards, to be swept away in the tide of battle.

While the honour duel had been decided, the wider battle fared less in the loyalists favour, the zeal of the promethean adherents being no match for the precision and finesse of the palatines and their spears. Having laid low their leader, the terminators soon closed in around the loyalist commander, laying him low in revenge for their own leaders further humbling.

As close assault units of both sides joined their embattled elite, the vast forms of dreadnought chassis' rampaged through the melee, a contemptor of each legion brawling with their counterpart. The honoured veteran of the 18th, his sarcophagus breached by the lighting fast attacks of his traitor kin overloaded his reactor safeties in a last defiant act, the explosion scattering many of the combatants and briefly disrupting the flow of the grand melee.
Finally breaking through the scrapcode poisoning that had hammpered loyalist comms all day, one of the precious few survivng gunships was vectored onto the mass of traitor tanks that had conveyed the emperors children to the battle, scoring a direct hit on the convoy and causing significant damage.

Imperial army units and fire support tanks began to move up in support of the loyalists but found themselves significantly outclassed as a traitor knight advanced along the flank of the assault, its great melta cannon causing serious damage and halting the loyalist counter push.

Recovering the wounded body of their leader, a librarian and the distinctive black armoured form of a chaplain lead the fight against the traitors, holding out long enough for the uplink to complete before scuttling the station and withdrawing under the increase strength of the traitor assault.

The uplink had completed, but such was the damaged caused by the fighting that much of the data was corrupted or hopelessly jumbled. Not an outright failure but hardly worth the cost paid in astartes blood.