Ryza Secendus

The forces of the Warmaster would find that the approach to Ryza was well-guarded, for ever was the world assailed by raiders and xenos during the Age of Strife. In answer to such threats, the greatest minds of the Forge World had laboured to create a second world above them, a guardian armed with weapons capable of shattering any who dared encroach upon the sovereignty of Ryza. In official designation, Ryza Secundus was nothing more than a space station yet, as is oft the case, the dispassionate and coldly rational records of the Mechanicum did little justice to the awe-inspiring nature of their creation, for Ryza Secundus was, in scale, nothing short of an artificial moon.
Its macro-berths had once housed entire Expedition fleets, vast cargo bays filled with munitions to feed the Great Crusade’s insatiable hunger for conquest while the vessels themselves were modified with technologies bequeathed by the Tech-Priests of the Omnissiah Igvita.
…
Heresy and time had not allowed the revival of their numbers. Outnumbered and sorely outgunned, the fleet of Ryza hung in the shadow of Ryza Secundus, unwilling to commit to battle without the support of its considerable armament, the grandest of which were plasma batteries capable of sundering a battleship in a handful of volleys.
…
Ryza Secundus Unlike Terra, Ryza possessed no
moon in its orbit and instead turned
to mechanical means to augment its
control of nearspace; thus was born
Ryza Secundus. A vast space station
constructed over a number of centuries,
Ryza Secundus was built both as a
station for rearming and repairing space
vessels and as Ryza’s first line of defence,
for the outer rings of the station
boasted a fearsome array of weapons
commonly found on the largest of
Imperial ships, their strength augmented
by debilitating plasma lattices that
proved capable of ensnaring passing
ships with deadly force.
The interior of the station was no less
impressive, for its halls were cavernous,
each cargo bay capable of hosting
the personnel and supplies of all but
the largest of Expeditionary fleets.
A network of accessways linked the
cargo bays, serviced by mag trains and
large enough for three Knights of the
Questoris Familia to walk abreast. It
was within these halls that the first
battles for Ryza were to be fought,
for whoever controlled the station
could lay claim to Ryza’s orbit, its gun
batteries and repair cradles a significant
advantage to any seeking to conquer
the Ultima Segmentum.
…
Ryza Secundus did not merely serve a logistical purpose, for
it stood sentinel over the approach to the planet, the nerve
centre of smaller defence satellites scattered around the Forge
World. Interlinking rings encircled the central structure bearing
extensive arrays of weapon batteries chosen to combat any
conceivable threat that might encroach upon Ryza’s sovereignty.
These defences were supplemented by larger batteries, located
on the central structure, of a scale more often seen on the largest
battleships of the Imperium’s fleets. Some were unique in design,
forged by the hands of the Omnissiah Igvita using knowledge
gleaned from millennia of innovation and refinement. As an
entity, Ryza Secundus ensured the Forge World was all but
unassailable by direct means, for even were a force to overwhelm
it, they would likely no longer possess the numbers required
to claim the surface.

The Defence of Ryza