"We're gonna get in there, and we're gonna conquer, and we're gonna get some! In the name of the Emperor!" Bulldog said while chewing on a lit cigar. They were approaching the drop zone fast, Chukk and Mad Dog were standing by the rear hatch holding the fast-rope lines for the rapid insertion and the door gunners were standing ready on their heavy bolters.

Suddenly the Valkyrie tilted backwards and came to a hover, the pilot's voice sounding over their microbeads, "this is it fellers, go! Go! Go! Emperor be with you!" The heavy bolters had opened up, tracking back and forth quickly and firing in short bursts. Inhuman screeches could be heard over the drone of the gunship's engines.

Chukk and Mad Dog threw the ropes out the back and grabbed onto them, sliding down into the snow and bright sunshine. They ran clear before Jonas and Tigger come down next with the flamers. Two other Valkyries were hovering to either side of them, dropping off the majority of the platoon. Chukk and Mad Dog were already firing as fast as they could with their combat shotguns. Chaos flesh hounds ran past them, their red scaly skin being torn apart by the buckshot rounds.

Chukk's magazine ran dry and he pulled out his service laspistol, firing quickly at a flesh hound that pounced at him. It's bulk hit him, still half-alive until it was blown off by repeated blasts from Mad Dog's shotgun.

Jonas and Tigger started up their flamers and walked against the tide, sweeping lethal gouts of flame back and forth. Newton was next off the rope with his heavy flamer along with Bulldog himself. The snow field was already littered with dead flesh hounds as well as pieces of debris. The source of both was a mere hundred metres ahead of them: a crashed dropship, the cockpit buried under the snow and smoke issuing from the open rear hatch.

The tide of the Chaos monstrosities stopped just as the last of the squad hit the ground and the rope lines were detached. A good number of flesh hounds had run off into the snowy wastes and the three Valkyrie gunships turned to hunt them down as another two gunships touched down behind the first three squads.

Out of one of the gunships ran the meltagun squad as well as the platoon commander and his retinue. The standard bearer, Seri, extended the collapsable pole of the platoon banner as he ran, raising it into the air. The other gunship had a modified, larger hold and out of this came ten ogryns. Ten foot tall hulks of muscle loyal to the Imperium.

The platoon commander, Lieutenant Wulph, called over his vox-caster and the ogryn Sergeant, and Jolly came over to Bulldog to relay the message. "All squads form up in an offensive line, ogryns will lead the way up to the dropship, we are weapons free, Emperor protects."

The ogryns, led by Sergeant Vanxx, lumbered forwards, crushing flesh hound corpses beneath their massive boots and bellowing war cries. Bulldog formed his assault squad into a line between the melta squad on the left and grenadiers on the right. Further to the left was another assault squad with flamers and behind the line came the platoon command squad with the banner held high.

They were within thirty metres when the other occupents of the dropship revealed themselves, chaos cultists climbing out of the hatch, choking on the smoke and falling to the ground, their wretched half-starved bodies convulsing on the snow.

The ogryns were unforgiving, they new exactly what these cultists were and set upon them as such. The troopers could only fire off a few shots at the cultists before the ogryns charged into them, they smashed their bodies with their fists and their bulky ripper guns.

A few of the ogryns, Obbo, Cid and Krogg, climbed up into the dropship and started throwing more cultists out. Gunshots could be heard briefly from inside before they were silenced by bellows and crashes. The offensive line curved around the dropship but just let the ogryns do their work.

Obbo, Cid and Krogg climbed back out of the dropship, coughing and wheezing from the smoke and all the ogryns did their best at saluting as Wulph strode forwards and returned the salutes, "good work, are the pilots dead as well?"

"Smoke was coming from front part," Cid said, "not get in to see."

"They probably suffocated then, Delta squad set up a perimeter, everyone else take five," Delta, the grenadiers, spread out in a rough circle and kept an eye on the horizon though the flesh hounds that had run off were nowhere to be seen. Nor were the Valkyrie gunships that had set off to hunt them down.

Priest and Newton stood together by one of the cultist bodies, beaten and broken on the ground. Priest took out a deathstick and lit it on the still burning pilot light of Newton's heavy flamer. Newton licked the inside of his top lip and said, "you think all of the dropships are full of these things?"

Priest took a long drag off the deathstick and replied, "I hope not. I also hope they know where all of them landed."

"We know where most of them landed, and we just got word that their ship in orbit has been annihilated," Priest and Newton looked round to find Wulph standing with a cigar in hand, "mind if I make use of your pilot light Newton?"

They both saluted and Wulph returned it before Newton lifted his heavy flamer and Wulph lit the cigar. "How many sir?" Priest asked, "I hope they're all as easy as this one."

"This may have been a cakewalk relatively speaking but some of those things got away, they could turn up at nearby settlements. We'll have to hope they freeze to death or get found by our gunships first. As for your question, we know of three more, but there could be others. A lot of them were shot out of the sky by the fleet, bless the Emperor." Wulph waved over his vox-caster, Marshall, and took the handset from his pack, "patch me through to the Captain, we're done here. Secs can come in to remove the wreckage and clean up."

About an hour later the Valkyries were called back, reporting twenty-seven confirmed kills, and the platoon loaded up again. The Chaos ship in orbit was in a thousand pieces slowly falling towards the planet surface and every Sergeant was standing by their vox-caster in their gunships waiting for orders.

"The other known dropships have been cleared, but we're spreading out across settlements that might have had landings near them that we didn't track," the Lieutenant said over the vox, which Jolly had set on speaker in their Valkyrie. Which was dubbed Grasshopper Two. "Your pilots are being given the coordinates from up the chain. When you arrive at your designated settlement you are to listen for, watch for, and immediately report any Chaos activity and friendly forces will hurry to support you. Ogryns will be spread amongst you for support. Wulph, out."

Jolly turned off the loudspeaker and they all grabbed handhelds in the roof of the compartment. Bulldog pressed the transmit button on the left side of his helmet for the short-range microbead communicators so he could talk to the pilot. "Well Dice, where are we headed?"

The pilot's voice came in reply just as the Valkyrie lifted off from the snow, "little town called Obinville. No ogryn settlement nearby, it's a way-station for minerals being transported over to the starport. Spades is from there if I recall."

The gunner, Spades, cut in over the link, "yeah, I helped build half those buildings then joined the ess-effs when there was no work left for me. Got brought to Forsheth and ended up with you fine fellers."

"It's a four hour flight from here though, so you boys might want to sit down," Dice said and everyone groaned, though it was lost over the noise of the engines. The door gunners folded down seats from the bulkhead and strapped themselves in for the long ride.

Bulldog hoped the duty was as boring as it sounds, but had a feeling the worst was yet to come.