Fighting over 2000 Guardsman, half of the entire 405th, with just under 50 men had proven to be somewhat anti-climactic. Hawkins thought this to himself with a cold detachment as he shot a crying Major Shiba in the face, coring his skull with a neatly cauterised hole courtesy of a hellgun.
The other half of the regiment was still deployed on the surface of Charybdis, making the mutinous task considerably easier.
Hawkins' plan went like this.
As soon as the platoon was in full rig the Captain hailed the leader of 2nd platoon, Lieutenant Tuomas, on the vox.
He instructed the lieutenant to simulate a void breach from his position at the bridge throughout all accommodation decks, causing heavy bulkheads to slam in place at either end of each dormitory and the atmosphere to vent in order to reduce the risk of explosive decompression.
As the troopship was on night cycle, most of the Harikonis present were bunking down for the night, with a token number of squads on ship patrol.
As these men, shaken awake by the slamming of heavy plasteel doors, suffocated in agony, 1st and 2nd platoon divided the decks between them and prowled the corridors in kill-team formation, gunning down unsuspecting Guardsmen like dogs.
A small group inevitably formed a defence, led by Colonel Sulken and Major Shiba, and this pocket of resistance fought a fighting withdrawal over the next 2 hours.
Captain Hawkins was happy to keep his forces at arm's length, slowly herding the Colonel's group into a lower cargo hold rather than rush them and risk heavy casualties.
The plan had been to void the hold and eject the remainder into space, but the wily Colonel instructed a munitions loader servitor to manually hold the bulkhead open, it's genhanced bulk straining against the closing mechanism with heavy gauge hydraulic pincers.
Hawkins had led the inevitable clearance, advancing behind volleys of grenades, clearing every inch of the crowded cargo compartment, his Afriel Strain blasting individuals and pairs of drop troopers as they maintained a disciplined retreat to the outer bulkhead.
With nowhere to go, Colonel Sulken had ordered his last men to wire the immense bay door with demolition charges, intent to take out as many "heretics" as he could before they died.
A frag grenade, pitched perfectly by Corporal Gideon, commander of Hawkins' 2nd brick within 1st platoon, put an end to that plan.
Shredded by the explosion, Colonel Sulken's corpse was little more than a wet step to be cleared as Hawkins rounded the corner, spraying the 2 men setting the demo charges with precision bolts of incandescent violet light.
The last survivor of the 405th Harikoni Warhawks aboard the ship was Major Shribe, on his knees, gutshot by shrapnel, his fatigues stained with dark blood.
With tears in his eyes, he looked up to see the hot muzzle of a stumpy hellgun levelled at his face and uttered a single word.
'Why?'
'For the Emperor.' Hawkins replied as he pulled the trigger.
Hawkins was on the bridge, brooding. He sat on the command throne, himself and Trooper Krabb pulling their watch, Colonel-Commissar Armitage had deemed it necessary to keep a constant vigil over their indentured ship's crew, lest they try anything stupid.
Accompanying them were the Inquisitor's motley crew of henchmen, just short of half a dozen devoted followers of various types, pledging their allegiance to coin or the Emperor, probably both.
A tall, handsome man that looked to be in his late 30s stood to the left of the throne, wearing black gloves and boots, with a long brown trench coat covering his discreet body armour seemingly in parody of his master's outfit, the elegant lines of a custom autogun slung across his back.
His skin was tanned and swarthy and his head topped with a shock of silver hair.
Next to him stood a bullet-headed monster, his shaven dome nearly touching the ceiling of the bridge. He stood attired in an armoured bodyglove decorating in swirling patterns of bright colour, a pair of bolt pistols holstered on his hips and a wickedly curved blade sheathed down his back.
The third man was an anomaly, wearing an old Storm Trooper rig, complete with full carapace and hellgun, albeit of an obsolete design. His fatigue cap still bore the symbol of the Commissariat in the form of a stylised death's head though he alone wore a crimson sash around his bicep, observing correct protocol for Inquisition indentured service. The man's face was covered in holy scripture, the tiny tattoos physical evidence of his faith.
Lurking in the shadows behind them were the death cultists. 2 mute sisters, raised on a world of warring tribes, the pair had been raised to worship the Emperor through bloodshed and had raised their ritualistic killing to an art form. They wore shabby looking synthetic catsuits, with blades strapped to seemingly every spare bit of room on their bodies.
Hawkins looked at this cross section of humanity and felt nothing but contempt.
He and his men needed not coin, nor admiration from their master, nor ritual or countless empty words. He believed they would be judged by their actions alone. Bred to fight, armed and armoured by Emperor sanctioned organisations, given purpose by those same organisations now, Hawkins' maintained an unshakeable belief that his actions were right.
Nothing else mattered.
He thought of Major Shiba, pictured his tearful visage before Hawkins ended his mortal existence, and felt nothing. The God-Emperor willed it, so it was done.
Hawkins looked away from the henchmen and focused, shaking himself out of his bitter introspection to concentrate on the operation thus far.
Making their escape had been easy enough. No communications, vox or otherwise were allowed to transmit from the troopship during the takeover, so nobody in the invasion fleet was wise to the mutiny happening under their noses.
Vox hails went unanswered as the fleet flagship Imperious Destructor detected an energy spike, the fat transport fired up its warp drives and made a full burn run out of system.
The Ponderous cruiser fired a lance strike as the troopship made translation, brilliant beams of searing energy distorting wildly as they punched through the translation point, missing the mutinous vessel by microseconds.
The inquisitor's presence in system had never been recorded, nor the presence of his sleek black ship, currently docked in the transporter, or its other passengers in the form of a platoon of Afriel Strain Commandos.
As far as the Imperium was concerned, the Harikoni warhawks had turned traitor and fled the warzone. One half-regiment from a reclamation force of millions. In the grander scheme of things, it was not worth the effort of going after them.
General Cyleus Mastaiff, ground commander of the Guard forces on Charybdis, merely shook his head at the news before ordering a round of summary executions of potential mutineers amongst the ranks.
The regimental Commissars were positively ecstatic.
Now Hawkins stared out of the viewport at his target area, a small blue and green world at the other end of the sub-sector.
Horstland was a productive, if tiny world. Its main tithed goods were foodstuffs and various mineral deposits, and its governor was a proud and fair leader, an ex-Guard General by the name of Faust.
Its position on the spiral arm meant it was of practically zero strategic importance, and it had no history of cult issues or insurgency in the 2000 years under Imperial rule.
Though open with his knowledge of the planet, its topography, history and cultures, Inquisitor Fellon was less forthcoming about the details of their mission. He would not divulge the nature of the enemy, strengths, locations, anything.
It was most frustrating.
In the weeks of warp travel, the Colonel-Commissar had drilled his men severely in all natures of close quarters battle. Ranges were set up with Servitor targets, the lobotomised serfs armoured in the most peculiar garb of heavy ceramite plates. Emphasis had been placed firmly on achieving headshots out to 100 metres, on the move, from vehicles, against mobile targets, the standard was punishingly high.
The men had proved themselves capable, mastering every new scenario thrown at them, though Hawkins was dismayed at the reduction in hand to hand combat drills demanded of them.
In the short periods of down time, Hawkins had worked out the most probable scenarios for the coming mission.
Due to the size of his force he could not fight a protracted battle and lack of fleet support ruled out anything on a planetary scale.
Cults and rebels were not a problem, so that left 2 options in Hawkins' mind. A strike Operation against a static target, maybe an assassination or a snatch and grab, or a reaction force against xenos raiders, mounting hit and run attacks to disrupt their operations.
As they were focusing on close range firefights and shunning hand to hand, Hawkins thought this the more likely scenario as many hated xenos races were exceptional fighters, outclassing humans many times over.
His men had mounted such an operation against the Deviant Eldar before with much success, their lightly armoured, rapid troops and vehicles not faring too well against hellguns and autocannon when caught in ambush.
Hawkins smiled at the memory. He dearly hoped it was Dark Eldar.
'Space Marines.' Inquisitor Fellon said without warning. It was the first thing he said as he strode into the packed strategium of the transporter.
All 48 grey skinned Storm Troopers were crammed inside, plus Valkyrie and Vulture crews. Several chairs and a small table usually used by officers to rest their caffeine recepticles had to be removed to make room.
It was a personal preference of the CO, he demanded that everyone involved in an operation be at orders, so every man of every rank understood his place in the grander scheme.
Such radical thinking was what got Armitage noticed by the Inquisition.
Colonel-Commissar Armitage was not present, as he had taken the Inquisitor's retinue and left to prepare what he said was 'the next phase of the operation'
Hawkins looked to his left at Sgt Granger as Fellon spoke, who raised an eyebrow at him in a way that expressed exactly what Hawkins was thinking.
What?
The agent of the Ordos continued unsatisfied by the looks on the faces of his captive audience, that his opening statement lacked its desired effect.
Inquisitor Fellon clearly had a taste for drama, using his manner to manipulate those he viewed as simpletons into doing what he wanted.
Each and every Afriel Strain Commando was a clone of a great Imperial hero and had the minds to match. They were not cowed by the Inquisitor's manner.
'2000 years ago, the native human population of Horstland were Godless heathens, outside of the grasp of our beloved Imperium.
They were a heavily militarised society, indeed they had to be. Horstland was the victim of sporadic and brutally violent raids by Eldar pirates, each one responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and missing persons, each one worse than the last.'
A joint operation against the hated Dark Eldar, alongside the mighty warriors of the Adeptus Astartes.
That had to be it, Hawkins decided. The Inquisition was setting up a covert anti-xenos organisation.
Why would they need our help?
'It was during one of these raids that the Battle-Brothers of the Bellators Crimson chapter intervened.'
Inquisitor Fellon waved a hand over the small holo-projector situated in the centre of the Strategium. A shrivelled servitor, fused to the side of the device manipulated the machines controls, bringing up a shimmering projection of an Astartes warrior.
The immense transhuman form rotated in front of them, the curves and brute nature of his formidable crimson battle-plate rendered in exquisite detail. Next to the Astartes figure rotated the silhouette of a regular man for scale comparison. The dark figure was dwarfed by the armoured giant, looking positively pathetic.
'They slaughtered the xenos. Upon witnessing the power wielded by the Astartes, the Governments of Horstland heralded the Space Marines as their saviours and welcomed the Imperium with open arms. It was one of the most peaceful reclamations on record.'
'Since that event, the Bellators Crimson have used Horstland as one of their recruitment worlds, and maintain a constant squad level presence as a goodwill gesture, reminding the citizens of the remote planet that they are under protection should the alien scum ever return.'
The Space Marine projection disappeared, replaced by the image of a squat, boxy building situated in the middle of a city. It was 3 stories high with a flat roof, dominated by a landing pad upon which a deep red Thunderhawk sat. The walls were metres thick bare rockrete and main entrance was a ridiculously heavy looking adamantium blast door, above which a vast stone Aquila loomed menacingly.
Hawkins had seen one such building before, when mounted at a staging area on a world under the protection of the fearsome Black Templars.
It was a chapter keep of the Space Marines.
'This.' The inquisitor said, pointing at the hololith, his voice low with the gravity of the situation.
'This is your target.'
Horstland
Brother-Sergeant Alexiel grunted as he smashed the training servitor aside, parrying its vicious thrust and clubbing it to the ground with the silent teeth of his deactivated chainsword.
Sensing movement in his periphery, he lashed out with a foot to the left and cross blocked to the right with his blade, knocking back one of the combat cyborgs to clear room as he hit the other with a spinning back slash, throwing it into a wall with the force of the blow and causing the stricken man-machine to power down.
They had both attacked simultaneously, machine logic determining the best way to catch him off guard, though they couldn't match his superhuman reflexes.
Alexiel barked out a laugh as the last servitor tried to clamber to its feet, kneeing it in the faceplate with a crunch and finishing it with a downward smash of his sword pommel.
He could swear the damn things were getting smarter.
The big Sergeant was about to reset the machines to a higher difficulty when a voice interrupted him.
'Brother-Sergeant Alexiel.'
Battle-Brother Fleynt stood in the doorway in full plate, his flamer held in a loose grip, relaxed but ready.
'Speak, brother.' Alexiel responded, exiting the training cage and taking a towel from a waiting serf, wiping down his enhanced bulk as his second in command continued.
'We have picked up several craft on an approach vector on long range Auspex, Imperial Guard pattern, 2 Vulture pattern gunships and 4 Valkyrie pattern assault craft, sir.'
Alexiel creased his brow, deep furrows appearing in his slab like features as he formed the frown. They wouldn't be local PDF fliers, Fleynt would not think it worth mentioning.
'Are they responding to hails?'
Fleynt had anticipated this. 'No, Brother-Sergeant. They are broadcasting Identity tags of Inquisition level authority though, sir. In addition, they are approaching at cruising speed, indicating non-hostile intentions.'
Alexiel assessed the situation in an instant. '6 craft is a bit much for an Inquisitor's retinue. Whatever they are here for they have danger in mind.'
'Standby all personnel for battle readiness, full armour. Send a pilot to warm the Thunderhawk's spirit just in case and send Brothers Araden and Skurn to guard it.'
'Aye brother.' And with that, Fleynt turned to leave.
'Fleynt.' Alexiel called out, stalling the younger man in his tracks.
'Yes, Brother-Sergeant?' he said as he turned back to face his superior.
'You may think I am being over cautious, but I have worked with the Ordos before. They are not to be trusted.' He said firmly, shaking his head as he did so.
'I didn't say a word.' Fleynt remarked as he left.