Inquisitorial Report 15f61vv1d644444/b, Subject: Hellhounds Chapter, Adeptus Astartes

by | Sep 28, 2013

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My Lord,

As per your instructions I arrived in the Ganimedes system fourteen point three seven Terran hours ago, but the Astartes Chapter designation 'Hellhounds' were no longer in system.  There was no warp entry signature to denote whence they had departed either, just like at Pratanyis IV.

With their current location remaining a mystery, I bypassed mission objective alpha and proceeded to objective beta, making planetfall upon Ganimedes Prime eleven point two one Terran hours ago.

The Imperial Palace was in ruins, the Xenos designation 'Orks' that had been assaulting it as dead as the planetary defence force operatives assigned to it's protection.  Worryingly only two-thirds of the PDF bodies were in evidence, none of whom were officers, which may be due to the Ork propensity for eating flesh, or may not.

Civilian witnesses were however much easier to apprehend, although their reports were confused and full of imagined sights, but all subjects agreed upon what had befallen the Palace, that the 'gates of hell itself opened up', and that the' black hounds of the Emperor ravaged the Ork attackers', some adding that they were 'swathed in flame'.  Disturbingly my lord, fully half of the subjects went on to say that the 'savage hounds then turned upon the defenders, dragging them to hell to face their judgement for allowing the Xenos to set foot upon the palace steps'.

Where this idea of judgement came from none would say, however a detailed inquiry into the existing comms stations revealed thirty nine planet-wide broadcasts with the origin code of the 'Cerberus Maw', a Hellhounds strike cruiser.  The messages themselves were deleted after broadcast, and it is only through much painstaking work that we have decrypted this information.  The fragmentary broadcasts we have pieced together talk of judgement, of how the hounds of hell were coming to mete out punishment.  Quite clearly a scare-tactic, but this was not directed at the xenos.  All broadcasts were in low-Gothic, and directed at Ganimedes Prime's human populace.

I find this most worrying my Lord, and I refer you to the traitor legion designation 'Night Lords' for strikingly similar pre-engagement tactics.

Regardless, I shall keep looking for the PDF command structure and any further traces of the 'Hellhounds' in-system as per mission parameters.

For his holiness the Emperor, always

your servant

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