No, the best option was the one already planned. Infiltrate, strike from within, and take control as quickly as possible. There was no need to make further changes. As one would expect from a friendly ship, we approached the station slowly, taking our time getting to the hangar. When we landed, the stationed troops had indeed gathered èn masse and lined up in parade formation to the best of their abilities. They looked immensely pleased with themselves, even their officers were sporting small smiles, and it managed to relax and worry me.

That was the advantage of being the captain, I had access to everything my ship was capable of, including direct access to the outside cameras, allowing me to observe the situation before we disembarked. The smiles on their officer's faces calmed me because Imperial officers, no matter how relaxed their attitude toward discipline, only smiled when everything was going exactly how they wanted. On the other hand, I was deeply concerned because the officers were smiling. Or rather, these Imperial officers, if the soldiers' lack of discipline and general crass attitude from my last visit was anything to go by. Why were they so happy? They couldn't have let their standards fall that low, not within the Imperium.

My danger sense was completely silent, but I had a bad feeling in my stomach. "Trokk, go and get the other Ogryns. Take them to the armory and get your weapons." I ordered. "Yes, Captain." He answered and hurried away to do my bidding. Something was wrong here, very wrong, and I needed to watch out. I almost lost my life once already, being involved with the space station above Slud. There was no sense in inviting another attempt. Those that looked for trouble usually found it and luck favored the well-prepared. I ordered the soldiers that would join the parade to equip their shotcannons instead of their regular lasguns, the proximity to the stations' garrison in the parade would ensure maximum effectiveness. Thinking about it, it would be a slaughterhouse, a true image of carnage. At point-blank range, the shotcannons would turn their enemies into a red mist with limbs flying everywhere. It would be like detonating a stick of dynamite inside the chest cavity of a human. If the death of their comrades didn't deter them, then the gruesome display certainly would, and being showered in the mist of your former comrade tended to do strange things to the morale of guardsmen.

I kept studying the gathered garrison for a few minutes, flicking back and forth between the cameras in the hopes of finding something, anything, that could tip me off to what was going on. But nothing caught my eye, except for the unusual cheery attitude among the officers. This was the Imperium, officers of the Astra Militarum were never happy. Their job was to find flaws and smooth them out and as a result, they were ornery and irritated at the very best of times. At the worst of times, well, that's when the firing squads were given a red carpet into the barracks. But I saw nothing. They were all decked out in standard parade uniform, not a single thing out of place, except for the.. extra... ammo pouches.

"I fucking knew it!" I spat and the first officer standing nearby cocked an eyebrow.

"Captain?" The young man inquired. He was a steady first officer. Competent, ruthless, efficient, and calm.

"Do you see anything wrong with these formations?" I asked and took a step to the side, granting him a full view of the screen. He studied it carefully, flicking through the screens at a rapid pace, but he shook his head. "Nothing, Captain. All I see is a parade that would befit a new governor." He deadpanned, and I got the distinct feeling he was mocking me with my new responsibilities, but be that as it may, I wanted him to know better in the future.

"Why would they don extra ammo pouches for a parade?" I grumbled, and the young man stiffened slightly. I saw his eyes stare into eternity for a moment before he turned to me, "The only reason to bring extra pouches of ammo is if you expect a prolonged firefight. They must expect us to only have a small number of soldiers leave, and prepared to take the ship by force." he reasoned and earned my forgiveness for his earlier jest at my expense.

"Correct you are, and I trust you will remember to put details such as that, into their proper context in the future. It is what will keep you alive more than anything." I admonished my first Officer, but he took it in stride and bowed his head in acceptance of this piece of questionable wisdom. "Well then, let's not keep them waiting. Let us show them how real Imperial soldiers look." I Declared, and the orders began ringing out through my ship. A short trip brought me to a platform where I could observe the disembarking troops before I left with Trokk and his Ogryn squad. He had been given the new Bullgryn armor and struck a truly intimidating figure, the discarded tank tracks used to make the armor made the already freakishly large abhuman even bigger, and the solid metal covering his body could withstand withering amounts of fire before it gave in. I would have to get him a slab shield eventually, and a proper powermaul, but for now, the ripper gun and combat knife the size of a small regular human torso would have to do.

I watched as my troops started leaving the ship in combat groups of 100 men, totaling 25 groups needing to leave, and for every group past the second one, I saw the face of the station's first Officer grow darker and more worried. While I had taken the carapace armors back from the group that had escorted me to the surface of the planet, the shotcannons in their hands inspired fear in the men on the station. In this limited space, my troops would dominate any firefight by sending walls of buckshot down any corridor they advanced through, and in the point-blank conditions of this parade, they had no chance of losing, not even if the garrison troops had quicker instincts. Their lasguns had long barrels and took a while to swing about, compared to my men's weapons. Slowly, they disembarked and spread out evenly among the garrison, eventually being deployed all around the edge of the formations.

When I left the ship with 4 Ogryns in tow I could almost hear everyone's sphincter collective tighten at the sight of them. I was once again wearing the carapace armor given to me, donning the mark of the Inquisition and the effect was immediate. The air that had been filled with expectant happiness suddenly felt like cold winds were howling through the ranks of the garrison as everyone present did their best to not look like a force that had been gathered to invade my ship. As much as I disliked wearing the Inquisitions symbols, I had to admit I was loving the effect they brought with them. The sheer fear and awe with which people treated you was intoxicating. All the more reason to hate it, such power could very easily lead me to forget what I wanted. And I wanted home!

The first Officer of the station came up to me, presented the Aquila, and stared down the barrel of my stub cannon a moment later. Immediately, the sound of 2500 shotcannons being hoisted into firing position filled the large hangar. "Your previous governor has been relieved of duty because of his greed and incompetence. I have been placed in command of the station and the planet below until a fitting governor can be found and travel here. Please, enlighten me if you have any issues with this, and I shall bless you with the Emperor's mercy." I growled and I met no resistance. The gathered that had not arrived with me all swore a temporary oath of allegiance to me, in the Emperor's name, before I was satisfied to move on to the rest of the station. With the first Officer under my control, it was a small issue to order the station garrison to gather up, disarm themselves and allow my troops to take their places until I could have their loyalties verified. Until then, they were free to move around where they used to, even to work their previous occupation, just unarmed at all times.

I was slightly worried that the former governor's troops might cause trouble for me while we waited for a new governor to arrive, but nothing ever happened. At least not with them.

However, it only took 3 days for my men to cause trouble for me. I was almost done taking inventory over everything, 3 days of nothing but reading and compiling lists of goods, services, communities on the planet below, expected resource gain, expected selling price to keep the wheels of economy turning, funds freed up by removal of a corrupt official, projected injuries among the feudal population as a result of hard labor, sustainable loss of life among the population, amount of guards needed to keep a minimum of peace, expenses to cover costs from everything to maintaining guards equipment to hauling the ore so preciously mined and thousands of other minor details.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

My head felt like it was about to burst from the reading, the weight of it making it feel like I was about to keel over. I had just put down yet another book of numbers when the door sprang open and a sergeant guardsman came skidding into the room.

"I beg your forgiveness, Lord, but there is a riot growing out of control down near the mess halls." She managed between gasps for air, and I needed nothing more to draw me away from this tedious, soul-crushing work. No time to put on my armor, but Trokk was posted nearby along with a squad of my more disciplined guardsmen, functioning as my escort whenever I had to go anywhere. As little a threat as unarmed soldiers posed, enough of them would have no trouble kicking my skull into the floor if they got me to themselves for just a minute. Not that I didn't trust my guardsmen, but I wasn't so sure about these station troops.

Ahead of our group, the sergeant lead us through the station and we soon heard the sounds of a riot. Things breaking, people fighting, random cursing and yelling, and all-around chaos. The scene we saw when we finally arrived, already seemed to have grown out of hand. Hundreds of soldiers, a mix of the station garrison and my guardsmen, were engaged in a full-on melee. I took in the situation in an instant and knew it would be almost impossible to stop this right, short of sending in more troops. Glancing around the large mess hall we were in, I noticed some wiring hanging down from the ceiling, most likely maintenance being interrupted by the riot, and I had an idea. A horrible idea, but an idea nonetheless. looking back over the fighting soldiers, I saw one of my guardsmen pulling out his combat knife and killing 2 from the garrison, and I pointed him out to Trokk. "Bring him to me, Trokk!" I ordered and the giant abhuman wasted no time, crossed into the melee that parted around him like a shark swimming through a school of fish, grabbed the unfortunate man around the head, and started dragging him back to me. His vision was blocked by having his head encased in the hand of an Ogryn, and the guardsman was flailing around with his knife, trying desperately to free himself to no avail. When Trokk brought him back, I grabbed some of the loose wiring hanging over a solid beam of the ship structure and wrapped one end of it around the neck of the dazed guardsman before handing Trokk the other and giving the order. "Pull!" And Trokk did just that.

The sight of a man being hung to death had a magical way of capturing the attention of people, and the riot started dying out as the fighting men and women slowly stopped what they were doing to silently observe the diminishing struggles of the guardsman I had doomed to death. His thrashing became weaker as life got choked out of him, and I for a moment, wondered what this would do to me and my morals. This was the first killing I had done that was not done in self-defense, not done on the orders of anyone else, or in service to the Imperium. This was a death that could solely be placed on me as the responsible party. I had technically committed murder and didn't know how to feel about it. Was achieving the goal of stopping the riot worth the price of human life? Could you even put a price on human life? And if you could, why were we doing what we did? When you turn human life into yet another quantifiable resource, have you advanced?? Or have you regressed to a point where what you are fighting for is forgotten, replaced by the simple need and desire to keep fighting?

I shook myself out of these depressing thoughts, but as the dangling man went limp, I got a faint red flash in the corner of my vision. Almost like when I arrived and some entity initiated contact, but deeper red, more insistent. It would have to wait, I was being stared down by several hundred people, fear and anger in their eyes.

"Just what the hell is the meaning of this? How dare you all show this lack of discipline? Someone explain to me exactly what happened here, or I swear by the Imperial Throne, you will all hang!" I yelled as loud as I could as I scanned the face of everyone assembled, looking for any clue as to it being more than a random riot.

A garrison soldier stepped forward and the rank on his pauldron identified him as a Lieutenant Commander. "I cannot stand by and watch men under my command be menaced by foreign troops, even if we all serve the same Emperor!" His voice was strong and his words carefully chosen, and I had to admit that they were in the right to riot if they were truly being menaced by my troops. "Our Lord may have been corrupt, but we were just doing our duty in the Emperor's name, as is expected of us. Why should we be punished for being dutiful?"

Before I could answer, I had a flash of a vision. I saw the situation from the outside. The garrison soldiers, justified and righteous in their anger, mixed with the guardsmen from my ship. Myself, standing under the hung, still warm corpse of one of my men with my first officer and Ogryns standing behind me. It made me realize that my next course of action would determine my reputation in the future, despite anything else I might do. Too many people with too much invested in the situation were watching, and the wrong course of action could doom me when it came to interacting with other people in power.

Returning to the moment, I could only choose one action, If I wanted to have a somewhat decent reputation as a rogue Trader. "If it is as you claim, we will find out soon enough. Everyone here is confined to quarters while an investigation is carried out, one that I will personally lead. Orders were given that this station's crew and garrison were to operate as normal, albeit without your weapons until your loyalty could be confirmed. I now see that my orders have not been carried out properly, or else this situation should not have happened to begin with. But, Lieutenant Commander, mark my words well. If you are lying to me, then 10 years in a slave gang, or even forced conscription into a penal legion will be too good for you. You, and your men, are looking at life in a slave gang in the mines on the planet below if I discover you are lying to me!" As I delivered the final part of my decision, I watched the officer in front of me grow paler, but his eyes were as determined as ever. He wasn't lying, I could tell. But putting the fear of the Emperor in him would do me good in the days to come with unraveling this massive clusterfuck of an interruption. On the plus side, it gave me an excuse to assign my first officer to my more needed, and much more boring, official duty of getting a proper grip on everything going on with the station, the planet below, and the unholy amount of information that needed to be sorted, filed and compiled.

My first officer oversaw the locking away of anyone that had been involved with the riot while I had to take on the questionably enjoyable task of dealing with the enginseer. Walking through the cramped corridors of the ship, I noticed the gazes of the crew members that thought themselves safe from my perceptive observation. It was no longer uncertain fear I saw in their eyes, more of measured respect, and I was certain that my choice to lead an investigation myself had turned things in my favor. This would keep any petty rivalries and nepotism out of the equation when it came to finding the guilty party.

Making my way toward the generators of the ship, I noticed a lot more servitors and a lot less proper crew, the menial and mind-breaking work of the semi-sentient worker drones that once were human, left to the lobotomized remains of the punished wicked. It was difficult to not feel creeped out by them, shells of their former selves fused with robotic technology to get around the ban on Artificial Intelligence. Knowing that this was a possible punishment simply for failing the Imperium or insulting the Mechanicus in a situation where they had the advantage, didn't improve the impression left by the semi-sentient automatons. I shook off the dark thought and continued toward the reactor area of my ship. It was still a bit of a way away, and I thought of the red flash I had experienced when the guardsman died from being hung. I had to know.

Innocence lost. Was it circumstance, purpose, fate, or personal choice? Adapting to the grim dark universe is a hard thing for those born into it. Those that come from the outside rarely reach this point of acceptance. The taking of life, no matter how casual or serious, is a definitive act, the ultimate show of determination. Why did you do what you did? Perhaps no one will ever know, not even yourself. You are a killer. taker of lives. +3 Will.

Once again, what's with the snarky attitude of this system? It is bordering on an almost accusatory tone at this point like the system is actively disapproving of my choices. Well, live long and suck it, System, I shall not be passive-aggressively goaded on to a chosen path! Though I always welcomed a stat increase. for now, I had to deal with the Mechanicus in earnest, which meant minding my words at practices that might be seen as barbaric and inhuman by the Imperium at large, but the Mechanicus saw as the natural way of things. The flesh was weak, and they strived to achieve perfection through the replacement of biological components, with mechanical. Perhaps the buff in Will was just what I needed to get me through this conversation. I just knew that the Enginseer would demand a boon in return for diverting precious attention and resources away from the ship in general. Well, time to play the diplomat with my own crew.