Exterminatus

The view is of the Imperial Armada; three massive warfleets of Nova Terran design, their hulls an obsidian black interspersed with thousands of red lights from energy conduits and shielded viewscreens.  Amidst their formations float Covenant, Omnicoder, Chorus, Pilgrim, and Vulpen vessels - each design distinct, yet all massed around a single great object.

Aegis.  The Grand Imperium's monolithic Mobile Star Fortress, one hundred and eight kilometres in diameter, sits like a dormant steel-forged god above the world that has drawn its Sovereign's ire.  A dizzying array of lance batteries, kinetic artillery, massive torpedo tubes, and endless anti-ship and anti-station weapons banks line its extended 'arms' - layered on several levels across the megalith's design.

The view abruptly shifts, the broadcast moving into the Command Bridge of Aegis: Where a Golden Figure dominates all.  Easily near to fifteen feet in height, dwarfing even the towering near-ten foot Golden Knights of the Imperial Gilded Aegis is the Emperor.  He emits a shine, an aura of palpable power that one could easily understand to be mistaken for Divinity.  Radiance hearkens to Him, surrounding Him in a blanket of luminescence that defies worldly comprehension.

"Your Divine Imperial Majesty," a Fefing in the black of Inquisitorial Power Armour says clearly, "the Heretics have sent a shuttle; it is laden with munitions, in defiance of your commands.  What are your orders?"

The Emperor is silent.  His head lifts, and the camera shifts again, focusing on His face.  His eyes are pools of molten gold, blazing with aetheric radiance.  When He speaks, His voice reverberates, as if the air itself can barely contain the force of His syllables.  "All weapons to ready.  Target the Orbital Habitates.  Have the Fleets prepare for full-spectrum full-ordnance bombardment."

The orders are relayed rapidly.

The camera pans to the viewscreen.  The habitats rapidly light up with targeting indicators.

"In My Name, I give the order..." The Emperor said with a sovereign's finality.  "... Exterminatus."

The camera shifts to the fleet and Aegis once more, as the titanic fortress' guns light up.  Enough light to banish even the blackness of space momentarily spews forth from the station, and habitats' shields shatter like ineffectual paper before the raging burn of dark matter lances.  Plasma glass explodes, hulls buckle, and framework vomits flames as the habitats are speared: Obliterated one by one and yet in tandem. Regular ordnance, kinetic artillery, and countless lasers and Lance weapons eviscerate them, and vaporise them, in void-consumed eruptions of power cores and reactive energy.

They begin to fall, losing orbital stability and hurtling towards the world, expelling bodies by the billions as they do - many of the corpses to burn up in the atmosphere, most to freeze and die instantly in the void.  The planet itself is aflame; its continental landmasses burning under the unrelenting bombardment of Imperial guns.  Covenant warships boil the oceans and incinerate the earth, expelling focused beams of plasma energy that sear and condemn the world below.  Nova Terran planetary bombardment cannons hurtle missiles and kinetic ordnance to the world below; shattering landmasses and exposing magma beneath mutilated planetary crust.

The world is burning.

The habitats are falling.

By the Order of the Emperor of the Grand Imperium, nearly one hundred and thirty billion souls are destroyed.

Not a single Imperial casualty is expended to secure the victory.

When the guns fall silent, the world is changed: Where once oceans and continental masses populated its surface, now only magma and blackened crust remain.  Where once habitats filled its orbit, only debris and an endless sea of corpses fills the void.  The Imperial Fleet jettisons a single buoy, before the Armada begins to turn, ostensibly to sail away from the now-lifeless void.

The beacon emits a simple message:

++ HERE LIES THOSE THAT SINNED AGAINST THE DIVINE EMPEROR OF THE GRAND IMPERIUM ++

++ LET THEIR FATE BE A LESSON TO THOSE THAT WOULD TEST THE METTLE OF HIS IMPERIUM ++

++ THE EMPEROR PROTECTS ++