Chapter 198: The Threat
Inside Parson's cabin, Kian found himself face to face with the Marshal's official — the same man as last time.
The moment the official saw Kian walk through the door, his expression curdled.
"Sir. Regarding the PDF artillery strike on our territory — do you have anything to say for yourself?"
The fortress cannons had fired three incendiary shells to purge Equine Reach. Those weren't ordinary munitions. The chemical compound inside could set the earth itself alight — three enormous glass craters had been burned into rebel-held land, and the resulting firestorms had consumed vast tracts of agricultural crops.
Equine Reach had taken a direct hit and been reduced to a single fused glass basin.
The plague was gone. The cornfields weren't. Enormous economic damage, and worse — the three craters sat in the Marshal's territory like three ugly scars. Three very large slaps across the face.
The psychological impact inside the rebel movement had been severe. The Marshal's city sat well within range of the Hive's fortress cannons. One direct hit on an urban centre — the casualties didn't bear thinking about.
Kian knew exactly why the man was furious. He pulled up a chair and sat down with a pleasant expression.
"Calm down. We offered to send a team in to purify Equine Reach ourselves, and your side refused — remember? You declined. That means you accepted the consequences."
Bang. The official's palm hit the table.
"You arrogant Hive rat! Do you have any idea how much grain that fire destroyed?! How much land those chemical agents contaminated?!"
Kian smiled pleasantly. "Already this upset? We're barely getting started.
Let me share some good news with you."
He laid out the situation — the Hive's synthetic starch facility destroyed, the incoming food shortage, his proposal to establish a grain exchange.
"That's the proposal. Fertiliser for food. What do you think?"
The official heard that Kian needed something, and his face immediately rearranged itself into contempt.
"Ha. The Hive is going to starve, is it? Excellent news. Every last Hive rat dying of hunger — that would suit me perfectly. You want grain from us? Dream on.
You miserable Hive vermin can rot. Wait for your starvation."
Kian's smile didn't move. Only something in his eyes shifted — a quiet amusement.
"My friend. I'm not entirely sure what the Hive did to you personally — wronged your mother, killed your father, something of that nature — but the bias is impressive.
That said, I knew you wouldn't agree. Which is why I'm not here to negotiate. I'm here to issue a threat. Specifically, a threat directed at the Marshal you represent."
The official laughed despite himself.
"A threat! Wonderful! Let's hear it then. And if it's not sufficiently convincing, you might consider not leaving."
Kian tilted his chair back, put his boots on the table, and pointed the soles directly at the official with not a shred of courtesy.
"Your movement controls the surface. Impressive. You have numbers, you have territory — but you can't take the Hive.
And for whatever reason, the Planetary Governor has shown very little interest in crushing you. The PDF hasn't pushed hard. That's made your leadership complacent. Complacent enough to extend your control into the operational range of Hive Tenebris's fortress cannons."
He held the official's eyes.
"Do you understand what those cannons are built for? They're designed to engage targets in low planetary orbit. Their effective range exceeds two hundred kilometres."
The contempt on the official's face was retreating. Something quieter was replacing it.
"What exactly are you saying?"
Kian produced a lho-stick, lit it, took a long draw.
"I'm saying that in open-field engagements, at distance, the PDF probably can't match you. Numbers, terrain familiarity, local support — your advantages are real.
But inside two hundred kilometres of this Hive? Inside fortress cannon range? Any PDF general who decides to push the button turns every settlement you have into a crater field."
The official's expression had gone stone-cold serious.
"Is that so. Our intelligence indicates your fortress cannon ammunition reserves are critically low. Otherwise we wouldn't have advanced this close."
Kian shook his head slowly, almost sympathetically.
"Rumour. This world has never faced an orbital invasion. Those cannons have never been fired at high frequency. Where exactly does ammunition shortage come in?
My read on the situation is this — the planetary leadership looked at the board, concluded you'd already consolidated too much surface territory to take back cheaply, and that you couldn't crack the Hive regardless. They projected a long stalemate.
So they stopped shelling. Why expend shells on a stalemate when you might need them for a hostile fleet arrival? Conserve ammunition. And conserve your population — because if an Imperial tithe fleet arrives and the civil war has killed half the planet's labour force, nobody's paying the Emperor's due."
The official went quiet.
The rebel leadership wasn't ignorant — many of the early organisers had been PDF officers and minor Spire nobles. They'd analysed the Hive's restraint themselves, and reached conclusions not far from what Kian was describing. Contain the losses. Don't blow out the candle before the tax collector arrives.
Kian's words had found the exact crack in the official's composure.
"So," the official said carefully. "Your threat is?"
Kian ground out the lho-stick.
"Cooperate. Supply the Hive with a stable, large-scale food shipment before the shortage becomes critical.
Or — within two hundred kilometres of this Hive, the cannons open up. Every city you hold within range gets levelled."
"You wouldn't dare—"
The official's voice cracked on the last word. Fear had got in past the anger.
Kian's laugh was quiet and cold.
"Why wouldn't I dare? The ceasefire holds on two conditions. First — you lack the siege capability to breach the Hive. Second — you have enough population and territorial depth that retaking the surface would cost more than it's worth.
The planetary leadership is playing a long game. Both sides keeping the board intact means there's something left to hand over when the tithe fleet arrives.
But if the Hive starves — do you think that calculation holds?
Yes, the PDF can't beat your forces in open country. But can you hold ground inside fortress cannon range once they stop caring about the cost? Once PDF soldiers are watching their own families starve, and the only food is sitting in your granaries?
You want to see what a man fights like when his children are dying? Think carefully."
[End of Chapter 198]
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