Chapter 202: Mass Production of Hollow Rations
Fifty cargo haulers rolled into the food processing facility. Kian told the manager to begin producing the hollow ration product immediately — he wanted to see a sample.
The manager led him to the central control room, a space lined with large display screens monitoring hundreds of production lines simultaneously.
The manager picked up a vox-hailer and issued his orders.
"All floor workers — report to Unloading Bay One. Transfer all incoming cargo to Production Line Eighty-Six. We're running puffed water-ration output."
The moment the order went out, thousands of workers mobilised — some hauling by hand, others operating forklifts — unloading the haulers and feeding the line.
Kian watched the process through the screens and found himself frowning steadily.
The handling was rough. Maize stalks and wheat went into the crushers unwashed. The potatoes were slightly better — they'd been dug with the vines still attached, so the mud content was high enough to warrant a rinse, but the rinse was a single pass. Then into the crushers they went regardless, soil and all, emerging as dark slurry.
"Is this how you always handle raw materials?" Kian asked. "What about food safety?"
The manager shrugged with practiced indifference.
"My lord — this product is for the lower population. We're heading into a shortage. Keeping them alive is the objective. No one is concerned with palatability at this tier.
That said — rough handling doesn't mean unsafe. In the crusher, all material is broken down at the molecular level into uniform slurry. The integrated sterilisation and detoxification array eliminates every biological and chemical hazard in the process.
The end product won't taste good. But it won't kill anyone."
Kian muttered something under his breath about feed pellets and livestock.
It reminded him of his early days in the Underhive — that synthetic starch paste that came in single-use plasteel cups. He now had a strong suspicion about how that had been produced. His stomach registered a mild protest.
"The starch paste they've been selling all over the lower Hive — is that made the same way?"
"My lord — you're thinking of Grade Three Nutrient Paste. That production line maintains considerably higher standards. Properly clean process.
Our facility runs five production tiers:
Premium Grade — for upper Spire nobility and export to other worlds. Highest quality.
Military Grade — tinned rations, compressed ration bars, high-calorie dense food for Astra Militarum deployment.
Civilian Grade — standard output for the general Hive population. What most people consume daily.
Emergency Ration Grade — what we're producing now. Mixed source material, processed into easily digestible soft food, optimised for mass throughput.
And the final tier — Comfort Paste. Fabricated from soil and whatever else can be found. Terminal famine product. It fills the stomach. That's all it does. The Emperor receives the soul shortly after."
Kian filed all five tiers away and moved on to operational questions.
"How many workers do we have? What's the facility's current financial position? And how does finished product reach ordinary people?"
The manager answered in sequence.
"Four thousand workers, my lord. The facility runs semi-automated lines — workers load material onto conveyors and the machinery handles everything downstream.
At the time of transfer to your ownership, the accounts held just over five hundred thousand Agri-Scrips. We haven't been running at capacity due to the supply disruption, and worker wages are becoming difficult to meet.
For distribution — the parish operates over two hundred district chapels. People pay a few Agri-Scrips for a bowl of Sacred Porridge when they visit. The Confessor subsidised this as an accessible meal option for the lower population.
Beyond the chapels, we supply over three thousand commercial outlets within the parish. Those vendors are contracted exclusively to purchase from this facility. That's the primary sales channel."
The picture kept getting larger.
The Confessor hadn't just handed Kian a food processing facility. He'd handed him a commercial monopoly covering two hundred district chapels and three thousand retail outlets across a two-million-person parish.
Managed correctly, this was an extraordinary market.
Two million people. Two meals a day. If Kian kept his margin to one Agri-Scrip per meal, that was four million daily — one hundred and twenty million per month.
If he decided to be ruthless about it, the extraction potential was essentially unlimited.
This kind of power being held by a single individual — the Imperium of Man is genuinely terrifying.
The thought came and went. The first production run was already finishing.
The material emerging from the crushers was a dark yellow slurry. Downstream machinery pressed it into hollow pellet shapes, then baked them dry and bagged them.
Shortly after, a worker arrived at the control room with a sample bag and handed it to Kian.
Standard synthetic polymer bag — slightly larger than a noodle packet, no printing on the exterior. Plain white.
He tore it open. Inside: a bag of hollow pellets, lightweight and airy.
"Water."
The manager handed him a flask. Kian poured it directly into the bag. The pellets absorbed it immediately, softening and swelling.
He did a brief mental preparation, pinched a small amount between his fingers, and put it in his mouth.
His expression compressed into a tight frown.
Unpleasant. Genuinely unpleasant. The combined flavour of potato, maize, and wheat starch, underlaid with soil, maize stalk fibre, wheat hull powder, potato vine, and processed wild grass — all sterilised, dried, and baked into a single unified taste that was difficult to describe except as wrong.
Three meals a day of this and a person would start losing their grip on sanity.
But.
The texture was soft. The volume after hydration had expanded several times over. The slurry was already forming. A single bag, consumed at the start of a meal, would produce a genuine sense of fullness. The slurry consistency meant easy absorption and minimal digestive waste.
It would keep a person alive. That was the actual requirement.
"What price point do you recommend?" Kian asked.
"My lord — the chapels cannot be charged. Supplying them free of cost is effectively a condition of ownership — the facility exists partly to fund chapel operations, and free food distribution has become an obligation attached to the asset.
That said, two hundred chapels represent a manageable loss against three thousand commercial outlets, which will more than compensate.
I'd suggest a thirds pricing model — one part production cost, one part vendor margin, one part your return.
Given the incoming shortage, anywhere from three to thirty Agri-Scrips per bag is defensible market pricing. The upper end of that range is a matter of your personal inclination."
Thirty Agri-Scrips per bag would reduce the Confessor's goodwill toward Kian to something below zero.
"Three Agri-Scrips per bag. One cost, one vendor, one for us. That's a reasonable structure.
But make these terms clear to every vendor: no stockpiling for price gouging, and no resale outside this parish. Our capacity has limits — we manage our own district and leave others alone.
Each outlet receives allocation based on local population count. Any vendor caught selling above three Agri-Scrips, or moving product out of the parish, will be dealt with personally.
One more thing — payment settlement. Priority goes to metal coin."
[End of Chapter 202]
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