Inside the cockpit, two pilots were executing their night patrol mission out of sheer boredom.
"Sector 7, no anomalies."
The pilot, a man whose left side of his face was replaced by metallic cybernetics, was known as Razor. His mechanical left eye flickered with a faint red light, constantly scanning the terrain below. "Radiation levels normal. Life signs... Wait."
His voice stopped.
The red light of his mechanical eye began flashing rapidly.
"Detecting large-scale clustered life signs... Coordinates: the former Pre-Processing Workshop 7 and surrounding mine areas. Calculating numbers...What the hell?"
The co-pilot, 'Kid,' a young man with only a mechanical right arm, leaned over to look at the screen. "A mutated beast migration? Haven't heard of any beast tides recently."
"Not beasts." Razor's voice came through a synthesizer, carrying a heavy, metallic gravity. "The signal pattern... is human, but the numbers are wrong."
The thermal imaging and biosignal scans on the screen gradually sharpened.
It was clear that within the abandoned Workshop 7 and the several square kilometers of the surrounding mine, a dense swarm of life sign blips was scattered.
Some of these blips were gathered inside the workshop, some were scattered throughout the mine, some were moving, and some were stationary.
"These numbers..." Razor drew a sharp breath. "At least thirty or forty people? Wait, it's still increasing... five, six hundred? No, more..."
The scanner data kept refreshing, finally locking onto an unbelievable figure.
"Preliminary estimate: four thousand to five thousand individuals." Razor's voice carried a rare trace of uncertainty. "The signals are being disrupted by the mine's terrain and scrap metal, so there might be a margin of error, but the order of magnitude is correct."
"Five thousand people?! In the Redblaze Wasteland?!" Kid's voice pitched up. "That's impossible! Workshop 7 has been abandoned for ten years. There are no settlements within fifty kilometers! Did these people pop out of a Warp rift or something?!"
"I don't know." Razor had already opened the comms channel, his tone grim. "But this isn't something we can handle. We must report this immediately. Go straight to the Consortium's emergency line."
"Understood."
The comms channel switched, activating a highly encrypted frequency.
"Consortium Security Command Center, this is Aru Group Aerial Patrol 7. Large-scale anomalous personnel gathering detected in the Sector 7 Pre-Processing Workshop area of the Redblaze Wasteland. Estimated numbers: four thousand to five thousand. Repeat: four thousand to five thousand. Signal signatures are human. Behavioral patterns anomalous. Widely dispersed. Requesting further instructions."
The channel remained dead silent for a full ten seconds.
Then, a voice—calm to the point of being cold-blooded—came through: "Received, Patrol 7."
"Maintain surveillance. Do not alert them. Data has been uploaded to the Consortium Security Council. By the way, are you certain your scanner hasn't been blessed by a heretical deity?"
Razor and Kid exchanged a glance, both seeing a glint of dark humor in each other's eyes.
On Aurelian IV, joking about instruments being affected by heretical gods was standard humor, though no one actually dared to laugh at it.
"The scanner underwent a purification ritual at the Mechanicus temple just last week, my lord." Razor replied deadpan. "Unless the Machine God is in a bad mood today."
"Excellent. Continue surveillance. Our people will be there shortly."
The communication cut off.
Razor adjusted their altitude, circling higher above the clouds to minimize the chances of detection.
"Kid, max magnification on the optical lens. I want to see exactly what kind of people these are."
The high-precision camera pierced through the dim night, transmitting the feed back to the cockpit screen.
The blurry images gradually cleared up.
A massive number of silhouettes could be seen scattered across the platform outside the abandoned workshop and throughout the mine.
They were wearing uniform, coarse jumpsuits. Some were holding tools, some appeared to be resting, and others were hauling things around.
The sheer number of them far exceeded any normal scavenger group or refugee camp.
"These people..." Kid stared at the screen, his mechanical fingers unconsciously tapping the console. "They don't look like rioters or rebels. They're too... quiet and they don't have any obvious armaments."
"But five thousand people suddenly appearing under the Consortium's nose is the biggest armament of all," Razor said coldly. "Whoever they are, and whatever they want, they must be dealt with in the name of the Consortium."
Both men understood the weight of that statement.
On Aurelian IV, the four major factions fought openly and covertly, but the Ximans Trade Consortium always kept the most lucrative piece of the pie: pharmaceuticals, medical care, retail, and all industries related to civil livelihood.
This gave them a glamorous public image and a secure seat on the Planetary Council, perfectly covering their dark, illicit dealings behind the scenes—human trafficking, organ trade, illegal genetic experiments, and contraband drug manufacturing.
At least three of the Consortium's higher-ups served on Aurelian IV's Supreme Council, with one even holding the position of Vice-Chairman.
This meant that whenever the Consortium wanted to do something, laws and rules often flexibly stepped aside.
And now, five thousand unidentified individuals had appeared on the outskirts of the Consortium's core industrial zone.
"Which side do you think it is?" Kid asked. "The Atens Knight House looking to start trouble? Psykers testing a new trick? Or did those Cogboys from the Mechanicus go crazy again?"
"The Mechanicus doesn't have that much manpower to waste. The Knight Houses prefer fighting face-to-face. Psykers..." Razor paused. "They excel at pulling strings from the shadows, not dragging out five thousand cannon fodder."
He shook his head. "No matter who it is, massing this many people on the Consortium's turf... is a declaration of war and what the Consortium is best at is turning people who declare war into raw materials."
He said it casually, but both of them knew exactly what it meant.
The Aru Pharmaceutical Group was nominally an independent medical enterprise, but in reality, it was one of the Consortium's sharpest weapons.
The human experiments, genetic sample collection, and organ harvesting conducted in the shadows required massive amounts of raw materials.
And in the Consortium's classification system, unidentified crowds were usually labeled as 'recyclable resources.'
–
Aru City Central District, Aru Headquarters Building.
A blend of Gothic spires and Baroque reliefs, featuring massive stained-glass windows depicting the heroic epic of the group's founder, Aru, settling Aurelian IV.
Heavily fictionalized, of course.
On the ninth underground level sat the Ximans Trade Consortium's Aru Security Council Branch.
It was three times the size of the Aru Group's command center. Sixteen holographic screens hung on the walls, displaying surveillance feeds from all key areas in and around Aru City.
Twelve operators sat at the consoles, their uniforms embroidered with the Consortium's emblem: intertwined golden scales and gears.
In the center of the room, three men wearing deep purple robes and silver-trimmed cloaks stood before the main screen.
They were the standing council members of the Ximans Trade Consortium's Aru Security Council Branch, answering directly to the Consortium's highest authority.
At this moment, the main screen was displaying the live feed and data stream sent back by Patrol 7. The densely packed life-sign blips made even these seasoned council members frown.
"Four to five thousand people..." the oldest council member, a bald man with several surgical scars across his face, muttered. "Appearing silently in the Redblaze Wasteland? What is our intelligence department doing?!"
"We have already checked, Lord Council Member." A younger council member beside him pulled up the data. "There are no records of any large-scale population movement in the past three months. No transport logs, no supply lines, not even a single eyewitness report. These people look like they just popped out of thin air."
"A Warp jump?" another council member guessed. He was a tall, thin man whose right eye had been replaced by a complex mechanical ocular implant. "Or some kind of accident? Or did a psyker pull off a massive summoning?"
"If it were a psychic summoning, the psy-monitors would have reacted." The bald council member shook his head. "But over the past 24 hours, the psychic readings in the Redblaze Wasteland have been completely normal—aside from slightly elevated background noise, but that's likely from the waste radiation in the mines."
He paused, coming to a decision. "Regardless of how these people got here, they are currently on our territory and the Consortium does not allow any unauthorized forces to gather in its backyard."
"The Aru Group has already dispatched a rapid response unit," the young council member reported. "Two battalions, 200 elites. However, they reported that the target numbers far exceed estimates and have requested reinforcements."
"Give them reinforcements," the bald council member ordered without hesitation. "Deploy the 3rd and 4th Battalions, and mobilize five squadrons from the 'Cleaners' division."
"Tell the frontline commanders: Try to capture them alive."