At exactly 7:20 AM, the piercing shriek of heavy engines tore through the sky above the Crimson Dawn base.
It was the distinct, high-frequency whine of gunship plasma thrusters.
"They're here!"
Atop the perimeter watchtower, [Have You Been Loyal Today?] abruptly raised his binoculars.
In the hazy gray morning sky, a Thunderhawk gunship was diving at a steep forty-five-degree angle. The blue plasma jets violently expelling from its thrusters tore a highly visible streak through the morning mist.
The gunship bore the stark silver-gray livery of the Iron Hands. The twin-linked heavy bolters underslung on both wings were clearly visible. Even though the massive barrels were angled downward, their sheer, suffocating oppressive weight could be felt from miles away.
"Holy crap, they brought out a gunship this time?"
Tax Bro typed rapidly into the [Regional Channel]. "Yesterday was an Orion, today is a Thunderhawk. What's next? Are they going to park a Gloriana-class battleship directly on our faces tomorrow?"
[Did White Scars Speed Today?]: "This flex just upgraded from a routine managerial inspection to a full-blown warlord tour."
[God-Tier Mechanic]: "A Thunderhawk has a massive transport capacity, but judging by its descent angle and thruster output... there are probably only four or five Astartes inside. They deliberately left plenty of payload clearance."
"What does that mean?"
"It means they're planning on taking people with them."
The channel instantly fell dead silent.
–
At 7:25 AM, the gunship hovered directly over the wasteland, three hundred meters outside the base perimeter.
The heavy landing gear deployed. The massive downdraft kicked up a localized sandstorm, violently blasting outward to form a fifty-meter impact crater of displaced dust.
The assault ramp was lowered.
Karon Santos was the first to step out.
The Fourth Company Captain was once again helmetless, his deeply scarred face fully exposed to the morning light.
He wore his standard Mark IV power armor, but oddly enough, there was a brand new storage pouch clamped directly to the waist belt beneath his left pauldron.
"Cage Lawrence."
Karon's voice boomed through his external vox-casters. It was marginally softer than yesterday. "The Primarch decrees. Come forth and receive his mandate."
He pronounced the last few words with extreme awkwardness, making it glaringly obvious that he had just learned the specific archaic phrasing.
Cogboy, who had been waiting anxiously at the gates, immediately jogged forward. He stopped exactly twenty meters from the gunship and threw up a flawless sign of the Aquila.
"My Lord, I am here."
"Two things."
Karon held up two fingers, his mechanical hand gleaming coldly in the morning sun. "First, the Primarch formally acknowledges the technical data you provided. Though heavily fragmented, it does possess some inherent value."
Cogboy's heart skipped a beat.
"Second."
Karon paused, his piercing gray eyes locking dead onto Cogboy. "Effective today, the Kent Hive is hereby classified as a direct asset of the Iron Hands Legion."
He activated his tactical holographic projector, displaying the spinning 3D model of a massive Hive City.
It was a standardized mining hive. The overall structure was conical, its exterior heavily scarred with colossal mining conduits, refinery smokestacks, and a suffocatingly dense cluster of hab-block windows.
The data tags explicitly listed its metrics: a population of 98,740,000, three massive promethium veins, ten medium-yield veins, and twenty-three minor veins. Its annual output... was followed by such a long string of zeroes that it made Cogboy's mechanical eye spin.
"The Primarch has decided to temporarily entrust the administrative authority of the Kent Mining Hive to the Crimson Dawn Sanctuary."
Karon's words struck Cogboy's heart like a forging hammer. "For the first operational year, eighty percent of all mineral output goes directly to the Legion. You retain twenty percent solely for the Hive's operating expenses. Starting the second year, the revenue split will be adjusted based entirely on your managerial performance."
Cogboy nearly screamed I accept right then and there, but he brutally suppressed the urge. Pushing his acting skills into absolute overdrive, he plastered a deeply hesitant expression across his face.
"My Lord, we... we are just a tiny survivor sanctuary. Managing a Hive City of nearly a hundred million people... this..."
"This is a command, not a negotiation."
Karon cut him off, though his tone carried a remarkably rare trace of patience. "The Primarch specifically recognized your administrative capabilities. If you can successfully manage over twenty thousand souls out in this barren wasteland, managing ninety million in a Hive... is simply a matter of scaling up your operations."
"Furthermore."
The Fourth Company Captain suddenly lowered his voice. The conspiratorial gesture looked bizarrely comical on his heavily scarred face. "Those cigarettes of yours... the Primarch smoked one. He said it was quite good."
Cogboy's eyes lit up instantly.
"But it was too short."
Karon seamlessly mimicked Ferrus's exact tone. "The Primarch's exact words were: 'The current specifications are simply not enough to satisfy.' He wishes to know if you can drastically increase the dosage."
He paused for a heartbeat, hastily adding, "And as a personal suggestion of my own... Could you manufacture an extended variant? Say, roughly three times the standard length?"
Cogboy nearly burst out laughing.
He forcibly held it in, nodding with absolute, grim solemnity. "Captain, the requests made by you and the Primarch... we can absolutely fulfill them! However..."
He shifted his expression into one of deep logistical distress. "We haven't been able to cultivate the raw materials on a massive agricultural scale just yet. Our current stockpile is heavily limited. We can only supply another one hundred cartons of tobacco and one hundred crates of alcohol at this very moment. We will need to wait until our raw material harvests stabilize before we can provide further shipments."
Karon's eyes visibly lit up.
One hundred cartons of tobacco and one hundred crates of alcohol. That was vastly more than he had initially anticipated.
But the Fourth Company Captain maintained his stoic, aloof facade, merely giving a curt nod. "Acceptable."
He clapped Cogboy on the shoulder. This time, he controlled his superhuman strength perfectly, entirely avoiding making the mechanical prosthetic groan in protest. "Very good. Return to your base and make your arrangements. Then, board the gunship with me. We are heading to the City of the Holy Anthem to formally process your legal paperwork. Once that is finalized, you will officially be the lawful administrators of the Kent Hive."
Cogboy bowed repeatedly in gratitude. As he turned to leave, his hand casually slipped into his coat pocket. He smoothly extracted two pre-prepared packs of Cigarettes and pressed them directly into Karon's palm.
"Captain, just a little something to help you relax on the trip."
Karon offered a knowing smile. With lightning-fast Astartes reflexes, his mechanical hand snatched the packs. The cigarettes vanished into the new storage pouch on his waist with such incredibly fluid motion that it was glaringly obvious this wasn't his first time doing this.
"Go quickly and return promptly."
"Yes, my Lord!"
Cogboy jogged back toward the base.
The absolute second he crossed the threshold of the gates, the respectful deference melted from his face entirely, replaced by completely uncontrollable excitement.
The [Regional Channel] had already completely exploded.
"Holy shit! The Kent Mining Hive! Over ninety million people!"
"Didn't we get our very first pot of gold by literally stealing ore from the Aru Industrial Zone?"
"Getting to manage a Hive like that... I wouldn't trade it even if they offered us the Aru Hive outright!"
"+1 to the guy above! Mining Hives are the absolute meta. Where there's ore, there's money. Where there's money, there's gear. And once we have the gear, we can steamroll absolutely everything!"
"Isn't an 80/20 split a little brutal, though? We only get twenty percent for the first year?"
"Be grateful, brother. Without the Iron Hands fully backing us, we wouldn't even be able to touch the front doors of a Hive. Our only other option would be to conquer it by force, and then immediately get exterminated by an Imperial fleet."
"We're currently in the late peak of the Great Crusade era. Even the four Chaos Gods are forced to lie low and scheme quietly in the Warp right now. Has anyone who openly rebelled actually met a good end?"
"Exactly. Even the supreme Ork Overlord of the Ullanor Crusade, Urlakk Urg, in 000.M31, was utterly eradicated."
"Twenty percent?"
"That's more than enough! The sheer astronomical volume of that ore is enough to arm every single one of us to the teeth! If we run short, we'll just go raid whatever is left of the four major factions."
"Agreed. We take the guns, and we take the administrative pens. We are taking it all."
--
Next Goal = 250 Powerstones.
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