Chapter 251: On the Island, Part Three
Kian laid out the plan. Kilian's face lit up.
"You want me to impersonate a Count and establish control over Garden Isle?"
"Exactly."
"The servants down there have an inexplicable attachment to noble authority, and a noble front gives me the leverage to put them to work. One thing to watch — House Chastener appears to have been destroyed. Don't let the servants figure that out."
Kilian nodded slowly.
"House Chastener. Yes, I know them. The last lord of that house detonated a nerve-toxin charge somewhere in the Spire before he disappeared — significant casualties. The nobility despise that name."
"Which is precisely why I want you wearing it.
You're the new heir — survivor of the collapsed house, nursing a burning grudge against Hive Tenebris, sworn to bring it down. In practical terms: you are a rebel warlord operating out of Garden Isle. That cover keeps the Spire nobility from looking too closely at whatever I'm building over there. Can you make that work?"
Kilian inclined his head.
"Naturally, my lord. The task is straightforward. I'll need a few days to prepare."
Kian told him to take what he needed, then get on a shuttle and start standing up the administrative framework — get the island's agricultural output moving as quickly as possible. The livestock operation couldn't begin until the food base was solid.
He was about to leave when a thought stopped him.
"One more thing."
Kian turned back.
"Am I really that unconvincing? Those servants spotted something was off within about thirty seconds. What exactly gave me away?"
Kilian smiled — the careful, precisely calibrated smile of a man who has spent his career delivering uncomfortable truths to powerful people.
"With respect, my lord — you genuinely do not look like a noble. And it isn't merely appearance. It's comportment."
"Explain."
"My lord, since you acquired this estate, I believe you have slept here fewer than ten nights total.
You have hosted no banquets. You have not once invited a lady of quality to dine.
You are constantly moving. You run your own errands. You involve yourself directly in operational details that lords delegate to stewards without a second thought.
Genuine nobility does not behave this way. A true noble reclines in a climate-controlled room and issues instructions downward. The household executes. The lord enjoys.
There is also the matter of your agricultural arrangements outside the Hive. I understand you are taxing your farmers on a fifty-fifty split."
He paused delicately.
"My lord, this has become something of a jest in Spire social circles. A noble baron sharing crop yields equally with peasant farmers. The accepted understanding is that low-born agricultural workers exist by the grace and sufferance of their betters. The appropriate tithe is ninety percent to the lord. Leave them ten — enough to survive, not enough to think about anything else. Hunger and exhaustion are remarkably effective governance tools."
Kian went very still.
He had thought fifty-fifty was already pushing it. Apparently by Spire standards he was practically handing the keys over.
He had one thought, which he kept to himself: no wonder this entire planet is in open revolt. Anyone who didn't pick up a weapon would be a saint.
"Alright, stop," he said quickly. "Stop right there. You're triggering something deep in my ideological foundations and if you keep going I'm going to do something drastic involving a red flag and a pamphlet.
Go prepare. Now. Please."
Kilian raised one more point before departing.
"My lord — establishing authority on the island is simple enough. But what tax rate shall I implement? Given how cooperative the servants appear to be, I would suggest the full ninety percent tithe. Leave them ten percent of their grain output and they will thank you for it daily."
"Absolutely not. Fifty-fifty, same as always."
"My lord, there is genuinely no need for such generosity. A well-fed peasant is a peasant with leisure to develop opinions. Controlled scarcity—"
"Fifty-fifty."
Kilian sighed with the quiet professionalism of a man who disagreed but knew when to stop arguing.
The Emperor's throne, Kian thought, watching him go. The system of oppression is so thoroughly baked into the institutional structure that it just runs itself. People who've never questioned it defending it like it's basic arithmetic.
And then, because he was fundamentally practical: Also, ninety-ten and I'm genuinely worried some ideologically-motivated daemon will materialize and beat the author with his own manuscript.
Four days later, Kilian stepped off a shuttle onto Garden Isle dressed like the second coming of Imperial civilisation.
Full noble ceremonial dress. Gold trim on every surface. Rings on both hands.
Behind him: eight soldiers in power armour, each suit freshly painted with the House Chastener crest, carrying enormous heraldic banners.
Ahead of him: a red carpet. One kilometre long, running from his landing point to the nearest noble villa, rolled out by advance servants he'd somehow organised before he even arrived.
The man understood pageantry.
Within a week he sent a message back to Kian: Administrative framework established. Population cooperative. Ready to begin operations.
Kian read the message twice and felt genuine admiration.
He moved immediately. The Captain's Devourer transports ran continuous flights — heavy agricultural machinery first, then the converted vehicles: over a hundred military trucks with their cargo beds stripped and replaced with deep-plough rigs or seeding-and-harvest attachments. Load after load, sortie after sortie.
On the island, the transformation was rapid and merciless.
Gardens, lawns, ornamental forests, leisure grounds — all of it was bulldozed. The rich volcanic soil beneath was turned over by machine, seeded, and left to grow. Fields spread from the coastline to the foot of the volcano. The pleasure retreat of the Spire nobility ceased to exist and became an agricultural production base.
When the first planting was underway, Kian authorised the next phase: guana-beast chicks and husbandry equipment, shipped over in bulk. Massive livestock sheds went up across the island. The numbers began compounding.
It wouldn't be long. The operation would hit scale, the canning line would follow, and the Captain would get his hold filled.
Life settled into something almost calm.
Kian found himself, for the first time in a long while, without an immediate crisis demanding his attention. The island was running. The factories were producing. The army was training. He spent a few days not entirely sure what to do with himself.
He should have known better than to relax.
Warhammer 40,000 does not do calm.
The message came from the planetary observatory: a vast Ork scrap-fleet had been detected on an intercept course with Agri-World Secundus-496b.
The entire planet was about to be swallowed by the WAAAGH.
And then — almost as an afterthought, as if the universe wanted to be thorough — a second contact was confirmed.
An Aeldari warship, also closing on Hive Tenebris.
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