Chapter 331: Judgement, Part IV
Kian pulled General Zeppelin off the Governor. By now, the fat man's face was beaten scarlet, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
"Go ahead. Hit me. I've only got three days left. If you need to vent, then use me. Get it all out.
But I beg you — once you've finished, take the people of this world seriously.
The days ahead are going to be unimaginably hard. They'll need a competent leader to guide them through a century of debt repayment.
A hundred years from now, this drained husk of a planet can be reclassified as a cemetery world, receiving the honoured dead of the sector — those important enough to warrant burial in soil.
The surviving five billion can live underground and inside the Hive. They'll all become gravekeepers.
And in that way, our bloodline — our ember — can survive beneath the surface of a world choked with toxic air and poisoned water."
What could anyone say to that? General Zeppelin slumped into his chair, his face the colour of ash.
Kian stood in silence for a long time, expression dark as a storm front.
Eventually, the Governor rose to his feet and bowed to both of them.
"Now that you've had your chance to vent, I'll take my leave.
Count Voss, please give serious thought to joining Inquisitor Trasolh. I know you're an adventurer by nature. Going with him would be an enormous opportunity for your personal growth.
And that 0.05 per cent reduction could save twenty million lives."
He turned and walked out, leaving Kian and General Zeppelin alone with the weight of it.
That evening, the Governor's chamberlain arrived at the Zeppelin Estate Tower and conducted an informal transfer of power.
General Zeppelin sat through the entire process with a face like a clenched fist, moving like a puppet while the transition officials arranged everything around him.
Kian pulled aside one of the technical officers. "Walk me through the century-long repayment process."
The officer gave a respectful bow and laid it out.
"For the first ten years, the planet's primary tithe obligations will be agricultural output and the blood tithe. The blood tithe is set at one hundred ten-thousand-man Astra Militarum infantry regiments per year.
After ten years, the planetary surface will have been desertified by intensive farming and growth accelerants. At that point, the tithe shifts to blood tax and mineral extraction.
Our projected mineral reserves can sustain extraction for approximately sixty years.
After sixty years, large-scale chemical manufacturing plants will be constructed to produce industrial chemicals. By then, our working-age population will be nearly exhausted, and the blood tithe will be discontinued.
Thirty years of chemical production after that, and we'll have satisfied all outstanding tithes and penalties. We'll be free.
Following that, the planet will be reclassified as a cemetery world. The remaining five billion inhabitants will be redesignated as gravekeepers.
Ultimately, the population will decline at a rate of roughly one million per year, drifting slowly toward extinction. That is our fate, my lord."
The officer departed. Kian stood quietly, turning over the details.
Agriculture, minerals, and chemical products were manageable in principle — the factories and the land were quantifiable, the output predictable.
The real nightmare was the blood tithe for the first seventy years.
One hundred Astra Militarum regiments of ten thousand soldiers each. That was one million able-bodied adults shipped off-world every single year.
And the Guard's selection standards were rigorous. You couldn't just grab anyone off the street. If too many candidates washed out and the quota went unfilled, General Zeppelin would be taking a trip to the pyre himself.
To maintain a stable, long-term pipeline, they'd need to conscript roughly ten million people at once and run them through mass military training. Ship out a million per year and replenish continuously — that was the only way to keep the output steady.
A ten-million-man standing army. That was no small number.
Add the rest of the miscellaneous tithes on top of that, and the combined weight was enough to snap the spine of every man on the planet.
As it stood, General Zeppelin — the Governor-to-be — had taken one look at the figures, and his spine was already broken. He was still slumped on the sofa, staring at nothing.
A tithe burden this severe left zero margin for error. One missed instalment, one failed quota, and Zeppelin would be the next one lashed to a burning post.
Kian walked over and placed a hand on his uncle's shoulder.
"Uncle. It's done. Worrying won't change anything now. Do what you can, leave the rest to fate. We'll figure it out as we go."
General Zeppelin ground his teeth.
"Two days from now, that fat bastard burns. I'm going to watch. I'm going to watch him die."
Two days later. Emperor's Square, in the Spire.
The plaza was packed. Nearly every attendee was a noble of standing from the upper Hive, their faces a shifting canvas of anxiety and dread.
Before the towering golden statue of the Emperor, a steel stake had been erected, its base heaped with white phosphorus.
This wasn't the kind of white phosphorus that ignited in an instant flash of several-thousand-degree fury. This was a specially formulated variant — slow-burning, stable, and agonisingly measured.
Which meant the condemned would not be incinerated in a merciful instant. They would be cooked. Slowly. Piece by piece.
The crowd waited. Then the Inquisitor and his retinue appeared, escorting the shackled Planetary Governor to the execution site.
Thousands of eyes locked onto them simultaneously.
They ascended the tall scaffold. Inquisitor Trasolh, resplendent in his golden Ignatus armour, turned to face the assembly. The Rosette on his chest gleamed in the light.
His voice rang out across the square:
"Following investigation by the Holy Ordos, Planetary Governor Reynaldo is found to have defaulted on Imperial tithes for twenty-three years. During his tenure, he permitted rebel forces to operate unchecked, directly causing the delay of tithe collection. This constitutes gross dereliction of duty.
Obligation represents loyalty. Dereliction represents desecration.
I, Inquisitor Trasolh, in the name of the Emperor, sentence Planetary Governor Reynaldo to death by white phosphorus. The sentence is to be carried out immediately."
The Inquisitor's guards hauled on the chains, dragging the Governor toward the stake.
At the foot of the scaffold, Confessor Pious stood in his Ecclesiarchy vestments, a copy of the Imperial Creed cradled in his hands.
He watched the Governor approach with sorrowful eyes and spoke gently.
"My child. Will you make your confession?"
The Governor bent down and pressed his lips to the holy book in Pious's hands.
"Father, I confess. I pray only that my desecrated soul may find its way back to the Golden Throne."
Confessor Pious nodded.
"It will. May your soul return to the Golden Throne."
The Governor's wrists and ankles were bound to the iron stake. The Inquisitor called for execution, and an attendant cast a torch into the mound of white phosphorus.
Kian watched from a position near the scaffold. Beside him stood the newly appointed Planetary Governor Zeppelin, along with the hastily assembled cabinet of the new administration.
He saw the torch touch the specially formulated phosphorus. The compound caught slowly, producing a smokeless, almost invisible flame.
The temperature wasn't extreme, but it rose with merciless consistency.
The Governor's feet were the first to feel it. His expression twisted into something feral.
He clamped down on his teeth, clearly trying not to scream, trying to leave this world with some scrap of dignity.
But the agony of fire consuming living flesh was beyond any will to endure. Within seconds, a ragged, tearing shriek ripped out of him.
The phosphorus flame crept upward, from his soles to his shins.
His skin sizzled and popped. His screams grew louder, more desperate, more inhuman.
It was too much. The nobles in the crowd couldn't bear to watch. One by one, they closed their eyes.
The Governor's cries grew more frantic, more terrible, until finally he broke completely:
"KILL ME!! I BEG YOU, KILL ME!! EMPEROR ABOVE — PLEASE, KILL ME!!!"
As the flames climbed higher, his lower body was already charred beyond recognition. The watching nobles shifted uncomfortably, faces drawn.
One of them shouted: "Enough! Just kill him! Let the poor man go quickly!"
But the Inquisitor and his retinue stood motionless. Not a single one moved.
Rules were rules. The process had to be completed. This was the execution of the Emperor's will.
The Governor's throat had been screamed raw. His pleas faded to hoarse whispers, broken murmurs.
His eyes swept across the crowd below, searching desperately for someone — anyone — who might save him.
Finally, his gaze settled on Kian's face.
Kian's brow was knotted tight. He locked eyes with this man he'd known, in the most literal sense, for the entirety of his time on this world. In those eyes he saw agony pushed past every threshold of human endurance, and behind it, a single desperate prayer: release.
They held each other's gaze for ten long seconds.
Kian swore under his breath.
His hand shot out, snatching the bayonet from the belt of a guard standing beside him. He gripped it by the tip and hurled it with savage force.
Whoosh. Thunk.
Under the stunned gaze of every soul in the square, the bayonet buried itself dead centre in the Governor's forehead.
The Governor's body spasmed once. The screaming stopped. His rigid frame went slack, sagged against the restraints, and was quietly consumed by the flames — a silent, still figure wreathed in fire.
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