Chapter 291: Preparations Before Departure
Getting to the Ork warship was straightforward in principle. Kian had an Aquila-pattern shuttlecraft, which was void-capable. The journey from Secundus-496b to the drifting hulk would take approximately two weeks at the shuttle's maximum sustainable acceleration.
Fuel wasn't the limiting factor. In the vacuum of space, once a vessel reached a working velocity there was nothing to slow it down, so the drive only needed to work during acceleration and deceleration phases. The shuttle could make the trip on its current reserves.
The problem was the crew compartment. Aquila shuttles were not designed for extended deep-space transit. No artificial gravity system. Eating, sleeping, and basic bodily functions in zero-g for two weeks was deeply unpleasant even by the standards of void travel. Kian decided he could tolerate it. The stars were worth two weeks of inconvenience.
He collected a navigational chart from the observatory, loaded the Ork warship's position into the shuttle's guidance system, and went to find the Captain at the Red Lady's bar.
"You want to do what?"
The Captain stared at him.
"I know what you're after. Dreams, freedom, the stars. I understand all of that. But this is not the way to find them. Orks are completely insane. Their ships are built by completely insane beings and they behave accordingly. Nobody outside the Orks themselves can operate Ork technology, and setting foot on that hulk means getting hacked to pieces by screaming greenskins the moment you step through an airlock. My home forge world was raided by Orks. You cannot imagine what they're like."
"You know me well enough to know I'm going regardless."
"You'll die."
"Help me upgrade the shuttle for extended range transit. If you don't help me, I'll find another way. But I'd rather have your help."
The Captain looked at him for a long time, reading his face, finding nothing in it that suggested negotiation was possible. He exhaled.
"You absolute, incorrigible... you were born for the void, you know that? Fine. I'll help you go and get yourself killed.
But first."
He filled a glass of vodka to the rim and slid it across the bar.
"You drink me under the table. That's the price. I need to be unconscious before I agree to this in good conscience."
Half an hour later Kian was carrying the Captain to the Rejuvenat clinic over his shoulder for emergency alcohol treatment.
From the medical cot, the Captain confirmed he would begin the shuttle modifications. Estimated time: ten days minimum.
Kian used the ten days to put his affairs in order.
First: Shiv was promoted to Underhive operations director with full authority over all gang territories. His brief was expansion. The Underhive's manufacturing base could now produce enough small-arms equipment to outfit a full regiment every month. Shiv was to recruit, expand, absorb rival gangs, and capture more reactor nodes. Gangs willing to work under Kian's banner kept their internal autonomy. Those that refused had their leadership removed and their assets absorbed. The one non-negotiable condition was that production could not be disrupted: every territory taken over had to resume full output within days, keeping the supply chain intact and the Hive's upper levels satisfied.
Second: Little Joel was appointed commander of Kian's private regiment. The Countship came with the legal right to maintain a private military force of regimental size. Kian transferred all power-armoured soldiers, armoured vehicles, and tanks to Little Joel's command and tasked him with organising them into a heavy elite formation. The regiment would garrison near the 109th's operational corridor and recruit selectively from capable Underhive civilians and labourers, targeting a strength of three thousand as quickly as possible.
The Governor had granted him a land ceiling of a hundred thousand square kilometres. Kian intended to use the 109th's existing road corridor as the spine of his territorial claim and expand outward from there. His private regiment and militia would hold what was taken.
The resettlement initiative he'd proposed to Confessor Pious was also producing results. Roughly four hundred thousand Hive citizens who could no longer survive inside Tenebris had elected to leave, accepting land grants outside the walls in exchange for their Hive residency. The majority had settled on Kian's claimed territory. His pre-existing administrative framework, the one he'd built to manage the farming corridor, absorbed the influx quickly. Land allocation, housing construction, and tool distribution were completed within days.
If the settlement held for six months to a year, four hundred thousand people would be firmly integrated into his power base. The arithmetic of becoming a serious regional warlord was taking care of itself.
Little Joel would oversee the external territories as a feudal subordinate. Kian wasn't concerned about his administrative ability: the 41st Millennium ran on medieval political structures, and medieval structures provided for advisors, stewards, and support staff. With a competent council around him, even a limited commander could avoid catastrophic errors.
Last: he voxed Cavendish on Garden Isle, still operating under the House Chastener cover identity, and asked for a status report on the ranching operation.
Everything was running well except power. The island had originally been served by a fusion reactor that the departing noble families had stripped and taken with them when they evacuated. Without adequate power generation, the ranching expansion was hitting a hard ceiling. A replacement reactor would double productive capacity immediately.
Kian brought this to the Captain, proposing to trade the canned meat already produced against one of the Great Ivan's reactors.
The Captain heard that the reactor was intended to increase meat production and agreed without hesitation.
Three Devourer-class atmospheric transports descended from orbit to Garden Isle within the week. Engineers unloaded a mid-sized fusion reactor from the cargo bay and installed it at the island's power distribution hub.
Within days, the entire island had full power.
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