Chapter 563: Mining Ship
With the deal settled, host and guest were both happy.
When the meal was over, the tall fat Governor sent people to repair Kian's ship and install the factory, and asked Kian to take him to the ship to look at the 5,500 slaves.
On the way, Kian asked the Planetary Governor:
"It's been ten years. You still haven't recovered from your population shortage?"
The Governor sighed.
"No. After you cleared out the Genestealers for me last time, my lord Inquisitor, more Genestealers kept turning up here and there.
"There aren't many of them, but once or twice a year they surface, and every time we lose hundreds or thousands of people.
"And since then, our world has been hit by a few minor quakes, pirate raids, and riots.
"On top of that, conditions on our asteroid are just too harsh to attract anyone to settle here for good. So over these ten years, our population has gone down rather than up."
Kian clicked his tongue. There was nothing to be done about it. The asteroid was big, but it had no atmosphere and very low gravity. Everyone lived in man-made tunnels, the air was horribly stale, and nobody ever saw the sun.
If the asteroid weren't sitting at this sector's crossroads, who knew if its tens of millions of people could even be fed?
The Governor said to Kian:
"Our world is neither big nor small, which puts us in a very awkward position.
"If you could find a way to get us an artificial atmosphere system and artificial gravity, I'd give you half of this world's tax revenue."
Kian turned and looked at him. The man looked completely relaxed. Kian couldn't tell if he was joking or serious.
Kian didn't answer. He just made a mental note of it.
Equipment that could give a giant asteroid an atmosphere and artificial gravity was beyond his reach right now. He'd have to see if the chance ever came up.
By then they'd moved over to the pirate ship, and Kian took the Governor straight to see the pirates he'd captured.
The pirates were bound hand and foot and dumped in holding compartments. They watched Kian and the Governor walking down the corridor through the iron bars, baring their teeth.
The Governor patted his chest and put on a frightened face.
"Oh my, these fellows look so savage. Surely we poor, weak, helpless void-dwellers won't be able to control them!"
Kian raised his bolter and blew the brains out of a pirate who was baring his teeth at him. The rest immediately stood at attention and didn't dare bare their teeth again.
Kian smiled at the Governor.
"See how well-behaved they are? They hear a gunshot and they stand right at attention. Where else are you going to find slaves this good?
"And don't worry. I'll have some explosive collars made and put around their necks. You can blow their heads off by remote, so you don't have to worry about rebellion."
The Governor was satisfied and followed Kian down to the lower decks to look at the pirates held elsewhere.
Suddenly, the Governor saw a Chaos eight-pointed star in one of the cells holding pirates.
The Governor's face changed.
"Holy shit, it's Chaos!
"There are Chaos worshippers among these pirates!"
Kian hurried to say:
"No, no, no, they're not Chaos worshippers! That's just a kid's educational doodle!
"These pirates may be mass murderers, rapists, and looters, guilty of every evil under the sun, utterly depraved, but they're good subjects of the Emperor!"
He glared at the pirates behind the iron bars.
"Loyal or not? Loyal or not? Loyal or not?"
But a few of the pirates in the cell with the Chaos star were real hard cases.
"Not loyal!"
Kian pulled off his brass-buckled belt and swung it through the bars.
"I'll show you not loyal, I'll show you not loyal, I'll show you not loyal!!"
He swung the brass-buckled belt so hard it whistled through the air. The belt was strapped to his power armour to hold his ammo pouches, and it was incredibly tough.
On skin, it left huge purple welts at best, and at worst it tore off whole strips of flesh.
The pirates in the cell squealed and howled under Kian's brass-buckled belt.
"Ow, ow, oh Lawdy!!!"
The Imperial aquila on the brass buckle got stamped right into their flesh.
When Kian figured they'd had enough, he put the belt away and asked again:
"Loyal or not? Loyal or not? Loyal or not?"
The bloodied pirates had lost all their bravado. They all knelt on the floor, sobbing.
"Yessir, yessir, oh Lawdy, yessir!!!"
Kian buckled his brass belt back on and grinned at the Governor.
"See? Model citizens, every one of them. Their loyalty goes without saying!"
The Governor shrugged, unbothered.
"Fine. As long as they can work and can breed, I don't care. I'll take them."
Then the two sides began the handover. People, weapons, and canned guana meat were shipped into the Crossroads.
The Crossroads' workers brought huge amounts of equipment and tools onto the pirate ship and started installing the mobile factory.
A month later, the factory was installed and calibrated, and everything was ready.
Kian said goodbye to the Governor, and the two ships pulled out of the shipyard, left the Crossroads behind, and headed into deep space.
But Kian didn't enter the Warp right away to go meet Inquisitor Trasolh.
Inquisitor Trasolh was busy reorganizing Feudal World 481, rebuilding the local government and reassessing its tithe system.
That was expected to take more than four months. As long as Kian reached Feudal World 481 within four months to meet him, it was fine.
So Kian didn't head straight for Feudal World 481. Instead he flew to a set of coordinates the Governor had given him, an asteroid ore belt in deep space.
According to the Governor, this asteroid belt was very rich in precious metals. Since his pirate ship had been converted into a mobile raw-materials plant, why not mine some ore in the asteroid belt?
So Kian flew to the asteroid belt on conventional drives, following the Governor's coordinates, planning to fill every bit of space in the pirate ship with ore first.
The Warp journey to Feudal World 481 would take more than half a month.
For that half month, the pirate ship's furnaces would just be sitting empty, which was a waste.
Better to fill it with ore, so it could keep producing materials on the way.
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