A sense of nervous energy hung over Slawkenberg. The festivities of the Uprising had ended, and people had returned to work, albeit with a fire in their heart from the knowledge that their toil no longer served the hated Giorbas.
Already the changes were obvious. The dungeons had been opened, thousands of families reunited and others given closure. Food that had been sent to the wasteful banquets enjoyed by the aristocracy and off-world visitors was instead used to feed the locals, and the gilded palaces built for the so-called worthies had been converted into dormitories to house those left homeless by the renovation projects unfolding across the shanty towns that had been hidden from the tourists' eyes.
Instead of one day off every fifteen days, which they had been forced to spend prostrating themselves in the churches of the Ecclesiarchy listening to corrupt priests telling them only in abject servitude did their lives have any values, the workers were now given one day free every eight days, to spend however they saw fit. Even the days of work had become almost enjoyable without the constant threat of the overseers, replaced by leaders chosen among the workers themselves who answered to the new bureaucracy.
With such radical changes achieved in so short a time, many wondered what new wonders the future would bring. There were those who spoke of bringing the Liberation to the rest of the Imperium, freeing their brethren who yet suffered the Imperium's oppression under the light of distant suns. Others believed they must look to their own defense first, or sought the knowledge that had been kept from them by their overlords : the secrets of the machine, and of the divine.
With the churches and cathedrals of the Imperial Creed laid low when their tyrant-priests had been dragged out and butchered like the vile despots they were, the people of Slawkenberg found themselves free to explore all manner of spiritual paths where before they had been forced to thread a singular, merciless and cruel one supposed to deliver them to the foot of the Golden Throne. Preachers bearing the emblem of the Liberation Council spoke to ever-growing crowds, telling them of the Powers who opposed the Imperium's tyranny, rewarding those who proved their worth to them with blessings.
No two souls envisioned Slawkenberg's future exactly the same. Yet all agreed on one thing : with Cain the Liberator guiding them, only greatness awaited.
Three months after the Uprising, to my own amazement, I was still alive.
Nobody had tried to kill me since that business at the old stronghold in the mountains. My plan to have Jurgen unleash his powers on the defenders while they didn't know we were there had died a miserable death when one of the idiots accompanying me had slipped, starting a minor landslide that had drawn all eyes (and guns) on us. Faced with half a hundred men, I had been certain I was about to die : Jurgen was powerful, but he couldn't protect me from that many weapons at once.
But then the Cardinal had opened his mouth, and inadvertently saved my miserable hide.
Drogiro Giorba had been just as insane as the rest of his inbred line, screeching about the tortures he would subject every single rebel who had dared rise up to. The details to which he had gone had made it clear that he had plenty of experience in such things, which I was reasonably certain wasn't a subject matter that was taught in the Ecclesiarchy's seminars. Sure, old Chaplain Desones back at the Schola had known a thing or two about fiery sermons and punishing wayward pupils (not that I had ever been subjected to the latter, being careful enough to avoid being caught for my own misdeeds), but even the worst threats of that old martinet came well short of what Drogiro had promised to inflict on every man, woman and child of Slawkenberg.
The Cardinal's unhinged rant had made it very easy to convince the rest of the defenders that giving their lives for that man wasn't how any of them wanted to die : judging by the expressions on their faces, most of them had probably been thinking about shooting the bastard themselves. Outraged at their 'betrayal', Drogiro had charged me, frothing at the mouth and holding a power mace he clearly had no idea how to use. I hadn't even needed Jurgen's help : one sidestep, a downward blow, and I'd taken his head.
I had spent the time since then running around like a headless chicken, trying to keep things from falling apart and the entire planet from succumbing to anarchy. I had moved all across the planet, meeting with local leaders, deflecting their fawning praise by modestly claiming that we were all parts of the Glorious Liberation, and pretending I gave a frak about their problems. Now I was back in the capital, which in my absence and without my permission had been renamed Cainopolis, with my attempts to change it to something else being interpreted as modesty and completely ignored.
I might have been more annoyed about that if not for the fact that it was already far, far too late for me to pretend I hadn't been part of this whole mess when the Imperium inevitably came calling.
With Slawkenberg more or less united under the Liberation Council (there were probably still a handful of minor settlements that were keeping their heads down and waiting for the Imperial boot to come down on this whole thing, quite reasonably I thought), now was the time for the rebellion to actually govern the bloody planet. And since I was still the frakking Liberator, that meant I had to participate as well, or risk looking like I didn't care for the masses who had slaughtered the previous regime.
It said a lot that I couldn't quite find it in myself to believe that a gaggle of heretics and myself would do a worse job of it than the previous Governor.
Which was how I had ended up here, sitting at the head of a table with the other members of the Liberation Council in attendance. We were meeting in one of the many, many unused rooms of the Governor's palace, which I had picked at random earlier today and ordered prepared for this purpose (slightly paranoid of me, but I preferred not to give the others a chance to set anything up).
A banner hung over us, depicting that ridiculous emblem I'd proposed for the rebellion during a meeting before the Uprising. It had been intended as a joke to relax the mood, as the various representatives had seemed on the verge of coming to blows due to aesthetic differences (something I wouldn't have had any problems with it had I not been at risk of being caught in the cross-fire), but they had all taken it seriously and decided to go with it. Now, the stupid design I'd based on a toy used by the Schola's youngest pupils was everywhere on the planet, from armbands worn by soldiers to official documents being circulated by the new bureaucracy.
Jurgen, ever the dutiful aide, had prepared refreshments, and I gratefully took a sip of my recaf as everyone settled in, trying to mask my nerves. I was armed, of course, with my trusty chainsword and the bolt pistol I had taken from the Governor during what could be called our duel only in the loosest sense of the term. The bolter wasn't my preferred ranged weapon : despite the stereotypical image of every Commissar carrying one for intimidation, I found a lasgun much more versatile and convenient to carry, as well as easier to get ammo for.
Unfortunately, the blasted thing was part of my image as the Liberator, due to that vid of me shooting its erstwhile owner in the face with it having been watched by what seemed like every person on the planet, including those who were probably far too young for such a gruesome spectacle. And since that image was the only thing keeping my skin intact, I had to play the part and carry it with me, though the aquilae and other Imperial sigils had been removed.
Well, I told myself, time to get this started.
Of all the places where they could have had this meeting, General Mahlone, highest-ranking officer of the United Slawkenberg Army (as the PDF had been renamed in the aftermath of the Uprising) still couldn't believe that the Liberator had ordered for it to take place here.
The vast chamber, at the center of which stood the comparatively small table around which they were sat, had been filled with paintings, sculptures, and other artworks, all made to honor the so-called glory of the Giorba lineage. Every Governor of Slawkenberg that had hailed from that hateful bloodline had been represented there. But now, absolutely no trace of the room's previous purpose remained. The artworks (the quality of which had been varying, at least on a technical level – Mahlone couldn't blame the artists, many of whom had been working under threat of severe bodily harm, for the ugliness of their subjects) had been removed, either burned, broken apart or melted down. He knew of at least one truly ugly golden statue that had been turned into commemorative coins handed to the soldiers who had taken part in the Uprising, for instance.
Instead, a banner depicting the symbol of the Uprising hung in place of the vanished artworks. As expected of something designed by the Liberator, it was both elegant and deceptively simple. A golden circle stood on a green backdrop the color of Slawkenberg's great fields, cut in four parts by an internal cross with a smaller disc at the center. Each of the four sub-section was of a different color : red, purple, blue and iron-grey, respectively representing the USA, the Handmaidens, Chief Clerk Jafar's cabal of administrators, and last but certainly not least, the tech-priests whose actions had prevented the orbital bombardment of Slawkenberg.
That particular flag, of course, was far more elaborate than most, having probably been sewn specifically for this meeting. Each of the four sections of the central disc were adorned with the sigil of the group it represented : the armored fist of the USA, the strange, wavy sigil of Lady Emeli, the cogwheel-skull of the Mechanicus, and the one-eyed crescent moon of Jafar's followers of Change.
It was a symbol of the alliance that had allowed the Liberation Council to succeed at overthrowing the Giorbas, something none of the groups could have achieved alone. A reminder of the strength of unity, and of the vital role Cain had played in forging this alliance. By making them meet here, in this room, under this symbol, Cain was reminding them all of what they had already accomplished together, as well as of the fact that in the end, he had been the one to strike down the last of the Giorba Governors, ending the dubious legacy that had once inhabited this room.
Yet the Liberator hadn't sat himself on some sort of throne, as would have been his right. Instead, they were all seated on the same chairs, which Mahlone was fairly certain had been taken from the servants' quarters rather than the Governor's own – a reminder that they were ultimately servants of Slawkenberg's people, or an effort to distance them from what had come before, the General didn't know. The round table between them bore a hololithic projector displaying a slowly rotating image of their world, with runes marking various points of interest.
"Thank you all for coming," the Liberator said, putting down his mug. The fact that, despite all his power, he still drank common recaf, was yet another sign of his dedication to his role as leader of Slawkenberg.
His aide stood behind him, another silent, unobtrusive reminder of the power at the Liberator's command. Mahlone hadn't seen the man fight with his own eyes during the Uprising, but he'd read the reports of the troops who had, and there was no question Ferik Jurgen was the most individually powerful man (the Handmaidens made the qualification important) on Slawkenberg. The fact that someone like him, who could easily have become a warlord in his own right, chose instead to follow Cain, was another testament to the Liberator's greatness.
"We have all been very busy in the last few weeks," Cain continued, "but now that things have somewhat calmed down, it is time for us to discuss where we will go from here. There is no question that many challenges and perils lurk in Slawkenberg's future, but if we work together, I am confident we can face them all head-on."
All the people in the room stood slightly straighter at this, Mahlone included.
"Let's start with the obvious. General Mahlone, how fares the army ?"
"Morale is higher than it has ever been," replied Mahlone. "The men are very happy to finally be free of the Giorbas, and exultant in our victory."
"I am glad to hear it," the Liberator nodded with a small smile. "I expect we'll need to rely on them to protect what we're building on this world before long. The Imperium will respond to our actions eventually, and we cannot exactly expect them to be understanding."
Mahlone felt his choler rising at the mention of the hated Imperium, but checked it with an effort of will. It wouldn't do for him to fail to keep his cool, not when Cain appeared completely calm, despite having more reasons to despise the Imperium than anybody else in the room. After all, not only had the Imperium taken his parents with its endless wars of conquest and oppression, it had also tried to mould him into another mindless instrument of cruelty and control by turning him into a Commissar.
"Now that the Uprising's aftermath has been handled, we can begin to increase the size of the USA at once," promised Mahlone. "We should be able to double our effective size within months -"
"There will be no general mobilization," Cain cut in. "Apart from replacements for the brave soldiers lost in the Uprising, we'll maintain our pre-Liberation's numbers."
"What ?! But I assure you, Lord Liberator, the people are eager to join !" Mahlone protested, standing up before he realized he was moving. "There would be no need for conscription, merely calling for volunteers would be more than enough !"
"Our people may be willing to lay low their lives in defense of Slawkenberg," replied Cain calmly, "but I'd much rather they live to contribute to and enjoy its prosperity. Besides, our current industrial base cannot properly arm and equip a larger army at the moment – even maintaining our current one's equipment will be a challenge. Furthermore, trying to force the Imperium back by sheer numbers is a fool's hope : we can hardly match the resources at their disposal, and we can never match their willingness to throw lives away in pursuit of victory. We cannot beat the Imperium in quantity, thus we should instead focus on quality."
"I … I see," said Mahlone, blinking as understanding dawned. The Liberator was correct, of course, but then he knew more of the wider Imperium than the rest of the Council, being its only member who hadn't spent his entire life on Slawkenberg. "You're right. Do you have any suggestions as to how we might do this ?"
Looks like he bought it, I thought to myself as Mahlone sat down, accepting my arguments. Which really showed how low the standards for high officers had been in the Slawkenberg PDF.
Despite its renaming, the USA's structure had mostly remained the same once the Giorba loyalists had been purged and replaced. In most militaries, this would have resulted in a period of chaos as the newly promoted officers struggled to get a grip on their new responsibilities, but given the quality (or rather lack thereof) of the men who had been shot by their own troopers when the Uprising had begun, the overall effectiveness of Slawkenberg's militia had actually gone up. After all, the vast majority of those who'd been executed for treason against the people had been political appointees from the nobility, more interested in the supposed prestige of their posts and the associated pay check than in actually doing their job.
They were also led by a bunch of Khorne cultists who, after stewing over their inability to stop the Giorbas' exactions for generations before finally succeeding in wiping the entire family out, now believed that any problem could be resolved by the application of violence in sufficient quantities.
If I failed to keep up appearances, the USA's leadership would be the first ones to come for my head. Fortunately, my misadventures during the Uprising and afterwards had led them to believe I was some kind of heroic champion of the people, who cared for the common troopers and was always ready to fight on the front line alongside or even ahead of them. Such a reputation was a double-edged sword, but as anyone who has ever fought with a chainsword will tell you, it's all a matter of how you use it – as I had just done to convince Mahlone to go along with my suggestion to keep the current size of the Liberation Army.
Because the truth was, I didn't expect the focus on enhancing our existing troops to make much of a difference. From my handful of deployments alongside the Guard during my brief stint as a commissar cadet (before I'd managed to annoy my instructors into making me graduate so that I'd be out of their ever-thinning hair), the Astra Militarum had far better equipment and training than the planetary militias of all but a handful of hyper-militarized worlds. And Slawkenberg, while it would have been a very nice place to live if not for the heretic cults running the place, was most definitely not one of those.
But the less bodies we had to throw into the meat grinder when the fist of Imperial retribution inevitably arrived, the easier Slawkenberg's reclamation by the Imperium would be. Sabotaging the rebellion like this might seem counter-intuitive, since not only would the rest of the Council turn on me in a heartbeat if they realized what I was doing, but I was most likely going to be a priority target for elimination. However, the simple truth was that Slawkenberg had a snowball's chance in hell of successfully resisting the Imperium in the long run. With that being the case, a shorter campaign would hopefully result in less civilian casualties and less severe consequences for the population as a whole. More importantly, it would make faking my death and disappearing on one of the reclamation fleet's transports easier, allowing me to discreetly change my identity and put both my participation in this heresy and my forceful recruitment into the Commissariat behind me.
I'd still have to worry about Emeli, of course, but by now I was certain she couldn't read my thoughts from the Warp anymore than she'd been able to when we had been in the same room (or much closer than that, as had been the case many times). I should be able to string her along long enough to find a good exorcist or three, and surely sabotaging this rebellion from the inside would buy me some kudos from the Emperor. I refused to believe that He had approved of the Giorbas : He had simply much more important things occupying His time.
The reason why I was doing this was that, after several weeks of anxiety and mind-numbing terror as I considered my situation, I'd figured out that my best shot at avoiding eternal damnation was to subtly sabotage Slawkenberg's ability to defend itself. That way, when the Imperium's retribution inevitably came, the reconquest of the planet would go as smoothly and painlessly as possible. Of course, I myself fully intended to find a way off-world before the Commissariat (or worse, the Inquisition) could get their hands on me. I would fake my death, sneak aboard one of the Warp-capable vessels bringing the Emperor's legions to crush the rebellion, and quietly disappear.
And I needed to do that in a way subtle enough that the lunatics around the table wouldn't realize what I was doing, and neither would Emeli. Having her infatuated with me was already complicated enough; I didn't want to imagine what her anger would look like.
I really, really wanted to pray to the Emperor for assistance, but somehow I had a feeling it would be a bad idea at the moment. So instead, I soldiered on and continued to play along :
"Of course I do," I answered Mahlone's question. "First, we'll need to make some changes to the training of the soldiers : you and the others did your best, but with the Giorbas' lackeys running things the old PDF was kept from reaching its true potential. Apart from that, we'll also need to improve the equipment, and for that," I turned to face another member of the Liberation Council, "we'll rely on you and your order, Magos Tesilon-Kappa."
Tesilon-Kappa looked like a typical tech-priest, being more machine than flesh, with four green eye-lenses glowing within the shadows of their hood. They were the leader of the members of the Adeptus Mechanicus who had joined the rebellion. A world like Slawkenberg didn't need many agents of the Clockwork Emperor, of course, but there were still several hundreds of them in total, mostly maintaining the turbines resting at the bottom of the planet's oceans.
Combined with a planetary energy grid, the vast underwater structures provided Slawkenberg with all the power it could ever need, without the need to spoil the tourists' view from their rooms with so crude a sight as a promethium burning station. Given how little industry the planet possessed, a not inconsiderable portion of that power supply was either wasted, or spent on frivolous uses like heating saunas in mountainous retreats for the visiting elite of other worlds.
The whole thing was, I was given to understand, a marvel of engineering, thousands of years old and regarded as the holiest site of the Mechanicus on Slawkenberg. Tesilon-Kappa had been far from being the highest-ranking tech-priest on the planet, but they had been the one who did all the actual work maintaining the generators while their superiors spent all their time 'meditating' or engaged in endless debates.
According to Krystabel's intelligence reports, one too many day spent listening to their superiors discussing obscure, meaningless points of doctrine had finally been too much and they had snapped, killing them all before throwing their metaphorical hat in with the rebellion. Fortunately, from what I'd been able to tell, they only really wanted to work on their machines. The fact that the cogboys were the sanest of the bunch wasn't exactly great news, but better than the alternative, I supposed, especially since they were the ones in control of the small flotilla of spacecrafts orbiting Slawkenberg.
"What do you require from us, Liberator ?" asked Tesilon-Kappa in their artificial voice.
"First, is everything alright with the generators ?" I asked.
"Yes, Liberator. The additional resources you sent our way after the Uprising have let us deal with the ongoing maintenance concerns that the Giorbas had allowed to fester."
"Good." If the generators went down, my odds of escaping the ensuing riots weren't something I'd bet a single credit on, let alone my life. "Can you spare some of your people to help build new factories ? The tourism industry that 'employed' many of our citizens is and will remain dead, and Slawkenberg needs to stand on its own feet to survive the tribulations to come."
"That is … possible," they buzzed in reply. "From your previous words, I assume these factories would be geared to build weapons for the armed forces ?"
"Exactly," I confirmed.
"Our databanks do not contain the sacred patterns for building lasguns or other weapons," Tesilon-Kappa pointed out. "The armaments of the Planetary Defense Force were imported from off-world."
That wasn't surprising. The Administratum didn't look kindly on worlds developing the ability to produce their own armaments, seeing it as a sign of rebellious ambitions on the part of the Governor. Instead, Imperial worlds who wanted to be able to defend themselves were forced to rely on imports from approved forge-worlds.
"Well, we have a lot of them at hand. How quickly could you learn to make one if we let you take a bunch of them apart ?"
"It shouldn't take long," they replied eventually, after several seconds of silent cogitation. "We have gained some practice at reverse-engineering components from our years spent maintaining the generators that should apply in this scenario. And we can begin the factories' construction while the research is ongoing to save time."
"Good, good. Lasguns alone won't be enough, though. We have seized several pieces of carapace armor, right ?" I asked Mahlone, who nodded in response.
"Yes," he confirmed. "Giorba, may his soul burn in the fires of Khorne's forges, bought them from off-world for the use of his minions, to give them the image of invincibility, at the request of that bastard Arken. Not that it saved him from you, of course."
"Yes, well, we could still make use of them," I said, waving off his mention of my confrontation with that butcher, no doubt strengthening my reputation as a modest hero in his eyes in the process, before turning back to the magos. "If we are to have a real chance of holding our ground when the Imperium comes calling, we need you to figure out a way to build these for all of our forces, as well as replacements for the tanks and artillery the USA is using."
One by one, the eye-lenses blinked. "It will be quite the challenge, but I'm confident we'll rise to the occasion."
"I know you will. One last thing, however." I braced myself – this was going to be tricky, but the day I couldn't socially outmanoeuvre a tech-priest I would swear off drinking amasec. "The factories will not make use of servitors. You'll have to design them to use fully human workers."
"Why ?" asked Tesilon-Kappa in their utterly emotionless voice.
"Because," I explained, "Slawkenberg doesn't have a criminal population to speak of anymore, now that we've emptied the prisons of people thrown in there for no reason by the Giorbas." There were still some people left in jail after we'd freed the innocents and those the cults thought they could make use of, but not many. "Also, I doubt you have the facilities to create more available in the quantities required to reach the industrial output we're going to need."
"That is true," they confirmed. "And we cannot ask for them from elsewhere." Something whirred and clicked under their robes. "I failed to consider how much recent events have affected the paradigms by which I operate. My gratitude for illuminating me, Liberator."
"You're welcome," I said with an inner sigh of relief. "But because the factories will be crewed by unaugmented workers, they'll need proper safety precautions. I don't want the wheels of industry to be literally oiled with the blood of our people, do you understand ?"
I was, of course, no tech-priest. But I had glimpsed the vast assembly lines of the Manufactoria of the Imperium, where tanks were assembled by the dozens every day, ready to be thrown into combat. By hiding behind a facade of concern for the workers, I could make sure our armament production remained as low as possible. As for allowing the cogboys to improvise, well, what little knowledge I had of the Machine-Cult's ways were clear that this was a very bad idea, and that trying to do anything new instead of faithfully replicating the designs of our illustrious forebears was futile. Given that these designs had been wrought back when Him on Earth had walked among us, that made sense to me.
The Liberator was serious, Tesilon-Kappa realized with a pulse of something that, in an unaugmented human, might have been called shock.
What the Liberator was suggesting were all things they had tried to implement themselves, reforms that their calculations showed would help dramatically increase the productivity of the work being done on the generators. They had always been rejected by their superiors, of course, but now those obstructive rust piles weren't there anymore.
Servitors could be useful, but in Tesilon-Kappa's opinion, trained workers in protective gear would be much more so. It was the Mechanicus' obsession with secrecy, or perhaps the tool for control that the ever-present reminders of the punishment for defiance that servitors represented, that kept them in use everywhere across the Imperium.
Oh, their superiors would've argued that servitors were needed to avoid using the dreaded Silicum Animae, the Abominable Intelligence, but that was plainly untrue if you just thought about it for a minute. For instance, what purpose was there for someone to be turned into a servitor whose mono-functionality was to carry boxes from one end of a room to another ? A human worker could do it just as well with the proper tools, and could do many other things as well. Perhaps it was Tesilon-Kappa's time spent working their gears off keeping the blessed generators running coloring their perceptions, but they doubted it.
Tesilon-Kappa had enjoyed working on the generators, even though things had become more and more difficult as the Governor cut into their funding and their superiors wasted everyone's time with theological 'debates' that really only amounted to forcing their underlings listen to them rant, all while there was urgent work to do keeping the generators running. The majesty of the ancient engines was awe-inspiring, but they hadn't been blind to the fact that, if things went on as they had been going, then these wonders would eventually break down, regardless of their efforts.
Which was why they had joined the rebellion, though they couldn't deny having felt a great deal of personal satisfaction when they had shut down their superiors' augmetics through the liberal application of kinetic energy. Such had been the treatment to which they had been subjected than the vast majority of their colleagues had joined them, and they hadn't regretted it, as Cain had kept the promises he had made when the alliance had been forged and provided them with the additional resources and manpower they'd been reduced to begging the Giorbas for.
And now this. An opportunity to build something new, and to learn knowledge not because it was handed over to them but by piecing it together through their own efforts. And a chance to implement the safety measures they had suggested time and time again after losing servitors and tech-priests to accidents, only to be told that their deaths were their fault due to their lack of piety offending the machine-spirit.
"I understand," they replied to the Liberator. "I shall begin to work on it at once. General Mahlone, I will be troubling you to provide us with the samples we need."
"Oh, of course," replied the General. "I look forward to working with you, Magos."
With Tesilon-Kappa on board, and Mahlone very happy at the prospect of new toys with which he could arm his forces to kill more Imperials, I turned my attention to the remaining two members of the Liberation Council.
The two of them could hardly have looked more different. Chief Clerk Jafar still wore the robes of an Administratum clerk, with the Imperial sigils replaced by those of the God of Change he served. Meanwhile, Krystabel was clad in something that wouldn't have looked out of place at a fancy gala for the spire-born back home, though I knew it was still more conservative than the Handmaidens' preferred clothing when in private.
"Looking forward," I said, "we also need to consider matters of faith. By now, the removal of the Ecclesiarchy's influence on Slawkenberg has been completed."
Which, while true, was something of an understatement. On the whole, the people of Slawkenberg had remarkably little piety, which I guessed was understandable. The Giorbas and their cronies had controlled the Ecclesiarchy for generations, and every priest on the planet had constantly reminded the oppressed masses that their living conditions were the will of the God-Emperor, that protesting them was an act of heresy, and that asking for their children not to be taken to the torture chambers of the depraved nobility was deserving of damnation.
As a result, the vast majority of the Adeptus Ministorum's representatives on Slawkenberg had been strung up by the mob during the Uprising, with only a small handful escaping death – typically those who had been at the very bottom of the hierarchy, spending their time running soup kitchens and teaching kids how to read in the most disfavoured parts of the planet. As the Uprising occurred, they had quite wisely taken off their robes and vanished amidst their congregations.
Meanwhile, the many, many cathedrals that had been built using the toil of Slawkenberg's oppressed masses hadn't been burned down, mostly because I had pointed out they were located right in the middle of the city and we could hardly trust the impassioned mob not to accidentally set the whole thing alight. They had, however, been quite thoroughly ransacked, the riches hoarded by the prelates either ending up in the Liberation Council's coffers or spread among the most enthusiastic looters. Afterwards, a process of controlled demolitions had been started – I was told the collapses were attended by thousands of the local citizenry, cheering every time yet another symbol of their suffering went down.
Yet while the people of Slawkenberg had been all too happy to rise up against the Imperium and the Ecclesiarchy, that didn't mean they were all suddenly Chaos-worshipping loons. If I let these maniacs before me start sacrificing people on the altar, we'd have another revolt on our hands before you could say 'I told you so'. Worse, if they used heavy-handed methods such as sorcery or daemon-summoning to forcibly convert millions to the worship of the Ruinous Powers, then all my hopes of the Imperial reconquest being as painless as possible would go out the window.
"We won't replace the Imperial Creed by another faith," I declared, and immediately their eyes widened in shock. "I intend for Slawkenberg to allow its citizens to practice whatever religion they choose, so long as they follow the law."
"Some of them will still worship the Corpse-Emperor," frowned Jafar.
"And as long as they don't preach sedition, we will let them do so," I told him, forcing my voice to remain firm. "We fought for freedom, and I will not have us become that which we fought again. Besides, if you cannot convince the people of Slawkenberg to embrace the Powers without forcing them to," I said using the preferred term for the Dark Gods, "then that is on you."
I had seen Emeli in her new daemonic form, and I had no desire to let more daemons walk on Slawkenberg, which would inevitably happen if I let these lunatics start dragging people to the altar for sacrifice. In the best case scenario, all that would achieve was sow resentment and consolidate the opposition to the Liberation Council by the loyalists; in the worst case, which had once been described to me by Emeli (although she saw it as something to aspire to, proving just how bonkers she was) the entire planet would be dragged into the Warp and we would all become food for the daemons of Chaos.
Krystabel and Jafar glanced at one another. The cults they represented were the ones I was most worried about – the Khornates were unlikely to get much proselytizing done while they were busy training, and I was going to make damn sure their training regimen would keep them too exhausted to even think about it. They were also the ones with access to sorcery, which could quickly get out of hands if I let them act freely.
On the other hand, if I'd straight up forbidden them from trying to turn Slawkenberg's citizens to Chaos, they would've asked why, and I couldn't exactly tell them the real reason. But now, I had made it look like a contest between their two Dark Gods. Which of Tzeentch and Slaanesh would best be able to draw converts ? The Prince of Excess and the Architect of Fate weren't as opposed as, said, the latter was with the cults of Nurgle we'd purged before the Uprising, but they were still rivals.
"I … very well. If that is your will, then it shall be done," Jafar conceded. "I'll draft a proclamation and send it to you for confirmation."
Krystabel smiled in awe as the genius of the Liberator's plan unfolded in her mind. At the moment, the people of Slawkenberg rightly despised the Ecclesiarchy, and by association the Imperial Creed. Yet this wasn't because they saw the truth of the False Emperor's lies, but because of the generations of oppression they associated with it.
If the Liberation Council tried to replace the Imperial Creed with their own, the first, instinctual reaction of the people would be wariness. And that was assuming they could even agree on a singular creed : for all that they were united under the Liberator, the three Chaos factions represented in the Council were far from united on theological matters. She knew that, no matter what Mahlone or Jafar might think, Cain was closest to the Handmaidens through his bond to Lady Emeli, but he wasn't fully dedicated to the Lord of Pleasure yet, instead choosing to balance things out so that he could continue to lead the entire Liberation Council.
The Liberator couldn't take side, but Krystabel knew he was setting things up to benefit the Handmaidens the most. Even before the Uprising, they had led several secondary cults of Slaanesh across Slawkenberg. Their members weren't the equals of the Handmaidens in the eyes of the Dark Prince, but they would provide a foothold from which to expand their influence. And there was no question as to whether the newly liberated people of Slawkenberg would heed the promises of Slaanesh over those of Tzeentch.
After all, the Changer of Ways was represented by Jafar, while the Dark Prince was represented by Krystabel and her sisters. Really, it would be no contest at all. And she had just the idea to tip the scales even further.
"I would like to suggest something," she said, drawing attention to herself. As always, she felt a twinge of disappointment as Cain's eyes remained fixed on her face instead of wandering on her body – the Liberator's dedication to Lady Emeli was admirable, but it did hurt her pride. "While the construction of a true temple to the Dark Powers would be problematic at the moment, couldn't we erect a monument to those who fell to the Giorbas' evil ?"
I considered Krystabel's suggestion. Everyone else at the table seemed to be in favor of it, and I couldn't think of any reason to reject it.
"A monument to the price of freedom and to those who paid it would certainly not go amiss," I said, keeping my true reasons off my face by masking them with a sober expression of mourning. "Do you have a location in mind ?"
"I believe the Grand Cathedral was taken down last week, wasn't it, Chief Clerk ?" she asked Jafar, who nodded in confirmation. "Then the site would be perfect. Does everyone agree ?"
Everyone did, and the notion was carried. Truth be told, I didn't much care about it. The project would probably take years, if it ever finished. By then the Imperium would most likely already have come and taken back the planet, and I would be off-world and hiding somewhere neither Emeli nor the Inquisition could ever find me.
At least the work would would keep Krystabel busy. And there wouldn't be any cherubs when it was finished either. The wretched things had always creeped me out. I mean, really, who had thought it was a good idea to grow infant-looking monstrosities in vats and graft cybernetics and wings onto them ? What was wrong with servo-skulls ? Even the stuff I'd seen during the rituals Emeli had dragged me too during our association hadn't been half as disturbing.
Sitting at his desk in his private office aboard his ship, the Pyroclast Retribution, and looking at the latest set of messages his astropath had transcribed for him, Inquisitor Fyodor Karamazov silently nodded, allowing himself the tiniest surge of satisfaction. His faithful Acolytes had finished bringing the weak-willed fools who had opposed his will to justice, removing the obstacles who stood in the way of doing the Emperor's will. According to the report of their investigation, they had uncovered no less than a full score of heretics hiding within the Sector's military command, weakening the very fabric of the Imperium from within with their cowardice and incompetence.
When Karamazov had used his Inquisitorial authority to order the muster of a task force able to reclaim Slawkenberg from the dark forces that had claimed it, these men had dared to refuse him his due. Cloaking their treason in polite formulas, they had argued that Slawkenberg's heresy was of less importance than the other perils faced by the Sector.
They had claimed that the threat of the Orks, the Taus and the Tyranids were more pressing concerns. Fools. Karamazov knew the truth. The Enemy Without was nothing compared to the Enemy Within, which sapped the strength of the Imperium and spread its rot to all it touched. The Orks were mindless brutes, the Taus naive fools, and the Tyranids had been broken by the noble Ultramarines centuries before. The true threat to the Imperium laid with the Archenemy, as had been demonstrably proven by the Horus Heresy ten thousand years ago. Everything else was a minor distraction at best, fit for lesser men to deal with while those with the strength of will and faith to confront the true foe kept the Imperium pure, as demanded His vision.
That lesser men didn't understand this as clearly as Karamazov was something he had grown used to over the years, and could tolerate. But refusing to follow his orders ? Now that was deserving of a death sentence all on its own. His word was that of the Emperor, and to be obeyed without question. It was that same refusal to follow one's appointed place in the Emperor's plan that had led to Slawkenberg's corruption.
For centuries, the House of Giorba had kept Slawkenberg on the straight and narrow, preventing it from falling into corruption despite the decadence of its climate. Peace bred weakness as surely as idleness bred heresy, and Slawkenberg had been peaceful for too long : only the firm guiding hand of the God-Emperor's appointed Governors could prevent such a world from being tainted. Yet in the end, the Giorbas had failed in their assigned task. They would've to explain their failure to the Master of Mankind : Karamazov himself would deal with the mess they had left behind.
By the time he was done with Slawkenberg, the planet would stand as an example reminding all other worlds in the Segmentum of the price of defying the God-Emperor's will. No stone would be left unturned, no sinner would be left unpunished. If he had to turn the entire planet to cinders so that no heretic remained, then he would do so without hesitation.
His duty to the God-Emperor demanded no less of him.
AN : Phew. This chapter was difficult to write, I think mostly because I tried juggling too many characters and POV. It was an interesting experiment, and I hope you enjoyed it, but I think I will use less POVs in the next chapters. This one kinda needed it, though, since it's mostly setup for the future.
And yes, the flag of the rebellion is basically a Simon toy on a green background. There is a hastily-drawn image of it on SpaceBattles if you want to check it out (keep in mind that I did it in five minutes using MSPaint, and I am most definitely not trained in graphics).
Thanks to Ridiculously Average Guy on SpaceBattles for suggesting the United Slawkenberg Army for the new name of the PDF. I spent entirely too long searching for a three-letters acronym that fit, all because of a joke in one of the original Cain books, with Amberley's footnotes explaining a series of them, before saying that Cain once told her the Guard was fond of them, even calling them TLA (Three Letters Acronyms) and she wasn't sure he was joking or not. There were a lot of other suggestions when I asked for advice, all of them really funny, but I couldn't find it in myself to justify using them. Well, perhaps in the future.
As you might have guessed, Cain is making an awful lot of assumptions in this chapter. Take a guess as to whether things will go like he thinks they will, or like the other members of the Liberation Council will.
I look forward to your thoughts on this chapter and the story in general. Also, if you have suggestions for reading material to use as inspiration for this story, I would appreciate them : I refuse to believe I'm the first to think of "main character is stuck as leader of an evil organization and has to pretend to be on top of things" comedic story, but I can't find many apart from those I mentioned in the last chapter. Surely someone in the space of fanfictions has come up with it at some point before I did, right ?
Also, not a single person noticed that the last chapter was exactly 6666 words long. I'm disappointed in you all.
Zahariel out.