Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The gang leaders' hideouts, escape routes, weapon stashes, and sentry positions were all precisely located.

The operation was a foregone conclusion.

The suicide squads advanced in platoons, using swarm intelligence to calculate the optimal entry route for every corridor and every corner in real time.

Often, before the gang militants can react, a mobile iron wall made of terracotta storm shields appears at the end of the corridor.

The plasma gun barrels protruding from behind the shield wall glowed with a blue light.

The rebels were beaten to a pulp.

Those who ran into the pipes to try and hide found that assassins were already waiting at the other end. The swarm's mind knew the pipe network structure of this hive better than anyone else, because tens of thousands of non-combat assassins had traversed every pipe, every ventilation shaft, and every secret passage over the past few months.

The Iron Spine Alliance, the largest gang in the Third Nest City, has 20,000 armed members and three modified industrial mechs.

Four hours after the cleanup began, Ironspine Alliance leader Broken Bones Gregor led his elite troops to retreat to an abandoned geothermal station deep within the area.

There were three-meter-thick reinforced concrete walls, and enough ammunition and supplies. Greg felt he could last at least three months.

The group that was clearing out the assassins did not attack the geothermal station.

They simply sealed off all the exits and then cut off the water supply.

On the seventh day, Greg opened the gates.

When he came out, he saw a row of assassins in gray uniforms standing in the corridor.

"Kneel down and put your hands behind your head."

Greg knelt down.

He once made more than two thousand people kneel before him, but he never thought that he would have this day.

"What the hell are you?"

Greg stared at the emotionless face before him and roared, "You're not human."

The assassin did not answer.

Three days later, Greg was wheeled into the operating room.

A vibrating bone saw precisely cut open his skull, and a pair of steady, almost mechanical hands sliced ​​off a thumb-sized piece of grayish-white tissue from his frontal lobe.

Suture. Disinfect. Inject nutrient solution.

When Greg woke up, he was no longer Greg.

He is now a cleaning servant, numbered DH-301742.

His eyes were vacant, and his hands gripped an industrial-grade sewage pump. His job was to clean the three-kilometer-long main sewage ditch in District 17, the dirtiest and smelliest corner of the entire Xiachao.

He will work sixteen hours a day, with no days off, no pay, no pain, no emotions, until this body is worn out.

Three weeks later, the nest looked different.

Gangs disappeared. All gangs, without exception.

The three planetary nests cleared out nearly 30 million gang members and organized criminals. Those who resisted were killed on the spot, and those who surrendered had their frontal lobes removed and turned into machine servants.

Thirty million tireless machine servants were deployed to rebuild the infrastructure in the lower nest.

They drive dredging trucks, operate pipe welding equipment, and transport building materials, working around the clock.

The wastewater system recovered 70 percent of its design capacity within two weeks.

The garbage dump was cleaned up layer by layer, and the toxic waste that had accumulated for decades was packed into sealed containers and transported away.

The ventilation ducts were cleared, and the air circulation rate doubled.

Food and clean water are delivered to every corner of the lower nest via newly laid distribution lines.

The distribution range of Xinghuo-1 type rations has been expanded to the entire lower nest area.

For those lower-nest inhabitants who had only ever eaten pipe fungi and rat meat their entire lives, many burst into tears the first time they bit into this salty and meaty food.

A public security system was established simultaneously.

Each block is equipped with a security patrol composed of non-combatant assassins.

Theft, brawls, and any form of violent crime are suppressed with extremely high efficiency.

The punishment standards are simple and brutal: first offense, hard labor; repeat offense, machine servant.

There is no appeals process. There are no lawyers. There is no room for bribery.

Is it cruel? Of course it is.

But for the residents of Xiachao, who are used to going out in fear every day, not knowing whether they will come back alive, this cruelty is exactly what they want.

Even an iron-fisted order is a thousand times better than chaotic disorder.

In District 17, on a main street that has just been cleaned up.

Former gang leader Greg, now a cleaning machine servant DH-301742, is squatting beside a sewer manhole, his hands immersed in black sewage, mechanically cleaning the clogged pipes.

A group of people gathered around to watch.

"Fuck!"

A thin, middle-aged man stared at the servant's face. "That...that's a broken bone? That's Gregor the fuck?"

A gasp went through the crowd.

“It’s him,” another person confirmed. “I’ll never forget that face. Five years ago, he cut off three of my brother’s fingers just because my brother glanced at his woman.”

The crowd began to stir. Someone picked up a piece of broken brick.

"You bastard!"

The gaunt man stepped forward and spat at the servant, "You fucking got what you deserve? Do you know how many people you've killed? Do you even know?"

The machine didn't look up. It continued cleaning the pipes, its arms maintaining the same frequency and amplitude, as if no one was in front of it at all.

"I'm going to kill you!" The thin man grabbed a piece of broken brick and raised his arm high.

"lay down."

The thin man's arm froze in mid-air.

A sheriff walked out from behind the crowd.

He glanced at the thin man: "These servants are registered property of the Empire and are serving labor for past crimes. Damaging Imperial property is a third-degree offense."

"He killed someone! He killed me!"

“He is atoning for his sins,” the sheriff interrupted him, “and the method is decided by the Ministry of Justice, not by you. If you take action, you will become just like him.”

The sheriff's gaze swept across the crowd.

The thin man slowly lowered his hand. The broken brick fell to the ground and shattered in two.

The sheriff and the crowd dispersed somewhat before he continued, "Also, please note that the district will be conducting a selection process for civilized communities next week. The selection criteria have already been posted on the bulletin board: sanitation, cooperation in maintaining public order, and the rate of neighborhood disputes. The top ten communities will receive a 5% increase in their food and drinking water rations."

The crowd listened quietly.

“The one ranked last,” the sheriff paused, “will have five percent deducted.”

An elderly woman cautiously raised her hand: "Um... sir, what does 'civilized community' mean?"

The sheriff glanced at her: "It's just that you don't kill people, don't steal, and don't dump trash in the hallway. If you do that, then you're civilized."

The old woman seemed to think the standard was ridiculously low.

She hesitated for a moment: "Just...that's it?"

"that's it."

The crowd exchanged bewildered glances. One young man couldn't help but mutter, "Isn't that what a normal person would do..."

“Yes.” The sheriff said and then turned and left.

Not far away, on the roof of an old warehouse that had been cleaned up, four figures stood side by side, looking down at the scene below.

Captain Katarina crossed her arms over her chest, her expression complex.

She has been traveling with Lawson to three planets for almost two months now.

She had seen Lawson blow a high-ranking official's head off in the Governor's Palace hall, seen him raise greenskins in the Underground Nest for food, seen him unhesitatingly turn all five million prisoners into machine servants, and seen him descend from the sky and control those silver flywheels to slice the traitors on the entire street into pieces.

She thought she knew Lawson well enough.

But what about this civilized community selection?

Katarina received thirty years of training at the monastery.

She has followed the church on expeditions to seven planets and participated in eleven large-scale purification operations.

She had seen all the ways the Empire treated its Lower Nest inhabitants: neglect, repression, conscription, and massacre.

But she never saw a ruler attempt to clean up the lower nest.

“This is really not right,”

Sera spoke up, "No sub-nest in the Empire is governed like this. What was that sheriff talking about... a civilized community selection? Sister, have you ever heard of such a thing?"

“No,” Katarina replied briefly.

Sena tilted her head: "From a doctrinal point of view, is what Lord Lawson is doing closer to heresy or closer to a miracle?"

Katarina did not answer immediately.

She had thought about this question countless times in her mind.

The doctrine states that the emperor's subjects only need to obey and work, and that simply living is a gift from the emperor.

The doctrine states that the chaos of descending from the nest is a manifestation of the fallen nature of mortals, and that only faith and discipline can bring redemption.

The doctrine also states that any attempt to alter the sacred order of the empire is a blasphemy against the Emperor's will.

But the doctrine doesn't say that giving meat to the common people who have descended from the nest is blasphemous. Nor does it say that providing clean water to the common people is a sin. And it certainly doesn't say that turning murderers into cleaners to sweep the streets they once ravaged is heresy.

Katarina is a devout fighting nun, but she has brains.

“I don’t know what this is,”

Katarina finally said, “But I know that I have traveled with the Church through seven hive worlds, and every hive is the same: filthy, chaotic, smelly, and full of dead people. In those places, the inhabitants of the hives are not even considered livestock in the eyes of the rulers. The rulers only care whether they can produce labor and pay taxes on time. As for whether the water they drink is poisonous or whether they have enough to live on, no one cares.”

She paused for a moment: "But it's different here."