Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Several boarding slaves whose collars had been cut off rushed toward the exit in the chaos.

The restlessness of the Chaos Potion still lingered on them, and short chain blades were welded onto their arms.

The Bixi warriors wasted no time trying to persuade them to surrender. Two stun grenades were fired, followed by bursts of explosive gun fire. Three corpses fell before the exit, and the boarding slaves became docile.

The crowd quieted down even faster.

When Ellen was helped up by two civilians, his left leg could barely touch the ground. He had a gash on his forehead, and blood was obscuring one eye. But his first instinct was still to find his toolbox.

"Lia".

Leah rushed over, carrying her tool bag.

“Father, Tom is still here, Tom is still here.”

Ellen knelt on the ground, trembling as she opened her toolkit.

Tom was curled up inside, his lips blue. As soon as he saw his father, he buried his head in Ellen's chest, his little body trembling like a broken valve.

Ellen wanted to hug him tightly, but she was afraid that the blood on her hands would hurt the child, so she could only stiffly open her arms.

Mira was still walking steadily when the Bixie warriors brought her back from the labor team on the right.

Seeing that the family was alive, she hurried over and hugged Tom, Leah, and Ellen together.

No one in the family spoke; those who have truly survived a disaster often don't have many words to say.

Mira just kept touching her children's heads to make sure they were still there, to make sure they weren't missing anything, and to make sure her husband, despite being bleeding, could still see her.

The loudspeaker above started playing again.

This time, the voice came from the prison.

"All Imperial residents of Albitl-III".

"Governor Melchior has been apprehended."

"The Governor's Guard, the Orbital Defense Network, the Food Bureau, the Water Purification Workers' Union, the Corpse Workers' Union, the Promethium Workers' Union, and the Starport Authority have all been taken over by the Bi'an Warband under the Seal Master's command."

"The Red Pirates landing force is currently clearing them out."

"This planet will immediately return to the embrace of the Empire."

The resounding voice of the judge's execution continued to echo throughout the capital.

"The Seal Bearer makes a promise to all the loyal residents of Albitl-III."

"Food production will recover."

"Drinking water will be restored."

"Order will be restored."

"All middle and lower-class residents, return to your residences according to your neighborhood number. Do not storm the warehouses, do not block the army, and do not lynch the Governor's Office personnel."

"The evidence will be accepted."

"The criminals will be tried."

"The Empire will recount every life."

"Go home now and wait for further instructions."

When the last sentence reached Ellen's ears, he looked up and around.

He saw the angels of death arranging the civil defense prisoners to kneel, saw the bodies of the Red Pirates being dragged aside, and saw medics emerge from the rear of the drop pod to begin stopping the bleeding of civilians who had been shot.

A dark iron-colored giant walked up to them and glanced down at Ellen's injured leg.

"Name."

Ellen straightened up instinctively.

"Ellen Worth. Pipeline maintenance worker in Section 23, Middle Floor."

A line of data flashed through the goggles in front of the Bixie warrior.

"Family members?"

"Wife Mira. Daughter Leah. Son Tom."

"Return to your residence. Your wound will be treated by a medical team. You are not allowed to leave District 23. You are not allowed to participate in any acts of revenge."

Mira helped him up.

The family followed the flow of people back home.

No one cheered loudly on the street.

No one dared to celebrate immediately.

People who have just been sorted, priced, and prepared for shipment like livestock will find it difficult to regain trust in the world within half an hour.

But as they walked, they began to notice some details.

The riot control turret has been shut down.

No one was collecting family license plates at the plaza exit.

Civil defense team members knelt on the ground, allowing the Bixie warriors to take photos and assign them numbers.

Several thugs who tried to steal the corpse and its valuables were knocked down with a single blow and tied up.

An old woman knelt by the roadside and cried. The Bixi warriors did not drive her away. Instead, they had a medical machine stop, gave her a sedative, and then put her on a wounded vehicle.

This is unlike the order of the Governor's Palace.

It was a kind of efficiency he had never seen or heard of before.

When they returned to District 23, Ellen and her family stopped at the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

Before they left, they felt that the cramped dwelling was like a cage.

Now, when I see that flashing light tube again, I hesitate to step inside.

Ellen went into the room, sat on the edge of the bed, and finally couldn't hold on any longer. She lowered her head, covered her face, and her shoulders trembled uncontrollably.

Mira sat down next to him, placed Tom between the two of them, and then pulled Leah over.

The four of them squeezed onto that old bed.

The room was very narrow.

There was a musty smell in the air.

The sound of hushed crying came from next door through the wall.

But the whole family is still here.

For the middle-level inhabitants of Albitl-3, this was already an excessively extravagant victory.

In places unseen by them, the true takeover of the planet has only just begun.

Thirteen minutes after the Ninth Distribution Plaza incident ended, the first batch of static force fields lit up simultaneously at the Nest Tower Spire, the Orbital Defense Network, the Water Purification Station, the Grain Bureau Main Warehouse, the Corpse Guild Incineration Tower, and the Promethium Guild Fuel Valve Area.

The deep blue light curtain unfolded layer by layer.

The cornerstone sequence is emerging in batches.

Each cornerstone unit carries a data interface, emergency tools, communication nodes, and basic weaponry.

The three million cornerstone sequence landed on the Albiter-3 rocket in six batches.

The first to take over the defense.

The orbital gun emplacements, starport bridge, low-orbit monitoring array, air defense silos, and main gun turrets of the hive city were all renumbered.

The original governor's officers were asked to leave the control room. Those who were willing to cooperate were to undergo isolation and investigation, while those who refused were dragged out of the command room by Bi'an warriors.

The second batch of workers to take over the water purification industry will work together.

When they entered the bottom of the water purification tower, they found that only one of the three main filtration tanks was still functioning properly. For the past two years, the governor's office had prioritized supplying clean water to the top of the tower and the upper nest cities, while the rations for the middle layer were repeatedly cut, and the lower areas were almost entirely sustained by polluted and smuggled water.

The cornerstone sequence did not hold a large-scale meeting.

They shut down six luxury water lines in the upscale districts, redirecting the pressure back to the main central pipeline. Fourteen union officials who had been involved in the illegal sale of water tickets were apprehended on the spot.

The third group to take over the corpses' union.

The Corpse Guild was never popular in the hive, yet it was indispensable. Corpses needed to be cremated, ashes filtered, some biomass recycled, and plagues isolated. After the governor's office went out of control, the Corpse Guild became the center of the black market for organs, corpse oil fuel, and covert executions.

When the Cornerstone Sequence opened the union ledgers, they discovered 37 secret incineration batches involving survivors of the Ministry of Justice, food protesters, missing workers, and children left behind.

The ledger was copied three times.

One copy is for Duan Yu.

A copy was sent into the swarm's thinking.

A document was sealed on the city's intranet, intended for use as material in a public trial.

The fourth batch of people took over the Promethium Workers Union.

This department is the most dangerous.

The promethium pipeline connects the hive city's heating system, industrial lines, military fuel depots, and starport resupply. Defiant elements at the governor's mansion attempted to detonate fuel valve area number twenty-seven, using a fire to cover the nobles' evacuation.

Their plan was barely begun when the cornerstone sequence caught them off guard by the valve flow anomaly.

As two Bixi warriors led their team into the control room, the union vice president was still promising his subordinates that the Red Pirates would take them away.

The vice president was pinned to the control panel, his hands locked.

The detonation sequence was interrupted.

The fifth batch of people took over the grain bureau.

There is indeed grain in the main grain depot of the grain bureau.

The governor's office kept saying that the granaries were empty, and that the hunger of the middle-class residents came from the cut-off of shipping routes, from the rioters who fled to the enemy camp, and from the necessary sacrifices made after the empire lost contact with them.

The foundational sequence can open the underground warehouse, which contains thirty-three temperature-controlled grain silos, storing large quantities of synthetic starch, canned protein, military compressed rations, algae gel, and premium nutritional paste. This is enough to sustain a middle-class resident for four months, based on the minimum survival standard.

The head of the grain bureau attempted to explain.

"This is a strategic reserve. The Governor's Office has ordered that it not be used without authorization. If it is all distributed, the planet will fall into an even greater famine in the future."

The cornerstone sequence records his original words.