Drip, drip…
In the gloomy cell, scarlet blood dripped from messy hair into a brass basin, and the unique metallic smell of human blood permeated the small space. A man, hanging upside down from a rack, was now breathing his last, his breaths shallow.
"Leader, we've interrogated them. The information obtained is consistent with what we got from the others who were interrogated separately," Nekser said, summarizing all the interrogation records and handing them to Swain.
Swain took the interrogation records and began to read them. From the several different confessions, this detective team was hired by Agamemnus of the High Tower. Their main tasks were twofold: first, to recover two sets of power-feedback master-crafted power armor stolen from Akarin, the Tower Lord, at these mining camps; and second, to investigate the families behind Swain and Corax to provide Agamemnus with future reference intelligence.
As for the intelligence concerning Kiavahr, it was uninspired, the same old reports on the production efficiency of the foundries. Of course, it was also possible that this detective team's intelligence level was too low to access higher-level information.
"Interrogation really needs an Inquisitor or a Tech-Priest; it doesn't have to be so bloody," Swain mused, flipping through the intelligence reports. The splatters of blood indicated that Shadow Assassin still used the traditional 'great memory recovery technique' for interrogation.
He was curious to learn about the methods of those fanatical Inquisitors in later generations and the 'oilers' who directly converted people into Servitors. It had been so long, and he still hadn't seen one of the defining features of the cruel Warhammer universe: Servitors.
The Mechanicum would remove the brain lobes of clones or criminals and replace parts of their bodies with various mechanical prosthetics. Tech-Priests would then perform mind-wipes, reprogramming, and cognitive enhancements to serve specific, basic functions. Servitors had no consciousness, only the most basic instincts. Their brains were programmed to perform only the tasks for which they were designed.
There were many types of Servitors, each designed for a specific task. Typical Servitors included Tech-Servitors who operated and serviced machines, Omni-Servitors who acted as holographic recorders, and Computor-Servitors who functioned as human computers with immense computational power. This was "artificial intelligence" in the true sense of the word.
Lycaeus was a mining world, and physical labor like mining naturally didn't require high-end tools like Servitors. The cost of modifying a single Servitor was more than a miner could earn in a lifetime of digging. What Swain remembered most vividly about this was the grandfather in the story, whose granddaughter, made into a Servitor, was slated for disposal after an accident. The grandfather then went to the Administratum to request donating his own organs to save his granddaughter. This was absolutely messed up.
As for the Cherubim? Swain felt it was better not to see them; they were quite unsettling!
"If these things can be avoided, let them be avoided. There's already enough suffering now. We'll do our best," Swain thought of the tragic fate of humanity in the distant 40th Millennium. Although humanity was currently scattered across the galaxy, facing threats from various Xenos, at least there was still the Emperor leading 20 Primarchs and countless Imperial armies to reclaim lost territories, bringing new hope to the human race.
As for the Imperium of Man in 40K, Swain could only say, "It's beyond saving; just wait for death."
Putting aside those complex thoughts, Swain once again learned about the changes on Lycaeus. The biggest change was that the High Tower's newly opened second dome city was nearing completion. Soon, many unfortunate souls on Kiavahr would become new miners.
For the miners of the second dome, the High Tower adopted a completely different management style. All miners were uniformly confined to cells, unlike the current dome where miners formed their own camps. Swain estimated that once this new dome was operational and had a stable output, the High Tower would begin its reckoning. Although the large-scale strike did not reach the Tower Lord's ears that day, it naturally could not be concealed. The difference was between controllable and uncontrollable. The Tower Lord did not care about the trivial adjustment of the material exchange ratio, but he would not allow his authority to be challenged.
"Notify Corax: the day the second dome is operational will be the time for the uprising!" Swain calculated the date the second dome could be put into use and had Shadow Assassin send a message to Corax. The activation of a brand new dome city would undoubtedly be a very important event for the High Tower, and many influential figures from the High Tower would be present.
Once outside the High Tower's internal layers of defense, Shadow Assassin's success rate would greatly increase, and Swain naturally wouldn't miss such a good opportunity.
"When the time comes, let Saro Jin lead a team to wipe out all these people," Swain's mind naturally conjured Saro Jin's figure. He and Corax's main force would certainly still attack the High Tower, especially the mining nukes stored in its armory.
In the original background, after the Crow King unified Lycaeus, he fell into a dilemma. Either he chose to face the counterattack from Kiavahr, which he absolutely could not withstand with only his brothers and sisters on Lycaeus, or he would have to directly drop nukes on Kiavahr, which would kill many innocent people in the nuclear blast. Corax's time was limited. Once Kiavahr reacted, the advantage Corax gained from the sudden uprising would slowly fade.
Between his brothers and sisters and countless innocent people, Corax made a cruel choice: the mining nukes were used to bombard Kiavahr via a gravity well, forcing them to surrender. It was only after Corax bombed Kiavahr that the Emperor appeared. After an all-night conversation with the Crow King, Corax accepted his Legion and embarked on a journey to conquer the galaxy with his brothers and sisters from Lycaeus, while handing Kiavahr over to the Mechanicum for modification.
No one knew what the Emperor and Corax discussed, though some speculated that the Emperor told the Crow King about the origin of the Primarchs and also informed Corax of the impending rebellion. Otherwise, the Crow King would not have made so many targeted preparations later on.
However, human effort ultimately could not overcome divine power. Even the Emperor did not expect the betrayal to be so fierce, with the chief traitor being his most trusted Warmaster, Horus, and he certainly did not expect a full half of the Legions to participate in the betrayal.
The Emperor had not anticipated too many things, or perhaps he firmly believed that as long as he stood before the rebel lines, the ordinary soldiers who had been swayed would spontaneously bring the rebellious Primarchs to him. Yet, the reality was not far off; even if all 18 Primarchs attacked together, they wouldn't be enough for the Emperor to defeat alone.
Unfortunately, the Emperor's most crucial contingency was targeted by Tzeentch from the very beginning.
Tzeentch predicted the Emperor's prediction.