Over the next three days, Granary Seven became a military camp.
Fifty thousand refugees had their heads shaved and were given identical gray roughspun clothes.
Each person wore a wooden tag on their chest, marked with a number.
Rovi didn't put them to work in the fields right away.
He had them train.
Not with guns, but in discipline.
They practiced swinging their sickles in unison, bending at the waist in unison, and stopping everything the instant they heard a whistle.
It looked ridiculous.
A group of people with farming tools marching through the mud like robots.
But Rovi knew it was all for the sake of efficiency.
Agricultural production was fundamentally no different from industrial production.
Standardized movements saved energy and reduced mistakes. Most importantly, they could turn this unruly mob into a precision machine.
Supervisor Kase stood by the office window, watching the scene below, the fat on his face trembling.
"What is he doing? Is he training an army?" Kase gritted his teeth.
The Scribe beside him said timidly, "He said it was to... to improve harvesting efficiency."
"Bullshit!" Kase slapped the Scribe across the face. "He's winning hearts and building his own power base!"
Kase felt afraid.
The old Rovi had been nothing but a Scribe who could do the books. He could crush him whenever he wanted.
Now Rovi had fifty thousand obedient "serfs" under his command, along with Buck's Defense Force and even the support of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
At this rate, Granary Seven would no longer belong to the Kases.
"I can't let him keep this up." A vicious glint flashed in Kase's eyes. "Have those men make their move tonight."
"But... Buck's men are watching them closely."
"Then create some chaos." Kase took a bottle of liquor from his drawer and gulped it down. "Burn those Fermentation Tanks. Without that Green Soup, this rabble will riot. Then let's see how he handles it."
Late at night.
The Fermentation Tanks stood in neat rows on an open plot behind the Granary.
The air was thick with a sour stench.
Several shadows crept over without a sound.
They wore refugees' clothes, but moved nimbly, each carrying a Molotov cocktail.
"Make it quick," their leader whispered. "Set them on fire and run."
They crept up to the tanks.
The leader was just about to strike a flint.
"Click."
A soft sound.
The safety catch being released.
Several powerful spotlights suddenly flared to life, illuminating the open plot as bright as day.
The shadows instinctively covered their eyes.
Once they adjusted to the light, they realized they were surrounded.
Dozens of Defense Force soldiers stood in the shadows, rifles trained on them.
Rovi stood at the front, holding a Dataslate.
He didn't look surprised at all.
"I've been waiting for you," Rovi said.
The leader tried to run, but before he could take a step, a rifle butt smashed him to the ground.
The others were quickly pinned down as well.
Rovi walked over to the leader and crouched beside him.
"Who sent you?"
The man clenched his teeth and said nothing.
"That's fine. You don't have to tell me." Rovi stood and glanced at the Dataslate. "Number 4492, squad 13, platoon 4."
"According to your medical exam when you registered for camp, your muscle density and the wear on your bones don't look like those of a refugee who's been malnourished for a long time. More like... a hired thug."
"Besides."
Rovi pointed at the Molotov cocktail in the man's arms. "I never gave the refugees this kind of high-purity Promethium Fuel. It's expensive on the Black Market. Supervisor Kase must have paid through the nose."
The man's face changed.
"Take him to the mess hall," Rovi said to Buck. "Wake everyone up. Assemble them."
The mess hall.
It was really just a wide-open plaza.
Fifty thousand refugees had been woken from their sleep and gathered there, bewildered.
They saw several men tied to pillars.
They also saw Rovi standing on a raised platform.
Rovi held a megaphone.
"Just now," Rovi said, his voice cold and stern, "these men tried to burn down the Fermentation Tanks."
A wave of gasps went through the crowd.
What were the Fermentation Tanks?
They were their livelihood.
They were the source of the Green Soup.
Burning the tanks meant cutting off their food.
Anger spread through the crowd like wildfire.
"Burn them alive!"
"Kill them!"
Rovi raised a hand and motioned for them to calm down.
"I looked into it," Rovi continued. "These men aren't refugees. They were hired to sabotage the tanks. They had Imperial Credits in their pockets and full bellies, yet they wanted to destroy your livelihood."
"Why?"
"Because someone doesn't want you to have enough to eat. Someone thinks you're trash, a burden, and that your very existence is a waste of air."
Rovi didn't name Kase.
But every word he spoke sank into the refugees' hearts like a knife.
They'd had enough of being looked down on and oppressed at the bottom of society.
Now that they'd finally gotten a meal, someone still wanted to sabotage it?
"By my rules," Rovi shouted, "destroying the means of production is punishable by death."
"But I think letting them die like that would be too easy."
Rovi turned and pointed at the huge Fermentation Tanks.
"Since they wanted to destroy the Fertilizer, let's turn them into Fertilizer."
The crowd erupted.
This time, there was no fear—only fervor.
It was the release of violence suppressed for far too long.
Buck's men untied the captives and dragged them toward the feed openings atop the Fermentation Tanks.
"No! Please!"
The men struggled desperately.
But under the gaze of tens of thousands of bloodshot eyes, their cries sounded so weak.
"Plop."
Several dull thuds.
The men were thrown into the churning green liquid.
Their screams lasted only a few seconds before the roar of the mixer drowned them out.
Rovi stood on the raised platform, watching it all.
His expression didn't change.
He knew it was cruel.
But in the world of Warhammer 40,000, mercy was the greatest luxury.
He had to use this ritual-like execution to bind these fifty thousand people to his cause once and for all.
From this day on, these fifty thousand people were no longer refugees.
They were accomplices.
They had executed their enemies with their own hands and defended their food.
This bloody pact was stronger than any contract.
The next day.
The harvest began.
Fifty thousand farmhands, divided into fifty formations, marched in a mighty stream into the wheat fields.
They carried the extra-long sickles Rovi had made and baskets on their backs.
"Ready."
The whistle blew.
"Cut!"
Fifty thousand people swung their sickles at once.
"Swish!"
The sound was perfectly synchronized, like waves crashing against rocks.
A vast swath of wheat fell.
No wasted movements. No chatting.
Only mechanical swings, steps forward, and more swings.
Their efficiency was astonishing.
Standing on the ridge between the fields, Priest Alpha watched, his augmetic eyes flickering.
"This... this is practically biological machinery," Alpha exclaimed. "Esteemed Advisor, you've turned these flesh-and-blood people into components more efficient than Servitors."
"Because they want to live," Rovi said.
"Servitors have no desires, but people do. Give them just a little hope, and they can unleash astonishing energy."
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