Hodgson called for a vote, but the room remained silent.
The councilors looked at one another, and nobody wanted to be the first to speak up.
Hodgson was growing impatient.
He pointed at a middle-aged man. "You do a lot of business in food. You go first."
The councilor the chairman had pointed at was Vaughan.
He stood up, throwing caution to the wind. "We can't accept the governor's demands. They're outrageous! He's done nothing for us, yet he keeps demanding that we provide supplies! Last time, it was provisions for the servants he brought with him. Supporting those three thousand people was already a heavy burden. This time it's even worse! A hundred tons of food! Ten thousand pieces of clothing! Does our governor even understand what that means?!"
"But we have to obey the governor's orders," another man said helplessly. "Otherwise, we'll be considered rebels. Macro-cannons don't care about the reasons, and we... We can't afford to lose the supplies the Empire sends us, or our interstellar trade. The governor has to sign off on all of that."
Vaughan sneered. "You made your fortune brokering interstellar trade for Blackbird Heavy Industries. You care about your trade quota, so of course you're in a hurry to kiss the governor's ass. You don't care whether Revival City's economy can handle this."
The man he'd called out immediately shot back, "You've been stockpiling food for two months, waiting to drive up prices this winter. Now the food we're supposed to send the governor will have to come from your own reserves, and you're worried it'll eat into your profits, is that it? You're the one who doesn't care that defying the governor's orders could leave Revival City exposed to macro-cannon fire!"
Seeing that the councilors were about to start arguing again, Hodgson had no choice but to rap on the table once more.
"Enough. Stop arguing." Hodgson's aged voice rang out. "I asked you to vote, not give me more reasons. I want one answer. Think carefully as you vote: if we agree, where will we get the supplies? If we refuse, what happens to our interstellar trade quota and Imperial aid quota? And what about the threat of orbital bombardment? Now, vote. Those in favor of obeying the governor's orders, raise your hands. If you don't, it means you're against it. There are no abstentions."
When he finished, he raised his hand with a look of resignation.
With him leading the way, the other councilors hesitated, reluctant, but eventually raised their hands one by one.
In the end, even Vaughan, who had earlier shouted about whether the governor understood what a hundred tons of food and ten thousand pieces of clothing meant, reluctantly raised his hand.
Someone nearby let out a snicker.
He had no good response, and could only grumble under his breath. "What else can we do? Should we really give up our quotas? Damn... This governor is unbelievable. Why can't he just stay put in Revival City? At least then we'd have nineteen ways to make him behave..."
"Watch your tongue!" Hodgson rasped angrily.
The man obediently shut his mouth, though he still looked unconvinced.
After the meeting, a young man pushed Hodgson back to his room in his wheelchair.
The young man stayed and reported something. "Grandfather, after the meeting, Vaughan gathered his managers and got in touch with a few mercenary brokers."
"He wouldn't dare harm the governor. He couldn't afford the consequences."
"But he might target the cargo that's about to be shipped out of Revival City."
Hodgson's expression remained unchanged. "Let him. He'll bear the consequences himself. Just keep an eye on him and his people. Find out exactly what they do."
"I'm worried he'll anger the governor and bring disaster to Revival City."
"Sigh... What else can I do?" Hodgson sighed. "I'm the chairman of the council, but that's all I am. Even if I know about this, how am I supposed to stop Vaughan?"
His voice sounded despondent.
But his grandson, the young man standing behind him, tried to reassure him. "On his first day here, the governor publicly declared that he would rebuild the wasteland and give everyone a better life. He shouldn't be so quick to take it out on all of Revival City or do something irrational."
"Heh." Hodgson gave a dry, hoarse laugh.
"You don't trust the new governor?"
"No. I'll always trust the governor." Hodgson waved a hand. "The only one who can save Nuxiao Planet is the governor."
There was one more thing he didn't say to his grandson:
I just don't know if this governor is the one.
Gu Hang received Revival City's reply. They agreed to his demands, but needed eight days to deliver the specified supplies.
He was a little surprised. They had agreed rather easily; he'd expected a lot more haggling.
Still, it didn't matter. Things hadn't gone the way he'd hoped, but the supplies were real, so it wasn't a bad deal.
There was still plenty of time, so he stopped thinking about it.
Yan Fangxu should be back soon, since the battle results had already appeared on Gu Hang's system.
[Decisive Victory, gained 1 Grace] [Losses: 0, killed: 45, captured: 13] [1st Servitor Battalion, 1st Company: losses: 0, killed: 38] [Marine Corps: losses: 0, killed: 7]
Earlier, he'd sent Yan Fangxu to lead a force in wiping out the remaining Prisoner-Dead. Only a handful of guards and the old, weak, women, and children had been left there.
As expected, his men suffered no losses while wiping out the enemy.
On Gu Hang's orders, everyone left among the Prisoner-Dead should have been executed.
These cannibalistic, slave-trading raiders would be shown no mercy.
Their corpses would also be hung in their destroyed camp, and a warning written in their blood:
"The fate of cannibals!"
As for earning a Grace after the battle, that was within expectations. The enemy had been too weak to offer much of a reward.
He didn't give it much thought.
When Yan Fangxu returned, Gu Hang had a new mission for the Marine Corps captain.
After that, he went to check on his two Black Box Fabricators.
The two machines had been set up not far from the camp. Servitor soldiers guarded them, and a simple factory building had been built around them. No one was allowed inside except workers with authorization.
When Gu Hang arrived, both machines were running.
A batch of ore from the Waste Mine Society had arrived earlier.
The workers fed the ore into the input port, and the Black Box Fabricator started up. A series of clattering sounds came from inside—apparently from grinding, vibration, and high-temperature processing—but it wasn't especially loud.
After undergoing a series of mysterious and incomprehensible transformations inside the Black Box Fabricator, the material emerged from the output port as high-quality Alloy Plasteel.
The gleaming alloy ingots were a perfect demonstration of their strength and toughness. The alloy produced directly by the Black Box Fabricator was an excellent material.
Workers waiting nearby then carried the Alloy Plasteel they'd produced to the input port of the other machine.
The Mother Machine Black Box started up next. Before long, an important component for building a smelting furnace came out of its output port, and the workers hauled it to the other side of the warehouse.
A substantial number of components had already been piled up there, some large and cast as single pieces, others small but finely engineered.
Once sorted and stored, they could later be transported to the Waste Mine Society and assembled on-site into a smelting furnace capable of producing Alloy Plasteel.
Gu Hang was very satisfied.
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