A Little Civil War

Administratum officials calculated, based on past experience, that Stromark's population would recover to an acceptable level of production within seven generations and restore full output within ten. Their tithe would not increase by a single bit, nor would it decrease by one.

After skimming through the document, the quill dipped into the ink bottle mounted atop the servant's head and marked the Stromark incident as a minor loss.

It was already a fantasy for this document to reach the desk of the sector governor, let alone distant Terra.

The war on Lodeyun had not reduced production. Both governors understood the Imperium's bottom line perfectly well.

The moment the taxes stopped, a punitive fleet would arrive at their doorstep. By then, the political game between the two governors would be completely over.

Those in high positions would not spare a second glance for the filthy, dim ground below. There was no passage connecting the lower hive to the nobles' spires, and a governor could live out his entire life without ever seeing the misery of the underhive.

And even if they saw it, so what? The governor and his servants would never regard the paupers living in the gutters as their own people.

"Ugh... That yellow-green moss? Even my servant's dog wouldn't eat it, yet you say they relish it? I'd say they're no longer human."

War required soldiers and more weapons. Without upgrades to production equipment, the only option was to squeeze cheap labor for everything it had.

People died in the hive every day. Most of them died in the factories.

A family huddled inside a ramshackle shack, living on the edge between the middle and lower levels of the hive. Above them lay a relatively normal life; below them was a pit of despair no one could climb