Night fell, with no moon overhead, only a glittering sea of stars and the Great Rift radiating its eerie light.
Towering buildings stood densely packed atop the spire. Their black walls had possessed a distinctive grandeur when the lights once blazed, but now they resembled an endless, deathly silent graveyard.
Only the boundless, pitch-black hive districts below the spire occasionally emitted strange, eerie screeches.
The entire spiretop was dark, with only searchlights sweeping constantly across this world.
The beams kept roaming over the passages leading to the hive districts. Most passages had been blasted shut, and extensive defenses had been set up behind the few that remained.
Now, facing the gate warped by repeated explosions, and the dull sounds that had come from beyond it not long ago, the soldiers behind the gate merely huddled behind sandbags and tightened their grip on the rifles in their arms, not even bothering to lift their eyelids.
On this cold night, the soldiers lacked sufficient supplies, and even the warm breath they exhaled had grown much thinner.
Now, beneath the towering black spire of the entire Hive City, only a few key intersections remained brightly lit.
Sandbags and plasteel plates formed ring-shaped checkpoints, filled with soldiers in black carrying loaded guns. Two machine guns on a nearby elevated position pointed their dark muzzles outward.
The refugees huddled together among the buildings, their trembling bodies sharing what little warmth they had.
With clothing and food in short supply, the refugees could only shelter indoors at night and keep one another warm. Going outside was no different from suicide.
Yet as the refugees silently hoped to survive the night, several figures appeared at a checkpoint beneath the buildings.
After documents changed hands and some fawning, the barriers were moved aside, allowing the figures into the inner area.
In the core district, now heavily guarded by soldiers, an Ecclesiarchy church housed Sith's office in what had once been the bishop's prayer room.
No lights were on. To devote all available power to the army, even Sith lit only a single candle at night.
Outside, the night was silent. Only the veterans of a thousand battles serving as Sith's bodyguards remained vigilant around his office.
It was as though everyone had ceased all activity throughout the night. Only the searchlights swept past from time to time, passing through the glass beside Sith's room and across its entirety.
Footsteps sounded outside the door.
Tap, tap, tap.
A light knock came at the door, then, with a faint creak, the doors facing Sith slowly opened.
"My lord, two nobles request an audience."
Brunok stood in the doorway and reported quietly, then stepped aside as two tall, thin nobles in splendid clothes walked in.
The candlelight illuminated only a short distance. When their faces entered the light, the expressions they presented to Sith were so obsequious that such a thing would once have been unimaginable.
After all, one side consisted of lofty nobles from the spiretop, while the other was cannon fodder from below, considered nothing more than expendable. Never mind fawning over him; for the nobles, even agreeing to see Sith would have counted as granting him a tremendous "favor."
Yet now Sith sat before them while the two great nobles smiled ingratiatingly, watching the de facto ruler of this spiretop with extreme care.
Brunok followed them inside and stood behind the two nobles. Sith did not respond, and he said nothing further either.
The room fell silent. Almost instinctively, the two nobles began studying Sith and his surroundings.
They wanted to learn as much as possible about what sort of person this "lord" they were about to deal with was.
But however their eyes wandered, most of the enormous prayer room lay concealed in darkness.
After looking all around, all they could make out was the enormous portrait of the God-Emperor dimly visible behind Sith, and the young face beside the candle, half illuminated by its glow and half submerged in darkness.
The entire room was quiet now, save for the scratch of the fountain pen in Sith's hand as it moved over various reports.
Helplessly withdrawing their gazes, the two nobles exchanged a look. Finally, the higher-ranking one braced himself and spoke:
"Colonel Sith, by order of the Noble Council, Imperial forces everywhere are to escort the nobles to safe zones immediately."
"Now that the rebellious governor has been brought to justice, and Lord Calgar has arrived on Vigilus, may I ask when you intend to arrange guards to escort us out of here?"
With the higher-ranking noble speaking up, the other noble beside him also found his courage and hastily added:
"Please make certain to assign your most elite troops. We have a great many attendants and substantial property that require protection."
The two nobles were anxious. After all, they also knew that the situation was nowhere near as rosy as the Departmento Munitorum's propaganda claimed; it could even be described as dire.
If they did not hurry and flee now, they might truly die out there.
But once the two finished speaking, Brunok behind them immediately frowned, looking at them with undisguised disgust.
Not only did they have no intention of protecting the commoners who had once generated tremendous wealth for them, they even wanted Sith to detach his most elite troops to escort them away.
Even that aside, what Brunok found most unacceptable was that these nobles actually wanted to take their "property" with them.
Had it truly been their property, that would have been one thing, but who knew how much of it consisted of forcibly plundered supplies?
Taking those supplies away now would surely cripple their already overstretched supply situation completely.
Brunok's eyes were full of displeasure. Ahead of him, Sith, who had kept his head down over his official work all this time, finally stopped his pen.
The scratching vanished from the room in an instant. Just then, another searchlight swept past. Sith raised his eyes, and his face briefly became clear beneath the passing white light.
There was none of the displeasure or greed to profit from the situation that the nobles had imagined. In that brief white light, Sith's face was utterly calm.
After glancing at the two, Sith lowered his head again, and the scratching that had just stopped resumed:
"No."
At that simple word, the nobles before him instantly paled. They wanted to say more, but Brunok had already stepped forward and blocked their way.
Looking at Brunok's exaggerated bulk and the pistol at his waist, the two nobles swallowed dryly. They could only lower their heads, hide their faces in the darkness, and turn to leave.
After a series of footsteps, the enormous room fell silent again. Only a moment later did Ana, in the darkness beside Sith, voice her puzzlement:
"You're displeased with these nobles?"
The nobility, the Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus Mechanicus, even the Astartes-there were always all manner of conflicts of interest between these factions.
So Ana wondered whether Sith, like her, also hated the nobles' enormous, pointless waste.
But Sith did not even raise his head at the question, continuing to bury himself in his official work.
Only when he looked at the supplies before him, which he had finally managed to allocate, did Sith speak evenly as he checked the report:
"You can never have too much starch."
With that, Sith finally signed his name at the bottom of the list and handed the report to Ana in the darkness.
"Give the nobles priority for your blue starch. Distribute the rest of the starch to the soldiers and refugees according to this list."
Ana grew even more puzzled as she looked at Sith's list.
She could not understand why Sith clearly disliked these nobles, yet still wanted to give them priority for her great invention.
Shouldn't you keep the good stuff for yourself first?