Chapter 48: The Children of the Sump
Kian had the territory. Now, he needed the machinery.
Brewing was a craft Kian actually understood—back in the ancient 3k era, he'd had a cousin in the countryside who ran a moonshine operation. The process was fundamentally simple: crush the starch, boil it, ferment it, and distil it. Scaling it up for a Hive World, however, required a bit more Gothic engineering.
First, he needed a crusher to pulp the grain for fermentation, followed by a massive vat to boil the mash. Then, a multi-stage fermentation array, and finally, a pressurized still to extract the high-proof "spirit."
Shiv hired several "Old-timers" from the Fertilizer Syndicate—veteran laborers who brought their own arc-welders for fifty scrips a day. They scavenged the scrap-yards for oxidation-resistant metal sheets. In the Underhive, anything that didn't rust in the stagnant humidity was more precious than gold.
Using Plastocrete (a common 41st-millennium building material) and reinforced plasteel, they constructed a series of deep, circular basins. The welders lined these with the scavenged metal, creating vats capable of processing several tons of starch and water at once.
For the heating, Kian utilized the high-output Promethium Power Cell he'd salvaged from the Monitoring Station. He connected it to a heavy-duty industrial immersion heater—a device that looked like a jagged metal rod but hummed with the power of a plasma core.
40k technology was a paradox: it looked primitive but functioned with terrifying efficiency. When Kian dropped the heater into a five-hundred-liter vat, the water hit a rolling boil in less than ten minutes. The "Voss Distillery" was officially a high-heat operation.
With the addition of a metal condenser and several "fermentation pits" lined with clean timber, Kian's "Sump-Style" brewery was ready. It lacked the hygiene of a Spire-tier kitchen, but Hive-dwellers had immune systems like tanks; the alcohol would kill any bacteria long before it reached their lips.
"Shiv," Kian said, standing amidst the steam of his new domain. "The grain is coming. The vats are ready. Where is my transport?"
Shiv nodded, wiping grease from his brow. "Boss, the boys found a derelict in a transit-yard. It's a Cargo-Trolley—a power-head and ten flatbed cars. The hull was battered, but I begged Boss Nephal to send a mechanic. He fixed the drive-train and even threw in a crate of mineral lubricant."
"I'll remember Nephal's 'charity,'" Kian muttered. "Lead the way."
Outside the brewery bulkheads, a small rail-train sat on the floor-tracks. It was an industrial beast, designed for hauling ore from the deep sumps. The power-head was compact—smaller than an ancient Terran micro-car—but heavy with lead-shielded plating.
"What's the fuel?" Kian asked.
"Multi-fuel engine," Shiv explained. "Nephal says it'll burn anything from vegetable oil to alcohol, though mineral oil gives it the best torque. If we load all ten cars and burn oil, she'll hit eighty kilometers per hour. On alcohol? Maybe forty."
Kian was satisfied. The distance to the surface vent was roughly forty kilometers. With this trolley, he could move several tons of grain in a single hour-long trip.
He returned to his Sanctum and pulled out two rebel autoguns. He tossed one to Shiv. "Your bonus. Use it well."
Shiv's eyes bulged. In the Underhive, a military-grade rifle was a class-promotion. He cradled the gun like a holy relic.
Kian then paid out the remainder of the crew's wages. "I'm taking the trolley out for a recon run. I need volunteers—men who aren't afraid of the dark. A hundred scrips each if we make it back."
Moving forty kilometers through the unmapped "dead zones" of the Underhive was a gamble. You could run into anything from mutants and xenos to cultists or rogue Gene-stealers. But the lure of a hundred scrips was too strong. Thirty men, armed with jagged tools and scrap-shields, leaped onto the flatbeds.
Kian and Shiv climbed into the power-head. The engine roared to life, venting a cloud of thick, black smoke.
The train moved through the brewery sector, where the vats had been built to either side of the tracks, leaving the center clear. Kian locked the brewery gates behind them and signaled for the "Slow Crawl."
They moved at ten kilometers per hour. The trolley's massive front searchlight cut a tunnel of brilliance through the ancient soot. Kian kept his eyes glued to the tracks, looking for debris or buckled rails. For an hour, they climbed a steady 45-degree incline, heading toward the Hive's outer shell.
Luck seemed to be on their side. The area was a "Desolation Zone"—too far from the Lift for humans to survive without supplies. Until it wasn't.
"Stop!" Kian barked.
Shiv slammed the brakes. The train screeched to a halt. Kian pointed ten meters ahead where a section of the track had been buckled by a ceiling collapse.
"Fix it," Kian ordered the crew.
The men hopped off to begin the repairs. Kian sat in the cab and pulled out a Lho-stick. He went to light it, but his Mental Clarity (20) pinged. Something was moving in the dark, three hundred meters ahead.
Click.
He racked his autogun. "GET BACK ON THE TRAIN! WE HAVE COMPANY!"
The crew scrambled back. Shiv leveled his new rifle. They stared into the darkness beyond the searchlight's reach. To the crew, it was just blackness. But to Kian, he could see the "pixels" shifting.
A hundred humanoid shapes were drifting toward them. As they drew closer, the light finally caught them.
Kian's jaw tightened. Mutants.
In the Imperium, there are four types of humanity:
Pure Humans.
Augmented Humans (Bionics/Mechanicus).
Abhumans (Stable evolutions like Ogryns or Ratlings).
Mutants.
Mutants were the result of chemical rot, radiation, or Warp-taint. They weren't stable. They couldn't pass their traits to offspring. They were the "Unclean."
The creatures blocking the tracks were horrific. Some had horns growing from their eyes; others had extra, vestigial limbs or fleshy tentacles sprouting from their necks. They were clad in rusted scrap-iron and carried jagged shards of metal.
They stopped fifty meters out, hissing and shielding their eyes from the light. One of them—a creature with two faces fused together—shrieked at Kian's crew.
"Cursed meat-stock! Turn off the sun-light, or we'll carve your heads and stuff them into your own backsides!"
A second, smaller mouth on the creature's cheek let out a wet, rhythmic giggle. "Carve them... hehe... stuff them deep... hehe..."
Kian stood up in the power-head, leveling his autogun at the two-faced freak.
"Throne's blood," Kian yelled, his voice echoing through the pipe. "Did your mother spend her pregnancy riding a high-speed centrifuge while huffing industrial solvent? You stand there looking like a transport accident and talk about 'meat-stock'? You're a violation of basic human rights just by existing! You should have hidden in the darkest hole you could find, but you decided to come out and remind us that there's no bottom to the Sump's barrel of failures! For the sake of moral law and the mental health of future generations, do the galaxy a favor and stop breathing my air, you warp-rotted grox-sh*t!"
The Mutants froze, stunned by the sheer ferocity of the insult.
Kian's finger tightened on the trigger. "Shiv... open fire."
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