Chapter 12: The Imperial Frontier: Victoria Hive
Hive world, the Empire is also the largest and most chaotic human settlement in the history of human civilization. Each imperial galaxy has only one hive world as the galaxy capital, which is the core of the empire's administration, justice, religion, and economic production.
Almost all imperial hives can be traced back thousands of years of history. When the planet welcomed the first colonial ship and the Mechanicus built the first plasma reactor, the construction of a hive was put on the agenda, and finally after several centuries, this behemoth was ushered in.
Some hives even have a longer history than the Empire. As early as the Dark Age of Technology and before the Age of Strife, these colonial cities that originated from the earliest colonial era of mankind have long existed among the stars like stars.
Countless cities of all sizes were eventually connected together, and the earth was filled with endless buildings. The towering spires and upper-level gorgeous buildings rushed to the top of the sky under the overlap of countless buildings and creations, and under the surface, dense urban structures had already been built layer by layer, like a honeycomb, reaching the deepest part of the earth's core.
This is a great masterpiece of human civilization, symbolizing the complete conquest of a planet by humans, and also symbolizing the destruction of a planet. When this giant hive city is built, it usually means that all the resources of the planet have been exhausted.
The uncontrolled reproduction of a huge population eventually overwhelmed the ecology of the planet. The endless human descendants and their buildings, the machinery swallowed everything and turned everything into a part of the ever-expanding city.
And in the end, the planet can no longer create natural resources. The only resource it can provide is manpower, endless human resources. Hundreds of millions of people are sent to other worlds in the galaxy to develop and mine the resources of those worlds, and transport them here through the giant orbital starport that surrounds the planet's equator above the hive city. Finally, the processing and casting are completed in the factory that extends to the end of the earth.
Vito sat in the cockpit, looking at the hive city below through the thick glass of the shuttle. The shuttle fell straight down from the low-Earth orbit. When he broke through the storm in the stratosphere, he came here and witnessed this behemoth directly.
Thick smoke and toxic exhaust gas floated up from the surface. Even the sky had turned into a sickly gray-green due to the emissions from the Mechanicus factories. The forests and mountains had disappeared for generations, and the oceans could not even see any trace of their existence.
Vito operated the joystick, and the streamlined slender shuttle flew among the magnificent buildings. They descended straight down and drove into the hive city from under the gorgeous buildings on the top floor of the city.
Vito looked around. The surrounding space was completely covered with overlapping buildings of all sizes, arranged layer by layer, connected to the highway by the aerial platform.
The sun's rays could not reach here. All the lighting came from various store signs, street lights and shuttle vehicles. The colorful lights intersected together, like a strange dream in an illusion.
"Ah, this kind of hive city again." Vito sighed. He had been to many hive worlds. To be honest, not all hives were so depressing and uneasy.
Vito used his finger to turn the button on the dashboard. After pressing several buttons in succession, the vector nozzle began to turn the direction. The shuttle slowly landed under the push of the violent blue flame, and landed smoothly with the violent recoil airflow.
The sturdy landing gear slowly lifted the hull, allowing this beautiful interstellar shuttle to land on the platform, and the vector nozzle gradually cooled down.
Vito walked out from the hatch below, he stood on the platform deck, and the entire platform began to move. The heavy mechanical structure pulled the landing pad forward back to the main building in front.
The surface star port is the first stop for all non-aristocratic dignitaries after arriving on this planet, and Vito is no exception.
Vito looked to one side, and a heavy transport ship as huge as a high-rise building also landed on the giant deck. Cooling gas and negative pressure gas were ejected from the hull, and the billowing white mist engulfed everything around.
Vito straightened his collar and looked forward. The parking deck was steadily pulled into the star port building. The solid reinforced concrete structure was like a bunker, rising around it to become a barrier, isolating the planet-level city outside.
In the land star port, under the dome supported by a huge metal bracket, the golden Imperial Sky Eagle was suspended in the air, and countless large and small ships were docked below it. Travelers, wandering merchants and cargo ship workers came and went here. They walked under the giant ships, and the noise and the rumbling of the power engine constituted the main theme here.
"Purpose of visit." A lazy administrator came up, holding a divination tablet, pointing on the screen with a sensor pen, and mumbling vaguely, but fortunately Vito could hear what he was saying.
"Sightseeing, visitors and travel." Vito said with a smile, and the administrator rolled his eyes, "Who would come to this damn place to travel and sightsee?" "Then what do you think should be filled in?" "I don't care, just visit for personal business, 2000 Imperial Sky Eagle coins as downtime and management fees."
As the young and lazy administrator said, a servo skull flew over, and the skull floated in front of Vito, showing a card slot in front of him.
Vito took out a black card from his arms, inserted it casually, and pulled it out after a moment. The servo skull returned to the administrator and made a mechanical sound of arrival, "Payment completed, landing allowed."
The skull flew away, perhaps to collect some money, but the administrator wrote and drew on the tablet without any care, "Name, ship name."
Vito smiled and looked at the ship exit at the end of the huge star port. There was a ship spraying slow flames and sliding into the runway. Judging from its logo, it seemed to be the Owen-4 world that he had visited before. transport ship.
On the side of the runway of the ship, there are several large cargo boxes piled up. The crew is negotiating with a few bald locals. Each of them has a snake tattooed on their arm, which looks very unique. snakes, but Vito was sure that all native species in the area were extinct.
But it seemed that the transaction was going very smoothly. They reached the deal smoothly. These local gang members were already paying. The star port guards on the side seemed to be blind and turned a blind eye to this. But Vito was sure that they were not blind. .
Vito shook his head slightly, seeming to be thinking about something, but the administrator was already cursing impatiently, "Hey! Idiot, name! Are you going to let me spend the whole day here?"
"Vito, Vito Constantine, this beauty is called Aquila, take care of her." Vito said and took the registration form handed over by the administrator. The latter shrugged helplessly, "We will, let's go now. Just do whatever you want."
"Hey, man, ask a question." "Your Majesty, ask, hurry up." The administrator stopped and shouted extremely irritably, while Vito still had a smile on his face and pointed to the distant place. Trading site.
"Where are those local gang members? What's the name of their gang?" The administrator looked over and then twitched his eyebrows. "The Pious Association, I advise you not to get close to them. They are religious lunatics who are hiding in the nest." "Religion? State religion? "Yes, yes, but they are crazier than the lunatics in the church, so stay as far away from them as you can."
"I'm curious, friend, in the chaos of Xia nest, why is the state religion so developed?" The administrator yelled irritably, waving his fingers, "Who are you? A scholar? Go ask those missionaries, don't Come and bother me.”
He walked away impatiently, with an extremely arrogant and perfunctory attitude. Vito smiled jokingly and looked at the young administrator walking away with his hands on his hips. He was curious, if he knew that he was facing a trial with his attitude just now. Officer, what will you think later?
Vito shrugged, but he was lucky not to be one of those neurotic colleagues, so the young man continued to carry his arrogant attitude until one day he was taught a lesson by some grumpy captain.
Vito touched his chin, looked thoughtfully at the Imperial Skyhawk above his head, patted the blaster on his waist and walked towards the exit of the star port.