C30 The War Machine Awakens

Gunfire erupted quick, controlled bursts. The bullets struck the walls, the floor, the crates everywhere except the men themselves.

The cowards froze. A paratrooper grabbed one by the back of his neck, slamming him onto the cold stone.

"We could have killed you. But lucky for you, the Imperator still has use for worms."

The leader of the hiders, a scrawny man with a thin beard, stammered.

"P... please! I have a sick mother! I can't leave her!"

The paratrooper commander tilted his head slightly, then gestured to his men.

"Search his house. If he's lying, drag his whole family to the recruitment center. If he's telling the truth, his mother gets the treatment that a mother of an Imperiums warrior deserves."

The coward looked up in shock, eyes widening.

"Wait, what...?"

The paratrooper commander took out his pistol, and pressed the barrel of his pistol under the man's chin.

"Service. Or death. Pick one."

The man collapsed, sobbing.

"I'll serve… please, just don't hurt her…"

The paratrooper commander narrowed his brows, standing up.

"We would never hurt the mother Imperiums true son. Now move."

The entire city was being purged. No more cowards. No more dead weight. Only legioneers.

By nightfall, every recruitment center was overflowing, every transport truck packed with new conscripts.

Some were patriots, marching proudly. Some were forced, their hearts filled with bitterness. Some were dragged out of hiding, their screams still echoing in the back alleys of Nova Roma.

But it did not matter. The Imperium needed warriors. And warriors they would become.

...

The air was filled with the sounds of hammers striking steel, the grinding of machinery, the clanging of metal beams being welded into place.

Smoke rose from the countless factories, furnaces blazing as the once stagnant industrial sector roared to life.

Everywhere from the grand boulevards of Nova Roma to the smallest villages in the countryside the Ducatum was no longer just an empire.

It was a forge. A forge tempering its people into something greater. Men, women, elderly, even children. no one was left idle.

The Imperator's decree had made it clear: If you could lift a tool, if you could carry a brick, if you could sweep a floor, then you had a duty to serve the rebuilding of the Imperium.

The entire nation was now a workforce, and every pair of hands mattered.

A group of ragged beggars, their eyes hollow from years of starvation, stood in a line before a recruitment official at one of the many construction sites in Nova Roma.

The official, a Cerberus officer with panda eyes from sleepless nights, looked them over, his expression unreadable.

"Names? Ages? Former professions?"

One of the beggars, an elderly man with a gray beard, stepped forward, hesitating.

"L-Livius. 56. I was… I was a carpenter before the the g*dsdammned revolutioneers took everything."

The officer didn't react. He simply nodded and scribbled something down on his parchment.

"You're assigned to the Southern Industrial Zone. Report to the foreman, you'll be making support beams for military barracks. Next."

A younger man, barely older than 15, stepped forward, his frame thin, malnourished, his eyes desperate.

"Felix. 15. I… I don't know how to do anything."

The officer sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"Can you carry a damn bucket?"

The boy nodded frantically.

"Yes! Yes, sir! I can!"

The officer grunted, pointing toward the entrance of the construction site.

"You're on water duty. Keep the workers hydrated. Do your job well, and you might get trained for something better."

Felix nodded so hard it looked like his head might fall off, before rushing off. This scene repeated thousands of times, across every street, every factory, every worksite.

The Imperium had no place for useless mouths. Even the beggars had found purpose.

At one of the munition factories, a line of women in simple worker uniforms stood at attention, waiting for assignments.

A factory overseer, a hardened woman in her mid 40s, walked down the line, her sharp eyes assessing each worker.

"Alright, listen up!"

She barked, her voice cutting through the noise of the assembly line.

"The men fight, but we make sure they have the weapons to do it! You lot will be assembling bullets, explosives, and rifle parts. You follow orders exactly, or you might end up losing a damn hand. Got it?!"

The women nodded, some nervously, others with grim determination. One of them, a mother clutching a sleeping infant, hesitated.

"My son… I have no one to watch him."

The overseer looked at her, then turned to a Cerberus officer standing nearby.

"Get her to the state run nurseries. We take care of our own. Now move it!"

The mother's eyes widened in shock.

"A... a nursery? For free?"

The officer scoffed.

"Nothing is free. Your payment is ensuring our legioneers have the bullets they need to fight. That's your job. You work, your son gets taken care of. Simple."

Tears welled up in the mother's eyes, but she nodded, bowing her head before being led away. Even the women of the Imperium had their roles to play.

Inside one of the newly established vocational schools, rows of young children, some as young as six sat before gray haired instructors, their eyes wide as they listened to their lessons.

An elderly scholar, his beard long and flowing, tapped his cane against the floor, his voice filled with authority.

"The Imperium does not simply need legioneers! It needs engineers! It needs architects! It needs thinkers!"

He turned toward one of the children, a boy no older than ten.

"What is the most important structure in a city's defenses?"

The boy hesitated, his small fingers gripping his wooden desk.

"Uhm… the walls?"

The old man nodded approvingly.

"Correct! But not just any walls! Thick walls, reinforced with iron and sloped to deflect artillery!"

The boy grinned, nodding eagerly. A Cerberus officer watched from the corner of the room, arms crossed.

These children… they were not being raised as weaklings. They were the future architects of the war machine.

Inside one of the steel mills, the heat was suffocating. Massive furnaces roared, molten metal spilling into molds, steam rising as hundreds of workers toiled relentlessly.

A foreman, his face covered in soot, shouted over the deafening noise.

"We need more metal! Increase production on the tank armor plating! If I see anyone slacking, I'm throwing them into the damn furnace myself!"

A worker, his face drenched in sweat, wiped his brow with his sleeve.

"Where the f*ck are we getting all this iron?!"

Another worker smirked, hammering a piece of glowing steel into shape.

"From the traitors! Their wealth is paying for everything! HAH! They built their fortunes off corruption, now their gold is building our war machine! Ain't irony a b*tch?"

The workers laughed, swinging their hammers harder, their spirits lifted. Even the Imperium's steel was being forged in the blood of its enemies.

Across the Ducatum, villages became workshops, cities became factories, fields became fortresses. The weak were purged. The strong were hardened.

And the Imperium's war machine was beginning to awaken. This was not the world of corruption and decay that had ruled before. This was the world of the Imperator.

A world of order. A world of steel. And soon a world of utter and total war.

...

January 7. Underground Bunker, Somewhere In Spartanum Ducatum.

The air was thick with smoke, the scent of cheap cigars and damp stone filling the dimly lit bunker.

A single oil lantern flickered at the center of the table, casting long, jagged shadows against the rough brick walls. The atmosphere was tense, suffocating, like a funeral procession that had already begun.

And in a way, it had.

The last remnants of the so called Freedom Fighters after the Imperators personal death squad that could only be described as somenthing otherwordly started cracking down on them, the highest ranking members of the resistance, along with a handful of nobles and patricians still foolish enough to back them, had gathered for what could very well be their final meeting.

A long, dreadful silence filled the room. No one spoke. Not yet. They had all seen the news.

The Imperium's army had grown almost tenfold in mere days. The factories were churning out weapons at an impossible rate. Entire cities had been mobilized. Recruitment centers overflowed with fanatical young men, eager to die for their Imperator.

There was no stopping it. The Imperator's grip was absolute. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, one of them broke the silence.

A former legatus, Gael Licinius, his once proud face now worn and sunken from stress, exhaled sharply, tapping his fingers against the table.

"It's over."

His voice was hoarse, lifeless. Across from him, Dion Aurelian, a former senator, scoffed, slamming his fist onto the wooden table.

"You don't get to say that! Not yet! We still have men! We still have weapons! We..."

"WE HAVE NOTHING!"

Gael's voice exploded, his fingers tightening into fists.