After a brief and smooth journey, Alex arrived at his destination, Murmansk, with Ovilia and Siddhga.
As the spaceship slowly descended onto the spaceport on the planet's surface, the unique landscape of this former Necron Tomb World could be seen through the porthole.
Murmansk does not have a long history; it was one of the Necron Tomb Worlds captured by the Imperium during an Expeditionary Force several years ago.
When the Imperial Expeditionary Force conquered this Necron Tomb World, the Adeptus Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy jointly carried out a thorough cleansing and transformation of the area.
Under the arrangements of the Expeditionary Force headquarters at the time, a portion of the Expeditionary Force soldiers were discharged on-site, becoming the first settlers on this planet.
They used their military resilience to establish roots in this land that was once filled with the aura of death.
As time passed, Alex successively transported a batch of immigrants here, and with the Holy War Army sent by the Ecclesiarchy and their accompanying personnel, this planet gradually bloomed with vitality.
The colonial construction of Murmansk adopted a development path completely different from the common Imperial model.
Unlike traditional settlements that dismantle and rebuild colonial ships, the foundation of this city is deeply rooted in the military garrisons left by the Expeditionary Force years ago.
Those sturdy fortresses and underground bunkers once used to combat the Necrons now serve as the most solid foundation for the new city.
The military facilities built during the expedition period formed the unique skeleton of this city: the deep underground command center was transformed into an administrative hub, the former armored vehicle repair plant became the core of the industrial zone, and the scattered anti-aircraft positions evolved into the current residential area nodes.
This special evolutionary process has caused the entire city to retain a distinct military imprint.
Composite armored city walls, thirty meters high, embraced the urban area like a giant's arms, their surfaces covered with battle scars and repair marks.
The street layout also followed a standard military grid plan, with each road precisely maintaining wartime standard widths to ensure rapid passage for heavy armored vehicles.
Most notably are the military facilities that remain combat-ready to this day: an automated sentry tower stands quietly every five hundred meters, its sensor array constantly scanning the sky; artillery batteries hidden within the buildings remain in a ready state, the Imperial Aquila on their barrels gleaming in the sunlight; even beneath the city center's plaza, an array of anti-aircraft missiles can be activated at any time.
These military facilities are not only part of the urban landscape but also a constant reminder to residents: Murmansk is essentially a giant fortress in the guise of a city.
As a former Necron Tomb World, Murmansk's surface and underground are scattered with numerous relics.
Although this Necron Tomb World did not occupy a core position in the Necron Dynasty and was relatively small in scale, after the Expeditionary Force conquered it, the Tech-Priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus still unearthed a large number of valuable technological relics from here.
From fragments of broken phase weapons to nearly complete remnants of Necron constructs, and even several samples of living metal inscribed with alien runes.
Even after years of systematic scavenging, buried Necrons ancient artifacts are still occasionally discovered on the planet's surface and in underground tunnels.
These metallic remnants, emitting a faint green glow, are scattered across the desolate plains and ruins, like a silent warning, wordlessly telling of this planet's extraordinary past dominated by xenos.
It is these relics that have become Murmansk's primary economic pillar.
Most local residents work as "scavengers," forming exploration teams to delve into the ruins of Necron relics, excavating and collecting valuable Necrons technological fragments, and then reselling them to the Mars Mechanicus investigation team stationed there.
This investigation team is directly subordinate to the Mars Mechanicus headquarters, well-equipped, and has priority mining rights.
Other Forge Worlds—such as Ryza, Lucius, or Graia—were not unwilling to intervene, but the Mars Mechanicus, by virtue of its political influence and first-mover advantage, firmly controlled the flow of resources here.
Furthermore, Murmansk is located on the edge of the Rostov Sub-Sector, far from the spheres of influence of other Forge Worlds, ultimately leading to Mars's near-monopoly on the Necron relic trade here.
Of course, Alex could not allow Mars to dominate and arbitrarily depress acquisition prices.
Although through official channels, most of the unearthed Necrons artifacts were acquired by the Mars Mechanicus under the guise of "research needs," a significant portion still flowed into the black market through various clandestine channels.
These rare items, labeled as "dangerous xenos technology," could fetch three to five times the official acquisition price on the black market, attracting a large number of speculative merchants and collectors.
While Mars's investigation team had clues to these underground transactions, for certain unspoken considerations—perhaps the secret involvement of internal personnel, or the need for certain experiments to bypass doctrinal restrictions—they were neither able nor truly willing to completely eradicate this gray market.
The black market network in the Rostov Sub-Sector initially formed gradually for the purpose of reselling sanctus wine.
When the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition completely monopolized the production of sanctus wine, various great families, merchant guilds, and even some Space Marine Chapters still desired to obtain this precious resource, and thus this underground trading system came into being.
Over the years, under the influence of the neighboring Mariupol Sector smuggling network, coupled with the tacit acquiescence of all parties, this black market has developed into a large-scale, well-organized underground economic system.
Now, with the addition of Necrons artifacts as a new source of astonishing profit, the power of this black market has expanded to a point where no single organization can fully control or suppress it.
When Alex's shuttle carrying Siddhga and Ovilia landed at Murmansk spaceport, what greeted his eyes was a city of contradictory beauty.
Towering military fortresses stood side by side with bustling commercial districts, fully armed patrol teams brushed past elegantly dressed merchants, and strict military control strangely merged with lively civilian life.
This peculiar combination of military fortress and trade hub indeed gave a strange feeling, but for Alex, the prosperous scene of this city was exactly what he wanted to see.
Although this planet had developed into an independently operating colony, fully meeting the definition standards of an "Imperial World" in Imperial law, it had never established a formal Planetary Governor position.
Although from a practical operational perspective, Murmansk already possessed all the elements of an independent administrative world, Alex knew very well that as a Lord Inquisitor, his authority only allowed him to replace an existing Planetary Governor, but not to directly establish a new governorate—there was a fundamental difference between the two.
The former meant formally carving out a new political entity on the vast administrative map of the Imperium, while the latter was merely a personnel adjustment to the existing management system.
Therefore, Murmansk's current highest administrative official only held the relatively low-key title of "Mayor."
This Mayor actually bore all the responsibilities of a Planetary Governor, enjoying the same level of treatment and power, but in official documents, he could only ever be "Mayor." Behind this subtle title difference was the rigid hierarchical system of the Imperial bureaucracy.
When Alex's shuttle hatch opened, the Mayor had already led an honor guard to line up on the tarmac, waiting.
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