Sven Rotfjord was known and liked throughout the offices of the Imperial Purchasing Division, Section 1,267-B7. He had been a regular employee for at least a decade, well-behaved and always punctual. His work was exemplary; nary a single purchasing report escaped his scrutiny. His penchant for picking out purchasing reports with unusual requests was peculiar, as he would have as many strange requests in a week as most others had in a year, but he did his job well and always sent what was requested.
Section 1,267-B7 dealt with requests regarding stellar transports and warp drives. Most of the requests were routine, a rogue trader needing a replacement Hydroquartine Thermodoohickey or an Imperial Guard captain wanting to upgrade his regiment's Class ZZZ gas-powered transport to a newer solar-powered version. Supplies and expendables, such as fuel, oil, liquid crystals, and molecular hydrators, constituted most of the requests.
Rotfjord's final day on the job was an eventful one. A messenger had delivered a new batch of purchasing requests, several hundred thousand, for the day's work. While Rotfjord sifted through his share of the batch, his demeanor -- normally jolly and very sociable -- drew inward as examined a pile of records. His co-workers noticed, but he ignored their comments. After a quick series of phone calls, the conversations unintelligible to his co-workers, he pulled from his belt a beautifully polished bolt pistol. Ignoring his supervisor's request that he "get back to work and don't shoot anybody, will ya?", he checked the bolt cartidge and jogged from the long corridor of offices of Imperial Purchasing Division, Section 1,267-B7 to an awaiting transport.
Left upon his desk, being examined by his curious supervisor, were the purchasing requests that prompted Rotfjord's strange behavior. All twelve of them were requests for fuel supplies for the Sixth Regiment of an Imperial Guard company, the Araktid Crawlers of the first planet of the Fyerofis system. The supervisor couldn't make sense what the fuss was all about...fuel prices had just gone down! They weren't asking for all that much...
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Little action was required. The entire plan had been designed beforehand. Inquisitional action had squashed a rebellion planned by several senior members of the Araktid Crawlers' 6th a few centuries prior, and ever since the Araktid Crawlers had been under supervision, as well as the few thousand other suspicious Guard regiments. Rotfjord had checked these regiments' purchasing requirements carefully, every day for twelve years, looking for any sign of heresay. The new fuel requests were themselves normal -- excused by some space-borne combat practices, said the forms -- but they were far in excess of what was needed for space battle practice. In fact, they were slightly more than what was necessary to fly the entire regiment into Earth's atmosphere.
The first planet of Fyerofis was plasma-bombed under Rotfjord's supervision. Following that, strains of dormant viruses were dropped onto the surface of the planet. The strains would become active should any human DNA pass near, and once active would kill any infected human within a few hours. The Imperial Guard regiment on the planet did not even attempt to shoot back, as the plasma missiles came from specially designed warp delivery systems and from what the regiment thought to be a fuel freighter. The affair consisted mostly of watching red blips on a monitor for a few moments.
From the Dictus Inquisitorus, Chapter Twelve, "What to blow up and what not to blow up": "Soldiers are replacable. Earth is not. Any risk of danger to Earth must be eliminated."
Returning to work a few days later, Rotfjord's pay was docked and he was demoted by his supervisor. Strangely, his supervisor died of a heart attack three days after Rotfjord's return, and Rotfjord was reinstated in his original post under a new supervisor...