CHAPTER EIGHT
It moved. It wasn't a wall at all. They were huge. The tunnels suddenly took on a whole new context. They weren't to house vast swarms. Only a few. These things.
"What the hell are these things?!"
"Oh Hell, I know what they are." Leviathan. And he said it out loud. You couldn't tell because you could only see maybe a third of them – just all fangs, head and something. Maybe they were some kind of evolutionary variants too, but one thing was for sure, they had stirred the hornet's nest just like Raynor figured they would. But it was the wrong kind of hornets.
Tentacles the size of buildings came grasping out, snaking blindly along an invisible path, seeking out the intruders.
And then shrank back as a dozen rockets and missiles exploded off its shiny rubber skin, the bladed end flailing and tearing a cut through the super-organism's skin.
So those eggs they saw. Not hives. These things. Infant leviathans.
"Alright, follow me, boys."
They weaved in formation. This wasn't their first time making a run on a leviathan, but inside the massive living planetoid, there wasn't much room to manoeuvre.
Steady volleys of missiles hammered into its grotesquely vast face, and after emitting a groan that reverberated like a pipe horn, it retreated inwardly, like a snail, withdrawing from the punishing thermal payloads, leaving small fires catching on portions of its almost impenetrable chitin.
Hyperion kept its engines muted, thrusting through carefully, moving into the next chamber, keeping just ahead of the now more cautious leviathans. Scanners were picking up several large moving masses that weren't a part of the planetoid itself. To have living things like that, bigger than an entire battlecruiser… Jim's crew was tough, but they were only human. Faces were slick with fear, but hands were steady on rifles, just waiting for one of those tentacle limbs to come crashing through a wall.
Leviathans had been a fairly rare sight until now, Kerrigan's massive super-carriers that could individually tear through entire fleets. She could have taken care of this in an instant –but she was gone now, and the zerg had been left to become what they may. Apparently these ones were starting a family. One that could conquer the entire known galaxy. There was no way they were winning this fight. Not directly. But they couldn't just leave this nest here.
No wonder the pirates had bailed. One look, and Raynor probably would have too. No help for it now, though, and he wasn't going to just let the Hyperion sit there without at least putting up one more fight.