A.N.: And here we go. Things are going to go wild going forward, I hope you enjoy the ride!
Evelyn had joined the Arbites at sixteen years old. Training had taken her only a year before she was allowed to go in the streets to serve along the other law enforcers. There, she met Dave. Two years later they'd gotten together. Married. Lived happily for a dozen years.
They'd stuck together during the rebellion; She'd thought back then that it had been the worst she'd ever see.
And then Dave went missing. Taken, right from his very room. She'd always known that him falling in the line of duty had been a risk, but to have it actually happen...it had nearly broken her.
She'd been assigned to take his post. She'd wanted to investigate what had happened to him, but had found nothing. No leads, no indication of anything. It had been frustrating and enraging beyond belief.
Until one day, she'd found a note on his bed while she went to check for further clues. A note addressed to her.
I know what happened to your husband. They are trying to keep it hidden, but I can tell you the truth. Meet me at the cross section thirteen of sewers below the gates.
It was signed simply as 'A friend of DoDon', an inside joke she had with her husband. She'd never told anyone else. Whomever this was, it must have been someone who her husband trusted...or someone who had tortured the information out of him.
And yet, there was a lot to point to the superiors covering something up. Had her husband stumbled upon a conspiracy and been silenced? Were they trying to get to her as well?
She didn't know. Wouldn't, unless she went there. The thirteen section was on the Underhive side, but she had the key to unlock the large grates blocking access from one side of the sewers to the other. Her grip lowered to her laspistol as she swiped the keycard on the grate, the large metallic grate opening with a loud sound of clanking. Once they were open, she walked through, trying to ignore the putrid smell of human waste, before closing the grate behind her. Then, she walked forth to the meeting point, finding no one there. That was expected. There had been no time indicated on the note.
She waited for an hour, impatience and nervousness slowly rising within her. This was stupid, what was she even doing here?
"Miss Evelyn?" A voice called out to her. A small figure, cloaked in a dark hooded robe stood a dozen metres away from her. Her eyes widened. She hadn't even noticed them approaching! Despite her surprise, she tried to act unconcerned, uncrossing her arms and pushing herself off the wall.
"That's right. And you are the one who left the note for me I assume?" She asked, forcing confidence into her voice.
"Not quite. That was an associate of mine." The person said. They sounded quite young; with a high pitched, soft voice. "But we do not have much time. Your absence will be noted." Evelyn nodded.
"Right. So, you left a mysterious note on my bed, explaining you know what happened to my mysteriously vanished husband, and when I come to the meeting place a mysterious looking person is waiting for me." She pointed her laspistol at what she assumed to be a fairly young girl. "So. Start talking."
"Are you afraid?" The girl asked, tilting her head. "You seem nervous." Evelyn felt a pearl of sweat run down her face.
"I'm not repeating myself."
"Very well." The girl sighed. "Your husband stumbled onto something. Something big. He was starting to put the pieces together, and so..." The girl stepped closer. "They made him disappear. I'm afraid to say, but he is dead." She felt her grip on her laspistol falter, a terrible numbing pain rising in her chest.
"I..." She'd known. Of course she'd known. You didn't disappear in the lower levels of the hive with only blood stains left and expect anything but death. But to be told so bluntly... "How did you know?" She pushed it aside, focusing on what she could affect. What she needed to know. If she let herself think too much about her husband's fate...she might break down right there and then. "The nickname. How did you know?" The person was now only a metre away from her. She had barely noticed them getting so closer. They took off their hood, revealing a child with white hair smiling sadly at her.
"I saw it in his memories." Something pressed against her brain. Something broke. She barely had the time to register what had happened to her as she fell to the ground, her eyes rolled back as blood poured from her nose and mouth. "Do not worry." The child said, looking down at her with a gentle smile as she felt her life fade away. "His death was quick. So shall yours be." With that, the thing pressing against her mind pressed harder, and Evelyn's life was snuffed out, like a candle doused in water.
"I am surprised you managed to do this." Her younger self mentioned as Anya stepped out from behind the wall where she'd been hiding. "Making her see me...it was a clever trick." Anya sighed.
"Well, I couldn't exactly make her trust me...and I'm not good enough at this whole morphing me to do such a dramatic change back to looking fully human."
"Hm. Remind me to train you on that afterwards. Such a powerful infiltration tool would be very useful."
"Will do." Anya looked down at the corpse of the woman, digging through her pockets before grabbing the keycard. She smiled. "Well then. Let's clear the path for our troops, shall we?"
The fort was quiet. It was late at night, and only the night crew was out. Even then, only half of those were actually present, five men and women dispersed throughout the base to keep an eye on things. Two on the rampart, two guarding the entry point leading further inside, and one taking care of some administrative tasks in the actual building of the fort. Out of twenty Arbites total.
Anya crawled out of the sewers silently, using her psychic powers to dampen whatever sound she made. Using her enhanced senses as well as her psychic vision, she could see where each and every Arbites was. Discreetly, she kept to the shadows and slowly approached the wall that bared the way to the Underhive, climbing the darker parts of it and making sure to avoid the lights shone from the various floodlights dispersed in the fort. She froze as one of the arbites walked above her, glancing out to the wastelands beyond. He didn't even look in her direction. Why would he? His job was to expect people from the outside.
As he finally passed her, she pulled herself up onto the rampart in a single fluid motion, landing right behind the man. She watched as he yawned, waiting for the moment his mouth closer before with blinding speed she put a hand on his mouth and with the other broke his neck. No sound emerged from the instant kill, and she delicately placed the body down in a dark spot. Turning around, she saw the other one currently leaning over the rampart, looking at the empty wasteland, some kind of smoking device in their mouth. A simple compulsion wormed its way into his head, pushing him to keep looking; making him certain he'd spotted something important. As the man leaned further forward, squinting his eyes to try and find what he was so certain he'd seen, she slipped behind him and snapped his neck in turn.
After hiding the body as best she could, she looked down to the other two guards currently awake standing guard at the post towards the interior of the Hive. They were standing right next to each other. She could try to compel both to ignore each other and separate, but her skills were not so refined in subtlety that she was certain of the success of such an attempt. Instead, she slid down into the camp, using the card she'd swiped to gain access to the main dormitory building. The guards inside, stripped of their armour and weaponry, looked entirely normal. It was a strange sight. Anya had never seen an Arbites outside of their armoured outfit; They had always appeared as towering, almost mechanical enforcers of oppression. Yet now, as she walked quietly among them, taller than any of them...they felt oh so fragile.
Their minds were already asleep. Already plunged into their subconscious. It was a trivial task to snuff them out, one by one, without a single one waking up as she went from bed to bed.
By the time she exited the building, there wasn't a living soul inside.
Killing the two guards proved easier than she thought it would be. She snuck behind them and hid behind a wall, waiting for them both to enter into conversation, looking into the same direction. Then, she walked behind them, and tore out their throats at the same time; one clawed hand on each guard. Tearing off their heads made more noise than she was comfortable with, but there was scarcely anyone to hear it. The mess however would be impossible to hide properly. Blood stains everywhere, with splashes of blood on the windows of the small guard post they'd been hiding in.
Only one left.
She went into the secondary building. The one where the man, Dave, had been taken from. Into the small room the lictor had snuck into, opening the door as quietly as she could. The man was at his desk, his back turned to her. She walked up to him, eliciting him to turn around. His eyes grew wide, his hand jerked towards his radio. But Anya proved faster. She ripped his arm off with a single flick of her claws, slicing his throat in the same movement. His cry of alarm turned into a choked gasp of pain, cut out as she stabbed a single claw into his forehead, piercing his brain. But he didn't die, no. She forced his mind open, scried through it for any scrap of information. It was too much for her; Too much to handle. But she could see her younger self standing nearby, eyes closed as she filtered it all through the wider network, only relaying what she needed right now. She knew from the lictor's information that whomever was on the administration duty at the post would also be in charge of reporting to the superiors in the Arbites. Using both the memories and genetic memory of the man, she remodeled her throat, her vocal cords and all the subtle parts of her body that influenced her speech. Then, she picked up the radio, turning it on.
"Hunas here, for the fourth daily report. Situation all clear." Silence answered her, before eventually the radio crackled back.
"Understood. Keep an eye out, and report again in three hours." She grinned. Perfect. She turned off the radio, turning to her younger self.
"It's time. Send them through."
"Mom?" She blinked sleepily, grumbling at the sound of her son tugging at her blanket. "Mom. Mom. Mom." She growled, but eventually opened her eyes, looking through blurred vision at her six year old.
"Buh...mwhat?" She mumbled. Her son pointed at the window.
"There's monsters outside." She rolled her eyes. She knew letting her wife read scary stories to him would make him struggle to go to bed.
"Oh sweetie, there's no such thing as monsters." She slowly got up from bed. "His Angels keep us safe, don't you remember?"
"So...are the Angels going to come?" He pointed to the window again. "Because they're eating Tisha." She frowned. Seriously, the hell kind of story had Lana read him? She'd have a word about what was an appropriate lecture for their son. Then, she noticed something. Her hab-block, due to how it was built, had incredible sound isolation. And yet, she could hear a faint sound coming from the window. It sounded human. She felt a cold weight settle in her stomach, as she mechanically walked to the window, and opened it.
The streets were in chaos.
Hundreds, thousands of people were running towards the nearest transport hub, a veritable stampede of hysterical and terrified civilians fleeing for their lives as they were being cut down in swathes. A flood of creatures were running after them, some as small as a dog crawling on the ground with slithering movements, others three metres tall, firing strange projectiles into the crowd. She could see some of the larger creatures breaking down doors to habblocks, allowing the smaller ones to rush inside. There was blood splattered against the buildings, windows broken, corpses being eaten in the very streets. The occasional sound of gunfire was almost impossible to hear in the cacophony of alien shriekieng, cries of pain and terror and sounds of strange biological weapons being discharged. She stood frozen for a few seconds, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. She could see some buildings burning in the distance, giving the air an eerie red glow. A bioluminescent green projectile surged into the air, crashing into the window next to her as one of the smaller creatures, with powerful legs and deadly claws jumped six metres in the air and climbed the rest into her neighbors room, screams from a voice oh so familiar soon erupting from it. She slammed her windows closed, her heart racing to a painful degree as she fell on her backside, eyes wide and breath panting. She could hear screeching coming from the corridor. Her son looked at her with a confused expression. He didn't understand. Couldn't understand.
"Mommy?"
The door came crashing down as something rammed into it, a horror of chitin, claws and teeth bursting into the room.
"Hmm hm hm hm Hmmm..." Anya hummed to herself a melody her mother used to sing when she had still been alive, her eyes fixed on the city below. It was all going to plan so far. Her swarm had emerged into the city from the now opened sewer system, ravaging and devouring everything and everyone they came across. It had been like a wave of living water, sweeping through the streets and buildings and consuming all that they came across. Already, she was redirecting large quantities of Rippers to the two different nests they had made to start using the biomass and create more organisms; She needed to maintain the momentum while they still had the overwhelming advantage. The few Arbites present at this level of the Hive had been wiped out almost immediately on contact, the civilian enforcers completely unprepared for a full on assault by a tyranid swarm. She could feel it all through her connection to the Network. The frenzied hunger. The terrified expressions of the humans being consumed alive or dead. The few pangs of loss when a member of her swarm would fall, an Arbites or armed civilian managing to take down one of the hundreds of thousands horrors invading their city before being devoured like all the rest. Some of her swarm had used the weaknesses they'd found in other gates, secret sewer passages and more to erupt and create further fronts within the city, forcing the already desperately under equipped and under manned Arbites to stretch their forces even further, leaving them utterly unable to form a cohesive resistance. By the first hour, a quarter of the level had fallen, and another quarter of it was a scene of slaughter, carnage with battles against law enforcement at the edges, her forces constantly pushing further and further, leaving a devastated city behind them.
She knew it wouldn't last. The Arbites were not equipped for such a battle, and to an extent neither were the PDF. But they were far more numerous and better armed than the Arbites, and her forces were hardly a full on Tyranid planetary invasion force. Sooner or later, she would start encountering far harsher resistance. And that was to say nothing of the elite Sororitas.
That had been a troubling piece of information to learn from her lictors. Not only the presence of Sororitas; Of which she herself knew little beyond the tales told to the population, and the Network passed through little that made sense. It was unfortunately not perfect; and could not pass all of the information it had instantly. The part of her mind that was able to translate it all was far busier than usual right now helping to coordinate the swarm and her warriors especially, and that left little processing power to decoding the Network's information on that particular foe. Even worse was the presence of warships in orbit.
Frankly, she wasn't sure what to do about those.
She could adapt her swarm to fight PDF. She could even make organisms that could go toe to toe with the sororitas and their vehicles. But to create bio-ships from a hive that had no fleet...that required time, and an insane amount of biomass. Consuming the world would give her more than enough for a small fleet, but by the time they were ready the fleet would have bombarded them into oblivion a hundred times over.
It was a situation to which she had no good answer. But her younger self had promised to work towards a solution, and if there was one thing she trusted...it was her.
Her eyes drifted towards a spot further into the city. Ah, some actual resistance. Some of the pdf had rallied the remaining Arbites in the sector and were setting up some defenses around the transport hub. Good. She was hoping for them to gather like this. She rose from her sitting position, standing at the edge of the tall building as she pulled on the influence connecting her to every single tyranid organism present on the planet, finding those she wished for and passing on some instructions.
Let them gather their defenses. Let them focus their defenders in one spot.
It would make it easier for her to smash it all at once.
"GRENADE!" The screen made Harrison jump back right as a small metal object landed a few metres away from him; And only a rapid scramble behind cover saved him from being torn to shreds by the shrapnel and chunks of xenos that weren't as lucky as him. His ears were ringing, and for once in his life he was almost grateful to the loss of hearing. Anything to not have to hear the incessant alien screeching and distant screams of the population getting devoured alive. His hands trembled as they reached for his lasgun, turning his head around cover to see a group of the smaller ones crawling towards him. He took a deep breath, steadying his aim as he lined his shot. One. Two. Three. Each shot burned a hole through one of the worm like creatures, the small pack soon left dead. He sighed in relief, his eyes turning back towards his objective; the large transport hub, with its tall rockcrete walls and small army of PDF defenders. He could see some of the monsters trying to scale up the walls only to be met by volley after volley of laser fire, corpses raining down as they tried to find a way in. This was his ticket out of here. Or at least, he could join in with the defenders and help hold the line until more reinforcements could arrive and stabilize the front. Bracing himself, he took a quick glance around before breaking into a full sprint towards the wall. Something whizzed past him; some strange chitinous projectile, wriggling maliciously as it sailed through the air. He blanched, glancing back to see a dozen or so of the smaller organisms, these ones standing on two feet and as long as a man was tall, holding what looked like organic weaponry. They fired upon him, and it was only luck that prevented him from being torn to shreds as a piece of building was smashed near him by the explosion of a misthrown grenade, sending it crashing down in between him and the group. He knew this would only buy him a few seconds however, and so he continued his desperate run towards the wall.
He wasn't going to make it, he realized with dread. Even if he could get to the wall, the doors were locked shut, there were no ladders leading up and the surface was too smooth to climb. Still, he ran, hoping for a miracle. After a final sprint, he finally made it; his back hitting the smooth gray wall as he turned to face his pursuers, his gun shaking with his arms as adrenaline coursed through his body. He saw one of the creatures climb over the chunk of hab-block, its biological gun-like weapon pointed straight at him. A single shot from his lasgun burned a hole through its chitinous head, the body tumbling to the ground only to be replaced with a further three. To his surprise however, they were immediately picked off as further lasgun fire came from above him. Something was thrown near him, Harrison's eyes widening as he saw the rope dangling down.
"Come on! Grab it!" A voice called out. His shock dissipated instantly, strapping his gun back to his shoulder before his hands grabbed the rope and clenched it tight as he was pulled upwards. A giddy feeling of happiness filled him as he was dragged up on the wall, a squad of PDF firing down at the creatures now fleeing from the wall as an Arbites grabbed his forearm and pulled him onto the rampart proper. The woman gave him an excited grin. "Ha! Nice running private!" He laughed himself, the shock of realizing he was still alive mixing in with the relief and gratitude for his rescue.
"Thank you officer! You've got one hell of a pull strength!" She clapped his shoulder, before pointing to the transport hub further inside.
"We've got a mag-train about to head for level three. All the levels below are being evacuated to avoid people falling to those things. Orders from the Sororitas." She gestured to her group. "This was our last sweep of our section of the wall before another group picks it up. We've been tasked with 'escort duty'" She said with air quotes. "But really we're here to make sure people don't start killing each other in a panic on the way up. Are you with us?" He glanced at the walls surrounding the transport hub. Over a thousand PDF troops held the line from the most defensive position on this level of the Hive, barely doing so by the skin of their teeth. What was the point if all the people they were dying to protect were just going to get slaughtered by the hysterical masses?
Besides, it wasn't like he had his own squad to return to...
"Alright. Lead the way." She nodded, before barking at the others that they were pulling back. He noted that even the one with the rank of corporal listened to her and obeyed without question. Technically, now that there was an attack from a foreign force, the PDF were put in charge of military affairs and the Arbites. Here and now however, with the chain of command an absolute mess and the troops on the ground left to fend for themselves, whomever was judged most capable was nominally in charge.
They climbed down the wall as another squad took their place, quickly opening fire as they did. Thankfully, it didn't seem like any of the alien monsters had made it up the walls yet; though having fought within the streets of the Hive, he knew that the amount of creatures assailing the walls represented only a portion of the full force devastating the rest of the level. Once the rest converged here, there was no doubt in his mind the PDF would be overwhelmed in a matter of minutes.
They reached the mag-train within a minute, it being the closest to where they had been. He could see the packed amount of people in it, so tight in some compartments they were pressed against the windows. The Arbites member pointed towards one of the emptier compartments.
"That's ours! Let's go, go, go people!" They ran towards the compartment. As the first member of their group climbed aboard, a scream came from one of the gates a couple hundred metres away.
"INCOMING!" Something impacted with the gate, denting it and leaving some cracks gnawed by some strange acid. But that wasn't what Harrison found himself staring at, even as the gate was subjected to a bombardment of what was quite clearly heavy ordinance, threatening to break it down within seconds. No, he found himself staring at the creature that had just jumped on top of the rampart. Not climbed, no. Jumped. A solid fifteen metres of wall. It was humanoid, and could even pass for a human within some strange chitinous armour from afar. But the speed at which it moved belied that idea. It was strangely graceful as it went from PDF to PDF, slaughtering them in an instant. In the blink of an eye, four of the fourteen men standing atop the gate were gone, their heads torn from their body or long sets of slash marks marking where the claws of the creature had sliced them. It moved with an agility and speed that had Harrison in a strange horrified awe. Someone grabbed his arm, pulling him towards the compartment.
"Come on, we have to go NOW!" He snapped out of it, rushing inside the compartment along with the others as the doors slammed shut, the train going from zero to full speed in a matter of seconds; Those who hadn't braced themselves were sent tumbling to the floor, the acceleration hitting them hard. All the while, Harrison gazed outside, seeing as the gate was finally broken through and a flood of creatures poured through, at the head of which were a set of twenty large, three metres tall monsters. Some fired on the train, the sound of shattered glass and screams sending shivers down his spine, but the train was within mere seconds too far for the weapons of their foe to reach them. As it sped away, he collapsed to the ground, the adrenaline rush finally taking its consequences.
It took them an hour to reach the third level. The train did not stop once on the way.
"Hey." As the train closed in on its destination, he looked at the Arbites officer that spoke to him. She gave him a weary smile. After he'd managed to get up, they'd started patrolling the train along with the rest of their group to break up any fights from the more rowdy passengers and apply first aid to those who could use it. "I don't think I actually caught your name soldier."
"Harrison. Harrison Maran, private in the third battalion of the Planetary Defense Force." He answered. "You?"
"Vela Regan." She said. "You got any orders on what to do once we arrive?" He shook his head.
"Command has been running around like a headless chicken. They've been utterly useless." He snarled. "No evacuation order, no regrouping, nothing."
"I see." She sighed. "I'd been fearing it'd be like that. We're not much better on the Arbites side. Pretty much the only orders we've been getting have been from the Sororitas, and even those aren't exactly great." She shrugged. "We don't exactly have the equipment to do the missions they've been telling us to go on."
"So it's a mess." He sighed. "As usual. Except this time, we're not dealing with some disgruntled workers." A cold shiver went down his spine as the memory of that..thing came to mind. Of all the things he had seen today, this had been the thing that had scared him the most so far. He couldn't place his finger on exactly why. If he had to say, it would be...instinct. Like a prey looking at its natural predator.
It wasn't a feeling he was particularly comfortable with.
The train finally pulled into the station. There, he could see there were thousands of PDF and Arbites already gathered, screaming and yelling at the already present people dispersed through the station. Their train must have been the last to leave. The air was thick from tension, as it was clear no one really knew what was going on or how to handle it. Only one bastion of order and calm remained: a squad of sisters of battle, making their way towards the train. He gulped as his gaze crossed with one of the wihte haired women, who pointed towards their compartment.
Perhaps there was time for something to surpass the creature in making him feel fear today.
The experiment had performed impressively. From a very small amount of effort from a single node had bloomed a veritable Hive. A small one, and by no means even remotely close to being able to be declared a Hive-Fleet. But one nonetheless.
CONSUME.
The performance was sufficient to confirm success of the experiment. Even should it be crushed by the forces it now faced, it had shown that it could accomplish much with such limited resources.
CONSUME.
To lose it would be a waste. The hundreds of nodes now dedicated solely to managing the experiment and its small Hive reached out to the larger whole; Almost drowned out by the chorus of trillions of other nodes. And yet even the smallest thought would be heard, processed and analyzed. The Network listened to the smaller one's conclusion.
CONSUME. GROW. CONSUME.
It agreed.
A much larger sub-network reached out to the smaller one. Information was exchanged, synaptic bonds were made. A location was shared.
The Leviathan diverted one of its numerous tendrils.
CONSUME.
The experiment was worth saving. If they could just reach it before it was slain, they could save its genetic memory in Leviathan. Entrap its soul within the Network, and make losing her impossible. Another avatar for the Network, much like the Unending One.
PRESERVE.
The consensus was unanimous. A mission was given.
CONSUME. PRESERVE. EVOLVE. GROW. CONSUME.
CONSUME.
CONSUME.
The Leviathan moved to go find its child.
Left. Anya dodged the laser shot before it was even fired, her arm lashing out and tearing the soldier's head clean off. Right. A lasgun shot barely singed her reinforced carapace before she had snuffed the mind of the one who'd shot her, crushing his mind with her own overwhelming will power and psychic energy. A grenade found itself sailing towards her and she batted it back with reflexes beyond any human, sending it to explode right on the woman who'd thrown it at her. There was a wide smile on her face as she carved a bloody path through the PDF soldiers who were trying to kill her. She didn't relish in the slaughter itself, not really. It was the struggle that made her swell with joy. So many were trying to kill her, but couldn't. Because she was strong. Because she was fast. Because she'd worked so, so hard to grow more powerful and now they could do nothing to her.
"Careful." A voice snapped her out of her rapturous state. "There is no prey that should be underestimated. Such thoughts will get you killed." She shook her head, admonishing herself. Nothing wrong with enjoying the hunt, but she needed to stop getting so carried away.
"You're right." She said aloud, grabbing a large concrete barrier that had been placed as cover inside of the transport hub area and smacked the three soldiers hiding behind with it, their bodies getting crushed from the impact. "Sorry."
"This is your first time in a large-scale battle. It is understandable." Her younger self was standing by, giving her a small smile. "But keep calm. Mindless rage serves well some of the organisms of the Hive, but your role requires more careful thinking."
"Yes, yes." She answered petulantly. Still, she heeded her younger self's words and took a moment of pause to examine her surroundings. The PDF were on the verge of breaking, she could feel their will flickering. Less than half of their number remained, dwindling further and further as positions were overrun by termagants and hormagaunts or blasted wholesale by warriors with heavy weaponry. In a matter of minutes, they would all be overwhelmed and slaughtered. But this would cost a number of organisms; A number which would have to be recreated, costing time if not biomass, so long as they could get the bodies back. And the fewer of them died, the more she had to continue her assault.
She reached for the minds of the defenders. Never before had she tried to grasp so many minds. But they were frightened, panicked and distracted. Hardly expecting a psychic assault of all things. She could try and inflict pain, could try and crush their minds. But these might take a lot out of her, and there was a far more efficient way of doing it.
She took those feelings of fear, that desire to flee, and amplified them drastically, a wind of terror billowing through the PDF. One of them screamed in panic, turned from his position and ran. And like a dam bursting, in a matter of seconds almost every single soldier was fleeing for their lives; their weapons forgotten, discarded as unnecessary weight holding them down. Some of the more strong willed ones stayed despite it, but left on their own they were not able to offer even a modicum of resistance before being devoured. The fleeing soldiers did not get far before a flood of hormagaunts caught up with them and slaughtered them whole. Anya looked on, eyes wide and a grin on her face.
And all without having to lose a single other creature. Efficiency at its finest.
Her eyes drifted away from the slaughter, watching out to the city. She knew that in a couple hours, the entire level would be devoured. Hundreds, thousands of more creatures were being produced right now by Nornie and her younger sister to fuel the assault. She should continue to the next level; The more time she gave the upper levels, the more time they had to gather their wits and troops, fortify and prepare for her and her swarm. She would leave the rippers down here along with a few termagants lying in ambush; Just in case some pockets of resistance remained, or someone from the upper levels decided to try mounting an assault on her feasting rippers. The rest would be waiting for her to create a breach to the upper level. Hormagaunts and termagants were ill suited for the task of penetrating heavy fortifications, unless sent in numberless swarms to empty the defenders ammo and morale. She hummed as she watched from afar the distant gates leading to the next level. Most of the transportation was done through the transport hub, but it wasn't like she could make her swarm go by train. She giggled at the mental image of her warriors having to lean over to fit inside the mag-trains.
She would send some lesser organisms through the sewers to start sporadic attacks in the next level, causing chaos and forcing the defenders to start dispersing. Then...she would push with her strongest organisms against one of the gates, breaking through and allowing her swarm to move onto the next level.
"I believe I have something that could help." Her younger self gave her a glance. "We have enough biomass to start producing some greater organisms. The next gate will not be so easy to infiltrate as the one to the Underhive."
"Oh? What do you have in mind?"
"Something strong enough to break through."
"What's it called?" She didn't have to explain she meant according to humans.
"Carnifex."
"Emperor protect us..." The soldier next to her whimpered as he looked to the desolation beyond.
"What a nightmare, am I right?" An old man muttered next to her, lighting a smoke. She glanced at him. "Never thought I'd see an actual xenos invasion. Cultists were bade enough, now this?" He sighed. "And they haven't fucking changed a thing since then, save to sweep things under the carpet better."
"Not much to be done about it." She answered back. "Any update on what's going on down there?" The old man nodded.
"Aye. The transport hub's fallen. Everyone down there's assumed dead." He shook his head. "If I had to guess, we're next on the chopping block."
"There are eight gates." She reminded him. "It could be any of them." He laughed.
"Assuming they don't just have the numbers to attack all of them?" He pointed to the far away transport hub, visible from here. "We're the closest gate to there. Anything that was there, and wants to go up...will come here."
"Hey!" An officer called out from below the rampart they stood on, placed atop a massive set of metallic gates. "I need five with me to go to sector four-six, we've got some of those things coming out of the sewers!" Curses all around. There was a palpable feeling of fear from the gate's garrison, who had been forced to listen to the screams of the population getting butchered in the lower level as the unknown aliens swarmed over them. Usually, there was only a dozen of them here. There never needed to be more, anything too troublesome was handled by the Arbites contingent. Now, there were two hundred soldiers lining the rampart and manning the make shift concrete defenses spread throughout the road leading further to the level above. Five of the ones on the wall walked down the stairs, heading out with the officer to try and put down whatever creatures made it through the sewer system.
"I thought those were blocked off?" She asked, a hint of nervousness getting to her. She was a veteran of the force; she'd been in the seventh batallion as it held the line against the cultists on the fifth level. Knowing those things might attack them from behind, might render their defenses useless...she swallowed.
"They are. But well...maintenance on any level below four isn't exactly a priority to the ones up there." He pointed upwards. "Might be a crack or two, or even a grate malfunctionning." He chuckled. "And hey. Nothing says they can't break through the ones that are." She gritted her teeth, tapping her lasgun with her fingers.
"Hm. Well, I suppose we..." A loud roar interrupted her. She blanched, turning around, looking back to the lower level. Something was making its way through the open street towards the gate.
It was massive. The size of a tank, covered in thick, chitinous silvery armour. A bulky creature of muscle and vicious claws, with a hunched over posture that still left it large enough to swallow a man whole through its roaring maw. She felt a numb fear crawl its way through her mind, before her body moved into firing position. Years of training and instinctive reflexes made her open fire on the thing, her stomach dropping as the lasgun simply faded into the carapace, leaving a small black mark. More soldiers started opening fire as well, concentrating on the behemoth of a beast picking up more and more speed. But it was all for naught as the creature simply shrugged off the small arms fire, barelling forward until it impacted with the gates. They shattered on impact, the creature tearing a massive, gaping hole in them as it slammed full force into the metal gates. The rampart shook with the impact, sending many of the people on it tumbling down, screaming before their cries were cut off in a loud wet splat. She herself was struggling to get up, the impact having sent her crashing down to the ceiling of one of the nearby military buildings. She looked up, ignoring the blood pouring from her likely fractured skull as the beast let out a powerful roar before trampling forth, crushing men under its large hoove like feet and using its immense single claw like appendages to impale more on them. It was like watching a wrecking ball come into contact with humans. Worse however was what came through the hole behind it. A veritable swarm of creatures came through the wake; allowed to surge forth freely as the soldiers struggled to switch their attention and fire from the massive creature crushing their friends to the newly emerged threat. Within seconds the gate was overrun, soldiers dying screaming as they were devoured alive, the swarm pushing forth further into the city.
The sixth level was breached.