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It didn't take long for Absalom to regain consciousness, but he wasn't the same man as before. Every Hybrid treated him as if the man was an old friend finally visiting and he accepted it with causal ease. That in itself only reinforced my actions to prevent the other two Armsmen from being infected. Said men were tied up and placed in the Hybrid container, I made certainly would be taken care of and placed two Termagants at their side. With orders to shoot at any Genestealer trying to infect them. It still confused the heck out of the cult but they accepted it regardless.

"Michael?" Absalom said returning my attention to the conversation at hand.

He, Norma, Shem, and I were all seated in Absalom's office. It was mainly to just discuss the whole taking the ship thing. As easy as it would have been to just have Absalom make the crew sail us to the hive ship he pointed out how the bridge crew and anyone in charge of sensors would notice a Tyranid bioship and panic. All there needed to be was a single transmission and suddenly a fleet would gun right for us.

The previous invasion meant the whole sub-sector was on high alert. Especially since we were apparently going to Meridian capital of the sub-sector, things required us to be extra careful.

"Giving the deck crew the gift of our kinship should be-" I didn't let Norma finish the sentence.

"We are not giving anybody else the Genestealer's kiss, there will be no arguing or mentions about this again." I said harshly, and kind of regretted being rude Yet Norma inclined her head respectively and I couldn't feel any apprehension towards me just more naked confusion.

"Then how are we to prevent the crew from bringing down the sector fleet on us? I need those men and their expertise to man the vessel." Absalom asked.

"We just go with the old plans and hijack the ship." I shrugged, this was going to be a lot easier with the Captain on our side but I wasn't dumb to think it in a simple manner.

"Tricking the Armsmen into a cargo bay and sealing it will be a simple task for me." Shem interjected, I could see images of him just ordering them to go there and sighed gratefully.

"Just lock them up, no spacing!" He nodded, fully understanding my orders, and I was glad these guys were so accepting.

"We will need to separate at least four hundred members of the crew to aid us in manning the various functions." Absalom said.

"Is there a place we can gather them? Like away fro. The rest of the crew members we're going to seal away?"

"The mess hall could be useful there, sizable enough to hold fifteen hundred within and three entrances to easily surround them." He explained graciously.

"Then that's what we'll use. Norma and I will take care of that." Between Shem, Absalom, and my brood this was a plan that could work. Before we settled things. "I was wondering if you could fill some of those cargo containers with canned foods..."

If I was going to be on a Bioship I wanted to have something reasonable to eat and since I now had the Captain on my side...


Getting a bunch of canned goods worked out fine, I basically just picked what sounded nice and what would fit the major food groups. That done we shuttled up to the cargo hauler. Really it just looked like the ships you needed to escort in Battlefleet Gothic Armada. I didn't really get the scale of one point five kilometers until we reached one of the landing bays. It had six of those, three on each side of the ship and we landed amongst a squad of other shuttles like ours and the crew immediately began taking the containers off. The ones containing the Hybrids and my Brood were separated from the rest to a corner of the hangar bay by the captain. Who also ordered two whole hangers cleaned of shuttles and containers, likely for our plan to trap people there.

I kept my lasgun slung over my shoulder and my head held down. There was a bounty for my capture and I wanted to avoid any undue attention. It honestly might have been a bit paranoid. Nothing really happened other than our preparations. I stayed out of everybody's way and focuses on exploring my connection with the Tyranids.

There was absolutely nobody I could speak with that could explain any aspect of this. So I had to keep doing things myself. Secluding myself everybody else in my room I could still feel my Brood fairly well. There had to be a serious range with my telepathy, one I was wondering how well it could hold on a bioship, or how many Gaunts I was able to muster under it. Would I need to kill more synaptic creatures aboard the bioship? I wanted more creatures who would obey me without question rather than Hybrids with limited numbers and where I only held sway with words and apparent holiness to them. The more I kept connecting and testing my synaptic link the 'deeper' I felt it become like I was bench pressing and it built muscle mass. I did this for about a day before we had finally made it far enough from Tyohon's gravity well that we could make the jump.

At least that's how Absalom explained it.

I was on the bridge now with Norma and Shem, shutters were closing over the viewing glass and I tensed as our ship left real space.

A warp jump wasn't bad really, I didn't feel anything off nor was there an alarm about demons boarding the ship. It was extremely quick, likely due to it being a jump between planets. Except we weren't going to any worlds really, sure we were soon at the edge of Meridian the moment we left the warp and the shutters opened. The planet now is a large ball in the distance but it wasn't our destination and the ship slowly turned to move away from the planet. The deck crew wasn't confused as Absalom informed them they were passing along some cargo.

The whole deck crew was a part of the Captain's smuggling operation or at least aware it occurred.

"Great Carrier..." Norma muttered and tugged at my sleeve to grab my attention. "I can feel the holy vessel... It has been roused from its slumber."

I let my mind wander about for what she was talking about, I thought it would be a pointless action until it washed over me. I could feel it too, in the distance. I was able to stare directly at a spot on the endless void of space and confidently say that is where the ship was at. Its mass, the intelligence behind it was almost eager in its own weird way to meet me. There was also a far more sentient being behind housed inside, it took me a bit longer to get what it was until I realized it was the Patriarch.

That thing with full influence over the Hybrids, and something I wasn't exactly jumping to meet with. Norma was almost jumping with enthusiasm, she was basically on her way to meeting Jesus of Nazareth here. Shem too was also excited but discipline helped him contain it better. Absalom was the only one who wasn't ecstatic about I more just going through the motions, not really a Hybrid yet but would get there eventually.

I turned to him, deciding it was better to let Shem have his moment with Norma. I leaned towards the Captain and whispered. "Is everything ready to go?"

He nodded graciously. "Of course Michael, should I give the command? Or wait until we are closer?"

"Let me get down to my brood," I wanted to be with them when we move on the mess hall. I had to be present to have complete control over the situation with them and have a full view to prevent and issues. Besides any security would be locked up shortly. No one in the mess hall would be armed. "Just stay on the bridge and wait for me to radio- vox the signal, Norma, Shem. It's time to get into position."

They broke out of their moment and inclined their heads respectively, moving on to get their jobs done. Once I had my brood and was at the mess hall this should be easy. Just a quick intimidation getting the few hundred necessary for keeping the ship moving to stay in line. To make sure they knew fighting back was pointless and would be fine if they just did as I asked. Did I want to be the one going down here to tell then this? No.

I did not trust anyone else not to hurt or maim any of the crew. Besides they were just crew for a cargo hauler, were they really going to argue when the ship was confirmed to be ours?


The entirety of the crew was confused or just accepting of the Captain's request. I noted how most moved towards the cargo bays while few converged elsewhere. After a while there was nobody but servitors mulling about, who are not the kind of things that report in a brood of Tyranids marching through the halls. Getting my brood and Norma her Hybrids out and through the cleared decks was a simple task. She knew the way and thusly lead the path forwards, I made consistent mentions on how I would handle the intimation part and none of the Hybrids were allowed to hurt anyone. I still had that lasgun too.

"These crew members are too important to damage, we need them alive to run the ship." I explained to all the Hybrids, even sending a mental message conveying my feelings. I was getting better at using my telepathy, it took no serious effort now and I could 'connect' to their minds as easily as my Gaunts. Through not commanding them, hence why I kept drilling into their heads that we weren't hurting anybody.

My thoughts were broken when a door passing the middle of our group opened up and a dark-skinned woman holding a pad paused. What a sight it must have been, she screamed and one of the many-limbed Hybrids grappled her and slammed the comparably frail body against the metallic wall. The glass on her pad cracked as it impacted the ground and she cried loudly for help.

"Shut her up now!" I panicked, there shouldn't be anyone else out here but apparently not everyone had heard the Captain's orders. Or maybe just selectively ignored it because they had something to do.

The Hybrids raised one of its clawed hands up poised to rip out her throat and I shot out a huge telepathic message. It garnered just the response too, the hybrids all flinching back as their fellow spasmed in place. The woman could have gotten loose but was too busy screaming to do anything else.

"Just cover her mouth!" So he did and she still made muffled noises and began squirming. "Take her to one of the cargo bays, the ones without guards in it!" They nodded and easily pulled the panicking woman along, my Gaunts separated their ranks to allow them passage.

"Even if someone pulled a gun or tried running were could just tackle them to the ground like that." I needed to be careful about what I said and we needed to be on the lookout for any stragglers.

The Hormagaunt and Termagants had pretty good noises and had become sniffer dogs at that point. We found no one else through so that was at least a blessing. As we approach the mass hall I thought I'm to the visible reaction they all had to me yelling STOP through my telepathy with them.

"Was that just them sputtering at my actions or were they actually having a physical reaction to my mental response...?" I wasn't too keen on testing that especially not on the ship we're about to hijack.

We had all three entrances covered by a combined force of Gaunts and Hybrids. Norma and I took up position and I sucked in some air like it was going to calm myself down. Soon word came into my earpiece that the communication dish was down.

"Okay let's do this." Norma nodded with an eager grin and all three groups moved in simultaneously. The Hormagaunts and Termagants fanning out to cover all spaces between the doorway and kitchen. Hybrids had the door. Technicians, scribes, loading crews, and everybody, in general, spotted us but could do nothing to stop the Tyranids surrounding them. They had to know what we were, the sub-sector was literally invaded by 'nids and is undergoing a clean-up of them.

Some screamed and pointed, others moved underneath tables, few took another into their arms but everyone was scared. I could feel it in the air like steam rising off heated stones. Termagants held their rifles up like a bunch of execution squads, and purposefully at that. Hormagaunts gnashed their teeth and hissed like angry predators finding some slippery prey. There were over four hundred people here and if just a quarter decided to bolt there would be issues for us.

"Attention everyone!" I called out, standing on one of my Hormagaunts. "We have taken your vessel, you are all now hostages of our brood."

I thought about what would be the best way to do this and decided to treat it like pulling off a band-aid. No point in beating around the bush. Their reaction was one of further panic and confusion, they were all selectively told to come here by the Captain after all. I noted how some tried to sneakily use communicators, or what I assumed were communicators. Trying to contact anybody for help would be pointless, all the Armsmen would be locked up by now and the bridge ours.

"Everyone, un hey everybody listens!" I tried to regain the crowd but few did anything but shimmying under a table or trying to look around to find a means of escape.

While I was busy holding up my arms and trying to grab anyone's attention. Norma took the initiative and all but ripped the lasgun off my back and flicked it to full auto firing it over the crowd. It wasn't loud but the sudden light show over their heads had everyone diving to the floor and dragging their fellows down with them to avoid the deadly red beams. Thankfully Norma aimed high and all the shots impacted against the high metallic wall just singeing it.

I ripped the gun out of her hands, knowing well enough why she did it and understanding Norma wouldn't get my anger, took hold of the opportunity.

"I know none of you would like to become a meal for us, and you won't so long as all do as I say." I was still a bit tense and tried my damnedest to inject as much authority into my voice as possible. Which was extremely hard.

"All of you will separate into a corner of the room, technicians for the engine there, basic ship functions there, operation of the plasma flow there, and life support functions there!" Nobody moved and my Hormagaunts moved closer, jumping onto tables and hissing loudly. "Now! Or we'll make you move!"

It was slowly but gradually people began filtering into the separate corners I designated with my Termagants moving to cover the groups. My Hormagaunts still need to go and pull some out and force them to move, they screamed bloody murder but eventually decide not to push things.

"Alright, everything is working out just fine. All I need is for this boat to move straight and then I'll be out of here..." This was assuming nothing was about to go wrong here.

My earpiece buzzed with Absalom's voice as he let the other shoe drop at last.

"Michael, someone on the bridge set off the distress beacon."


As soon as everything was sorted in the mess hall I jumped on a Hormagaunt and raced through the wide corridors of the ship. My heart was racing at the implications of what that meant, we get any ship coming after us and I am dead. Getting briefly lost before noticing a board with a map in a junction then making my way to the bridge. Said bridge was firmly under Absalom's control, Hybrid Armsmen, as well as just regular human-looking Hybrids, stood around with ballistic firearms keeping the uninfected crew at the stations. There was an open panel with a technician inside as well as some bloodstains on the console and floor. Looking like something was dragged along and made a trail upon the metallic floor.

"What happened here?!" I cried out setting off my Hormagaunt and towards Absalom.

The Captain turned to look at me with a bit of a dejected look to him. "I thought I had the situation under control but one of them decide to bolt towards the button to activate the distress beacon."

"Why is the distress beacon activated by a single button?" I said frustrated, this was going so well and suddenly just slammed into a wall.

"It's for ease of access, of course, you won't want something needed to call for aid in a serious emergency to be complicated to use."

"That-! Makes sense actually..." I sighed and noticed how most of the uninfected crew was trying to eying me up and figure out who I was. "Did anybody hear it?"

"Not sure really, high alert as the sub-sector is someone could have picked up on a ping. I am having it disabling now." He gestured to the technician working in the open panel and I nodded.

"Okay, but the bridge is ours, the crew members you needed are prepared, and Shem has everybody else locked up." I was able to fully relax, this shouldn't take long really, we'll be there then out of Aurelia in no time really.

"Once we make it to the bioship I'll just FTL out of here and be done with it all."