Please favorite, follow, share, and/or review


Everything was running smoothly, Hybrids and my brood were keeping the crew members we needed in line. The ones we didn't need were being held in two cargo bays on opposing sides of the ship. The vessel was reported to be running smoothly and the captive crew members stopped trying to figure out why they were trapped in the cargo bays and just lounging around. They probably figured out the ship had just been hijacked but remained blissfully unaware of who did so and what was really going on. The ship would be arriving at the Bioship in a dozen or so hours and it didn't seem like we were being pursued, at least for now. I was not about to go full optimist with my previous track record in mind. I still needed to deal with two things.

"Absalom I need you to pull up a star map and tell me where is the closest system with no Imperial presence." Sure he was a sub-sector cargo hauler but that was vastly more knowledge about space travel than Norma, Shem, and of course me. "We need a place to go where the brood can be safe from major threats, but mainly just the Imperium."

I would settle for a planet controlled by Orks. They couldn't be reasoned with and I'm sure no one would care if I butchered them. I know I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Just needed to find somewhere with biomass I could use to feed the fleet and come up with an actual plan of action.

Absalom pushed some buttons over a large square table in front of the Captain's chair, the green-colored star map meant nothing to me. I didn't know where sub-sector Aurelia was on the 40k map besides the fact it was somewhere in the galactic east. What I got wasn't the whole map of the milky way but just a region in the Segmentum we were in. "There is a system south if records are not wrong a group of words that have not been colonized yet."

"Why hasn't anyone?" I asked, seemed off the ever-growing and shrinking Imperium would just ignore worlds. "What's there that has stopped them from trying?"

"Well..." He skimmed his way through some lines of text before responding. "There seems to be nothing of note, a colony was attempted but given up on when it laced resources and reported the planet was a death world. The planet is too deep beyond Imperial borders and the astronomicon so attempts have been abandoned."

"Then that's exactly where we're going to bolt to once we've got a bioship." I thought happily and thanked Absalom before turning to Norma.

"So tell me about the Patriarch." I wanted to know what this thing was capable of before I ran into it. If push came to shove and considering my luck I was just gonna assume that, I wanted to know as much as I could before I tried killing it.

"Our brood father is not the original, they were killed some time ago. We managed to connect to this one aboard the holy carrier only recently and while it is not fully matured the wisdom they have has been invaluable-"

"What do you mean by it's not fully matured?"

"I mean the Patriarch of our brood is still not at its full strength. Its ability to communicate with is... not great. Now it can still speak with the prophets!" She declared graciously. "However it can only whisper with the rest of us and many of the purer members of the brood do not always listen fully to its holy edict."

Genestealers wanted to get close to their Patriarch and it was one that wasn't even fully grown at that. It could be an opportunity but one I didn't know how it could be exploited. We were going to be at the bioship soon enough and I need a plan beyond throwing my brood at it and hoping it's enough to kill it. Without that ship under my control this could get complicated in ways I didn't need.

"I asked if the planet Aurelia had come from the warp yet and Absalom was confused as to what that was. Even if that means I have time until it shows I don't know how long." Hence why I was filled with haste in getting the heck out of the sub-sector.

"Great carrier!" Shem interrupted suddenly, his voice sounded urgent so I gave him my full attention. "Some of the technicians have attacked one of their guards and are now barricaded inside the Warp drive."


We were spread thinly around the ship, I knew that we'll enough from what Shem and Absalom told me about the group sizes and how few guards they would all have. Yet I would have thought a bunch of ravaging beasts and many-limbed Hybrids would keep untrained crew members in line. Apparently not if this situation was anything to go by. Shem and I raced through the halls, on the backs of Termagants I only had one Hormagaunt. I couldn't help but crack a smile at how ridiculous Shem looked clinging to the back of the creature.

"Probably how I looked in all honestly."

I went back to the situation at hand as the ride through corridors and elevators ended with us reaching a stand-off. If a locked door with a few Hybrids and Hormagaunts standing in front of it aggressively hissing could be called that. The blades arms of my brood had left deep scars on the metal door to the warp drive. We weren't in the warp but Absalom had told me if the technicians managed to overload it the event could irreparably damage the engines. It was only three of them sealed away as the remaining five of their group were all lined up against a wall. Palms were placed flat on the cold walls like we were about to pat them down and arrest them.

"We can't get the door open?" Shem tapped his ears before shaking his head, we had to get them out of a large room with two Hormagaunts and three Hybrids. One of the ladder two was nursing a head wound, apparently from a wrench. They had to have ducked into the warp drive for a reason and it wasn't liable to be good for our health.

So I was in a pretty harrowing situation that could be on a serious time limit.

"Can we just blast the doors open?" I asked and Shem once more shook his head.

"This place houses the coolant for the drive and it's ancient. The shaking from just using the drive often knocks always knocks something loose but an explosion could be even more catastrophic."

"Hacking it open?" I offered hopeful.

"We don't have anyone for that, or at least anyone that wouldn't take their time for it. Everyone here is responsible for his even if only three technicians got inside."

Not to mention the time limit we were likely on. My eyes wandered around the massive steel door, just trying to find a fault with my eyes but knew I wasn't one for it. Yet I soon settled on a vent on the ceiling over it and an idea began to form.

"What vents lead into that room? Can any of them allow Hormagaunts to crawl through? What buttons do they need to press to unlock the door?" I could sense that Shem immediately caught on to what I was thinking and tapped his earpiece to talk with the Captain. Soon he was running over with a combat knife to pry off a metal grate on the floor.

"If they just go straight, turn left, then head up at the first grate they will make it! On the panel, there will be a one with a red light, press that then one white button on the upper left."

My telepathic link and the Gaunts robotic method of following my orders led to both of them immediately bolting into the floor. A full minute would pass until muffled screams and shouts came through the door. Soon they were both sliding open as one of the Hormagaunts had run up to press the necessary buttons to unlock then open them.

One of my Gaunts had a woman pinned and the other rushed to drag one of the two men down. They're sharp claws and teeth never biting, nor did their blade pierce any flesh. Following my orders not to harm except for Shem to rushed the remaining technicians that swung a wrench at the Cheif Armsman's head. Shem proved why he held that title by catching the highly telegraphed arm and driving a fist into the man's stomach. As soon as the wrench was twisted out of his hand the technician found said arm pulled around his back and his face impacting the floor.

I flinched at the loud thud that echoed throughout the room and moved in to take command. Sending a soothing message to Shem to calm down now that they were all subdued.

The woman's struggles and cries had caught the attention of the man Shem had pinned and immediately he began swearing like the sailor he was.

"Get yer fracking claws off her! Swear my him on Terra I will rip yer hearts outta yer asses with my damn hands!" Spittle had flown out from his mouth even as blood leaked out from his broken nose. It seemed like pain and danger just angered him even more and it took no effort on my part to figure out who instigated all this.

I tried to keep any emotion out of my voice, attempting to become an automaton. "You are not exactly in the position to be making threats-"

"To the Warp with you! The Emperor gives me strength to stand against Xenos and heretics!"

I fixed him with the sternest glare I could muster like I was looking at some mud on my shoe. "Fifty-six hundred."

He stopped struggling and stared right back, likely trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean. "What?"

"That is how many crew members are locked away in the cargo bays. Minus the security Armsmen, there are about forty-six hundred more than happy to take your place." My voice was deep end to be as dark as possible and my facial expression twitched as I tried to maintain. "While you take their place as food for the brood."

A mental order was all I needed to get the Hormagaunt pinning his female companion to drool over her head. She squealed, frightened at the thought of becoming a meal and the man paused and considered the fact that his life wasn't the only one on the line. Now I wasn't going to hurt anybody here but I could not have them try anything stupid. The Gaunts I could control but the Hybrids were a bit of a wild card and I did not know how they would react.

"Well, the Hybrids would probably just gun and cut people left and right if push came to shove..." The ensuing massacre against whatever meager resistance they could muster. I didn't want to hurt anyone but also could not have them sabotaging my escape. So instilling fear into them was the best thing I could do.

"Shem, stay with them and make certain they don't try anything else. If they do feed them to the Hormagaunt then find someone else... and have this guy locked into the cargo bay and bring a replacement for him." I tried to filter out the woman's pleas, it's not like the guy was actually going to be harmed here. In spite of that command, I give a strict order that these Gaunts were to pin them down like last time. That seemed to do it though at all three of them joined the rest in keeping the system functions working.

"Now on to the Patriarch thing..."


I really wasn't sure what would be the end result of taking over Bioship or even I would have to kill a Genestealer Patriarch to do it. I kept on practicing with my brood had discovered a few things. The connection we shared was very one-sided. I had dictatorial ownership over the Gaunts and they had no say, I could better connect with individuals and feel sensations and get scents from them. Their minds were something Physical to grab but metaphorically speaking that's what I did to all of them when the Tyranid Warrior was killed. Asserting my dominance by grabbing their minds and laying claim over them. The Raveners were larger and ended up being a bit harder to control, maybe if I had the time to focus I could have had them.

Didn't go down that way of course and what this taught me is that trying to take control over runaway Tyranids must be harder the bigger they got. So killing a synaptic create and seizing control over its brood was likely a bad idea. It worked last time because Gaunts were small and had simple minds then the Raveners got stunned for just long enough. So having time to use my synaptic think to take control was important.

I kept thinking about that as the bioship became an ever-growing blimp in the distance and was able to be shown in the green table. It was a very crude and blocky image but one that painted a clear enough picture. The thing was massive, like about the size you'd expect from an Imperial light Cruiser in Battlefield Gothic.

It dwarfed the cargo freighter by being four times its size and of course, had its top half mostly covered in thick plates of carapace. There was a bunch of extremely long and relatively thin lines of flesh that swayed up and down. Like a rope would if someone grabbed one end and whipped it. Then there was an ovular mouth that was likely filled to the brim with sharp pointed teeth.

"We really going towards that..." The helmsman unmasked fear was understandable and didn't deserve the way Absalom snapped at him.

"Of course! Now stay the path set, there will be no deviations from this."

Eventually, we would get close enough to properly be able to make out the details from the table from the window. It wasn't of finer details as the thing was still a serious distance in space away from us but it began to turn towards us. Possibly the Patriarch coming to meet us.

"I can feel his mind!" Norma squealed in delight and I could feel a few of the other Hybrids getting excited. "Soon, oh, very soon we shall all bask in the light of our lovely lord." I did my best to just ignore her, not really something I wanted to have to deal with right now. Or at all really, just a brainwashed woman simping over a four-armed, big-headed, creature.

"Okay, that's what I'm going to be using to travel around the galaxy now. Best get used to the sight of it." I was literally going to be inside of a massive creature, that grossed me out due to how humid and slimy I was liable to-

"Incoming fire!" Someone shouted just before a trio of green burning balls flew over us. A second group had also gotten close but the timely intervention of the helmsman had the ship diving down and to the right so only one projectile rammed into the side. The explosion wasn't audible but everyone felt it. Absalom and Norma were both knocked to the floor by the sudden jolt and I would have joined them and my 'nids if I hadn't placed my hands on the console moments before. Gripping the thing hard and the raddle shifted the ship.

"What the hell was that?!" I cried out as everyone scrambled to assess the damage.

"I think came from that massive Xenos ship, a plasma shot maybe! Upper decks two to four towards the bow are venting!"

"Seal off the sections that are and get me damage and casualty reports!" Absalom ordered sternly and moved to seize control over his bridge.

I turned to Norma, this was the bioship we were going to but why was it shooting at us?! "Is that Patriarch doing this?" I whispered trying not it let the none Hybrids learn of any unsavory developments for us.

"No it is the holy ones ship merely reacting to us, the Patriarch has no control over it. Not connection, that is not its purpose Great Carrier."

"You're telling me this now?!" I voiced through clenched teeth, was she so excited to meet her prophet that sense died in her mind?

"Okay, so it is not in control and I'm just gonna assume they cannot get it off our backs here." I crisscrossed my legs to sit down and got my mind to wander outwards. If I couldn't get that Cruiser to stop firing at me we were all going to die. The bioship's mind was easy enough to find, it was massive and complex. It was an organism designed to travel through space, it was able to sense me trying to connect with it. The Bioship was too massive but I could feel it pause from feeling me right back. The hostility at the perceived threat began to dissipate as I tried sending some message that we were, well Tyranids.

The bioship got the message and I beckoned it to approach us slowly. "It's stopped firing, we're good..." My stomach sank as I was finally able to register the fact we'd been hit.

"What's the damage? How many died?"

"We have a breach in the hull but no one was in those decks, a few were knocked around but none have died in any of our teams." Absalom reported but there was still the five thousand or so still locked up in a section of the freighter.

"Get Shem to head down and check the cargo bays, if anybody's injured. Give them medical care too."

He blinked. "Why would-"

"Because I said so! Now just do it!" Now we were on to figuring out just how we were going to dock and have my meeting with the Patriarch. It might not have control over the bioship but that might not mean it will have an agenda I will like. I tried to brainstorm with the living cruiser on how docking could work and it showed me long tendrils shooting out from its body. Used for boarding if I wasn't mistaken and connected to a livable space for boarders to reside in and held the Patriarch. If the extremely powerful mind I felt wasn't enough to confirm it. There was also a fine complement of Tyranid forms hibernating inside it too but I paid little mind to them for now.

"Norma, why don't we enter and meet your Lord?" I smiled politely at her excited look, a nod of agreement was all I got and needed. "Absalom, I want you and Shem to stay here and lock up the crew we don't need to load the canned and dried goods into the ship. I want to be ready to abandon this vessel as soon as possible."

"Certainly Michael, I shall make preparations."

I called my brood and thought about how one of those massive tentacles was going to pierce to allow entry and move the cargo over...


Eventually, I had just decided the bioship would park right up against the required cargo bay and puncture a hole through the door. The tendril was designed to plug the opening as it made it to allow creatures to raid a ship. Letting them get sucked right back out into space would be stupid.

I waited until I could have my full brood fifty strong available before marching into the opening with Norma and a few dozen Hybrids.

I had the presence of mind to ask for a flashlight and thanked my foresight as we entered the fleshy tunnel into the massive beast. It wasn't pitch black dark per se, the walls glowed likely through a bioluminescent fluid within. But it was likely only enough for Tyranids to use when repelling invaders. Not really for human sight although Norma and the Hybrids seemed to move just fine.

"Whether that's because of night vision or just the Hive mind helping them along I can only guess at."

The walls were slick with a thin layer of clear fluid, didn't know if it was saliva or something similar, and the place wasn't drowning in it either. The floor was a lot more hardened than the walls, mainly so we could have stable footing to walk on. Said walls seemed to pull back to allow my three ranked Termagant guards at the lead to have enough space to comfortably move. There were also 'doors' as in areas where soft tissue scrunched together and blocked our path. I asked for it and any other to be opened and sure enough, it was followed through. I doubted these were for anything other than slowing down intruders or sealing off places that had been breached.

The long tunnels of flesh did not have a putrid smell I had feared they would but it was still off. A thick layer of something filled the air around me and I could almost taste it when breathing in. Didn't know what it was though and just ignored it for now.

I could feel the Patriarch, its mind eventually scratched against mine, the Genestealer was perplexed as to my nature. Like many before, Norma got even more excited as we reached a massive 'door' so much so that she and the Hybrids bolted past me the second the opening began to pull away. My broke tried to maintain their formation as the Hybrids surged forwards into a far better like room for the human eye to see. It was a quarter of the size of one of the cargo bays but had a pretty low ceiling.

There was also a lot of Genestealer I for some reason didn't pick up on. I scanned and guessed there were at least forty scattered without a pattern about the room. The Hybrids all dropped down in reverence Over the largest of the Genestealers I had yet seen, it looked just like the rest of the pure strains but was bigger, had far longer claws, and its mind I could tell was superior in every aspect.

The large Genestealer Patriarch looked at me quizzically and even seems to hiss, spurring the Genestealers around it into advancing into a forwards cone. My Gaunts interpreted this as a threat and wanted to move to intercept but I mentally held them back. The Patriarch seemed to calm at my actions but it wasn't just confused, it was as if it knew there was something inherently wrong about me and was trying to put its bladed finger on it.

It turned those piercing eyes to Norma practically prone before it and coldly placed a hand upon her black crown. She seemed to shiver with delight at this simple action and laid there for a moment before standing to speak.

"Great Carrier! The father has seen into my mind, knows of the captives we have obtained, and knows they will be perfect for regrowing the brood's strength!" Norma even threw her hand out dramatically as she spoke with glee.

My eyes narrowed slightly but I also tried not to seem too combative here. The Patriarch was different from the rest in some way. "We are going to let them go and that will be the end of it."

No one was being infected, or killed here. Not while I was standing around will a brood, I had control over these guys and influence over the cult. I had no reason to suspect the Patriarch would be different seeing as how it was allegedly not fully grown Yet apprehension permeated off its being like steam from a heated stone.

"The father is... animate about this. Too many that can see the light, too many what know of us..." Even with Norma being that thing's speaker I could sense the Patriarch was going to stand its ground on this.

That was not going to happen, ever.

"Well... I guess I really do have to kill this thing now." The Patriarch's head shot up from Norma's bowing form and stared with hatred burning behind its eyes. Slowly all the Hybrids and Genestealers turned as one to join its glaring. Claws came up if they had any, and teeth both pointed and flat to bare. I looked right back mirroring the same confusion the Cultists often had in response to my actions.

"Wait... Did it just understand what I was thinking...?"

The Patriarch roared and its cult surged forwards.


Termagants covered me via a hasty order as I boarded one of my Hormagaunts, the other melee types had rushed to stall whole my ranged one bid and firing retreat. Chased by Hybrids that were once my allies through the flesh corridors. The hybrids might have had me beaten through the sheer weight of numbers and vicious strength but I influenced the bioship. I asked it to seal as many 'doorways' as it could to slow them down and the vessel agreed, not really because it understood the 'why' part. The Genestealers though were just cutting their way through but it would buy me precious and bottlenecking them, I had precious seconds to consider my options and figure out a plan. The Patriarch knew I was hostile but it already wanted me for some reason, or more accurately the thing buried into my brain. Going back to the cargo hauler was out of the question as there were hybrids still on board and I doubted what's left of my brood could get the crew to take me out of here. Not to mention there was nowhere I could go then. That left me with only one option.

"I need to kill that Patriarch fast, the cult will break without it." I would need a larger brood and thought back to the many forms hibernating deep within this bioship. I didn't know the exact compliment but it was my best bet for reinforcements. So I connected my mind with both my ride and the ship and willed both to get me there and they just did the rest. We had to stop once when a pack of four Genestealers or just very later generation Hybrids showed up. I slid off my ride and onto the warm and moist floor with Termagants firing over me and between themselves to cut down one of them in a hail of spikes. One would be severely injured and have its head impailed once it reached my line of Hormagaunts. They fought two to one but let just one for me to ride, their many arms and sharp claws were no joke. At first, I thought the hoard had caught up with me but no more showed up afterward so it was likely they were a roaming pack that when hunting for me.

Soon we reached a massive room, like a Notre Dame cathedral kind of scale that was just as finely light as to where the Patriarch resided. The place was filled with Large pulsating pods and I could feel Tyranid life bundled up and dormant inside of each and every one. At first, I was just looking for Gaunts but found none. Then cursed myself as I realized that Gaunts were the easiest to gestate 'nids so why would they waste space in storing them? Of course, the only ones left were the larger ones and a few Synaptic creatures to lead them, why would my life be simple here.

"I need to... try and take over the minds of larger Tyranid creatures." My mind wandered back to the Raveners and how I failed at taking over their minds, yet I had to try. Not to mention I have been touching my Gaunts and the Hybrid brains and perhaps the practice would help here. The Genestealers closing in just behind use was a good enough motivator to try.

So I settled on my Hormagaunt's back and let my mind wander about, not really entering the heads of many of the creatures just getting a read on them. I found a few of them that seems 'open' in a sense and tried awakening them. It took no time really, like spooking a cat by turning on the vacuum cleaner. The bulky apex predators began to thrash violently and kick about. They were feral beasts and had no connection to the Hive mind to control their actions. I would have to go through it.

Easier said than done really.

They wouldn't calm down or let me grapple onto them, or was like trying to hold onto an oiled-up slab of metal. Yet I needed to keep on trying, they were my last home to survive here and I was not about to give up because they would recognize me as their leader! An impulse of some kind came over them and I seized the moment of relative calm to grapple their mines.

"Listen here you overgrown bugs! Your Hivemind is dead and is never gonna come back, so shut up, I am in charge now!" That was the equivalent of gripping someone's shoulders and shaking them violently into submission. I held onto that and fought a mental war to keep them all in line, their minds were not too dissimilar to Hormagaunts but a bit larger and it was that slight similarity that aided me in getting a grip on things and holding strong. Some still didn't want to submit and got torn apart by their buddy's teeth in the sacks. Soon enough said wrappings were torn open like a chicken emerging from an egg there just wasn't a hard shell.

It seemed like time and being aggressive were both factors in seizing control over Tyranids.

Out came twenty semi truck-sized Tyranids that stood in four legs, their upper halfs connected like the human portion of centaurs. Protruding upwards with the head of a Hormagaunt but much larger with a sort of hood made of a seriously thick armored shell of carapace. So too was its chest and that same grey leather skin coating itself and the four-foot-long and two feet thick guns, no cannons that both its arms were fused to.

I didn't realize just how long I had spent trying to gain control over these creatures until one of the flesh doors was torn open with squirting purple ichor, like a messy birth that Genestealer was coming through. A dozen Termagants had already sensed the danger and used their bodies to shield me. I felt it was unneeded now and three of the large Tyranids took up position and leveled their guns at the doorway. With but a thought it opened fully and I even felt the Patriarch among the rear of their number before they unleashed three massive shots of harpoon-like spikes. Its lower body looked like a platform for its upper to brandish those massive cannons for steady use.

Said spikes tore through the Hybrids and Genestealer, literally misting the top halves of most of them. Spraying the walls in a fine paint of purple ichor and red blood and I felt as if it was overkill. The Patriarch now dead the Hybrids that remained aboard now screamed telepathically.

"Everybody be quiet!" I cried back and as quickly as they started it all went silent. "Norma?" I asked to no reply. "Your Great Carrier requests either of you to respond, I now command your brood."

"G-Great Carrier!" Norma actually responded with words telepathically, something had changed when I connected to those larger 'nids I had felt it. "The Patriarch's presence had fallen silent! T-They have fallen!"

I was more able to read her thoughts now and could tell she was not making a joke or bluff here. Norma was dead serious in her concern like she was incapable of recognizing what just happened now. It also meant something else, they weren't connected by a Genestealer... As my mind was able to feel her and Shem and all the remaining Hybrids and Genestealers had told me one thing had changed now.

"They're all now linked to me."