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The pods hanging against the wall all remained still with the fully grown Tyranids inside, they were still hibernating and now I was going to try and wake them. I came here first to test my mind at controlling larger Tyranids.
I had come here to learn and I wasn't completely lost on how to start. I used a sort of impulse to calm the Centaurs after I first woke them, so now I just had to repeat the trick while they are asleep. Of the twenty Centaurs, I had carefully crowded the room with fifteen, they covered the pods with their cannons in case anything from within tried bursting out to kill me. The Termagants weren't bad I just felt they lacked the firepower for the larger creatures within.
"Nobody is going to come in and teach me how." I muttered sitting atop my Hormagaunt while flanked by ten Termagants. I wanted to test myself on making new creatures because I knew darn well that replenishing my numbers was going to be a must at some point. The ones I had within taken control over had aided in the growth of my influence but trying to get the ship to make more was going to be tricky.
I mean I had done this before but there we a few Centaurs that had to be torn to pieces the other in the pods. So there was that. Then again I was panicking and woke up all of the largest Tyranids I could find at the same time. This would be a far more controlled situation and done slowly and with far more care. I decided to look for a synaptic creature. I remember my dad making all of us learn how to bike ride in a bumpy field, the idea being that if we could get our balance there we could ride just about anywhere. I thought to try the same thing with a sleeping Tyranid Warrior or other synaptic creature.
Yet sensing around the dozens of beings there wasn't any of them. I could tell that there were less than eighty packed tightly together. No pod had less than two occupants and the various sizes meant that they were packed and rotated around like in Tetris. Eventually, I had found three Raveners, one upside down and between the two others, blades tucked to their chests and serpentine bodies curled slightly. The creatures that had almost done me in back on Typhon if not from my first Hormagaunt would now be the beings I would test my mind on.
"Okay, same as before but I'm just going to take my time." I leaned back into my impromptu chair and relaxed my body. Expand my mind, find theirs, make the connection, etc. It was starting to feel like going through the motions now, which I hoped meant getting into Tyranid minds was easier now.
Once said connection was made they felt me in turn and all three stirred within the pod and wormed about. I sent a message conveying my desire for them to calm down and they did. Eventually, I had to strong impose the message on each of the Raveners, especially the last one who uncurled its claws and punctured a hole into the flesh bag. A dark green fluid began oozing out of it like a wound.
"I control you know you hear, all of you now listen yo every word I say and obey." I wasn't sure if such a mental message with words was needed but it certainly helped me focus on getting them under my thrall. "Now go completely still."
Then they did, no attempts to act against me or otherwise be aggressive. It worked well enough, now I and expanded my mind further to the Bio-Cruiser and order it to release them. Just to see if it was possible and sure enough, the bottom of the pod opened and all three Raveners spilled onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. They manages to get loose and on my order slither, the fluid they were suspended in still sloughing off their leather and carapace forms. They came within a yard of me and paused, I felt confident they were firmly my Raveners now and had my Termagants and Centaurs stand down. The Raveners coiled to the floor and I turn my attention to the empty pod. Its once bloated form now hung limp and many more still packed behind it.
"This bioship has so much space why store them in such a compacted manner?" Weird to me but somehow made sense to the Tyranids who designed the cruiser this way. I tried digging into the Bio-Cruisers mind for an explanation and it certainly gave me one. The ship show me the pods being squeezed through and into the boarding tentacles. Suddenly I realized that this wasn't just a place where Tyranid forms hibernated to protect the ship from boarding parties but also served as an ammunition rack ready to be rapidly inserted into an enemy ship.
"I supposed it would be a bit tedious to have then left the pods then run out to the tentacle for boarding."
I stared at the limp sack of skin and spilled fluid below and wondered if this is where Tyranids are birthed. A check said no, there was a dedicated place for that elsewhere. So that meant they were made then packed inside a pod, so did that mean I could reuse one now?
The Centaurs were large and I didn't have the means to feed like twenty of them. No fruit trees were going to help me here, and I didn't want to have them consume the biomass of the ship. That was a strategy I knew could never be relied on. So I told one to just get below and I would see what happened.
The Centaur tucked under the fresh pod and it enclosed over it, the pod saged from the weight. Soon enough the Cruiser began filling it with some of that viscous fluid. I felt as the stuff filled up and suspend the Centaur within, it was a nutritious liquid that would both feed and help induce hibernation within the creature. Keeping it as young and strong as possible. The broken pods could be regrown so I told the ship to do just that I have nineteen more Centaurs to pack in.
The one already inside was falling into a forced sleep and I couldn't help but stare at the ooze on the floor. Then up to the ceiling where there were holes from the busted pods and I had the ship squirt some out just to confirm my suspicion. Curiosity came over me and I had one of my Termagants break ranks and scoop up some of the substance, the thickness of it made that easy. It slurped a few hand fulls and began to doze off, staggering as I tried to order it to remain standing. That stuff was nutritious and it's what helped them go to sleep fast. They weren't constantly being laced with the stuff, from what the Bio-Cruiser was 'saying' it's just a little to get them to fall asleep. Then they just stay that way until needed, it wasn't a perfect comatose state, a Synaptic mind like mine managed to wake them easily enough.
"Could I use something like this for long trips through the void?" I muttered hopeful, trips would be long and I wondered if I could make some use of this thing. I mean it seemed to feed them as well, with time could I make myself a pod? Something that could feed me somehow and induce a comatose state? However, those thoughts began forming into a long pulsating flesh thing being connecting to my stomach. An idea I decided to place on a shelf until I got more information or came up with something better. It was time to move on to something else.
I focused my attention on finding another creature to control.
The Bio-Cruiser was an odd thing to me now that I was looking more into it. I kept on practicing on the Tyranids in the pods finding more Raveners and even an especially large one. An Alpha amongst its kind. There were mainly just the Centaurs, Raveners, and even a Lictor, judging by the long flappy parts falling from its mouth. Waking them, gaining control, them putting them back to sleep was all I was doing and I did feel it get easier. I put away as many Centaurs into the pod and left the rest there for when new pods could be formed. After I decided to get to know the ship better and see how my expanded mind worked.
I found out some odd things about my ride, apparently it was growing a weird plant in moist chambers stretching over our heads. Perhaps a fungus of sorts? Then processed it down into that viscous fluid in the hibernation pods. While there was probably more in that stuff than that plant life I found it interesting that the Bio-Cruiser was cultivating it.
"Were all Bioships doing something like this? Or was it just vessels that had boarding parties?" I had thought before.
I had wandered mentally to the thing's mouth and tried to wonder just how I was supposed to feed this thing once we reached the planet. I found out that the Cruiser could swallow ships and basically process it in a way I couldn't really absorb from the vague way it could communicate with me. The other ships had no mouths or tentacles so how I was supposed to feed them was also a mystery. Connecting them to the conversation yielded something I never expected.
They didn't need to eat.
Okay, that was simplifying things a bit. Further digging revealed that they could stretch out any stored food for a long time before it started affecting them. Not to mention they could always just absorb sunlight and, from what I could tell, do photosynthesis with the gases inside of them. The ships be self-sustained for a long time. Which made sense because they needed to travel vast distances at times by basically being yanked forward at high speeds. Yet what perplexed me the most was why these things even wanted biomass if they could grow food within them. Why not dedicate more time and space to that? It was weird and I could not explain anything myself, so I turned my attention towards the spawning pool.
I had found said spawning pool easily enough, as vast in size as this bioship was most of it was just armor, thick flesh, and those plantations. The interior was relatively small compared to the rest but that was fine. The pool before me was massive in its size, like Olympic pool size but only about a waist-deep. I could sense that this was the only one within, the green water-like liquid covered small bulges that had a single long seam over it. Likely to allow whatever the Bio-Cruiser was trying to gestate and easy out without needing to cut its way out. Although now that I had found it all I could do was stare blankly into the green-colored haze.
I knelt down at the edge of the pool and dipped a hand in, the liquid had the consistency of water but it felt like something was brushing past my hand. Like when pouring sand into a tub of water then moved around, except I couldn't see any particles within. There were dozens of growth pods and that fluid was probably useful for it but had little clue how to utilize it. Or perhaps I didn't need to know, this was a part of the ship, what if that's all I needed to do here. As soon as I connected myself with the Bio-Cruiser and shared my desire it was like a full catalog got opened before me. It had the know it how to begin the process and just needed me to give the command.
I just wanted to test how well this works, so just some Hormagaunts for now. My ranks had been decimated to just one, more complex creatures would have to come later. The pool stirred as if waking up from a long sleep. I tried peering into it telepathically but there was no sentence behind it, just a place to grow and birth more Tyranid bioforms.
"I need to come up with an actual strategy here, just throwing bodies at an enemy isn't going to work. Especially since I likely don't have infinite numbers here." The Centaurs and their large living projectiles could be a sort of anti-armor creature. Something to test once the opportunity presented itself, the Termagants did now have a lot of firepowers but could be massed, so they were a reasonable ranged option like Hydralisks in Starcraft. They were smaller and thusly harder to hit than most of what I had. Hormagants were definitely fast and melee focused, things to draw gunfire and annoy firing lines like Zerglings. Also in starcraft.
I realized this just was me taking logic from a video game and trying to apply it in a far more realistic fashion but what else could I do? It's not like I know much else. The Raveners, from what Tyranid lore I knew of, is supposed to be a shock troop. Designed to slither in and cause chaos with their sox blades and fast speeds. So there was that I could use, plus I had the more dangerous Alpha Ravener which was slightly larger and...
"What are the differences between the two?" I wonder, not looking into it much when I was peering into the pods before.
I use my telepathic powers to search the Raveners on the different parts of the ship. Searching I found the difference I was looking for not just in size but in its mind. An Alpha Ravener was just one with expanded brainpower and size, about to think a bit more freely but not so much it was a Synaptic creature. So to make more I just needed to tell the Bio-Crusier to just make a Raveners with more brain matter.
Easy enough, all the Tyranids that were already on board could be grown from this pool, I just needed biomass to spare. While I had that now it was something to keep in mind for later. The last thing I wanted was to get into the habit of just growing more and more 'nids without constraint. I just wanted enough to pack into the pods, from what the ship told me it could hold 'a lot', no specifics so I'd need to figure that out later.
I felt my stomach growl and knew it was time to take a break from army building.
"Norma get me some food ready, and get something for yourselves to eat as well." I think it was lunchtime right about now.
The canned provision didn't taste bad, there was plenty of water-packed into the tin can so there was no need to waste that ration. As tempting as it was to just fill up on food I still had a vague estimate and how fast this trip was going to take so rationing it was as good as any precaution. I didn't know what the stuff was but it was soft like peaches and tasted like meat so whatever the label said it's completely edible out of the can. I wanted to just eat in silence on my Hormagaunt chair but Norma had something burning to ask.
"You can talk to me you know, what is it?"
I got the answer telepathically sooner than she said it. "Great Carrier, when we reach the planetary system what shall we do there?"
"Live there." I shrugged chugging another mouthful of meaty chunks. I did not spare much thought about the specifics, mainly just trying to get there was my end goal though now that I had time to think about it. "Perhaps we can establish a permanent colony there. Grow the brood and feed endlessly on the biomass there."
None of these people were colonists though. It would be a difficult existence and we'd need to piece it together as we went along. It would be better than what they had before, I'd made certain of that.
"Oh," She was intrigued by the prospect and so was everybody else who was within earshot. "How may we assist in this task?"
"Well, building places you live and figuring out how to farm it about where we can start." Staying there and growing a force I could use to protect myself was the best thing I could do. Maybe get the Bio-Cruiser to expand its production of fungus and store biomass to feed a small army. I doubt I could live there indefinitely. Eventually, something would come along and I need to be read, plus I still had over a hundred Hybrids still life to feed and shelter and I didn't want to leave them in the dust. I also wanted to expand my control over the Tyranids swarms I would make so I'd need to look into that now that I had a spawning pool...
Actually, an idea for that last part began to grow within my mind. The Alpha Ravener was just a slightly bigger one with more brainpower than normal. Could it be possible to do the same with other Tyranids? Perhaps not to extend my influence but to ensure they would follow orders in the event of losing synaptic creatures? Or just prevent any from flying off and following pure instinct.
An idea to test now.
