The Crusade of the Lost

by Ninoslav

A fleet of Imperial reinforcements, Mechanicus detachment and a chapter of White Eagles meant for Cadian sector are swallowed in the unruly sea that is Warp. They emerge into a new universe, one without the Emperor, their faith strong, they will see this galaxy conquered.

26. Chapter 25: The Locusts Unleashed

Chapter 25: The Locusts unleashed

Have you waited long for this Parchment to reach you?

If so, I apologize, for it has been a long time since information could pass with certainty from my hands and into the hands of another, it is all this war which forbids the spread of information, the galaxy burns, and I am seeing it first-hand.

My hand moves fast, I write using the ink I have saved for a long while, it is one of the last things I have brought from the original universe, including these parchments which I value highly. It would be offensive to retell my story on anything else.

And yet, I cannot write fast enough, so many stories, so much has happened until this moment, and yet the moment draws near when my hand will remain still and you will all bear witness first hand of the events which mark the bloodiest conflict this galaxy has ever seen.

But that is why you are here aren't you? To listen from my fleeting memory how the galaxy came embroiled in its greatest war which never saw it's like before or after.

What happened to the galaxy was a giant howl of hurt souls and broken minds, all that emotion, all that pain had to go somewhere.

while you wouldn't feel such thing in the materium, not naturally anyway. You would most definitively feel it echo in the immaterium.

Trillions dead or dying, trillions suffering souls that were forgotten, trillions more unborn all had their say, and all their voices came together as one gigantic and tormented scream which shattered reality like a fragile glass.

On Anhur the wound poured its gangrenous madness into the world of sanity and permanently polluted it. If the galaxy was the battlefield where fate of the body was determined, it was on Anhur where the struggle for the soul happened.

I would know, for I have been there.

Still I cannot postpone it further, I must speak of the topic which burns me just by thinking it, the day madness poured into the sanity and devoured it alive. It is on that day where life itself was wounded and the laughter of the thirsting Gods was first heard echoing in this universe.

But…How do I speak of this topic…. how to retell thousands of heroic epics, and all the heroes themselves?

Do I concentrate on one of them? I could not, it would make sacrifices made by others negligible in the eyes of the reader.

Do I speak about armies and their deeds on the battlefield? Perhaps, that might best retell the sheer magnitude of losses the imperium suffered. And not just the imperium, but every living being within it.

I will let the Emperor guide my hand and words…

Yes…The Emperor…

It is then only just that this story begins with his holiness. The Emperor of Mankind himself and the stories which happened during his travels. Not just to his majesty, but to the galaxy during his long flight towards Anhur.

His travel to the Anhur took longer than expected, jumping relay to relay the Imperial fleet saw madness all around them, dead worlds and fleeing xenos and humans.

Where did they flee to? Not even they themselves knew, the engines burnt eezo in great quantities as ships silently drifted system to system, moving away from the conflict, as if it wouldn't track them down, and take them into oblivion along with the rest of the galaxy.

It was a horrifying sight to see all the new races that never rose to the stars, snuffed out by the passing of a reaper armada, well placed orbital bombardment obliterated their habitats, and put the young souls to torch tossing them into the whirlwind of madness of the immaterium.

As the Imperial fleet moved steadily, even the relays seemed to break down, for the most part they worked well as they have always done for millions of years.

But seemingly at random they would shut down, their energies just enough to propel ship fast enough to move through the galactic void, but never at the same speed like they used to pre reaper invasion.

some indeed shut down, energies flicker and extinguish themselves sealing within the system billions of sentient forms whom all screamed in unison as they realized the horrifying fate that awaited them.

Many worlds were snuffed out of existence without interference from anybody, huge Ecumenopolises starved themselves out, their population too vast, and without the working relays there were no convoys carrying the lifesaving food.

When the relays restarted and began working again, those who stumbled upon these systems found barren worlds, charred and destroyed in conflict the remaining survivors waged upon one another over scraps of food.

Or they discovered former civilized worlds whom seemingly overnight turned to cannibalism and returned to the stone age, the only monuments to their former glory being the huge skyscrapers that were burnt and broken, and vegetation claiming them back, turning them slowly into new hills and mountains that newer generations never knew what they truly were.

Some of these worlds turned out for the better, isolated and newfound colonies took little time to adjust to their new reality, becoming farmers and survivalists, their population small enough to allow them to weather the darkness without much disaster befalling them.

These worlds were ignored by most of the galaxy as insignificant enough to dedicate resources in order to claim them. It was a blessed state of being, for to be ignorant is to be saved.

That reminds me of the sentence I used to hear a lot in my life.

"Blessed is the mind, too small for doubt. "

Blessed indeed, for this mind does not wonder into the darkness of the vast universe where eager horrors are waiting to devour it.

These minds, these people, would fare better than most.

As some relays shut down and signed a death warrant for the occupants of the system, many other relays activated without warning, dormant for thousands of years, they turned themselves online seemingly overnight, casting aside space forst and from these long forgotten and ignored systems various horrors spewed forth.

It is worth noting few of those that had a role on the galactic stage.

Like the all devouring hive of insectoids known as the Rachni, these humble insectoids were not inherently hostile, they sang, and they heard the song of the universe.

Not malicious for a xeno race, they were once tormented by the sour song of some unknown race which forced them on a warpath against the galaxy, it is my assumptions that Reapers were responsible for this.

This race fought against the galaxy and lost. Thought extinct and forgotten by all, it was thanks to luck, or some planning by the xenos that several queens survived, most died off in the centuries to come, the song of death too strong for their hearts and souls.

As they grew, the remaining queens could hear the death kneel of their race, the memories were transferred genetically to them, and they could each and every one experience first-hand the extermination of their race by the Citadelians.

This drove them mad. Madness drove them into anarchy, and the hives consumed each other before simply ceasing to be. void of all occupants, the nature erased all evidence of them ever existing.

When some stumbled upon these old hives, they concluded they were bombed by the Citadel races in the forgotten past, and ignored them, not realizing they were stumbling upon the remnants of the Rachni that were alive not long ago in the very same system they visited. They left these systems and their dead worlds, forgetting they were even there in the first place.

At one point the enigmatic Collectors tried to bring this race back from the dead so they could be used as shock troopers in the coming cycle. But upon awakening one of the queens, they experienced the brutality of this race first hand, they managed to grow one of the queens through some unknown means, whether they have found an egg hidden somewhere, or had genetic material to clone a new queen, I do not know, but it was better for the galaxy that they have never tried to temper with such a dangerous race.

As the Queen grew and developed, all genetic memories came back to her, and again, the madness waited in the dark corners of the mind, the children of this queen went berserk and killed every collector on one of their isolated research bases, before turning upon each other and their surroundings.

The Collectors came back to find out their research base half destroyed, and enveloped in cocoon of unknown material, scanning for life they found not only one. But innumberable number of lifeforms within their station.

Inner recordings of the station showed how brutal this race truly was, the collectors were slain, then eaten by the hive.

Further recordings showed that the next generation of the rapid breeding Rachni exhibited properties unknown to original Rachni race.

The new spawnlings were exhibiting the copied genetic traits of the collectors, their armour was thicker, and they showed more intelligence than the common rachni. They were also bigger and more vicious, as the collector boarding team found out in their attempts to reclaim the station.

Upon landing, the Collectors found out their position highly contested, wave after wave or Rachni threw themselves relentlessly against the fire wall of the Collectors, the energy weapons eating through carapace and flesh alike with vicious Abaddon. Rachni spat acid at the collectors, and their shields overloaded, but the combined power of hundreds of collectors carved a path through the Rachni, and through the system of vents and tunnels hidden by the various insectoid secretions, they fled.

Unloading heavy weaponry and units, the Collectors made their beach head and proceeded deeper into the station. thinking that their query realized the futility of defence, pushed ever deeper into the station. With little to no resistance.

As they advanced, they discovered eaten corpses of their kin, collector officers and common collectors were thrown on piles, encased in spider web, only their bloody bones remaining as testimony to the fate which befell them.

As Collectors now had couple thousands of units marching through the station they faced renewed resistance. From vents and various hidden dark places the Rachni threw themselves without regard for their lives at the collectors.

The narrow corridors and the nature of rachni made these tunnels into a blood bath, natural melee fighters, the collector shield could not withstand the impressively sharp claws and teeth of the rachni, and only at the cost of hundreds of collectors were the insects slain.

It was time for another wave of Rachni to strike. The second generation.

This time the collectors were ready, their formations set and prepared, aiming at the huddled masses of the screeching creatures.

The Collectors began their concentrated fire, energy projectiles flying towards the waves of Rachni, only to find out that the projectiles rarely killed the Rachni creatures, most simply washed away from the carapace, or were deflected, or simply incapable of piercing the thick hides of the creatures.

The Fire lines began to slowly fall back, incapable of realising how the creatures were now resistant to their weapons.

Only the intelligent officers realized that the rachni charging them were not the same as the first waves they fought upon disembarking and during their trek through the station.

Although rather similar, they were larger, and instead of being blackish in colour, like a cockroach. The Rachni were greyish brown, similar to the carapace of the Collectors themselves.

Their carapaces were adapted the same way the Collector ones were, to deflect heat shells and projectiles.

Realizing this too late, the Collector fire teams were slaughtered and devoured, their biomass carried in the bellies of the creatures to their queen, whom voraciously consumed the matter and began spawning endless quantities of eggs.

The Queen herself was huge, her frame outgrew the initial chamber where she was brought to lay eggs, her arms and legs were full with high tension muscles, and she broke into adjacent chambers so as to accommodate her size.

Ancient tales tell that the Alpha Queen of the Rachni, the first of their race was hundreds of meters in size, but that cannot be verified now, for she was destroyed along her own home world.

This queen was different, her skin, or rather carapace changed colour and shape, she was now brown and constantly shedding more and more of herself, constantly growing and evolving.
She was morphing according to the biomass consumed, the original Rachni were carnivorous yes, but they consumed plant matter as well, and were constrained to the biomass of their own homeworld, and the colony planets.
Then there was a unified song sang by all queens, they dictate the way their race evolves. And the Queens were one in mind, and uniform in shape as to preserve unity of the hive.

But she, she was alone, her senses dulled and inhibited by various tech ingrained into her by the collectors, and her mind was no doubt gone, any intelligence she might have once displayed was replaced by berserk like state, and the hunger…the endless hunger which could not be satisfied. She grew and consumed ever more biomass, even metallic parts that could be digested in her stomach acids which were capable of melting metal.

The arrival of the Collector relief team was a gift to her, as she consumed everything edible and inedible at the station, before resorting to the consumption of her own children, the second gen rachni smart enough to stay away from their mad queen.
only the first gen rachni were naïve enough to approach, their simple minds, burnt out from the death song of their race preventing any ability to think, they were bringing her what little biomass they could find, and even themselves in the end.

She devoured them without remorse.

Her own face shed the original carapace, and started resembling a praying mantis grown to abominable size. Her eyes ever hungry and monitoring movements of the prey. and everything was prey to her.

From her breeding chamber came thousands of rachni, those fast enough to avoid her mandibles and claws and escape into the ship.

These Rachni were spawning faster than they could be killed, and were taking the trait of their queen and the devoured biomass. So they were bigger and more voracious than any Rachni in the past.

The fire line of the collectors kept retreating towards the landing zone, hunted by the Rachni all throughout the ship.

Heavier collectors were simply swarmed by the expendable melee units whom carved through their carapace like knife through paper. Toppling them down and using their superior numbers to cut them apart.

Praetorian energetic beams ate through the rachni, each beam destroying dozens of creatures, allowing the collector fireteams to use explosive devices to thin the herd.

When the rachni found their query too entrenched they simply fell back, finding alternative pathing to their enemies, mostly crawling beneath the flooring and the vents, dragging their screaming prey into them where they met a grizzly end.

These fire teams, too slow or lost to fall back, were encircled and were never heard from again, their biomass contributing in a vain attempt to silence the Queen's hunger.

The Collectors used everything they could as they fell back, blowing apart tunnels and sealing the doors, shutting down power, or venting long corridors into open space along with their fire team stragglers and the rachni. All just to buy more time to retreat.
But the hive was relentless, it had bodies to spare, and knew the station like their own homes,they were fast in finding soft metal platings which led into the soft sides of the collector lines, this where the hive soon poured through and slaughtered the surprised soldiers.

The battle raged on as the first remainder of the collector fireteams entered their landing zones, from multiple entrances to the landing zone, collectors ran and took positions near their ship. The beings were not capable of self though, and the officers wanted to hold their landing zones.

This would prove to be a mistake, soon the survivors stopped coming, and a howl of the hungry creatures reverberated the station, soon, from all possible spaces the Rachni charged at the last line of the collectors.

As one the collectors opened fire at the huddling masses of mad monsters, every possible weapon they had, they used. Grenades flew and blew apart hordes of creatures,
Praetorians flew in the air and used their beams to cut swaths through the lines of the rachni, but the monsters kept coming, heavier looking rachni soon passed through the doors and rushed the lines, these creatures were easily 3 meters tall, and resembled a cockroach, its pitch black carapace filled with brown spots deflected light armaments as if nothing. The origins of these things could probably be found in consumed praetorians of the original station's crew.

They carved a horrifying toll on the collector lines through which small creatures found path and broke through.

Not even the mighty Praetorians could hold out for long, acid spitting rachni melted their metallic wings and they fell to the ground where they started a brutal melee. Crushing aside smaller rachni whom tried in vain to swarm them, the praetorians battled the big cockroach beings. These cockroach Rachni put up a good fight, their size and carapace held well against the Praetorians, but the collector creatures were simply stronger and were killing them with significant effort on their part. Weakened and wounded from the battle, the Praetorians were swarmed and drowned in the sea of bodies.

Soon enough, the only sound permeating the landing zone was the sound of chewing and crunching, as hive consumed the dead of their enemies and allies, wounded rachni suffering the same fate as the collectors.

The collectors were slaughtered to the last. And on the ship, the collector general watched as his units were first killed, then eaten until not even bones now remained.

The landing zone was picked clean within minutes, only insect blood and weapon discharge remained as proof that there was a battle here in the first place.

Unwilling, or afraid. For nobody can tell with collectors, the General placed his ship in firing position, and started shooting at the station, he knew it would be futile to send more men into the meat grinder.

The collector vessel shot salvo after salvo, the shielding of the station fell soon after the first few volleys, and the Queen saw her hive collapsing around her, as most of the station was now on fire.

She could only scream in mad rage and hunger, trashing aside, destroying her own eggs as she sought to escape the flames. The rachni on the station were in disarray, and were dying as station lost its atmosphere, not even they could survive in the vacuum of space for long.

The Queen could not escape, her frame too large, she screamed endlessly into the void. But all queens carry genetic memories and transfer them through unknown means to other rachni regardless where they might be.

And her last gift to any remaining rachni was her very own note.

The Note of Hunger, of Madness, and of limitless Rage.

She kept screaming her note even as she melted from the flames. She tried to scream even as fire burnt her lungs and vocal chords.

In one final desperate act she began to claw through the metal and sideways into the station, tearing apart electronics and bulkheads and crushing any remaining rachni and eggs in her way, she managed to break free towards the landing zone, her limbs broken and shattered from her mad trek through the station, she saw the ship from the landing zone as it fired towards the station. So close for her to unleash all the pent up pain and anger.

In her last defiant act, using all the available biomass she could muster, tensing her muscles she exploded with immense force towards the Collector ship.

The collector general could only watch in stupefaction as several dozen meters of claw and teeth was flying towards his ship through open space. Ordering the evasive manoeuvres came too late, for the queen has latched onto the outer hull of the vessel.

She roared her silent pain and anger to the stars before that anger turned to action, using her claws she started slashing across the hull. Corrosive claws and teeth ripped chunks of metal as she sought to burrow herself deep into the vessel to reach the tender creatures within.

At that moment the ship's outer weaponry turned against her and beam after beam ate through her flesh, but she kept slashing, refusing to die even as her limbs were blasted apart by the weaponry of the collector's ship.

In the end, at the swords edge, and in her truly last action the queen cannibalized her own internal organs and puked her digestive fluids directly on top of the ships engines, from there the liquid proceeded to seep dipper through the slashes her claws made.

Too late did one of the turrets pierced her cruel heart, the ship was doomed the second her super acidic liquids started leaking amongst the critical systems.

Her body started drifting apart from the vessel, eyes finally still and frozen from the sub-zero temperatures of the open space, yet they kept staring at the collector vessel, for even the dead predator doesn't move her gaze from the prey she had in her hands.

In futile anger the collector general ordered her body torn to pieces, and his soldiers quick to obey unleashed various rocket and laser weaponry against the carcass of the mighty queen. Within seconds her body was no more and turned to interstellar dust forever adrift on the winds of space.

The station at this moment exploded, burning away any and all remains of the Rachni. This explosion was soon followed by the ship's own, the acidic vomit found its way to many electronic devices, and a series of catastrophic failures caused a cascade of destruction. The ships engines soon found themselves engulfed in acid, and exploded in response as the vomit went deeper into the power cells and the fuel storage.

The Collector ship exploded with no survivors, its half kilometre frame flying in all directions as engine explosion destroyed it from within.

The collector General, his mind linked to the rest of his kind, transferred the information to his fellow generals before he was engulfed in flames.

this information forced all research vessels that tested upon rachni to cease their prodding, and destroy all traces of the accursed race.

Not long after the event, there were rumours of collector vessel entering the former home system of the rachni species, blasting apart the research station around the home planet still sparsely manned by the Citadelian crew.

they were seen bombing the barren world relentlessly for a time, before they were chased away by the Citadel Federation fleet.

The World was scarred horribly, mass driver weapons caused trillions of tons of radioactive dust to soar into the atmosphere, clouding the former homeworld in what scientists agree is a cloud which will coat the world for thousands of years and kill any remaining life, be it bacterial or a complex sentient one.

This proved to be a futile effort on the collector part, the world was dead regardless of their intervention and bombing. The homeworld didn't have rachni on it, nor will it ever do.

Soon enough, one of the relays came alive in this cascade of events. And from it came the terror which added to the misery of the galaxy.

Within the Plague stars, who were horrifyingly depopulated by the Plague Princess, one of the relays unleashed a horde of horrifying nightmares upon the unfortunate sector which would seal its fate.

The Rachni emerged onto the galactic stage again. But these things are rachni in but a name. what came from the relay was hunger and rage personified.

On the other side of the relay, the last remaining free queen was driven mad by the note of death ingrained in the very being of her kind, and for millennia she spawned mad offspring, these offspring consumed the world she found herself on, and spread out to other planets in the system, and for millennia they endured in the state of perpetual rage.
Until another note reached their ears.
and until the Anhur released warp energy into the galaxy.

These events outright crushed the rachni and their spirit. They were mad, they were hungry, but their song of madness was now polluted further with the note of the Mad Queen. And now, Warp tainted their song in a way that was impossible before, and in each of their minds, the foul warp energies coursed, mutating the unfortunate creatures further.

But nobody was affected as extremely as the queen, her understanding of the galaxy was far deeper and complex than what most sentients could even hope to comprehend, she could hear and sing within the warp in a way, and it drew her mad, through it, she screamed, and in that scream was the rage of a dead race, and now one other thing.

The Hunger.

The queen in her mad wisdom turned upon her own children, consuming them, and growing to horrible size, not seen since the original queen.
her own children ate each other until only the strongest remained, and then they increased their numbers further.

They were mercifully stuck in this system, until the relay came alive.

Now these hungry and crazy creatures had an entire galaxy of biomass to eat, to kill and exterminate. The Queen set upon a galactic crusade of extermination, until there is nothing else, and until all was silence. Only then would she be able to find peace.

And now, within the plague stars, a new horror came, now three empires and other unfortunates found themselves facing a new enemy.

The Quarians, The Citadel Federation, and the Imperium of man gazed in horror as the creatures born out of nightmares ate unfortunate worlds left unguarded in this forsaken region of space, swelling their numbers, and spreading in all directions.

The Rachni were alive, and they were hungry.

Within a single month, the rachni spread out like locusts in all directions, those systems which had their relays shut down were spared he Hive and its endless hunger, but those worlds still remaining with life in the Plague Stars soon realized the galaxy can get much worse.

At first, the Rachni numbers were indeed vast, but nothing compared during the later stages of the war, for there was at the moment only one queen to spawn new offspring. regardless of how big she was, she could not produce enough warriors to challenge the galaxy, so even in her madness, she produced more queens, these were quickly taken away by the dedicated rachni creatures and spirited away across the plague stars, not all of them escaped the voracious queen though.

But those that did, found themselves growing on calm empty worlds filled with peaceful flora and fauna. They have started slowly at first, but when they started to spread, their hunger drove them to new lengths, entire continents were depopulated, from trees and animals to sea dwelling creatures and birds, their biomass used in the expansion of the devouring hive.

From these consumed worlds, the Rachni hive had several queens to spawn new warriors. And all queens shared the same hive mind, and in that mind we can only wonder what was the dominant thought, hunger? Madness? Perhaps some warp borne illness which shattered their minds upon birth. Nobody could tell, the rachni could not be reasoned with, they devoured worlds and spread out like locusts.

I dread to make a comparison to tyranids, for they are not exactly like them, while the tyranids devour worlds whole, rachni leave oceans, atmosphere and bacteria alone, perhaps too small to be consumed, or as a way of letting their food replenish its numbers. they just devoured flora and fauna to extinction and from these barren worlds billions of warriors took to the stars in their bio ships, to spread the gospel of hunger to all corners of the cosmos.

The First major Rachni hive fleet charted its course through the Quarian territories, as the Quarian reich was bordering the Plague stars.

Unnoticed at first, the Rachni travled through abandoned systems and relays in the neutral zone around the Plague stars. But found their way to the first populated system outside their region.

Bohem'vas Rhin… The nearest Quarian world had the misfortune to witness first-hand the capacity and cruelty the hive was capable off.

Rachni hive fleet entered the system, their organic vessels able to use the Relay system and displaying astounding amount of coordination for the race which used mostly organic vessels formed up in tight quarters and marched towards the planet.

Quarians did not know this enemy, nor were they even present during the Rachni Wars, all they understood was that this enemy came from the plague stars, and they all knew that logic has forsaken that region of space a long time ago.

So whoever this new enemy was, they sought to destroy it before it could approach.

The Captains organized their patrol vessels until they could muster some 80 ships and marched against the incoming swarm.

The initial engagement saw the Quarian fleet utilizing their fabled VoidKrieg against the organic vessels of the hive. The Quarians would approach within striking range, unleash torrents of missiles and megatons of explosives against the rather tightly packed vessels of the Rachni, before falling back to rearm.

This tactic worked wonders against the disorganized fleets of the former Terminus systems and the many minor races still existing there ignored by the Imperium of Man.

But this did not work against the Rachni fleet, for they utilized immense organic vessels and dispersed organic drones towards the flying rockets so they could suicide collide with them and prevent them from reaching the main ships.

Time and time did quarians approach, unleash their deadly weaponry and fell back. Only for the hive to respond the same way and prevent the majority of damage to the fleet.

This caused desperate actions as the hive fleet was almost on top of the colony, the Quarian ships had to close ranks so they could use their beam weaponry, purple quarian lances flew through the open space and melted the carapace of the organic vessels, there was no counter to this by the hive.

But this tactic had a price. And now Quarians were close enough for the Hive to unleash its own ships.

Several destroyer sized organic vessels turned to meet the smaller opposition, and from their organic hulls flew thousands upon thousands of living organism through open space and towards the quarians, evading was possible, but against such insane numbers of living beings there was no sure way to avoid all of them.

The closest ships could only fire their anti rocket systems against the rapid approaching creatures, but those that passed through impacted harshly against the hull of the Quarian vessels.

They then proceeded hastily to chew through metal and to burrow inside the ships themselves.

These ships all had a garrison on them, namely SS Kosmos Marines of the Arahi'Ler, and various New Quarian military units.
To their credit the rapid response against the intruders was fantastic, albeit not as effective against the sheer numbers of the enemy, and they saw first-hand the burrowing creatures open their mouths and unleash various smaller organisms.

One meter tall Rachni creatures, walking on four legs, their mouths filled with razor sharp white teeth and claws that could rend armour of most sentient species coagulated together and as one began to swarm against the defenders of the vessel.
The Quarian marines were skilled veterans, their lack of numbers necessitated strong discipline and skill, and so they were firing and pushing back the incoming horde with unparalleled show of force.
The Quarian pattern assault rifles unleashed hundreds of purplish bullets which tore apart the small creatures. Still, not all creatures were on hunt missions against organics, from these organisms unleashed inside the vessels, many of them were instinctively ordered to target systems of importance, such as life support, power, weapons, and engines.

Many engineers died holding back these beings as they poured into the soft belly of the Quarian vessels, too numerous to be dealt with before they could do critical damage, a good amount of Quarian vessels were crippled in such a way, their crew given chance to stay and die, manning the guns until they were slain, or evacuate to the unaffected ships.

Desperate, most of the Quarians remained with their ships as is tradition, and they kept their guns firing until the larger Hive ships approached and delt a killing blow against them or simply poured so many rachni inside the vessels which cleaned them out.

Still, The Quarians kept their suicidal attacks, for each attack they did against this unknown enemy they barely understood, it bought precious time for the colony to prepare its defences.

In the end they were depleted, losing 2/3rds of their ships, their crews either still stuck fighting against the boarding creatures, or consumed for their biomass.

Still the Hive Fleet reached the colony, and unceremoniously the Hive Carriers, the gargantuan organic behemoths approaching only the Battleships fielded by the Imperium of man, poured thousands of organic pods towards the ground.

These were tightly packed by Rachni of various form and specialization. And now thousands of pods filled with tens of thousands of creatures was deploying directly into the heart of the colony.

Quarians lacked the Void shielding or any technology of sorts that could prevent direct deployment of their enemies. Only their anti air and and space batteries firing against the incoming enemy, their barrels were almost melting from the sheer rate of fire against the invading enemy, but for each pod the guns destroyed, several more took its place and kept crashing towards the colony.

But still, the enemy was far too numerous to be stopped, and the pods fell everywhere, on top of buildings, in the forests, houses, on the roads and in rivers.
there would be no planned and organized defence against this. Quarians soldiers were literally surrounded on all sides by the enemy. They were simply not prepared for such tactics or suicidal deployments.

From the organic pods came its deadly cargo, thousands of creatures hungry and filled with rage swarmed the defense positions of the Quarians.

Various bunker positions held their positions well, rapid firing machine guns, heavy mechs and elite units kept their ground against the limitless enemy which never stopped coming.

Position after position was simply being drowned in corpses, there was no tactic to the Rachni assault, it was full blown rush tactic intent on drowning the enemy in bodies, and for this occasion it worked well. Only few positions held well enough for the swarm to fall back and attempt something else.

The Surviving enclaves kept fighting through the entire day of the invasion and into the night when the attacks stopped.

The Quarians tried to reach their own comrades through the communication network, there was interference as the spores released by the numerous rachni creatures chocked the air and released magnetic particles which made communications hard to maintain.
One by one, the survivor enclaves reported. They held the ground, but at a cost which in the eyes of the Quarians were catastrophic. Tens of thousands of Quarian soldiers died within a single day, all trained warriors and soldiers. They were slaughtered to a man, and the creatures went past their positions into the population centres behind them.

The entire night was filled with screams of the damned and howls of the hungry monsters. Those survivors in their highly fortified enclaves could only listen in desperation, unable to intervene and save anybody.

They could see outside of their positions, deep in the pitch darkness of the spore chocked night as thousands of eyes started right at them. There was no escape.

Further away from their positions. they could only see the explosions and fire exchange deeper into the city which sat at a valley below and away from their positions which stood on top of the mountains and hills.

More than half of the city was burning, even through the spore chocked air, the glow could be seen, and it spelt the end of city, along with its screaming inhabitants.

Within the city desperate defences were manned, hastily thrown barricades were overrun, and dozens of Quarian mechs unleashed heat seeking missiles into the swarms, they eventually ran out of ammo and the rachni spread out throughout the city, breaking into the habitat blocks where the civilians hid. They have shown no mercy to anybody, be it man, woman, or child. All were food to the rachni. All were enemy to be silenced for the Queen.

the visibility chocked and was getting worse by the hour as more and more Rachni made planet fall. Nobody knew how many of them there were, but ground shook periodically, and instilled horror in their souls, as they knew thousands of creatures went past their positions through the night and into the city of the colony where the survivors waged a losing battle.

Those quarian ships which soared into the atmosphere, their cargo filled with survivors eventually stopped coming back. They either made it and escaped, or they were caught in the spider's web by the hive ships which now fully blockaded the doomed world.

By the coming of the dawn, they could barely see the city on the horizon. Sun could not truly penetrate the choked atmosphere, but the Quarian fighters knew, that this was probably their last day of being alive. So they prepared, their weapons lock and loaded, they gazed towards the spore chocked air and expected the next assault from the front.

Only it never came directly at them, the Ground shook again, and they expected millions of Rachni creatures to directly attack them, but they came from the place they didn't expect.

Tunnelling all through the night the rachni creatures burrowed underground and were now breaching from below and right into the bunkers of the beleaguered defenders.

There was no time to prepare, as Quarians used their flamethrowers in confined quarters torching the holes from which the enemy poured into their positions, many were instances where the Quarians were forced to utilize their melee weapons in order to prevent the enemy from progressing further ,their blood flowing in rivers through the bunker.

Before they could even fathom the underground attack and how best to respond to it, they were caught by surprise from outside, as finally the Rachni rushed the bunkers directly.

Caught between two attack points, the Quarians were swarmed and within minutes the bunkers were flooded by the tide of Rachni.

Soon enough silence fell upon the hills and the city, without their defenders, and the ships retreating from the systems, the hive fleet had an easy time subjugating and devouring the populace.

The Colony fell in less than a week. Anywhere between150 000 to 300 000 quarians died and their biomass was consumed, the Queen on the fleet breeding more of her kind from all the biomass available to them. And the next generation had the traits of the quarians, being able to stand almost bipedaly with their two hands having 3 fingers with elongated claws made for slashing, these creatures released disturbing sounds of rasp breathing constantly, whether this was done as a mockery against the Quarians for their usage of masks, or the creatures had lung defects upon birth, it was not known.

Maybe they understood the importance of terror weapons, and this was a purposeful design made to instil fear and dread into the enemy.

Nobody truly knew, but the galaxy would see many more of them deployed as weapons on the battlefields.

By the Time the surviving Quarian ships reached the next colonized system, a good amount of time has passed, for the FTL slowed down considerably thanks to the relay failings, relays lacked the same energetic potential to launch ships at incredible speeds like they used to.

There were indeed theories that these Relay failings and problems originated with the Citadel Federation tinkering with the Citadel itself, maybe they were tempering with the technology of the giant station, seeking to better understand the technology in order to improve upon it, or simply searching for an edge against the enemy such as the Imperium or the Reapers.

When the Quarian survivors reached the next colonized system they issued panicked broadcasts, horrifying tales of locusts, of animals without number that destroyed their world within days.

They were swiftly taken by the Quarian Security detail, medical aid provided and debriefing issued. The Quarians which survived gave in detail what kind of an enemy they have just fought and the events during the invasion.

Taking their stories very seriously, the news further spread far and into the core systems of the Quarian Reich, forcing the young state into serious mobilization of all resources available to be geared towards massive weapon manufacturing.

But for the moment the Quarian Reich had to deal with the potential invasion of apocalyptic size, and so they have geared most ships available to them from the surrounding systems in order to relieve the beleaguered system.

The relief fleet along with the troopers was organized within a single Solar month, they moved relay to relay until 2 months later after the beginning of the invasion they have finally arrived at the system of Bohem.

Cautiously they approached the planet itself, and were horrified at the sight before them, what was once a lush continent filled with calm domestic animals became a barren wasteland, the grass and the plants were dying from the spores in the atmosphere that remained after the invasion of the planet.

The city itself was empty, scans have shown nothing. There were no corpses on the ground, neither Quarian or Rachni, there was nothing. Battle signs were everywhere, but the majority of the large fauna was gone from the planet, anything larger than several dozen centimetres in size was hunted into extinction, everything else survived either by pure luck, hiding, or was simply ignored by the hive which had no time to idle in the system itself.

The Quarian fleet collected the data recorded by the surviving cameras and devices that they could recover the ground.

They sought to find their destroyed vessels in order to collect their black boxes and much needed information on the fleet tactics of the organic race which attacked them.

To their horror, they have found no ships of the Quarian patrol that was stationed in the system. There were only debris where the battle happened, but no remains of the ships themselves, they were simply gone.

They could not explain such an event. Searching for electric discharge, they found nothing as well. The system was clean of all electronic vessels like they never were there.

This caused no little amount of concern in the present Quarian Fleet. They did not understood where the ships went, maybe the hive devoured the metal vessels whole? They could not tell.

With this information they spread the news across the Reich of a new enemy, unlike any they have seen so far.

Arahi'Ler himself have seen the videos recovered from the ground, his old frame shuddering at the nightmarish horror that slaughtered his people in such a short time.
This galaxy is truly accursed, he thought, was there nothing his people won't endure and fight against just so they could live in peace?

He ordered the enemy tracked and the assembled relief fleet set on the trail of the hive fleet, they were joined by other patrol vessels within the sector, but the more they tracked the fleet, the more it moved northwards, and towards the border of another super power.

Speeding up to catch up to them as much as their ships would allow, the relay energy simply was not enough to keep up, they missed their enemy just beyond the point of no return.

The hive fleet destroyed the small patrol and observation station at the edge of the Quarian Space. And went deeper…. into the Imperium of Man.

Captain of the patrol fleet pondered on what to do. Consulting the Fuhrer of the Quarian Reich, they issued the warning calls to the Imperium of Man, along with the videos of the enemy that was approaching them.
their reasoning was that should the new enemy weaken the Imperium, then there would be no force deterrent to the Reaper fleets in this region, and with the Imperium weakened there would never be a true hope of victory against the incoming storm.

Their march north was unopposed, the Hive fleet consumed two minor races on their path, and their numbers swelled to incredible proportion, over couple billion creatures teemed within their living ships, all following the orders of the hive queen.

Their procreation rate was truly astounding, the vast hive ship allowed space and nutrients for the queen to produce eggs at an exceptional rate. Nobody is quite sure the amount of eggs a queen can produce, but many factors play a role there. Such as available food, space, and of course the reason and the drive behind it.

Before the era known as the Rachni War, the queens produced their eggs in very controlled amount, overbreeding meant that too many mouths to feed would exhaust the biosphere, and turn the planet into a barren wasteland, which will in return cause the hive itself to starve and die.

So the Queens were conservative with their numbers while they were at peace. Only when they met the citadel race did the queens produce eggs in larger quantities to wage war, being insects, they grew large and they grew fast, allowing for fresh troopers to replace the dying in short amount of time.

Then it is no wonder that the only counter to the rapid breeding rachni were the Krogans, whom themselves were capable of insane procreation.

But there are no Krogan to fight such wars anymore, Krogan at this point had problems of their own, far from gone, but their Genophage curse was slowly dulling down, their natural immune systems overriding the biological weapon, they could finally start repairing the damage to their race. If the Genophage left 1 in a 1000 alive, with the current genophage immunity the Krogans had 1 in 100 , or 200, chance to give birth to an offspring. This, while it doesn't sound that good, was a break the krogan race needed. It allowed them to repair many problems they had when concerning the breeding of their race.

But the Krogan tale will be said at a later date, should the galaxy still exist at that point.

When births are concerned, the Rachni were superior even to krogan, and they haven't bred at a maximum rate. Not until now.

The Queens of today did not care about planets, or biospheres or anything, the only singular thought in their minds were anger and desire to exterminate everything. So they bred uncontrollably, allowing visible mutations that increased their birth rates even further. far greater than even the peak of Rachni Wars have seen.

What drove their relentless march north is unknown, have they felt numerous teeming live forms, or were they just going to closest systems filled with life. Or were they simply driven to the warp sensitive Imperium, intent on silencing the mad song in their mind.

Whatever their reasons, it didn't took them long enough to meet their first obstacle. The Imperial Southern fleet was waiting for them.

The commander on the bridge was Admiral Mannerheim of Finska, he was in charge of the southern fleet while Lord Admiral Tiberius and his closest confidants travelled to Terra. But that was months ago, and in that time the relay situation made galactic travel into a gruelling ordeal.
still, the Imperium had their warp drives, and could cover the distance far faster and easier than even the greatest of races present in this galaxy.

But they did not use their warp drives for fear of enemy developing a counter to them somehow, their trump card remained hidden until the Imperium most desperately needed it.

With little luck, the Imperial navy happened to be near the system where the hostile fleet would enter, the Quarian information found them while they were patrolling the southern reaches.

Knowing that Quarians could mostly be trusted, Mannerheim ordered his fleet to the system without a second thought, he had his astropath relay the information of the danger to Indomitus and its Leadership, requesting reinforcements just in case while he took the fleet to defensive position.

The Imperial fleet took their position away from the relay, they did not know the number of the enemy, the capabilities of the ships, or what the enemy is in the first place, to the Veteran imperials that had the knowledge, it brought terror when they saw the videos. It brought nightmares of the Tyranid scourge. And naturally, they avoided any sort of close quarter engagement.

The South Imperial fleet was now nearing 200 vessels. The Imperium prioritized high quality of ships and size over numerical advantage most of the races did. The truth was, they simply weren't capable of mass producing vessels in the same quantities the Citadel Races or anybody else was, there was no such infrastructure. They were in this universe approximately for 40 years. That was not nearly enough time to produce enough infrastructure in order to compete Quantity wise. So they concentrated on size and strength, and this proved to be efficient deterrent to anybody that sought to endanger the Imperium of Man.

Still, their greatest conflict was drawing near, and the Imperium was to be put to the test.

The fleet was armed and ready, and they waited for the enemy.

To their surprise. Through the relay came a few dozens of Quarian vessels, they jumped and desperately sped to the imperial fleet.

"Lord Mannerheim, we have an incoming Quarian fleet, they are on rapid approach towards our fleet. They are not responding to our hails. What are your orders?" One of the coms officers said to the Mannerheim as he observed the small vessels fast on approach.

"What are they doing here…we have received no word of quarian help… Hail them again." Mannerheim puzzlingly responded to his coms officer, the ships were not in any formation to fight, their engines were overheating according to the sensors, it's like they tried to close distance as fast as possible with the Imperial fleet.

"yes lord. "after a few typing movement the coms officer tried to hail the small patrol fleet. "Quarian vessels, identify yourself and the purpose of your mission here, are you being chased by our common enemy? Respond."

There was no response, the ships sped madly towards the imperial fleet.

"What the warp are they doing! "Mannerheim was losing his patience, regardless of their help over the years, he desired to open fire upon them, but hesitated as they haven't fought Quarians ever since the Aurelian System and that was decades ago.

"Quarian vessels report or we will be forced to commence hostilities, over. "The Coms officers, his voice now getting nervous shouted into his com vox.

"Maybe they changed their vox frequency, we aren't exactly speaking to them on the daily basis." Another coms officer sought to find a solution.

"Nonsense, the vox frequencies do not change when intergalactic diplomacy is concerned, their silence is intentional."

Even as the coms officers debated, inside the Quarian vessels, there was a different story.

The Quarians inside were dead, across the decks, Rachni sped and commandeered the ships fast on approach. The Pilots of the vessels were rotting and dead, but still maintained by the fluids of their mind control masters.

Through the neural network, the Quarians were controlled by the Rachni creatures, long dead, their mechanical functions and memories were absorbed by the hive, but that wasn't the disturbing thing.

For within the vessels, Tons upon tons of highly explosive liquid was transported inside organic membranes, they were placed there by the Rachni upon their victory, the ships were nothing more than high yield bombs waiting to explode. All they needed was a target.

And the indecisive fleet was exactly what they needed.

Still speeding, the engines were strained and pushed to the utter maximum, and perhaps even further than that.

But before the Imperium could properly respond, whether by good luck or providence, one of the lagging ships of the Quarians had an engine meltdown, the strenuous task simply too much, and the damage received during the combat months ago finally took the toll on the vessel.

The engines sputtered and exploded, a small explosion watched upon by the imperials. That is until the engine explosion caught one of the membranes inside it. Then it exploded with incredible might, obliterating itself and two more straggler ships. Together, they had an incredible blast radius.

Within Finska, Mannerheim's pupils shortened almost to a dot, the old admiral knew instantly what was going on.

"Fire ! Fire! Open fire, destroy the ships right now" he grasped one of the servitors and pushed him violently as he ran down from his command podium and towards the gunnery officers.

"Fire you bastards! " he screamed at the top of his lungs, eyes bloodshot from pure pressure he was experiencing.

The Imperial vessels responded immediately and started firing at the incredibly fast vessels, but by this point they have spread out and as they destroyed them, their explosion did not consume other vessels of the same kind.

And some of the vessels reached their mark, impacting Mark I and II vessels at the flanks, the explosions were catastrophic, even the void shields were brought down at such close quarter explosions, the quarian vessels acted like a high yield and powerful torpedo, slamming themselves upon the void shields, and destroying imperial ships.

The quarian ships, too fast and nimble and at such close quarters could not be easily targeted, and found their marks.

By the time all of them were destroyed or suicided themselves, the Imperial navy was in disarray. Most of the right flank consisting of Mark I ships were obliterated, near 20 Mark Ones were destroyed or crippled in the suicide charge of some 50 quarian vessels.

In total, 40 from the 200 imperial vessels were crippled beyond function or destroyed, with few dozen damaged to various degrees.

"Damage report, I want to know what happened! "Mannerheim screamed, one of the Quarian ships rammed his Finska , but the void shielding mitigated most of the damage. The organic explosions of the Rachni were incredibly potent, and the tactic they used worked fantastically.

"My Lord…" bleeding from his forehead, and his voice shaking, the coms officer tried to assess the damage.

"We have dozens of destroyed and damaged vessels, the quarian vessels suicide charged us, they have caused great damage to us.

"Filthy xenos, this was some planned trickery, they fooled us! "

Mannerheim did not have time to be angry, because the relay flickered and through it came untold number of the Rachni Vessels of various sizes, the carrier organic vessels were almost the size of imperial battleship, but not nearly as powerful. The hive ship itself was truly massive, even larger than the Mechanicus battleship present in this universe.

Accompanying these gargants were hundreds of vessels of various sizes, not uniform in their size as they were organic made.

The Rachni fleet did not idle, it sped towards the planet itself. Only the Imperial fleet standing in their way.

Mannerheim knew that he was foolish to let Quarians approach this far, he will be judged for his hesitancy, but for now he had a duty to the imperium.

Running gunner to gunner he ordered all able ships to open fire and for carriers to launch their fighters.

He was rushing everywhere, hailing every ship and its commander, trying to rally them from the stupor of the suicide charge and into action.

Showing their discipline, the Imperial ships, even the damaged ones rallied and started taking positions, their guns charging once more. And from the carriers thousands of pilots surged forwards in order to harry the enemy and make the main fleets job easier.

But from the Hive itself, thousands of organic membranes with sharp needle like mouth flew towards the imperial fleet. They were filled with many rachni creatures.

The Rachni sought to board the Imperial vessels and engage them where they are the best fighters, in close quarters.

The Fighters of the imperial fleet fired at the innumerable troop carriers, but they themselves faced enemy in space. organic fighters of the rachni fought against them.

these organic things were mind piloted and controlled by a rachni creature, the creature itself was not complex, it was a bit more than a brain within a fighter structure that done all the piloting and fighting.

The rachni fighters fired little organic balls filled with highly corrosive acid, these little organic balls exploded upon contact eating through the hull of the fighter pilots. And when they were close enough, the main weapon of the fighter opened its organic mouth and spewed stream of acid onto of the enemy, engulfing the victim in liquids that ate through the metal in incredible speeds.

As the dog fighting was escalating in space, the main imperial fleet fired everything it had at the organic vessels that approached them.

The weak shields of the organic vessels provided little protection against such potent weapons and the imperial ships were doing catastrophic damage, although the enemy was simply too numerous to halt, and they kept closing the distance disregarding the casualties.

The organic troop carriers were flying towards the ships that had their void shields still venting excess damage and recharging, they could not raise them in time to prevent boarding actions, those that did raise them in time saw the organic membranes splat upon the shielding like bugs.

The stronger vessels fared equally well, as their armour was simply too thick to pierce, organic transports broke themselves upon impact.

But most of the ships without shielding were not so lucky, organic boarders breaking through and attaching themselves to the hull, they unleashed its deadly cargo into the ships of the Imperium of man.

Hundreds of rachni charged through the vessel in all directions, imperial stormtroopers and guardsmen forming choke points and slaughtering them by the dozen.

Flame thrower units and heavy bolter teams ripped the organic enemy to shreds. And commissars used their power swords to cut through any creature foolish enough to approach, inspiring the guard to fight even harder.

One of the ships carried a contingent of the Death Korps of Krieg that were to reinforce one of the worlds in the Imperium. These 1000 soldiers faced the rachni boarding team inside a vast cargo hull standing empty, its cargo delivered to the world in this system.

Some 1 km empty space between the Rachni and the Krigers now existed.

On the entry way into the cargo hold, hundreds of rachni poured from their transports. And on the other side the kriegers along with their commissar denied them further passage.

Firing their salvos of lasguns they cut down many rachni units, whom kept coming from their transport pods.

As they were almost on top of them the commissar ordered them the following.

"Affix bayonets. Get ready for blood! "

The kriegers were fast and the blades were attached to the hot and glowing lasguns.

Then the commissar waved his power sword to the guard behind him.

"FORWERTS! FUR DIE EMPEROR UND DIE IMPERIUM! "

And then he charged forwards accompanied by his soldiers, less than a hundred meters later they impacted upon the rachni.

The initial impact was vicious kriegers and rachni dying in droves. On one side the kriegers did not care if they died, clone borne and zealous, they did not care about their lives, only that the Imperium is victorious.

On the other side the rachni were insects, linked to the hive and the Queen thanks to the pheromones exhibited by the larger leading organisms, they equally cared little of themselves as individuals.

The carnage was maddening. Kriegers used their bayonets and fire along with grenade suicide charges to kill the numerous rachni, they on the other hand had little trouble piercing the kriegers with their insanely sharp claws.

The cargo bay was a bloodbath, with all weapons used, from shovels, to bayonets, to gas bombs, and even flamethrowers and grenade launchers.
By the time the relief detail organized and came, both sides were dead. Kriegers destroyed the landing pods and exterminated the enemy, at the cost of themselves.

The relief detail executed the remaining rachni, and helped any remaining surviving Krieger, much to their objections. The battle was won on this ship. But many others fought and suffered as well.

Another cruiser had to fight off numerous landings, but to their luck they had some 20 battle brothers of the White Eagles on it, these brothers obliterated the invading rachni thanks to the support of the Terminators on their team.

Specific corridors were small enough to allow two terminator brothers to stand side by side. Their canons, bolters and flamethrowers were turning any invading rachni into mincemeat, if they did not know fear. The creatures learned to fear on that day.

The battle brothers drove the invaders to their own pods before burning them inside as the creatures ran away in fear.

No brother lost his life in this operation, but they could not idle, they rushed to their thunderhawks, many other ships needed their help.

The combat in space was equally savage as the one inside the ships. The hive fleets were close enough for the imperium to use its broadside canons, the high yield explosive shells slaughtered the aliens. The space around the ships became filled with frozen blood flying in all directions, all flowing from the organic vessels that were destroyed by the dozen.

Still it was like a swarm of ships that kept driving away the imperial fleet from the planet itself, no matter the strength of the imperium, dozens of ships tried to ram and cut and slash at the imperial vessels. And so the vessels had to slowly pull back, the melee taking toll, some ships that had no void shielding were torn to shreds by the huge organic vessels.

Mannerheim had to retreat, he issued calls for help from the other vessels, unsure if his fleet is capable of stopping the swarm on its own.

But the fleet kept pouring, its numbers seemingly endless, they were now nearing the planet so closely the sun became dim and the day became darker from the sheer numbers.

The imperial fleet was driven away from the planet, only the orbital stations and the ground defences stood between victory, and oblivion.

Soldiers on the ground had their sights glued to the sky as it was showered with thousands of explosions, they grasped their weapons tightly, and expected the Locusts to descend and eat their planet.

They were determined to make them pay for it dearly before the end.

They were the bulwark against the darkness, and their guns would illuminate the night.

"The Emperor protects…" a soldier said, sky darkening from the number of the enemy now descending upon his world.

To be continued…