Fame Cimex Chapter 24
The Hive city was a seething mass of activity, with tens of thousands of people rioting in the streets and crowds running rampant everywhere. Masses of panicked people fought in the streets and blood flowed freely, shops were smashed in and looters grabbed whatever they could as men and women clawed at each other in mass hysteria.
The cause of all this distress were the vicious rumours flying everywhere about Tyranid monsters infesting the city, people talking about attacks in the slums and people being taken from their beds. Even the Cathedral of the Saviour Emperor and an entire orphanage had been assaulted, proving divine favour was no protection. Gossip spread the fear everywhere and with each retelling, the horror grew and grew until it could do nothing but spill over into violent panic.
In response the Arbites and local enforcers had deployed en-masse, heading out with suppressors and riot shields ready. They fought back the madness with tear gas and water cannons, trying to suppress the raging mobs and instil order. It didn't work, the fear had reached fever pitch and the madness swept over the common masses like a wildfire. In desperation the Planetary Governor sent out his PDF to restore order with guns and tanks, using the Hammer of the Emperor where more subtle means had failed. They were aided in this task by the Sister's of Battle, clad in Black armour with red roses blazoned upon their banners. Officially they were being sent to bring purifying flame to the blasphemous masses, but unofficially they were hunting for something far more specific, something Cardinal Giovanni desperately wanted to see dead. Yet what nobody could have realised was that these displays of Imperial might merely played into the Tyranid's tangled web.
High up the great spire that rose from the city, a creature was making slow progress as it ascended. From a distance it would have appeared as a tiny speck, a spider climbing a great tree. Yet had any thought to look closer they would have seen its elongated limbs and grasping claws that declared it to be the Lictor, the very creature that had initiated the mass hysteria.
The Lictor was patiently making its way up the great spire, instinctively following the scent of the pheromone it had marked its target with. The microscopic traces would have been undetectable to even the finest Imperial Auspex scanners and cyber Mastiffs, but the Lictor was utterly beyond such feeble measures and it followed the spoor unerringly. Finding an opportunity to infiltrate the spire had presented a challenge and yet the Lictor's instincts had led to a solution. In many ways the Hive spire resembled a complicated burrow and to the Lictor's primitive brain the solution was obvious. In any warren the front was always well guarded, any attack would provoke an overwhelming response, yet attack from the rear and the creatures would have no reply. All it had taken was a few days of random attacks and predation in the lower levels and the guard-animals had spilled out into the lower streets, leaving the main body of the burrow exposed and vulnerable.
The Lictor had not hesitated to make its move, scaling the exterior of the spire with effortless ease. It soon reached altitudes where the air became thin, a prey animal would have suffocated in minutes but the Lictor breathed easily on the wisps of atmosphere. It slipped past vent stacks and flumes spewing thick vapours from life support systems, the prey was not expecting anybody to approach from such a direction and the Lictor went completely undetected.
Soon the Lictor found a way inside the spire, an air vent sucking in the thin vapour with a large spinning fan blade. A spray of adhesive mucus easily stalled the blade and the Lictor slipped inside, squeezing into a space no prey would have thought it could fit through. Once it had achieved entry the Lictor found itself in a maze of ventilation tunnels, an ant's nest of twisting passages encrusted with mould and fungal growths. The Lictor did not find this disturbing in the slightest, in many ways the passages resembled the interior of a Tyranid breeding pool. The Lictor made its way deeper into the burrow, following the distant hints of pheromones. As it progressed it felt the vibrations of prey going about their lives, oblivious to its presence above their heads.
Soon it found itself in a hot, wet area and here it paused, scenting the spoor of blood on the air. It slithered over to an opening, with a mesh of fine metal bars and found itself looking out over a large arena. Here the prey seemed to be engaged in the preparation of biomass for consumption, lacking the powerful jaws and corrosive acids of Tyranid creatures they were reduced to macerating meat with metal implements and heating it over flames.
The scents were bewildering to the Lictor, the processes involved ruining much of the genetic potential in the biomass but that was not what was drawing its attention. Directly below the Tyranid creature was an immature female, working over a hot flame and this was the source of the blood trace. The Lictor's scent receptors quivered as it struggled to understand why it had been drawn here, then it understood. The Female had just reached breeding age and was in a state of its first hormonal flux, the genetic potential of such a find was rare indeed and the Hive Mind could reap great rewards from its flesh.
Following a secondary instinct the Lictor sprayed a pheromone marker out of the vent, showering down upon the female in a microscopic mist. It was undetectable to the prey but when the Hive Fleet came the Tyranids would follow this scent and reap the genetic potential of the animal for the advancement of their race. Satisfied the Lictor moved on, following the spoor ever deeper into the burrow. It passed over wide avenues thronged with prey and empty chambers left to vermin and arachnids that fled in terror as the predator passed over their heads. Slowly it made its way up the burrow, following the scent ever higher until at last it found itself at a true obstacle.
Here the vents narrowed to a degree that even the Lictor could not pass through and it felt the vibrations of sensory organs sampling the air, looking for intruders. The Lictor backed up to the last opening it had passed and tore open the mesh to allow it into the prey's own passages. It found itself in a long tunnel, high and wide with supporting columns and odd effigies lining the walls, clearly meant as a crude deterrent to scare off passing predators. The Lictor was not fooled though, the scent told it that the effigies were mere stone and it shifted its chameleonic skin to match the surface of the roof as it skittered onwards. A few milling prey animals were shuffling about but none of them noticed the Lictor passing overhead as it followed the spoor, now becoming overwhelming in potency: it was so close.
Soon the Lictor found itself approaching a large wooden barrier, before which stood a true obstacle: a pair of female guard-animals standing before the barricade with weapons drawn. The lesser prey were steering clear of the female guards, averting their gaze in deference to their dominant position in the herd, which played to the Lictor's favour.
Slowly, one inch at a time the Lictor moved closer, taking ultimate care not to be detected. It was incredibly risky but the females were concentrating upon the other prey beasts, not thinking to look upwards. Slowly the Lictor made its way directly over the females and there it paused, waiting for the right moment. The females were alert and well-armed but they were limited by their prey-senses and did not realise the danger they were in. They stood a few feet apart sweeping back and forth constantly but never looking upwards.
The Lictor waited until the weapons were both pointed at the furthest extent of their arcs and then it dropped from the ceiling with claws outstretched. It hit both females simultaneously, plunging its talons into the gaps in their carapaces behind their necks and killing both instantly. The females fell with a clatter of carapaces, drawing attention from the distant prey. Shrieks of alarm rose up to warn the herd, but the Lictor was already in motion, leaping at the wooden barrier in a blur of chitin. The barrier shattered with ease and the Lictor broke through into a large chamber, lined with shiny materials and stinking with the odd scents of refined opiates and fermented fruit juices. The chamber was filled with odd effigies and colourful images on the walls, but what drew the Lictor's attention was the horizontal slab at the far end. Here at last was the Leader-Beast, exposed and vulnerable, caught in the act of mating with several females and its scent was spoiled by opiates.
The target was right in front of the Lictor but unfortunately there was one problem, several female guards standing around the walls, watching the Leader-Beast even as it mated. The Lictor noticed that one of them was the Alpha female whom it had scented before, already drawing its long claw and charging forth bellowing a declaration of challenge. The Alpha came at the Lictor with its claw sparking and swung wildly trying to make contact with its first blow. The Lictor however bent back inhumanly and the claw passed over its head, singeing its chitin with sparks of lightning. The Alpha followed this up with a series of fast blows, hacking and stabbing in a frenzy of attacks. It was fast, skilled and experienced but unfortunately it failed to realise that this time the Lictor was not holding back.
The Lictor ducked a blow and rose up with its long claws extending outwards, hitting the Alpha right over the heart. The carapace met the chitin claws and parted, mere armour no match for the Tyranid's gene-crafted blades. The Alpha gasped as the claws ripped out its heart and it dropped its weapon as death claimed it. The Lictor twisted and lifted the weight of the dying animal, flinging it at the other pair of females who were still standing by the slab. The females went down in a tangle of limbs, thrashing on the ground as the Lictor leapt into position. The Leader-Beast stirred, finally realising through its opiated state that it was under attack.
The Lictor loomed over the Leader-beast as it screamed and held up fat paws to fend off death, but that was not the Tyranid's plan. The Lictor opened its maw and from a special gland sprayed a thick, cloying pheromone over the Leader-Beast, a tracer that the Hive Mind could follow anywhere. The animal bellowed in pain and lifted its paws to its face as the musk burned its skin and its mates screamed loudly.
The Lictor however was already moving, leaping back out of the chamber into the corridor and racing away as fast as it could. The passageway was already clattering with the approach of more of the female guards but the Lictor was faster. It leapt onto the wall and scuttled back to the opening it had come in through. The females tried to stop it with blasts from their weapons, but the range was long and their short-sighted aim poor. The blasts hit all around the Lictor and stone chips ricocheted off its hide but they could not stop its escape. The Tyranid creature scuttled into the vent and fled into the darkness, chased by blasts and threat cries.
The Lictor's instincts told it to retreat and hide from pursuit, to wait for the right time. The first part of its task was complete, now the Leader-Beast had been marked and the Lictor could follow it right into the heart of the Prey's defences. When the Hive Fleet arrived the Lictor would strike and rip out the nerve centre of the prey's resistance, the walls would fall and the way would be open for the Tyranid fleet.