'WILL THE PAIN go, apothecary?'
W'It is nothing but a skin rash, young
man,' Jako Jaxabarm said. 'This balm
will speed its healing. But I wonder as to its
cause. What is your occupation?'
'I work in the chemics factory outside the
town.'
Jaxabarm nodded. He knew the factory. It
produced industrial acids and materials used
in the manufacture of high explosives.
Having dealt with his patient's right arm, he
began applying a thin layer of the soothing
blue unguent to his left arm, murmuring a
prayer as he did so. The rash was indeed
angry, and if left untreated might have rotted
away the flesh and left the sufferer in a
parlous state. He looked sternly into the
young man's pale face.
'What did you say your name is?'
'Drenthan Drews.'
'Well, Drenthan, you must tell your
employer to supply you with protective
sleeves, or else find work elsewhere.'
Drenthan Drews looked alarmed. 'I can't
go demanding safety gear from the factory
managers, apothecary. I would be dismissed
instantly. Work is hard to find, and I have an
ageing mother to support.'
Jako Jaxabarm's mind went hazy as he
listened to the all-too-familiar litany, looking
out of the window to the increasingly busy
street. He plied his apothecary's trade at a
corner table in a cheap cafe, where the owner
tolerated him because he brought in extra
customers. The planet, a semi-industrial
world in the Ultima Segmentum, lay
somewhere near the Kreel Nebula. The
factory workers here were poor and
downtrodden, though not as downtrodden
and poverty-stricken as on some of the more
fully industrialised worlds he had visited.
Jaxabarm had wandered much in recent
years, never staying in one place very long,
always fearing the clap of an arbitrator's - or
worse, an inquisitor's hand on his shoulder.
'Your work has caused this painful rash,
young man,' he said pitilessly. 'It will heal
now, but if you continue to work
unprotected it will return, and eventually
you will lose your arms.'
Drenthan Drews's shoulders slumped but
Jaxabarm was not looking at him. He could
not take his eyes off the street. Adeptus
Arbites patrols had increased dramatically,
and the city - indeed the whole planet - was
filling up more and more with the Imperial
Guard. There were naval ships in orbit, and it
was even rumoured that Space Marines were
on their way. The legendary Adeptus
Astartes!
An attack was coming. But where from?
And by whom?
The populace had not been told.
His young patient noticed his interest and
seemed to cheer up. His eyes brightened.
'Don't worry, apothecary! The Emperor's
forces are here. They'll soon see the enemy
off, whoever they are!'
'Yes, no doubt.'
Few had come to see him today. People
had left the city in droves, feeling they would
be safer in the countryside and many who
remained stayed indoors. He snapped shut
his apothecary's bag, rose from the table and
left the cafe with a casual wave to the
proprietor.
Drenthan Drews followed only a few steps
behind him. He had gone but a short
distance along the pavement when a hulking
arbitrator stopped them both.
'Your papers,' he said gruffly.
INFERNO! =========================
Jaxabarm avoiding looking at the dark
visor which all but covered the face of the
arbitrator, or judge to use the popular term.
He and Drews both fumbled for their shiny
pass bqoks. The judge carefully examined
them both, then applied his scanner to the
electrostatic text. He studied the results for a
long moment, then returned his hidden gaze
to the apothecary.
'You are Jako Jaxabarm?'
Jaxabarm nodded, clutching his bag. 'Yes,
arbitrator.'
'I believe you to be Genetor van Leedrix, of
the Adeptus Mechanicus, wanted for escape
from lawful custody. You are under arrest.'
'There is surely some mistake.. .'
Jaxabarm's words trailed off, as he realised
that the dreaded hour had corne. The
arbitrator muttered into his throat mic. A
grinding, bulky, black holding vehicle
emerged from a nearby corner and drew up.
'This is a wanted criminal,' the Arbites said
to his colleagues who piled out. He gestured
to Drenthan Drews. 'Take his accomplice
too.'
'He is nothing to do with it,' Jaxabarm
protested. 'I am an apothecary. He is only a
patient.'
'That's right!' Drews cried out in panic. 'I
don't even know him! Please let me go!'
The officer ignored his words. He and
Jaxabarm were thrown together into the
holding vehicle's dark interior.
THEY EMERGED into daylight outside the
florid frontage of Adeptus Arbites city
headquarters. Armoured tracked shapes
were roaring by, their clanking treads tearing
up the road surface, vast turrets reversed to
leave stubby cannon barrels trailing as they
raced towards the city limits. Jaxabarm
recognised them as Baneblade battle tanks.
Evidently Arbitrator headquarters now
doubled as Imperial Guard headquarters too.
The building bustled with unfamiliar
uniforms. But Jaxabarm and his young
patient glimpsed these only briefly as they
were hustled through the throng, quickly
searched, and Jaxabarm's apothecary's bag
taken from him. Then they were pushed
hastily down cast iron stairs and flung into a
prisoner cage.
A barred door clanged shut behind them.
The faint pleasant aroma of blue balm on
Drenthan Drews's arms slowly filled the dim
cell. There was already one occupant. To
Jaxabarm's surprise it was an Imperial Guard
soldier, uniform rumpled, headgear missing,
hair tousled, who huddled in the corner,
head down.
Drenthan Drews rounded on the man who
had unwittingly caused his imprisonment
'What's happening? You aren't an
apothecary at all! What are you? An
engineer?'
'Better you shouldn't know,' Jaxabarm told
him.
Drews looked blank. Jaxabarm took a step
towards the guardsman.
'With what crime are you charged?'
The soldier peered up at him. His face was
slack and despairing.
'Cowardice,' he muttered sullenly.
Arbitrators and the Imperial Guard were
also using the same holding cells, it seemed.
The guardsman appeared to be in state of
shock. Was it possible he did not realise that
the smartly dressed Jaxabarm was a prisoner
too?
'This planet is being readied for an attack,'
he said in commanding tones. 'Who is the
enemy?'
'Not allowed to say.'
Jaxabarm drew himself up. 'I am Genetor
Leedrix of the Adeptus Mechanicus. You may
tell me. You must tell me. That is an order.'
The guardsman rolled on his side and
turned his face away as he replied. Jaxabarm
had to lean close to catch the words.
'Hive Fleet Kraken.'
Jaxabarm went stiff. Now it was he who
was in shock.
II E HAD NEVER heard of Hive Fleet nKraken. But he knew of Hive Fleet
Behemoth!
Two hundred and fifty years previously,
the tyranids had corne, from out of the
darkness between the galaxies, in their huge
fleet of organically engineered snail-ships.
They had demolished world after inhabited
world, leaving nothing but bare rock. If
unopposed it would have done the same to
the whole galaxy. It was the greatest threat
the Imperium had ever faced, and it had
==============""40==============""
========================== INFERNO!
taken so much of the Imperium's resources
to defeat it.
As a young genetor, or adept of the
Arcanum Genetica, van Leedrix had once
been part of a team that was still studying
preserved tyranid cadavers a hundred and
fifty years after Hive Fleet Behemoth had
been defeated. A tyranid warrior was a
fearsome thing to behold. It was perhaps best
described as resembling the warrior caste of a
social insect such as a termite or an ant,
except that it was by far more vicious-looking
and about twice the size of a horse. Despite
being highly intelligent, its behaviour was
controlled in a way similar to that of social
insects, by means of chemical pheromones
released by the hive mind. All tyranid
engineering was biological in character. It
was known that the hive fleet had come to
the galaxy looking for genetic material, but it
was not really understood why.
That had been a hundred years ago.
'Jaxabarm' was older than he looked. He was
one hundred and twenty-eight, in an
Imperium where average life expectancy was
perhaps about forty. His longevity was solely
due to his membership of the Arcanum
Genetica, for genetors were the great experts
in extending human life. It was a privilege
ostensibly granted only to the high priests of
the Adeptus, the technomagi. But those who
bestowed this gift quietly availed themselves
of it too, a fact which the magi wisely
ignored.
No wonder the Planetary Governor had
made no announcement concerning the
emergency. Few in the Imperium's million
worlds knew that the tyranid invasion had
even taken place two and a half centuries
ago. The Imperium worked on the principle
of secrecy - no one was told anything he did
not absolutely need to know. Just to learn
one of these secrets by accident could mean
speedy death at the hands of one of the
countless arms of the Administratum.
Thus, had Jaxabarm told Drenthan Drews
why he was a renegade from the Arcanum
Genetica, why he was on the run from the
Adeptus Mechanicus, he would likely have
sealed the young factory worker's fate. The
existence of the tyranids was a secret he was
entitled to know. But there was another
secret, to which he had no entitlement.
Years ago his colleagues in the Arcanum
had begun to wonder why his prayers and
incantations were so much more efficacious
than theirs, when it came to assembling DNA
into useful biological inventions. Under
examination, it was found that he was a
latent psyker whose powers were only now
beginning to develop. It was deemed that he
was at risk of daemonic possession, and he
was sentenced to speedy execution. Up until
then he had had no inkling of the daemonic
realm. To hear of it came as a huge surprise to
him, and he had a feeling of resentment
against his accusers - which they, of course,
interpreted as yet more evidence of
daemonic intervention. Scant hours before
his sentence was due to be carried out, he
had contrived to escape. With luck, and with
cunning born of desperation, he had
survived until now.
For long it had been thought that the
Imperium had seen the last of the tyranids.
Now they were back, it seemed - a terrifying
prospect! - in the form of a second hive fleet,
given another name. This explained
something else to Jaxabarm. His psychic
talent was still developing. Occasionally he
could hear people's thoughts. If he relaxed
and opened his mind, he heard a
background of whispering. But lately the
whispering had turned into a deathly
silence, as if an advancing wall had
obliterated psychic space.
The wall of Hive Fleet Kraken? Jaxabarm
turned his attention back to the huddling
guardsman. 'Describe this enemy, this Hive
Fleet Kraken,' he ordered, in the same
peremptory tone as before. 'What are their
warriors like?'
'They are monsters!' the guardsman
replied in a strangled voice. 'Nothing can
withstand them! Their claws can tear a tank
apart!'
His voice fell. 'They don't just conquer
planets, they dismantle them! I am one of the
few survivors from the defence of Moloch.
Moloch is gone! Every man, woman, child
and animal was taken up into the hive fleet.
It was the same with Devlan - Devlan is
gone! And Salem, and Sotha - homeworld of
the Emperor's Scythes! I tell you there is
nothing you can do here.'
Jaxabarm sensed fear and despair from the
man. But inside that, he sensed also a
guardsman's discipline and courage. He
suspected the prisoner had been
incarcerated not so much for cowardice but
to stop him from telling others yet to
encounter the tyranids how bad the situation
was.
He and Drew tilted their faces as a
loudspeaker voice came echoing down the
stairwell from the ground floor. He just
managed to make out the words.
INFERNO! =========================
'Hormagaunt horde advancing from the
south. Break out all arms and distribute to
city population. Release and arm prisoners:
Hormagaunts... Quite likely whoever had
sent the message from the front knew only
this one term to describe the terrors that were
coming. But there would also be carnifexes,
lictors and termagants, not to speak of the
tyranid warriors themselves, and all the rest
of the multiformed nightmare war biology
that had so amazed the magi biologis of the
Adeptus Mechanicus. The city was about to
be overrun. And when that happened...
They heard footsteps and the clang of cell
doors opening. An arbitrator appeared and
flung open the gridiron gate.
'You are free. Leave the building. Join the
defences:
He tossed three lasguns into the cell and
passed on.
This truly was a measure of desperation: a
general levy to try to hold off the tyranid
swarm. Jaxabarm picked up the lasguns,
passed one to Drews and another to the
Imperial Guardsman, who also had been
listening intently to the booming voice. The
guardsman gave Jaxabarm a stricken look,
but accepted the weapon with apparent
gratitude.
Then he turned the emitter muzzle to his
own head and immediately pressed the
firing stud. His body jerked, then went limp
and slumped, a neat hole burned through his
skull.
A wise choice, Jaxabarm thought, if all he
had been told about Hive Fleet Behemoth
was true. He nudged the shocked Drenthan.
'Come on:
The building was emptying rapidly.
Outside, a great deal had changed in a very
short time. It had gone gloomy; the sky
seemed overcast but glimmered with faint
flashes, while stronger shafts of light speared
up from somewhere nearby. They were laser
beams from the land silos and from warships
in orbit.
Jaxabarm peered, slitting his eyes, and
began to see why the sky had darkened. The
air was filled with spots or specks as the hive
fleet disgorged its rain of death upon the
planet, each spot a pod bearing some
monstrous invader.
Clumsily Drew waved his lasgun. 'I don't
know how to use this thing!'
'You point it and press that stud there:
Jaxabarm informed him. A screaming noise,
inhuman and terrifying, like an insane siren,
caught his attention. Beyond the Arbites
building was a broad prospect. Up this, half a
dozen Baneblade tanks were reversing at full
speed, firing as they retreated. Pursuing
them were carnifexes, a hundred at least,
living engines of destruction running on
pairs of jointed legs, four huge scythe-blades
of limbs carried by each massive, rounded,
chitinous body. It was from these monsters
that the eerie screams came. The Baneblades'
shells blew a few apart, but most came
inexorably on. The very sight of them caused
an almost uncontrollable fear in Jaxabarm,
and even more so in Drews. Then, from one
of the monstrosities, a crackling fireball
issued and surged forward to engulf a
Baneblade in a glowing nimbus. The tank
juddered and came to a sudden halt. In
seconds carnifexes were all around it. The
two men watched appalled as scythe-limbs
carved through the Baneblade's armour,
taking it apart. Briefly they glimpsed the
doomed crew within, in the moments before
there was nothing but splashes of blood.
Drenthan Drews whimpered. 'I've got to
go to my mother! I must help her!"
Jaxabarm said nothing to stop him, useless
though the young man's sentiment was.
There was no help for anyone now. He
fondled the unfamiliar lasgun, wondering if
it would be possible to take one of the tyranid
scum with him.
Drews did not get any distance. It was as if
the air above the city gave birth to an evil
harvest. Husky pods by the thousand were
tumbling down and cracking open as they
hit streets or buildings. From them billowed
white floss which expanded until, within
seconds, it had covered the city in foam to a
height of fifty feet.
Jaxabarm and Drews, together with
anyone else still within the conurbation everyone
in the countryside too, perhaps were
now trapped inside a mesh of sticky
threads which made movement impossible.
Jaxabarm could see little: all around him was
nothing but a suffuse white glow. He heard
Drenthan calling out to him in a muffled
voice. 'Apothecary! Where are you?'
He heard other muffled voices, too,
seemingly far away. Finding he could still
move his fingers, he pressed the lasgun stud.
The beam shot through the enveloping floss,
frizzling it but achieving nothing else. When
he lifted his finger the floss instantly closed in
again to fill the narrow pipe he had drilled.
After a while he became dimly aware that,
immobilised though he might be, other
things were able to move through the mesh.
Tiny spider-like creatures crawled and
========================= INFERNO!
skittered along the threads which made it up.
Hulking shadow-shapes, visible as vague
blots, were blundering through it.
Tyranids.
Then he could feel the whole mass moving,
piling up, rolling along. At the same time his
psyker sense started to open up again. He
could sense human beings all around him, all
stuck in the gloop - tough, cynical judges,
battle-eager Imperial Guard, men, women
and children, all overwhelmed with dismay,
bewilderment and terror.
He felt something near him. A large wet
tongue licked his face. It belonged to a small
animal of the sort commonly kept as a pet on
this planet. Somehow it had ended up next to
him. He turned his face away.
More time passed. Then eerie ululations
sounded, penetrating the mesh. Jaxabarm felt
a tugging or a pushing, he could not tell
which. He heard a dragging noise. Then it
went dark. He heard a loud hissing, and felt a
savage force pressing him down towards the
ground.
Except that it was not the ground. It was a
floor of some kind. He knew what that
pressing down meant: acceleration, G-force.
They had been transferred to the innards of
another type of tyranid beast. One that
served as a shuttlecraft. He wondered if he
would get a chance to turn the lasgun on
himself, as the guardsman had.
They were being taken aboard the hive
fleet.
IIIHEN THE acceleration ceased a peculiar
Wcloying smell invaded Jaxabarm's nostrils
and he lost consciousness. When he came
to, the floss was melting into thin air all
around him. The lasgun was gone from his
hand. He flailed desperately to find it, but to
no avail.
The worst of all nightmares was about to
begin.
IIiHEN HIS head cleared he went nearly
W mad with horror. He was but one of a
tangle of people who lay on the floor of a
round, crimson-walled tunnel which pulsed
like a living thing - as, indeed, it was. The
light, too, was reddish and murky, issuing
from nodules dotted randomly about the
walls, made hazy by a drifting mist. A distant
but steady thudding or booming, as of a giant
heartbeat, accompanied the tunnel's writhing
pulse. An acid stench filled the air. Jaxabarm
guessed it was the smell of the pheromones
by which the hive mind controlled its
creatures.
Drenthan Drews tugged at his sleeve.
'Where are we?' he hissed fearfully.
Jaxabarm did not answer. His heart was in
his throat. Approaching down the tunnel
from both ends came tyranid creatures. The
dreadful sight caused a wailing and a sobbing
and a screeching with terror of children
among the humans. Uniformed arbitrators
and guardsmen came to all fours, defenceless
now and stripped of all the certainty of the
human Imperium, staring paralysed at the
pure bestial alienness into which they were
now plunged.
The creatures were lictors, a mutation of the
standard tyranid warrior which, though a
vicious killing machine like all tyranid
progeny, was highly intelligent and had
feeder tentacles for consuming a victim's
brain, thereby absorbing and analysing his
memories and genetic data. Cold,
expressionless eyes, as blank as a spider's,
were set above chitinous mandibles filled
with huge curved teeth. The lictors moved in,
seized the nearest soft-bodied humans in
barbed flesh hooks and inserted tentacles
through eyes, temples or beneath the jaw.
Those seized went limp almost instantly as
the transfer of brain tissue began.
Drenthan Drews and Jaxabarm had both
come to their feet, but Drews seemed about to
faint. Holding him up, his heart pounding
with terror, he glanced behind him to see that
the lictors were not alone. Picking their way
among them were four monstrosities unlike
any he had seen or heard described during
his days in the Arcanum Genetica. They were
large, but moved delicately as if physically
puny, and sported huge bloated heads
decorated with chitinous patterns and
surrounded by bony antler-like structures.
Behind them moved an even larger
monstrosity, so huge that it barely found
room for itself in the tunnel. Twice the size of
a normal tyranid warrior, this was a type of
monster which Jaxabarm did recognise. It
was a hive tyrant, believed by some magi
biologis to be individual embodiments of the
hive mind.
==============43==============
INFERNO! =========================
There was no place to run. Delicately, but
with more than human strength, the
unnamed creatures bent their moirepatterned
heads and used their forelimbs to
select a.nd pick up squirming humans, among
them Jaxabarm and Drews. Helpless in the
pincer-like grip, the screeching of the
captured and soon-to-be-decorticated men,
women and children ringing in their ears,
they were carried down the tunnel and
emerged into a more bulbous chamber.
The pheromonic smell here was different
from in the tunnel, less acid, but nonetheless
just as revolting. The hive tyrant stood in the
entrance, swaying slightly. A grotesque scene
was then enacted. Under the bloody light, a
middle-aged man was laid down and stripped
of his clothing. Two large-headed tyranids
bent over him, pinning him down as he tried
to crawl away, looking desperately towards
his fellow humans as though appealing for
help.
Then the dissection began. The tyranid
creatures, white slime dripping from glands
in their underbellies, seemed oblivious of the
screams of utmost agony from their
experimental subject as he was laid open
without anaesthetic and his intestines were
torn out and tossed here and there. Drews
gagged and even Jaxabarm staggered.
And then he became aware of the psychic
presence of the tyranids. It was weird, like
nothing else he had ever experienced: an
implacable, ferocious sentience which was
ancient beyond imagining. It stood alone; no
one would ever be able to speak to it.
Suddenly he felt as though his psyche had
been torn apart like the human body on the
floor of the chamber. The scene before his eyes
vanished.
He was somewhere else. Somewhere dark,
but filled with a seething and a rustling. He
had entered the hive mind.
And now he understood what the tyranids
were.
THE TYRANIDS were what ants and
termites would be if they could evolve
further and become intelligent. What made
such intelligence incomprehensible was that
the tyranids had never evolved emotions.
They were aware that concepts such as
sympathy and honour existed in the species
they harvested, but they viewed them only in
the abstract and dismissed them as
evolutionary mistakes. Gene coding for
emotion was never made use of by the hive
fleets.
Yes, the tyranids were intelligent, but
intelligence was not a quality particularly
prized by the hive mind. A tyranid creature
could reason, but it never did so out of selfinterest.
Intelligence, like everything else,
served only tyranid hive instincts - or rather,
it served the single great tyranid instinct, the
one overwhelming, compulsive urge.
SURVIVE! AND SURVIVE FOREVER!
When the tyranids invaded a galaxy they
took aboard vast amounts of foodstuffs and
raw materials, but those were not what they
came looking for. They knew that every
system, whether mechanical or biological,
eventually runs down. Most species lasted
only a few million years. A few - like some
Earth ants - managed to survive for up to a
hundred million years. But sooner or later
they perished as their DNA either failed to
adapt or simply deteriorated through natural
wear.
The tyranids had found the only possible
remedy for this. They moved from galaxy to
galaxy, harvesting fresh, newly evolved DNA
with which to renew and reinvigorate their
own. They were the universe's ultimate life
form. Quite possibly they had existed forever,
and would continue to exist forever. Quite
possibly the universe contained an infinite
number of hive fleets.
The Imperium of Man had beaten off one
hive fleet. Perhaps it could beat off others. It
would be a rare reversal for the tyranids, but
that did not matter at all. In a few million
years the Imperium would be gone, the
human race would be gone, and some other
hive fleet would arrive, meeting weaker
resistance, and would leave the galaxy lifeless
and desolate.
Then, a few billion years later, life would
evolve all over again, on millions of planets.
And again a hive fleet would move in....
Jaxabarm did not think the hive tyrant was
at all aware that he was eavesdropping on the
hive mind. He was not worthy of notice. The
tyranid did not respect human intelligence they
did not respect any intelligence, not even
their own. All they saw in the human race was
a species possessing young, vigorous DNA.
========================= INFERNO!
IVIOLENT barking noise snatched him
abruptly out of the unholy contact. He
saw three of the large-headed tyranids
blown apart, then the fourth. A ragged hole
had been blown in the wall of the chamber,
too. Shreds of rubbery flesh, the substance of
the snail-ship, flapped and trailed, oozing
pink ichor. Crowding through the hole came
armoured man-shapes with pointed visors,
seemingly grotesquely hunchbacked, the allenclosing
armour itself hulking over the back
of the helmet. Their red and purple
colouring seemed to merge into the bloodhued
innards of the snail-ship.
Space Marines! The rumour was true! And
they were using their favourite hand
weapon - the bolter! Explosive bolts rained
against the chitinous hide of the hive tyrant,
which being weaponless itself, backed away
up the tunnel. The lictors, however,
launched themselves immediately at the
Marines, shooting off flesh hooks which
scraped and scored the Marines' armour,
trying to get to grips with them with their
claws and teeth. Against these creatures, the
explosive bolts were more effective. The
Marines had a strategy: they aimed for the
lictors' gaping mouths, exploding the bolts
within the tyranid skull.
Jaxabarm knew what the response would
be to an intrusion into the organic tyranid
ship, itself but a genetically modified tyranid.
tyranid monsters in all their forms would be
rushing to the spot from all over the snailship.
A single squad of Spaces Marines
would stand no chance.
As it was there were too many lictors for
them. Two had already been overcome,
borne down by the weight of the creatures,
their armour ripped open. The others,
making no attempt to help their comrades,
prepared to retreat. Jaxabarm's hope that this
was a rescue mission was quickly dashed.
One of the Marines carried a chest or box
which he placed on the floor of the chamber.
Bolters still barking, the Marines backed
through the hole they had made, ignoring
the human captives and leaving them to
their grisly fate.
A lictor now turned its attention to
Jaxabarm, its acidic stench almost
overpowering him. Shivering, he tried to
evade its reaching claws.
Again came a bolter bark, so close it nearly
deafened him. The lictor took the bolt in the
jaw, shuddered and slumped. Looking
round, Jaxabarm was startled to see Drews
awkwardly holding a bolter he had taken
from a dead Space Marine.
'This way, apothecary!'
Drews grabbed him by the arm and
dragged him towards the hole through
which the Marines had already disappeared,
firing off the bolt gun in all directions.
Jaxabarm's last glimpse of the murky
chamber was of a lictor picking up the
discarded chest in its forelimbs and
inspecting it.
The path of the Marines was easy to follow.
Rather than try to find their way through the
maze of tunnels and passages, where they
would be prey to ambush, they had chosen
to blast their way through the tunnel walls.
There was very little light in these tunnels.
They met no tyranid warriors of any kind,
only small, spider-like creatures which
scuttled everywhere, taking no notice of
them. In minutes they had come in sight of
the departing Marines, who were about to
embark - again through a hole blasted in the
skin of the ship-creature - in a spacecraft of
some kind.
'Help us! Help us!' Jaxabarm cried out.
For a moment he thought they would be
abandoned. Then the last Marine to embark
gestured to them hastily. They went through
a circular metal port and found themselves in
a cramped hold among the hulking Astartes
adepts. The Marines began removing their
headgear as the craft shot away from the
tyranid ships. They were watching a small
screen set like a porthole in the side of the
hold.
There, the snail-ship suddenly exploded,
reddened chunks of it flying into space. Yet,
in the distance, other glints could be seen,
many of them. The hive fleet consisted of
thousands of such ships.
What now? Jaxabarm began to think of the
future. He was no longer the condemned
Genetor van Dreelix. He was Jako Jaxabarm,
apothecary, once again. The discovery of his
alias had been made on a planet shortly to be
reduced to rubble.
He would try to persuade Drenthan Drews
to join the Imperial Guard and help defend
the Imperium. Hive Fleet Kraken had to be
repelled or humanity was doomed.
Not that the outcome was of any
importance to the tyranids. To them, species
evolved and perished like blades of grass.
Galaxies condensed, blazed, then guttered
out. The supposedly immortal Chaos gods
would not even last that long. They would
perish when the psyches which sustained
them died out.
Only the tyranids lasted forever.