Thursday, February 3, 2011

Hive Fleet Tarrasque

Ordos Xenos Report – Omega Grade clearance requested...
DNA and password accepted – May the Emperor’s Light shine on you...
...............

This report comes from our observers in Segmentum Pacificus, already a smelting pot of issues with Imperial forces already engaged in running battles with Eldar and Orks as well as the arrival of a small hive fleet all within the last century. The Ipsos sector quietened when Eldar forces seemed to break off engagement with our forces going almost unseen before it became apparent that they had launched raids on the Tyranid “Synapse” network and driven the swarm to ground with no leadership. For a decade now the combined forces of the Cadian 27th, Knights of Marconia, Emperor’s Shadows and Angels Reticent Astartes chapters have been able to wage their war on the Orks unchallenged and had begun driving them back.
In 999.M41 however a single ship was detected in the Ipsos sector, without warning it had appeared in the middle of the system. Our tracking implements marked it as a single Leviathan class Hiveship and it was on a collision course for Davion, one of worlds marked for ground cleansing due to minor infestation and a major staging ground for the Emperor’s Shadows. An Astropathic message was sent to them, but a single Hiveship should have been no match for several battle companies of Astartes. From that day on Shadows battle activity dropped sharply and within 30 solar days all contact with them had been lost. An battlegroup from the in system naval detachment was sent to investigate and was destroyed in orbit, but not before they were able to transmit 7 seconds of visual.
Davion was largely obscured, thick clouds of spores and tyranid vessels hung in space around the planet, tendrils of organisms stretching out to encompass it’s three moons. Through the gaps in the spores the true horror was revealed. Gone was the agri-world of Davion, instead was a world of fire and madness. It writhed with stage 3 Tyranid biology but was going unharvested, volcanic vents had been torn open across the planet and at the equator like a cancer on the world sat a creature, Tyranid like in design but the size of a continent what once was a mere hiveship.
My Magos attendants suggest that in it’s crippled state the hiveship could not leave and so has begun assimilation of the world but unlike the travelling fleets chose not to drain the world but instead farms it, using the energy of the molten core to breed biomass for itself and it’s progeny. It has been suggested that what we are seeing was the evolution of their race played out again. A single world that spawned the first of their kind and began their spread into space.
All attempts to assault this fortress world have failed and I request the full might of the Pacificus Battlegroup be brought to bear. This Hive Fleet is perhaps the greatest threat the Tyranids have presented, they appear to be a mutant strain or splinter of Leviathan, their skin colouration a reversal of the established norm but their behaviour is so aberrant. Synapse Creatures are protected but to an nth degree, in engagement Tyrant class organisms are never seen without guard creatures and the Hive has a tendency to favour monstrous sized leader beasts such as the Alpha Trygon and Tervigon class organisms. Even when Gladius class beasts are spotted they are often hidden within the seething swarms safe from all but the most accomplished of snipers.
This ability to generate a fortress world concerns me greatly, if we cannot keep them isolated and this strain is allowed to reintegrate with the other fleets the Tyranid race would become virtually impossible to burn them from our galaxy and it would likely spell the end for us all as these fortress factories sprung up across the Imperium like a cancer.
As such I have designated this new strain Tarrasque to highlight the danger this swarm that refuses to stay dead represents.
May the Emperor’s light protect us all.