The carapaced hull of the Redemption Hive Ship still bore faint scars of war, discoloured against the surrounding chitin plates.
They were the wounds left more than thirty years ago by the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha and an Ork Edork fortress—scars now completely healed.
This ancient, colossal bioship had long since fallen wholly under the Saviour's control, steadily harvesting biomass and growing stronger.
Zzzzt—
A vast conveyor-womb split open along the hive ship's belly, disgorging a cephalopodic larval bioship almost a kilometre long, its maw a crown of gnashing horrors.
It was a tentacle-type Devourer bioship larva.
The larva drifted toward a capillary spire and latched on, drawing nutrients through the feeder tubes.
Once it had absorbed enough biomass, it would gradually mature into a multi-kilometre behemoth, the equal of an Imperial cruiser.
Below the larva sprawled a world wreathed in spore-miasma, its surface studded with towering capillary towers that reached beyond the atmosphere.
There was still the faintest trace of green to be seen.
"Lord, the available biomass on this world is higher than forecast. At our current rate, it will not reach the designated extraction threshold for another two Terran months.
"At that point, the Redemption Hive Ship will transfer to Planet Three in this system—biomass levels there are already rich enough."
Inside a small observation craft, the administrator of Aedilar System Ranch World One made his report to the division chief of the Ranching Division.
"You've run this world well—biomass totals are up twenty percent over projections.
"Keep it there and I'll consider nominating you for the Division's Top Ten Employees."
In the holo, the division chief skimmed the numbers and nodded with satisfaction.
"You might not have heard—thanks to His Majesty the Saviour's coronation this year, our benefits improved again. Top Ten comes with a week's vacation on the Rida Garden World.
"Rare chance."
That carrot had the Ranch World One administrator buzzing. "By the Saviour, I'll keep this world on track. I won't let you down!"
Ending the call, he stepped to the viewport and gazed down at the ranch world in his charge.
His eyes shone with anticipation.
He was already picturing himself taking his wife and kids to the Rida Garden World, basking on golden isles above warm, turquoise shallows.
This planet was one of many ranch worlds overseen by the Ranching Division of the Saviour's Tyranid Bio-Division.
The Redemption Hive Ship's hunger for biomass was Titan-sized; cultivating sufficient feedstock was difficult—ordinary worlds simply couldn't meet demand.
Worse, it wasted colossal resources.
After extensive study, the Tyranid Bio-Division concluded that the Tyranids' "strip-mine everything" way of feeding was unscientific, intolerable to nearby regions, and—most importantly—utterly at odds with His Majesty's principles of sustainable development.
So they proposed a new, sustainable cultivation framework—the Tyranid Ranch Plan.
The division selected several dozen systems on the fringes of the Pacifica-like frontier, nearly a thousand primitive or feral worlds, to serve as the Redemption Hive Ship's feeding grounds.
They would "pasture" them.
Working with several research institutes, they formed the Ranching Division, terraforming these worlds and seeding them with flora and fauna engineered specifically to yield biomass for Tyranids.
Drawing on Greenwave Agri-Farms techniques from Humanity's Dark Age of Technology (the so-called Golden Age), Orkoid fast-growth genes, and Tyranid templates, the institutes bred special algal strains, ground-moss, sea-grass, and both terrestrial and aquatic stock.
These organisms were essentially inedible for humans, but were hyper-adaptable, fast-spreading, and superb at converting sunlight.
They could rapidly overrun entire planets at disaster-like scale, producing oceans of biomass.
Once a ranch world hit quota, it pinged the Redemption Hive Ship to come feast—and harvest cleanly.
Of course, the Redemption Hive Ship would never over-harvest; it would leave at the threshold and move to the next site, giving the ranch world room to recover.
So long as there were enough ranch worlds and they were managed scientifically to the cadence of growth, the hive ship could follow a set route through the Webway-linked network and dine without pause.
Starvation simply wouldn't be a thing.
This was genuine sustainable cultivation. At scale, it would let the Redemption Hive Fleet out-grow and out-pace any other Tyranid tendril prowling the galaxy—
—and do it without crushing the surrounding regions.
His Majesty the Saviour was extremely pleased with the Ranch Plan. He'd praised it repeatedly, granted the division "Top Department" honours, and showered it with benefits.
To him, this was how Tyranid life should develop. The old scorched-earth devouring was a dead end.
Those Tyranid tendrils skulking into the Milky Way were like beggars—starving every other day, bolting down whatever they stumbled into.
And after every binge, much of the biomass and effort got wasted—if they didn't get punched in the face for it, anyway.
So much hassle.
Then they had to spend years or decades just travelling to find the next meal. Half the time they went into hibernation to save energy—like a man drinking cold water and lying flat to conserve strength.
It was the equivalent of running ten kilometres, getting ravenous, then inhaling every scrap of food on the table to refuel—leaving a world stripped bare to rock and hard to recover.
No food nearby meant more travel, more burn, the same endless cycle of starving and bingeing.
Vast resources—gone.
Take the Redemption Hive Fleet's predecessor—Hive Fleet Leviathan.
According to the bioship's internal records:
From the moment it was spawned, it spent at least sixty percent of its existence asleep and hungry—waking only to go hunt for food.
Moments of fullness were rare.
It slogged across the void for ages, finally caught the Hades-like system and nearby stars for a big meal—and before it could bulk up, the Imperium and the Necrons cut it off.
War burned away what biomass it had banked. By the time it reached the Baal System, it was reeling with hunger.
That was when the Saviour's coalition crushed it; even its Hive Mind presence was extinguished and replaced by the Saviour's will.
By the Saviour's reckoning, even the Great Devourer itself isn't much different.
It gulps down one large stellar domain out on the galactic rim—and then it's back to "no meal after this one."
It never seriously considered conquering major systems to enslave them and generate a constant biomass tithe.
Or perhaps that genetic greed baked into it makes such a strategy impossible.
Either way, it's starving again—and now it's coming for the Milky Way.
By contrast, the Redemption Hive Ship—flagship of the Saviour's future swarm and bulwark against the Great Devourer—was living the good life. No more "three days starving, nine meals missed"—more like "fried chicken one day, burgers the next."
Thanks to the ranch worlds' steady supply, it hadn't gone hungry once. The hive ship itself had put on a pleasant ring of "heft," rounding out nicely.
Recovery from its grievous wounds had been swift.
Compared to other Tyranid fleets scrounging and waiting on Genestealer cults to ripen and broadcast their beacon, this point-feeding regimen was positively luxurious.
Daydream of vacation concluded, Ranch World One's administrator dove back into his duties.
He transmitted the relevant data to the Redemption Hive Ship so the swarm on the surface would halt consumption on schedule.
Then, as per protocol, the hive ship would depart for the next world.
After that he would ping the Sowing Flotilla to aerate soils, reseed, and restore the planet's ecology.
A data-burst flashed from the observation craft and reached the Redemption Hive Ship.
The bioship twitched, then—through the synaptic web—signalled the surface Tyranids.
Cohorts of organisms began returning up the capillary towers.
In the dark-red, faintly luminescent ducts, weed-like tendrils swayed with the airflow as countless Tyranid creatures streamed along their designated tracks, busily at work.
Biomass surged up from the planetary surface into the hive ship, then through ducts and haulers into the different bio-vats.
In those cavernous chambers—hundreds of metres tall—vat after vat brimmed with refined biomass, a bounty of resources.
All of it fed the growth of new bioships and war-organisms.
Some special eggs—chitinous ovoid germ-seeds—were sent on to the Redemption Satellite Zone to be tended by the Drukhari.
Thump-thump-thump—
From the hive ship's core chamber rolled a titanic heartbeat, each pulse radiating a terrifying psychic pressure.
Myriad biotubes plugged into a towering xenos frame—monstrous, yet terrible-beautiful.
Five metres tall, its musculature gleamed with a chitin sheen; from its back spread bladed bone-wings sharp as scythes.
It chilled the blood to see.
This was Eden's Tyranid clone-avatar, the master of the Redemption Hive Ship—
—Bladewing.
Over the years, Bladewing had fully assimilated the legacy the old Hive Mind left behind and grown ever mightier.
He possessed a brutal physique and command of formidable Tyranid psyker might—maxed in both flesh and mind.
Those wings, shrouded in a specialised bio-field, could shear through any armour with contemptuous ease.
A decade ago, in one trial, the Saviour piloted Bladewing against a cruiser with an escort screen.
He promptly threw up a "Shadow in the Warp," jamming comms and blotting out warp lanes, then punched through the ship's flak from space—
—ripped open the armour, bored into the guts, and tore out the reactor array with unstoppable ferocity.
The vessel died in sparks and rupture, another heap of scrap in the void.
This Tyranid avatar was a match for any high-tier power in the galaxy—ace in the hole against ancient terrors and alien horrors.
In truth, Eden wanted his Tyranid avatar to stand toe-to-toe with the Emperor—or with any shadowed incarnation of a darkened Emperor that might descend upon the galaxy.
Or to face the looming awakening of the Necron star-gods.
More importantly, it had to be able to resist the Hive Will of the Great Devourer and keep command of his swarm.
Fail there, and no matter how vast a hive ship he bred or how many hosts he raised, the ancient Will would simply seize them—
—and all his work would clothe the Great Devourer.
The arrival of that ancient cosmic tyrant could be an extinction-level event for the galaxy.
Preparation was non-negotiable—otherwise humanity's "prosperity" would prove a daydream.
Humans couldn't possibly match Tyranids in numbers: a single grown soldier took twenty years to raise and train.
The hive needed only biomass to catalyse a batch of carapace-rippers that could tear through armour and drown a regiment.
In such a contest, humanity could not trade attrition. It needed a vanguard of vast numbers to stall the enemy—
—time to build lines and assemble a steel tide.
Hence Bladewing had to reach a scale of flesh and warp-power that beggared imagination.
For years, the Redemption Hive Ship had poured its best biomass into specialised nutrients to strengthen the avatar's body.
Thousands of mutant brain-bugs—zoanthropes and their kin—channeled a constant current of psychic power into the avatar.
Now this Tyranid body outstripped a Primarch by far.
Even so—it was not enough.
Unless there was no choice—
—Bladewing would not reveal himself to the wider galaxy, lest he drew unwanted fire.
If Eden's enemies—or even other Tyranid fleets—learned of him, they would spend blood and worlds to annihilate him, or at least stunt his growth.
In truth, aside from the Biologis Archsage Moss and a handful of Tech-priests with purged memories, almost no one knew that deep inside the Redemption Hive Ship—
—such a dreadful living weapon was ripening.
"Inefficient. Redundant cognition…"
A metallic rasp buzzed from a vibro-membrane as several neural tendrils whisked across a bio-template.
"Recommend excision of redundant cortical paths. Fortify acid glands."
The speaker was a twisted organism sheathed in dark-green armour plates, mucous gleaming between folds. Six pairs of limbs fanned from its spine, their tips ending in keratin scalpels like surgical forceps.
Abathur's bulging, misshapen head—occupying a third of its trunk—hovered over the gene-template. Its compound eyes irised in and out like a stack of microscope lenses.
It worked without cease.
This Tyranid specialist was the Redemption Hive Ship's steward—gene-engineer of the Swarm, responsible for upgrades and evolutions across Tyranid biotypes.
Its most sacred charge: cultivate the master's Tyranid clone-avatar—Bladewing.
Abathur's loyalty to His Majesty the Saviour, its master, was absolute.
Chosen from among the lowly worker-caste, elevated to a new order of being, granted expanded cognition—
—free to exercise its genius.
For years, the Swarm's gene-engineer had served that will without a heartbeat wasted, absorbing knowledge, reshaping broods—
—and tending the master's body.
Query.
Abathur's limbs went still. It raised its head.
Solemn now: "The Lord of the Swarm contacts Abathur. Priority override…"
Every plan Abathur undertook was scheduled with fanatic rigour. Not a second could be wasted.
Except for the Lord of the Swarm. All its time—all of it—belonged to Him.
"Abathur, what's the Swarm's status—can we conduct a large-scale war?
"And if I temporarily halt cultivation of my body, what's the impact? I need it to personally command the Swarm for a sector-scale purge."
Eden's voice came over the synaptic lattice.
He intended to drown Commorragh's labyrinthine strata and Webway veins in Tyranids, scouring every last daemon of Slaanesh from its bolt-holes.
But with Bladewing mid-cultivation, he wasn't sure if pausing now would cost too much.
If the price was too high, he'd shelve the plan and find another path.
Were it not for Commorragh's strategic centrality—too critical to lose—he wouldn't consider tapping this power at all, lest it stunt growth before the Great Devourer arrived.
"Recommend transmitting via bio-data. Efficiency gain: fifty-six point seven. Abathur will analyse with broader inputs."
The engineer was prim as ever. The Lord of the Swarm persisted in using human speech; the signal density was pitiful.
It wasted time.
"My bad. Habit."
Eden sounded faintly sheepish. He gathered every datum in his mind about the Webway-megalopolis of Commorragh and encoded it as abstract bio-data—
—the highest register of the Hive-tongue he'd learned since seizing the Swarm.
Then he pulsed it into his meticulous Tyranid subordinate through the synaptic net.
The Saviour loved his internal labels.
Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels? A lazy salted-fish who liked to lie flat.
Roboute Guilliman? Old Gui who loved to be late.
The Archsage of the Black Mechanicus? A black-hearted oil-peddler.
Jaghatai Khan? Simple—speed-freak.
The Emperor? An unstable war-god in a glorious, dangerous mood swing.
And Abathur? Second-ranked employee of the Saviour. Number One? Bayev.
"Directive received. Abathur evaluating…"
Clasping two limb-tips under its jaw, the hive-ship steward pondered.
Soon it delivered its verdict:
"Master, cultivation can pause for up to three months. Projected loss ≤ three percent. Beyond that, losses grow exponentially.
"Constraint: Master must not leave the nurturing vat during pause.
"Available Swarm assets—sufficient for war aims."
"That's excellent."
Eden's relief was plain.
He hadn't planned to field Bladewing anyway—a swarm purge would suffice.
He issued the next order:
"Abathur—hook me to the external cortex. We begin now."
The Swarm was too vast; commanding it demanded mindfire beyond human limits. Eden's own brain was not enough.
So—an alternative: arrays of brain-bugs to amplify cognition and parallelise thought.
Zzzzt—
Eden's consciousness submerged into the Tyranid clone-body.
Tendrils rose from the vat and slotted into a neighbouring chamber. Hundreds of brain-bugs shrieked as arcs of psionic lightning crackled.
In an instant, his thinking exploded outward. Through the synaptic net he touched uncounted Tyranid nodes across light-days.
It was as if a thousand new senses bloomed—eyes, ears, and feelers by the billion—as a deluge of bio-data poured into him.
All within the Redemption Hive Fleet's span belonged to his grasp.
"I am—the Swarm."
Cold purple light spilled from Bladewing's eyes.
In that moment, the great Maker of the Redemption Hive, Lord of the Swarm, could unleash an army without end.
He gave the order for war.
In space—
The void-colossus that was the Redemption Hive Ship—tens of kilometres long—stirred, severing its feeders from the capillary towers.
It began to turn.
Hiss—
In the trackless dark astern of the hive ship, tens of billions of scything limbs folded in unison as a black, living nebula gathered and writhed.
The organic star-cloud swallowed the light of sun and stars alike, leaving only a waste of dreadful shadow. Even the Warp shuddered.
Eden tasted the Swarm's cruelty—its hunger—and closed his fist around the board:
"Commorragh spans only a handful of sub-sectors…
"Then let the Swarm drown it."
(End of Chapter)
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