50: Chapter 50: Tyrannosaurus's First Wave of Spore Clouds Slams into the Blackrock Dome

The vanguard tendrils of the Tyranid Hive Fleet reached the Outer Identification Zone of the Blackstone Defense Line within the first hour after the conclusion of the War Council's Enlarged Meeting. On the bridge of the Wrath of the Emperor, over a dozen alarms simultaneously popped up on the Tech-Officer's console—not the cold green identification codes of The Swarm, but an entirely different biological signal. The waveforms of those signals were frantic and chaotic, each representing a living, ravenously hungry Tyranid Bio-weapon driven forward by the Hive Mind. The quantity assessment on the scanner exceeded the upper limit of Imperial Navy standard tactical terminology in less than half a second, finally locking onto a number the Tech-Officer had never seen in actual battlefield monitoring.

"Front-row Spore Cysts released," a Tech-Officer's voice trembled. "The first batch of airborne biological signals is passing through the perimeter of the Blackstone Defense Line. They aren't the chitin-armored capital ships like the leviathan mothership—they're expendables. They're using Drop Pods to fill the Spore Mine Dispersal Zones of the defense line."

Marcus Aurelian stood before the command dais, the fracture in his right arm aching dully from days of low temperatures. He watched the dark purple spore clouds on the holographic projection, writhing like maggots and densely covering the edge of the Outer Identification Zone, then turned to the Brood Queen who had just joined the command chain. The Brood Queen was crouched beside the briefing room's holographic projection terminal, the Blackstone Resonance Chambers on her Adamantium Chitinous Shell translating the real-time density of the minefield outside the defense line into Imperial Standard Gothic. Lines of cold green text were projected into the air: "The density of the spore mines on the perimeter of the defense line is being specifically adjusted. The first batch of Drop Pods will be guided into the Concentrated Kill Zone upon contact with the minefield. The main cannons of the leviathan mothership are on standby. Your fleet may open fire."

"Fleet," Marcus ordered over the fleet channel, "all Lance Weapon arrays lock onto the coordinates of the Concentrated Kill Zone. Do not fire at the perimeter—wait for them to enter the kill zone before concentrating fire. Now." The Imperial Fleet's Lance Weapons lit up simultaneously in the void, their orange-red beams piercing through the Firing Windows reserved in the Blackstone Dome and accurately slamming into the Tyranid airborne cloud compressed by the spore mines. One Tyranid Drop Pod after another vaporized instantly in the high heat of the Lance Weapons, but more Spore Cysts surged out continuously from the depths of the tendrils, filling the gaps blown open. The tactics of the Tyranid vanguard fleet were without finesse—using sheer numbers to fill the space.

Canoptek-7 sent scanning data from the Eternal Echo. The Necron Technomancer pointed out after magnifying an abnormal gravitational fluctuation deeper behind the Tyranid vanguard fleet that those were not the Tyranid main force. The vanguard tendrils were merely expendables testing the defense line; the main fleet was still further back. The spore clouds currently slamming into the defense line were being used to measure the Blackstone resonance frequency—every Drop Pod paralyzed by the resonance transmitted one last neural signal before death, and the Tyranid Hive Mind was using this death data to reverse-engineer the operating wavelengths of the blackstone engine layer by layer. It was learning the defense line's weaknesses.

Bern strode onto the bridge from the hangar, his Psychic Talisman still a dull grey. "Interference," he said. "The Tyranid Hive Mind is essentially a massive psionic collective. The blackstone engine is specifically designed to suppress psionics—human psionics, Chaos psionics, and theoretically, it can also suppress the Tyranid Hive Mind. If you switch some of the Blackstone Resonance Chambers from anti-air mode to Psionic Suppression Mode and direct them at the Command Neural Layers of the Tyranid tendrils, their coordination will drop."

The Brood Queen's quantum-state translator gave a reply half a second after Bern finished speaking—"The plan has been forwarded. The Blackstone Cerebrate is adjusting the resonance frequency of the Talastra main engine. The first batch of Psionic Suppression Pulses will cover all vanguard tendrils. Grey Knights, do not activate your Psychic Talismans unless you wish to be backlashed by both Blackstone and Tyranids simultaneously. Your suggestion has been adopted and reported: Applicability is High."

Psionic Suppression Pulses surged from the direction of the Talasta Tomb, spreading through the Blackstone Defense Line's Quantum Resonance Network to all leviathan mothership main cannon arrays currently engaged with the Tyranid spore clouds. Tyranid Drop Pods in the void suddenly began colliding with each other—not from being blown away, but because the Hive Mind they used for coordinated maneuvering was suddenly interrupted under the psionic suppression. Countless pods that were originally evading spore mines and Lance Weapons drifted along their inertia like severed strings. The Imperial Fleet seized the opportunity to concentrate firepower on the most densely chaotic sectors, a single volley incinerating the entire spore cloud into purple-green vaporized residue.

Sebastian's Thunderhawk Gunship completed a rapid U-turn in low orbit, just as the Tech-Officer inside relayed the arrival signal of the Talastra mothership formation to his helmet. Through the viewport, he watched the Hive Lord slowly turning in orbit—every Blackstone Lattice on its Adamantium Chitinous Shell was providing flanking fire cover for the Titan-Eater hatchery positions, its rear umbilical cord still connected to the blackstone engine base deep within the crust of Metallis. Beside it was the Incubation Pool casing of the Titan-Eater—that giant ball of flesh, temporarily encased in three layers of adamantium chitin by the Drones, was still throbbing violently. The cold green light patterns of the void-class Blackstone core had already converted all the nutrient solution within the Incubation Pool into high-heat plasma, and the throbbing frequency was becoming denser, reaching the limit of being near the edge of hatching.

"Brood Queen," Sebastian said over the open channel, "how much longer for the Titan-Eater?"

The Brood Queen did not answer. She was receiving the final set of Neural Interface Tests for the Titan-Eater before its hatching within the Hive Mind. That interface program was being directly monitored by the Overlord, requiring the response latency of the left forelimb's Piercing Bone Blade to be reduced to the lowest design specification, and the quantum resonance chamber of the right hindlimb to be capable of maintaining synchronous calibration with the Talasta Void Gate. After the tests passed, the Brood Queen sent all pre-hatching self-check logs to the Wrath of the Emperor and the War Council.

Then, the voice of the Overlord descended. It didn't hijack the bridge's main screen or come through the Brood Queen's translation; it was written directly into the Quantum-state Communication Arrays of the Wrath of the Emperor, the Griffin IV command center, and the Eternal Echo—"War Council, the briefing is over. The Titan-Eater Activation Window will open immediately after the countdown reaches zero. I suggest that when it completes its first strike, you concentrate all available firepower on the Tyranid main fleet's Command Neural Layer. Marcus, your fleet hold the left and right wing tendrils; my Leviathans will directly take out their main flagships."