On marcragge, near the eastern hemisphere of the planet, A battalion of space marines lay behind cover as advancing Tyranid forces pelt them with volley after volley of their organic ammuntion. They heard the thunderous pummeling of rock and foot as one of their many carnifexs approached the ultra marine encampment. A skill sniper popped out from the trenches, no sooner than his gun was raised were there worms burrowing into his helmet through his visor. The marine fell to the ground screaming as he cletched his helmet in agony, dying after a few minutes.
By now, the only thing keeping the Tyranids from reaching the ultra marines was a combination of turret placements, blind firing and lobbed grenades. These marines kept going reguardless of losses because of their preist who lay next to them. Father Simmons preached and encouraged the space marines, riling them up to keep their minds off an inevitable fate.
The marines weapons were fueled by an enourmous stock pile of ammo which was saved up from a mixture of dead marines and an occaisional supply drop. The remaining ultra marines had been well rested, for this encampment still held hundreds, allowing the marines to actually take shifts fighting.
After a few more weaks of fighting wave after wave, the stock pile began to drain and was running low. The radio signals were jammed by the Tyranid telepathy and only a lucky few signals got away from the planet. Thats why the encampment radio a fort north of their position, requesting evacuation. The fort had an operating vessel which was sent on its way.
(just a side note here, but for those of you who don't know of the battle of macragge, the whole planet was a war between space marines and Tyranids, the space marine regiment being the ultra marines and the Behemoth Tyranids)
The marines took up positions to be ready for evacuation. They had to hold the tyranids off long enough to get everyone on board. Unfourtunitly, the encampment had taken around seven hundred marine casualties, leaving the remaining three hundred or so to fend for themselves. The preist had also been torn to peices by a barbed strangler.
Finally, after hours of waiting, and another fourty dead, the Evacuation ship had arrived, no one questioned why it was so late, only because they were blinded by their joy to be rid of the hell hole they had to live in.
Little did they know, that the ship was ambushed by lictors of a different Tyranid coloney. The coloney was aptly named "the wretches", this coloney was relativley new at the time, and was never able to build up a big force under their current conditions. Having such a small force means they had to be adapted to quickly transfering biomass. So they devolped, and their extremities actually turned into a metal not unlike silver (this was not on the spot, this was over the course of a few years). Their outter most limbs actually acted like a radio, transferring biomass which was converted into energy inside the tyranid, ofcourse they absorb miniscule amounts of the biomass, but thats to maintane their energy.
The lictors, once on board had actually killed the piolets by absorbing their brains. This was done by opening the skull with they more human like hands, and then using their feeder tendrilled mouths to gobble it down like a raw egg. Once the piolets' brains had been turned to energy and transfered to the wretches' hive, the Hive mind actually used the biomass, and turned it back into the brains of the piolets, and abosrbed the brains whole, not eating them, but taking in their knowledge.
The lictors, as well as every other Wretch Tyranid, was now able to flawless use, hijack, and destroy the imperial's vehicle. The lictors on board the vessel actually landed the ship in a horde of the Wretche's gene stealers, who then climbed on board and hid on the ship. The lictors maneuvored the ship to the ultra marine encampment and landed in an opening.
(keep in mind, this is a rather large boarding vessel, meant for transferring battalions at a time)
the remaining, by now, only about one hundred, boarded the vessel unknowingly. And no sooner that they left was the encampment over run. Then the genestealers erupted from their hiding places. The wretch genestealers didn't kill the ultra marines but destroyed their weapons, and took them hostage.
The lictos then pioleted the ship to the hive, for the wretches, this was a giant, almost organic being that floated through space, its structure was not far from that of a space station. Once at the hive the troops were escorted off the ship, and one by one, the hive mind's feeding tendril bored into the minds of the space marines, leaving behind spores inside their skulls. once the remaining ultra marines were killed, the spores rushed through the bodies, bypassing the filtration system, and planted themselves on the spines of their hosts. From their, the tiny spike on each of their backs acted as a relaying system, allowing the hive mind to control the ultra marine one hundred percent.
the essentially, like
this the top spike was for relaying information, the tenticles are for latching onto the nerves, and the bottom spike and deliver a small shock to make the nervous system react. Ultimatley, these marines can take twice the damage they could before, and the gaunts, genestealers, and every other Tyranid in the Wretch army can piolet implerial vehicles.
