Inside the High Command. On the huge holographic strategic map, the blue halos that represented humanity's defensive lines were ringed by a mass of flashing red alerts.
EGO watched the rapidly spreading red blotches with an expressionless face, but his mood was anything but calm.
Aggeman stood beside him, equally grave. Huron and Sicarius had both been moved into intensive care, the entire planetary defense now rested on the shoulders of the two of them.
"Of course," Aggeman said in a low voice, "the bugs would never behave themselves."
EGO massaged his temples.
"The immediate priority is to figure out the tyranids' strategic objective. With this scale of assault on our outer positions, are they trying to gradually squeeze our living space… or are they preparing for another all-out, no-quit offensive?"
He picked up a data-pad that compiled the avalanche of frontline reports.
"According to the consolidated field reports, tyranid tactics have shifted significantly. They no longer rely solely on overwhelming numbers, or at least they no longer treat numbers as their only advantage.
They've begun deliberately targeting high-value assets such as our artillery emplacements and command nodes. They're not blindly pushing forward anymore; they're bioforming the regions they occupy, which has made effective counterattacks increasingly difficult…"
Listening to the analysis, Aggeman reached a preliminary conclusion. "It seems more likely they want to compress our maneuver space step by step."
"Yes, that's my read too," EGO said, a thread of anxiety in his voice.
"But I can't shake the feeling that their aim is more complicated. I've got a really bad feeling, "
EGO paced the command room while Aggeman folded his arms and waited for him to finish thinking. After a while EGO stopped and his eyes took on a hard edge.
"Passive defense only shows us what the tyranids want us to see. I recommend we send an assault team deep into Tyra-controlled territory to find out what the bugs are really up to."
At the words "take the fight to them," Aggeman's eyes lit up and a smile creased his face. "Good. My brothers and I have rested our fill, we've been itching to hit something!"
It bears noting that the operational form known as an "Astartes–Ogryn Strike Force" had no precedent in the long history of the Imperium. To be exact, because this kind of joint formation had no record in the sacred Astartes Codex, Aggeman, then a company sergeant of the Ultramarines, was initially very reluctant.
But Rugert Huron was a different kind of man. The Tyrant of Badab was a thoroughgoing pragmatist.
His Astral Claws Chapter was up to five thousand strong, five times the Codex's prescribed maximum. For him, a tactic that wins and keeps the peace was good enough; ancient dogma could be ignored.
As the commanders who had once overseen most of the defense of Planditium, both EGO and Huron had pushed for the joint formation.
Given the desperate state of the campaign then, Aggeman finally agreed to the heretical formation not recorded in the Astartes Codex.
After the battle that destroyed the Norn Emissary, Aggeman's doubts turned completely around, he became the Strike Force's staunchest advocate.
EGO glanced at the strategic map and casually circled a point deep inside tyranid territory. "Deploy the strike force here."
Perhaps some would consider the decision casual, but Planditium was a pure agri-world: endless plains, almost indistinguishable from one another, any chosen locus would do.
Orders went out. Eleven hundred Space Marines and three thousand ogryns assembled again.
Around them, tens of thousands of eager Helldiver players rallied, hungry for a great battle. Above, a squadron of Thunderhawk gunships loitered, ready to provide air cover.
The attack went exceptionally well. This torrent of iron and brute force easily smashed everything the tyranids threw at the frontline.
After all, what could stop such a steel-clad charge? But not everything went smoothly. Again, Aggeman heard that obscene, sky-splitting shriek.
Through his helmet comm he gave a short order. "Prepare!"
"Ahu!" Three thousand ogryn answered as one, hefting their massive tower shields. The interlocking steel plates formed a moving dome that sheltered both the ogryn and the astartes beneath it.
Tyranid long-range fire rained down like a storm, most bone spikes and acid splashes were stopped by the shields. But some still got through: an ogryn near Aggeman took a wicked bone spike squarely between the segment of his power-armor.
Aggeman quickly pulled the bloody shaft free and dropped it to the ground. "You alright?" he asked. tyranid barbs often carry lethal toxins.
The ogryn grinned, simple and solid, and shook the arm. "I'm fine, boss! Still good to fight!"
After the weeks of cooperation, many of the Space Marines had come to genuinely respect these brave, dependable brutes, including Aggeman. He knew that without the ogryns, during the clash with the Norn Emissary, his thousand astartes might well have been wiped out.
"Brother Aggeman," an Ultramarine said as he came over, voice low, "this is already the thirtieth tyranid bombardment since our entry. Many of our brothers are injured. Do our artillery units have no counter to this?"
"Tyranid artillery are living organisms," Aggeman said with an air of helplessness. "They fire and then immediately shift position. Their mobility far outmatches our most advanced self-propelled guns, "
He paused and added, "The Helldivers suggested one crude idea: increase the blast radius until the bugs can't escape. For example… shelling with nuclear rounds." He shook his head. "I rejected it."
The Ultramarine's face changed beneath his helmet at the words "nuclear shell." "You did well. Facing the enemy's superior firepower and fighting them head-on isn't new to us. Leave these bugs to us, "
With the elite astartes–ogryn strike force as the spearhead, humanity's army pushed deep into the tyranid lines like a blade heated red with fury. They advanced for dozens of kilometers, yet the scenery before them remained utterly unchanged.
Every visible area had been dug into a maze of trenches, a vast, twisted labyrinth whose walls were reinforced with slick chitin and exuded a faint, nauseating stench. The dense purple spore mist that distorted perception was everywhere, dyeing the world in a sickly hue.
"Why doesn't the view ever change?" an ogryn grumbled, hefting his tower shield. "Boss, did we fall into some kind of time or space trap? Like… a cursed loop or somethin'?"
"Relax. Don't overthink it," Aggeman replied. He was long used to these ogryns saying things a bit too clever for their reputation. "Stay alert and keep moving."
In truth, what frustrated the war-hungry players wasn't just the repetitive scenery, at least, that wasn't the main reason. What truly gnawed at them was the sudden scarcity of enemies.
Aside from monotonous marching and the occasional bombardment from above, there was nothing to fight. For players who craved combat and achievements, it was torture.
Indeed, after the strike force had crushed the tyranid frontline resistance, enemy encounters had dwindled sharply.
Apart from a few skulking Lictors attempting ambushes, they had met no large-scale opposition.
Could the xenos be trying to lure them in deeper? Given the tyranids' cunning, it wasn't impossible, Aggeman thought.
Just then, a voice crackled through his comm-link: "Brother Aggeman, you'd better come see this."
Following the signal, Aggeman reached the site and found a crowd of ogryns and astartes, both Ultramarines and the Astral Claws, gathered and standing still, as if blocked by an invisible wall. Pushing through, he immediately saw why he'd been summoned.
On Planditium, a world burned multiple times by Helldivers and ravaged by the tyranids, there should have been nothing left but scorched earth. Yet before him grew a flower. It was black as obsidian, its petals thick and leathery, opening and closing slowly like hungry mouths.
A chill ran down Aggeman's spine, a revulsion rising from deep within his gene-seed. "What the hell is this abomination!?"
The Ultramarine who'd called him shrugged. "No idea. Should we bring in a Mechanicus bio-analyst?"
"No. We keep moving," Aggeman said sharply. "At least something's changing. That means we're not walking in circles."
The strike force resumed its advance, but the march grew stranger by the step. Even the battle-hardened astartes and fearless players eyed the squirming, fleshy flora around their boots with wary curiosity. They all instinctively gave the growths a wide berth, treading carefully to avoid contact with the meat-like plants.
As they pushed further, an unsettling pattern became clear: the deeper they went, the more lush and dense the alien vegetation became. After another kilometer, the scorched wasteland had vanished completely, replaced by a grotesque garden of life. Glossy black grass formed a gently rippling carpet, as if the ground itself were breathing.
Among the grass grew countless alien plants in shades of black, purple, and white, shapes that defied human imagination. Some were translucent purple bulbs veined with pulsing vessels, each rhythmic throb expelling a puff of visible spores, the source of the battlefield's ever-present, disorienting mist.
Others were bone-white and skeletal, with twisted stems ending in gaping holes like empty eye sockets silently watching the intruders. Still others resembled chitinous shrubs whose branches stretched sheets of translucent membranes, throbbing in some deep biological rhythm.
Finally, one curious ogryn set down his club, crouched, and pinched a strand of black grass between his thick fingers. He tugged once, twice, surprised that the slender plant resisted. Frowning, he gripped harder and yanked it free.
The next instant made everyone's skin crawl. The uprooted grass's roots writhed and twisted like living tentacles, coiling around his fingers, trying to climb up his hand.
"Emperor's teeth!" the ogryn yelped, flinging it away in panic. The moment it hit the ground, the roots spun like drills and burrowed back into the soil, vanishing as if it had never been disturbed.
Aggeman had had enough. He raised his armored hand and signaled for the strike force to halt. They were now completely surrounded by the strange flora. In every direction, there was no more scorched earth, only a pulsing, stinking garden of living flesh. It no longer felt like marching across a planet's surface, but through the digestive tract of some colossal beast.
Then an ogryn beside Aggeman broke the suffocating silence. "Boss… I think this place is alive, they're all lookin' at us."
"What did you say?" Aggeman frowned, turning to the massive soldier. Fear was a foreign emotion to an astartes, yet this sensation, of being watched by the world itself, triggered a primal sense of danger.
"Uh," the ogryn stammered under Aggeman's glare, scratching his head. "Sir, I don't mean the plants're alive, I know they're tyranid-made. I mean… I think the whole garden is alive."
He hesitated, trying to put the feeling into words, then muttered under his breath, more to himself than as a report:
"Damn… are the tyranids tryin' to turn this place into Catachan?"