Larger than super-heavy tanks, the pair of thudding hearts pulsed with massive intra-muscular motion, pumping life-sustaining fluids around the hive ship. Uriel fought the urge to open fire. Kryptman had warned him that these organs would be protected by metres of tough, fibrous skin and that there were sure to be others that could take over.
Hissing organisms prowled the chamber beyond, but whether they were aware of them yet, he could not say.
Uriel and the Deathwatch crouched at the end of the smoky passageway, staring into the heart of the hive ship.
They had reached the reproductive chambers of the Norn Queen.
Snowdog grimaced in pain as Jonny hauled him upstairs, hearing the booming impacts against the door below. His head hurt and his ribs felt like he'd gone ten rounds with a Space Marine. He glanced down the stairs.
'Where's Sister Joaniel?' he gasped.
'Dunno,' said Jonny without breaking his stride. 'I guess she's dead.'
'What?'
'Yeah,' confirmed Jonny, 'she shut the door behind us.'
'She shut the door?'
'Yeah.'
Snowdog mentally shrugged. It was a shame she was dead, but if she was crazy enough to try and take on the entire tyranid race, then that was no concern of his. Crashing thumps on the door below made him glad she'd shut the door. He wasn't sure he'd have trusted Jonny to remember to do it. The door was armoured, but with these monsters, you couldn't count on any barrier holding for too long.
'Where are the others?'
'Upstairs I guess. Why you got to ask so many questions?' said Jonny.
'Because that's how I find things out,' snapped Snowdog, regretting it instantly as the pain in his ribs flared bright and urgent.
They rounded another landing and Snowdog could have sworn that there hadn't been this many stairs before. As his senses began returning to normal, he heard a soft pattering, like a wind-chime in a strong breeze, and wondered what it was. He realised a second later and cried out in alarm.
'Jonny! Stop! Stop!' he yelled. 'Turn around!'
'Huh?' said Jonny, but complied.
Snowdog moaned in frustration as he saw a cascade of gold, silver and precious stones forming a glittering trail back down the stairs. He wriggled free from Jonny's grasp and painfully shucked the backpack from his shoulders as the crashes on the door below became even more frenzied.
The backpack had saved him from the worst of Lex's bomb sure enough, but it was in a hell of a mess for having done so. Everything he'd taken from the wreck was spilling through long, burnt tears in the canvas. There was barely anything left.
He began transferring the remainder into his pockets, hearing the scream of buckling metal from below. He heard a footfall on the stairs behind him, but ignored it as he continued to stuff precious stones into his pockets.
'Hey, Trask,' said Jonny.
Snowdog felt his blood chill and reached for his pistol, but it was too late.
He heard the rack of a shotgun slide and rolled to one side, yelling in pain as the splintered ends of his ribs ground together.
But the shot wasn't aimed at him. Jonny Stomp toppled to the stairs, a halo of blood splattered on the wall behind him.
Snowdog squinted through a haze of tears of pain and raised his pistol.
Trask kicked him in the face. He felt teeth break and spat blood.
'You and me got some unfinished business, Snowdog,' said Trask.
The sight of the Norn Queen was something that Uriel would never forget for as long as he lived. The creature was massive, easily the size of a Battle Titan, its bulk filling the chamber with countless means of producing its monstrous offspring. A vast, mucus-ribbed tube hung from the walls, pulsing with disgusting motion and dripping great swathes of egg sacs to a slime filled pool where nurse organisms carried them away in great, scooped pincers.
Huge pools of protoplasmic ooze bubbled and burst with motion as screeching infant beasts were drooled from its surface along bony chutes to begin growing almost as soon as they hit the ground. Thousands of gelatinous incubation larvae hung from resinous mucus on the great arched ceiling, supported on huge ribs of bone, each thicker than the columns in the Temple of Correction on Macragge. Stinking fluids coated the floor and foetid steam gusted from millions of tiny orifices in the walls. Ropes of dripping intestine and nutrients pumped viscous fluids into the belly of the Norn Queen, its vast, bloated head fused with the ribbed ceiling of the chamber. Six-legged creatures that resembled fat spiders crawled all over its body, cleaning, feeding and ministering to their queen. Huge javelin-like spines protruded from her bony carapace, each dripping with hissing poisons.
The Norn Queen itself was as much a part of the bio-ship as an individual creature. Warrior organisms patrolled the chamber, snapping their glossy claws at any of the slave-beasts that approached too near the queen. Bigger than the largest tyranid warrior Uriel had ever seen, these warrior beasts were bred for once purpose and one purpose alone - to defend their queen to the death.
'How do we proceed?' asked Damias.
'With this,' said Uriel, unholstering the weapon Kryptman had given him. It was the silvered pistol with which the servitor had administered the gene-poison to the lictor, but with an added refinement. Fitted atop the barrel was a long, metallic tube, its blue-steel sheen subtly crystalline. At the end of the tube was an offset ring of nine small spines that slotted over the barrel of Kryptman's pistol. It was always distasteful to use the weapons of the xeno, but Inquisitor Kryptman had assured him that hrud fusil technology was simply a symbiosis of melta and plasma technology. A product of vile alien heresy to be sure, but one that, in this case, would prove useful in administering the gene-poison.
'What is it?' asked Pelantar.
He slid the gun back into its ill-fitting holster and said, 'It is the means by which we can end this. Just get me to the hive-queen.'
Uriel rose to his feet and said, 'But first we need to fight our way in, and we'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, with flesh, blood and steel.'
The Deathwatch followed their captain as he marched into the Norn Queen's chamber, Pasanius beside him, Henghast on his left and Damias on his right, Pelantar covering them with his heavy bolter.
Almost immediately, a warning screech sounded from one of the nurse organisms and the guardian warriors spun to face the intruders. A cacophonous wailing echoed throughout the chamber, a furious beat thrashing the walls as the tyranids rushed to defend their queen.
Pasanius bathed the first attackers in fire, the guardian creatures howling in anger at such destructive energies being unleashed in their queen's chambers. Pelantar fired a hail of mutagenic bolts into the mass of aliens, chanting the rites of firing as he slew.
Uriel ran forwards, the energised blade of his power sword cleaving through alien flesh and bone with ease. The smaller beasts fell like wheat before the scythe and though he felt the killing rage building behind his eyes, he made his peace with it, turning the taint of the Bringer of Darkness into a positive force.
Flames lit up the hellish glow of the chamber and crackling arcs of energy flared from Damias's power glove as he battered his way forward. Henghast howled in fury as he charged the alien creatures. Pelantar's heavy bolter ripped a path through them.
Uriel spun under a scything blow from a leaping beast that was more fanged maw than anything else, hacking it in two as he sensed the presence of something huge behind him. He threw himself forward, barely avoiding being sliced in two by a guardian organism.