+++HIVE FLEET KRAKEN+++

Two and a half centuries passed with neither sight nor sound of further Tyranid incursions. Some members of Earth's Adeptus Administratum began to question the necessity of maintaining so many armed forces in the galactic south-east to resist a non-existent Tyranid threat. They argued that the hive fleet had represented the sum total of the Tyranid race and that it had been destroyed at Macragge. When inhabited worlds along the south-eastern fringe began to suffer an epidemic of riots, terrorism, sabotage and, in some cases, outright rebellion the same Adeptus claimed the people had become dissatisfied with living in the midst of an armed camp and chosen to violently illustrate their displeasure.

The Inquisition suspected a plot and moved quickly to 'investigate" the dissenters for signs of treasonous thoughts or heretical influence. It was soon established that all of the dissenting Administratum officials either originated from the south-eastern fringes or had travelled there at some point in their career. No other unifying factors could be found, and many of the suspected traitors had never even met each other.

Inquisitors were despatched from the Inquisition fortress at Talasa Prime to fully investigate the Ultima rebellions. Meanwhile, the Inquisition instigated a terrifying purge throughout the Imperium and particularly on Earth, incarcerating anyone in high office who had had contact with the Eastern Fringe. Tens of thousands were dragged away by the Arbites to languish in prison colonies while the investigation continued.

ICHAR IV

The Imperium's first concern was the rebellion on the industrial world of Ichar IV. The Ichar system is vital to the Imperium. Its gigantic factories and sprawling refineries form the lynch pin of one of the few densely populated sectors in the Ultima Segmentum. Thousands of ships carrying ore and myco-protein pass through Ichar's huge orbital docks each year.

The rebellion had been swift and bloody. Years before, a religious fundamentalist group called the Brotherhood had caught the hearts and minds of the impoverished city workers. Their preaching of the return of the Emperor had promised better times to come and a place in heaven at his side, the kind of spiritual comfort most sought after by those without power or privilege in life.

The Brotherhood's mercy missions and chapels had soon become a common sight in the poorest districts and their good works were legendary. The Ecclesiarchy had carefully monitored the Brotherhood for any taint of iconoclasm or heresy but had found nothing, if the reports were to be believed, but the most laudable of faith in the Emperor. Eventually permission was sought and granted for the Brotherhood to build a cathedral in Lomas, Ichar IV's largest city.

Shortly after the completion of the cathedral the trouble began. The Brotherhood refused to pay its tithes to the Planetary Governor and refused to allow its members to be inducted into the Planetary Defence Force. Brotherhood preachers began whipping the populace into a frenzy with predictions of the imminent return of the Emperor. Vigilante Brotherhood militias started to patrol in many areas, brutalising far more "unbelievers" than non-existent criminals.

REBELLION AND WAR

Matters came to a head when rioting broke out at a Brotherhood mass rally held before the great cathedral. Arbitrators moved in to break up the crowds with power mauls and suppression shields but were fired on from the cathedral itself. The Arbites returned fire, killing several Brotherhood militia and enraging the great mass of people. After beating off several charges by the mob the Arbitrators were forced to withdraw by the arrival of another, larger mob from the poor district.

Rioting spread throughout the city and the Arhites were unable to suppress it. When PDF troops were called from their barracks to assist the Arbitrators most of them rebelled and came out in favour of the Brotherhood. Vicious fighting broke out all over the city and, when it came to light that the Planetary Governor had been assassinated, the fighting spread to every city on Ichar IV. Within hours tanks daubed with Brotherhood symbols and flying crude revolutionary banners held most of the intersections and utilities in Lomas and the Imperial forces were being pushed back in other cities.

Dawn brought full news of the assassination of the planetary governor and most of his ministers. Some were killed by bombs, others by snipers, others were murdered with their households in horrific massacres which looked like the attacks of wild beasts or mob violence. Shortly afterwards the Brotherhood seized all broadcast stations and announced their new theocratic government.

Loyal forces still controlled much of the countryside outside the cities and the judges of the Adeptus Arbites still held their precinct fortress against the rebellious populace inside Lomas. Nonetheless, most of the world's cities had been captured in a full scale rebellion against the Emperor of Mankind. Inquisitor Agmar arrived on Ichar twenty seven days after the outbreak of rebellion, on the same day that the Arbites precinct fortress was finally overrun by Brotherhood forces. The judges were not to be so easily defeated, however. Most of their number escaped along a secret tunnel and captured the city's four main power generators.

To Inquisitor Agmar's eyes the situation on Ichar IV had the appearance of a well-orchestrated plot rather than the upsurge of popular opinion being depicted by the Brotherhood. Agmar requested the assistance of the Ultramarmnes Chapter of Space Marines to help the Imperial forces regain full control of Ichar IV. While they awaited the arrival of the Ultramarines the Imperial Guard regiments on Ichar bombarded the cities and held off ferocious counter-attacks made by Brotherhood militia battalions.

Repeated attempts to reach the trapped Arbites met with failure in the dense rubble surrounding the generator plant. Amidst piles of crumbled rockerete and twisted girders Imperial Guard units were consistently driven back by the savage zeal of the Brotherhood troops in deadly close combats. The brave Arhites finally fell six days after Agmar s arrival, though in their last act of loyalty to the Emperor they destroyed the power generators they had held so diligently. The lurid fires lit by their melta bombs burned for days afterwards, casting a black pall of smoke across Lomas like a chilling shroud.

The war had reached a stalemate and ground down into an extended city-fight. Casualties spiralled upwards daily in dozens of skirmishes and ambushes fought through ruined apartment blocks, burned-out factories and mangled refineries. Predatory snipers lurked, ready to kill the unwary. Every doorway could conceal a booby trap or a hidden enemy. Entire Imperial Guard patrols disappeared without trace in the maelstrom of combat.

At the other cities the story was the same. The Brotherhood had the Planetary Defence armouries and the teeming populace to draw on for their soldiery, and they controlled the bulk of the planet's laser and missile silos. Siege and starvation would be necessary to drive them out.

Inquisitor Agmar led several small battle forces into Lomas to uncover more information about the Brotherhood. Piece by piece the picture of what had happened on Ichar IV became clear. He learned from prisoners about the ruling hierophants, heard their fanatical claims to be part of the magnificent "New Order" which would sweep through the galaxy. In a surprise raid he slew a Neophyte of the Brotherhood and saw what manner of creatures were leading this New Order. The divinations of the Imperial Tarot and Adeptus Telepathica psykers confirmed Inquisitor Agmar's worst fears. In utmost secrecy Inquisitor Agmar sent a report to the conclave of the Inquisition and awaited the arrival of the Space Marines.

ULTRAMARINES INVASION

Thirty nine days after the outbreak of rebellion the Ultramarines battle barge Octavius entered Ichar's orbit and prepared to deploy its drop pods. Ichar IV's defences were still largely ineffective because of the damage inflicted on Lomas' s generatorium by the Arbites and drop casualties were light. Companies of Space Marines seized the main defence armouries and the governor's palace where the Brotherhood militia headquarters had been established. At first the Brotherhood was taken by complete surprise and the primary objectives were quickly secured. The Brotherhood militia launched a series of desperate counter attacks to dislodge the Space Marines but their forces were critically disorganised by the destruction of their HQ and they were beaten off with heavy losses.

Outside the city the Imperial Guard launched a major assault to link up with the Ultramarines. Fire and smoke leapt into the sky as artillery shells burst upon the city. Laser fire slashed back and forth as crouched figures scrambled from cover to cover. Heavy bolters flared through the murk, their shells kicking up erupting lines of dirt and rubble. The Imperial Guard doggedly advanced using their Leman Russ tanks as moving strongpoints and the Brotherhood's lines bent back before them.

At the height of the attack Inquisitor Agmar's specially-placed spy satellite picked up militia forces leaving the Brotherhood cathedral and moving up to contain the Imperial assault. The Inquisitor knew the time had now come when one hold stroke would end the rebellion. He sent a prearranged signal to the Octavius orbiting high above.

In the echoing nave of the cathedral a crackling blue haze appeared, brightened and then in a flash of azure light solidified into a number of hulking figures. The Brotherhood guards at the doors wheeled round in time to be ripped apart by a thunderous hail of explosive shells. More than twenty Space Marines in Terminator armour stood towering over their torn corpses in the sudden silence that followed. More guards, Neophytes and Acolytes suddenly poured into the cathedral through side doors as the Ultramarines Terminators spread out from their teleport point. A storm of lasbeams and autoshells rattled off the Terminators' thick armour plates to no avail: storm bolters were raised in gauntleted fists and the walls were painted with Brotherhood blood.

A handful of survivors hurled themselves into close combat with the giant warriors. Voluminous robes fell hack to reveal bone-ridged heads and glaring eyes when the Neophytes lashed out with their inhuman claws. Some of the Terminators were overwhelmed and dragged down by the supernatural ferocity of the mob but the roaring jet of a heavy flamer cut across the survivors before they could exploit their victory. Smoke and the stink of burned flesh billowed up to the high-arched roof from the funeral pyre.

The Terminators spread out with machine-like precision, some froze into overwatch positions while the others searched the cathedral for the hidden passages they knew it must contain. Their Librarian pointed to the altar and more explosive shells blasted it apart, revealing steps down into darkness.

Flipping on their suit lights the Terminators filed down the steps to find the black heart of the Brotherhood. A dismal crypt lay below, with many twisting passages spreading out from it in all directions hut the Librarian could sense the way through the labyrinth. The Terminators' scanners came to life as they left the crypt, showing multiple foes closing quickly on their location, creatures that moved too quickly to be human. The Terminators moved to the positions they would cover from overwatch and waited, ready to deal death at the slightest movement.

First came the distant clicking of claws on stone, then the thunder of the creatures' armoured bodies striking the walls and each other as they rushed forth to bring swift death to the intruders. The first of them sprang into the glare of the lights, its four deadly arms held high over its crouched body and bestial head. Genestealers! No doubt was left now, the Inquisitor was right: a viper's nest of aliens lay at the heart of the rebellion. Fangs and claws glittered as the Genestealers ran forward with insect-quickness to slay their hated foes. Storm bolters roared, sounding impossibly loud in the confined tunnels, explosive tipped bolts caromed from chitinous bodies or pierced them and blasted alien flesh to bloody pulp. The cleansing fires of flamers incinerated whole tunnels at a time but the creatures charged forward without fear or hesitation.

Each strobing flash of the storm bolters showed the foe getting closer. They swept over the bodies piled in front of the Ultramarines and tore into the Terminators. Three of the armoured giants were ripped apart in as many seconds before the rest fell back to the crypt. The Genestealers leapt after them without pause, easily catching the rearguards as they backed away still blasting. Who can say how many more of the aliens were blown apart or crushed by the Terminators' power fists before they were overrun? Not enough to stop the onrushing brood but enough to slow them while their brethren prepared to fight again. In the crypt flamers held side passages against flanking Genestealers and forced them to pour forth from one end of the room. The combined fire of a half-dozen storm bolters burst through the horde and, as the survivors leapt into cover behind great stone sarcophagi, the Librarian summoned a purifying column of warp fire. Unnatural flames filled the end of the crypt, hissing fires that ate through alien flesh as though it were fat and gristle instead of iron hard chitin and steely cartilage. Most of the brood burned in an instant, the rest fell to the explosive bolts which raged through their ranks like a miniature artillery barrage.

The Terminators moved on, cautiously now because they were few. No more of the nightmarish Genestealers barred their way or leapt from ambush as the Ultramarines pushed ever deeper into the heart of darkness. Deep beneath the city they found what they were seeking in a high-groined chamber with carved walls like the ribs of some great beast. There the Genestealer Patriarch crouched on a great dais, huge and bloated with the power of its sprawling brood. It squatted with arms outstretched, head turned upward as if listening for some distant call as the Ultramarines marched into the hall. They raised their weapons to destroy the abomination and it lowered its eyes to gaze on them with a threatening hiss.

Without warning a horde of monstrosities poured into the chamber from between the calcified ribs-walls. Three-armed hybrids, tainted humans and purestrain Genestealers leapt forward to protect their all-father. A wall of explosive bolts marched along the mob and the chamber dissolved into a scene of chaos and bloodshed as the howling fanatics hurled themselves on the Terminators. The Ultramarines Librarian cut his way forward through the creatures, the glowing white blade of his force axe leaving a trail of shorn limbs and lopped heads behind him. Each step became harder, as if he were wading through deeper and deeper water. He could feel the palpable psychic waves of alien thoughts beating against his mind as the Patriarch exerted its ancient, implacable will upon him. Deep pits opened in his subconscious, ready to swallow his psyche whole.

A shocking surge from the Librarian's psychic hood broke the spell. Focusing his own indomitable will, the Librarian forced his body out of the physical world for an instant, and in an instant he was gone. A bright flash marked his departure, another flared at his point of arrival as he teleported onto the dais with the Patriarch. The creature span round and lashed out its claws with incredible speed. Blood and sparks flew from the Librarian's armour as the claws ripped into it. The Patriarch easily ducked away from his clumsy backswing. The beast pounced again and rained a flurry of blows on the armoured figure which were almost too swift to follow.

In desperation the Librarian called to his battle brothers and the dais was swept by storm bolters. Indiscriminate fire ricocheted off the Librarian's armour but some shots struck and wounded the Patriarch. In its moment of distraction the Librarian swung his force axe in an irresistible arc which carved through the Patriarch's armoured hide with a flash of power. The force axe rose and fell, hacking the Patriarch into a bloody pulp and spraying purple ichor across the chamber.

With the death of its Patriarch the brood was thrown into confusion. In the chamber the handful of remaining Terminators slaughtered the mass of creatures assailing them. Nothing escaped the blasts of their storm bolters and the cleansing fires of their flamers as the Terminators exacted some small measure of revenge for the death of their forebears over two centuries before. In the city above the Brotherhood units resisting the Imperial Guard offensive collapsed. Small knots of fanatical Acolytes and Neophytes held out in towers and bunkers but triumphant Imperial Guard tanks swept through the rubble-strewn streets crushing all opposition.

Ichar IV was back under the iron heel of the Imperium within three weeks. All signs of the Genestealer infestation were thoroughly rooted out by the energetic Inquisitor Agmar with the assistance of the Ultramarines. Yet at the end of the campaign several mysteries remained unanswered. The first was what had become of the Magus, the human-seeming leader of the Brotherhood who had disappeared at the start of the rebellion. His body was never found and no prisoners were able to shed light on his whereabouts, even under Agmar's most persuasive questioning.

The second mystery was the reports of Astropaths and the Ultramarmnes Librarian who had slain the Patriarch. They told of sensing a faint psychic disturbance like a long, keening call or a signal radiating from the planet, a signal which had been cut off when the Patriarch was killed. The oldest and most powerful of the Astropaths had told the Inquisitor that he toc had sensed the Patriarch's call and that he had felt a distant shift in the warp. It was a sense of something vast and seething, a shadow of a monstrously powerful entity which had turned its attention to Ichar.

When Agmar submitted his report to the conclave of the Inquisition he was warned of a growing number of reports from survivors fleeing from the outer fringes. The information was garbled and contradictory but one fact stood out, the Tyranids had returned with a new hive fleet, Hive Fleet Kraken

TENDRILS OF THE KRAKEN

This new Tyranid invasion had come without warning and no one could be sure how many planets had fallen to the Tyranid horde already. Hive Fleet Krakcn appeared to made up of many sub-fleets which moved to attack worlds across an entire sector simultaneously. The alarming disruption in the warp brought about by the hive fleet's passage had blocked out astropathic communication beyond the besieged systems and warp travel in their vicinity had become dangerously unpredictable. Whole sub-sectors of the Imperium had been swallowed up with almost no clues as to what had happened to them. The handfuls of survivors had fled aboard ships and been flung hundreds of light years off course by the turbulence in the warp. Their chilling accounts of the nightmare advance of the hive fleet formed the bulk of information available to the Imperium.

Tales came of skies turned black over whole continents by clouds of wind blown poison spores. Of hulking monsters that stalked the land, ripping and slashing with murderous claws. Stories of billions of creatures swarming across the face of a world, devouring everything in their path and leaving the planet a wasteland. Whole population centres had been subdued or wiped out in a single night, and those taken alive had envied the dead.

In the Miral system Imperial Guard regiments and Space Marines of the Scythes Chapter still held out against Tyranids which had overrun the lush jungles and plantations of Miral Prime. The Imperial Forces had retreated to a huge rock mesa known locally as the Giant's Coffin where they fought almost daily against raging hordes from the dense jungles below. The jungles themselves had become extraordinarily active since the invasion and only constant defoliation prevented vines and creepers engulfing the defenders' narrow island of rock overnight.

A free captain brought rumours of Lamarno, a feral planet which had come completely under the sway of Genestealers. When a Tyranid hive fleet arrived the fierce tribesmen had calmly boarded the bio-ships to be consumed by their new 'living gods'. He also brought a tale from the giant asteroid-monastery of Salem, telling of how the monks had chosen to poison themselves and their carefully built ecosystem rather than allow their sanctified flesh and bones to be consumed by the advancing Tyranids. Now Salem was nothing more than a gigantic tomb.

Another dedicated merchant captain helped evacuate millions from the mining worlds of Devlan before it was consumed. The extensive system of Sentinel space stations around Devlan delayed the hive fleet long enough for a fleet of giant freighters to escape into space. A company of the Lamenters Chapter of Space Marines held off frenzied attacks by the Tyranids until the last ship was loaded. Left surrounded and cut off, the Lamenters commended their souls to the Emperor and took a heavy toll of the invaders before they were finally overrun.

Yet there seemed to be no refuge even in flight. One giant ore ship fleeing from Devlan with its cargo of refugees arrived at its destination ominously dark and silent. No communication was forthcoming from the vessel and it made an automated landing far from habitation. Those investigating the ship found it to be a slaughterhouse of terror and death when they unsealed it. Men, women and children had been mercilessly butchered in their hundreds, perhaps thousands, it was impossible to tell. The Inquisition suspected a breach of quarantine protocol had allowed some Tyranid organism to get aboard, but nothing could be found, so what it it was and what became of it remained a mystery.

Orbital defences on Graia had held the hive fleet back for a time but the invaders had overrun Graia's single moon. Now every orbit brought a rain of mycetic spores on the planet below, each spore bearing its payload of doom and destruction. Explorators reported discovering a world deep in the Eastern Fringe which had been seeded with Hormagaunts during a Tyranid terror raid decades before. Swarms of the sickle-armed beasts had killed every living thing on the planet and now battled with each other in their unrelenting bloodlust. The Squats had reported attacks by a swarm of hive ships on isolated Homeworlds close to the galactic core, tens of thousands of light years away from the main hive fleet on the south-eastern rim of the galaxy.

Inquisitor Czevak reported that the Eldar craftworld of Iyanden had been subjected to a series of massive Tyranid attacks. The once mighty craftworld had fought off swarm after swarm of attacking hive ships but in doing so its space fleet had been virtually destroyed. Several swarms of Tyranids had reached the craftworld itself and fighting had raged throughout its slender Wraithhone towers and magnificent crystal domes. Now most of the craftworld lay in ruins and four fifths of its people were left dead or dying, a terrible blow to the dwindling Eldar race.

TOTAL WAR

The Adeptus Terra was sufficiently shaken by the news from the Ultima Segmentum to convene the High Lords of Terra. Their conclusion was rapid and succinct: the vast inroads of the Tyranids into the Imperium must be stopped at all costs, the Tyranid race must be investigated and, if possible, utterly extenninated. The Imperial Tarot predicted a time of coming darkness unmatched since the darkest hours of the Horus Heresy: the Devourer of Worlds grappled with the human galaxy and thus far it had shown only the first hints of its true strength. At the command of the High Lords the huge military juggernaut of the Imperium's armed forces turned its face to the Ultima Segmentum and readied itself for total war.

The forge worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus produce tanks, weapons and war machines by tens of thousands. The ship yards at Bakka and Terra work night and day to build battlecruisers and warcraft to stem the tide of the Tyranid hive fleets. Millions of Imperial Guardsmen prepare to embark on a war for humanity's very survival. To the Imperium war is a religion, a crusade against the forces of darkness which wait in the shadows to enslave mankind. The Tyranids are the ultimate blasphemy, a race of creatures that brings not mere enslavement but utter extinction.

New and deadly Tyranid weapons and creatures are being reported all the time: long-ranged acidic projectiles which melt through steel like wax, creatures which attack with bolts of psychic energy or electro-static blasts, gigantic beasts as tall as Titans. The regularity of Tyranid attacks is increasing and no adequate defence has yet been discovered.

Several hundred large inhabited worlds have fallen to the Tyranids. Two entire Space Marine Chapters based on the Eastern Fringe, the Scythes of the Emperor and the Lamenters, have been all but destroyed with little more than a company of Space Marines surviving the Tyranid onslaught.

The fight has not been entirely in vain. In a number of systems Space Marines have boarded Tyranid ships while they were still dormant after exiting the warp. These boarding parties entered the pulsing vitals of the immense alien craft, gathering information about the Tyranids and destroying thousands of creatures while they lay frozen in hibernation. The information gathered by these brave Space Marines has proved vital to the Imperium' s search for a way to defeat the Tyranid menace.

The Techno Magi have concluded that the Tyranids originate outside the galaxy. Their voracious genetic structure and biological existence are different from even the most alien creatures of our own galaxy. Whereas human and other galactic organisms naturally diversify into distinct species over the course of millions of years, Tyranids evolve rapidly and constantly to meet the conscious needs of the entire race. The Tyranids are not one creature but a bewildering array of monstrosities created to perform specific functions. Hence Tyranids vary in size from the huge organic spacecraft of the hive fleets to tiny functionary creatures such as the beetle-sized scataphagoids which cleanse and recycle organic waste in the respiratory vents of the bin-ships.

The conscious mutability of the Tyranids means they have never needed to develop more conventional technologies like those used by Man. For example, much of the Tyranids' weaponry is created from symbiote creatures which have been adapted and combined to fire voracious living shells or generate deadly energies. These artefacts have probably not even been consciously designed by the Tyranids, rather they design themselves in response to the requirements of the hive mind, genetically adapting to their tasks from the moment of inception. As time passes generations of the weapon symbiotes constantly change and evolve to become lighter, more efficient and deadlier against the Tyranid's foes.

The hive mind appears to require a constant influx of fresh genetic material and new DNA to create new creatures and adapt to different environments. The Adeptus Mechanicus postulate that the Tyranids exhausted their own galaxy and, perhaps, others of all life before crossing the interstellar void to seek fresh feeding grounds. With its billions of humans and countless other creatures the Imperium offers the Tyranids an inexhaustible stock of organic matter and genetic codes to invigorate the hive mind and enable it to manifest new forms. The Tyranids represent the nightmare pinnacle of evolution gone mad, a ravening super-predator of stellar dimensions which will make all other life forms extinct if it cannot be stopped.