The Broodlord's Space Hulk #TyranidInvasion #TyrInv1

My brood had waited so long in the dark, the cold, and often the warp. It hadn't taken us too long to find a ship-ruin with a working Geller Field, nor long to find a section of the Space Hulk with working engines. It was simply a pity they had been in different areas. A few of the brood had been lost in the running battles with daemons as the Hulk burned its way in and out of the warp, but I had enough to replace any loses. What's more, I knew it would only take a single injection into an alien to result in all of this work being worthwhile. Even better if a single genestealer made it to a planet's surface to become the new patriarch. That had been my plan when I'd sent small groups in every available escape pod, flying out into the void. They might be there for millennia, floating through space. Or only for a matter of weeks. There would be no way of knowing, but if a single little brood made it to a colonised world, we would have done our duty for the great mother, and given back far more biomass than our creation had required.
We had returned from the warp some weeks ago. The timers my sacrificial genestealers had placed on the engines must have been damaged - we were meant to be in the warp for far longer than this. It did not matter. We would be far enough from mother now to have time for our own enjoyment, gathering a following, binding alien DNA, making a world our own.
Pulses buzzed through my head. The brood had sensed an opening. Aliens were using melta-torches to burn through the bulkheads of one craft. There had been no warnings of a craft approaching. This could only be pirates, scavengers, and thieves. That was good. They could smuggle us down on to the world they were from. We could go in quietly, and slowly make it happen. Eldar pirates? Ork scavengers? No, Eldar would be faster, Orks would make more noise. These were Imperials. I was glad. This would be easy, and grant a mighty boon to the great mother.
At a psychic pulse from my mind the brood began to scuttle towards the aliens. I knew where the greatest treasures were, close to the opening created. The most of the brood could hide near them. The aliens would linger, and could be ambushed when burdened by treasure during their return. I still didn't know anything about this system though. Small windows showed what might have been a sun, yet it was so far off it may have just been a very bright star. I needed to know more.
"Alright Jeff, you get the sled", the alien called out, after the bulkhead section had crashed onto the floor, "Looks like this used to be some sort of priest ship, so don't go saying nothing bad about the Golden Pilot, keep your head down, and only steal what you know we can sell or melt down. Nothing they can track, unless its a relic we can easily verify and take a reward for, understand?"
There was a grunt as the young man dragged a floating cart over the newly made threshold. My genestealers were watching.
"You gonna be alright, Dunc?" the alien shouted back through the gap.
"Yeah, no bother, I'll keep the place clean.", another alien called out.
The team of two strolled off, the larger swinging his autogun around, as the other pulled the sled, his autopistol clasped into his belt holster. My genestealers were watching.
From a veil of darkness I came, larger than all others in the brood, yet just as silent. I stared in through the gap in the bulkhead. A corridor lay beyond, from a ship which still had an operational hanger. This ship had been cleared of all worthwhile loot centuries ago, requiring our dear new friends to dig deeper. An alien, autogun slung across his back, was leafing through old dusty rubbish, hoping to find something in the scraps. There was a skeleton on the floor, of an alien just like him. Our friend reached down, grasping for a shiny tooth in the skull, but the tooth would not come free. He stood up, then stamped a foot down on the skull. Splinters skidded across the room, and it reached down. Dusting off shattered bone, the gold tooth was lifted up, before being rubbed on his jacket, and placed carefully into a pocket. It showed its own teeth slightly, then began to hum in the darkness. I darted forward, forcing my ovipositor into his's back, and watched him fall. For a moment the alien writhed in agony before his new master, then stopped as my thoughts bled into his mind.
+What world is here?+
"Miga, 1, 2, 3,and 5", the creature moaned
+What of Miga 4?+
"Destroyed long ago. Only Asteroid belt left, for harvesting"
+What is the population?+
"Miga 1 is all light capturing tech, run by the Mechanicus. There's really no one there. Miga 2 is an agriworld, not many there. Miga 3 has a lot of settlements, as much above ground as below. Big deserts there, but also ice caps. Mostly people in the middle. Miga 5 is just all mining of Miga 4, with a few spaceports as well."
It wasn't much, I mused, but it was better than remaining here, gliding through the warp forever. With a pulse of my mind I separated the brood into three. The majority would remain here, in the ship with the Geller field, and forced orders to travel on through the warp to other worlds, as soon as I had left. The two smaller groups would come with me. One was already ambushing the two alien looters stumbling with an overladen cart back to their ship. The rest were with me, my honour guard, as I advanced on my new ship.
A pulse and I released the alien at his feet. He got up, then bowed, as genestealers began to pass him. We ran swiftly, silently on, finding the craft, slinking on board, injecting the pilot with an ovipositor, then reading the minds of the crew as we found places to hide for smuggling.
Carefully, I curled into a ball beneath the floor panelling. I wanted to go to Miga 3. The crew suddenly knew they wanted to go to Miga 3. I dreamt of the great mother, how wonderful she was, and how pleased she would be with all of them. The crew thought of a great mother, and how proud and loving she would be.
The aliens were my new brood.