Whatever the Ultramarines were looking for, since the Overmind had seen it, it now belonged to him.
The intensity of the Swarm's assault rampaged upward. What began as a few harassing Zerglings had escalated into a massive wave of Roaches and Hydralisks. This level of aggression was something even heavy armored fire might fail to contain.
The Ultramarines sensed the rising tide of enemies and quickened their pace.
"Are the extraction gunships here yet?"
"Almost!"
In the sky, several Thunderhawk gunships were breaking through the atmosphere, preparing to rendezvous with the Ultramarines below.
However, they weren't just facing interference from Tyranid aerial units; they had to contend with the Zerg Swarm's air force as well. While it was too late to morph Vipers, the surrounding Mutalisk swarms and several Corruptors were more than enough to give the Thunderhawk pilots a run for their money.
"Damn it!"
In a flash of distraction, one Thunderhawk was struck by a Corruptor's caustic acid and plummeted instantly.
The remaining gunships pushed their engines to the limit, attempting to shake off the Swarm's air wing, only to slam headlong into a massive Sky Fetter. Like an eagle snatching a sparrow, the Sky Fetter lunged out and seized a gunship. In the end, the pilot chose to self-destruct, taking the beast with them in a brilliant blossom of fire.
"Faster, faster!"
Despite being surrounded by Mutalisks, the remaining Thunderhawks continued to accelerate, only to find a wall of Gargoyles appearing ahead.
"Ram through them!!!"
With engines at full power, a Thunderhawk slammed into the Gargoyle swarm. Crushed bodies smeared the cockpit glass, gradually obscuring the pilot's vision, but they eventually broke through. Interestingly, the Mutalisks and Gargoyles began fighting each other, inadvertently buying the Thunderhawk a little more time.
Tsk, is this air battle being directed by a Cerebrate? I'll have to let Abathur enhance him later; this micro-management is terrible.
The Overmind watched the Thunderhawk land in the plaza before the Ultramarine squad. He wasn't in a hurry. He waited until several Ultramarines carrying a crate boarded the vessel and it began to lift off.
"It's a bit too late to leave now..."
Beneath the plaza, the ground shuddered violently. A Nydus Worm erupted from the earth, clamping its massive jaws onto the ascending Thunderhawk.
With the fuselage pinned by the Nydus Worm, no amount of engine power could break it free—not unless the pilot was willing to leave the cargo bay behind.
Seeing that the gunship couldn't escape and that Zerg were already using the Nydus Worm's body as a ladder to climb up, one Ultramarine made a split-second decision.
"Tell the Captain I'm not coming back."
With that, he grabbed a Melta bomb from the cabin, primed the timer with a few quick motions, and leapt down without hesitation.
Clinging to the ridges of the Nydus Worm, he crawled into the narrow gap between the creature and the ship's hull and jammed the Melta bomb inside.
"Die, bug."
"Oh, quite the hero."
The Overmind saw everything but remained unbothered. He had already made full deployments; in his eyes, these heroic deeds were indistinguishable from suicide.
The Melta bomb detonated, blowing apart the Nydus Worm's mouth. Using the shockwave of the explosion, the Thunderhawk gunship redlined its engines to ascend. Then, from the pilot's blind spot, a Scourge streaked in from the distance at supersonic speeds.
Their trajectories intersected perfectly.
BOOM!
The Thunderhawk turned into fireworks. Its contents scattered and fell. An Overseer immediately spotted the crate; fortunately, it hadn't been destroyed.
Even if it had been, the Overmind wouldn't have cared—the Swarm couldn't use human technology anyway.
Once the crate hit the ground, Zerglings swarmed it. This box, engraved with the Aquila, was undoubtedly Imperial property. A Queen arrived, flanked by her Zergling brood.
Under the Overmind's control, she carefully disabled the locking mechanisms and opened the crate with her humanoid arms.
What appeared before the Overmind was... a mysterious metal component about half the size of a person.
"What is this thing?"
The Overmind considered himself well-versed in sci-fi, yet he couldn't recognize the object.
But Warhammer fans might have guessed it. Yes, it was an STC. After thinking for a moment, the Overmind realized the possibility.
"An STC? This small?"
The Queen picked up the half-sized metal component. It wasn't particularly heavy, and the material wasn't pure metal.
An STC, or Standard Template Construct, was a complex analytical processing program—an AI created during the Dark Age of Technology. It was said to contain the sum total of human knowledge. Since the end of that era, STCs had become increasingly rare until they vanished entirely. In the current Imperial era, ancient technology was only preserved through hard copies of STC data.
"Only an STC would be worth so many Ultramarines throwing their lives away. This must be a data storage copy. It's useless to me."
The Swarm couldn't utilize human tech, and giving it to Abathur would be pointless.
Tch, I thought there was someone important inside. Forget it, as long as the humans don't have it.
The Overmind brought the item back to the Leviathan. He couldn't use it, but he couldn't leave it for the Imperium either. If the Imperium got hold of it, who knew what "dark technology" they'd cook up. STC tech belonged to the Golden Age; back then, even a tractor could likely beat a heavy unit like a Roach. Don't doubt it—rumor has it some of the Imperium's current heavy vehicles are just modified tractors.
"Oh, right. I'll take my little Adjutant along, too."
The Overmind didn't forget to infect and assimilate the discovered human Adjutant—or rather, the entire Battlecruiser. Though it had lost its engines, under the Swarm's bio-mechanical infestation technology, the ship sprouted a dozen tentacles and took to the skies again, joining the Swarm fleet.
"And now for this blind Tyranid fleet."
At this moment, the Tyranid Norn Queen also sensed something was wrong. After who-knows-how-long calculating, she deduced there was no possibility of victory—and without victory, there was no biomass to reclaim.
This battle was a net loss. Retreat!
The Tyranid bio-ships completely abandoned the massive ground forces still on the planet and accelerated into deep space.
"Oops, you offended the Overmind and now you want to run? Chase them!"
The poor Tyranids suffered from a lack of unity. Although their total numbers had a few more zeros than the Zerg, the consequence of their fractured nature was being hammered by a Zerg Swarm that controlled only a few thousand habitable planets.
On the local battlefield, the Zerg Swarm had never lost.
The Zerg Leviathans began their pursuit.