---Phase 1: Detection---

Deep in the void, something moved.

Starlight glittered across ice-strewn carapaces. Tentacles long enough to scrape the surface of a planet danced like water-weed caught by a current. Three vast, bloated shapes drifted through a shroud of endless night, their faint consciousnesses nestled in dreamless sleep. They had done so for hundreds of years and left to their own devices likely would have done for a hundred more, for these were predators of a very specific kind. Already they had passed worlds that their genetic kin would have devoured without consideration.

Then, something changed. 

One of the cyclopean creatures stirred. Complex sensory organs buried deep in its dorsal carapace twitched, frond-like antennae bristling in response to a new stimulus. In of itself, this was not unusual. Countless times the great, glacial mind which united the trio had roused itself, briefly tasting the psychic spoor of other races before slumping back into sullen unconsciousness. But this was different. The mind tasted hunger, need, and a desperation as all-consuming as its own, and knew its long search was over. 
 
One by one the leviathans began to rouse themselves, meters-thick carapace plates shedding their coats of frost as they began to ripple with slow motion. Deep within their fleshy bodies, broods of scythe-armed monsters clawed their way free of hibernation blisters, shaking glutinous liquids from their lithely muscled forms. Larger creatures moved among them, clawed hands flexing, and through them the mind directed the building multitude into swarming, organised broods. None paused to look at the mummified husks which rose over them, their birthing chambers dry and ovipositor tubes hollow.

If they had, and if they had been capable of feeling emotion, they might have felt a sense of loss. They might have understood how far their evolutionary path had diverged from the rest of their distant kin, how stunted and inefficient they had become. But the mind which guided them was a thing of necessity. The continuity of their species was all that mattered. 

Silently, the Hive Fleet altered its course.

---

The Yearning. That was what they called it. The curse of Seminoth the Virile One, the Keeper of Secrets which had come so close to devouring them all.

Eshana Kel'yrith, High Autarch of Craftworld Morrigan, splashed water across her face and stared balefully into her mirror. It was always worse at night, where there was nothing to distract her from the hollowness she felt in her core, the feeling of being somehow incomplete. Unconsciously she brushed a hand over her flat, toned midsection and forced down a pang of regret, reminding herself how often the Yearning had brought her to this dark place and how, every time, she had triumphed over it.

And yet the feeling remained, pulling at her thoughts like an Exodite's fishing hook caught in her brain. She glanced at herself in the mirror a second time, taking in the lean, wolfish face, the dark, predator's eyes and sleek black hair which framed them. 

Would she look like me? Would she have my eyes?

The thought came out of nowhere. Eshana growled angrily and stalked away, clutching the waystone which hung on its fine silver chain around her neck for reassurance. Day would bring the distractions and duties of her office, and the comfort of her companions among the Craftworld's leaders, but it was becoming harder to keep her mind clear during the stillness and silence of night.

It had been centuries since the last breeding cycle. That was the cause, of course. But she had done her job too well, safeguarding her people from the dangers of a hostile galaxy, and initiating another round of births would stretch their limited resources to breaking point. There was nothing she - or any other member of Morrigan's all-female population - could do but endure, crushing the Yearning's endless, invasive thoughts beneath the iron strictures of the Path.

Eshana was saved from further ruminations by a soft chime from the other side of the room. Her dwelling was modest but comfortable, containing little more than a bed, a chamber for her clothing, an attached washroom and a handful of trophies and curios collected over her long life. Here and there, gems were set into the walls, allowing the Autarch to contact the psychic matrix which ran through the bones of her Craftworld. It was from one of these that the sound and came from, and she strode over to press a finger against it.

Immediately, she felt herself relax. It was dangerous to spend too long communing with the spirits which inhabited the Infinity Circuit, but contact with them was one of the few things which could help sooth the Yearning's pangs. She formed a question in her mind and pushed, letting the thought slide into the gentle song of the dead.

Who summons me at this late hour?

There was a moment's pause, and the dead replied.

High Farseer Auriel. There is a danger. She awaits you in the Dome of Sleepers.

Eshana lingered a moment longer, then when she was sure Morrigan's spirits had no further information, stepped away. "A danger?" she murmured, thoughtfully resting a hand against her pointed chin. A thin, humourless smile spread across her face. "No, not a danger, I think. A distraction, thank the Crone."

The High Autarch was dressed within minutes, clad in sweeping magenta robes and bearing an elegant power sword at her hip as a symbol of office. Pale starlight fell upon a sweeping horizon of elegant towers and branch-like aerial walkways as Eshana left her domicile, selected a small, arrow-shaped skimmer from her spire's public hanger and input her destination. It was a simple thing, linked to the Infinity Circuit and directed by the memories of the dead, but comfortable, and Eshana reclined into her seat with a lazy smile as it lifted off.

Before her, Craftworld Morrigan's primary habitation dome unveiled itself in all its glory. The forest of towers in which the world-ship's population dwelled rose from a seemingly endless expanse of lush parkland, the gently rolling hills crested with bright sprays of flowers and fat-leaved trees heavy with ripening fruit. Artificial rivers snaked through the vast garden, winding around open plazas of white stone ringed with merchant stalls and decorative works shaped by the Craftworld's many artisans. But most striking of all were the statues. Some so lifelike Eshana half expected them to blink as she passed, others so heavily stylised she wouldn't have recognised the subjects they depicted, all were crafted to represent one of the four Eldar goddesses or their mythic handmaidens.

A second, smaller habitation dome clung to Morrigan's spine along with the first, along with two others maintained for a population boom Eshana doubted would ever come. Below them lay a network of hangers, workshops and aspect shrines, transport tubes and chambers of fertile farmland where the bulk of the Craftworld's food was grown. And below that there was nothing but the arcane machines which sustained the world-ship itself, and the hollow spaces left fallow since Morrigan's desperate flight in the days of the Fall.

But while the divine gaze of Isha, Morai-Heg, Lileath and Gea stared serenely down from every tower and plaza, the goddess' male counterparts were nowhere to be seen. That was as it should be, Eshana thought. It had been a long time since men and their influence had been welcome aboard the world-ship. Not since the days of Seminoth, who had brought their Craftworld to the brink of ruin. Accidentally summoned by a gang of Artists, Dreamers and Pleasure-seekers who's passions had led them far from their respective Paths, the resultant Daemonic incursion had seen almost a fifth of Morrigan's population slain and its womanfolk afflicted by the Keeper of Secrets' final, spiteful curse.

The Yearning. The desperate, all-consuming need to bear children.

Eshana let out a soft noise of frustration and shook her head, banishing the intrusive thought once more as the Dome of Sleepers rose up before her. It seemed a simple thing from the outside, a smooth construction of Wraithbone similar to an Exodite's primitive temple, etched with stylised depictions of the Craftworld's greatest heroines. It lay at the peak of a narrow oval of ripe grassland, itself ringed by halo of artfully fortified towers which surrounded the Dome like honour guards beside their queen.

It was a simple thing by the standards of her people, but it was by far the most precious place aboard the world-ship. Eshana disembarked and swept inside, her towering, regal figure reflected over and over in the hundreds of crystal statues which filled the empty space. Four great renditions of the Eldar goddesses swept overhead, their hands joined around the room's centre point, eyes trained upon the scrying dais around which the room had been built. The only light came from the hundreds of thousands of soulstones embedded in the walls, and Eshana felt the stifling closeness of the dead as they pressed in at the edge of her perceptions.

Here, surrounded by the remains of those Farseers aged to crystal, at the nexus point of Morrigan's Infinity Circuit, the high council met to discuss the future of their home.

"Am I late, then?" Eshana's voice was high and clear, and echoed from the walls as she approached the four other figures who awaited her. One was clad in the robes of a Farseer, her ghosthelm tucked under one arm, revealing a striking face lined with age and experience. "You seem to have started without me, Auriel."

"We saw no need to disturb your rest, High Autarch." High Farseer Auriel's voice was husky and dreamlike, and her eyes glittered with traceries of crystal beneath their painted lids. "Not until we knew your skills would  be required."

"Because you already know what I'm going to say?" Eshana replied, prompting a short laugh from the woman next to her. Fleetmistress Aydona was short and spiky, her light mesh armour hung with trophies and supplemented by a high-collared coat of alien leather. She had been a Corsair, once, before settling upon Morrigan, and there were persistent rumours she was descended from Commorite stock. Her bearing proud and savage in equal measure, and Eshana liked her immensely.

"Because they know what summoning you here means," Aydona said. The Fleetmistress' voice was eager, and her eyes were wide with the promise of violence. "It's war, then?"

"There is little choice," spoke the fourth figure. "The Hive comes from an unexpected quarter, hidden from Auriel's scrying in the darkness between stars. Fortune alone led my vessel into their path, and only by Isha's grace did we return alive with our warning."

Ylluia stood as the Craftworld's Ranger-Captain, the voice of its exiles and outcasts. Her kinbands were responsible for scouting ahead of the world-ship and identifying those dangers to go unnoticed by Auriel's scrying. She was a slight figure, eerily pale, her porcelain features hidden behind a shroud of white-blonde hair, and stared at Eshana with carefully concealed disdain. "Though from the numbers we have seen, High Autarch, any attempts at defence may already be doomed. We should have initiated another breeding cycle years ago."

"Your inability to control the Yearning is noted, Ranger-Captain," Eshana's reply was carefully neutral, but her stance shifted, and the complex body language of her kind conveyed nothing but scorn. "But I cannot - will not - lend my support to any action which could imperil our future. These are dangerous times, and the opening of the Dathedian has only seen the time ahead grow darker. Enemies have found us, yes - but they have found a society of warriors, not mothers."

Ylluia's eyes narrowed. "Don't pretend you don't feel it, Eshana. We all do." She looked around at the rest of the council. "There's a tension in the air I haven't felt in a long time. What do you think will happen if our need exceeds our ability to contain it? Have you considered that the daemon's curse was not the Yearning itself, but what our attempts at denying it would lead to? By the Maiden, it's even become contagious! New arrivals begin to feel the Yearning's first pangs within days of settling here. We need - " Ylluia hesitated, faltering for a moment before regaining her composure. "We need men."

"We need nothing!" Eshana shot back, louder than she had intended. "At least, I need nothing. The rituals of sapphery suffice for our baser instincts, and I will not give any more ground to the temptations forced upon me by a scion of She-Who-Thirsts." 

Ylluia's retort died in her throat as the fifth member of the council rapped her executioner blade against the Crystal Dome's stone floor. Unlike the others, she was clad from head to toe in her ceremonial Aspect suit, the sculpted musculature and blood-red plume spilling from her helm lending her a uniquely Amazonian look.

"This argument is meaningless." First Exarch Maerai intoned. Her voice was a low dirge, distorted into something harsh and cruel by the screaming emitters of her ghoulish Banshee Mask. "If we survive, another breeding cycle will be necessary to restore our losses. Remember the fate of Iyanden. Remember the doom of Malan'tai. If we are to avoid such disaster, our attention must be upon the foe, not one another." 

"Quite." Auriel smoothly slipped back into the conversation as Ylluia and Eshana fell into a mollified silence. "Once again, we are thankful for your directness, First Exarch."

Maerai simply bowed. Aydona rolled her eyes and stepped forwards. "Ylluia is right in one regard. This will be an ugly battle." The Fleetmistress crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her companions. "If the readings she took are accurate, we're looking at well over a hundred Tyranid vessels, and that'll probably have doubled by the time they reach us. Mostly drones, thankfully, but their numbers will make striking at the Hive Ships challenging."

There was little fear in Aydona's voice, and she exchanged a glance with Eshana, grinning at the eagerness she saw upon the High Autarch's face. They had ever been the bloodthirstiest members of the council, and had consistently supported one another's calls for war despite Auriel and Ylluia's words of restraint. Eshana licked her lips and leaned forwards, grasping the edges of the scrying table and looking to the rest of her companions.

"War has found us, Sisters, and by my summoning here I assume you are all in favour of fight over flight." There was a murmur of assent from the others. "Fate has granted us a little time to make preparations. I suggest we be about them quickly."

---Phase 2: Approach---

For a time, the Yearning seemed to fade from Craftworld Morrigan. It was always there, in the back of their minds like an itch that refused to be scratched, but the necessities of mobilising for war served as an able distraction. The Craftworld had a long history of bolstering its numbers with women exiled or displaced from their homes, and those with prior experience battling the Tyranids were called to speak before the council, pooling their wisdom even as Guardian hosts were assembled and Spiritseers awoke the first Wraith-constructs from their dreamlike slumber.

To another Craftworld, the threat they faced might have caused them to turn tail and run, or plumb the skiens of fate in the hope of redirecting their enemy upon another. But the harsh lessons Morrigan had learned from Seminoth's invasion had forged them into a warrior society, and in the time since, they had taken in thousands of women who had suffered their own, terrible losses. Here was a chance to  vent their fury upon a foe utterly deserving of obliteration, they thought. Here was a chance to avenge some of the hurts inflicted upon their ailing race. 

They were strong. They were fierce. There was no foe they could not triumph over.

Did a few feel a tremour of fear as the first Tyranid vessels crept into sensor range? Did the sheer number of thrashing bio-vessels bearing down upon their home elicit a moment of doubt? Did a handful of their warriors, caught in the throes of the Yearning, look to the women around them and wonder how many would be left, and if they might finally be granted the opportunity to seek the catharsis they craved with a man from another Craftworld?

Perhaps. But none voiced such thoughts. Arrayed in wargear of deep purple and purest white, they watched in silence as Fleetmistress Aydona guided her flagship, the Crone's Breath, from Morrigan's cavernous hanger bays. Formed up around the ancient Void Stalker was the might of her fleet; sleek Shadow and Eclipse cruisers bristling with lances and oversized starcannons, swift hunting packs of escorts, wings of darting fighters and bombers. Aydona herself sat slouched in her throne, a half-moon shaped interface panel before her and the rest of her command crew arranged in sunken recesses before the main viewing screen. 

The number of hostile signals it displayed would have staggered a lesser captain, but Aydona felt little fear. She had learned much as a Corsair, the methods by which a small, artfully commanded fleet could rip the throat from a more powerful armada among them. The Fleetmistress relaxed, indulging in memory as she often did before battle. It had been a time of wildness and savagery, where blood and wine had flowed across her lips in equal measure and desperate suitors had spent their lives hoping to claim her as their own.

One, a reaver from Commoragh, had even given her a child, and the memories of that night were the jewels she cherished most of all. A smile flitted across Aydona's face as she lost herself in recollection; the way he had pinned her down, his hand tight around her throat, the desperate hunger in his dark eyes as he poured himself into her willing body. Idly, she drummed her hand against her belly, losing herself in the pangs of the Yearning. It wasn't such a terrible thing, she thought. One could even find a certain pleasure there, in the aching dreams of new life.

Perhaps, she thought distantly, when this was over, she would petition the council for some time away from her duties, and sate the Yearning with something more than her imagination.

"Enemy vessels moving into extreme range," The serene voice of Kellae, Aydona's first officer, roused the Fleetmistress from her daydreams. "Craftworld batteries opening fire."

Silence fell across the bridge as the battle began in earnest. City-destroying blasts of plasma began to impact among the swarming broodships as they tried to close with the world-ship. Each wreaked terrible harm upon the attackers, but no sooner was one wave destroyed than another would appear, using the drifting, dying corpses of their kin as cover from Morrigan's guns. Worse, even the slain Tyranid vessels were proving to be a threat. Aydona watched as a cluster of creatures were caught in the energy wash from one of Morrigan's heavy guns. Though burned so deeply she caught sight of carbonised bone and ruptured organs, some final muscular spasm sent them hurtling suicidally towards the plasma batteries, forcing the gunners to shift targets to prevent the vile things from damaging the Craftworld's hull.

That was their fight, though. Aydona had her own task. She opened a link to her other ships and began to distribute orders. Her fleet was outnumbered hundreds to one, and for all the skill of her crews, they could do little to stem the endless flood of drone vessels. But the Hive Ships themselves - each was a bloated monster, swollen and gravid with millions of Tyranid organisms. Their destruction would throw the fleet into chaos, yes, but the real victory would be in slaying their children before they could force a landing upon Morrigan itself.

It was a bold plan - recklessly so, perhaps, in-keeping with the savagery which lurked in the Fleetmistress' heart. But it had the potential to end the danger they all faced outright.

"They've noticed us, Fleetmistress," Kellae reported. "We're taking fire."

"Then by all means, return it." Aydona grinned fiercely, her teeth stark against her black-painted lips. "Bring the Holofields up to full power and charge the Pulsar Lances. Let's give these monsters a lesson in void combat."

---

By the time the fleet launched its attack, dozens of bioships had already been slain by Morrigan's batteries. The Crone's Breath equalled that tally within the first hour of the engagement, its lances picking off one drone ship after another as it swooped and tumbled through the storm of writhing flesh. The rest of the fleet fared little worse. Though the casualties they inflicted were like a drop in the ocean, the Tyranid ships struggled to match the agility of Aydona's fleet and soon she had burned a path almost to the Hive Ships themselves. Though the Craftworld's Wraithbone hull began to ring with the impact of dying drone vessels, its defenders held their breath, some daring to believe that the invasion would be truncated before it could begin.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the situation changed. Two waves of drone vessels launched towards the distant Craftworld suddenly doubled-back. Spurts of fluid and noxious gasses ejected from their gnarled hides arrested their forward motion, spinning them around and sending them screaming back towards Aydona's fleet faster than she could have thought possible. The Fleetmistress cursed, rising from her throne to grip the edge of her sensor desk as the hideous vessels moved to encircle the Eldar ships. She'd expected something like this, of course, but not so soon, and not so quickly...

"Spread out!" She snapped. "Scattered dawn formation, don't give their weapons something to aim at. Hellebore squadrons disengage and come about, keep those new arrivals off our backs. Everyone else, follow my lead - we can punch through the Hive Ships and break out for another pass."

Wraithbone groaned as the Crone's Breath lurched to avoid a bright gout of pyro-acid. Aydona leaned forwards, her knuckles turning white as the first shots from her Pulsar Lances began to carve their way towards the Hive Ships. The lead creature loomed impossibly large on the viewscreen, and Aydona felt a flicker of hope stir in her ****** as glowing rents began to appear in its protective carapace.

"Fleet reports increased fire. Hellebore squadrons lost. Lileath's Kiss has been boarded, the Grace of Ulthanesh is reporting damage to its engines and is seeking to disengage..."

One by one the Eldar ships were being isolated and brought down. Bright sprays of bio-plasma burned away their solar sails, engines were punctured by jagged spines the length of a nightshade interceptor, leaving the stricken vessels to be swiftly overrun by waves of boarding pods vomited forth from the very Hive Ships they had sought to kill. Aydona spat every curse she knew, watching the tally of losses increase with every minute. Every instinct she possessed told her to retreat, but they were so close! She could see the lead Hive Ship reeling, thick, purple ichor spilling out into the void as her lances pummelled its hull. 

"This is Aydona." The communication channels were overwhelmed with screams and hisses, pleas for aid and what for all the stars sounded like moans of pleasure, but Aydona knew she had to try. "All ships, disengage. Get back to the Craftworld if you can, get as far away from here as possible if you can't and try to seek aid. We'll go on alone from here."

Kellae caught her captain's eye, her face grave. "Just us then, Fleetmistress?"

Aydona hesitated, just for a moment, then nodded. "This is my mistake, and mine alone." She smiled, then, a pang of sadness passing over her face. "I'm sorry to have to bring you down with me. You know I'd take a Nightwing out there on my own if I could." 

"And even then, we'd still follow you until the Rhana Dandra itself." Kellae returned her captain's smile and turned back to the viewscreen, watching as the ailing Hive Ship grew larger with every moment. "Out fates are with Morai-Heg. We must pray that will be enough."

---

It wasn't. As bold as Aydona's final sally was, alone against three Hive Ships, the Crone's Breath had little hope. A moan of grief passed through the Craftworld's waiting defenders as they saw the vessel laid low as it attempted to chase down the Hive Ship it had crippled, punctured end to end by a spray of barbed spines and ensnared by a vast tentacle three times as long as the ship itself. But despite the loss, the attack had not been wholly unsuccessful. Two thirds of the Hive Fleet lay in ruins, hundreds of thousands of Tyranids were dead, and thanks to the skill of their crews, fully half the Craftworld's fleet had escaped to limp home or scatter into the void seeking aid. 

Those meagre victories were little comfort to Aydona and her crew. Dragged into the Hive Ship's embrace, the Crone's Breath was swiftly boarded as a dozen esophagus like tubes latched onto its flank and gnawed through the hull. The Fleetmistress did what she could to organise a defence, but as the tide of monsters flowed unstoppably through her ship, even that faint hope was stolen from her. Lights failed and security systems died, and one by one, each knot of defenders was pounced upon and brought low by the endless tide of horrors spilling from the Hive Ship's belly. Silence fell shortly afterwards, broken only by the occasional thin scream and the wet slapping of flesh against flesh.

That, and the incessant scratching at the door.

Aydona, Kellae, and the rest of the bridge crew formed up. They were armed with a motly assortment of shuriken pistols and lasblasters, and to their credit, not one of them wavered as they trained their weapons on the bridge portal. The Fleetmistress and her first officer exchanged a look, resignation and weariness on both of their faces.

"Don't see much point in postponing the inevitable," Aydona tried to smile. "What say we ****** these monsters in, and give them a proper welcome?"

There was a weak chorus of cheers. Kellae nodded and retreated a pace, her long fingers dancing over the control console. "Right you are, captain. In three, two, one - "

The doors opened with a soft hiss. For a moment Aydona caught sight of a pack of blade-armed monsters before they were shredded by a wailing volley of lasers and shuriken. Another cheer went up, stronger this time, and a third as a second brood of hormagaunts was torn to pieces as they fought to rush the Eldar's position. But larger shapes lurked behind them, and Aydona drew her cutlass as the first forced itself through the doorway and onto the bridge, shrugging off their fire like morning rain.

It was horrendously male. Its height, the broadness of its shoulders, the way its ribcage seemed to glisten like an oiled chest in the dim emergency lighting, it all spoke of an aggressive and all-consuming masculinity that was as alien to the women of Morrigan as its chitinous black body or grasping claws. Worse, what the shocked Eldar had initially taken to be a weapon-symbiote was revealed to be a ribbed phallus of monstrous proportions, hanging hard between its legs and dribbling with long strings of precome as it advanced.

The Tyranid Warrior's eyes locked onto Aydona with terrible purpose, and for a moment she froze, transfixed by the terrible strength she saw in its black and hungry gaze.

His gaze.

The Fleetmistress' stomach curdled. Her heart lurched in her chest. She had seen that kind of strength in another being only once before, and she had walked away from the encounter with his child planted deep in her belly.

Suddenly, in a sickly pulse of realisation, the strange noises echoing from deeper within her ship began to make sense. 

Aydona surged forwards with a scream of desperate fury, driving her blade towards the Warrior's throat. It was fast despite its size and parried her sword with its scything forelimbs, snatching for her with its claws and forcing her onto the back foot. More Tyranids flooded into the surrounding bridge, but Aydona barely noticed them; all she cared about was slaying the hideous monster that had stolen her lover's eyes. She struck out again, twice, three times, each blow whickering a notch from the Warrior's midnight-blue carapace or drawing a spray of ichor from its slick black body. Confusion and horror leant strength to the Fleetmistress' blows and she struck half a foot from the end of one talon, forcing a gap in the Warrior's defences through which she slipped.

To her left, someone screamed. Aydona half-turned and caught a glimpse of Kellae falling, her armour in tatters, beneath a rippling tide of Hormagaunts. That was the only opportunity her foe needed; with a triumphant hiss it barrelled forwards, snatching the Fleetmistress up in its lower limbs and slamming her bodily against the interface panel. Claws bit through her armour and undersuit alike and Aydona moaned in horror as she felt herself being stripped, her bare skin prickling as the Tyranid's wet heat washed over her.

A chorus of wails and curses reached her ears as the rest of the bridge crew were overrun. Each met the same fate; they were unceremoniously dragged down, stripped bare and mounted, the seething hormagaunts wasting little time before plunging their drooling alien cocks into the women's bodies. Most still fought, their long legs kicking out savagely at the beasts intent on rutting them into the decking, but with every moment their struggles grew weaker and weaker. 

It's the Yearning, Aydona realised. She moaned again as the Warrior's **** twitched against her thigh, smearing precome and other less identifiable fluids across her flesh, and didn't know if the sound was one of disgust or desire. Seminoth's curse. On some level, they want this. We want this.

I want this.

It took time for the Warrior, working on its own, to strip away the last of her protective garments. Aydona fought the whole time, the queasy awareness of her own growing arousal lending her a desperate, animal strength, but it was like trying to wrestle out from beneath a mountain. As she wriggled fruitlessly in the Tyranid's iron grip, her gaze was dragged irresistibly back to the bloated **** between its legs, sheathed with undulating ridges of chitin and wrapped in veins as thick as her little finger. That, and the swollen, fist-sized testes which hung at its base, pulsing with desperate intent.

That's going to be inside me, she thought dizzily. The Fleetmistress could feel her body reacting of its own accord, her skin flushing red, heat pooling in her belly. It's going to push that thing into my body and - 

- breed - 

And then the final shreds of everything but her tattered longcoat were torn away, and something slick and hard was pushing against her soaking lips, and with a final, sickening lurch, the Tyranid shoved its **** deep into Aydona's aching womanhood.

She screamed. There was a little pain - it had been a long time since she had been with a male of any species, and the Warrior's organ was much larger than any of them had been - but it was quickly swept away by the crushing bow-wave of pleasure which followed. It felt as though every nerve in the Fleetmistress' body had been lit up at once, as though centuries of restrain and self-denial had been torn away in that single bestial motion. The Warrior drove forwards again, pushing deeper, and Aydona let out another wail as the ridges of soft chitin sheathing its organ rubbed over her swollen clit. She could feel every inch of the thing inside her, every twitch and pulse, and could only lie there in horror as her fluttering walls clenched tight around the monstrous invader.

Her crew fared little better, with only a few still putting up any pretence of a fight. Here, one woman weakly beat her fist against the hormagaunt which had folded her into a savage mating press. There, a slurred voice desperately begged for respite, even as her legs shuddered in violent climax. Most had submitted entirely, moaning in wanton pleasure and grinding back against their monstrous attackers, as if desperate to take every inch of the beasts' gnarled pricks as deep as they could. Aydona tried to catch Kellae's eye, but the girl's face was split in a rictus of ecstasy. Her lips worked silently, mouthing encouragement to the whip-thin beast mating with her.

And why shouldn't she?

The thought slid into Aydona's mind like a dagger between the ribs. The strong dominated the weak; that was the credo which had defined her years as a Corsair. It had served her well enough then, as she pillaged the ships of the lesser races, taking their wealth and their lives without so much as a second thought. Was she so hypocritical as to abandon her philosophy the moment she encountered something stronger than herself?

Isn't this natural? Isn't this the way the Galaxy has always worked?

The Warrior hissed as if to push the point home, its fangs inches from the Fleetmistress' face, long strings of drool dripping into her short, dark hair. Its **** sawed relentlessly back and forth, creeping deeper into Aydona's trembling body with every thrust, thick pulses of precome lathering her silken passage and easing the monster's slow march into her core.  

Isn't it beautiful? To bring forth new life, no matter what shape or size? To love it and care for it, to nurture inside you? Isn't that what you want?

Each thought rose from her subconscious, one after the other, and fell into place with a dreadful sense of inevitability. Aydona couldn't tell if they were hers or a product of the Yearning, or if that even mattered any longer. She still felt them, whatever their origin. She still felt that craving, that hollowness in her belly, and ached for it to be filled. To feel the joy of new life growing inside her once more, no matter how hideous and alien it might be.

"Please," Aydona croaked. "Please."

She didn't know if she was pleading for the Warrior to stop, or to continue on to its final, inescapable conclusion.

It was one many of her crew were already meeting. A chorus of savage hisses and lilting voices filled the air as the lesser creatures began to ejaculate, driving their seed deep into the fertile earth of Aydona's bridge crew. Not one let out a sound of protest; those still able to form words instead begged their alien mates for more, clutching the lithe, chitinous creatures close as one thick pulse of Tyranid semen after another was pumped into their trembling bodies. Each wore an expression of - no, Aydona realised, not just bliss, but something more. Of revelation. Of a satiation that went beyond crude physicality.

With a silent plea for Lileath's forgiveness, Aydona realised she wanted nothing more than to feel the same. She had fought as well as she could, but the Tyranid had proven itself the stronger. Why continue to struggle? Why deny herself the pleasure it was so intent on giving her? Relief swept though her; Aydona fell slack in the Warrior's embrace, abandoning her fitful struggles as the creature finally worked the last few inches of its throbbing organ into her ***. Her cries began gasps, and then moans, as the orgasm which had lurked at the edge of her perceptions began to bloom once more.

Slowly but with growing confidence, Aydona reached for the Warrior and ran her slender fingers across its ribbed chest, before circling her arms around the beast's armoured midsection and looking up into its dark, hungry eyes. The monstrous, drooling organ, packed so tightly between her silken lips that each thrust had become a deep grind of intent, began to twitch. The heavy testes resting against her buttocks roiled in their sac, each bursting of potent, alien seed.

For her. All for her. 

"It's alright," Aydona whispered, as much to herself as to the chitinous alien looming over her. Her legs trembled. They shook. Slowly, as her climax rose, they bent inwards, clasping tight around the Tyranid's chitinous flanks and holding it close against her athletic frame. "Plant a seed in me, monster. Make me whole."

The Warrior tensed, every muscle in its towering body drawn tight, and came. Aydona came with it, shuddering in bliss as the first thick spurts of virile semen flooded her passage and entered her waiting womb. More followed - and more, and more, filling up every space she had until long, pearly strings oozed from around the edges of her aching *** and dripped freely onto the chair from which she had captained her ship. Only then, when the Yearning gave way to a soul-deep calm like she had never felt before, did Aydona release her death-grip upon the monster that had so thoroughly impregnated her and slide onto the floor to join the last of her crew.

The first battle for Craftworld Morrigan was over.



---Phase 3: Attack---

Eros.

To salve their fears, the Eldar of Craftworld Morrigan gave their foe a name, and that name was Eros. 

Eshana, Maerai, Yllia and Auriel sat within the Dome of Sleepers, arranged in a loose circle around the scrying dais. Their goddesses soared overhead, outstretched hands reaching for one another, eyes of the purest white marble staring down at the four women who had gathered beneath them. For almost two hours they had sat, listening to the gristly thumps of boarding spores raining down upon their home, and the distant psychosonic wails of Howling Banshees sent to contain the Tyranid breaching swarms.

That, and to digest Aydona's final communication.

A Craftworld's Infinity Circuit was not purely restricted to the world-ship itself. The dead could reach out into the void, whispering to those spirits invested within nearby Eldar starships and bringing back sounds and images of what they found there.

The portents Morrigan's spirits had brought back from Aydona's flagship were not good. The four remaining council members had watched in silence, each keeping their own thoughts as the Fleetmistress and her crew were overcome. What, after all, was there to be said? They each felt the same hollow pangs in their bellies as their sisters were pushed down and bred by their attackers, the same guilty, envious shudders down their spines as one pristine womanhood after another was pumped full of potent alien sperm.

Yllia had flushed and tried to look away, though the Ranger-Captain was helpless to prevent herself from sneaking glances from the corner of her eye. Eshana's lean features twisted into an expression of disgust, even as her fingers drummed against the sculpted contours of her armoured belly. And while Auriel had bowed her head in grief, she made no motion to sever the connection between the world-ship and the Crone's Tooth.

Only Maerai, the First Exarch and bloody hand of the council, remained unmoved. But, Eshana thought, entombed as she was in her ornate suit of armour, it was impossible to tell what the Exarch was thinking at the best of times.

"We all knew this was a fool's errand," Yllia murmured as the communication finally drew to an end. "You led her to this, High Autarch. You should have counselled against such a reckless strategy."

"I spoke in favour of a strategy which could have ended this war before it began." Eshana rose. Her voice was low and dangerous, tight with anger borne from grief. It took the High Autarch a moment to realise she still had a hand pressed to her midsection, and snatched it away as if she had been burned. "You, exile, lacked even the courage to support the High Farseer's opposition. A less charitable mind than mine might wonder if you truly wished Aydona to succeed in the first place."

Maerai's helm snapped around, but this time it was Auriel who intervened. The Farseer stood and rapped her staff sharply across Eshana's shoulder, her silvery gaze hard.

"You go too far, High Autarch. Apologise."

The silence stretched, punctuated by the continued bombardment as the Tyranids assaulted their home. It was that, perhaps, which finally broke through Eshana's sudden fury, and she forced herself to relax with a soft gasp. 

"I know. I'm sorry." Eshana sagged as she spoke, rubbing a hand wearily over her narrow face. "It's just - Aydona was a friend. Seeing what happened to her..."

Seeing how she begged for it. How much pleasure it brought her.


Eshana trailed off, the treacherous thought still echoing through her head. Maerai spoke next, the familiar rasp of her voice like a lifeline dragging the High Autarch back to reality.

"It was difficult for us all to witness, High Autarch, but we must focus. This is a time of war, and the sacred burden of your Path is to command us through it. So. Command."

For a moment, Eshana said nothing, simply staring wearily at the dais, the oppressive weight of responsibility settling across her elegant shoulders. Then she took a breath, centred herself, and began to issue her commands.

---

Craftworld Morrigan's defenders had not sat idle while their leaders argued. As soon as the first spores began to land, sleek Windrider squadrons launched from their hangers, followed swiftly by Wave Serpents bearing chanting Aspect Warriors to battle. Most of Hive Fleet Eros' breaching swarms were thus hunted down and exterminated, but the Eldar were too few to cover every potential landing site, and in a handful of cases found themselves driven off by the congregating masses. The bulk of these first toeholds lay in the Craftworld's abandoned depths, and it was here that Eros focused its attentions.

Initial attempts to dislodge them went poorly. The fluid hit-and-run strategies which served Morrigan's armed forces so well in open combat faltered in such claustrophobic environments. Squads of lithe Eldar warriors struck and retreated, only to find their path cut off by newly-arrived broods of Tyranids fresh from the lurking Hive Ships. Their fate mirrored that of those aboard the Crone's Tooth, and soon the Craftworld's lower levels came to resemble nothing less than a series of vast breeding chambers, echoing to a permanent chorus of wanton moans and lusty alien screeches. 

Once more returned to the dignity of her rank, Eshana swiftly assumed control of the situation and began to restore order. Though it broke her heart to do it, she ordered the portals connecting the lower levels sealed, abandoning those already lost to Eros' tender mercies. Though the Tyranids would eventually claw the psychoplastic barriers down, it bought the Autarch time to seal several other passages off in a more permanent fashion and establish a network of defensive emplacements garrisoned by the Craftworld's Guardians.

Thus, Craftworld Morrigan regained the initiative. Though Eros soon began to push deeper into the world-ship, their swarms were herded into Eshana's carefully-planned killing zones and culled without mercy. For almost three days the Eldar weathered the frenzied stampedes, until rivers of ichor flowed underfoot and flamers had to be brought up to keep the firing lines clear of corpses. The Yearning remained, of course. But it was as much of an inspiration as a distraction, for the embattled women knew their fallen still lived, and still held hope they could soon be rescued. 

That a few surrendered to their urges and allowed themselves to be carried off into the hot, throbbing underworld which now spread beneath their feet was undeniable, but Morrigan's warriors could only shrug. There were cowards and deserters in every war, after all.

Then, at the end of the third day and with no apparent warning, the attacks suddenly ceased.

---

It wasn't a victory, Auriel thought. She sat alone in her chambers, her eyes closed, legs folded neatly beneath her. Wooden bowls of lit incense sat here and there, filling the room with thick, perfumed smoke. The High Farseer breathed deep of it, allowing the slight narcotic effect to soothe away the anxiety which lurked in her heart. The constant rain of spores had begun to taper off, with only the occasional heavy bang as a reminder that her Craftworld was not yet out of danger, but some of the warriors she had spoken with were already calling it a sign of victory.

Eshana, thankfully, wasn't one of them. Though they all mourned for their lost Fleetmistress, Aydona's fate had helped to temper the High Autarch's usually bellicose nature. For now she was content to hold ground and wait for Morrigan's Wraith Hosts to be prepared, trusting that the dead would prove immune to Eros' lascivious intent. Still, the Farseer worried. Auriel knew the other woman wasn't sleeping, and that the Yearning bothered her more than she admitted. She had ever been the strongest of them, but of late that strength was becoming dangerously brittle.

That itself was another effect of the Yearning. The more they repressed their urges, the more tense and snappish Morrigan's population became. For centuries that swell of frustration had been channelled into the Craftworld's thriving Aspect Temples, but now Auriel wondered if it had been allowed to fester for too long.

Or perhaps I am simply being selfish, the High Farseer thought, a small smile playing over her lips. And wish to bear children before my body crystallises, and the chance is lost to me forever.

In any case, if the invaders had their way, the choice would soon be made for them. A queasy shudder of something Auriel told herself was disgust ran down her spine at the idea, though the Farseer quickly pushed it aside. She had come to her chambers for a reason.

Reaching into the leather purse at her hip, the High Farseer drew forth a handful of runes and tossed them into the air. They hung there, glowing with a warm, inner light, and began to lazily circle one another as Auriel's long fingers played through their formation like a sculptor working clay. In her mind's eye she saw the Skein opening up before her, a thousand times a thousand potential futures, tangled up like the roots of a great tree and stretching on into infinity. Most, she noticed, turned black and withered away to nothing, symbolising a loss from which her home would never recover.

Taking a deep breath, Auriel danced her perceptions over them, seeking any sign of commonality. Again and again, the same images returned - an ocean of blue-black forms, each hunched over a ***** woman of Morrigan, distended organs digging deep into tender, feminine flesh. She saw herself leading a final, doomed charge into a mass of creatures, and recognised it as her fate if Eshana were to fall first. Even in the midst of her trance, the Farseer let out a breathless moan of desire as she witnessed herself disarmed, pushed down and mated by one of Eros' towering leader-beasts, her belly swelling with the honour of bringing forth its child.  
 
It was only through a supreme effort of will that Auriel pulled herself away from that fate, desperately winding back until the black paths of dead futures shone with hope once more. It was no good staring at the doom which awaited them. She needed to look for a way to avert it.

Why? Why resign ourselves to another era of longing, when the solution now stands before us?

It was almost a mercy to see her visions overcome with violence. Eldar and Tyranids struggled against one another, blade for blade. These were creatures the Farseer had never seen before, though - betentacled leviathans and lithe, gangrel beasts which belched a dense fog of spores from the distended vents upon their backs. But she recognised the First Exarch and her sisters who grappled with them. One Banshee fell, her armour cracked open, and her battle-cry because a drawn out moan of lust as she accidentally drew in a breath of those vapours.

Posion, Auriel realised. She followed one of the divergent threads which led from that moment, watching as the damp, heavy mist spread up through the tunnels and engulfed the Guardians who defended them, addling their minds and leaving them too weak to resist the renewed attacks which followed. They will bring poison and turn the Yearning against us.

But it was not a future set in stone. Along other strands, Auriel saw Maerai standing atop one of the leviathan's corpses as her sisters drove back its lesser kin in a storm of flashing blades. Here, the High Farseer thought excitedly, was a chance to turn the tide. If Eros could neither triumph through brute force nor guile, it would be forced to abandon its attack and return to dark void from which it originated.

Auriel broke her trance and opened her eyes. Before her, all but one of the runes lay blackened and dead at her feet, burned out to force back the Hive Mind's oppressive shadow. Only one remained, circling around the High Farseer's outstretched finger.

It was the rune of the Banshee.

---

"Thirty seconds to arrival, First Exarch."

The pilot's voice was a low murmur in her war-helm's earpiece. Maerai sat on a low bench towards the Wave Serpent's rear, stroking the haft of the long-bladed executioner laid across her knees. She was flanked on each side by five of her finest temple-sisters, the white-armoured Howling Banshees whispering bloody prayers of vengeance as they prepared for battle. Outside, she knew, two more transports were flying in formation behind, each loaded with more sisters drawn from Shrines subordinate to her own. The Swooping Hawks of the Azure Sky were with them as well, along with a fast-moving host of Guardians aboard their Windrider Jetbikes.

Together they hurtled through Morrigan's tainted underworld like a flock of raptors, their hulls so close a child could walk from one to the other with little fear. It was a terribly small force for so vital a task, but the High Farseer had been insistent on attacking before the Hive Fleet could land more troops. Here, she claimed, was an opportunity to irreversibly tip the scales in their favour, but it had to be seized before Eros could dig itself in further. 

What would happen to them if they failed went unsaid. They all knew. 

The First Exarch felt no joy at the prospect of combat, nor anxiety over what they might encounter within the spreading brood hive. She had felt very little of anything, in fact, since the day she had taken the mantle of Exarch and her consciousness had merged with the dozens of other spirits bound to her armour. Bitterness, fury, and the obsessive need for revenge; these were all she had left. Even the Yearning, which hung so heavily over her sister's heads, had faded to little more than a distant awareness that something precious was being denied to her.

I am not who I am.

It was an old thought, but an uncomfortable one. More uncomfortable in some ways than the Yearning itself, dulled as it was by the harsh necessities imposed by the Path of the Warrior. It was a reminder that she had been another person once, someone both much less and somehow much greater than the woman Maerai had turned out to be. Like all Exarchs she was a prisoner upon the Warrior's Path, her soul doomed to an eternity of endless, single-minded war.

She grieved over that, sometimes. An echo of Maerai's past self remained, haunting her bloodied soul like the mythic hawk-spirits who circled endlessly above their murderers. It whispered in her quieter moments, mourning for the monstrous thing she had become. 

"Twenty seconds."

Maerai thrust the intrusive thought away and stood, marching to stand before the Wave Serpent's deployment ramp. The Banshees reached out as she passed, each brushing their fingers reverently along her warplate in turn before rising to join her. The First Exarch was their teacher, their totem, their champion - a bloody-handed killer who had faced down the worst the galaxy could offer and each time returned to tell the tale. A figure of sterile purity, unmoved by the political squabbling of the council, unfazed by the curse which hung over them all.

What she had been before was irrelevant. Now, she was their avatar.

Outside, the Wave Serpent's engines began to hum as it decelerated to attack speed, the sound cut through by the high whine of Windriders passing by overhead. One of the Banshees flinched as their transport opened fire on some distant target with its Brightlances. Something struck the hull and rebounded with a wet crunch. Shurikens began to wail. 

"Ten seconds."

"Remember our mission, sisters," Maerai intoned. "Tonight, the children of Morai-Heg sing for the sporecasters that would taint our home and pollute our bodies with their young. Stop for nothing. Slay for the Craftworld."

The Wave Serpent banked sharply. A resounding thump passed through the transport as it discharged its shields in a crushing wave of force, throwing back whatever horrors were blocking its landing zone, before slewing into position and dropping its assault ramp.

Beyond was a scene of utter chaos. An ocean of lesser bioforms filled the cavernous chamber, seething back and forth in a frenzy as Windriders and Swooping Hawks poured fire into them from above. The air was unnaturally humid and thick with organic matter, and the ground squelched wetly as Maerai and her sisters leapt from their Wave Serpents, some form of blue-black biomass already spreading across the Craftworld's wraithbone superstructure. Here and there the First Exarch could see the larger forms of Warriors and other leader-beasts directing the swarm, but she paid them little heed. The duty of slaying them, if it was at all possible, fell to the rest of the warhost.

There, at the centre of the horde, she spied her goal. A hunchbacked, centauroid monster the size of a tank squatted, surrounded by a gangrel court of lanky, tentacled horrors. Each Tyranid sported a set of towering dorsal vents upon its carapace, and it was from these that the organic mists billowed, forming a dense shroud which grew thicker around them with every passing moment.

Bleakly, the First Exarch noted that even if they slew the creatures, the rippling ocean of flesh packed into the chamber would likely drag them down shortly thereafter. Already the Tyranids were bringing up creatures with strange, spider-like organisms fused to their hands, which spat clouds of sticky filaments to engage their airborne foes. A few had already found their mark, and Maerai watched the horde converge upon those snatched from the skies with grim inevitability. 

None of us will die here. Even if we fall, we will live, and one day rise to fight again. That is a comfort, isn't it?

Signalling the charge, the First Exarch and her sisters struck the Tyranid lines like the blow from a scythe. Their war-cries, amplified by the psychosonic devices in their helmets, liquified the brains of those closest and sent the rest reeling backwards with burst eyeballs and shattered carapaces. Into this gap the Aspect Warriors charged, blades flashing as they began to carve a path towards the Toxicrene and its foul brood. A flight of Windriders passed overhead, shredding a clutch of foes into bloody ruin as they sought to circle around behind the furious Banshees. Swooping Hawks showered Plasma Grenades into the greatest concentrations of enemy resistance. And always, Maerai was there - her executioner flashing, at the forefront of every charge, driving back every counterattack the Tyranids launched. The voices tied to her Exarch suit howled in pleasure, exulting in every life she took and each splash of ichor across her blade.

I am not who I am.

The thought was there and gone in the space between two heartbeats. Maerai ignored it and pushed on, losing herself in the oblivion promised to those lost to the Warrior's Path. Around her, resistance was solidifying; the harder the Eldar struck, the harder Eros fought, as if drawn by the promise of strong mothers for their offspring. Soon Tyranids pressed in from every angle, forming a solid wall of blades and teeth and drooling, dripping phalli. One Banshee fell, then a second; a third took a glancing blow which ruptured her helm and left her exposed to the dense soup of contagions in the air. The woman staggered and let out a low moan, then tore off the remains of her helmet to reveal a face wild-eyed and flushed with arousal.

"I need - I can't help - Isha's love, First Exarch, why are we fighting them?" She cried, already clawing at the clasps and seals of her armour. "They will give us children! Children, after so long!"

Maerai ran on. With every step, she drew closer; with every step, the soup of pheromones and mating-spores in the air grew thicker. A handful more of her sisters were lost. The Windriders were dropping at a terrifying rate, the light armour worn by their Guardian pilots unable to sufficiently protect them against the intoxicating clouds rapidly filling the chamber. Maerai caught a glimpse of three of them, ***** and bent over the canopy of a crashed jetbike, holding hands and moaning in pleasure as a mob of Tyranids gathered to give them the children they so desperately craved.

Did they know? About the Yearning? Is that why they came?

Perversely, the spreading madness among the Eldar ranks was proving to be a boon. Every woman who succumbed to the desperate craving in her belly soon attracted a pack of suitors eager to fill her with young, drawing more and more Tyranids away from their defence of the Toxicrene. Soon it loomed before them, hunched like a beggar in its cloak of spores, each forelimb mutated into a lashing cluster of tendrils which whipped back and forth as Maerai and her remaining Banshees closed upon it. 

"Revenge!" Maerai howled, driving the Venomthropes which surrounded the titan back with a blast from her Banshee mask. Each of her sisters took up the cry, shrieking in hatred as they plunged towards their foe, as if rending it apart might finally silence the hollowness they all felt within. The Toxicrene barely noticed the sonic barrage, but even as its tentacles wrapped around the closest Banshee and flung her disdainfully back into the writhing mass of bodies, the dense shroud of filth parted and the Wave Serpents struck.

With their pilots protected by layers of thick armour and arcane shielding, the transports were the warhost's greatest asset bar Maerai herself. They had waited on the fringe of the engagement, both to facilitate a retreat which now looked increasingly unlikely, and for a moment of opportunity like this. Six Brightlances, each powerful enough to gut a lumbering tank from end to end, speared into the Toxicrene, blasting away one of its weaponsed forelimbs and coring glowing holes through its humped carapace. It lurched to one side, reeling as the remaining Swooping Hawks speckled it with bursts from their lasblasters, punching the bulging spore-sacs which lined its flanks one by one.

Maerai leapt. The beast was wounded, perhaps mortally, but it fought on, snapping out with its remaining tentacle-clusters to sweep aside the circling Hawks. A stomping hind limb crashed down, hard enough to crack the wraithbone beneath its feet, but too slow; the First Exarch wove past and drove the full length of her blade into the Toxicrene's throat and twisted, the powered glaive shearing through muscle, chitin and bone in an instant. A torrent of blood splashed forth, covering the First Exarch from head to toe as the crippled titan stumbled away and collapsed its death throes.

But there was little cause for celebration. Maerai too was sent reeling, clawing at her armour as the enzymes in her foe's blood swiftly devoured the ancient war-plate. The grotesque faceplate of her war-mask sloughed away, ichor eating into the filters and amplifiers behind. Panic set in as her undersuit began to hiss and unravel, peeling away from her toned, powerful body in stinking black strips. Death was not something Maerai feared, so long as it was a good death. Melting away like a candle left lit for too long, as her sisters were bred and befouled around her, was not a fate the First Exarch desired.

Even as she thrashed, tearing great handfuls of smouldering fabric and crumbling armour from her frame, the acid began to neutralise itself. Eros had bred its creatures well, and had no desire to slay even a single potential mate if it could be avoided. By the time the Toxicrene's ichor reached Maerai's flesh it did little more than tingle. 

The damage to her helmet, however, was to prove far worse. The air filters collapsed, and without thinking, Maerai tore it from her head and drew in a frantic gasp of tainted air. 

Lust like she had never known rushed through her. Sweat beaded into life across flushed, ***** flesh. Warmth bloomed in her core, as hot and all-consuming as the heart of a star and growing stronger with every breath. Maerai shuddered and moaned, doubling over as the last of her armour fell away and the vengeful spirits once tied to it were drawn back to their waystones. In their place, waiting like a predator long denied its prey, was the Yearning. It struck without mercy, clawing at her mind, the awful hollowness in her belly almost more than she could stand.

Maerai was tall, even for her kind, as broad-shouldered and statuesque as an Eldar could be, her powerful body etched with the crimson warpaint of her shrine. Her face was as much a mask as the helmet she had once worn - hard and angular, inked with the rune of the banshee on her forehead and stylised tears under each eye, crowned with a enormous plume of blood-red hair.

Around her the last of the warhost was being pulled down. Her Banshees had engaged the Venomthropes and torn half of them apart before succumbing to the airborne toxins. Now the remaining creatures were busily setting themselves to the task of repopulating their numbers, dragging one woman after another into their hideous embrace and languidly mating with them. Each Aspect Warrior wore an expression of bliss and cried out in pleasure as she was impregnated, their long limbs wrapped around the hideous monsters as though they were the most wondrous of lovers imaginable.

I am a woman, a creature of flesh and blood, not this cold thing they made of me! How are we to survive without children? Why fight, if there is no next generation to fight for?

No longer caged by the spirits tied to her armour, the fragment of Maerai's past self swiftly rose to the forefront of her mind, wailing in protest over what had been done to it. She tried to stand, stumbled, and fell back to one knee with a hoarse scream of frustration, crippled by a pang of desire so strong it was almost painful. Nothing made sense. Her mind rebelled. Her body refused to obey her commands. She was a Warrior - no, an Exarch, a paragon of her kind, lost upon the Path. There was no turning back for her. 

No hope of anything better, no hope of bringing something new into the galaxy. Only an endless cycle of death and war, until I am consumed along with it. Is that what they expect of me? Can I be nothing else?

As if sensing that one of the Eldar in its midst had yet to be bred, a Venomthrope pulled itself away from the spreading debauchery and began to slither closer. Even by Tyranid standards, the beast was a horror. Its lower body was little more than a sinuous tail, sucker-tipped phallus and a pair of underdeveloped hind claws, held aloft by the bloated, lung-like sacs of gasses which lined its carapace and bulged from its swollen upper torso. It moved like an undersea mollusc, pulling itself along using the four whip-like tentacles, each as thick as her thigh, which had replaced its upper limbs, and its tiny black eyes stared down at the fallen Exarch with implacable hunger.

Another of the Banshees moaned, one hand pressed against her belly, the other playing lovingly through her mate's facial tendrils. Long strings of semen dripped from her womanhood, matting into the tangled hair of a second woman lying beneath them, her *** already glistening with alien fecundity.

They need us! The seeds planted in their wombs will grow and one day fight to protect us, just as any other child of Morrigan would!  

"No!" Maerai snarled, throwing herself backwards. Her hands scrabbled across the ground, eventually closing around a discarded power sword. The tentacled horror drifted closer, implacable, its prick hard and dripping with glutinous fluids. Her voice cracked with panic. "No, get away!"

Her head spun. Her body throbbed, every inch desperate for relief. Maerai tried to strike as the Venomthrope reached for her, but the blow went wide and it plucked the sword from her hand as easily as she might disarm a novice in a duel. Tentacles caressed the First Exarch's legs, slithering up to wrap tight around her thighs as others twined around her toned midriff. And though she snarled and spat, digging her sharpened fingernails into the Venomthrope's rubbery flesh, it was to no avail. With a burbling grunt of effort, the monster hefted Maerai into the air, forced her legs ajar, and dragged her onto its ****.

Pleasure speared through the her. The First Exarch was no virgin - she had experienced all the tongues, fingers and toys the rituals of sapphery could offer her. But they all paled before the heat and hardness of the Venomthrope's pulsing organ as it plunged deep into her ***, each muscular spasm of movement drawing a brittle gasp from her throat as it began to thrust. But it was more than just physical - it felt right on some deep and primal level, as the oldest and basest instincts of her species were finally sated.

It's the Yearning. It's the pheromones in the air. It's - it's - 

Maerai groaned and snarled, writhing back and forth as the Venomthrope pulled her deeper onto its prick. She could feel the thing moving inside her, creeping closer and closer to her most sacred place, and fought desperately to fend off the monster's attentions. Fists pounded against its carapace. Nails clawed for bulging pheromone-sacs. Nothing worked; every part of the monster oozed and dripped with slime, and her blows slipped harmlessly from its gangrel body. When she clawed for its eyes, the Venomthrope finally tired of her efforts and bound its upper limbs as tightly around her arms as its lower grasped her legs.

Despair tore at Maerai's heart. She was the last one fighting, and with every spike of pleasure from her overburdened womanhood, she felt that fight leaving her. Her warhost had punished the Tyranids terribly, but ultimately failed. Now, all throughout the chamber, the First Exarch's warriors were paying the price of that failure with every load of rich biomass forced into their fertile wombs.  

Swooping Hawks kissed as they were viciously bred by a gang of sickle-armed monsters. Two Guardians held down a Howling Banshee while a third helped guide a Warrior's throbbing prick into her ***. Even one of the Wave Serpents had been brought down, its turret hanging slack and canopy ajar, the pilot's long legs kicking the air as she was mated by the creature sharing her seat. But the sounds, if anything, were worse; blissful moans and trembling cries, desperate pleas and slanderous cries of approval as their long-repressed desires were finally sated. 

It is none of these things. It is us. This is what we want, on some fundamental level; to be mated, to be bred, to bear the children that will carry on our line. All Seminoth did was bring to light what was already there. All Eros has done is give us what we have long denied ourselves.

The Venomthrope's facial tendrils tenderly stroked the Maerai's face and curled around her stiff, sensitive nipples. Beads of viscous slime dribbled down her toned body and matted her crimson hair into a red, ragged mop. Its **** throbbed and twitched, each muscular spasm dragging the Exarch closer to orgasm. And all the while the fragment of Maerai's past self grew in strength, and cried out for more, until she no longer knew where the warrior ended and the woman began.

I am strong. I would carry strong children. Why must I choose between being a mother and a warrior? Why can I not be both?

It made a terrible kind of sense. Slowly, Maerai's struggled ceased. She trembled and let out a soft moan, savouring, for the first time, the gentle ache of her lips stretching around the beast's prick, the tightness with which she clung to it, the satisfaction of its depth inside her. Her life, for so very long, had been an endless, looping cycle of brooding silence and savage bloodshed, and she no longer had the taste for either. An Exarch was trapped upon their Path, but what if the Path itself was to change? Would she not, in turn, change with it?

There was a twinge as the Venomthrope's sucker-like crown kissed her cervix. It latched on, muscle clinging to muscle, and with a deep shudder which ran between woman and monster alike, forced it aside. Maerai's heart leapt in her chest. She knew what was about to happen. If the roiling clouds of mating pheromones and aphrodisiac spores filling the air hadn't been enough to induce ovulation, whatever cocktail simmered in the Venomthrope's throbbing testes, delivered straight to her deepest, most fertile places, certainly would.

The Path of the War-Mother, she who brings forth the Craftworld's endless legions, calls, Maerai. Will you accept?

"I will," the First Exarch hissed, staring up into the Venomthrope's void-black eyes. "Breed me, you loathsome thing. Take me as your mate, and give me the children which will defend our new home." 

The Venomthrope thrust - somehow, impossibly, its crown distending past the sucker which ringed it - and with that, ejaculated directly into Maerai's defenceless womb. 

The sensation was more than the Exarch could take. She felt every spurt, every thick pulse of hyper-potent seed as it spilled into her like the sweetest of poisons. Pleasure as raw and debilitating as the caress of a blade along her nerves bloomed forth from the very heart of her, but even as she shook and screamed through her climax, it was nothing compared to the sensation of the Venomthrope's sucker-tip clamping her cervix shut once more. There was no escape now, Maerai thought dizzily. Already she could imagine the trillions of hyper-potent sperm now trapped in her womb, racing towards her waiting eggs with all the rapacity of their kind. 

For the first time in centuries, Maerai knew peace. Her monstrous paramour gently deposited her onto the slickly organic floor and retreated, already picking its way through the chaos in search of any other women yet to accept Eros' gifts. The First Exarch didn't care. It had done its job. Now, she would do hers.

Around her, the intoxicating fog swirled and billowed. Soon it would swell, and rise, and spread across the rest of the Craftworld, and every woman of Morrigan would at last find the relief they secretly craved.