StarCraft: Tyranid Empire.

Chapter 597 Rally Point

Yumoyan territory.

Phaethon, Akilon Wastes.

The setting sun on the Great Plains of Akiron is about to sink completely, and the crimson glow is fading away a little bit. The horizon filled with large expanses of red flying sand and the countless canyons shrouded in charming purple-gray light are being replaced by a frightening replaced by darkness.

Before long, the dark night sky will rise above the horizon, and the benevolent moon of Phaethon will once again rule the sky and the earth.

Even at sunset, the Akiron Wilderness is still flying sand and rocks, and it is unbearably hot, and the continuous sand dunes seem to have no end.

A convoy of a dozen or so Montana F200 vans, Richard Bildt trailers and Mohegan ATVs is approaching from a starless horizon, illuminated by moonlight against a dark night Dragging a long shadow.

The convoy belonged to the Melville family of Akiron, a leafy family that dates back to the Umoyan explorers a century ago, when their ancestors were already struggling to survive in this barren desert filled with red sand. .

The Umoyans have been looking for a new home with a pleasant climate in the universe, but their luck is not very good.

For a long time, the Melville family has lived a nomadic life of migration, constantly pursuing Akiron's oases, crystal veins and high-energy gas springs.

Like the other inhabitants of Phaethon, the Melville family can no longer remember how their ancestors discovered this barren desert world two or three generations ago.Only one thing has never been changed or forgotten, and that is the harsh natural law of Phaeton, and human beings are just fish in the sand sea.

As the night deepened, the Melville family's convoy was still driving alone in the low night. During the period, they only replenished water and fuel at several marked water sources and automatic gas refining stations before continuing on their way without stopping.They did not dare to stop and set up camp, as if a flood of beasts were chasing after them.

There are many poisonous insects and beasts living in the wilderness of Akiron, and some even humans have to be careful, but it will never make this family so flustered.It wasn't long ago that Phaeton wasn't as dangerous as it is now, but that was before the arrival of the swarm.

At the front of the Melville family's convoy is a modified Montana F200 truck loaded with family property, and the entire vehicle is older than the family's newborn.

The huge headlights of the Montana F200 projected a bright light, guiding the direction of the convoy.Paul, the patriarch of the Melville family, was sitting in the passenger seat of the Montana van. He was a dark-skinned elder, his entire face was wrapped in a hood and tulle, only a pair of blue eyes stared at him. Watching the movement outside the window.

This wilderness is nothing but sand, the ground has almost no undulations, even small pieces of rock are rare, and only the undulating gullies of sand dunes can be seen from a distance.

"The Griffith family has not contacted us for eighteen hours, and all calls have been ignored." The driver was Paul's nephew, a muscular young man.

Akiron's gust of wind was bringing gravel and smashing it against the van's sight glass, crackling.A terrible dust storm has formed in the south, and the dust has obscured the brightness of the stars.

The truck's on-board navigation system is still working, but the [-]D holographic map on it has not been updated for a long time. Only a few drones following the convoy are still sending back images of the surroundings in real time.

Phaethon also had cities, indeed, towns that were once beautiful and rich, built among large oases.There also used to be a busy star port, where huge container ships traveled between the Phaethon and other human world trade routes, and the Melville family used to travel between the city and the wilderness.

Today, all that remains of those cities is the smoky ruins, thick creep, and hideous zerg overgrowth.

The Melville family is not a degraded barbarian tribe, they still have quite advanced technology to a certain extent.The children of the family also receive a legacy education, reading digital books stored on magnetic tape.The Phaetons are from Umoyan, and they believe that knowledge brings wisdom.

Hundreds of automatic water pumping stations and automatic gas extraction facilities in Akiron were once the property of this family, but most of them are now dry.

"Just like all the families that disappeared, I think the god of death has found them." Paul turned his head sadly and looked at the vehicles following far behind: "If he harvests lives so fast, he will soon be will find us."

"But where the hell are we going?" His nephew knew the question would not be answered, and the zerg might not be in the Akiron Wastes yet, but they might already be everywhere.

In this era, the speed of war is far beyond the imagination of the predecessors.The people of Phaethon knew little about Zerg, and their militia was not afraid of pirates, but collapsed in the blink of an eye in front of the Zerg.

"The city of Pegasus has also fallen, and we have already been to the last city." Paul no longer had any hope.

No one would answer the cries for help from a world infested with worms, and the Phaetons were far beyond the reach of Umoyan's fleet.The only hope left for the Phaethon and Melville families is the Tyrannian Empire fleet, but everyone knows that even the mighty Empire cannot protect itself now.

Many planets of the Tyranids themselves are in deep war, so how can they manage Phaethon.No more ships will go to Phaethon, and no more ships will leave.

It was a hopeless escape, and the zerg were ferocious, merciless, and terribly patient.They will eventually find them and tear them all to shreds.

Paul still remembered that the day when the zerg came was no different from usual, the children were still overhauling the damaged automatic extraction facility, to prevent malicious families from stealing resources from their property.

Suddenly, everything changed, from the arrival of the swarm.

The best-case scenario would be for them to flee indefinitely, so that the zerg would never catch up, but that was impossible.

"The gas extraction station No. M169 is in front." The nephew looked at the fuel meter again, and the figures on it were not optimistic.It is very dangerous for vehicles to break down in the desert, so their route cannot be too far from the gas extraction facilities on the map.

Generally, there will be several gas tank trucks full of fuel in the convoy, but it is necessary to prepare early for emergencies, such as now.Also, their food reserves are running low, so they have to stay close to towns that may have been overrun by the zerg.

Usually, if these extraction facilities were not owned by the Melville family, they paid a sum of money when they demanded oil from other families who guarded the facilities.But now it seems that M169 may have been abandoned long ago, because the family that built it has not responded for a long time.

"Don't slow down." Paul used the communication device to say to the following vehicles: "If there is any situation, just rush over."

At this time, the outline of the gas extraction station became more and more clear, and Paul's heart became more and more uneasy. In a trance, he seemed to see many scarlet eyes in the surrounding darkness.

"Grandpa!" Suddenly, a small head with red hair poked out from the window between the truck body and the cab.

"What!" Paul was taken aback and looked at his grandson.

The child possessed some kind of psychic talent, and Umoyan's shadow guards visited many times to take him away, but his mother refused.

The Melville family was not superstitious. They believed that this innate talent had nothing to do with luck or misfortune. It was neither a god nor a devil.

Unbeknownst to them, telepaths have an uncanny attraction to the zerg.

"It's the Zerg, I can hear them digging holes in the ground." The red-haired little boy said.

His sense of hearing is not much sharper than that of ordinary people. Rather than hearing the sound of the Zerg digging underground, it is better to say that he feels the spiritual connection between the Zerg.

"You just had a nightmare." Paul's first reaction was that his grandson made a mistake. In his opinion, telepaths have no extraordinary abilities other than being able to read other people's voices.

"Maybe?" The kid wasn't sure himself.

"But he's not sleeping at all, Dad." Paul's daughter's nervous face appeared on the sidelines.

"Galaxy!" When Paul turned his head sharply, he was sure that he saw two springtails blocking in front of the car, and more scarlet eyes appeared around the building of the gas extraction station.

The springtail is just a large dog in terms of size, more like a pack of wolves in terms of habits and attack methods, but its body is as nimble as Akiron's small desert gerbil.

Even though the truck was driving towards them, the two springtails showed no fear, instead they bulged their developed quadriceps and vibrated their backs, and the pair of long wings made a threatening rustling sound.That's a variant of the springtail, the springer, an extremely aggressive specialized variant that first appeared in the gene sequence of the gam swarm.

Different large swarms have their own strains. For example, the purple carapace Yemengarde swarm hatchery will hatch large-scale zerg variants named fission insects by Imperial xenomorph physiologists.

"Don't stop, just run through!" Paul shouted.

With the weight and speed of a Montana van it's possible to run over a zergling, but these little bastards are so quick and responsive that hitting them isn't an easy feat, but just scare the monsters off up.

But before the truck hit it, with a bang, the two springtails jumped onto the window with incredible jumping ability.One of the springtails used the sickle-like appendage on its back to cut through the window glass and pierced Paul's nephew's chest. Blood immediately splashed all over the cab, as easily as if a sharp knife had cut a piece of paper. .

"Oh! No no no!"

With the clang of the roof and the sound of sharp blades cutting steel, more zerglings jumped up.The truck quickly lost control, and the engine screamed and crashed into the steel wall of the nearby gas extraction station, and the driver's seat was immediately filled with inflated airbags.

After what seemed like a long time, Paul suddenly woke up from the pain. He felt the whole world burning, surrounded by terrifying roars and screams of automatic weapons.

Paul found himself lying next to his daughter, the men of the Melville family holding weapons and leaning on the vehicles in a circle, and the air was full of the smell of blood and burning protein.

His daughter also appeared to be dead.

The deserts of Phaethon tempered the will of the people, making them fearless of savage beasts.The men in the white robes of the Melville family had many handy weapons in their hands, including some electromagnetic rifles that were widely circulated in the weapon market.

Even so, it was a massacre without any suspense.

The old man struggled to stand up, only to find that the back of his head had been cracked, and the horrible wound didn't hurt very much, but it was still bleeding.

He despaired to see the two twin brothers fighting side by side dragged out by the zerglings besieging them, torn into several pieces amidst piercing screams.Zerglings are one of the most numerous and smallest species of Zerg, but even so they can easily tear apart an army, not to mention ordinary people who are simply armed.

More Zerglings joined the fray, along with the gigantic Hydralisks, monsters the size of pickup trucks that wreak havoc at every turn.A 16-year-old Melville teenager armed with an AGR rifle was propelled dozens of yards by a fatal barrage of spine needles and pinned to the wall behind.

Not far from him lay his father and brother.There were rivers of blood, and there were bloody stumps everywhere.

A younger child was so frightened that he knelt down to the zerg for mercy, and he was quickly overwhelmed by the swarm like a flimsy rag.

The berserk Zerg scrambled bloodthirstyly for the human body, some were bitten to death while others were quartered by five horses.

Paul saw his grandson standing not far away, trying to shout but could not say anything.

That child seems to be looking up into the sky. What is he looking at?
A bright flash answered his call, like lightning before thunder.Even the roaring Zerg raised its head and retreated involuntarily.

Like the giant eagle in the deserts of Akiron, Phaethon is the incarnation of the god of the sky.A number of Viking fighter planes leaped across the sky in the night, and the steely wings were wrapped in the dusty wind under the stars.

The golden flame held up the giant eagle in the sky, as if it were its sharp feathers.

There are thousands of golden eagles in the sky.

A huge Viking rushed to the ground, the speed and angle of the dive would be fatal to any human fighter, only a raptor could do it.It landed on the ground in a frenzy of shockwaves and flames, scattering a hail of bullets that smashed swarms of springtails to a pulp.

"The Archangel is here, all Imperial forces, advance!"

　Phaethon is the planet where Naktur, the worm mother, is located in the third level of the Heart of the Swarm.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)