The hive mind could not understand. In its history of devouring and evolving across hundreds of millions of years, it had never encountered such a "thrifty" race. To it, war was purely a conversion of energy and matter. Victory meant turning all the enemy's biomass into part of itself.
Yet these noisy green creatures were wasting precious fighting time picking up "rubbish"?!
Even as the hive mind tried to understand the strategic significance of this "atavistic" behavior, its counterattack came.
It could not tolerate such "desecration" of its biomass!
Amid piercing shrieks, countless smaller, faster "raider" units-such as the equally swift-footed Termagants and the airborne Gargoyles-poured out from behind the Tyranid lines in an overwhelming tide!
Their objective was not to assault the Orks' defenses.
It was to snatch the corpses!
And so, across the battlefields of Orkutar, the most ridiculous and absurd spectacle in the history of galactic warfare unfolded.
A squad of Gretchin had just dragged an enormous Titan Bone Whip halfway back, straining with every ounce of strength they had. Before they could catch their breath, a great flock of Gargoyles swooped down from the sky. The little winged devils dug their sharp claws into the other end of the bone whip and tried to drag it back toward the Tyranid lines.
A novel and fiercely contested "tug-of-war" over a single bone whip erupted in the no-man's-land between the two armies.
"It's ours! We saw it first!" the Gretchin shrieked, their faces flushed with desperation.
"Hissss!" the Gargoyles answered with threatening shrieks.
Neither side would let go.
Elsewhere, a squad of Termagants was trying to drag the wreckage of a "big tin can" back to the swarm. Before long, however, a Gretchin salvage crew led by an Ork Warboss arrived at the news and surrounded them.
**"Drop