"Disgusting. This is the foulest under-hive I have ever set foot in," Kaidel muttered, sloshing through a thick sludge of unidentifiable origin. "Do the citizens of this Emperor-forsaken hive city never recycle their waste?"
Beside him, Ator remained silent, his steady, heavy march carving a straight line through the darkness. They were acting on direct orders from Alexei to scout the lower-hive and under-hive sectors of this towering metropolis.
When they first entered the lower hive, things had seemed ordinary enough—at least by hive standards. The dark, cramped corridors were populated solely by gaunt hive laborers and mindless tech-thralls, all wearing hollow, deathly stares.
But that changed when they intercepted a whispered conversation. A small gathering of dregs spoke of an organization known as "The Emperor's Benevolent Mutual Aid Association," claiming that anyone could receive weekly rations and basic living supplies from them—entirely free of charge, with no strings attached. To the desperate, starving wretches of the lower hive, such an offer was an irresistible lifeline.
The two immediately set out to investigate this mysterious group. Along the way, however, they noticed a disturbing trend among the residents: almost every single one of them was constantly, unconsciously scratching at their own skin.
It wouldn't have been unusual if it were just one or two people, but practically everyone they saw was clawing at themselves. Some scratched so fiercely that dark, sluggish blood seeped through their threadbare garments. With his vast experience across a dozen warzones, Ator immediately recognized the signs. This was the unmistakable precursor to a catastrophic plague outbreak.
Recognizing the threat, Kaidel immediately transmitted a report back to Alexei, and the order was given to find the source. Simultaneously, forces from Ai'er initiated an emergency deployment to distribute preventative inoculations throughout the lower hive.
Yet, the lower hive was a sprawling leviathan of humanity. Combined with the sheer, titanic scale of Hive Leiopace, the local population was astronomical. Even with hundreds of thousands of Ai'er Imperial Guards working around the clock, distributing the vaccines would take months. Prevention alone would not save them; finding and burning out the source of the rot was their only viable path forward.
Their only lead was the Emperor's Benevolent Mutual Aid Association. Digging deeper, they traced its origins back to the lawless depths of the under-hive. It had started as a fringe group of vagrants, but before long, their influence had swelled, performing charitable works in the Emperor's name.
At first, the spired noble houses of the upper hive had dispatched agents to investigate. But when they saw the group posed no threat to their wealth, successfully pacified the unruly dregs, and had even quietly neutralized a Genestealer cult infection on their own, the nobles simply turned a blind eye. As long as their profits flowed uninterrupted, they were content to let the under-hive fester.
But as the heavy freight elevator rattled down into the dark abyss of the under-hive, Kaidel and Ator finally realized the true horror of what was unfolding. A sickening, sweet stench hit them.
The under-hive was always a miserable pit, but this odor was utterly unnatural. It was as if the sector's entire life-support and ventilation grid had died, the corpse-starch reclamation plants had shut down, and millions of bodies had been left to rot and ferment in the damp heat for a century. The putrid air penetrated even their sealed filtration masks, clawing at the back of their throats.
"How can any living thing survive in a place like this?" Kaidel muttered.
The under-hive was quick to answer.
Through the dim light, several human shapes came into view, wallowing in the stinking mire. As the two stepped closer, they found hunched, hollow-eyed wretches, giggling mindlessly to themselves.
They could barely be called human anymore. Their filthy rags had fused to their skin, and their exposed flesh was bloated with massive, translucent white pustules. Beneath the thin skin of the boils, something wet and dark was visibly wriggling, threatening to burst at any second.
"Hehehe... join us... come, join the family... hehehe..." Noticing their arrival, the bloated wretches turned toward them with vacant, idiotic smiles.
Ator didn't hesitate. He raised his bolt pistol and methodically put a round through each of their skulls. The hollow thuds of the bolter were followed by the wet splatter of stagnant green fluid. Kaidel didn't try to stop him; if Ator hadn't pulled the trigger, he would have used his psychic power to crush their heads anyway.
"The rot has already set in," Ator rumbled, his voice distorted by his helmet's vox-grille. "The plague has already taken the under-hive."
"Agreed. I'll alert Lord Alexei to quarantine these sectors immediately." Yet Kaidel knew that even with the Ai'er Imperial Guard's numbers, sealing every rusted pipe, maintenance shaft, and forgotten corridor in this endless labyrinth was a mathematical impossibility.
As Kaidel connected to the psychic network to relay the warning, the sound of tearing flesh echoed through the alley. The pustules on the fresh corpses swelled and burst. Thick, milky-white pus spilled into the mud, and from the wet heaps crawled bloated, green-headed blowflies, their wings buzzing in a sickening, resonant drone.
The swarm instantly descended upon them.
"Disgusting pests!" Kaidel hissed, swatting a fat blowfly off his arm. It burst with a wet pop, leaving a greasy smear of putrid white fluid across his Ghost stealth suit.
Ator ignored the insects landing on his dark armor. To the reinforced ceramite of his Mark IV power suit, the pests were utterly harmless. He took another heavy step forward, deeper into the pitch-black alley. Beside him, Kaidel unleashed a subtle pulse of telekinetic force, crushing the surrounding flies into a fine mist before catching up to the Fallen Angel.
As they pushed deeper into the subterranean gloom, the number of infected grew. Eventually, they reached a high ridge and looked down. Below lay a massive, lake-sized basin of pure filth, radiating a stifling heat and a stench so thick it was almost visible. Thousands of infected crawled and wallowed in the sludge, their unified, mindless laughter echoing off the iron rafters like a chorus of the damned.
"I'm sorely tempted to call down an orbital strike on this entire sector," Kaidel muttered, his grip tightening on his weapon. This place was beyond saving; only holy promethium and atomic fire could cleanse this level of corruption.
Ator said nothing, his red helmet lenses fixed on a massive industrial complex looming in the distance. Its rusted smokestacks were still wheezing. It had once been a major corpse-reprocessing plant, but there was no telling what horrors it brewed now.
The two exchanged a silent nod. Kaidel's silhouette rippled and dissolved into the shadows as he cloaked, while Ator unsheathed the heavy power sword from his back, preparing to draw any attention away from the Ghost.
They moved like ghosts, slipping past the bloated Nurgle cultists. When conflict was unavoidable, Ator's power blade silenced the dregs before they could utter a sound. But as they finally slipped inside the rusted refinery, even Kaidel's battle-hardened soul turned cold. He finally understood the secret behind the "free charity rations" the association was handing out.
"Frone... this is foul," Kaidel's voice cracked over their private comms. "They aren't processing food. They're harvesting those damned green-headed blowflies!"