The war to purge Trier had ground on for over two years. The Operation Vermin Blight task force had turned the planet upside down, yet the infestation refused to yield.
In their increasingly frantic efforts, they had dismantled the industrial world piece by piece. There was hardly a wall left un-blasted or a factory conduit left intact. In private, the fellow agents of the Holy Ordos mocked Grand Inquisitor Glapas Veriel, dubbing him "The Lord Regent's Rat-Catcher."
The humiliation pushed Veriel's psyche to the breaking point. The mere sight of a common rodent's droppings would send him into a homicidal frenzy, screaming as he emptied his bolter into the shadows before meting out draconian punishments to any subordinates nearby.
A year after his initial request, the Adeptus Mechanicus finally delivered a contingent of chemical-warfare Skitarii. Veriel knew that were it not for the Lord Regent's personal seal, he would have waited half a century for such reinforcements; the Tech-Priesthood were never the eager servants of Terran bureaucracy.
"Wait! My Lord, wait!" the Planetary Governor and his nobles cried, breaking into a cold sweat at the sight of the Mechanicus cohorts. "Trier still holds tens of billions of the God-Emperor's loyal subjects! You cannot unleash such agents—how is this different from an Exterminatus?"
They knew from bitter history that once the Mechanicus unleashed their bio-alchemical horrors, no living soul remained on the battlefield. And Veriel did not look like a man interested in localized deployment.
"I shall distribute rebreathers to all," Veriel replied, his voice a cold, jagged edge of fanaticism. "The rest are in the God-Emperor's keeping. To purge these vermin is the command of Lord Regent Guilliman himself. We shall execute it to the letter. No sacrifice is too great for the Imperium to endure!"
Everyone knew he was drowning in madness. In two years, his "unstoppable" army had failed to reclaim even a single hive-sector. Instead, attrition and supply raids by the skulk-vermin had bled them white. The constant demands for reinforcements had strained the neighboring sub-sectors, leading to a flurry of censures and petitions for his removal.
"Magos Patrick, proceed. For the Emperor!"
The Tech-Priest, a nightmare of brass and clicking optics, cared nothing for the planet's survival. In fact, he was quite pleased; the mission provided an optimal environment to field-test his latest synthetic viral-gas.
Vast crates of cheap, low-grade rebreathers were dumped into the hive-spires for the billions of citizens. However, under the Imperium's infamously derelict administration, it was anyone's guess how many masks actually reached the hands of the needy.
From the spire-tops downward, the bloodless Skitarii moved. With mechanical indifference, they bore massive chemical vats upon their backs, wielding spray-nozzles connected by thick, ribbed hoses. They began their horrific "sanitization."
Bilious clouds of pale-green gas surged forth like a rolling thunderhead, filling every ventilation shaft and sub-conduit.
For the wretched masses, the only barrier between life and a dissolving agonizing death was a flimsy mask. Even so, the corridors were soon choked with the corpses of those who had worn them incorrectly or suffered equipment failure. The human dead soon rivaled the number of rats being flushed from the walls.
"Ugh... aaaaagh!! NO!!"
The hive echoed with the screams of the "necessary sacrifices." Hearing them, Grand Inquisitor Veriel broke into a fit of hysterical, high-pitched laughter.
Clad in a master-crafted, fully sealed environmental suit, Veriel led his retinue of Battle Sisters and stormtroopers through the fog. He was eager, desperate, to see the xenos rot.
Through the thick mist, several twisted figures lunged. A Battle Sister cut them down with disciplined bolter fire. When they inspected the bodies, they found only humans in finery, their cheap rebreathers cracked at the seals.
"May your soul find the Golden Throne. The Emperor remembers your sacrifice," Veriel muttered dismissively, stepping over the twitching body without a second glance.
As they descended level by level into the lightless corners, he finally saw what he craved.
The carcasses of oversized rats lay scattered in heaps. Deep within a sewer junction the size of a mag-lev station, the bodies of Skaven lay slumped, black blood oozing from their snouts.
"Hahaha! Foul xenos! You cannot best the Imperium!" the Inquisitor shrieked, hacking at a Skaven corpse with his power sword. "I shall scour you from existence!"
The deeper they went, the more the bodies, human and xenos alike, piled up. To Veriel, this was a victory. It proved that the iron will of the Imperium could overcome xenos cunning through sheer, brutal attrition.
Suddenly, Veriel's boot came down on something metallic with a sickening crunch.
"A Skitarius?" The Inquisitor looked down. Beneath his feet lay a red-robed warrior of the Mechanicus, his chemical tank leaking a thick, obscuring fog.
"How? A Skitarius... killed by the gas?" he hissed in disbelief.
"No, my Lord. They were murdered. These are slug-rounds, to the cranium and the gas-tank," a Sister Superior said, kneeling to inspect the puncture wounds.
"Rebellious dregs? They court death," Veriel spat, though he instinctively retreated behind the power-armored aegis of the Sisters.
By the time they reached the Underhive, the floor was a carpet of Skaven and human dead. Curiously, the Skitarii corpses were becoming more frequent, and many had been stripped of parts and weaponry.
Had the starving rebels found the time to loot the Machine God's chosen amidst a gas-choked apocalypse?
Scuttle-scuttle... scuttle-scuttle...
A rhythmic, scratching sound erupted from the shadows. Veriel's brow furrowed. "Grand Inquisitor Veriel is here! Are you rebels or Skitarii? Stand and identify yourselves or face immediate execution!"
As the toxic clouds swirled, visibility dropped to zero. The Sisters and Scions opened fire blindly. The scratching did not stop; it intensified, closing in from every direction.
Suddenly, a "man" crouched low to the ground darted past. He was draped in a makeshift suit of green plastic sheeting, wearing a bizarre, kit-bashed breathing apparatus fashioned from a stolen Imperial rebreather and industrial hoses.
Behind the figure trailed a long, hairless rat-tail.
Green tracer fire erupted from the gloom. The Sisters and Scions were thrown into chaos as their plate was shredded by hyper-velocity warp-projectiles. They were being picked off like grox in a slaughterhouse.
Whether by the Emperor's grace or a cruel jest of the xenos, the rat-thing that had scurried past turned back. It rubbed its claws together, its face, hidden behind a pig-snouted mask, twisting into a sneer. The voice that emerged was a high-pitched, mocking rasp.
"Man-thing... man-thing... go back-away, yes-yes! Our wicked Lord says... let you live-survive! Yes... thank-thank you for clearing out the weak-kin and the man-meat! We give you a small... gift!"
With a chittering laugh, the Skaven shoved the desiccated, toxic carcass of a dead rat into the Inquisitor's robes. Before Veriel could react, a swarm of Skaven in makeshift hazmat gear swamped his retinue, looting their gear and tossing the Inquisitor into a trash-chute.
He tumbled through the darkness, landing in a pile of filth in a sector where the Skitarii were still advancing.
[Beep—Unidentified biological detected... scanning... Identity: Inquisitor Glapas Veriel. Salutations.]
The Skitarius droned in a flat, electronic monotone, offering a stiff salute to the man who was now shivering, covered in filth, and teetering on the edge of total insanity.
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