Ezekiel Valkus stood, plasma cannon at the ready. Even in the hands of a space marine, it was comically large, but then, anti-artillery weaponry tended to be. Ezekiel was not, of course, the weapon's true wielder, but he assumed Sergeant Thorius wouldn't mind, as he was now with the Emperor, Ezekiel, the youngest member of the squadron, the only survivor. Surrounded by a veritable mountain of corpses, of both daemons and his former battle-brothers, Ezekiel cursed that he and his brothers had used all of the ammunition *except* that for the plasma cannon. Even the chainswords were now too full of daemon gore to function properly. Even the lighting fixtures were blinking above him, barely functional, thanks to daemon gore.
His work was not done, not that an Ultramarine's ever was. There were still daemons on the battle-barge, even if he couldn't see any (discounting the mountain of corpses) and for all he knew, he was the only marine still alive. Certainly the servitors and human servants were all dead by now. He'd fought tyranids and orkz before, but never daemons, and even with literally years of stories by veterans and training to fight them, he was unprepared for the experience. At only twenty-nine, he was incredibly young by space marine standards, his boyish good looks still overpowering the rugged countenance all space marines eventually take, and he'd spurned Brother-Captain Jaltorum's warnings of daemons, thinking himself too powerful and pure to fall to them, and now it was too late. There would be no more training for Battle-Brother Valkus; to call this "Hell" was no exaggeration, and he knew he wasn't leaving it.
He closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down. He could feel sweat drip down his brow. Was this proper composure for a son of the Emperor? Shame. Trying to think of happier times, he thought back to Ultramar, before the tyranids, of course.
The entire culture of the planet revolved around the Ultramarines, and nearly every boy (and not a few girls) dreamed of one day joining their ranks. Ezekiel's father was one of the exceptions. He'd tried to steer him toward work as a lawyer or a doctor, something proud but safe, but Ezekiel had felt the Emperor call on him from boyhood.
"Not this memory..." he whined to himself, and the sweat only increased.
"Father... I'm going to try out for the Ultramarines. I'm going to serve the Emperor."
"You can serve the Emperor as a doctor!"
"Or as a space marine!"
For a long while, there'd been silence. His father was the one to break it.
"You know how space marines meet their end, don't you?"
"Father-"
"Orkz! Eldar! Traitor Marines! You'll be killed by daemons!"
Ezekiel opened his eyes suddenly. He hated to admit it, but his father had been dead-on. If he'd lived, he'd have conceded the point to the now-old man.
"There are still daemons." he thought, forcing himself back to reality.
"This is Jaltorum!" Ezekiel jumped at his helmet's radio communicator coming to life. "Can anyone hear me? Is anyone still alive?"
"I am, sir! Battle-Brother Valkus!" Ezekiel smiled in his helmet, happy to hear human words.
Jaltorum didn't respond. "Damn, either my communicator or his receiver is busted." he muttered.
"If anyone can hear me but can't talk, the last of the daemons are in the aft mess hall! I repeat, aft mess hall! We need anyone still capable of breathing to head there and help us crush them."
Ezekiel lifted up his plasma cannon and smiled. "Last of the daemons, eh?" he thought. "Bring 'em."
Running through the halls at the highest speed a space marine could manage, Ezekiel bounded into the hallway leading to the mess hall, only to find... nothing. The door to the hall, but nothing else. No battle-brothers. No daemons. Not even blood. If he didn't know about the daemons, he'd have assumed no one just happened to be in the hallway but him. Cautiously approaching the door, he was about to lay a hand on the doorknob to open it when he realized taking a hand off his weapon would leave him unable to aim it for a second... a critical second a daemon of Nurgle could use to pounce on him. Instead, he stepped back and opened fire on the door, vaporizing it entirely. Charred black dust floated to the floor... the doorframe opened up to reveal roughly a dozen daemons. One of them snarled, a Plaguebearer. Ezekiel had personally killed at least twenty of their kind this day.
"Papa Nurgle blessessssssssssssss yoooouuuuuuuu..." it hissed.
"To Hell with Papa Nurgle!" screamed Ezekiel in a war shout.
"That's the ideaaaaaaaaaaaaa.." it sneered.
"No talking with the mortals." The Plaguebearer's head exploded as its master crushed it with one huge fist. It was a Great Unclean One... Ezekiel had only heard of them. A fifteen-foot high bloated mass of cancer and tumors, it was practically disease incarnate. "Just kill it."
It heaved a titanic rusted blade at Ezekiel, who deftly dodged, and instead it cut into the wall effortlessly. John fired his cannon at it, but its bloated body reduced the impact, and it survived. Suddenly, a horrific crack was heard from behind, and the wall buckled into itself, the daemon's whiffed attack having destabilized it. The ceiling fell into the room, and Ezekiel had the short-lived pleasure of seeing the daemon crushed and exploded by a bulkhead from the floor above them before he himself was trapped under the same massive construction.
He spat up blood, and took tally of his body parts. It wasn't good: his left arm was crushed, not broken, *crushed.* He'd need an apothecary to regenerate a new bone, and that would take weeks. The rest of his body, save his head, was trapped under the bulkhead. He was immobile. Helpless. The only upside is that he'd proven sturdier than most of the daemons, who were now dead. Two survived, however, gnarling, clawing their way out of some rubble.
"No! By the Emperor, no!" shouted Ezekiel, blood somehow pooling in his helmet. He started choking - no, drowning. An undignified death for one of the Emperor's greatest warriors. "I must kill the daemons!" he gurgled, the sound drowned out by the blood.
His communicator clicked to life. "No, Ezekiel." His eyes went wide. Jaltorum's voice. "You are the daemons."
And then Ezekiel was a plague zombie.