Hive 37
305.415.M41
It was the early morning after Hallowcan. The battle for the terminal raged on. The Ironsights were using the last of their ammo, still achieving headshots as if it were a simple task. Rikk plodded around in the sentinel, kicking and stepping on as many of the creatures as he could. His multi-melta had long since run out of ammunition.
Timmett's left arm still throbbed where the bone was broken. There was nothing he could do for it beyond the hasty splint that he had made after sending his message via meme-wave to Lord Tothor. With the dwindling supply the Inquisitor knew that he would not survive to see a reply. This early in the morning, he wished he had called for Exterminatus.
The constant wails of their attackers had become meaningless white noise now. Timmett almost didn't notice when it died away.
He was sitting on a bench in the terminal looking away from the primary entry point the zombies were using to enter the terminal. When he looked around he saw the scattered black and brown mush of hundreds of zombie corpses lying across the tiled floor. Rikk was plodding back up towards the Ironsights' front line.
Was it possible? Had Hive 37 actually run out of zombies?
The inquisitor stood and turned to face the entry way fully. Some of the Ironsights were cheering in front of him. His stomach turned uneasily and he caught a different stench in the air than the ruined mush-pile of slain zombies. He smelled sickness and decay, the stench of ammonia and the coppery taste of blood. The cheering Ironsights smelled it too, and stopped cheering. One of them wretched.
Timmett knew this smell. He had encountered it before on Lemdis. It was the precursor to the Archenemy in its horrid and abused host. Karkiss had come to kill Inquisitor Timmett.
When the floating corpse-like daemon-host entered the terminal the Ironsights fled in fear. Rikk seemed frozen in the sentinel. Karkiss's head lolled lazily in Rikk's direction, and the machine began to rust and wither visibly. Inside the machine, Rikk wasted away to bones.
Timmett stepped forward, staring past the terrified faces of the young PDF soldiers that ran past him on either side. He only had eyes for Karkiss.
"So this is it," Timmett said, holding his arms open wide. His left arm pained him but he kept it held out. "This is the end-game?"
Karkiss closed the distance between itself and the inquisitor. He got close enough that he could put his rotten skull in Timmett's face.
"You've killed everyone," Timmett said. "You're going to kill me. Fine. But this is not the end, Karkiss. There are others like me."
"And when the Adeptus Astartes arrive, I shall kill them, too," Karkiss finally said. His words burned in Timmett's ears, as though Karkiss was reaching into them and scratching his ear canals with tiny claws. Timmett strengthened his resolve and stared the daemon-host in its empty eye-sockets.
"The Emperor pro-" Timmett never finished. His body withered just as Rikk's had done, the skin flaking off and exposing his drying intestines. His eyeballs cataracted and shriveled in their eye sockets, his tongue sliding back down his throat and into his desolate windpipe. The crumbling form of Alfaron Timmett fell to its knees before slumping sideways and smashing to dust on the floor.
"Worthless," Karkiss said. It turned around.
In the doorway to the terminal stood the small frame of Edoir, his eyelids freshly clipped off and a smile permanently on his face thanks to metal pins that were jabbed into his cheekbones.
"I agree," the savant said. "He didn't even fight back."