Deep within the shifting nebula, over a dozen corroded warships drifted in absolute silence.
The hulls of these vessels were coated in a layer of rust several centimeters thick. Sticky, yellow-green pus oozed continuously from the structural seams, and countless squirming maggots crawled through the jagged crevices of the armor plating. The bridge was completely devoid of ambient lighting, illuminated only by the flickering, sickly green glow of the control console screens. This dim light reflected off a line of Death Guard Chaos Space Marines clad in decaying power armor.
Their power armor had long since fused seamlessly with their bloated flesh. The respirator valves of their helmets continuously hissed, venting a pale mist saturated with lethal plague spores, while the weapons in their gauntlets were thoroughly coated in terminal viruses.
Corrosion Phelps stood at the center of the bridge. He was a Plague Engineer of the Pale Hand warband, and one of Nurgle's most devout champions. On his MKIII power armor, the right shoulder guard bore the faded, three-skull sigil of the Death Guard, while the left displayed the three-pronged arrow symbol of Nurgle. The lenses of his helmet were clouded over by a murky, organic film, obscuring his facial features. However, his tightly clenched fist and the swirling green toxic smog roiling around his frame clearly conveyed his suppressed fury.
His left hand gripped a rusted chainaxe, its teeth crusted with a dark, toxic blood that never dried. His right hand rested on the console's armrest; where his corroded metal fingertips met the alloy panel, a sharp, sizzling sound of chemical erosion filled the room.
Through the viewing window, he stared intently at the distant firefight raging between the Ork fleet and the plague-infested space hulks. The violent flashes of macro-cannon explosions and splattering chunks of alien flesh reflected in his murky lenses.
"A pack of wretched, green-skinned beasts," Phelps muttered. His voice was incredibly hoarse, scraping out like metal squeezed through a rusted iron pipe, laced with heavy mechanical static. His throat had long ago been rewritten by the Grandfather's gifts; every breath he took disbursed deadly viral spores into the air.
He had paid an unimaginable price for this specific operation. With Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade looming on the horizon, the Warmaster himself had personally requested the Pale Hand to act as a hidden contingency—ordering a surprise assault on the Knight World of House Krast to prevent them from deploying their Imperial Knights to reinforce Cadia. It was supposed to be a premier opportunity for the Pale Hand to prove its mettle, and a critical step for Phelps to ascend to the rank of Plague Lord.
Yet, on the eve of their deployment, he received a divine revelation directly from the Grandfather. On the planet Brevis within the Calixis Sector, a "Fragment of Life" lay hidden—a discarded shard of the Grandfather's cosmic authority, capable of reshaping the entire sector into an eternal, decaying paradise.
Without a shred of hesitation, Phelps had cast Abaddon's directives aside. Leading his personal fleet and thirty space hulks laden with viruses, he deserted the main body of the Chaos coalition. For this treason, he was not only blacklisted by Abaddon but also cut off from all logistics and reinforcements from the Chaos fleets. Had Nurgle not personally intervened with a divine blessing to shepherd his ships through the Warp, he would have been torn to shreds by the Warmaster's enforcers long ago.
Those thirty space hulks carried the terminal plagues he had spent a thousand years engineering, perfected through countless live vivisections. Each strain was potent enough to reduce a medium-sized civilized world to total silence within seventy-two hours.
Yet, during their transit through the Immaterium, a sudden, violent warp storm had swallowed twenty-seven of the hulks whole. Only these three remaining virus-bearing vessels had managed to limp their way to the outer fringes of the Calixis Sector.
According to his original plan, these three hulks were meant to strike the hive cities of Brevis at sub-light speeds, unleashing the entire viral payload in a single cataclysmic event. Within three days, tens of billions of humans would rot into shambles, converting the entire planet into the Grandfather's garden. Phelps would then claim the Fragment of Life and secure his place as one of Nurgle's most favored champions.
Who could have predicted that the moment the hulks emerged from the Warp, they would collide head-on with an Ork fleet retreating from Karl II? These muscle-brained xenos hadn't even bothered to issue a warning; their first reaction upon spotting the space hulks was to open fire, roaring at the top of their lungs as they launched a massive boarding action.
"Commander, should we intervene?" a Death Guard Marine stepped forward to ask. A gaping cavity split the chest of his power armor, within which a dense mass of pale maggots squirmed. "We can sweep these ridiculous xenos aside without wasting too much of our time."
"Intervene?" Phelps turned his head, his murky gaze locking onto the Marine. "Fight the Orks? Have you forgotten the Grandfather's teachings? Do not squander the Grandfather's gifts in meaningless combat."
He pointed a gauntleted hand toward the distant battlefield, his voice icy. "Look at those plague zombies. Do they look effective against the Orks?"
The Marine followed his gesture. Out in the void, the plague zombies pouring from the hulks were being utterly pulverized by the Orks. The Orks' genetic structure—engineered by the Old Ones—possessed a natural, deep-seated resistance to Nurgle's biological plagues. The virulent pus that could instantly liquify a human being caused nothing more than minor skin necrosis on an Ork. In fact, when certain Orks were infected, their robust immune systems triggered a hyper-frenzied response, causing them to double their aggression and combat effectiveness on the spot.
"Orks are fungal entities; their physiology is entirely distinct from carbon-based humans," Phelps explained. "Most of the Grandfather's plagues operate at less than ten percent efficiency against them. Furthermore, even if we destroy this fleet, there is no profit in it. We will only waste valuable time. If we delay, we won't just fail to seize the Fragment of Life; we won't even be able to breach Brevis's orbital defenses."
This was the crux of the issue. Unlike highly impressionable humans, corrupting Orks held fundamentally low value for the Chaos Gods. The Ruinous Powers drew their strength from the souls and complex emotions of mortals, whereas an Ork's slaughter was driven by pure, primal instinct. Combined with their wild souls and the shielding of the Waaagh! field, they were notoriously difficult to corrupt—making them an incredibly inefficient target.
"Then what is our next course of action, Commander?" another Death Guard Marine asked. "The space hulks are being destroyed, and our initial bombardment plan has gone up in smoke. Without those vanguard forces, breaching Brevis's orbital grid will cost us dearly."
"We adjust the plan," Phelps stated without hesitation. "Order the fleet to kill all engines and maintain absolute vox silence. We will bypass this battlefield entirely, navigate through the hidden channels on the western side of the nebula, and slip into Brevis's orbit undetected."
"But Commander, without the space hulks, how do we vector the plague?"
"Fool," Phelps sneered. "There are countless ways to distribute a plague; the space hulks were merely the loudest method. As long as we reach the proximity of Brevis, I have a myriad of options to plunge that entire world into rot. We can disguise our ships as Imperial merchants to dock at the orbital port, or seed our cultists into the hive spires to poison the water tables and food reserves. We could even directly detonate a warp-drive on one of our warships to blanket the atmosphere in the Grandfather's embrace."
A sinister chill crept into his tone. "As for our vanguard forces, Brevis possesses tens of billions of humans. Once the outbreak takes hold, they will all become the Grandfather's most loyal servants. For now, leave those green-skinned beasts to play their petty games."
Following Phelps's orders, the dozen corrupt warships pivoted smoothly, powering down all active scanners and thermal signatures. Like venomous insects lurking in the dark, they silently slithered into the shadows of the western nebula, charting a direct, stealthy course toward the planet Brevis.
Behind them, the Orks continued to scream and die, entirely unaware that the true, lethal threat had already slipped right past them, closing in on the defenseless population below.