1

It had been a long week, moving to a new deployment zone always took it out of
Barry.

Once the top brass had selected a new zone of the scrap planet to salvage,
deployment was rapid. A flurry of activity, transport ships dropping off equipment
and living pods, troops sweeping the area, setting up a perimeter and overwatch
towers.

It was impressive to behold how quickly an abandoned factory was turned into a
mobile command center. Bristling with soldiers and scraping robots.

Barry's job was less exciting, Once the security detail had secured the area it was
his job to sort out the toilets. All the equipment, weapons and food might be
brought in but Barry had to worry about what came out.

Fredrico his former boss always used to say “an army might march on his stomach but
it shits where it sits”

Truer words were never spoke

Despite the advancements in technology the process of removing human waste had not
changed in eons.

And barry knew by that evening the 3 portaloos attached to the living pods would be
brimming with filth.

For this much larger deployment they needed the actual plumbing of this factory
working otherwise after a few days things would get messy fast.

Barry didn't like messy.. even less so when he would be the one cleaning it up.

Diverting water was fairly painless task after overhearing a quick report from the
security detail they mentioned a water tower they had posted an overwatch sniper
to.

Half an hour later some tubes, pump and a generator and that was sorted.

The problem was the drainage, definitely a blockage down the pipes, not surprising
just one of Barry's lest favored jobs.. time to head to the sewers and follow the
pipes.

So grabbing his trusty shovels and with his 2 friends in tow he headed off down the
ladder into the sprawling sewer system.
2

Poxey parisitus or little pp as the other plague demons jokingly called him was a
rather ambitious little demon. He fancied himself a great commander, a master of
strategy, destroyer of worlds.

In reality little pp never amounted to much, while his brothers grew to titanic
size and waged war on humanity in their local sector little pp was stunted, “always
a little worm like a little peepee” his brothers would bellow in their large
guttural shouts. “Go play with the worms Peepee” they jeered.

One day little pp was tending to his latest brood of worms, they seemed more slimy
than the last batch, decades of selected breeding had resulted in many strange
mutations. These particular worms shimmered with energy..

Strange thought pp as he crushed one in his hand watching the flickering and
sparking goo flow through the gaps in his clenched claw.

The sparks intensified and pp recognised something rather spectacular. A small

flickering ather portal about the size of the worm was starting to form.

Even his biggest brother couldn't make portals yet.

He grabbed at the writhing mass of hatching worms and pulled forth a fistfull of
larger worms and unceremoniously threw them into his open mouth and chewed..

A pussing putrid off-yellow goo started to ooze from the corners of his mouth as he
chewed .. small sparks and flickers escaped from the corners of his mouth.

As one half of a worm writhed to escape his clenched jaws it suddenly started to
fly forward.

Little pp violently vomited the half chewed mess of blood, worms and slime into the
air. on contact with the air the mass started to glint and spark and shimmer.

The half eaten worms and vomit splashed onto the floor only to be dived on by a
near tidal wave of smaller worms that started feasting

Left hanging in the air was a portal.

3

The scanner seemed to indicate 2 possible blockage sites. Barry had dropped 3 of
the crawler bots into the toilets and one stopped working almost immediately,
probably a battery issue again.

The other two had stopped moving and seemed to be in a cleaning cycle. Either they
were using the onboard lasers to free debris blocking their legs or they were
clearing the blockage.

Either way they had to follow them and retrieve them. Barry was well aware how
valuable working technology was.

As barry was checking the readouts, stumpy hit him square in the thigh.

Stumpy was a halfling, meaner and tougher than most men twice his size. a crack
shot with a rifle. Probably would be a decorated combat veteran by now, but Due to
height restrictions he was never allowed to join the human defense force as a
frontline trooper. Barry hired him to his cleaning crew the moment after he first
saved his life.

Well maybe not the first moment, barry's first moments after that instance was
wiping the smear of rat blood that completely obscured his visor. But still stumpy
was a great worker hard as nails and most important barry could shove him down the
tunnels he didn't want to squeeze into.

Barry started to look down toward stumpy, raising his shovel and slowly rotating it
with the flat of the blade positioned above the halflings head for a retaliation
strike.

“movement” stumpy whispered to barry while delivering another lighter jab with the
butt of his rife.

Jenkins was slouched against a ladder trying to rest the bottom of his heavy flamer
tank on the rungs… it was so dam heavy making loud clacking noises in the now
suddenly deadly silence.

Barry and stumpy span round, and as they and Jenkins locked eyes something shrieked
further down the tunnels.

4
PP wasted no time; this was his chance, he madly dasherd around his brooding
station grabbing handfuls of different worms. Stuffing the wriggling mass into the
dried out husk of a cracked brood egg.

He cackled maniacally as he feverishly stuffed the bulging egg pod, and when it was
brimming with a putrid mess of festering parasites he took a flying leap and jumped
straight at the portal he had formed mear seconds ago …… poof the portal
disappeared.

Little PP had never experienced something clean and he experienced it rather fast
and hard, the fall from the portal he popped in from was at least 4 foot. His head
landed on the floor with a sickening thud.

As he took in his new surroundings he was absolutely sickened by the state of the
place. The floor was concreate polished to perfection, in the the far wall was a
gleaming metal door. In the corner was some kind of torture device that he had
read about… a bucket and worse still racks upon racks of bleach… ughh he had
learned of the horrors of this human invention.. A plague on his brethren this
cleaning product.

Despite the obvious disgust of the cleanliness, pp was happy he had arrived in some
kind of human dwelling. He could realy do what he always wanted and infect a new
planet. Billions would succumb to him his creations and his parasites.

Pp shuddered as snapped back from his half dazed thought from the fall. As the
stark reality of the clean floor was ever present,he promptly picked up one of the
worms that he had squashed on impact, smearing the lifeless body over the clean
floor, happy that now at least it wasn't completely sterile.

Upon opening the door he relaxed. Outside of that clean storage cupboard was a maze
of rusted walkways and tunnels.

Suddenly the smell of mould, hints of rotting flesh, Hit his nostrils and he
breathed deep. Now this was more like it. He could definitely get to like this
place.
5

Planet x42-607 was of little to no consequence for the human defense force. It had
been long abandoned by the force and what military it did have was eeking out an
existence surviving by stripping what it could to survive.

At this point the human defense force was the only real institution left on the
planet. A few scattered groups of humans lived outside of the military but less and
less each passing year. The recycling industry and civilian worker population had
long fled, starved or died. The planet used to be a hive of reclamation industries
receiving a constant supply of war wreckage from front lines lifetimes away. To be
decontaminated, reclaimed, stripped and processed.

Backlogs from over zealot bureaucrats and limited output of the reclamation
factories had resulted in massive backlogs of scrap. Before the great war
production had slowed to a crawl and over half the planet had become a dumping
ground. So it was deemed a write off and not worth saving during the great war.

Jenkins froze; he didn't know barry or stumpy very well, having only joined the
cleaning core 2 weeks ago. But in that instance it was like he knew exactly what
the brief stare meant.

And any doubt was erased by the shrill scream that echoed threw the tunnel

Apparently all new recruits went on flamer duty first, something about the heavy
tanks making you stronger.

But jenkins knew it was because flamers did the real work in the cleaning core.

“Bleach it burn it” ““Bleach it burn it”

“If i cant bleach it, burn it down”

“If i cant bleach it, burn it down”

The chant from marching was forever drilled into his head.

But it was true the easy jobs were always the cleaners, the older boys walking
about with the mop bucket far from the dangers. Bleachy rag in hand keeping the
place “clean”
The real work was with guys like barry getting their hands messy down in the filth
down where no amount of bleach is going to help.

For the things down here you need to just burn it down.

The large hive rat squirmed to escape from PP’s tight grasp as the worm slowly
forced its way into it’s ear canal.

Pp dropped the now convulsing rat to the ground as he continued to follow his nose
for the smell of that rotting flesh.

and seconds later a whole host of smaller worms exploded forth from that rat and
started to scatter crawl after pp.

Minutes later pp rounded a corner and saw to his delight found the source of the
rotting odor, a corpse of a much larger mutated rat. He bounded up gleefully
dipping his hands into the festering entrails and giving them a good wash. There
was no telling what kind of cleanliness he had contracted from that clean floor.

The worms that had been crawling after him promptly caught up the smaller ones
began feasting on the puddle of filth surrounding the rat while one of the larger
worms burrowed inside.

Pp thought to himself well so far on his world domination he had done quite well
the rodent had put up very little fight against him and his army of worms and
finding a larger dead one was a bonus.

Pp opened a large bulkhead door next to the dead rat. the rusy lock squeaking in
the silence, he noticed many scratches over the door the rat obviously thought it
must be interesting inside.

Inside was another storage cupboard. Pp instinctively raised his hand to his
eyes.. Everything was shiny and clean. He pointed his other hand toward the open
door and a sea of worms swarmed in.

After 10 or so seconds pp dared to turn around and saw a lovely sight of slimy
trails covering the contents of the room, His worms doing as commanded. After a
closer inspection the room seemed to be mostly metal tubes with pictures of
disgusting looking fresh and cooked food. But leaned against the door was something
he had read in depth about a weapon.. A rifle to be exact.

Also he noticed a backpack hanging from the inside of the door. After dumping out
the useless human items he placed the bag on the floor and it was quickly filled by
the fastest worms in the room the excess spilling out as he shouldered it onto his
back.

Pp very happy withhimself he had a worm army and a fabled weapon he had read the
humans used. He carried on walking down the tunnel rifle in hand worms spilling
from his open bag and a writhing sea of worms in the distance following slowly
behind devouring anything organic in their path.

Team 2 had been on radio blackout for about 3 hours now. Why they even bothered
with coms they had no idea. It was protocol sure, but in this junkyard hive after
walking for even a mile you had zero signal.

This had been many miles and was more like squelching than walking. Each step the
crunch and squish of worms.

Worms were not a new thing for team 2 its just part of the job.. But they were
starting to get alarmed by the sheer number of worms. In some respects worms could
be a good sign. They may be feasting on food reserves. And that could mean fresh
and safely sealed food reserves nearby. Even better it could mean all kinds of
reserves and the team that finds a cach well lets just say not everything gets
declared on return to base.

But in this instance none of these things mattered for team 2, while they were
still trying to find the source of the worms and thinking on the potential
contraband they may uncover. Several of the microscopic worms had already climbed
up their shoes, threw the fibrous material and burrowed into the skin, hitching
their way in the bloodstream straight towards the brain.

Within minutes of first contact to the worms the first team member was convulsing
on the ground and before the medic could even open his bag he watched in disbelief
as his companions dropped around him writhing on the flool the last thing he saw
was the ground rushing up as he to fell.

The convulsing stopped and for a time the only sound around team two was the worms
slowly feasting on the team. Until the doctors arm jerked and he rose worms still
eating the flesh dropping off back into the now sea of worms surrounding the dead
team.

Before long the whole team had risen and was shuffling in the direction that PP had
headed.

Barrys hair stood on end as the scream seemed to go right threw his bones, that
sounded like one big rat, he hoped it was one big rat.

He quickly clipped the scanner back to his belt and reached for his other shovel.
He hadn't even taken his issued rifle it was annoying and got in the way most of
the time. On the rare occasion a rat was too big to be dispatched with a shovel
then stumpy would take it down. And if we really needed help we had jenkins.

“Jenkins get over here” barked barry

Barry turned back around to the direction the scream had come from shovels in hand.
He looked down and nodded at stumpy. Stumpy racked his rifle and the two of them
advanced down the tunnel.

Jenkins re-shouldered the weight of his fuel tanks and hurried to catch the two men
up, thumbing the button to light the pilot light on his flamethrower.

10

As pp walked he rubbed his hand along the lovely black mold on the tunnel walls he
was in heaven.

The flys that now buzzed round him, occasionally landing on his head crawled up
into oozing pustules on his neck or into the folds of his stinky flesh. PP was
getting updates from the furthest reaches of his brood. several humans were now
under his control; many mutated rats and a whole host of other lifeforms were now
either parasitically controlled by his worms or being feasted on as new spawning
grounds.

He knew the now worm controlled humans were slowly catching up with him and he was
rather interested to see one. He had heard many stories about them from his
brother's great conquests. Apparently small and as numerous as ants. He looked
down; he preferred worms but ants could spread his plague just as well.

Within minutes he could here the shrieks and screams of the now plague infected
humans approaching from his rear.

And he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks up ahead; he also heard footsteps in the
distance and that was not part of his brood. And they sounded thunderous.

Pp started to feel the twinges of fear, they certainly sounded bigger than ants but
maybe its just the echo of the tunnel.
He waved his hand forward and a wave of worms surged forwards down the tunnel as pp
slowly advanced his prized weapon raised toward the sounds.

11

Stumpy saw it first as their section of the tunel gave way to a drop and section of
square walkways, dead opposite them emerging out of a tunnel opposite was a swarm
of worms, bigger than he had ever seen . most falling down to the unknown depths
below.

But more shockingly it looked like another halfling with a rifle was walking with
them.

The 3 men stopped at the entrance of their tunnel looking across the void towards
the shadowed figure. Worms slowly advancing round the walkways towards them.

As stumpy called out “shorty is that you” in a questing manor, knowing full well as
he asked it it couldn't be shorty was back at the base well he should be…

Crack the unmistakable sound of a standard issue rifle rang out the bullet
ricocheting off the roof several feet above the men.

Barry wasted no time and rolled behind the walkway barrier and headed left to flank
the shooter as stumpy instinctively returned fire while pressing in on the tunnel
wall to make an even smaller target.

Jenkins just froze; he was trained to burn rats not get shot at.

12

Pp noticed the tunnel was opening up ahead and as he looked out towards the rusted
walkways he noticed opposite him were 2 giants and maybe an ogryn.

Now all feelings of grandeur and importance instantly washed away. pp was back to
feeling like the little runt again his claws trembled on his gun he couldn't be
sent back yet his brothers would never forget. The rat he had clenched bit his hand
but he survived those two giants and that beast his size could probably bite off
his arm.

He remembered what he had read in the training manual he found in a plague victims
pocket. And slowly squeezed the trigger.

The pain oh the pain pp was thrown back onto the ground he was not expecting the
sheer amount of force the rifle delivered to his shoulder.
As he laid stunned on the ground several feet thundered over him. his humans ah his
parasitic humans.. And that was the instant when he also realized how small he
really was. Smaller than the human ants his big brothers told him of.

13

The second shot from stubby got jenkins moving again a jet of fire spewing out over
the open space doing very little appart from shedding light on the true horror of
the situation they were in.

The worms that had been falling for an unknown amount of time covered the walls
climbing up from the depths bellow. Springing from the open tunnel team 2 came
charging out, with black sunken eyes worms bulging and pulsating from open wounds
they slammed into the metal guard rail and poured towards the 3 men.

Jenkins swung the stream erraticlytowards the screaming parasitic men and the whole
side of the walkway was engulfed in flames.

Barry looked back at jenkins, briefly thinking he had picked a good recruit. He
had no idea what was going on, probably a plague contagion.

From time to time things turn up in the scrap from wars but normally it takes
weeks to develop into anything serious like plague zombies. Pleasantly of time to
treat the sick. That looked like team 2, but who was the halfling. why would
stumpy be with team 2 and why or how would a plague zombie be shooting at them.

His train of thought was cut short as he noticed the worm behind jenkins. Leaning
out of the shaddows It towered over him arching forward like it was going to strike