Imperium Nihilus: Vigilus Defiant (2018), p34 — Dontoria Firewall

When it became known that two entire subsprawls and a city-sized spaceport had been lost to the Gellerpox Infected, the Space Marines quickly established a quarantine zone and a military cordon.

The Aquilarian Council had been slow to respond to du Languille's missive; to them Dontoria was of secondary importance. The Vigilus Senate instead summoned the Rogue Trader to hear what she had to say. Within scant minutes of her testimony, the lords of the senate arrived at a consensus. Chapter Master Raquilon Zandtus would lead his Primaris Chapter, the Necropolis Hawks, against the Gellerpox Infected, for his companies were expert in the arts of city-fighting. Meanwhile, the Crimson Fists of Brother-Captain Jhermandes would work with the calculating minds of the Iron Hands to effect the most rigorous cordon imaginable to contain the spread of the plague.

What the Necropolis Hawks found in the decommissioned Litmus Dock was horrific. Peg-legged mutants with skulls distended and melded with steel lurched from alleyways and choke points, vermin leapt from windows to stab at armour joints with proboscis and forelimb, and lumbering flesh-hulks belched flame from their mouths. At close confines, the powerful claws and improvised weapons of these monsters made them lethal opponents, and many a Necropolis Hawk was lain low in ambush. But the warriors of that Chapter were used to employing their guns to full effect even when their targets were but a hand's breadth away. Their Intercessors blasted their foes back in overlapping fields of bolt fire, whilst Hellblasters incinerated the larger mutants. With fury, discipline and self-sacrifice, they corralled the milling Gellerpox mutants, hunting down their leaders as the Crimson Fists drew the cordon tight.

By mustering the Land Raider Redeemers of the Crimson Fists with the Hellhounds of the Vigilant Guard, and setting fire to selected sections of the hivesprawl's promethium pipelines, a literal firewall was established around the infected zone. Calgar and his Senate could see no other choice. Though it meant consigning hundreds of thousands of healthy civilians to a hideous death, the quarantine was established and the area brought largely under control. Yet that too was not to last. For the scions of Nurgle are tenacious foes...