Gunn's Guns heard tell
that the Veiled Cartel and their rogue noble benefactor, Lady Astrid
Glaw, had been scoped in the lower levels of Foulnest – this was
tattle that demanded an armed response. There was a lingering score
to settle, particularly with Glaw herself, but with Jonn Gunn
otherwise occupied, it fell to Noomena Greyz to lead Snags, Mumbles
and Lazko, as well as allied mercs Kayles Djyf and Bludgeoner Borb,
on a takedown op.
The Guns tracked the
Cartel down to a stretch of tunnels overgrown with aggressive
vegetation – the Delaques were on the hunt for tox-sap and other
derivatives which might make for good blade venom – and experience
warned that the badzone plant life was liable to be as much a threat
as the opposing gang. Scragging Glaw was the priority, and the plan
was to split in two and pincer the crew she was running with. The op
called for swift action – Glaw's entourage was small, but
reinforcements were doubtless nearby and would turn up quickly once
things got hot.
Noomena, Snags and Borb
started moving through the tunnels, straight towards Glaw's
last-scanned position. Snags was back in action after the
chrono-crystal incident, which had affected him worse than any of the
Guns except poor dead Ratbite. Considering how much he'd aged, Snags
was looking remarkably spry, scuttling ahead and brushing aside the
grasping tendrils of a stand of tangleweed that had shambled into his
path.
'Take it easy, geez,'
said Noomena, peering into the flickering gloom beyond. 'The Cartel
are wily fraggers.'
'Heh, don't I know it!'
said Snags, his face doubling its wrinkles as he grinned. 'I've
scrapped with these creeps enough times to know what to expect.' He
paused, unsure. 'Wait, have I already? Or is that's what we're here
for?'
Noomena shrugged and
moved past him. She could sympathise with his confusion, having
endured a less intense but still confusing blast of time-displacement
from the shattered crystal. 'I dunno, old man – but let's keep our
scopes on the prize.'
Borb the Bludgeoner,
scum for hire, shuffled along behind them, wondering what the frag
these people were blathering about.
A tunnel or two over,
Mumbles and Lazko were following Djyf into the gloom. They moved
carefully so as not to trigger a barb-flurry from the jagged row of
shardwrack spines that lurked in the corridor behind them.
Djyf suddenly stopped
with a sharp intake of breath. He stared ahead into the dim
lumenlight.
'What?' said Lazko.
'What is it, man?'
'Cicero...' hissed
Djyf.
'Hrrrgh?' said Mumbles.
'I didn't think I'd
cross paths with him again...' said the Delaque merc. Without
warning, he sprinted off into the chamber beyond.
'Hey, baldy! Wait!'
barked Lazko. 'Ah, skut, there goes the plan...'
And then the lights
went out.
'Hrrgh hrr-rr,' said
Mumbles.
'Plan beta is right,'
said Lazko, turning back. 'Just as well we figured these creeps would
pull something like this.'
Plan beta was for
Lazko's sub-crew to drop their pincer move and reinforce Noomena and
the rest on the main line of attack. There were bound to be more
Cartel members in the zone now; better to scrape some safety in
numbers than stay dispersed and get picked off piecemeal in the
darkness. Lazko and Mumbles turned back the way they'd come, leaving
Djyf to his fool vendetta – a showdown with the Cartel's resident
spyker which ended with the bounty hunter on the deck, twisted in
mind-wrought agony as Cicero floated over and slipped a dagger
between his ribs.
Meanwhile, Noomena,
Snags and Borb had muscled their way past the grappleweed to a heavy
blast door. The zone's ancient security array was just about still
running, and the venators clocked a staticky vid-display on the wall:
Glaw and two of the Cartel were just the other side of the blast
door, likewise advancing past grappleweed and shardwracks.
Noomena and Snags
hadn't worked together that many cycles, but, perhaps aided by the
skewing effects of the chrono crystal, they'd hit on a decent
understanding of each other's tactical thinking: both favoured the
high-risk move. Bludgeoner Borb had no such insight, which was why he
was taken aback when Snags readied his shotgun and Noomena abruptly
pressed the control switch for the blast door.
A lot happened in just
a few clicks. The crews were close enough that it barely mattered
that the lumens were out. As Noomena and Snags had expected,
bloodthirsty Astrid Glaw was unable to resist charging, her expansive
skirts billowing as she vaulted over a rough barricade and into
combat with Snags. Perhaps it was his time-warped battle-nous,
perhaps just sheer luck, but he weathered the rain of digiblasts with
ease. Noomena darted fluidly into the fray, discharging her plasma
pistol and lashing out with her stiletto blade. A sharp play which
could have worked, but the Guns hadn't reckoned on Glaw's displacer
field. As Noomena's blows landed, Glaw blinked out and reappeared a
few feet away – just behind Snags and Noomena, and just next to
Borb.
The scummer was utterly
surprised by the noble teleporting in half a metre away. Borb's whole
body twitched in alarm, his finger wrenching the trigger of his
sawn-off shotgun, which fired jerkily. And blasted Lady Astrid Glaw's
head clean off.
The disgraced uphiver
stood for a moment, her towering wig balanced precariously on what
remained of her skull, before dropping like a lump of rockcrete, her
skirts settling on the rusty deck.
Op accomplished – but
the Veiled Cartel were still on the prowl. Glaw's bodyguards were in
the doorway. One of them, veteran Delvin, levelled his web pistol and
fired an expanding tangle of goop that wrapped around Noomema, Snags
and Borb. All three dropped to the floor, writhing as the web-chems
constricted them.
Back around the corner,
Mumbles and Lazko were sneaking forward, still looking to bolster
their crewmates.
'Hhhm hhhrrr grrrh.'
'Yeah, I can't raise
them on the vox either,' said Lazko. 'Something's gone sumpwards.'
Mumbles, a step ahead,
peered out into the gloom. He couldn't make out anything. Then, there
was a sharp hiss which built from silence to searing crescendo in a
split click. Mumbles was on the deck, screaming through his rope gag
before slipping unconscious. A solid melta hit, which could mean only
one thing: the notorious Lucien, mastermind of the Veiled Cartel, was
out there nearby, in the darkness.
But this wasn't Lazko
Ozwik's first gang fight, not by a long stretch. Bitter-borne
instincts kicked in and he levelled his plasmagun in the direction
where, judging by the sound and Mumbles's reaction, Lucien was most
likely to be lurking. He flicked the blast limiter off and opened
fire, full power.
The scene was briefly
fully lit as the plasma blast caught Lucien in the arm, cooking his
hand. He didn't scream, but as the plasmalight faded, Lazko saw him
drop. Job done – but then he felt a stab at the base of his spine.
It wasn't a Delaque dagger, but a jabbing knot of grappleweed. Lazko
gasped and went down, tendrils of weed wrapping themselves around his
limbs.
Noomena was likewise
entangled as she fought against the web that was digging into her
flesh, drawing blood. She could just about see that Delvin and his
crony were holding back, but she couldn't figure why. There was a
grim moan behind her, and she twisted round. Just enough light to see
that Snags was free of the web. Only it wasn't Snags. There was
something clamped to his head. Another peril of scrapping in a jungle
badzone. A brainleaf.
'Ah, skut,' growled
Noomena as not-Snags lurched forward and fell on her. She just about
had enough time to scan through what would happen next – provided
he didn't bite her throat out straight off, the leaf on Snags would
slough off a copy of itself onto her, and then she'd be...
Devlin held his
gangmate back as the ancient man and sharp-haired woman – now
drooling brainleaf zombies, lurched to their feet. Word had just come
through on the Cartel's whispervox that Lucien was down and needed
recovery, but actioning that depended on what the zombies did next.
To the Delaques'
relief, they turned and staggered over to the still-webbed Borb,
who'd used up his luck with the killshot on Glaw.
'That's that,' muttered
Delvin. 'Let's grab the maestro and vanish.'
The Veiled Cartel
vacated the badzone.
Half a shift later, the
lumens were back on, the jungle had calmed down, and the brainleaves
had withered and dropped off Snags and Noomena. Lazko, who'd frred
himself from the grappleweed and was half-carrying the badly-burnt
Mumbles, found them slumped against the blast door near what was left
of Borb the Bludgeoner.
'You folks okay?' said
Lazko.
'Aye,' said Noomena,
wincing as she rubbed her scalp where the leaf had dug in. 'Frag me,
I feel like I just got dredged out of the sump. What a shift. I hope
the boss had a better time on his trip to the trading post.'
'Look at it spirewards,
though,' said Snags with a grimace. 'We came here to get Glaw. And we
got Glaw.'
'Well, he got
Glaw,' said Noomena, nodding at the scattered bits of Borb.
Snags punched her arm
gamely. 'Come on, that guy's the best scummer we've ever hired! He
took out the target, didn't rat on us to Precinct 13 and – best
of all – you and me ain't gonna need to be fed for a whole shift
cycle!'