The Ballad of the Bullkroks Part 7: Burn Brighter

Violence and the House of Chains are never far apart. The Bullkroks, having recently departed Sinkside, were scouting an old manufactorum dome for downhive access when the sounds began: garbled catechisms, chanted with ragged fervour, echoing from the dome fringes. There was a fight afoot.

Bad Boi Boosty flipped a switch on his chestplate with a flick of his heavy forefinger, and the stimm feeds running into his torso and limbs turned from green to red. His bloodshot eyes flashed and he hissed like a vent viper, 'At last!'

'Hold it, big bron,' said Heavy Wrecks. 'It's Cawdor, so more of them than us. We got a hard task here.'

He wasn't wrong: the Bullkroks were certain to be outnumbered, and to make matters worse, they'd split into two groups to search the dome. Heavy Wrecks was with Boosty and Turbo 22; Fraggenstein the Elder and the Younger, as well as the Bloke, were way over on the far side of the manufactorum complex.

Wrecks was smart by Goliath standards, but even so he hesitated. They could try to rush across the dome and join their boss-meyn, but they'd almost certainly be outpaced and ambushed by the Cawdors. Maybe better to stand and fight.

The decision was made for him. A gout of flame some twenty metres away lit up the dome gloom, and mad cackles rang out – five of the Cawdors were almost upon them.

'Frag it,' said Wrecks. 'Turbo, with me. We cut through to the right here, try to get close where they can't see us.'

'Aye, on it,' yapped Turbo, all full of nerves and keen to get into his first proper gang fight.

'Boosty, straight at them. Grab their eyes, give us a chance to get near.'

The stimmer had a pulveriser in each hand and was swinging the serrated blades in heavy practice arcs. He grinned, 'Oh, yes. Cut and crush, get in.'

With that, he sprinted off, directly at the cluster of enemy fighters. The distraction didn't quite work - four of the Cawdors ducked off to the right, into the mechworks towards the dome centre. One ganger stood his ground, raising his patched-up autogun with trembling arms. He fired, and the salvo of bullets caught Boosty mid-stride, knocking him off his feet.

Boosty rolled in the domefloor dust. The autofire hadn't pierced his vat-thickened skin, but he hadn't expected to be on his arse.

'Ha!' he laughed, using the haft of one of his weapons to launch himself back up. 'That all you got? You need more gun to get the Bad Boi!'

He pressed a button on his chestplate, activating hs stimm-slug stash. Froth spilled from his mouth as a cocktail of hyper-stimms coursed through his veins and sent his aggression levels sharply spirewards. But he'd barely started running again when a ragged figure darted back out of the manufactorum ruins – this Cawdor wore an elaborate headpiece and carried a crude scrap-icon. The gang boss, and he was packing a hand flamer.

'Emprah's burning breath be upon thee!' howled the zealot boss, raising the flamer.

Boosty didn't have the time nor the inclination to duck, and so found himself running directly into a sweeping plume of fire. His skin crackled and his flesh sizzled as the flames washed over him, but the potent stimm hit meant he could shrug it off and press his attack home. He'd intended to charge the ganger with the autogun, but here was a juicier target.

No time for fighting-pit theatrics in a real gang fight: Boosty swung his pulverisers, making gory contact half a dozen times, and the Cawdor boss crumpled to the dome floor, a bloody mess.

Weapons raised, the Goliath roared: 'Boosty! Booooosty!'

But even as the stimm spike started to ebb, another Cawdor lurched from the shadows. This one carried a blunderbuss-polearm, which he levelled with grim calmness. Boosty was engulfed in another incendiary blast. Again, his flesh was scorched, but there was just enough stimm left in his system – he stood his ground and the flames failed to take hold.

Trailing smoke, Boosty barrelled towards the Cawdor ganger, snarling, 'You want some?'

He swung his pulverisers in a low arc that, on contact, launched the ganger upwards and backwards in a spray of blood.

'Boooosty!' cried the stimmer, licking the spatter from around his charred lips. 'My name is Boooosty! Who's next?'

The answer: another ganger with a blunderbuss, but the Bullkrok didn't see him coming. The Cawdor came from the side, and this time the blast seared right down to the muscle roots. Boosty's right leg gave way, and he could feel the flesh on his arm sag and slough. Something popped on the right side of his head. Was it ear? Was it his eyeball? As his world faded to black, Bad Boi Boosty couldn't tell.

+++++++++++

When he regained consciousness, Boosty felt cool green stimms pulsing in his veins before he even opened his eyes. He blinked up at shadows twisting on a rough rockcrete ceiling. This was a different dome, and he was lying on his back in a half-collapsed hab block. He could hear Fraggenstein's voice, an angry growl.

Sitting up, Boosty saw a large scrapfire a couple of metres to his right. Wrecks was there, flamelit as if he were at a furnace mouth. The senior Bullkrok was turning a set of makeshift spits above the fire. On the spits were five fat grubs, each as long as Boosty's forearm. The fire spat and crackled as fat from the grubs dropped.

Boosty rolled onto his knees and then up onto his feet. Wrecks noticed the movement and thumped his chestplate and shoulder, asking in halfhand You okay?

The stimmer nodded and took in the scene. The Fraggensteins were on the far side of the fire, the Elder berating the Younger at close range. Turbo 22 lay at the furthest edge of the fire's glow. There were restorative med-stimm feeds running into the bully juve's arms. Dumb Turbo had got himself badly burnt, and it looked like he'd need a cycle to recover. Not so Boosty: he'd taken some nasty flame hits, but the scorched tissue was peeling away, revealing pale-blue healthy skin beneath. And whatever had burst in his head had regrown already. Boosty was blessed with hyper-healing, a boon from the genegineer who'd worked his birth-vat . A scraping overhead caught his attention. His eyes darted up, and through irregular gaps in the ceiling he made out the shadowy form of the Bloke, prowling on lookout duty.

Boosty was surprised that he'd clocked the Bloke. With the green stimms in his blood, he should've been steam-brained, numb to his surroundings. He moved away from the fire to the edge of the ruined building and stared out into the dome. A dead hab zone. The shadows and rubble were crisp and well-defined in Boosty's eyes, again a surprise. He was seeing with the clarity of the red stimms, only without the raging aggression. He lingered, drinking in the eerie view, feeling like he hadn't done since...

A hand clapped him on the shoulder. The contact would have broken non-Goliath bones, but this was standard greeting in the House of Chains. Boosty turned, half-wondering why he wasn't snapping into attack mode considering how sharp his senses were running. Wrecks had approached, brandishing a crusty, slimy roast grub.

Beyond the fire, the angry tirade had turned into the sound of fists on flesh. A beating was in progress, the Goliath school of pain.

'The young bron fled when the fight got hot. Boss-meyn's mad at him,' Wrecks explained, and then shrugged. 'But we all fled in the end. Turbo got decked, we pulled you and him out of there. Lots of Cawdor skuts, couldn't beat them.'

Boosty's thoughts flashed back to his early days in the gang life, running with Fraggenstein and Wrecks, before he went full-on stimm happy. He shrugged and nodded.

'We were all juves once,' he said. 'The young bron will learn.'

Outside of fight time, off the red stimms and on the green, Boosty was usually totally mute. It had been half a dozen long cycles since he'd said anything that wasn't a chem-fuelled boast or battlecry. Wrecks's astonishment was visible, and he was the one struck dumb. He offered the roast grub without a word.

The stimmer took it and grinned. He was dimly aware that something was changing, a part of him coming alive again after dormant years. He'd spent too long in the gladiator pits of Sinkside. Here, out in the underhive wastes, a bron can fight for real. A bron can live for real. And a bron can find a good death.

Bad Boi Boosty sank his teeth into the soft, greasy flesh of the grub with fulsome relish.

The Ballad of the Bullkroks Part 6: Of Bloke and Brons

Out beyond the Slagdrift Gate, it's quiet most of the time. The further you go from Sinkside, the less the cacophonies of the Scorch Works and Slamdrome echo off the walls of the broad tunnel as it delves shellwards and sumpwards. This shift, the Bloke was distant enough from the korf that could hear his prey, whimpering nearby. Impressive how far the thronebothering skinny had got with only a leg and a half.

By the Bloke's reckoning, the prey was maybe twenty paces away, on the far side the slag dune up ahead. He paused and considered his options. The skinny's raider cronies were already dead; there was no rush to finish the hunt. After some thought, the Bloke slung his bolter and drew his cleaver. Why waste another shell?

The Bloke's footfalls sounded crisp and clear as he trudged up the dune. Black-plated, masked and goggled, he was barely visible in the dim lumenlight as he reached the crest. His prey was a greasy-green smear in the trough between the slagpiles. A ragged Cawdor zealot in Scrap Saint colours.

Working his way down into the trough, the Bloke grunted, satisfied, as he noted the abrupt, gory termination of the prey's left leg. He'd aimed for the knee, and he'd hit the knee. Nice shooting. The prey was flailing belly-down, muttering desperate prayers, clawing forward on bloody fingertips. Hearing the approaching footfalls, the prey tried to twist round onto his back. The Bloke didn't give him the chance. He raised his cleaver and, in one smooth motion, dropped to one knee as he brought the blade down. Dirty cloth and tox-raddled flesh were cut apart. The prey's head rolled away down the trough.

The Bloke took pride in his craft, but little pleasure. He wasn't like many of his fellow Goliaths, with their roiling-furnace hearts. He was unborn, bound to the House of Chains by surgical alteration and post-juvehood stimmplant rather than geneforging and lineage.

Sound filled the wide tunnel for a few kliks as a train rolled past on the elevated railroad that ran between the dunes. It was laden with slag waste and a work crew of bantering brons tasked with shovelling the load out onto the furthermost edges of the ever-expanding dumping ground. They'd have to fight off Scrap Saints as they did so: turf war had been simmering away beyond the Slagdrift Gate for more cycles than any Sinksider could remember, for the Goliaths' chosen tipping zones were also claimed as valuable scavenging troves by House Cawdor.

The brons' war songs faded away and the lumens strung along the railroad supports stopped shaking. The tunnel was quiet again. Confident he'd dealt with the whole raiding crew, the Bloke knelt and twisted the dead prey's gnarled, bloodied hand off in a mass of torn sinews. He added the trophy to the bag at his belt, and withdrew back to the shadows under the viaduct.

Sometimes the Scrap Saints mustered the courage to send rocket-armed sabotage crews up towards Sinkside. The Gate was fortified, its bunkers and watchtowers manned by a small garrison of korf-brons. But the Bloke preferred to hunt out here, beyond the gate. The vatborns and natborns – even most of his fellow unborns – couldn't fathom his preference for the cold, quiet kill, but they were willing to accept it: every few shifts, the Bloke would prove his worth by returning to the Gate and dropping off a bag of hands.

He stopped there, in the shadows beneath the railroad, silent and still like a sumpspider waiting to pounce. Klicks turned into the better part of a shift.

And then there was sound again. Not the approaching rumble of a slag train. Voices, and booted feet crunching on slagdrifts. But they weren't Cawdors muttering catechisms as they steeled themselves to attack the Gate. No, these were Goliaths, coming down from Sinkside.

The Bloke shifted his position and stared through the strutwork as the crew came into sight. No familiar faces from the Gate-guards. These brons were about different business.

There were five of them. The stimmer stood out instantly, taller and broader than the rest. His face was slack-muscled from chem-damage, but his eyes were beady and sharp - he'd dosed himself up for this trip into the wastes. The next face was known to the Bloke even though he seldom visited the korf proper: Heavy Wrecks, the top forge-boss in Sinkside. What was he doing out beyond the Gate? And there were two juves, one a heavy-set bully type, the other a lean forge-born, probably fresh from the vats. You could see from their wide eyes and careless trudging that this was their first time in the wider hive. The fifth figure was cloaked and hooded – the Bloke couldn't make out much about him – but he was clearly a seasoned ganger, moving with the same rough poise as Wrecks and the stimmer.

The bully juve spoke, too loud, 'Hey boss-meyn,'

Viper-fast, the stimmer lashed out with a pinkish, half-regrown hand – looked like he'd recently sustained a nasty injury - and cuffed the juve round the head.

'Shhhhhhhhh,' said the stimmer, eyes gleaming in the gloom.

The bully rubbed his head ruefully, continuing in a falsetto whisper: 'Boss-meyn, how we find this Bloke bron in all these skrud-piles?'

This got the Bloke's attention. Careful not to make a noise, he unslung his bolter. He couldn't let them leave unchallenged.

The crew passed by, and the Bloke ghosted after them, sticking to the shadows. He saw the seasoned gangers – Wrecks, the stimmer and the hooded one - shift their stances, lowering their centres of gravity as they moved, ready to spring into action. The juves hiked on as before, oblivious to what their gangmates had scoped: they were being stalked.

The Bloke figured there wasn't much use delaying things if they were onto him. He stopped, took aim with his bolter, and fired a single shot. It hit the slag just ahead of the lean juve's feet, exploding on impact and sending up a spray of sharp fragments. The juve ducked back, yelping, as Wrecks and the stimmer lunged into back-to-back combat readiness, scanning the dark tunnel for signs of the shooter. The dumb bully juve brandished his spud-jacker and strutted forwards, chest out, stopping short when he realised he didn't know where he should be looking.

Only the one in the cloak stayed cool. Casually pulling his hood back, he turned to face the direction the shot had come from. The lumens cast deep shadows onto a craggy face that the Bloke recognised immediately. Fraggenstein.

'Come out from there, lone dog,' called the old boss-meyn, addressing the exact spot in the shadows where the Bloke was lurking. 'Time's come due on your debt to me.'

Over the subsequent cycles, Scrap Saint raids on the Slagdrift Gate grew more frequent. Not a problem as far as the guard-brons were concerned, but still they puzzled over it, and eventually their slow Goliath brains figured it out: the Bloke wasn't stalking the tunnel any more. If they'd really thought about it, they might have figured from the timing that the Bloke had joined Fraggenstein in his downhive quest. But who has time to think when there's violence afoot at the Gate, in the Slamdrome, in the Hablocks? Already, the Bloke is just another Sinkside legend.

+++++

And so they set out into the Underhive: Fraggenstein the Elder and Bad Boi Boosty seeking death in battle before their vatborn bodies burnt out; Heavy Wrecks and Turbo-22 keen to test their turf-war mettle after long cycles on the forge lines; Fraggenstein the Younger with a name to prove; and the Bloke with a debt to repay. What bound them together was the brutal determination that makes a Goliath a Goliath. They called themselves the Bullkroks, and the shift came when they arrived in the disreputable badzone boom-town of Foulnest.

But of course, that's another downhive tale....

The Ballad of the Bullkroks Part 5: The First Time's The Harm

Awake. Floating. Aware. This thing, eyes blinking, drinking in the glow from outside. Not yet knowing what it was, not yet knowing there was an inside and and outside.

This thing reaching, not yet knowing it had limbs. Feeling the tubes plugged into its orifices and spine, not yet knowing where its body began and ended.

This thing seeing. Watching the shadow-play of outside-not-outside. Dark shapes anchored by dark lines. Other shapes growing near and stopping awhile. Seeing, not yet knowing that it was also being seen.

This thing waiting. Not yet knowing what time was. Waiting for the unknown, for unknown time.

This thing flexing. Stretching. Tensing muscles, making fists, not yet knowing it had hands.

This thing knew but one thing: fight. It surged its fist forward, meeting resistance, meeting an unstoppable barrier where inside met outside-not-outside. Fight fight fight. More fists, add in more limbs, kicks from feet, not yet knowing what feet were.

Feeling. Sensation in the body, in the spine. And then this thing knew nothing. Not even fight.

More time. Unknowable time. More shadows. Unknowable shadows.

And then everything changed.

This thing, aware of sound for the first time because sound changed: dull hum to sucking roar. This thing, aware of inside-outside for the first time because something moved at the bottom of inside and this thing was spilled into outside.

This thing was a newly vatborn Goliath juve, smooth-skinned, naked and lean, his muscles not yet pumped and worked to adult size. He rolled on the floor below the amneo-creche he'd just been released from, retching up the feed tube that was jammed down his gullet, wrenching himself away from the nutrient inpipes that pierced the length of his spine. He reached over his shoulders and fumbled about to make sure he was free. His hands ran over smooth skin, catching on a tough nodule at the base of his neck. This stung when he touched it, and his hands sprang away.

Blinking the vat-fluid from his eyes, he stared around at outside. It was a bright place, lined with sharp lights that correlated with the dim lights he'd seen inside. It was mind-blastingly big, big enough to contain eight more amneo-creches, each connected to banks of incomprehensible mechworks. The juve's world had just expanded in ways he couldn't have imagined mere moments before.

Strangest of all, it had others in it. Six of the other creches had just unloaded. Their contents were smooth-skinned, naked and lean. Each had the same face. The juve didn't know it yet, but he had the same face.

Two hadn't survived the evacuation. Where their fellows were coughing and wrenching out feed tubes, these two lay motionless, stillborn. Another didn't survive much longer. When he yanked the pipe from his throat, a gout of blood came with it. The blood didn't stop. His writhing lessened into twitching and then he was still.

It was the first death the remaining four saw. Instinctively, they liked it, for it tallied with the first thing they knew: fight.

This overriding, primal drive brought them all to their feet. They stalked into the open space between the creches, knees bent, testing their muscles shakily.

One of them staggered abruptly, clutching his chest. A few seconds later he was in spasms on the floor, red foam bubbling from his mouth and nose. He choked on his last breath.

The other three, fearing they might likewise drop dead at any moment, wasted no more time: their aggressive impulses demanded release. The charged forward, flailing into each other, grappling in a heap of hateful flesh.

Their hands were claw-twisted, clutching, trying to find purchase on slippery skin. A jabbing finger found an eye and popped it open, spilling jelly. Hands got a grip on a jaw and leverage on the deck, heaving and tearing a face in two. Clacking teeth ripped out chunks of meat. More leverage, and then cracking bones – arms, fingers, legs. Balled fists lashing out, fracturing cheekbones and ribs. Blood, and animal snarls.

One fighter went limp. A second grew tired. The third kept at his task. Before long, the only sounds in the birthing chamber were this last juve's ragged breath, and the wet smack of his bloodied fists hitting dead meat again and again and again. He would've kept at it until his heart gave out.

But then a door hissed open beyond the ring of vats, and four strangers entered the room. The juve scrambled backwards, riding a slick of gore away from the newcomers. He saw that they were shaped like he and his dead foes were, but they were somehow larger, adorned with strange fabrics, plates and irregular shapes. Something within him panged a connection with them, a sense of kinship – but the kill-drive was stronger. He growled and crouched, ready to fight again.

From the shadows, one of the newcomers made a sound. It made no sense to the juve, but it had some sort of purpose. Two of the others moved quickly to either side of him. Their arms were strangely long – then hey realised they weren't arms, they were carried things, not part of the body. He was trying to comprehend this when the shadowed newcomer barked, and his fellows jabbed forwards with their carried things. The juve found himself near choking as the things hooked around his neck and held him still.

Another noise from the shadowed one and the fourth newcomer moved around the perimeter of the space, out of sight. The juve heard hissing and whirring behind him, and wriggled in the grip of the hook things.

The shadowed one stepped forward into the light. The juve gazed up into a face he recognised – the same face as his dead birth rivals, his own face, but different. Heavier, textured, marked by creases and lines.

This same-different face growled with strange purpose again. The juve heard hissing and whirring, much closer behind him this time, and then something made contact with the tough nodule at the base of his neck. Everything flared agonising red, and then black as he plunged into unconsciousness.

Fraggenstein stared down at his vat-son. 'Carry him over to the rest-slab.'

Half a shift later, the juve was coming round. Fraggenstein had kept vigil throughout, updated by the trusted doc who ran this secret gene-smithy.

The juve was wincing and blinking, working his waking jaw.

'Guhhhhh-guh-Goliath,' he slurred, trying to sit up.

'That's right, young bron. You're a Goliath, vatborn and true' said Fraggenstein, placing a hand on the juve's chest and easing him back down. Behind his back, he held a sharpened cleaver. Slug delivery didn't always produce the desired results.

The juve relaxed. 'I'm, uh, I'm Goliath. Are you boss-meyn?'

'I'm a boss-meyn, aye. And more than that, I'm your gene-sire.'

The juve pondered this. 'That... that is why your face is like mine?'

Fraggenstein nodded, satisfied. The juve was a thinker – here was early indication that the slug input had taken well, and that this secret vat project, buried in the backalleys of the Hablocks, had been worth the creds he'd poured into it. The tech details were beyond Fraggenstein's ken, but the docs had woven his gene-pattern together with some of the mightiest strains in the whole house lineage, like the finest alloys that came off the forge-lines. A weapon of time-honed Goliath steel, ready for testing in battle.

'Aye. You are my gene-make. Come with me and show me how you fight. Live to earn the name Fraggenstein, or die trying.'

The Ballad of the Bullkroks Part 4: When to Quit

An outsider in the Hablocks of Sinkside might think they had stumbled into some Underhive shantyzone – not far wrong, at least in terms of the danger they would be in. Here, repurposed container units and brokendown forge machines are stacked from domefloor to dometop, making a maze of twisting alleyways lit by flickering scrapfires and ancient lumens. The air is thick with sweat and the industrial stench of the Scorch Works rumbling away incessantly beyond the stacks.

Some of the containers and mechworks are purpose-refitted: brawnshops, where an off-shift bron might lift weights and work out; stimm-dives for those looking for a spiky hit; slophouses serving krok-and-kritter stew to those who fancy a change from starch rations; blade-lined sparring caves to limber up for the Slamdrome, or just blow off some steam. The rest are fitted out with crude bunks and cots - a Goliath doesn't need much of a place to rest his head.

On the turn of each shift, the alleys come alive with bruisers, bullies and forgeborn heading to and from the furnaces and the fighting pits. Mid-shift, it's quieter, and a traveller might pass unnoticed. At least, that's what Fraggenstein was hoping as he trudged through the gloom, hood up and scrapcloak gripped closed, renderizer strapped tightly to his back.

The prospect of a fight didn't bother him. His wounds from the fight with Bruizo were still raw, but he'd gone into scraps in worse shape and come out on top. It was honour that made him keep his hood up and eyes down. He wanted his former subjects to remember him as a mighty tyrant – even when he'd been bested in the Slamdrome, he'd held his head high as the crowd chanted their farewell. It wouldn't do to be scoped here, creeping through the shadows like a skinny Delaque.

But he had no choice. Like it or not, his business here in the Hablocks was too important. Best be quick about it, he'd pass unseen and then -

'Hey, bron! Hey, bron in the rags! What you doing down this end of the korf?'

Fraggenstein scowled and quickened his pace.

'Hey, bron! I talk to you! Hey!'

Battle-honed senses told Fraggenstein that the shouter, a stimm-stench juve, was approaching behind him, tapping a weapon – a spud-jacker from the sound of it – on the metal panelling of the alley wall. Easy to track how close he was getting. The clump of his boots was heavy, lazy, overconfident. No avoiding this fight.

One last chance. Fraggenstein stopped short, scrapcloak swinging about his frame. Would the juve pause, think his next move through? Of course not. The tapping, the clumping, closer, closer.

The ex-Alpha allowed himself a thin smile. After the gruelling bout against Bruizo, an easy win would make for a nice change.

A klik longer. Fraggenstein guessed – correctly – that the juve would be reaching out for the renderizer, looking for a quick grab-and-run, or at least the leverage to yank his intended victim to the deck. Arm out, fingers extended, guard down. Totally unprepared when his quarry spun around, half-ducking, coiling up power to unleash in a viper-fast punch that connected with the juve's nose and sent him sprawling onto his back.

Fraggenstein looked down at his would-be mugger. A bully juve, pale Sinkside vatborn, gasping and wincing as he clutched at the bloody mush of cartilage that now passed for his nose. A pumped-up punk who'd spent every work shift on the forge line. Well versed in the tit-for-tat machismo of the korf, but had never once bled or drawn blood in the wider hive, where the true school of war is. Skut-heads like this were the beating heart of House Goliath's industrial might, but the poor chumps didn't know how to fight. Fraggenstein shook his head and turned away to leave.

Three paces and then: 'Hey, bron! Arrrgh, hey, bron! Why you do me like that?'

Fraggenstein stopped and sighed. He turned wearily. The bully juve was on his feet, wiping the gore from his chin and pointing an accusing finger.

'Want a word with you, bron!'

'My fist not enough?' growled Fraggenstein.

'Arrrgh, you old ventfart!' snapped the juve, raising his arms and rushing forwards. Hadn't even thought to pick up his spud-jacker.

Another clumsy attack, all motion, no killer instinct. Fraggenstein let the juve get his arms around him, then shrugged violently, bursting out of the grip. The juve stumbled backwards, and Fraggenstein shoved him, two-handed, onto his back again.

'Stay down, greenie,' said Fraggenstein, and continued on his way.

He was making steady progress through the dim-lit maze of the Hablocks, ruminating on his final talk with Bruizo, when he heard the roaring. It was quiet at first, a moan that grew in confidence as it neared, reaching something that passed for a battlecry. He stopped again and turned. There, inevitably, embarrassingly, was the juve, thundering down the alley, setting the lumens swinging, convinced he was in a fight he could win.

Fraggenstein shook his head and sucked his teeth. At least the juve had remembered to pick up his spud-jacker.

No fancy stuff this time. Fraggenstein reached to his waist and drew his stubber. He made a show of aiming, steady gaze through the sights down the narrow confines of the alley.

The juve scoped this and his charge petered out. He came to a sulky halt, clearly not aware that he'd run on far enough to make Fraggenstein's shot unmissable.

'Third time's the last time I'll tell you.'

The juve squirmed on the spot. 'Give it, old bron. I eat your shot. Catch it in my teeth. Chew it up.'

Despite himself, Fraggenstein snorted a laugh. You don't run a korf for as many cycles as he had without learning a sort of affection for the preening bravado of a forge-bound meathead.

Something clicked in the juve's head. 'Hey, hey, hey. I know you! I seen you at the Drome, on the picts! We all know you! The big boss-meyn!'

'Not the big boss-meyn now.'

But the juve wasn't deterred. He dropped to his knees, bowing his head.

'Hail the big boss-meyn! All strength to the big boss-meyn!'

Fraggenstein glanced around nervously. This was unseemly. If anyone saw, if word got back to Bruizo, the gift of exile might be withdrawn and replaced with something more immediately lethal. Again, his mind ran to that last conversation with the new Graav.

'Shut up,' he barked. The juve shut up. 'On your feet.'

The juve rose from the alleyfloor. He was grinning through the blood between his broken nose and chin.

'What's your name, juve?'

'Turbo-22, boss,' answered the juve smartly, at the same time thumping his name in Half-hand on his bare chest. 'Top slag lug, Forge Three. Best slag lug in -'

His jaw gaped. Something else had clicked in his head.

'Hey, you are not the big boss-meyn.... I saw at the Drome...'

'Yes,' said Fraggenstein. 'Now shut up.'

Turbo-22 shut up.

'I am not the big boss-meyn. But I am your boss-meyn now. Got it?'

Turbo-22 nodded. He got it.

'I go downhive to find my doom. You come with me in my broheym, learn to fight. Real fight, better than furnace brawls and Drome flash. Got it?'

Turbo-22 nodded slowly, then more vigorously as he got it. Forget forge-drudging, here was a korf hero, offering him a chance at gang glory.

'Got plates?' asked Fraggenstein.

Turbo nodded. 'Aye aye, plates back at my hab. Nice and shiny.'

'You'll need them. Go get them, meet me at the Slagdrift Gate at shift end.'

'Aye aye' said Turbo, grinning like he'd won his weight in creds. He turned smartly and started to lope away.

Fraggenstein winced. The juve was as thick as a forge-fresh slab. Best to check.

'Hey, Turbo-22!'

Turbo stopped and turned. 'Yes, boss-meyn?'

'Were and when? Half hand it.'

'Shift end, Slagdrift Gate,' barked the juve, tapping and gesturing the corresponding signs.

'Good bron. Now go.'

Turbo-22 wandered off into the gloom.

Fraggenstein pressed on. He'd figured tough veterans like Heavy Wrecks and Bad Boi Boosty would do for his downhive crew, not feckless skuts like Turbo. But the Emprah moves in mysterious ways – the juve sure was a Sinksider who could do with some learning, as per Bruizo's command. Besides, when you're fighting in the undehive turf wars, it always pays to have some cannon fodder.

The Ballad of the Bullkroks Part 3: Behold the Bad Boi

There are always fights on at the Slamdrome. With the turn of each shift, a fresh horde of labourers exits the forgeworks and makes straight for the fighting pits for some recreational violence, either as spectators or participants.

Heavy Wrecks arrived at the Slamdrome mid-bill. Shoving his way through the crowds – those few who were minded to object thought again when they clocked who'd shoved them – he bypassed the main ring and headed straight to the sump-pit. This arena had been rigged to hold run-off water and chems from Sinkside's industry, making for a passable simulation of a badzone mire. Narrow walkways formed a loose lattice above the surface of the pseudosump, but those fighters brave or stupid enough to sign up for a bout here would inevitably find themselves dragged into the murky waters by the things that lurked there.

The sump-pit was a favourite of the more patient among Sinkside's battle-fans, as fights would often reach their gory conclusions underwater, relayed from submarine heat-cappers to pict-screens around the arena's edge. As Wrecks muscled his way down the terraces, the bout in session had reached one such impasse and the crowd waited in hushed anticipation, squinting to make sense of the blobbish red-orange shapes displayed on the screens.

Reaching the front tier, Wrecks surveyed the scene in the pit. On the walkways, discarded axes and spud-jackers, dismembered limbs, and the more-or-less intact torso of a fighter, guts dangling into the sludgy liquid below. The vibe in the crowd was sharp – Wrecks figured there was one fighter still in the game. The man he'd come looking for.

More often than not, the sump-brawls end in anticlimax, with the action resolving out of sight. But as any regular knows, every once in a while, there's a display which puts the dry arenas to shame.

This was one of those shifts. Clued in by a sudden distortion in the heat cams, the crowd inhaled as one. And then, erupting from the surface in a roil of grime, a colossal bull sumpkrok, twisting and shrugging its craggy red hide as it tried to shake off the slimeslick stimmer whose arms were wrapped round its neck.

For an impossible second, krok and stimmer hung in the air, a spearhead of murderous flesh. Then, they crashed down onto the nearest walkway, which buckled under the impact.

Wrecks grinned. This was what he'd come for. This was Bad Boi Boosty in action. The crowd let roar, and Wrecks cheered loudest.

Both combatants were injured – the krok's forelimbs flopped uselessly, evidently broken, and Boosty was sporting a bloody gash from shoulderblade to pelvis. His stimm feeds had been torn loose, and he was struggling to keep his grip with every ounce of chem-spiked strength he had left.

The krok slammed its lower jaw down on the walkway, making leverage to buck in a long, powerful undulation that rolled down to its tail. Boosty's legs flailed upwards. His left hand tore free of the beast's neck, ripping off a thick scale which slipped from his grip and dropped into the sumpwater.

The krok half-rolled, swinging the stimmer around and down onto the walkway on its right flank. It braced its hindlegs and shunted forward and to the side, twisting its head to the right to bring its jaws to bear on the downed Goliath. Boosty freed his right hand and grabbed, catching an upper and lower tooth from the krok's maw in each hand. His muscles bulged, veins pulsing, as he tried to drive the head back and the jaws apart.

But the grip was awkward with his right hand, and it slipped loose. The krok seized the opportunity, snapping its jaws and catching Boosty's left hand and forearm. It jerked its head and tore Boosty's hand free of his wrist.

Bad Boi Boosty didn't even scream. The krok rolled its head and mashed its jaws, swallowing the morsel it had bagged. The stimmer took advantage of the moment, lurching to his feet and leaping up onto the krok's back, dropping and sliding down on its left flank, just behind its jaws.

Snarling viciously, he jabbed the stump of his left wrist into the krok's eye, twisting his arm as he drove in further. He made a claw of his right hand and did likewise at the wound on the krok's neck where he'd pulled away the scale. Some part of the krok's skull snapped.

Blood gushed out and over Boosty as he drove his arms together, now elbow-deep in the beast's flesh. The stimmer roared, muscles tearing, veins popping open in his arms and neck, as he squeezed a huge chunk out of the monster's neck. The flesh came free in an immense torrent of blood and gore, and Boosty lost his footing, slipping onto his back on the walkway.

The krok shuddered as it pulled away, barely even managing a death throe. Its head and body slipped into the sump, and its tail, trailing along the walkway, twitched once, then was still.

The crowd, already in a frenzy, screamed louder than ever. Wrecks hammered his chestplate with his fists, adding to the riotous din.

Boosty sat up, dazed, blinking. He stared around, then down at the armful of ragged meat in his lap. He scrambled to his feet, daubed from head to foot in blood, hand and stump in the air as he soaked up the acclaim.

'Bad Boi! Bad Boi!' he yelled, beckoning the crowd's response with his hand.

'Boosty! Boosty!' replied the throng, the thunderous bass reverberating across the dome.

After the bout, Wrecks sought out the stimmer in the backstage shacks. Boosty was lying on a scrap-hammered bench, alone. The docs had reconnected his stimm feeds, which were now pulsing blue with kalma-laced chems. He'd torn the dressing off his left forearm and was gazing vacantly at the stump. As a vat-embryo, Boosty had been gene-smithed to heal fast and even regrow lost body parts. Already, the gore had congealed into a bulbous lump of striated muscle, with five small nodules where digits were developing.

'Hey, meyn-bron,' said Wrecks, entering the shack.

Boosty glanced up warily, and his eyes flashed recognition.

Wrecks knew Boosty wouldn't speak – that only happened when he was stimm-spiked and up for a fight. The rest of the time, melancholy rendered him mute and timid. It was unbecoming of any Necromundan, let alone a Goliath, but Wrecks had known Boosty long enough and their bron-bond was strong. They'd run together downhive, seven long cycles ago: Wrecks a simple bruiser, learning the warrior ways before turning his skills to forge-bossing; Boosty a vat-fresh forge born, brash and scrawny, not yet on the hyper-pumped, neuro-blasted path of the stimmer. Fraggenstein had been their boss-meyn, capping a storied career as an underhive fighter, well on his way to Alpha ascendancy despite his relative youth.

They were all much older now. Wrecks, natborn, was hitting his prime, but vatborn Boosty, like Fraggenstein, was heading towards burnout, the ravages of his stimm-habit barely checked by his super-resilient metabolism. But as the pit-battle with the sumpkrok had demonstrated, his combat skills were still sharp – sharper than ever, perhaps.

'You fought well,' said Wrecks. Not the raucous praise of the crowd, just simple honest words. All a Goliath really needs.

Boosty considered this. Pouted. Nodded.

'The old boss-meyn's got a new job. Dowhive. Turf wars. To the death. He wants me and you in the broheym.'

More thought. A crooked smile. Another nod. Bad Boi Boosty was in.

The Ballad of the Bullkroks Part 2: Boss Fight

Every bron in Sinkside has toiled in the Scorch Works at one time or another, and every bron will tell you that no-one bossed the forge mobs like Heavy Wrecks: strong as an ambot, quick as a lashworm, crafty as a downhive rattler. His task was to see smooth slabs of Goliath steel off the end of the line, all shift, every shift. He prowled unceasingly from towering blast furnace to hissing finishing mill, drawing and testing samples from the hearths, checking and rechecking the sacks of alloy additives, lending his brawn to help haul the great cradles from platform to platform. He picked the right moment to drain the furnaces with unerring accuracy, always first to get his hands on the great plug drill, first to drive it home and unleash the molten flow.

For any forge boss, the paramount task is to keep his gangs in line. When to shovel, when to plug, when to haul. Wrecks called it. Who's trusted enough to work the snort valve? Whose stimm-tolerance suits them to lugging ladles or piledriving scrap? Who's been running sloppy and deserves a shift skimming slag at the blast furnace top? Wrecks knew. And when stimms overspiked and tempers frayed, Wrecks didn't hesitate to smack some sense into any fractious bron that needed it.

One such situation was afoot this particular shift. Heavy Wrecks was on Line Four, marching down from the blast furnace end on a timeworn catwalk ten metres above the forge floor. He was passing over the midline row of open hearths, eyes alert. Subcrews were shovelling scrap into the furnaces to mix with the molten iron, and there should have been an unbroken row of fountaining sparks as each spadeload was heaved into the heat. But there - hearth number seven agape, glowing red, undisturbed. No spark showers. The crew wasn't on it. Wrecks squinted through the heat-shimmer at the half-shadowed forms of the crew, picking out distinctive crest-cuts and tattoos – he knew every man on the line. A solid bruiser by the name of Thrag-13 was kicking off, and something needed to be done.

Heavy Wrecks stepped to the edge of the catwalk, squatted and sprang off into the open dome. He grabbed hold of a swagging of chains dangling from an overhead crane arm, trusting the pulleys and counterweights to drop him swiftly and safely to the pit floor. Throwing his weight to the left, he came down by hearth number seven, right in the middle of the brewing ruckus. Thrag had knocked three of his crewmates on their arses, and now stood, flexing and defiant, shovel held fight-ready, silhouetted by the furnace mouth behind him.

The sheer noise of the activity across the Scorch Works – clanging hammers, screeching sirens, grinding machinery, roaring forges - would drive an unaugmented human deaf in a slice of a shift, but it was mere inconvenience to the rubbery eardrums of a Goliath. Though vocals were all but useless down here, Half-hand could express all that needed to be said.

Wrecks had the subcrew's attention, and he chopped his fingers through three different formations and gestured to distinct points on his muscle-thick upper torso.

Back to work. Now.

Thrag-13 grinned as he half-handed back.

Make me, boss-meyn.

Wrecks couldn't make out Thrag's eyes in the thick shadows, but he saw that the bruiser's hands were shaking as he signed. Not fear. Stimm withdrawal. Thrag had been overcooking it and his body had gone into adrenaline overdrive to fight off the heavy comedown.

One warning. Stand down, signed Wrecks.

He knew that Thrag, with his brain glitching, wouldn't pay any heed, and the rest of the subcrew knew it too – they'd backed off to make enough space for the inevitable brawl. As Thrag and Wrecks circled each other, the boss noted with satisfaction that the crews at the rest of the hearths hadn't stopped work. This wasn't a stop-and-scope Slamdrome spectacle. He'd trained them well to keep their minds on the graft, and nodded as he glanced up and down the line.

Thrag saw an opportunity in Wrecks's moment of distraction, and lunged forward, shovel swinging. Heavy Wrecks was expecting this, of course – he could second guess a stimm-starved lunk any shift of the cycle, and he'd exaggerated his glances along the line precisely to provoke the upstart bruiser.

Thrag's shovel swung a full crescent through empty air. Wrecks had ducked aside, reaching to his belt and unclipping the brute cleaver that hung there. Thrag stumbled forward, dragged by the momentum of his shovel swipe. Wrecks moved fluidly around his hunched opponent, raising his left foot and bringing it down with steady, inexorable force on the haft of the shovel. The tool was forced down, but Thrag refused to let go even as his knuckles scraped the grainy rockcrete floor. Wrecks raised his cleaver and swung downwards - another heavy, smooth action.

The watching crew winced despite themselves. But there was a scrape and a clang, half lost in the din of the dome, as the cleaver sliced cleanly through the steel haft of the shovel, a fingerwidth away from Thrag's hand.

Any sensible bron would have known there and then that they were beat, but chem-jagged Thrag was far from sensible. He reeled back, brandishing the shovel haft. Wrecks straightened his back and let the cleaver hang loosely at his side. His power spoke through his stillness.

Thrag came at him again, driving the haft ahead of himself as if it were a plug drill. It was easy work for Wrecks to slap the haft aside with the flat of his blade. Again, the bruiser stumbled, and again, the boss raised the cleaver high.

Wrecks chopped down, but as his arm swung, he relaxed his grip for a split klik and let the cleaver swing round in his hand. The blunt edge of the weapon caught Thrag on the back of the head, just above his slugsocket. The upstart was knocked unconscious and dropped to the floor.

It was over in less time than it took to reload a rivet cannon.

Heavy Wrecks beckoned over a couple of juves who were shunting an empty scrapcart past. He signed to them to lug Thrag-13 off the forge floor and back to the Hablocks. He didn't expect any more trouble from him, at least not for a cycle or two. Every bron acts out now and then. Nothing a few shifts skimming slag won't fix. No need to sign to the rest of the subcrew – they were already back at work.

Few forge bosses in Sinkside could match Heavy Wrecks for respect. He was born to it – natborn, in fact, the product of generations of carefully arranged breeding accords between Palatine enclaves, all part of the Overtyrant's grand plan. The skinnies have it that Goliaths are dumb folk, but short lifespans inevitably focus the mind on legacy. Such things were beyond Wrecks's station, though, and he turned away from the hearths to head down to the finishing mills.

He'd barely moved when he saw something in the shadows, away from the line. A hooded figure, wrapped in a heavy scrapcloak, plate armour beneath. The figure gestured Half-hand:

Saw the fight. Good work.

Wrecks presented his full bulk, flexing hostility, and signed back at the intruder.

My forge. Who are you?

The figure took a step forward, enough for the forgelight to reach beneath the hood. More Half-hand:

An old bron. We talk.

It was Fraggenstein, former Graav of Sinkside.

Talk? I'm working.

Fraggenstein grimaced.

Got new work for you.

Every bron will tell you that no-one bossed the forge mobs like Heavy Wrecks. And then came the shift when Fraggenstein roped Wrecks into his downhive death quest.

The Ballad of the Bullkroks Part 1: The End

Jaw first, the defender hit the pitted steel floor of the fighting pit. Rolling onto his back, he squinted down at the rent in his chestplate and saw oozing gore. He looked up at the blocky figure standing over him, framed by arena lumens: the challenger, flexing his arms and kissing the bloodied blade of his renderizer. Already, the jagged axehead had torn chunks out the defender's limbs, for the challenger was expert at working deft, armour-splitting twists into the moment of contact. The Slamdrome crowd loved the display, and roared their savage acclaim.

The defender tried to rise, but his old body spoke pain from a hundred points, and he collapsed back to the pit floor with a groan. He was done and he knew it. He let go his blade and, suppressing a tremor, twisted his fingers into the Half-hand sign for surrender. So ended the reign of Graav Fraggenstein, Big Boss-meyn of Sinkside, Lord of the Core-korf, Palatine Alpha.

A swathe of the crowd screamed for a deathblow, but Goliaths, for all their brutality, will always show respect for a might-wrought name. Bruizo the challenger – now Graav Bruizo - stooped and offered an open hand to his fallen foe.

'Hey up, old bron. Let's get you on foot.'

Fraggenstein winced through the pain in his chest as he gripped Bruizo's wrist to launch himself up and standing. Blood trickled into his boots. He almost staggered. Almost.

Bruizo reversed his grip on Fraggenstein's arm and raised it, calling out: 'The old boss-meyn!'

The crowd went wild.

Fraggenstein returned the courtesy, snarling through the pain: 'The new boss-meyn!'

The crowd went wilder.

Two shifts later, there were no crowds in the great throne room of Sinkside. Only Fraggenstein attended Graav Bruizo. With the public ritual in the fighting pit done, there was no need to compound the loser's humiliation. Another courtesy.

The rites had been observed: formal word had been sent to the Overtyrant, and Bruizo's heavy metal glyph now hung above the throne. Fraggenstein's was relegated to the wall of once-lords. This work was too important to to be entrusted to slaves, and the two men had lugged and mounted the icons themselves - the new Graav with the easy vigour of youth, the ex-Alpha wincing and muttering as the effort strained the docs' hasty graft-job on his wounds.

Their work done, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the open colonnade that ran down one side of the chamber. The throne room was high up in the Alpha-Fort and afforded a fine view of the cavernous domespace that contained the settlement of Sinkside.

The enclave nestled close to the central sink of Hive Primus, from which it took both its name and the raw energy for its industry. Primal heat discharge, direct from beneath the planet's crust, made the zone uninhabitable to regular humans, a perfect Goliath dominion. Everything was washed with infernal red light and shrouded in smoke from the dome's dominant feature: the Scorch Works. These seven steel production lines ran from the towering blast furnaces, through a succession of lesser furnaces and colossal chain-hung ladles, to the steam-shrouded finishing mills. Railtrack viaducts crisscrossed the dome, with heavy, snub-faced engines hauling in loads of raw ore for processing, or carting out fine steels of various grades to Guilder warehouse holdings beyond the settlement's borders.

Between the factorum works and the palace lay the Slamdrome, a sprawling complex, constructed from rough scrap on the ruins of unknowable archaeo-architecture. Each of its twelve arenas consisted of a central fighting deck surrounded by raked terraces, open-topped so that the crowds' roars might sound out across the domespace. One of the arenas was larger than the others, reserved for the most prestigious title fights and mass brawls – this was where Fraggenstein had fought Bruizo. Some of the eleven satellite pits were uniquely outfitted with specific environmental conditions – carnage served in flavours to suit all palates.

It was the turn of shift, and Sinksiders, no bigger than badzone grime-ants from the vantage point of the throne room, were teeming to the Slamdrome, having discharged their duties for the cycle. There was similar changeover activity at the furnace lines, and likewise beyond that, at the Hablocks – the container-crate shanty at the dome edge, far from the crimson glow of the Works. Hundreds of distant lumens danced like sparks as crowds of Goliaths emerged from their crude hovels to clock on. From crib to forge to fighting pit – a typical cycle in Sinkside.

This was the final time Fraggenstein would cast his battleworn gaze on the clanging, jostling korf he had ruled for half his life. His bones ached and his armour hung heavy on his weary frame. Custom dictated that the deposed leader be exiled.

'I'm glad it was you who beat me,' said Fraggenstein, picking a fleck of forge-ash from his brow. 'You are a fine fighter.'

'I learned it from you, old bron,' said Bruizo solemnly. 'How many times did you fight for this korf?'

'More than I know,' said Fraggenstein, choking on the last word. His chest was aching badly despite the docs' efforts. It took a lot to break his steely skin, but he didn't heal like he used to. His vat-born body was well past its prime. 'But it is the right time for my end.'

'You are not dead yet. Where will you go?'

'The Underhive. There's a good death down there if you look.'

'You will take korf-brons with you.' It was as much a command as it was advice.

'I will. What they learn with me, they can use to serve you.'

Bruizo nodded and stared out over the blood-red lights of his new domain. Nothing was said for a few clicks. The forge hammers and harsh calls of the work-gangs rose from below, mixing with the cheers from the fighting pits as this shift's contenders were announced. Fraggenstein rolled his shoulders and made to leave.

At the threshold, he paused. Bruizo sensed this and turned to hear Fraggenstein's last words in the throne room.

'Your time as Alpha will end. Sooner than you think.'

Bruizo considered this, and then nodded with a shrug.

Fraggenstein turned away and set off to gather a crew for his downhive doom-quest. At the time his exile began, he was thirteen terran years old.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 18: Gunn's End

A sudden jolt in the pitch-black, and Jonn Gunn was thrown off the bench and into the oily slime that puddled on the floor of the transit container. He cursed and hauled himself to his knees, arms weighed down by the chains that wrapped his wrists and cut through his ragged gaolhouse weeds. Rising wearily in the locked-in darkness, he staggered unsteadily to the bench, and exhaled heavily as he leaned back against the container wall.

Time was, Jonn Gunn was as upstanding a venator as you'd find in the Primus underhive, serving his blood warrant from the Ash Gates to Down Town, and all points in between. He'd have been on the outside of the container, bringing in high-value captives for transfer. Riding the rig, swapping crud jokes and hunters' tales with the enforcers, hotshot ready and an eye on the tunnelsides and dome edges, for ambush was always a likelihood.

But that was before Foulnest, and the rackets war. Before the pact with Guilder Van Scultis had turned sour and seen Gunn and his crew branded outlaws. Before his arrest and imprisonment by the enforcers of Precinct 13. And now here he was, just another recidivist, albeit a notorious one on account of his fall from grace.

He'd been dragged out of his cell and shoved into the container at shift-start. Judging by how long the journey had lasted, they must be nearing their destination: Black Wall Station, where Gunn would be handed over to uphive law enforcement. Hive City gaols were hyper-secure, and it wouldn't be long before his time came under the blade, either the auto-guillotine or lobotomiser's scalpel, depending on his sentence.

Jonn Gunn was out of options – almost. A dozen long cycles back, he'd paid a small fortune to have a talented doc weave in a synth-flesh pocket halfway down his gullet. One sharp jab of the tongue on the release muscle at the back of his mouth and he'd retch up the pocket's contents: a chrono-crystal, one of a looted pair. Somehow, he could make use of it to escape.

But Gunn recalled what had happened when the first crystal had accidentally smashed – the random time-skew, the sudden trauma of accelerated ageing, poor Ratbite Ruddlestone crumbling to ash. Too risky. Better to save it until the final shift, until his death watch.

Besides, there was another possibility. Gunn grimaced in the darkness, and wondered if Noomena Greyz and the boys were still as good as their word.

++++

For cycles untold, Black Wall Station had been nothing more than a sealed transit point located beyond the highest levels of E-Sec, one of countless fortifications across Primus intended to stymie the bleed of the badzones into lower Hive City. But with the resettlement of Foulnest, it had come to serve as a key link in the uphive-downhive chain, and a modest shanty town had sprung up on the sumpwards side of the cavernous domespace that the wall cut across.

Now, a crawler rig and trailer was approaching the outskirts of the shanty, crushing its way through the hostile vegetation that clustered along the settlement edge on the domeside furthest from the wall. The rig was manned by the enforcers of Precinct 13, along with dandy venator Slash Memento. Captain Doyle had protested that his patrolmen could handle the op, but Memento insisted on being present when his old rival was handed over to his final fate. Two transit containers sat on the trailer, with a prisoner apiece: Gunn in one, Sheila Fontaine of the Rustgate OMC in the other.

The final run in to the Wall Station would take the rig along a roadway which cut between towering corroded manufactorum ruins, relics of the dome's long-dead original use, and then the low-level, ramshackle scrap-habs of the shanty itself. Downhivers and scummers were mooching around the settlement, and a couple of gangs were loitering obviously in the ruins, primed for trouble.

Plenty of ripe ambush spots, and Precinct 13 knew it. Which is why Gunn's Guns had spent cycles plotting their rescue shot.

The plan was to hang back in the ruins and wait for the rig to roll almost as far as the shanty, so it was hemmed in on the narrow roadway. Lazko Ozwik and Mumbles Mervik would hide out uplevel, ready to open fire and start a distracting ruckus. With the rig slowed or halted, Noomena Greyz and Snags Skivvens would hit the back of the trailer and spring Gunn. They'd scored a couple of enforcer bodysuits and sprayed them up in Precinct 13 colours with the notion that, in the confusion, the coppers might mistake them for reinforcements and hold fire. Even a few clicks' extra time might make all the difference.

The Guns lurked in the domefloor shadows, primed for action. Cynical venator wisdom has it that you run the op, you take your shots, and if things go sumpwards, you walk away. But this time, it was different. This time, the stake was no less than the life of the man who'd forged them into a crew. The man who, one way or another, commanded their respect and loyalty.

'Sharp time, boys, let's do it,' said Noomena, flexing the collar of her enforcer suit with uncomfortable finger. It was overly cumbersome in comparison with her customary bodyglove. Still, she looked the part more than Snags, his prematurely-ancient frame swamped by the bulky reinforced armour.

They looked on with some envy as Mumbles and Lazko, moving easily in their usual downhiver garb, strode over to a ladder and clambered up to the first level, streetside. A few clicks, then Lazko crackled over the vox.

'We're in position, got a sweet scope of the rig route.'

'Spirestraight,' confirmed Noomena. 'Hold it there until I give the signal. And keep your heads down – we do not want the coppers catching sight of us too soon.'

'Affirmative,' said Lazko, and then, 'Here's a thing. I'm seeing that Veiled Cartel fragger Lucien up across the way. He's mixing it up with two crews, Orlock and Goliath... not sure what he's about.'

'Probably some standard Delaque skut,' voxed Noomena. 'Bound to end in scrapping. Good. We can rely on that for the distraction. Works to our advantage.'

The rig was rolling between the ruins now, pinched in on both sides, walkways crisscrossing above it. The foremost tracks and nose rumbled into view just a few metres away from where Noomena and Snags were hiding.

'Now?' said Snags, his ancient brow furrowing.

Noomena glanced past the rig, up and over the roadway. Whatever Lucien was doing, it looked to be kicking things off: the Orlocks and Goliaths were rushing each other, pulling guns and blades. Precinct 13's attention would probably be focused that way, but still...

'Hold it a click longer,' said Noomena. 'Let's stir the slop a bit, then make our move. Pop a smoke grenade in front of the rig, then follow me.'

'Got it,' nodded Snags. He yanked a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and lobbed it. As he turned and followed Noomena back round the ruin, the grenade detonated and filled the street with grimy smoke.

A level above, Lazko took in the scene. Between the twisting plumes of smoke, he saw two Goliaths sprinting heavily across a walkway towards the Orlocks on the far side. They were met with a wall of gunfire, enough to send them flailing to the street below. Even their bio-boosted muscle was no match for super-heavy treads – Lazko winced as they were crushed by the oncoming rig.

The smoke was thickening and it it was hard to make out what was happening, so Lazko turned and looked along the roadway, towards the Wall. Something they hadn't factored in: another rig, crawling through the shanties to meet them. It was crewed by enforcers, and some flash-looking type and his entourage. Lazko squinted and made out details – the flash type was Bellerophon Smeed, another old rival of Gunn's, presumably in zone to take custody. Time was tight enough for this caper, and it had just got tighter.

But here was something: a fight was breaking out on the far rig. Pistols and blades were drawn, flashing in the downhive lumenlight. Looked like Smeed's crew was scrapping with their enforcer guides. And beyond that, figures zagging across the roadway, loosing shots and screaming battlecries. Some of them were those three-armed muties of the Krass strain, some of them wore the colours of the Rustgate OMC.

Lazko grinned beneath his rebreather. Trust that madman Ray Void to bring the confusion, whether it was called for or not.

Mumbles had likewise spotted the tumult down the road, though he was more stirred up by it than Lazko.

'Hrrr-hrrrrrgh!' growled Mumbles, nosing his shotgun out onto the street.

'Fragdammit, wait for Noomena's -'

Too slow. Mumbles opened fire on the near rig, peppering its steely flank. Most of Precinct 13 were fixed on the Goliath-Orlock rumble that Lucien had sparked, which wall still raging across the towertops to the right. But Slash Memento picked up on Mumbles's shot – and his venator instincts told him this was more than a random overspill of the gang fight they were rolling through.

Memento pulled out a canister from his overcoat, primed it, and deftly threw it into Mumbles and Lazko's sniping spot. There was a roar as the chems in the canister combined and drenched the level in fire. Memento smirked, tweaked the tip of his barbe, and stepped across the rig deck to address Captain Doyle.

The flames burnt out as quickly as they'd arrived. Lazko rolled onto his back, his fatigues smouldering. He'd been singed, but not set alight. 'Mumbles? You still sharp?'

'Hrrgh.' A rueful affirmative from Mumbles, who'd been likewise scorched but was otherwise unhurt.

Lazko carefully peeped out onto the street as he got back on the vox to Noomena. 'Big trouble. They're onto us. The creep Memento is chatting up the captain...'

Noomena and Snags were round the back of the ruins. The rig trailer was level with them now. Two containers, two captives, with Enforcer Riggs acting as rearguard.

Lazko was still buzzing through on the vox. 'Reckon if you're gonna make the move, you've got to make it now... wait, Memento's moving again. Towards one of the lock-ups. Oh skut, his gun's out, he's opened one of them up, he's - '

One shot rang out, distinct from the background rattle of the gunfights on the walkways above and towards the Wall. One shot, muffled by the confines of a transit container. One shot, execution style.

The back end of the rig and trailer was level with Snags and Noomena now.

'Talk to me, Laz, what the frag just happened?'

Buzz on the vox, then: '… just put a bullet in one of the … I dunno which … Wait, what the frag is this now?'

'Laz, talk to me. Can you scope who got wiped, was it Gunn? Was it Gunn?'

Vox static. Lazko had been thoroughly distracted by events at the front of the rig. Lucien was standing on the walkway above, cackling icily as the steam rose from his melta muzzle. He'd just blasted Captain Doyle through the chest.

Hearing nothing from her crewmates, Noomena's patience ran out. 'Frag this. Snags, put some smoke out. We're going for it.'

'Spirestraight,' said Snags. 'So we're gonna see if the coppers buy us as reinforcements and -'

Noomena fluidly stepped out of the shadows, aimed her plasma pistol, and took Riggs out with one overpowered shot.

'Nah,' she said. 'We're going to run on up the back of those boxes and see if those skutheads didn't just kill the boss man.'

Snags growled his frustration – how many shifts had he spent chasing up black market connections to score them the enforcer uniforms, all for nothing? He popped the smoke grenades and tossed them out into the roadway between the ruins and the rig, affording some cover.

They had to move fast. Couldn't count on the battles down the road to keep Precinct 13 and Memento occupied for long. Noomena and Snags darted through the smoke, reaching the back of the rig. They scrambled up and huddled behind the containers, which had access hatches at both ends. A solid shot from Snags's shotgun popped the lock on the first crate, and Noomena set one foot inside.

The interior was dimly lit by the blue plasma glow of her pistol coil. Bloody matter on the wall. Something slumped on the grimy floor. Prisoner's rags, chains. A fresh corpse.

Noomena took another step. The glow washed over the corpse. It was Fontaine, the back of her head blown off.

Snags stumbled aside as Noomena ducked out of the container. 'Bust that other lock,' she said, pointing. 'Come on, old man, quick!'

Up in the ruins, Lazko and Mumbles were hunched, making out what they could through the drifting smoke. Precinct 13 were scrambling around the rig, trying to pin down mocking Lucien on the walkways above. Mumbles caught a glimpse of Memento.

'Hrrrrrgh hrrrrh.'

'Yeah, I see him,' said Lazko. 'He's got an eye on the lock-ups – probably going to head back there...'

Lazko was about to flick the activator on his vox and warn Noomena – but the situation shifted suddenly. Lucien fired off his grapple line and swept down onto the rig deck, where he was swarmed by enforcers. Blades flashed and the Delaque leader's cold laughter rang out as he stood his ground. Memento had no choice but to turn back to meet this pressing threat.

Meanwhile, Snags had blasted the lock off the second container. Noomena swung the hatch open.

There was Jonn Gunn, blinking as the domelight washed over him.

'Ah, there you are,' he said, and grinned through his ragged beard. 'Was starting to think you wouldn't show up.'

They bundled Gunn out of the container and voxed through to Lazko and Mumbles. Ray Void and Lucien were causing more than enough mayhem to distract the enforcers, enabling the Guns to meet at the dome edge without further bother.

Pausing at a tunnel mouth, they looked back towards Black Wall. Sounds of violence echoed across the domespace, and flashes of muzzle flare lit up the smoke drifting through the ruins and habs. A typical shift in the E-Sec Underhive.

'Long road since we set out from Sector H8,' said Snags, a thousand wrinkles around his too-old eyes.

'Hrrr,' agreed Mumbles, wearily.

'We done here?' asked Lazko, ready to power down his plasma gun.

Noomena sighed as she untied her dye-tipped hair and looked to Gunn. 'What do you say, boss man? We done?'

Jonn Gunn cast a last glance around. He was tired and bitter and sick of it all.

'Yes,' he said. 'We're done.'

They turned and set off down the tunnel.

++++

In the drinking dens and hab holes of Foulnest, they still tell tales of Jonn Gunn, the time-cursed venator-turned-outlaw. For the law-abiding, it's a cautionary tale of how a good man went bad; for the lawless, it's a cautionary tale of how a bad man got caught.

They tell tales of Snags Skivvens and Mumbles Mervik, loyal to the end; Noomena Greyz and Lazko Ozwik, who came to their old hunt-mate's aid; Jak 8-10, the Blister Sisters and Crusher Retzo, the wild ones, fodder for the corpse farms; poor Rabite Ruddlestone, turned to dust; Drifter and Ashman and two-faced Filthy Frenk; and of course, Brokeface Edwydd, who couldn't die, and whose current whereabouts are any hiver's guess.

They tell tales of how the Guns came to Foulnest on the trail of recidivists and, in the name of the rackets, became recidivists themselves. How they fought like sumpfiends in the scouring and reclamation of the settlement. How they scored big in the Great Confusion, though their chrono-crystal loot turned out more curse than blessing. How the Coin Guild crossed them – or did they cross the Guild? How Gunn took on half of Precinct 13 single-handed, and lived to fight another shift.

No-one knows for sure what became of Gunn's Guns, but there's plenty of idle speculation. Some hold that they fled to the Dogland Wastes, or even beyond the Shell, and have carved out a bandit empire, preying on the caravans of the hated Coin Guild. Others claim they were hunted down and executed by offworld agents of the Holy Ordos, paying the ultimate penalty for their time-trespass. Some say they bought their way uphive with the priceless chrono-crystal, and now work under the aegis of a Noble House, doing wetwork and other dark ops.

Because Necromundans are grudge-minded folk, most would agree that, if they're still alive, Jonn Gunn and his crew are plotting revenge, and will return to E-Sec one shift to pay back those that wronged them: Slash Memento, Corvus, Glaw, Lucien, Kez, Ahab, Ray Void, Doyle and most of all Guilder Lymeris Van Scultis.

They tell tales of Jonn Gunn and his crew, of shifts gone and shifts still to come. But as any sump-eyed scummer will attest for the price of a chem-hit or a bottle of second best, a downhive tale's like a crapshoot game: the truth won't be told until the dice are rolled.