The Joy of E-Sec Part 6: To Scour Foulnest

There are countless dark corners in the Primus Underhive, where death lurks around every blind turn and in every lumen-starved badzone dome. But there are few places whose mention will prompt even a seasoned downhiver to reflexively sign an aquila and mutter a prayer lest misfortune brings their sorry hide there. Heretic's Hole, refuge of the most villainous recidivists, is one; the accursed, witch-haunted Charred Cross sector is another.

And then there's Foulnest.

Festering in the furthest depths of E-Sec, where the crumbling badzones meet toxic sump, long has Foulnest had a reputation for the worst kind of criminality. First came Archprint bootleggers, who made use of the disused maufactories to churn out counterfeit weapons, ammunition and other wares. Then there were the smugglers, traversing the hazardous sumpways to ferry contraband from the Ash Wastes and Forbidden Cities. As time passed, the lifeblood of Foulnest turned darker still: cold traders added their offworld goods to the smugglers' lines, and the forge-bosses' output showed increasing signs of heretekal modifications. Inevitably, the taint of Chaos seeped into the place.

Such infection demands purgation. Certain Imperial records, sealed by order of the Adeptus Arbites and Inquisition, detail the martial zeal that was directed at the settlement and its surroundings in a massacre that scoured the zone clean. After the exorcists and techorcists of the Ministorum and Mechanicus had concluded their explusionary rites, Foulnest fell silent. It was just another stretch of badzone, haunted by mutant dregs, shunned by Ratskins, and remembered in dark legends that passed by word of mouth from Hacked Knee to Old Bedlam Town and beyond.

But that was many long cycles ago, and the Underhive is an ever-changing place.

Driven out of Sector H8 after their heretical tendencies were exposed during the Hacked Knee Guild War, the notorious Hellhounds took refuge in Foulnest and, aided by their helot cultist allies, relit the forges and reconnected the air vents. Their worship of the Wrong Gods would find strong empyrical purchase in those accursed domes. But sure as Laudate follows Vigil on the death clock, so justice follows recidivism from spire to sump. House gangs and venators of Sector H8 and elsewhere braved the wilds of E-Sec to hunt the Hellhounds down and claim the bounty on the sinners' heads, and all paths led to Foulnest.

So came the shift that Gunn's Guns arrived there. Not one of them left the place unchanged. Some never left at all.

The crew had passed through the outer manufactories to a dome at the heart of the complex. The lumen rigs flickered above an expansive space dominated by a tall tower and a handful of lower structures, all connected by a network of rusting walkways. On the far side of the dome, a rough barricade had been formed from untidy stacks of armoured containers; beyond the barricade, a guttural chant was in progress. The sound induced a physical reaction in the mercenaries: teeth aching down to the root, itches in the backs of eyeballs, static ripples over greasy hair. There was witchwork here.

Jonn Gunn barked gruff orders: 'Ratbite, Drifter, Snags – with me. We'll hit that walkways up above and see if we can't scope some smart shots. The rest of you, run the dome floor, work forward. We need to get past that barricade.'

Jak 8-10, Crusher and Mumbles marched off towards the high tower with the Blister Sisters and Brokeface Edwydd limping behind. The latter three were still recovering from injuries suffered in the fight against the Faithful Sons, but all hands were required for this venture – needs must as the daemon drives.

Gunn was climbing a ladder to the walkways when he spotted movement ahead, in front of the container wall. There was a grey-clad figure lurking in the shadows of the high tower's middle deck, back turned on Gunn and his men, aiming a long rifle towards the barricade. As Gunn reached the walkway, he glanced around and saw there were several more grey fighters advancing toward the container wall.

'Well damn it sumpwise,' snarled Gunn. It was the Voidsmen, no doubt with their enforcer ally Detective Muller.

They'd met this crew a few cycles back on the other side of E-Sec. The encounter hadn't gone well, but the grudge could wait given the mutual foe they were up against. Gunn overheard the nearest Voidsman voxxing through news of the Guns' arrival, and the crackle of a response – probably Muller himself. The Voidsman nodded to Gunn and gave a sharp thumbs-up – it seemed like the rival crew likewise thought an alliance was in order.

A handful of cultists came scuttling like midden-beetles through a gap in the container barricade. The hunters on the walkways had a decent enough view, but once again Gunn muttered a curse.

These weren't the Hellhounds.

Helot rags in different colours, though they bore the telltale totems and daubed symbols of wrong-goddery. Gunn had come looking for justice for the Hacked Knee folks who'd fallen victim to the Hellhounds, but this too would have to wait.

Whatever ritual these sinners were enacting needed to be shut down, click-smart.

The Voidsmen, having garnered more intel on their E-Sec quest, were ranged across the dome ahead of Gunn's Guns, and were set to open fire on the emerging cultists when a shrill ullulation sounded across the zone, drowning out even the cult incantation. Suddenly, the air was thick with crude pipework arrows flying in from all sides.

The trespassers, both cult and hunter, had drawn the attention of a mutie tribe who made their crude home in Foulnest. Too puny to engage in direct combat, the muties were trying to drive the intruders off from afar, but for the most part their arrows were poorly aimed or too weak to pierce armour. A few clicks later, the muties withdrew and the cult incantation echoed loud once again. Such are the badzones.

While Ratbite crept off to the left, looking for a prime sniping line, Gunn, Snags and Drifter moved to support the Voidsmen in the tall tower. The gunners exchanged shots with the cultists on the dome floor – autofire, longrifle rounds and the searing beam of a mining laser – but this did little more than send fighters ducking for cover.

The atmosphere in the dome was already enough to set a hardened gang on edge, but as the chanting reached a crescendo, the feeling intensified. Lances of queasy sensation rattled through the hunters' skulls and down their spines, churning their stomachs and bowels. Every Throne-fearing body in the dome fought back a wave of powerful nausea. Drifter Zensen bent double and vomited copiously; one of the Voidsmen opened the vents on his vac-helm to do likewise.

On the far side of the barricade, the air next to the obscene effigy roiled and twisted, and the cult witch grinned malignantly. The air somehow tore and coalesced simultaneously, forming into an impossible shape: a pink mass of tentacles, grasping hands, jagged teeth and mindlessly intelligent eyes. A fresh horror had come to the Underhive.

The horror surged forward on wrong-jointed, fluid legs. It slithered though the gap in the barricade with a mad cackle. The Voidsmen trained their guns and peppered it with heavy lasbolts and bullets which ripped the target apart.

But the gummy shreds reassembled into two new forms, pink turning to blue. The cackling monstrosity was reborn as two grumbling fiends who continued to dart forwards. The cultists exulted to have such blessed children in their midst.

Beneath the tall tower, Brokeface Edwydd had witnessed all this.

'Holy fraggin heck, may the Emprah, Sangwingus, Guileman and all the fraggin saints preserve me!' he gasped, ducking out of sight and pressing his back against a support strut. Reaching to his belt, he unclapsed his flask of second best and took a long swig. The burning rotgut overpowered the nausea, and he winced away the itch in his optic nerves. He reclipped the flask and readied his autopistols - with a bellyful of booze, an Underhiver can take on anything. Or at least, he thinks he can.

'Come on, then!' Brokeface slurred as he launched himself off the strut and back round the corner.

Immediately ahead, Jak and the Blister Sisters were moving to support the Voidsmen. The Eschers and Goliath were brave enough, or just plain crazy enough, not to be daunted.

'Let's make mayhem!' came the shrieking rasp through Zondra Zee's respirator unit as she started forward.

Beyond the hunters, there was a narrow strip of open domefloor and then the gap in the container wall. There, the cultists, buoyed by the summoned horrors, were lighting and hurling crude incendiary bombs.

The bombs impacted, washing the area with flames. The lead Voidsman, bossman Ray, was floored and set alight. Another Voidsman and the Blister Sisters were pinned but the flames didn't catch.

But this was slim respite for the hunters – one of the blue horrors, seemingly unimpressed by its mortal groupies' efforts, grumbled forward and levelled its fingertips at Zondra Zee as she lay on the deck. Multihued flames burst from the horrors hand and engulfed the Escher exile, who screamed and writhed as the unholy fire clung to her.

Jak 8-10 was hobbled, but his murderous instincts were as quick as ever, and the horror had strayed too close. Never one for deep insight, Jak's brain couldn't process the full obscene implications of the thing's presence, and he made to deal with it as he would regular hive vermin, limping forwards at speed and timing the swings of his axe and spud-jacker to make heavy contact as soon as he got near enough.

The weapons bit into the horror's strange flesh, and it wailed miserably as it died – or, more precisely, as it changed again, splitting into twin pairs of sentient flame that danced around Jak and giggled as they singed his ankles and backside. Enraged, the Goliath set about stomping the flame-horrors into sooty smudges on the dome floor.

Zondra, still ablaze, had lurched to her feet and ran screaming towards the barricade wall. Her path was blocked by a simpering cultist who lashed out with a club fashioned from junk metal as she drew near. There was a damp snap as the club made contact with her burning hood. The Blister Sister dropped hard, neck askew.

Zamandra Zee had ducked out of the way of the flames and was back on her feet just in time to see her sister fall. She charged forward, stiletto sword raised. Where Zondra had screamed in agony, Zamandra screamed for vengeance: 'I'll have your eyes for this, ratfart!'

She thrust the tip of her sword at the cultist, aiming for the slits in his hood. But the cultist was fighting with the righteous zeal of a true believer, his god made manifest at his side, and he dodged the snaking blade with ease.

The crude club swung again and caught Zamandra overstretched. She took the blow just above the waist, and crumpled to her knees at the impact. The cultist swung the club round and slammed it down on Zamandra's head. A snap as her skull broke. She joined her sister on the cold deck.

The triumphant cultist chuckled and howled a prayer of thanks, gibberish to the non-initiated. His doggerel exultation blended into the chanting which has resumed beyond the barricade.

Gunn saw all this from the tower above. 'Lads, if we don't get over that barricade soon, frag knows what that witch might conjure up next. Drifter, run left – join those Voidsmen making a break for the top of the wall. Snags, with me.'

'Aye, boss,' replied the hunters. Downhive scummers though they were, they'd learnt to respect Jonn Gunn's orders.

Snags and Gunn made it to the edge of the high tower's mid level just as the cultists below flung out another clutch of bombs – frag grenades, this time. The hunters were blasted off their feet but otherwise unhurt.

Straight below, in the gloomy domefloor level of the tall tower, Crusher was looking to give the cultist a taste of their own fungus – he yanked a frag grenade off his bandolier, pulled the pin and hurled it towards his foes. But the grenade spun wide and spanged off an overhead beam, bouncing back to stop dead not half a metre away from Crusher.

'Ah, Helmawr's balls,' he muttered. Just enough time to fling himself to the side as the grenade went off.

Crusher was floored but not hurt by the detonation. He sat up, shaking his head clear and wryly cursing his clumsiness. 'Heh heh, daemons take me for a fool...'

He should've watched what he wished for: suddenly a daemon was upon him, lunging out of the gloom with its jaws snapping and tentacles flailing. It was the other blue horror, and after the frag blast Crusher barely had the wits to fight it off.

The horror wrapped itself around the hunter, pressing its spongy, gelatinous flesh against him. Crusher strained to twist his head and neck away from the creature's slavering jaws, but new mouths were opening up along the horror's rippling tentacles.

Then, there was a staccato burst of autofire, and the horror was shredded, releasing Crusher as it entered its death throes.

As he shrugged the beast off, Crusher saw his salvation: Brokeface Edwydd was standing nearby, twin autopistols smoking.

Brokeface belched noisly. 'Ta-derrr! Got yer back, me kin!'

'Frag it, Brokeface, you on the second best again? You could've killed me!'

'Yeah, but I din't, did I? Saved yer sorry skin, din't I? I – yow!'

This last exclamation was prompted by a nip on the ankle from one of the flame-horrors that had spawned from the blue monster. The hunters got to work stamping the fiends out.

A few metres away, the other side of one of the tall tower's bulkhead walls, Jak 8-10 had likewise extinguished his miniature tormentors and was lurching toward the cultist who'd taken out the Blister Sisters. The Goliath had developed something of a bond with the outcast Eschers, mistaking their spiteful pranks for real affection.

'You clobbered the gals!' he snarled, swinging his spud-jacker, 'now Jakky-boy's gonna clobber you!'

Red-eyed, bloat-muscled Jak in his rage must have seemed a daemon of sorts to the cultist, who fumbled his defence and found himself on the receiving end of the lame Goliath's brutal blows. Jak 8-10 made shot, bloody work of his revenge.

A heavy creaking boomed across the dome – some ancient overhead pipework had given way and was disgorging its chem contents into the ventworks. The upper fans spewed out a fine haar of toxic droplets which spread through the thin air. It wasn't enough to reduce visibility, but the mist sizzled where it came into contact with walls, walkways, armour and skin. Every fighter in the dome was rendered vulnerable by the corrosive vapour.

Off on the right side of the dome, away from the rush on the barricade, Mumbles Mervik had got into a drawn-out exchange of fire with a cultist. Each fighter had the other pinned down across a tangle of twisted junk, both unable to rush to their comrades' aid.

Over on the left of the dome was Detective Muller himself, accompanied by Voidsmen. They were attempting to outflank the cultists and break round the side of the barricade. At first, the hunters had cut down the cultist outliers, but the advance had got bogged down either side of a rusted out old tractor unit. Both sides had each other pinned, exchanging shots and waiting for the ideal click to break cover.

Up on the walkways spanning the dome centre, Ratbite was hopping from platform to platform on his hairy ratling feet. He glanced over to the barricade wall. Some of the Voidsmen had scrambled to the top if it, bypassing the defenders, but were coming under fire from the reserve cultists lurking down the other side.

Ratbite giggled through stitched-up lips as he watched the Voidsmen reel and tumble from the barricade, blood spattering in wide arcs – but the abhuman sniper knew this was really no laughing matter. The Voidsmen's ranks were thinning rapidly. Before long, Gunn's Guns would be left to fight on alone.

Ratbite paused at a walkway junction and squinted at the container wall. He had to find a shot. Any shot.

There. Through a sliver-gap between containers, he could make out part of the cultists' hideous totem, and there, just to the right, the witch running the show. An arm from the elbow up, a shoulder, a slice of chest. It was enough.

Ratbite rested the barrel of his longrifle on the walkway rail and took careful aim. He counted out his prayers to the Throne, just like he was taught back in the Guard. He saw the shot, just like he was taught in the Guard. He was the shot, just like he was taught in the Guard. He took the shot, just like he was taught in the Guard.

Through the gap in the containers, Ratbite saw the witch spin and drop, blood spewing from his shoulderblade. He'd made the shot, just like he'd been taught in the Guard.

Ratbite giggled with sadistic satisfaction.

It wasn't enough, of course. The witch was down but not out. Summoning the energy of a true zealot, the heretic ignored the pain from the sniper wound and hauled himself to his knees before the totem. The hunters were closing in, but he had a higher purpose to serve. A holy mission, consecrated by the breaking of black bread and imbibing of bloody brews with the mighty Vokran and Keltor. Even as he felt his strength begin to ebb, the witch muttered his final, most obscene incantation.

Unlike the earlier summoning, the completion of this ritual barely stirred the stale air in the dome. But, though few knew it at the time, this lowly witch had just wrought dark change on the fate of Foulnest, of E-Sec, of Hacked Knee, perhaps even of the Primus Underhive and Necromunda itself.

This shift, though, things were going the way of the hunters. The cultists blocking the path to the barricade had thinned out. Down on the domefloor, the way was clear and even Voidboss Ray had rolled the flames out, having sustained and survived an improbable amount of cultist gunfire as he'd staggered about.

Gunn stared down from the walkway above and cracked a rare grin.

'Thanks for clearing the way, comrade!' he shouted down to his counterpart. Then, to the Guns, 'Forward, lads! Rush those sorry sons of sumpsuckers!'

Gunn, Drifter and Snags advanced along the walkways. Down below, Crusher, Brokeface and Jak made their move. Even Mumbles had taken out his opponent in the gun duel and was heading for the barricade.

The badzones took another turn, and the toxic mist faded away, the vents instead wafting in clouds of eyeball-sized spores. Such events were not unusual round these parts – the only uncertainty was exactly how the spores would react if overly disturbed.

The hunters didn't have to wait long to find out. Brokeface had somehow staggered to the gap in the barricades first and, lurching through to the other side, caught sight of the wounded witch. With a mad cackle, he raised his autopistols and opened fire, but the second best had rendered him sloppy and the shots went well wide, peppering the far wall of the dome.

One bullet didn't even get that far, instead making contact with a drifting spore a metre or so away from Brokeface. The spore ruptured, disgorging an expansive, opaque cloud of dust. The hunters coming up behind Brokeface found their line of sight to the cultists' lair completely blocked.

Gunn was about to spit a curse at Brokeface, but a movement way over to his left, at the far end of the barricade, caught his eye. Muller and one of the remaining cultists had broken cover and were charging at each other. Gunn paused to see how this would pan out.

The detective had his plasma gun raised and took a shot at the onrushing cultist, but it went wide, melting a nearby support strut. The cultist had better luck, tossing a frag grenade which detonated precisely as it hit Muller's armoured chest. He was flung back, slamming hard into the rusted out tractor.

As the frag haze cleared, it was evident that Muller was badly injured: the explosion had ripped his amour apart, and charred flesh and glistening internal organs were visible. Blood streamed from Muller's mouth as he slumped against the tractor unit. He twitched, perhaps hoping to make one last act of resistance against the cultist.

Gunn had a decent shot, albeit long range. He raised his hotshot las, taking aim squarely at the cultist's back. And then he thought back to the previous run-in with the Voidsmen, and how Muller hadn't hesitated to turn his plasmafire on Gunn.

By Underhive standards, Jonn Gunn might be considered an honourable man. Still, it was no great pain for him to break his aim and rush on after Drifter and Snags.

The cultist advanced with a crude metal club in his hand, and set about beating the last breaths of out of Detective Muller. Truth be told, he wasn't surprised it had come to this: hunting the Hellhounds had been his last job before retirement, and such stakes are as good as a death sentence, the way Necromundan luck tends to run.

And this wasn't the last murder of the shift. Beyond the barricade, by the cultists' totem, the wounded witch was writhing in agony, his dark work work done. Brokeface Edwydd had stumbled clear of the spore cloud and was heading towards the witch, intent on taking some point-blank killing shots with his autopistols.

'Freeze, creep.' The voice came from behind him. It was boss Voidsman Ray, burnt, battered but still standing, emerging from the spore cloud.

'Hey, hey,' said Brokeface. 'I ain't one of them, buddy. I'm one of Gunn's boys, I'm on your side.'

'I know,' said Ray. He pointed at the downed witch with his chainsword. 'But that sumpsucker belongs to me.'

The second best had Brokeface feeling bolshy. 'Over my dead body, you fragwit.'

Ray shrugged. 'Suits me.'

The two fighters charged at each other, Brokeface cackling and shooting wildly with his autopistols, Ray firing up his chainsword and taking careful aim with his stubber. Void-born discipline won out over booze-soaked bravado: Brokeface's bullets rattled uselessly off the nearby container units, Ray's single shot caught his enemy in the guts and dropped him to the floor.

'Nice try, scummer,' snarled Ray, driving his chainsword through Brokeface's chest. Then, he strode calmly to the totem and cut the downed witch's head off.

The surviving cultists were melting away into gloomy side tunnels, and neither party of hunters had much more appetite for battle. Betrayals went unpunished – the Voidsmen weren't to know that Gunn passed up a chance to save Muller, and the ties that bound the Guns weren't strong enough to demand vengeance for Brokeface.

By shift's end, word had come through from the other side of Foulnest that a different coalition of hunters – the Veiled Cartel, Savage Kittens and Slimehouse Golems – had cornered the Hellhounds, fighting a parallel battle. There, the hunters had likewise prevailed, but notorious boss Hellhound Vokran had escaped with some sort of abominable fiend summoned during the fight. Jonn Gunn's work in E-Sec was not done yet.

Over the next couple of cycles, news spread of how the lastest scouring of Foulnest had restored Helmawr's light to that corner of the Underhive. Gangs, mercs, green hivers, dregs and, of course, the Merchant Guilds all scented opportunity and before long the E-Sec badzones were alive with fortune seekers. Still, as they say, the brighter the light, the darker the shadow, and it wasn't long before Foulnest began to live up to its old reputation.

That, though, is another downhive tale...

The Joy of E-Sec Part 5: Through the Fumes

A cracked spine wasn't enough to keep Jonn Gunn down for long – still, he was wincing through the pain as he led his ragged crew of scummer mercs into the vacant mech complex. A local dreg had pointed them this way – apparently, the Hellhounds had holed up in the disused factorum on their way through the E-Sec badzones.

Not for the first time, Gunn's Guns had competition in the sector. Pious chanting echoed through the vents – pidgin High Gothic, so Gunn figured they it was probably more Cawdor thronebotherers.

The crew paused at the entrance to a broad chamber dominated by a heavy smokestack. At Gunn's bidding, Ratbite and Jak 8-10 ducked down a manhole and into the service crawlways beneath the factorum, looking to outflank the enemy. The Cawdors would probably have the same idea, so Brokeface lingered to guard the manhole while Gunn led the rest of the crew into the large chamber.

The Guns tossed smoke grenades out to cover their advance, but, perhaps triggered by the gang presence or some unknowable power surge, the mech-gear also kicked in. A thick cloud of fumes discharged from the smokestack , turning the open killing ground into a zero-visibility blank zone.

As the smoke filled the chamber, Gunn had just enough time to clock movement on the far side. Cawdors indeed – a crew known as the Faithful Sons, judging by their colours. They were busy hotwiring a ttactor rig in an adjoining corridor, sending the tracked vehicle trundling into the thickening smoke.

Gunn and Crusher split off from the group, crossing the corner of the main chamber and opening a blast door into a wide parallel corridor. Gunn glimpsed a Faithful Son lurking on the far side, hefting a heavy crossbow. But it seemed like the Cawdor wasn't suspensor equipped – it was taking a long time to bring the crossbow to bear, and Gunn seized the opportunity to charge across the corridor, power knife drawn and buzzing. The two fighter were soon locked in combat.

Crusher lurked back in the doorway – there were more Faithful Sons in the corridor, and they soon had him pinned, though he tried to flush them out with grenades, they stood their ground. The Blister Sisters, unfazed by the smoke in the main chamber on account of their respirators, cut through the fumes and tried to pincer the Cawdors with a surprise attack. But Zondra and Zamandra Zee had underestimated their enemy – among the Cawdors was a hulking stig shambler, which turned its big guns on the Escher mercs. Zondra was blasted out of the fight, and Zamandra fled, heading back the way she'd come. Snags had followed the Blister Sisters through the smoke, and took point blank aim at the Cawdors as he emerged, but his lungs were still raw and his eyes streaming from the toxic fumes. He missed, and the stig took him out.

Over the other side of the zone, Ratbite emerged from another manhole. He crept towards the main chamber, looking to take up a decent sniping position, but the heavy cloud from the smokestack meant he was stuck for targets. Jak 8-10, not the sharpest knife in the pit-fight, was lost in the crawlways below.

The lumens in the zone flickered and dimmed, perhaps depleted by the active mechworks. Shadows melded with smoke, and other sounds joined the grind of the machinery and the chanting of the Cawdors. The sounds were guttural, bestial – there were downhive horrors lurking in the dark, hungry sump-beasts and worse. Brokeface, isolated from his gangmates, found himself attacked by a slimy, pale tentacle that reached down from the gloom, but he fought it off in desperation.

Jak finally found his way to another manhole and resurfaced – but hed misjudged things badly, emerging in the middle of the smokestack cloud. He couldn't see the end of his spud-jacker, let alone an enemy to charge. All he could do was limp through the smoke in the direction of whatever sounded like combat.

One of the Cawdors who'd entered the crawlways was more astute – he emerged mere metre from the fleeing Zamandra, and charged her with his chainglaive buzzing. The Blister Sister didn't stand a chance and was hacked out of the fight.

Crusher saw this happening mere metres away behind him – no choice but to break cover from the doorway and take the fight to the Cawdors in the corridor. Laughing wildly, he charged out – there were two gangers and the stig shambler in his path, and he flung a krak grenade that spiralled well wide. The Cawdors opened fire, but somehow Crusher was merely pinned.

In the smoke-filled main chamber, Jak was still trying to get his bearings, when a large object suddenly roared towards him – it was the tractor rig, with a jury-rigging Cawdor riding it and screaming canticles of abhorrence. The tractor ploughed into Jak, but his vat-bred resilience paid off as he stood his ground and grinned. The Cawdor's jaw hung open at his failed hit-and-run, zealous words catching in his tox-choked throat.

Ratbite had found a target at the edge of the smoke, but the ganger in his sights was at uncomfortably close range, and the ratling's long rifle only managed to pin him. Rather than risk being charged, Ratbite ducked back behind the corner, glancing at the manhole he'd come out of.

Back at the Guns' entry point, Brokeface fond himself under attack by another unseen sump-horror. This time, he didn't react fast enough and was taken out of the fight.

Gunn's brawl with the crossbow Son was dragging on – the encumbered Cawdor's fists weren't much use against Gunn's carapace armour, and Gunn's spinal injury was robbing him of his strength, even with his power knife. The stig shambler saw an opportunity to intervene and lumbered past Crusher, who'd just hauled himself back to his feet. This turned out to be a telling oversight – Crusher saw a chance to charge one of the other Faithful Sons and took it. He made murderous work with his sword, driving it into the Cawdor's heart, killing him outright.

The other side of the smoke, Ratbite was being pursued by one of the Cawdors and decided to take one last shot before ducking back down the manhole. This time, the shot ran true, taking the Faithful Son out.

This happened right about when Gunn finally prevailed against the bowman, knocking him out with the hilt of his power knife. Gunn was exhausted, and grimly steeled himself to accept the charge of the oncoming stig shambler, but suddenly the Faithful Sons were falling back, disappearing in the smoke and gloom. Seems they'd sustained enough casualties for one shift, and preferred to cut their losses. Gunn's Guns had prevailed in this battle of attrition.

Once the smoke had cleared and the lumens flickered back to life, the mercenaries took their time to search the manufactory, looking for clues as to the Hellhounds' whereabouts. They found what they needed at a semi-functioning cogitator port, which had recently been used to scan a route through E-Sec. The destination had to be where they'd find the fugitive cult, and, when he read it, Jonn Gunn cracked a wry smile. He should've guessed it before they'd even left Sector H8. Every downhiver this side of Dust Falls had heard of the place, a miserable, forsaken hole, final refuge of the lost and the damned: the accursed Foulnest.

The Joy of E-Sec Part 4: Beyond Salvation

'Brokeface' Edwydd reckoned he had a lead. Reckoned there was a remote trade post in the heart of E-Sec. Reckoned it was frequented by hardbitten b-zoners. Reckoned it was just the place to score tattle on the fugitive Hellhounds. Reckoned he might pick up a few fresh flasks of second best to boot.

Turned out there was what 'Brokeface reckoned, and what Gunn's Guns actually found, and a gap as wide as the Great Heat Sink between the two.

There was no trade post. Instead, there was a hazardous network of crumbling tunnels, laced with shardwracks and other malignant plantlife. Still, perhaps there'd be something worth salvaging, so the Guns fanned out. Brokeface took Zondra Zee, Mumbles and Crusher one way; Ratbite and Drifter went the other, looking for a sweet sniper spot should there be trouble.

And trouble there was – Gunn's Guns weren't alone. The notorious Slimehouse Golems, a Cawdor crew who'd carved out a fearsome rep in Sector H8 cycles ago, had joined the hunt for the Hellhounds in E-Sec.

Zondra sprinted forward, keen to draw blood – overkeen, indeed, for she failed to dodge past a stand of venomgorse and found herself flailing on the deck. Crusher was close behind, ready to hurl a grenade at the red-clad figures in the gloom ahead, but the Cawdors were quicker. A hooded zealot sprung from the shadows and levelled a pole-mounted flamer at the mercenaries. The gout of flame took Crusher out of the fight, and Zondra, though unscathed, was shaken and scrambling for cover.

The Golems had troubles of their own, though not at the hands of Gunn's Guns. A writing mass of grapple weed was thrashing down the corridor behind them – not a grave threat, perhaps, but enough to drive them forwards on the offensive.

Hearing Crusher and Zondra's screams, Brokeface scrambled back to join Ratbite and Drifter rather than run onto range of the flamer. They could make out the Golems in the shadows beyond a stand of shardwracks – maybe, if they were fast and lucky, they could set up a rough ambush for the Cawdors. Under covering fire from Ratbite, Drifter darted nimbly across the chamber to set up a crossfire. Brokeface followed but veered too close to the shardwracks and took a nasty slicing.

Meanwhile, Mumbles ducked out and took a shot at the flamer-bearer who'd taken out Crusher. He hit a juve instead, and was so busy trying to duck back into cover that he missed another Golem juve who scuttled out of the gloom and took him out of the fight. 

Behind the juve lumbered a fearsome hooded ogryn, scraping his hooked poleaxe against the tunnel wall. The brute chuckled menacingly as he turned and moved towards Brokeface and Edzra, who let rip with auto and las and pinned the hulking zealot. Turned out, though, that this was exactly what the Cawdors were hoping for – the ogryn was a decoy, distracting the Guns from the outflanking move by the Golem bossman and the infamous Headsman.

The mercs clocked this too late – the Cawdor boss charged up the corridor and hacked into Drifter with his chainglaive, taking the scummer out of the fight. Brokeface didn't fancy his chances, and scrambled back past the shardwracks to rejoin Ratbite.

By now, Zondra Zee had regained her composure and took revenge on the juve who'd scragged Mumbles. But it was too little, too late – the Slimehouse Golems advanced, inexorable, hoods bowed and blades swinging, cruel prayers on their tongues and righteous fire in their eyes. 

'Brokeface' Edwydd reckoned it was time to flee. For once, he reckoned right.

The Joy of E-Sec Part 3: Beside the Sumpside

Where the great River Tombs skirts the E-Sec badzones, the domes and tunnels are periodically flooded by the toxic ebbs and flows of the great chem river as it twists its way downwards to the Sump. Here, desperate scummers eke out a bare life salvaging whatever they can from the poison tide, and it's said that certain outflows and branch-channels connect obscurely to the Ash Wastes beyond the shell of Primus, serving as hazardous smuggling routes for contraband of diverse sorts. Just the kind of place a fugitive gang might pass through – at least, this was the thinking that brought Gunn's Guns there as their hunt for the Hellhounds continued.

Three locals were about their business on a rickty stand of rigs and walkways above the simmering sumpwaters, and Gunn and his crew stepped out onto the listing structure to accost the scummers and shake them down. Once again, though, there were other hunters in the zone – the Illmatix, a crew of plas-happy Van Saar, mask-lenses glowing in clusters of eight, exchanging vox-rattles of Low Binharic cant as they co-ordinated their advance on the far side of the dome.

Gunn split his crew to take on the house gang. Leading Jak 8-10 and Snags along the walkways to the left, Gunn came under fire from Van Saar plasma, which detonated a clutch of promethium barrels in their path. The bounty hunters were pinned and Jak was blasted clean off the walkway, but Gunn and Snags returned fire, sending several Illmatix fighters tumbling down to the sludge banks below.

On the right, Ratbite, Drifter and Zondra Zee found themselves stymied by the presence of an ambot the Illlmatix had coded to serve them. The brute was slowed by a charge by a local scummer, allowing Zondra the chance to mount an overambitious attack of her own. Both were taken out by the mech-brute, but Drifter and Ratbite took advantage of the confusion to keep the distant Illmatix from surging forwards. The latter's longrifle in particular kept the Van Saar at bay.

And then the badzones took a turn for the worse, as they're prone to do. Something gave in the levels above, and fresh chems poured into the dome in vast quantities – the sump level below rose in just few clicks, submerging the sludge banks and mech-wrecks that had served to make it easier to haul oneself out of the chem flood. Worse still, whatever the inflow was, it was giving off clouds of toxic, strength-sapping vapours.

With Zondra out of action and wounded Jak barely staying afloat in the sump sea, survival rather than supremacy became a priority for Gunn's Guns. Snags snagged a moment of bloody glory, lobbing a frag grenade at a Illmatix fighter who'd been temporarily blinded by a jet of burning promethium from a ruptured pipeline. The blast slammed the Van Saar into the ruptured pipe with such force that his neck snapped.

But Snags was blasted out of the fight mere moments later, and Gunn himself took a plasma blast that sent him tumbling into the sumpwaters below. Seeing his gangmates fall, Ratbite scarpered, and Drifter ducked out just before the enraged ambot caught up with him.

Down in the fetid, foamy sumpwater, fighters were succumbing to the fumes: a few of the Van Saars went out of action, and Jak and Gunn were attacked by some unseen sump beast whose barbarous tentacles gouged out a sizeable chunk of Gunn's flesh and squeezed Jak's leg until the bones snapped.

Gunn's Guns just about escaped with their lives, leaving the remaining Illmatix to interrogate the local scummers.

Back at their makeshift camp, where the slosh and suck of the sumpwater was only a distant echo down the tunnels, the Guns took stock. Zondra and Snags's injuries were inconvenient but not severe: they'd miss the crew's next engagement – though Snags was certainly well enough to be bragging extensively about the murder he'd made. As for Gunn and Jak 8-10, their wounds were nothing a dose of stinger mould or session at a fleshweaver's loom couldn't fix, but there were no such resources out here in the badzones, and the injuries would plague them for as long as this hunt lasted. Things scanned bleak for Gunn and his Guns – another cycle, another scrap, and precious little intel to show for it. 

Still, the fighters who'd missed this run-in with Illmatix were back on their feet; what's more Brokeface Edwydd was claiming he had another hot contact, an old acquaintance who was bound to set them spire-straight on the location of the Hellhounds. What could possibly go wrong?

The Joy of E-Sec Part 2: In The Darkness

Brokeface Edwydd swore blind he knew some dreggy chancers who knew the ins and outs of E-Sec boltholes and scarper tracks - if anyone could put Gunn's Guns on the trail of the Hellhounds, it was them. Thing was, these dregs were typical badzone ashbrains who saw fit to hang in a tangled jungle dome, siphoning poisons from the plant life.

Jonn Gunn and his crew of mercs spread out as they hit the dome edge. It was an old sec-mech facility, bristling with vibrant, chem-fed vegetation. Overripe vines twisted between support struts, jagged lianas swagged the overhead walkways and the air was thick with drifting spores. In the thin lumen light, the forms of oversized shardwracks and venomgorse could be seen waving gently in the vent flow.

Three ragged human figures were shuffling about in the mottled middome shadows, but, squinting through the spore clouds, Gunn could just about make out several grey-clad forms on the far side of the dome. Not scummers. Looked like they were wearing void suits of some kind. Well-equipped gangers, uphivers or somesuch. Rivals.

Gunn barked instructions for the crew to split up and spread out to drive the Voidsmen off. The Blister Sisters and Jak 8-10 readily went seeking close quarters combat on the left flank, accompanied by scummer Mumbles. Gunn himself and Snags headed towards the overgrown walkways in the dome centre. Ratbite, Crusher, Drifter and Brokeface himself made for the higher walkways.

Then, the overhead lumens buzzed,flickered and went out. The dome was plunged into near darkness.

This didn't worry the Blister Sisters and psychotic Jak – all the better to creep up close on their targets. But Jak and Mumbles strayed too close to the venomgorse and got caught in the toxic vegetation's webby spores. 

The Escher siblings helped their gangmates free, then pressed on, charging into combat with the closest Voidsmen, Zamandra taking one of them down with her stiletto blade. Only the closest-range shots were viable in the darkness – but that's all the Voidsmen needed, for one of them was hefting a mining laser, which lit up the gloom and took the Blister Sisters out of the fight.

Jak 8-10 was close behind, and charged the heavy-las Voidsman, but the venomgorse had sapped the Goliath's strength and he was summarily taken out of action by a solid punch to the jaw. Mumbles wasn't long for the fight either, being chainbladed into submission by the boss Voidsman even as he crawled along, enfeebled by gorse venom.

Meanwhile, Jonn Gunn and Snags had crept forward into the shadows beneath the mechworks. Gunn had walked plenty of badzones in his time and stepped lightly, but clumsy Snags blundered through the darkness, stumbling up against a shardwrack and getting downed by its barbarous branches.

The dumb scummer whined for help, but Gunn had no time for the fool – there were whispered voices coming behind a nearby support stack. One of the Voidsmen was conferring with a dome dreg, pumping him for information. Gunn moved slowly, planning to get the drop on them and take the Voidsman out.

And the lumen rigs across the top of the dome buzzed and flickered back on.

Gunn blinked his good eye, trying to adjust to the returned light. First thing he got a clear scan on was movement on a walkway just above. A duster-clad man was staring down at him, smirking as he raised a plasma gun.

It took half a click for Gunn to realise he recognised this creep as Detective Muller, a downhive enforcer veteran, highly reputed for his ruthlessness – and his quick trigger finger.

It took another half click for Gunn to realise he was a sitting rat, right in the open from Muller's position.

And then the plasma gun spoke and Gunn was slammed to the deck, his carapace armour smouldering. Gunn crawled out of the line of fire, already writing this job off as a dead loss.

Up above, Ratbite, Crusher and Drifter had hung back while the lights were out, but now they were back on they found themselves mere metres away from Muller on a parallel walkway. The detective was quick – he spun his plasma gun up and downed Crusher before the scummer could even grab a grenade off his belt. Ratbite and Drifter took cover and looked to the dome exits.

As for Brokeface Edwydd, he'd staggered off along the walkways while the lights were still out, brashly confident he could find his way around the dome. He'd eased past a monstrous venomgorse thicket as the lights flicked on and clocked a local dreg at the far end of the walkway – if he wasn't wrong, this was indeed a mook he knew from his last sojourn round these parts.

He stepped forward along the walkway, croaking a greeting. That was probably what triggered the gorse, which spurted out a toxic web that entangled the hapless scummer. He struggled to get free as the venom seeped into his bloodstream, but it was too late – one of the Voidsmen hustled out of the shadows and knifed Brokeface out of action.

In the end, the crew made it out of the dome bloodied, humbled but still breathing. Later, as he was patching up his plasma-scorched breastplate, Jonn Gunn ruminated on how badly they'd underestimated Muller and the Voidsmen. The bounty on the Hellhounds had clearly drawn some spire-sharp crews to the hunt – looked like the killer plants and wreck-tech hazards of the E-Sec badzones were going to be the least of Gunn's Guns' worries...

The Joy of E-Sec Part 1: At the Mouth of Hell

Ten guns-for-fire stood at the Downminster Gate, gazing into the darkness. Behind them, the settled zones of Daggerhole, the Ba'kings' fortress-generatorium and Hacked Knee, Nord and Sud. Ahead of them, the long, unlit tunnel bored though the shellward rim of the 25M megadome, descending sumpwards, leading to the notorious E-Sec badzones.

A fetid, pungent breeze issued from the tunnel entrance, which was an unassuming three-metre high hole framed by a tangle of derelict scaffold and machinery stretching up the pitted rockcrete of the boundary wall. A cage hung from the scaffold above the dark portal, and in the cage a rag-clad anchorite, full Redemption fanatic, gnashed his teeth and rattled the bars. Whether he had been imprisoned there voluntarily was impossible to say; either way, he had words for the gathered mercenaries.

'I see you, sinners! Just as I saw them, all that went before you! You'll not set foot this way again, none of you! Those you seek have hearts blacker than the sump, and you walk beyond the searing light of the Emprah! Aye, for He sees you even as I do, sinners, and pleased He is not! You turn from his light and embrace the darkness of sin! You will die! You will die!'

Overexcited, the swallowed his tongue and began to choke. He thrashed about in the cage, sending it jerking back and forth, bouncing off the upper edge of the portal.

Jonn Gunn, veteran bounty hunter and de facto leader of the crew, shrugged his carapaced shoulders. 'Well, you heard the man. This is it. Last chance for second thoughts. Are we all in?'

'Like lice on rats, popz,' said one of the two Eschers who'd signed up for the crew. This was Zondra Zee, her voice muffled by the respirator covering her face. Her twin, Zamandra, was similarly clad, and similarly scarred by extensive spore burns – they weren't called the Blister Sisters for nothing. Zamandra didn't say anything, just drew the edge of her stiletto sword along the barrel of her autopistol with a menacing scrape. Gunn took that for an affirmative.

'Good killing thataways, I can feel it, yeah yeah,' said the hulking Goliath next to the Zees, concluding his comment with a slurp to contain the drool that was spilling between his jagged teeth. This was musclebound, microcephalous Jak 8-10, known for being too crazy even to run with his house brothers, and for his lethal skill with cleaver and spud-jacker.

'We came this far, didn't we? We're with you, Gunn.' This was 'Drifter' Zensen, speaking for himself and his three companions – 'Mumbles' Mervik, 'Crusher' Retzo and 'Snags' Skivvens. Hive scum didn't come any scummier than these rogues. Gunn suspected that they'd boosted half their gear from a PDF cache and their blood warrants were almost certainly fake. Still, given the hazards they'd be facing in E-Sec, Gunn was glad of any extra hands.

'Just watch me go, fellows. Old Brokeface'll show you the way,' slurred the penultimate hunter through ragged lips. This was 'Brokeface' Edwydd. Venator trade tattle had it that he was once a dashing gunslinger who took an unfortunate tumble into a sump spider nest and emerged a dessicated wreck of a man. A flask of second best was never far from his gnarled fingers – but he was the only one present who'd ever actually ventured into E-Sec, so he had that going for him.

The last hunter was Lurbo 'Ratbite' Ruddlestone. The ratling never spoke on account of his stitched-up mouth, but he waved his longrifle in the direction of the tunnel, giggling and nodding suggestively to Gunn. Enough of a yes.

In all his long cycles hunting Underhive outlaws, Jonn Gunn couldn't recall being part of a more bloodthirsty crew. It was hard to scan what was motivating them more – the hefty bounty on offer for tracking down the infamous Hellhounds, or sheer appetite for violence. As for Gunn, his resolve to gain a measure of vengeance for the blameless downhivers of H8 who'd suffered at the hands of the sadistic cult was as strong an impetus as the cold hard creds.

'All right then,' he said. 'On we go.'

Jonn Gunn strode ahead into the tunnel, the rest of the crew falling in behind.

And so ten guns-for-hire passed through the Downminster Gate as the anchorite choked and died in the cage above their heads.

The Hacked Knee Guild War Epilogue: The Comptroller III

Desperate Degister ducked down the dismal downhive drainway.

Funny how fast things change in the Underhive, he mused bitterly. One shift you're on top of the spire, right in the bosses' good ledgers, next shift the enforcers are in the sector, hammering on your habhole door, wanting to know just exactly what you know about the gangs you hired on behalf of the H.E.A.T guilders. And where were those selfsame fragging guilders when I needed their backing? 'In blessed communion with the sink links', my fragging foot. I swear by the iron in my blood, I honestly thought all that freaky stuff Vokran and his boys were into was just some weird ash-waste customs. But the enforcers won't see it my way. Thank the Throne I knew about this back-hatch crawlway out of my hab...

Dumb Degister didn't doubt his demise was due.

I'm deader than a spitted rat if they collar me, he thought, and even before they stick me in a gibbet, what they'll do in the interrogation cell... not worth thinking about. Come on, man, it's not going to end like this. You used to run work gangs across tenscore sectors. You had the ear of the factotum to the advisor-secundus of the logistics sub-committee of the Great Iron Council, fragdammit. But that was all so many shifts ago. Before you staked your rep on that rat-scrape Courraine. Heh, at least he came to a sorry end in the mean tunnels of Hacked Knee... and you're better than that, you're better than him. No way you're going to let yourself die in here in miserable Sector H8...

Dishevelled Degister dared to dream of downhive deliverance.

If I can dodge the law, make it out of H8 somehow, he thought, maybe I can find somewhere new, start a new cycle. Why not? It's what I did when I got bounced down from my old overcomptroller job. And I've picked up a sumpload of knowhow about downhive life all these cycles in H8. Helmawr's balls, some of the no-hope green hiver chumps I've seen scraping out a living down here – if they can do it, so can I. Which way, though? Sinkwards is no good – pure Battersump stronghold, crawling with enforcers. Shellwards, then, past the Ba'Kings' domain. That place they call E-Sec. Pure badzone but better than certain death here in H8.

Determined Degister diverted down a deserted ductway.

Yeah, he resolved grimly, that's it. If I'm gonna have a rat's chance of living to see next Sanguinius Day, there's no other choice. The only way is E-Sec.

The Hacked Knee Guild War Part 13: Into The Sumpset

Lights were flicking out in Nu-Bedlam, and the Hi-Viz Jackers were gathered in the shabby old habhole that had served as their base of operations for the past twoscore cycles. Any juve urchin who peeked in the windows would have caught the Orlocks in a sombre mood – and the Jackers weren't merely taking a cue from their dour leader, Akilles Lebow, who'd just finished addressing the crew.

'So,' said Ralve Skinzer. 'That's that, then? We're pulling the plug on Hacked Knee?'

'That we are,' said Akilles. 'Edz and me talked it from spire to sump. Our shift's done. Nothing more here for us...'

He trailed off, mind drifting. Things were different all those cycles back, the last time the Jackers had weighed up whether to fight on in Sector H8. Then, Vints Courraine had insisted there was fortune still to be fought for, and young Dwice Necrofago had backed him up. But now Vints and Dwice were both ratfood, and Akilles was the only original Jacker remaining.

Macks Zmit chipped in, irked at being left out of the decision. 'But fragdammit, boss, what about our name? What about our turf? What about the House?'

'What name? What turf?' Akilles growled. 'And gang before House, any cycle you like.'

The assembled Jackers shrugged assent at that.

'And House before the rest,' muttered Djo Moge. The once-proud ganger was a ghost of his former self, having sustained several severe injuries. He looked well ready to set down his guns. 'I guess we learned that the hard way.'

He wasn't wrong. Perhaps Vints's biggest mistake had been to sign on with the Ba'Kings as the Sector H8 guild war had broken out, a move which set them at odds with their former allies, the Orlock Wasted Youth. What's more, the Wasted allied with the Battersump H.E.A.T., who counted the fearsome Hellhounds, Krass Dynasty and Church of the Amethyst Emperor among their retainers. A fractious bunch, prone to backbiting and infighting, as half the gangs in the sector had seen first hand during the Great Ambull Hunt, but sumpdammit if they weren't a force to be reckoned with.

The Jackers had bruising run-ins with the Hellhounds and the Wasted, but it was during a scrap against a non-H.E.A.T. gang, the Crimson Carrion, that Dwice got burnt alive. For all his bolshiness, the young ganger, only just out of juvehood, was a sort of mascot for the Jackers, and his death shook them up badly. Which is how Vints would have explained away their subsequent defeat at the combined hands of the Wasted and Krass boys – if that selfsame defeat hadn't seen Vints dead after a brutal close-up encounter with Orlock boss Soho Jones.

The Jackers sought revenge, but the Guild War meant that H8 scraps were getting less predictable as the badzones slowly encroached on the neglected sector infrastructure. With the Hellhounds heading up Battersump domination of Hacked Knee, Akilles had grudgingly accepted that payback on the Wasted would have to wait for some cycle way down the line. It was time to haul boots in a big way.

'Well, you ask me, I reckon the boss's called it spiretop straight.' This was Skew Yarvil, who'd been acting strange ever since he'd been ransomed back from the Amethyst Church muties. He blathered on, grinning inanely. 'Time's come to down guns and think about other lines of work. Reckon I might head on back to old Bedlam Town, find a nice Orlock woman, bring some lil' juves into this here hive...'

'Frag that, man,' sneered Murgen Hezsz, voicing the collective disdain. 'Boss, please tell me that ain't the plan.'

Akilles was shaking his head at Skew's skewed rant. 'Helmawr's balls, no. But we can't stay here.'

Edz Macbacta cut in. 'Y'all heard what folks are saying? Word is that those things they said about them Hellhounds... and them Harbinger freaks.. got more than an ashcrumb of truth in 'em...'

Kaleb Dyablo had something to add. 'And there's talk about the Krass boys, and the Amethyst Church. Sure, they're muties, but maybe the wrong kind of muties...'

The Jackers eyed Skew uneasily.

'What?' he said with an open shrug. 'They were nice guys. Damn hospitable, actually.'

'Whatever,' said Akilles. 'Point is, the enforcers are in sector, locking everything down. And the guilders are winding their necks in, especially the Battersump H.E.A.T.. Trying to make their acts look clean.... and that's bad for business.'

'Alright, alright,' said Macks with a conceding wave. 'So it's time to move on. But where are we headed?'

'I heard the Hellhounds took off when the enforcers moved in,' said Ralve. 'Headed off into the E-Sec badzones. With a hefty bounty hanging over them. We could gun for that?'

'No,' said Akilles. Truth be told, the sound of Sawboss's buzzing blades still kept him awake after lights-out. 'That's someone else's scrap.'

'So what, then?' said Noot Necrofago. 'I only just signed on with you guys. What's in it for me?'

Akilles almost broke a smile at this. The juve was all mouth, a rockcrete-cold echo of his late cousin. That fire in the belly and the eyes. That sureness that fortune and glory were only a gunfight away. Dwice had had it, Vints was practically made of it. The feeling was contagious.

'O, make no mistake, Noot,' said Akilles, raising an eyebrow. 'We're gonna get rich. All we've gotta do is figure out where.'

'My brother Onzo's running rigs on the Great Ash Road,' said Edz. 'House is always looking for steady guns out in the Wastes.'

'Say, you heard about that place Tox Town?' said Murgen. 'Not far from Old Bedlam. Rich pickings, and Escher, Van Saar and Goliath gunning there. Fraggles, feebs and brickheads. Could be good.'

'If it's loot we want,' said Ralve, 'I got talking to some boozed-up ratskin last shift. Said he knew where there's this archaeotech horde further downhive, just waiting for the taking...'

This got a round of guffaws and amiable scorn from the rest of the Jackers – they'd all heard similar tall tales from a drunk ratskin one shift or another. The mood in the room was lifting.

How many times had Akilles sat in this very habhole and heard Vints talk up his latest caper? Enough times that the next words came easy.

'Prospects, boys. Point is, we got prospects. Go gather your gear and guns, knock back a slug or ten of wildsnake and get some rest. We move out the shift after next. And someday soon, when they hear tell of our scraps and scrags and all the creds we got, folks round Sector H8 will say 'Those Jacker boys walked these tunnels, ran these domes, fought this turf.' We'll be the stuff of legends. Am I right?'

The habhole shook with the last roar of the Hi-Viz Jackers.

The Hacked Knee Guild War Part 12: Triple Cross

Folks round Hacked Knee could see the effects of the guild war in the very fabric of the sector itself. Routine maintenance rites were neglected, resulting in power lines cutting out, promethium pipes rupturing, and ancient support structures collapsing. Most attributed this to the guilder feud, but some whispered that it might have more to do with the ascendance of the Hellhounds and the Harbingers of the Undivided, and the dark influence of the Wrong Gods they were rumoured to worship. It was as if the badzones themselves were stirring and coming alive, encroaching on the fragile habs and workshops of H8 with every passing shift.

Gang fights in those darkening days took place wherever and whenever paths crossed, and so the Hi-Viz Jackers, Krass Dynasty and Righteous Brotherhood of the Crimson Carrion found themselves facing off in a dangerously unstable tunnel level, at the centre of which lay a massive explosive which had sat dormant for untold centuries. Now, though, the shifting structure had disturbed its dreamless sleep and it was ticking ominously...

With Akilles and Edz recovering from the Jackers last battle, Macks Zmit was the de facto leader of the Jackers this shift. All too aware of the threat posed by the unexploded bomb – not to mention the rival gangs – Macks had the Orlocks hang back, dodging the sludge jellies that flopped hungrily from grills and hatchways all around.

It was the zealous Cawdors who made the first move, sending one of their gangers into the central crossways occupied by by the bomb. He remote-operated a blast door to trigger a violent decompression which dragged half the Krass Dynasty into the open. The mutant cult wasted no time and poured gunfire into the hapless Carrionite. He was blasted into the Jackers' line of fire, and Macks hammered him down with a frag grenade. The temptation of such an easy scrag proved too much for Jacker juve Ferg Lazerus, who darted forward and brained the Cawdor out of action. But the Underhive punishes the rash – Ferg found himself on the receiving end of Krass's chainglaive, and was likewise taken out.

The depressurisation had disturbed the ventworks feeding into the tunnels, and a powerful gale lashed the corridors for several clicks, making it hard for all to shoot straight.

The Crimson Carrion brought a bounty hunter with them – the cryptically-named MCV2. Though he was ostensibly on board to capture the notorious Krass, he sprinted into the Jacker-held quarter and unleashed a web-pistol torrent into the heart of the assembled Orlocks. Though Macks was only superficially spattered, Kaleb Dyablo and Kurtiz Kohl were thoroughly webbed, pinned and vulnerable as they strained against their chem-woven bonds. Still, dim juve Noot Necrofago was on hand to help them break free. Murgen Hezsz attempted a brace of point-blank stubberhots at the bounty hunter, but in the confusion missed.

MCV2 was disturbingly quick – in a heartbeat, he'd darted back down the corridor and webbed Krass and his nearest cronies, pinning them dangerously near the ticking bomb. Murgen had reason to forgive his poor shooting a moment earlier – here was a chance to scrag the cursed Krass himself. He ran against the howling winds to the floored mutie leader and pistol-whipped him into submission. But Murgen's moment of underhanded triumph was short-lived – Dynasty cultist Hildegard took aim with her shotgun and blasted Hezsz out of the fight.

Beyond the bomb-threatened crossways, on the far side of the fightzone to the Jackers, some of the Krass Dynasty attempted an outflanking move on the Crimson Carrion, but were cowed by plasmafire. Meanwhile, the Cawdors were attepmpting an outflanking of their own on the Jackers – but this was stymied by the quick reaction of Ralve Skinzer and Gavv Naxon – the former wounded one of the approaching Carrionites with his autogun; the latter finished the job with a brutal scragging that sent the nearby heavy bolter-carrying Cawdor fleeing in fright.

And then the bomb went off. The corridors shook; plasteel supports wailed as they warped and twisted; rockcrete dust wafted through the zone. Every fighter was floored by the seismic shock, and most of those in close proximity to the bomb were wounded by flying shrapnel.

The explosion triggered a static storm – the walls danced with tendrils of unchecked electricity, and a charge by one of the Dynasty cultists on MCV2 was interrupted by a mild shock flash as the fighters made contact. Nevertheless, the bounty hunter, already wounded by the massive detonation, was taken out of the fight.

The static storm passed, but there was worse to come: a partial dome collapse, which pinned fighters who'd only just recovered from the bomb detonation. Sections of floor and wall gave way, and from adjoining levels, thick tendrils of downhive vegetation nudged through, disgorging obscuring clouds of fluorescent spores. The upheaval tripped the power supply, and the tunnels were plunged into darkness as the lumens cut out and the blast doors slammed shut. Kaleb Dyablo, only just free of the web snare, barely avoided losing his head as a slab portal closed right by him.

In the darkness, the Jackers did what they could. Ralve and Gavv blundered about in the gloom, trying to find the one remaining Carrionite outflanker. Several stray shots later, they pinned him down and tag-teamed an assault, with Ralve landing the scragging blow. Young Noot, cut off from his gangmates, amazed himself as he appeared to be heaving a blast door open single-handed, only to discover that Macks and Kaleb had been pitching in on the other side.

The lumens flickered back on, and the Jackers prepared to go on the offensive, but Kurtiz Kohl blundered forward like a green juve and got blasted by Dagmar Krass's mining laser – a humiliating mistake that would surely haunt the Orlock. But under cover of frag blasts courtesy of Macks, Noot scrambled forward and took a close-range stubbershot at Dagmar, badly injuring the mutie.

Visibility in the dome was dropping fast, with an indeterminate brow gas wafting in from the vents that were still working. Between this and the airborne spores, it was nigh-impossible to get a clean shot. 

The battle of attrition had taken its toll on the Crimson Carrion and Krass Dynasty and, unwilling to risk the necks of any more of their key gangmembers, they fled the tunnels, leaving the Jackers in control of the wrecked zone.

Macks Zmit was able to lead the boys back to Nu-Bedlam with their heads held high. They hadn't claimed any turf worth defending, but seeing off the Dynasty and Carrionites would go some small way to boosting their reputation. And besides, they'd bagged a captive – the Cawdor known as Tetrix had been left behind in the confusion.

The Hacked Knee Guild War was all but over – but maybe there were a few more drops of blood yet to be spilled...

The Hacked Knee Guild War Part 11: Haunted Dome

Even the most foolhardy of Dome Runners shied away from the tunnels beneath Strobe Town. The settlement had been abandoned by sane hivers countless long cycles ago – no one was quite sure why any more, but rumours persisted of Wrong God worship and cannibalistic rites that had left a wych-print soaked into rockcrete in that lights-out place. They said it was about as bad as Sector H8 badzones get. They also said there was a cache of loot there, waiting to be claimed by any gangs brave – or desperate – enough to risk their necks and disregard the crude, rusted warning signs that marked the borders of the zone.

Desperate was surely an appellation that fitted the Hi-Viz Jackers and Church of the Amethyst Emperor in the latter cycles of the Hacked Knee Guild War. The former gang's reputation was sump-low, having lost their longstanding leader and all the turf entrusted to them by the Ba'Kings; the latter had carved out a mean rep for vicious skulduggery but had suffered a spate of fatalities at the war's outset that it had been hard to recover from.

While the devout churchmembers approached the loot cache indirectly via a tunnel network they controlled, the Hi-Viz Jackers mustered their courage and marched in as a group. They came under fire from a tribe of degenerate muties that frequented the locale – perhaps the inbred descendants of the ancient cult – but feeble arrows and feebler aim were no bother to the Orlocks, and the mutie tribe melted away into the surrounding wastes.

Skew Yarvil and Edzra Macbacta peeled off from the bulk of the Jacker crew to grab a loot crate that looked easy to get a hold of. But nothing's ever easy in the Underhive – a nearby stand of wrackspines detected Skew's presence and took him out of action with a salvo of sleek quills. Edzra found himself alone in dark and disorienting tunnels which echoed with bodiless whispers.

Without warning, the whispers were drowned out by a powerful rumbling – as if responding to the intrusion, the dome itself was shifting, and the walls and decking shook with sinister might. It was impossible to maintain footing, and every fighter in the zone hit the deck. What's more, the quake triggered a power cut – the lumens blinked out and all the blast door sealed shut.

The Amethyst faithful took this opportunity to sneak into the ink-black zone, hissing directions to each other to stay oriented, and picking their way carefully between the clusters of wrackspines as they moved towards the loot.

Edzra was alone in the dark, cut off from his gangmates. He peered into the murk and tried to control his breathing to give his hearing a chance. There were guttural voices in the darkness. Not ghosts or cultists. Ogryns. The Church had hired some strongarm mercs to make up for their shortfall in numbers. Edz wasn't so alone, after all.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Jackers had heaved the blast door in front of them open. New Jacker Gavv Naxon darted forward and grabbed a crate without waking the nearby wrackspines, but the gang was too slow to stop the Amethyst Church bagging the other crates in the vicinity. Besides, Edz had voxed through about his predicament – Akilles Lebow ordered his crew to retrace their steps and come to their gangmate's aid.

The lumens had flickered back on by now, and Edz had a clear view of the two ogryns lumbering towards him. He levelled his mining laser and fired at the nearest brute. The shot clipped the ogryn, who plodded on regardless. Edz tried to console himself that he'd at least grabbed the loot crate that had drawn him and Skew to this chamber in the first place. Not much consolation. The lead ogryn piled into him and slammed him out of the fight.

At this point, the whispering resumed, coming from the outlying corridors – it seemed like the cursed dome once again, but in fact it was a colossal swarm of infant sumpspiders working its way through the zone. The fighters, Church and Jacker, grimaced as the bugs washed around their boots, but no harm was done and the swarm passed through.

The Jackers had regrouped. Djo Moge opened the door to the chamber where Edz had been trapped and drenched the ogryns in a sheet of flame, flooring them and setting the lead abhuman alight. Ralve Skinzer darted in and out of the room, liberating the loot crate at last. Akilles poured some lead into the ogryn that wasn't on fire, but it had little effect. The Jackers braced for the inevitable ogryn charge.

Of course, what they hadn't reckoned on was the Amethyst Church's other hired gun. Major Dowts was a bounty hunter well known around Hacked Knee for his cunning and recklessness, and the Jackers were about to witness both qualities first hand.

The Major had been lurking out of sight during the ogryns' advance, but now he sidestepped into the open, announcing his presence with a near-miss plasma shot at Macks Zmit. The Jackers' nerve broke and Gavv fled the zone – they figured they were now under attack from a much larger force.

They might as well have been, given what happened next.

With a half-mad roar, Major Dowtz pressed the accelerator on the stimm-slug he had plugged into his neck. The chems surged through his system, and, chainsword screaming, he launched himself over the burning ogryn and into the Jackers. In a fell swoop, he carved up Djo and then Akilles, whose carapace armour did little to stop the frenzied attack. Spattered with Orlock blood, the Major lurched forward, ready to take on Macks, but then the stimms overwhelmed him and he collapsed, clutching at his heart.

Only Macks and Ralve were left standing for the Jackers. Seeing the ogryns hauling themselves angrily back to their feet, the Orlocks figured it was time to cut their losses and hauled boots right out of that accursed dome.

The Church of the Amethyst Emperor had full rein to collect the remaining loot at their leisure; still, they went about their business quickly – the uncanny atmosphere of the dome sat uncomfortably with their low-level mutie telepathy.

There was one more surprise. As the last Church mutie was about to leave the zone, he heard a faint groaning. At first, he thought it was the unquiet spirits in the place, but it turned out to be Skew Yarvil coming round, forgotten by his gangmates in their rush to escape. The Church of the Amethyst Emperor took a mighty haul back to their lair that shift – not just credits, but a captive to boot. 

As for the tunnels beneath Strobe Town, they lie deserted once again, shunned by those who are living and sound of mind. Take a walk in the surrounding tunnels when the vents are running full strength, though, and you might just catch the whispers and cackles of the insane dead on the stale downhive wind.