The Foulnest Rackets Part 14: What's Old Is New Is Old

Lazko Ozwik had followed the E-Sec trail to Foulnest because he'd heard it was boom time there, the domes awash with credits as the caravan routes to the ash roads opened up. The sort of place a man of his disreputation could carve a living. Considering his less-than-spirestraight history, Gunn's Guns seemed like just the crew to sign on with. And so here he was, bringing his plasma gun to the fray for the outlaw venators.

The scrap was a slow-escalation op as four Foulnest mobs explored a high-level dome cluster on the badzone fringes. Gunn's Guns, the Rustgate OMC, the Foulnest Carrion and Precinct 13, all scattered about, scouting for loot, but now converging in dribs and drabs a web of walkways above a gaping chasm. 'Drifter' Zensen and Ozwik were first on the scene for the Guns, but the latter was having trouble drawing a bead on Rustgater Joe Genge.

'Fragdammit,' said Drifter as his lasbolt yet again punched the wall behind the swaying Genge, 'It's not me, I swear – it's that we spiked him with second best when we ran into him in that tunnel.'

Old Joe was accompanied by fellow Orlock Aberama, who was toting a lascannon. Overkill, to be sure, but a solid deterrent. Ozwik and Drifter stuck to the shadows, happy to let the Carrion fighters surge forward and draw the Rustgaters away. And the enforcers were weaving their way around the far side of the dome – Ozwik had been fully scoped in on the bad blood between the Guns and Precinct 13, and agreed with Drifter that it was wise to hold back until more of their crewmates turned up.

The venators watched as the Carrion found themselves pincered by the Orlocks and enforcers. All three opponents were taking casualties, but reinforcements were trickling in steadily from the portals and ladders at the dome edge. So too for the Guns – Ashman had clambered up onto the platform below his gangmates.

Drifter hissed with satisfaction as he finally got in a good shot. He'd been aiming for Aberama, but the lasbolt ricocheted and sent Genge tumbling into the pit below. A hit from one of the other gangs put Aberama down, and Ozwik chanced a plasma shot, drawing more blood.

Most of the Guns had arrived by now, and the badzones were once again proving their name – the lumens flickered erratically, and unseen vents turbo-charged, scouring the dome with intense gales. Fighters were swarming on the walkways now – too many. As had happened before in these uppermost reaches of E-Sec, the platform network wrenched free of its moorings and plummeted to the domefloor below. Not as far as might have been feared, but the whole domespace rumbled its complaint, dangerously unstable.

The drop had taken several fighters out and disoriented the rest, but the domefloor was now a viable avenue of attack. Precinct 13 had been reinforced by Murphy, their repurposed ambot. The mech-brute's target acquisition systems gave it an edge over its fellow officers – it recognised the Guns as most wanted targets and, eschewing the distraction of the Cawdors and Orlocks, turned to lumber towards them. Mumbles and Ashman opened fire, but their shots fell short.

By now, Jonn Gunn himself had turned up, clambering down a ladder onto the domefloor and moving to confront the ambot. He was late to the fight – ever since the incident with the chrono crystal last cycle, he'd found himself out of sorts and prone to getting lost in levels of Foulnest he knew well, as if he hadn't walked those tunnels for a long, long time. Now, his crew watched him advance under the walkway they'd positioned themselves on – but then he froze between steps.

Gunn winced as something flashed through his mind. A memory – of something that hadn't yet happened. He could see himself and the Guns taking on Murphy, see the ambot's melta blasts shimmer in the air, see its buzz-bladed claws swinging. He could see his crew bleeding, dying.

'Forget this, boys – it's not worth it!' he called up, and backed away and out of the dome.

'What the frag?' said Ozwik. 'He only just got here?'

'Hhh hrrrg,' said Mumbles.

'Boss is the boss,' said Ashman. 'He says we're better off leaving these skuts to scrap it out, so be it.'

Gunn's Guns melted away into the badzones. All except one of them.

The Delaque bounty hunter had been assigned to the Guns by Guilder Van Scultis herself – recognition of the gang's affiliation with the Coiners, even if that affiliation couldn't be publicly acknowledged. A scrap-seasoned veteran who'd bossed a gang back in Old Bedlam Town, there wasn't much in the Underhive that Kayles Djyf hadn't seen in his long cycles as a freelance. He was a capable fighter, but a prideful man. He reckoned he could show these amateurs how to take out an ambot.

Black robes fluttering, Djyf darted forward to the cover of a container stack. He craned around the corner and fired his bolt pistol at the ambot. The shells burst on its metal hide, and still it kept coming. Djyf resolved to do this the old fashioned way.

He darted forward again, pistol in one hand, stiletto sword in the other. The ambot's auspex array whirred as it tried to accommodate this fast approaching target. Too slow – Djyf was on it, pistol barking and sword lancing into its armour. Ambot Murphy's interior readouts registered tox influx into its organic components. Enough to weaken it but not put it down. The ambot recalibrated its assault protocols and unleashed hell on Kayles Djyf. The Delaque bounty hunter was lucky to escape with his life. So much for showing the amateurs.

Precinct 13 won the dome that shift, doggedly outlasting the Guns, the Carrion, and finally the Rustgaters. The war for the Foulnest Rackets may have been grinding to an end, but there were still plenty of creds to claim, and plenty of blood to be spilled.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 13: A Bitter Tomorrow

'Ashman' Gwalt jolted awake, nearly rolling off the rough bunk he'd been napping on.

'Oh, scut, I must've gone lights-out, didn't hear you folks,' he said.

'Could've been the death of you,' said Noomena Greyz, and then, with a sarcastic edge, 'We can assume no-one crept in and trapwired the place while we were securing the zone?'

The rest of Gunn's Guns – Noomena, 'Snags' Skivvens, 'Ratbite' Ruddlestone, 'Mumbles' Mervik and old Jonn Gunn himself - were shuffling into the cramped habhole that served as their current hideout. 'Drifter' Zensen was away for the cycle, checking caravan waypoints in Dogland on behalf of the Coin Guild.

'Ah, yeah,' said Ashman ruefully. 'Sorry, folks.'

'Never mind all that,' said Jonn Gunn. 'Now we've locked this place down, let's see what our haul was.'

When the power had cut all across Foulnest core a couple of cycles ago, a merry shift of wanton looting had ensued, but Gunn's Guns had been too busy licking their wounds after their previous scrap. When it had happened again, they hadn't wanted to miss out. Alliance be sumpdamned – the Coiners were refusing to lift the bounties off the Guns' heads, so why not liberate some goods from the Guilders' freight-rigs while the lights were out? They'd briefly come to blows with a newcomer Orlock gang before both crews realised it was in their best interests to hold fire and maximise their plunder; on the way back to the hideout, they'd almost fallen foul of Precinct 13 – though it looked like the enforcers were on the rob just like everyone else. Snags had stumbled into a stand-off between the coppers and the Faithful Sons, who'd finally found their way out of the E-Sec badzones. Things could've got bloody, but the venators followed Jonn Gunn's lead out of there, leaving the Cawdors and coppers to settle their differences.

Now, back at the hideout, they piled up their loot on a rusty old crate in the middle of the room.

'Huh,' said Snags. 'It don't look like much when you lay it out like that.'

'Hhhhrgh?' said 'Mumbles' Mervik through his rope gag, pointing at a small sealed cannister.

Noomena picked it up and eyed the code stamped on the casing. 'Looks like slaught. Nasty stimm, gets you bloodhungry alright, but mighty addictive. Good for one dose.'

She placed the slug back down amongst the items. A pair of photogoggles. A mesh vest and set of gauntlets. A boxy industrial cutting tool. And a small black bag made of plush, shiny fabric. Its mouth was zipped closed with a drawstring, and it vibed weird. Uphive, or something even more exotic.

'Never mind the junk,' said Noomena, 'what's that?'

Snags stooped and peered at the bag. 'Dunno. Why don't you open it?'

'Why don't you open it? you're practically kissing it,' said Noomena.

Snags straightened up, still staring at the bag. 'I.... I don't wanna.'

Unusual tone from the avaricious Snags. 'Ratbite' Ruddlestone tittered through his sewn-up lips, amused at his gangmates' hesitance.

'Hrrgh mrrrgh,' said Mumbles.

'He's right,' said Ashman. 'That thing... feels weird.'

'That thing?' said Noomena. 'We don't even know what it is yet.'

'Enough all this,' said Jonn Gunn, shoving forward and picking up the bag. He loosened the drawstring and emptied the contents onto the crate.

Two glittering crystals, mulitfaceted to a degree that they were almost spherical.

'Huh,' said Gunn. 'Well that's that.'

'Look fancy,' said Ashman. 'Could be worth something.'

'Spire-straight-up,' said Noomena. 'They're glitzy, though. Maybe they go with that cutter box. Focusing crystals or something.'

'Fetch a few creds either way,' said Gunn.

'Hrrrgh! Hhhh hrrrrr! Hrrrrg!'

'Wait a click, Mumbles is right,' said Snags. 'They look like them chrono crystals, you know, old Bald Bryen's chrono crystals.'

'Come on,' said Noomena, 'those things are rarer than ash clam teeth. No way we're going to just run across one of them in a guilder stash, let alone two.'

'Hrrrgh! Hrrrr hrrrr hrrrgh! Ghhh!'

'So you saw one at the Rust Town games one time, so what?' said Ashman. 'You were probably off your nut on wildsnake.'

'Maybe so,' said Gunn, chopping a stretched hand to halt the bickering. 'But if Mumbles is right, what we've got here is worth a hell of a lot more than a couple of focusing crystals.'

Crafty Snags pursued the thought. 'Yeah, and even if they ain't the real deal, all we gotta do is, ah, disabuse some skuthead buyer of the notion... hey!'

This exclamation because Ratbite had wormed his way between his crewmates and grabbed the two crystals. He capered to the hatch end of the habhole, Snags right after him. Ashman and Mumbles, exasperated, stalked back to the bunk end. Gunn and Noomena remained in the centre, cursing after Ratbite. Cackling wildly, the abhuman sniper had pulled out his stiletto knife and started juggling, tossing the crystals in the air alongside the blade.

'Sumpdammit, you wee scrape, come here!' snarled Snags, lunging for Ratbite.

'Cut your fool feed,' ordered Gunn. 'That's a lot of creds you're messing with.'

Ratbite ignored them and continued his act, which was all going well – until it wasn't. He caught his hairy foot on a loose cable protruding from the hab wall and stumbled. The knife clattered to the deck. One of the crystals landed safely in his palm. The other didn't.

It hit the deck and shattered. For a moment, a hurricane torrent, louder and fiercer than the worst ash storm, blasted through the habhole. Everything turned white. And then, just as suddenly, back to normal. Well, almost.

'Ashman' Gwalt jolted awake, nearly rolling off the rough bunk he'd been napping on.

'Oh, scut, I must've gone lights-out.... hey, wait, what?'

Next to him, in front of the bunk, Mumbles bent double and clutched his stomach. He was desperately hungry.

A step along, Gunn blinked and stared around. His armour was more pitted, more corroded than before, and dusted with a thin coat of ash. 'What in Emprah's name just happened?' he growled, scratching his beard, which was now long and unkempt.

'Frag me, my eye! I'm half fragging blind!' This was Noomena, on her knees and clutching at her face. Her hair was longer, natural black at the tips beyond her customary dye job.

Gunn glanced past Noomena and saw an old man, older than Gunn himself. The old man looked like Snags would look if he'd seen two dozen more long cycles pass by. The old man was Snags, rolling and moaning on his back.

And at the end of the chamber, Ratbite – or something like him. A strange homunculus, dry and wizened. A mummified ratling. Before the crew's eyes, it began to crack and flake away, crumbling into a pile of ash at the habhole door.

Two things glinted in the lumenlight, half-buried in the ash. Ragged Jonn Gunn took a step forward and clocked what they were.

The second chrono crystal. And Lurbo 'Ratbite' Ruddlestone's imperial guard dog tags.

++++++++++++++++

At the outermost extreme of the Necromunda system, aboard astropathic relay station Clarion of Helmawr, High Logicsticite Bremmed Strees was locked in debate with the black-clad delegation who'd translated in from the outer void and thoroughly ruined his work rotation.

'By the Throne, it's not that I doubt the veracity of your credentials,' he implored with a nervous wince. 'Far be it from me to show such impertinence. It's just... just... there's been nothing, nothing irregular. And you arrived unannounced – we were unable to conduct the proper rites!'

Strees shook his head and fervently twisted his hands into an aquila. The leader of the black-clad delegation said nothing but smiled and stared at the Logisticite across the control-pulpit.

'It's... it's simply so irregular! I mean, to arrive with no -'

A low-grade factotum sidled up to Strees and handed him a dataslate before slinking away. Strees was raising the slate to read it when the delegation leader cut in.

'It says there's been an urgent transmission from the Eye of Selene. Relaying a report from the psykana overwatch choirs in the Palace Imperial. Specifically, from the tempus division, seventeen of whom spontaneously combusted approximately three solar hours ago. Cause unknown, but concurrent with a spike of empyrico-temporal energy emanating from the lower reaches of Hive Primus.'

Strees's eyes flicked from the hooded delegate to the dataslate and back. And then to the dataslate. And back. And back and forth several more times.

'That's... that's exactly what it says. But we've only just received this transmission, how could you possibly....?'

The delegate smiled.

'Oh,' said Strees. 'Oh, of course. Blessed are we, that Him-on-Earth provides us with such... perspicacious defenders. Please, if you and your fellows would come this way?'

Like any Throne-fearing Imperial subject, Strees knew better than to question the authority of the Holy Inquisition, and his grasp of High Gothic was such that even he could see that whatever had happened in the bowels of Hive Primus was necessarily of interest to the Ordo Chronos.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 12: Gunn Alone

So Brokeface Edwydd had ratted Gunn's Guns out to Precinct 13, and some kind of targeted crackdown action by the enforcers was coming down the pipe sooner rather than later. When exactly was hard to say, so the outlaw venators took to going about their Foulnest business mobhanded and steeled by pain-retardant stimms, ever ready for an ambush. Still, it came as a surprise when a snipershot dropped Mumbles Mervik off a low walkway as the Guns worked their way between the vacant blocks in a dead hab dome.

Amplified vox echoed from all around: 'Jonn Gunn, you are wanted for anti-Guild sedition. Lay down your weapons and surrender. You have sixty seconds to comply.'

Gunn had three thoughts: first, it was damned stupid that he was wanted by the Guild – he worked for the Guild, for Emprah's sake; second, by naming him, the coppers had made this a beheading job – no doubt as payback for what had happened to Captain Angel after Ratbite's knifework; third, that was five seconds gone already.

'Get over behind those pipes,' he barked to his domefloor crew, which consisted of Noomena, Drifter and life-coin scummer 'Filthy' Frenk. The latter two made it over the pipes and into the shadows of a ventworks that supported the walkway above, but more boltshells were already flying past them, and Gunn and Noomena only just managed to dive for cover.

Gunn would have to count on his fighters in the hab towers. Ratbite was up there – and only now did Gunn scope why the ratling had been acting like a plague zee all shift. Illicit stimms usually kept him sniper-sharp, but the sumpsucking coppers must've spiked his dose back in Foulnest core. Gunn prayed that Ratbite's bone-deep Guard training would burn through the spike.

At least scummer Ashman was up there too. Gunn chanced a glance up the side of the hab block and clocked Ashman, but also clocked an enforcer sidling up on his blindspot. And then he clocked the hulking metal form lumbering across the uppermost bridge between the towers. An ambot, emblazoned with Precinct 13 glyphics. The coppers had brought their heavy gear. So much for the boys in the towers.

'This way, Jonn,' said Noomena, scrambling along the pipe and under the shadowy eaves of the nearest hab block. Gunn duly followed, glancing left and right across the domefloor as he did so. Looked like there were two teams of enforcers, one either side, each making disciplined advances, sticking to cover until the noose was tight enough to jerk shut. There was a scream from above. That'd be Ashman, out of the fight.

'You reckon...?' said Noomena, back to the wall, eyes on the enforcer team weaving through the walkway shadows beyond the dead ventwork.

'Aye,' said Gunn, looking the same way. He clicked on the crew vox net. 'Drifter, Ratbite – if you're with us – focus heat on the skut-ends coming from the left.'

Drifter nodded back at Gunn and opened fire, pinning one of the advancing enforcers. A click later, another copper tumbled from the walkway above and crashed to the domefloor. This one was toting a sniper rifle. Seemed like Ratbite wasn't so geezed he couldn't shoot straight. The third enforcer in the fire zone was clearly shaken, turning and ducking back behind the support struts.

'A way out?' said Noomena.

'Not entirely,' said Gunn, who knew full well that the precious esteem of the Coin Guild was at stake. 'We settle this here and now, can't just creep out. Maybe if we get over yonder, we can crack their trap and show these badges what we're made of.'

'Spirestraight, old man. We're with you,' Noomena said, and then to Frenk, who was a few paces ahead of them in the ventwork. 'Hey, Filthy! Prep to rush the fraggers Drifter just singed.'

Frenk turned to face them, his trenchcoat fluttering in the discharge from vent he was next to. He had his stubbers drawn and a skewed grin on his face.

'Yeah,' he said, 'I could do that...'

Viper-fast, he brought the stubbers up and fired point blank. The slugs impacted on Gunn's carapace breastplate – he wasn't injured, but was most assuredly knocked off his feet. First Brokeface Edwydd, now Filthy Frenk – it scanned like turning rat fink sellout was a contagious condition.

The enforcers, who just seconds before were looking shaky, had their courage relit by Frenk's betrayal. They were on their feet and closing in again. Drifter took aim with his hotshot, but he'd forgotten to recharge the juice – the lasbolt fizled and dissipated as soon as it left the barrel. Noomena made sharp choices on threat priority. Figuring Gunn was good to take on Frenk, she darted forward between the support struts and levelled her plasma pistol. She took the shot and the nearest copper went down, armour sizzling.

But then another enforcer was charging at her, one she remembered from the last scrap – Officer Brody, in full rage mode after jacking his stimm-slug. Noomena was quick with her knife, getting in a few jabs at the copper, but it wasn't enough. Brody applied brutal, chem-sharpened force, and took Noomena Greyz out of the fight.

A few metres away, Gunn was hauling himself to his feet and shooting from the hip at Frenk. The scummer went down, but laughing. Even as the steam rose from the fleshwound inflicted by the lasbolt, Frenk sat up and winked at his til-recent employer. Gunn cursed – pain-numbing stimms don't care what side a body's on, they'll keep a fragger in the fight even if he's turned traitor.

Brody, shaking as his hit wore off, was making ready to charge Drifter. But Drifter had snapped a full-charge clip into his las, and got a gutshot on the enforcer. Brody dropped, rolling and moaning on the domefloor. But then bolterfire rang out and hammered Drifter – no more scrapping for him this shift.

There was a pop, and a cloud of smoke filled the gap between the hab towers. The other enforcer team had closed in and were making ready to make a terminal move. Two-faced Filthy Frenk had withdrawn, his part in the fight done. Gunn figured he'd be overwhelmed if the coppers rushed him. Time to try some sly play. He ducked back into the shadows of the hab block eaves. They'd have to hunt him down before they took him down.

Gunn moved as quietly as he could, trying to catch sense in the crackle of the enforcers' vox bursts. Ratbite's rifle had fallen silent and he wasn't responding on the venators' vox. Either he'd been gunned down or, just as likely, had decided that the smartest option was to haul boots out of the scrap altogether. Maybe the ambot had got him.

Jonn Gunn was alone.

Time to try an old badzone ranger trick, one he'd taught Mumbles, who'd used it in the scrap against the Veiled Cartel a few cycles back. Gunn unhooked a sealed can from his belt and unscrewed it. Inside was a chunk of meat, probably – hopefully – from a rat, laced with pheremonal bait-spray. He eyed the domefloor between himself and the coppers and spied a sizeable drain grate. He took aim and lobbed the meat, which landed wetly on the grate. A few clicks passed before the hypercharged bait did its work. The grate cover sprang out of the floor, shoved aside by a three-metre pale tentacle which scooped up the meat and gulped it down a sucker-like orifice. The sump beast below would stick around in case there was more food available, and thrashed its rubbery limb blindly, searching for prey.

Of course, the Precinct 13 coppers would be sharp enough to steer well clear of the tentacle, but it might disrupt their advance and give Gunn a fighting chance. He worked his way along the hab tower base, sticking to the shadows.

And then, 'Freeze, creep!'

The second enforcer team, alert to Gunn's ploy, had doubled back around the tower to cut him off. Another copper leapt from the hab walkway above to a container crate up ahead. This must've been the one who took Ashman out. They opened fire at Gunn, who ducked as best he could, the shots ringing off his armour and bringing him to his knees. He raised his hotshot and fired at the nearest enforcer, hoping to clear a path, but the copper's armour was as effective as his own.

'Give it up, old man,' came a voice from behind him. The rest of the enforcers had bypassed the sump horror. 'We got you surrounded.'

That they did. Gunn, his back to the rockcrete hab wall. Five enforcers, all that was left of the hit squad, spread in a broad semicircle in front of him. Frag knows what had happened to the ambot, but Gunn wasn't inclined to complain about that.

'Come on then,' snarled Gunn. 'What have you got for me, you sumpsucking sons of bitches?'

What they had was a co-ordinated salvo of bolterfire and solid shotgun shells. But again, almost all the shots missed or merely dented Gunn's armour. The one that hit home drew blood but didn't put Gunn down.

'Is that all? Is that all?' he growled, taking a las shot. One of the enforcers went down hard, bleeding badly.

The lawmen of Precinct 13 were advancing, but more slowly, more hesitantly. Again, they opened fire on Gunn, and again he withstood their onslaught.

'The frag is this creep made of?' said one of the coppers.

Gunn was laughing now. 'You think I haven't bled harder than this? You think I'll go down that easy?'

He fired again with his hotshot. It went wide, but the enforcers had stopped advancing now. One of them turned and ran. The others fired again. But Jonn Gunn stood strong. He drew his power knife and beckoned to the coppers.

'Come on, let's finish this,' he grinned.

The enforcers were taking shuffling steps backwards. They'd stopped shooting.

'This ain't worth it,' said one of them.

And then they were withdrawing, hauling away their wounded and keeping a wary bead on the venator boss as they backed off.

The dome fell silent. Jonn Gunn was alone. Jonn Gunn was alive. Truth be told, Jonn Gunn couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so alive.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 11: Sing, Brokeface

Brokeface sang. He sang his damned dead heart out. Everything he could think of about Jonn Gunn and his venator crew. About where they drank, where they ate, where they scored hardware, where they rested their outlaw heads. About the certifiably uncertifiable blood warrants that Snags and Mumbles toted. About Ratbite Ruddlestone's predilection for banned offworld stimms. About Noomena Greyz's boastful tales of killing a spire noble who was slumming it on on a downhive safari. He even dredged up dirt on old Gunn himself, how he'd muttered incriminating threats against the Guild, outraged that a veteran bounty hunter like himself was now a wanted man.

Brokeface sang until he could sing no more – but judging by the expressions on the enforcers half-helmed faces, it wasn't enough.

The palanites had kept him magnacled to a plasteel table in this Precinct 13 chatterbox – a gunmetal grey interrogation chamber - for a whole shift cycle, ever since they'd hauled him out of the scrap zone with the Guns. Brokeface was counting on the juice he offered being enough to eanr him a big score by way of reward. He needed a jolt of creds to get himself a long way from Foulnest. Word was getting all around the pipes about his condition, and folks were starting to wonder a few things. Like just how much it took to kill an unkillable man. Like maybe there was something Wrong-Goddy about Brokeface Edwydd.

The longer he was in the chatterbox, though, the grimmer he figured his prospects. Things hadn't looked spirewards from the start – the enforcers had taken a few nasty hits during the scrap, and as the cops roster-rotated their turns at quizzing him, Brokeface gleaned that Ratbite's blade had sent Captain Angel to the corpse farm. Worse still, Angel's replacement, Sipowicz, hadn't even officially assumed his duties yet, Noomena's scragging had been that savage.

'That all you got, faceache?' This was Sergeant Doyle, bad cop.

'Aye, that's all I got. And like I told you, most folks call me Brokeface.'

'We're not most folks,' deadpanned Officer Bunk. Also bad cop.

Bad cop was the only cop at Precinct 13. Still, there were a few shreds of honour behind those badges. Brokeface had fed them enough dirt on the Guns to blow a ghasthead's mind, and this seemed to have garnered some mercy. They'd kept him awake and hungry for three whole shifts, but the enforcers hadn't laid a gauntlet on him. Yet.

'Sure, I scope it,' grinned Brokeface. 'But come on, lads – er, officers – you got what you wanted, what we agreed. More than enough to track them Guns down and get yourselves some revenge, I'd say. Now how about you, er, pay me and let me go?'

Doyle and Bunk paused, shared a glance. The sergeant nodded.

'Want me to do the honours?' said Bunk, reaching for his belt as he stepped forward.

Brokeface turned to look at Bunk. 'Ah, rightly thank you officer, it's sure good to be of help to Lord Helmawr's finest.'

He turned back. Doyle's stubber was pointed squarely at his forehead.

'Ah, come on...' said Brokeface.

'Nah,' said Doyle, cocking the stubber. 'I got this one.'

Brokeface was going to protest, but then he was dead. Again.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 10: Creds Rule Everything Around Me

Noomena Greyz had worked her blood warrant in enough downhive settlements to know it always pays to have a sense of how spirestraight the local enforcers are. And from everything she'd heard since arriving in Foulnest a few cycles back, Precinct 13 were as bribe-friendly as they come. Still, the scrap in hand was different. Both Gunn's Guns and Precinct 13 were allied to the Coin Guild, and the prize at stake – running protection of the caravan routes that cut through Foulnest – was worth a lot. Even if the enforcers could be bought, Noomena figured they'd expect payment in blood as well as credits.

With old man Gunn recovering from his duel with Lady Glaw, Noomena was heading up the Guns for the shift. She'd sketched out the plan to the boys as they moved to meet the enforcers at a caravan waypoint on the settlement outskirts: Ratbite, Snags and Brokeface would run along the high levels and distract the cops; Noomena, Mumbles and scummer allies Ashman and Dirty Frenk would stick to the domefloor and work their way around to the waypoint itself. With their claim made clear, the Guns would offer a bribe and, all going well, the greedy lawmen wouldn't be able to resist.

As it scanned, the caper started unravelling at the outset. Officer Angel had snuck on ahead of his patrol and, accompanied by his trusty cyber-hound Rin, sprung up on top of a chem-dive within spitting distance of Ratbite and his boys. The enforcer lobbed a frag grenade that knocked Snags down to the domefloor, and Brokeface scarpered away, straight towards the enemy. Ratbite found himself alone, facing off with Angel and his angry mutt.

To make matters worse, Brokeface was playing a sly scheme of his own. Noomena hadn't liked the ugly fragger from the moment she'd met him, even before the other Guns had scoped her in on the creepy way he kept not dying. So she was unsurprised when she saw him holster his autopistols and dart along the mechways above, right up to one of the advancing patrolmen. The scummer and copper shared a nod of recognition, and Brokeface ducked on and away, towards the dome exit. The dirty skut had turned rat and sold the Guns out to the cops.

Still, the plan was still the plan. Noomena and the crew pressed on, weaving between rusting support struts and ducking out of the way of the advancing enforcers' bolterfire. Turned out that Snags getting toppled from the walkways was a something of a boon – he chucked a couple of smoke grenades ahead of the domefloor crew, covering their route as far as the waypoint.

Ashman was on point, but as he ghosted between the smoke clouds, he came under fire from rookie officer Columbo – the scummer was taken down and out by the green patrolman. And Dirty Frenk, thinking himself safe under cover of the smoke, found himself charged by stimmed-up Captain Sipowicz. The enforcers had got wise to the Guns' scheme and moved fast to cut them off.

Back up on the walkways, Angel growled a kill-command, and Rin charged straight at Ratbite, jaws snapping. Close combat certainly wasn't the ratling's strong suit, but he somehow dodged the dog's attacks and landed a telling blow with his stiletto knife. The dog dropped unconscious. Angel opened fire at Ratbite, but the abhuman sniper shrugged off the flesh wounds, levelled his longrifle and took a shot that put the enforcer down, though not out. Giggling sadistically, Ratbite scampered over and finished the job with his blade.

Down below, Mumbles went to work with his shotgun and took out Columbo, then joined Noomena in piling into the smoke to take on Sipowicz, whose stimm-surge was wearing off. The fight was brief and brutal: Noomena's plasma pistol flashed, so did her stiletto knife, and that was that for Sipowicz. But a few metres away, Officer Riggs had got the drop on Snags and felled him with her stub gun.

The scrap was on a razor's edge. Both crews had sustained casualties, but even though the coppers had the numbers, the venators had taken out the enforcers' senior officers. Noomena figured it was now or never – she called out for a ceasefire, offering a hefty bribe. And true to form, the enforcers of Precinct 13 were only too willing to accept the payoff.

So the caravan routes came under the protection of Gunn's Guns, and Noomena had some good news to bring back to the recuperating old man. Still, this wasn't enough to persuade Guilder Van Scultis to lift the bounties off their heads, and Brokeface would surely be singing like a sheenbird back at the precinct house, so a change of hideouts was in order. Between this, and the unresolved competition for favour with the Coin Guild, it would only be a matter of time before Gunn's Guns threw down with Precinct 13 again.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 9: Shadows of Death

Death was knocking at the door of Gunn's Guns' Foulnest hab-lodgings. Old Jonn Gunn cursed through gritted teeth, his left arm and hand a shredded mass of lasburnt gore. Drifter Zensen was unconscious, his head a plasma-scorched mess. Crusher Rezto moaned and clutched at his belly, trying to keep his guts from spilling out. The wounds were tox-tainted and wouldn't stop bleeding. If a doc wasn't found soon, none of the trio would live to see the next cycle.

The venators' attempt to claim the rackets associated with the Omnissiaic brotherhood hadn't gone well. Another crew, the Delaque outlaws of the Veiled Cartel, had the same idea, and the two gangs met on a high-level network of walkways that overhung the edge of the Dogland wastes. A cold dust-storm was blowing in from the drained sump, skewing everyone's bearings, and the gangs came at each other piecemeal, disoriented but intent on defending the stake-markers they'd laid.

Crusher made initial contact, finding himself in a close brawl with a Cartel fighter. First blood could have gone to the Guns, but Crusher was, as usual, playing his own game, running a freelance bagman job for some black marketeer. From what the rest of the gang could figure later on, Crusher and the Cartel creep got tangled up trying to resolve some unpaid debts on behalf of their respective criminal clients. Crusher bagged a ton of creds, but then the interaction turned bloody and he ended up on the deck with his belly slit open.

Ratbite was finding it nigh-impossible to get a clean shot through the dust, but Jonn Gunn and Ashman, one of the scummers in the Guns' employ, had worked their way round the back of the Cartel's position. The ash storm was hindering the Cartel sharpshooters as much as it was Ratbite, and Gunn had a fair chance of trashing the enemy stake, but he found himself charged by the Delaques' ally, rebel noblewoman Astrid Glaw.

Gunn had been in more than his fair share of close-quarter brawls in his long cycles on the hunt, but few were as tight as the one that ensued. Gunn's power knife met Glaw's stiletto blade and digi-lasers, downhive brutality versus uphive precision. Each fighter's mettle was tested, blood was drawn on both sides, but in the end the intervention of one of the Cartel members tipped the balance in Glaw's favour. That's how Gunn got taken out.

The dust storm blew over, but the Veiled Cartel pulled a house-typical move and killed the lumens that hung along the walkways. Far down below, strings of lanterns stretched out across Dogland, marking the safe routes, but their distant light was no use to Gunn's Guns. The Veiled Cartel, on the other hand, were equipped to a man with photogoggles – the time had come to draw the noose.

Ratbite and Snags Skivvens rightly clocked their predicament and took off, unknowingly crossing paths with Drifter, who blundered into the crossways at the centre of the scrap zone and was caught in the crossfire from the Cartel's guns. It fell to Mumbles Mervik to scrape a little honour back for the venators by mounting a defiant defence of the Guns' stake-marker. He threw out some fresh meat as bait, attracting the attention of a stranded sump-creeper that lashed its monstrous tentacles around the walkway ahead of the stake. This cut off the Delaque's only means of approach, but Cartel boss Lucien only plays games where he makes the rules: he gave the word, and a sharp shot sent Mumbles tumbling off the walkway and into a bat-trawler's net some fifty metres below.

The fight was over. For all their outlaw status, the Cartel's performance had impressed the emissaries of the Omnissiah, who agreed to pay the Delaques for protection. No such luck for Gunn's Guns – Devinscar, Skinflint of the Coin Guild, deigned to guide the crew back to Foulnest core, but informed the venators that Crusher's shakedown on behalf of his recidivist contact was a transgression too far. Though their alliance with the Guild of Coin would continue on the quiet, Gunn's Guns were declared outlaws. Nice work, Crusher.

So dishonour and death's shadow hung over Gunn, Drifter and Crusher as they lay wracked with agony in the crew's hab. They waited for what felt like a dozen cycles before Snags got back with a doc in tow.

'This fella's one of the best in the 'Nest,' said Snags, breathlessly, jerking a thumb at the medic. 'But there's a catch. Prices he's charging, we only got enough in the stash to save two of you.'

Here was a crumb of consolation. An easy choice to make.

'Get to work on Drifter and me,' snarled Jonn Gunn at the doc. 'Let that other fragger die.'

For all that it's a hellhole, there's a strange kind of justice in the Underhive.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 8: Bring Out Yer Dead

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart through the dripping dankness. The semi-automated tracked cart buzzed ahead, bereft of cargo this early in the shift.

He was down in the half-collapsed stack of warehouses on the lowest levels of Foulnest, where the settlement's darkest deeds took place. Most of the fatalities from bitter gang fights and duels would have been scooped up by the Guild harvesting parties, but there were sometimes leftovers for a lowly drudge like Flin,who earned a meagre living collecting whatever dead flesh he could find for delivery to the Guild-sanctioned corpse-processing farms. He didn't intend to spend much time down here, lest he end up killed and carted away by some other carrion-scraper.

Not bad findings this time: a few shrivelled limbs wedged between the deck plates, even a ripe torso the corpse grinders must have overlooked. Still, best to leave these half-badzone haunts to the true professionals. There was a crude, slime-lined elevator at the end of the corridor. He rolled his cart onto it and set about working the crank. The gears rattled and, inch by inch, he ascended to the level above.

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart along the rust-thick quayside. There was activity here: teams of dock-hands hooking and slinging cargo off the moored dust-runners. Some of the ash-rigs – and some of the dock-hands – were branded with sigils of the Iron and Coin Guild; others were more discreet, their loads hustled furtively onto wagons and the backs of pack-slaves. Flin averted his gaze from these latter- no good would come of paying attention where it wasn't bidden. He steered his cart carefully between the work gangs.

Just the one finding, but a good one: a fresh hanging. Delaque male, suspended over the quayside from a metal beam. The body twisted languidly in the wind that gusted in from the cavernous, sludgy vaults of Dogland. The cadaver's viz-augmetics dangled down his either side of his face, squeezed out of their sockets by the death throes. Who could tell if this was a suicide or a gang killing? The House of Snakes runs its schemes dark and complex: maybe murder, or maybe this poor soul had backstabbed his way into a corner with a terminal exit. Either way, no-one in the cargo game seemed to care – they went about their business, leaving the body where it was. Not so Flin. Here was good meat for the rending vats. He sawed through the rope and added the corpse to his cart. Onwards and upwards.

Flin steered the corpse cart up a few levels, rattling unsteadily over the rickety bridgeways linking the cold furnaces that now served as squalid habholes. Not much chance of any findings here – the desperate furnace-dregs would already have pounced upon any meat matter and made short work of it. But there were better prospects ahead.

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart through the bustle of Cut End market. He made the rounds of the butchers' stalls and checked in with a few Cawdor ratcatchers of his acquaintance. Even a few scrapings of offcut fat from the former or critterlimbs gnawed off to escape the latter's traps could fetch a tenth of a cred or two. Not much else happening on the market this shift – no brawls or stand-offs escalating into murder – so on to the next stop.

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart between the tumbledown hovels of Dhan's Town, one of several hab clusters that had sprung up in the dead factoria domes around Foulnest core. Flin usually got something out of the locals – some poor skuthead who'd carked it from a stimm overdose or acute spore sickness. If worst came to worst, he'd siphon off the contents of the communal dunny into his cart – it's all organic, after all.

Flin was halfway down the main drain that cut through the middle of the cluster of habs. He nodded and growled greetings to the locals he knew. Tattle was traded – since the Sin Eaters took off, the Smokestack Needles and Gunn's Guns had been throwing their weight around town, each looking to take over the protection rackets. Things were coming to a head, and this shift would see a reckoning. Flin clocked a clutch of enforcers from Precinct 13, on patrol and looking for trouble. Over the other side of the shantyways, he clocked the bright colours of the Needles and the drab colours of the Guns, stealthing into position. There would be gunplay, blood and – if Flin was lucky – fresh meat for the finding.

What the tattle had missed was the arrival of the Rustgate OMC, those notorious outlaws. Suddenly, there they were, whooping and hollering from the mechworks at the dome's edge, getting involved just for the violence. Flin's prospects were looking better by the click – as long as he didn't get caught in the crossfire.

The scrap went down pretty fast. There were bullets and lasbolts flying everywhere. Half the hive dwellers panicked and ducked for cover, scrambling between the hovels or into the mechwork perimeter. The other half, which included Flin, had seen it all before. They tried to go about their business – if Emprah wills it, there's no dodging that fatal shot.

Flin rolled his cart between the hovels, glancing down at the gutters and drainholes for carcass matter, and glancing up to check he wasn't about to be charged by a battle-mad ganger. The things he saw would give him tales to tell in the Working Hivers' Club for the next dozen shifts:

That enforcer who clambered on the dunny to lob a grenade at one of the Needles. The grenade bounced back at him and blasted him right back down to the dome floor. So much for Helmawr's long arm.

Gunn's lad Mumbles and Needle juve Jek going at each other with knives in the shadows of the mechworks. Another grenade went off right in the middle of their duel, but they scrapped on regardless, and Jek got the better of Mumbles in the end.

Old Jo Genge of the Rustgaters fumbling a point-blank shot at venator Noomena, then cracking his foot as he tried to drop to safety on the domefloor. Jonn Gunn put a hotshot lasbolt in his arse, but Genge but staggered on regardless.

Truth be told, that Rustgate resilience burned through the whole rumble. The enforcers, the venators and the Eschers rained fire on the Orlocks, but they just hung on like ash clams. The other gangs took a few casualties and, unlike the outlaws, didn't have much stomach for shooting up the locals. Before long, Gunn and veteran Needle Kes looked to have changed their minds about the takeover, ordering their crews to scarper.

One enforcer by the name of Angel looked to be hanging in there, ready to make a stand against the Rustgaters as they moved down from the mechworks into the hovels, but he thought better of it and ducked out back to his precinct. Flin didn't blame him, the way the Orlocks were fighting on through their wounds. No-one was going to stop them.

So that was the shift the Rustgate OMC took over the protection rackets in Foulnest core. Some would say it was dark news, another slice of the action falling into the hands of men beyond the law, but to the likes of Flin Fleckus, it was business as usual. The gangs will run their shakedowns, be they clean or outlaw. The best an underhiver can do is try to scrape a living between the bulletstorms.

Flin Fleckus scoured the alleyways between the hovels but, for all the carnage, there'd been no kills in Dhan's Town that shift. Time to roll the cart over to the corpse farm and see how much he could haggle for his haul.

One last call, just in case.

'Bring out yer dead,' he croaked.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 7: Getting The Drop On

You just stopped in at the Foulnest Working Hivers' Club for a quiet drink, but this glassy-eyed scummer is insisting on propping up the bar next to you, and by Helmawr's balls, he will not shut up.

'… And I hear old man Gunn sprang a trap on Ray Void and his boys over at Dead Drop. Dead Drop, you know – ah, you're new in the 'Nest, aren't you? So it's a wee ways corewards, in the badzones. One of the big old rents running though E-Sec top to bottom, scars from hivequakes and so on. Top of Dead Drop is right up at the highest E-Sec levels, and that's maybe the only way across, over some old bridges and through some old stackhouses that cling to the dome roof like ash barnacles. Under that, well, nothing, a thirty metre gap running down, down to... well, best not to mind it much.

'Anyway, that ladderways at the top is where Gunn's Guns, those mean-arse venators, tried to ambush the Rustgate OMC, that Orlock crew, bad boys, outlaws. Reckon Gunn was put up to it by the Guilds – Coiners and Slavers wanting the tradeways kept open, you know.

'Gunn and his crew were either side of the gap, so I heard, circling the Rustgaters, who were holed up in a tower hanging down over the gap. The venators had some fresh blood with them – this woman Noomena, you might have seen her around, knows Gunn from way back and has signed on with his crew. And a couple of boys from the backrooms right here, murderous scummers.

'So they got that trap sprung and started shooting at the sorry Orlock lads out over the gap, but Ray Void, he wasn't having none of it, he sees Gunn over yonder at the pit's edge, tells his Rustgaters that's the way they're going, that's how they're going to break out.

'And Khalid – you must've seen Khalid round the market here at Cut End? Sharp talker, Khalid, knows the price of everything, and where to get it. Khalid's on point, gets his plasma gun up, and doesn't he just go and deadeye Jonn Gunn himself? But Gunn's a tough old sheenbird, he's down but not out. And shots are all ringing off the walkways and scorching the supports, and a few of each crew take a tumble while they're ducking for cover. I don't know how, but they all grabbed on to wires and pipes and whatnot and none of them went down down into the darkness – not yet, anyway.

'Maybe things would've kicked off different if the ventors had that creepy ratling fella on board. Whatsisname, Ratbite, that's it. Ratbite snuck off and found himself a sweet snipe spot, but it turns out this mutie scummer in Void's pay was also on the sneak, looking for somewhere for a piss. I heard he ran across Ratbite just as the little freak was aiming his first shot, and the sight of them as they kept missing each other point blank was a right laugh. So I heard. By the time the scummer had got his shift together and actually charged Ratbite and took him out, the fight was almost over...

'But I'm getting ahead of myself. So Khalid had gunned Gunn down and the Rustgaters were mustering for their breakout, but a few of Gunn's crew were coming up right up at them. And who's there in among the venators? Only Brokeface Edwydd – you must've seen him round here, yeah? Ugly guy, keeps coming back from the dead...'

The drinker's voice tails off and a haunted look steals into his booze-swollen face. Some things don't bear thinking about. But then he shakes his grin back on and continues.

'So it's Brokeface himself running at Ray Void, only the last time Ray - and most of us, for that matter – saw Brokeface, Ray was dragging him out of this here bar and burning him to death right there on the market. Can you imagine Ray's face when he sees this ugly fragger up ahead on the walkway, blazing away with his autopistols? Ha, it was quite a pict by all accounts! Anyways, Brokeface is shooting stray as usual, but not Ray. I swear, that fellow's as cold as the void he was born in. He just aims his bolter and plugs Brokface, and Brokeface is gone, fallen into the black place below, Emprah only knows how far, but I'll bet we'll be seeing him again before the cycle's up...'

That haunted look again, just for a second.

'But scrag me if that weren't when things really went sumpwards. I mean it – all that shooting and moving must've weakened the bolts and bindings on the ladderways, and wouldn't you know it but the whole structure tears loose and drops into the pit, all sparks flying and metal screaming and air rushing. A few of the fighters dropped off during the plunge, though they've all been seen since, so they must've got swept onto some of the side levels. And as for the structure itself, well, it must've got banged or pranged and shunted off, because it didn't drop eight to the bottom, wherever that is. No, it sorta slid off to the side, smashing to a stop in one of the dead manufactory domes down in lower E-Sec. I swear, you couldn't make this up, but stranger things happen downhive, right?

'So the loose ladderway's come to rest, and everyone who's still aboard is all shook, and the landing sets the old mechworks a-whirring, with clouds of rank smoke spreading out all over, and as if that weren't enough, some local muties start popping arrows at both crews, not that these puny critters were tough enough to actually wound anyone.

'Well, no-one had much stomach for the fight after that. I heard Jonn Gunn, all bloody from the plasma hits, made an offer to Ray, a bung of Guilder money or some such, to stand down, but the Voidsman said no – he was going to blast his way out of there with the rest of his Orlock boys.

'And that they did – the smoke gave them some cover, even if it had them all coughing and wheezing, and the venators what was still standing, likewise half-choked, settled for exploring the dome and charting out how it connected to the Coin Guild's money-map. Even though the ambush was a bust, this was enough to get them a decent payoff from the Coiners, and as for the Rustgate OMC – well, word is that this show of force made an impression, and that Ray and his boys are now doing bagwork for the Slavers. On the sly, of course – they're outlaws, after all.

'So that's how it all went down at Dead Drop. Quite a story, eh, friend? Worth the price of a few shots of wildsnake, wouldn't you say?'

The Foulnest Rackets Part 6: Die Again, Brokeface

'Brokeface' Edwydd knew what pain was. He'd learned that lesson many cycles ago, when he'd taken a tumble into a sumpspider nest. The soft webbing broke his fall, and then came the thousand needlepoint jabs of the countless hatchlings sinking their sharp young fangs into his flesh. After his crewmates had hauled him out of the nest, he boiled inside and out as the spider venom scoured every inch of his body. His skin shrivelled and his muscles wasted, leaving him a sorry echo of the proud venator he'd once been. Those grim shifts as the toxins worked through his system were lost to Brokeface now, but he sure did remember the pain. Small wonder he'd turned to boozing afterwards.

And boozing was what he was doing at the Foulnest Working Hivers' Club when Ray Void came at him, chainsword buzzing and murder in his offworld eyes. Brokeface could hardly blame him for the animus – after all, Ray had already killed him once.

Ray had a bellyful of liquor, evident from the careless swing of his chainsword. Brokeface, not exactly sober himself, managed to duck aside and the whirring teeth bit into the metal plating of the bar. Sparks fountained and metal screeched. The drinkers who'd been listening to Brokeface's raconteur act scattered – downhive, there's plenty of ways to get maimed without sticking your beak into other folks' bad business.

Ray was trying to dislodge his chainsword from the bar – it had snagged after tearing a gash halfway to the floor. Brokeface backed away.

'Hey, hey, now, spacer brother,' he said , raising his palms, 'I know maybe there's some bad blood here, but - '

'You should be dead!' snapped Ray, Second Best soaking his words. 'And she won't shut up!'

The mat of scar tissue that passed for Brokeface's brow furrowed. No use talking to a crazy man. Brokeface turned and ran for the door.

His mind skipped back to the most recent time he'd died. Down at the old sludge quays, Gunn's Guns had faced off against the Dreadhook Whalers. Brokeface had wanted to see just how far this resurrection jag would stretch, so he'd charged right at the rival gang, like an idiot. One of the Dreadhook Whalers had peppered his chest with autofire, and that was that. Next thing he knew, he was waking up on the cold warehouse deck, left for dead – not wrongly – by his crew. Alone, with a fresh set of bulletholes in his body to remember the occasion. He'd crept back up to Foulnest Core and the Hivers' Club to get sauced and maybe fool himself that he belonged among the living.

So much for that plan.

A shot caught him square in the back and propelled him forward – he slammed the door of the Club open and tumbled out into the main hall of Cut End. Even drunk, Ray could shoot straight. Brokeface noticed that his chest was still intact and figured Ray must've used his backup stubber rather than his bolter. Small mercies.

Not long until lights out: the lumens were flickering, the market traders were packing up their stalls, and the night folk were lighting up the barrelfires. Brokeface rolled onto his back and stared around. The traders and dispersing patrons did their best to act like nothing was happening out front of the Hivers' Club. They had more sense than to get involved. A couple of Precinct 13 enforcers were swaggering away down the market, but Brokeface knew better than to expect help from them. No grift to be gained from breaking up your average bar scrap, even if murder was on the cards. There were a few pale-masked figures in the shadows on the upper levels. Sin Eaters – the Delaque gang was currently running protection in Foulnest core, but fat chance they were going to sully themselves for a scummer like Brokeface.

And then Ray was on him again, storming out of the Club with a stagger in his step.

'You're dead, you faceache scrag,' snarled Ray, aiming his stubber with a shaky hand.

Brokeface was ready. He'd slipped one of his autopistols out of its holster and brought it to bear on the voidsman.

'Not this time, brother,' he grinned, and pulled the trigger.

The autopistol jammed. It wasn't Brokeface's shift. It rarely was, he mused, as Ray grabbed him and hauled him to his feet, gripping him in a tight headlock.

Brokeface's thoughts ran to the second time he'd died, just a cycle ago, when Gunn's Guns had gone up against the Cawdor Carrion. Having only come back from the dead once at that point, Brokeface had been all foolhardy bravery, scaling a tower to get some shots in at the Carrion's leader, Corvus. He'd missed, of course, and found himself on the receiving end of a hefty swing from Corvus's chainglaive. The blow had ripped his chest open – again – and sent him tumbling to the domefloor below. He still remembered the snap as his spine had shattered on impact, right before things went black. Two shifts later, the Guns sure had been surprised to see him stumbling into their hab block.

No venator crewmates to back him up now.

Ray was manhandling him across the market hall, spitting fury. 'I'm gonna kill you proper this time, man! No worming your way out of it!'

Brokeface realised he was being dragged towards one of the freshly-lit barrel fires.

'Ah, come on, Void,' choked Brokeface through the headlock, 'you gotta - '

But Ray had released him and promptly followed up with a smart right hook that sent Brokeface sprawling to the deck again. The offworlder wasted no time, stooping to wrap his arms around the burning barrel. His insulated suit was enough to serve as protection, but Brokeface was clad in flimsy flak and rags.

Ray Void hoisted the barrel off the deck and tipped its contents – filthy scrap-fuel, all ablaze – over Brokeface Edwydd.

The flames caught on the scummer's garments. He tried to gasp out a curse, but the air in his lungs was cooking away, snatching the breath from him.

'Die, you scummer bastard!' snarled Ray. 'Die again!'

Brokeface flailed, scrambling to his knees before dropping again and rolling along the deck. The fire was all about him now, clawing into his already-dry flesh. His mind skipped back to the first time he'd died – also the first time Ray Void had killed him. They'd faced off before an unholy altar, each intent on putting an end to the wych who'd been at the centre of all that wrong-goddery. Brokeface realised that it was then, as Ray's chainsword had carved his torso open during the Battle of Foulnest, that he'd last felt pain. Ever since, when he'd died a second, third, and now a fourth time, he'd seen it, heard it, smelled it, but he'd not felt it. There was no pain. And if there's one thing Brokeface Edwydd knew, it was pain.

Somehow, he found the strength and breath to croak out, 'See you around, Voidsman.'

And then he died as the flames burned themselves out. By now, only the barrelfires and a few dancing lumens lit the great gloom of Cut End. The night scummers had had their entertainment: from the shadows there was a smattering of ragged applause and a few hoarse cheers, as well as the muttered demands and concessions of wagers being claimed. 

Raymond Void stood over the smouldering corpse. Was that low, guttural chuckle coming from the scummers or from the bag at his hip – the hag's head, taunting him? He needed another drink, badly, and so turned to return to the Working Hivers' Club, certain that he'd seen the last of Brokeface Edwydd.

He was wrong, of course.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 5: Hell and High Water

'Crusher, put some smoke out there,' barked Jonn Gunn. 'We'll wait for them to come forward, then rush them, guns up.'

'Sure, boss,' said Crusher Retzo, and flung a smoke grenade into the centre of the wide chamber. The grenade rattled to a halt and disgorged a thick cloud of fumes.

Gunn's Guns were on another op. This time, they were down in the lower depths of Foulnest, in a row of rust-rimed, slime-smeared warehouses that, before the great drain-off, would have been the sump quayside. The job was to take on incomer crew known as the Dreadhook Whalers, who were allied with the Water Guild. This was the hook Gunn had used to get Van Scultis interested, playing up Guild rivalries, and it was certainly a version of the truth; in fact, the Whalers and the Guns, both dissatisfied with their current alliances, had been making overtures to the Corpse Guild. A decisive showdown between the two gangs would determine who would take priority.

Gunn and Van Scultis had split their forces and advanced into two adjoining warehouses. Gunn was accompanied by Crusher, as well as Brokeface and Mumbles. There was scant cover in the abandoned storage hall, and their foes were moving in from a set of smaller chambers and corridors on the far side, so Gunn had ordered the smoke drop.

While Crusher and Mumbles hung back, Gunn and Brokeface moved forward to a wall that ran from the edge of the smoke cloud. Gunn's armour clattered, and Brokeface cackled at the prospect of violence. They paused and heard shunting doors and low voices from around the corner. The Dreadhooks were in the warehouse.

'Right, Brokeface,' hissed Gunn. 'I want you to - '

But Brokeface wasn't listening. Since he'd reconnected with the crew via the life-coin exchange, he'd been even more unhinged ever. He twisted his head round with a jerk, a mad grin on his ravaged face.

'I'm going for it, boss! Watch this!'

Brandishing his autopistols, he launched himself off the wall and disappeared around the corner, into the smoke.

'Dammit,' muttered Gunn as Crusher moved up to join him.

'What's he playing at?' asked Crusher, wrinkling his snub of a nose.

'Fragged if I know,' said Gunn. 'The damn fool's a liability. We'll have to wait and -'

He was cut short by the chatter of autofire, coming from beyond the smoke. Twin burst, presumbly Brokeface's pistols. A wild, wordless holler from Brokeface. A short, controlled burst – autogun rather than pistol, to Gunn's experienced ears, likely one of the Dreadhooks. A surprised yelp from Brokeface. Then silence.

Mumbles had crept forward to join Gunn and Crusher. 'Hrrg hrrg hrrrh.'

'Yeah,' said Crusher. 'Don't think Brokeface is gonna be much more use.'

Gunn scowled.'Right, boys, we're in a tight pipe here, but we might just be able to work our way out. Stick to the plan, guns up, rush them through the smoke, take them by surprise.'

'Hrrrg hrrrrrrrr.'

Gunn had to admit Mumbles was right – it wasn't much of a plan. But it was all they had. 'If we're lucky, it won't matter how many of them there are, we'll catch them on the hop.'

Crusher prepped a grenade and, on Gunn's cue, the trio ran forwards into the smoke.

Things went down fast. There were five Dreadhooks, grizzled fighters clad in haz-shield suits, on the other side of the smoke: two in the main warehouse chamber, three lurking off in side-rooms. Mumbles found himself tangled in combat with the closest, while Gunn pinned one with a lasbolt and Crusher chucked a grenade into one of the doorways, hoping to take out the plasma gunner there. The Dreadhooks returned fire, pinning Gunn and Crusher as Mumbles grappled with his foe.

The smoke was clearing, and Gunn realised he'd underestimated how much solid weaponry the Dreadhooks were hefting. Big mistake. 

Bolt shells and plasma shots filled the air. One of the former caught Gunn's shoulder armour and blasted it open, searing the flesh beneath. He dropped, gritting his teeth. Wincing through the pain, he looked up and clocked a distinctive plasma muzzle pointing straight at him. He tried to roll, but the gun spoke and the shot hit his leg, superheating his armour and setting the skin beneath boiling. 

He screamed and passed out.

+++++++++++

When Jonn Gunn regained consciousness, he was lying on his back. He was also in immense discomfort. He tried to blink his eye open, but there was something stuck into his tear duct. There was something stuck into everywhere, countless needlepoints snaking under his armour, driving into his veins and pores. He writhed, groaning, but a slender hand pressed down on his chest with surprising force.

With wilful effort, he blinked his eye open. Stooped over him was the unmistakeable figure of a Master Nautican, all wide-brimmed helm and beady, chem-spiked eyes. And, of course, all moisture-cap tubes, a tangle of lines extending from the storage units on the Nautican's back and from under his – or her – robes. The lines terminated in the multitude of extractor needles that were lancing Gunn's body. Behind the Guilder, he could just about make out the hulking form of the attendant Subnautican, blank-masked, impassive.

This must be the Dreadhooks' ally, Gunn realised. They must have driven off Crusher, Mumbles and Van Scultis's crew after I took the plasma hit. They must have captured me. And this must be how I die, after all these long cycles. Drained dry by the Water Guild.

The Guilder nodded, head cocked, as if understanding Gunn's thoughts. Then, the lines shuddered and the extraction began. Gunn writhed again as agony, worse than the plasma wound, wracked his body. He could feel his arteries shrivelling as vacuum suction acted on them, could feel his very tissue folding in on itself. Death couldn't come soon enough.

And then the extraction stopped. Gunn looked up, and saw that a third masked figure – presumably the Syphonite factotum – had approached the Nautican and was gesturing extravagantly, showing a dataslate. Gunn strained to listen through the pipes cramming into his ears, and could just about make out a rapid, urgent exchange in the ululating cant of the Water Guild.

The Nautican turned away from the Syphonite and looked down at Gunn. The beady view-lenses glistened, somehow melancholy. Abruptly, the lines began to detach from Gunn's flesh, quivering and lashing and they withdrew back into the Guilder's robes.

Gunn watched, perplexed, as the Nautican stepped away and began conferring with the Syphonite. Responding to some unheard cue, the Subnautican lumbered forwards and picked Gunn up in its huge paws. The veteran venator was manhandled across the room. A door opened and Gunn was unceremoniously thrown out.

He would've dropped to the deck if Snags Skivvens and Mumbles hadn't been there to catch him. They moved off up the pipeway, putting hasty distance between themselves and the Nautican's lair.

Slumped heavily between his gangmates, Gunn slurred a question. 'What the frag just happened?'

Snags, barely recovered from his recent injuries, replied through gritted teeth. 'You probably guessed how that scrap ended. The Dreadhooks won it, and the aquamongers got you...'

'Yeah...' gasped Gunn, bleeding from a thousand microwounds. 'But how'd I...? How'd you...? Wassit Van Scultis?'

'Hrrrrr hrrrrg,' said Mumbles.

'Nah' said Snags. 'Her crew took just as much of a bruising as you and the boys. She's mighty vexed at you, reckons you set her up.'

'Heh,' said Gunn. 'S'not exactly wrong. But...'

'Well, you'll be glad to hear that other bit of business came off spirestraight, just as planned.'

The other business. The real game. The involvement of the Water, Coin and – tangentially - Corpse Guild in the scrap with the Dreadhooks meant that eyes were off the lower sump quays for the duration of the shift. Time enough for Snags to help out some smuggler friends of his in moving a shipment of contraband in from Dogland. Risky work, but well worth it in terms of creds.

'And you used the payment... to buy me back from the Water fraggers?' gasped Gunn.

'Aye, that I did,' said Snags. 'Only some of it, though. And only just in time. I was just finishing up the deal, wouldn't even have known you'd been taken if Mumbles here hadn't come rushing to find me.'

'Hhh-hrrrrgh,' said Mumbles, triumphantly.

Gunn grinned despite the pain as they hauled him back up towards Foulnest Core. Between his busted leg and the extraction wounds, he was in bad shape – it'd take a fair few shifts for him to recover. And the defeat at the hands of the Dreadhooks surely wouldn't do the Guns' reputation any favours. But there was grim satisfaction to be had at getting one over the Guilders. And besides, as every Underhiver knows, every credit you earn, you pay for in blood.