Necromunda - Survival Instinct

by Andy Chambers - (ebook by Undead)

  It was a testament to Hanno’s ability as watchman that they weren’t already at each other’s throats. It was also worthy of note that gangers from the most antagonistic houses—the Goliaths and the Escher, the Orlocks and the Delaque—had evidently been separated between the two slop shops in Dust Falls to keep tensions down. Donna couldn’t see a Van Saar, a Delaque, or an Escher in the whole place.

  That was with one obvious exception. With his long, black coat and pallid, shaven head, Kell Bak stood out like a stick of charcoal in a box of crayons. Donna spotted him in the far corner talking to a disinterested-looking bunch of Goliaths. Two ratskin scouts were lounging nearby at the bar and drinking heavily. Donna edged in closer so she could overhear what was being said.

  “It’s easy money,” Kell was saying in a scratchy whisper. “We link up, blast a way clear, find the bitch again and take her down. Suddenly you’re a hundred credits richer and you’re out of Dust Falls.”

  The Goliath leader was a huge brute of a man with steel bolts threaded through his bulging biceps and pectorals. He talked in a slow, bass rumble like tectonic plates grinding together. “Yur gonna need more guns than uz, and no skank’s gonna fire up alia dese boys for a hunnerd stinkin’ creds.”

  “You’re not confident of beating a ragtag bunch of scavvies?” Kell was trying not to offend the Goliath but it still came out as a sneer.

  The big Goliath grinned nastily before continuing on as if Kell hadn’t spoken. “Ye see yur scavvies’re no good when yur can chase ’im down and kick ’im, but inna open they’ll jest run and keep shootin’ yur ass from the dark. Needs a hole buncha guns ter keep lookin’ every which way. Nobodie’s riskin’ that run out when da uvvers are stayin’ behind nice an’ safe.” The leader swung a meaty fist around at the bar expansively before swigging back his stein. “Everywun goes or everywun stays, no crap bounties gonna be worth gettin’ messed up fer on yur own.” He banged the stein back down, indicating that his final words of wisdom on the matter had been dispensed.

  Donna caught one of the ratskins looking at her strangely and then none-too-subtly whispering something in his neighbour’s ear. She tensed up, ready for action, expecting the two to alert Kell of her presence. To her surprise they both got up and trotted out of the bar without a backward glance. Kell didn’t seem to notice.

  “But Mad Donna is easy meat; all rep and no action,” Kell wheezed, still trying to elicit some interest. “Just Shallej and me was all it took last time and she had help getting away. Didn’t she skin a member of your gang once? Don’t you want payback on that?”

  That seemed to rekindle the Goliath’s interest. His jaw stuck out menacingly. “You sayin’ Goliat’s is weak? Izzat watcha sayin? That Donaz badass, man. Mean as they cum. Couldn’a taken one of uz otherwise.”

  “Badass? She’s just a spoilt little uphive bitch that’s been whipped once already.”

  There are times in life when looking back at your actions, you find them hard to fathom, or indeed even believe. Donna’s plan was to trail Kell until she could get him alone. But hearing him crow about running her out of Glory Hole made her blood boil, and she couldn’t let it go unchallenged. The plan went out the window. She flung back her cloak, stood up straight and magnificently with hands on hips for all to see.

  “Hey Kell!” she challenged in a loud, clear voice. “Want to try whipping me again? Or should I wait here until you fetch your big cousin and half a dozen pit slaves?”

  The unmistakable timbre of her uphive accent cut across the packed bar like a knife, grabbing everyone’s attention. The gangers nearby hooted appreciatively and shouted crude encouragement. Kell spun around, shock written all over his toad-like face, his hand darting for his pistol.

  “No guns!” the barkeep shouted desperately. “Order of the watch!”

  Kell froze, his eyes flickering to the giant Goliath for support. The gang leader spat and then grinned again, showing off steel-fang incisors as he rumbled, “Thass right, boy. First one shoots a gun gets stripped an’ thrown to the scavvies. We’s all swore uselves to it.”

  Suddenly the brute stood up, towering over the bounty hunter. He turned to the gathering crowd and raised his voice in a stentorian bellow. “We seddle ur fights like men!” There was an answering roar of approval from the assembled gangers, all their enmities temporarily forgotten (apparently along with the fact that Donna wasn’t a man) at the prospect of some bloodletting.

  “Face-ter-face,” he shouted before pausing dramatically and peering down at the faces of Donna and Kell.

  “Hand-ter-hand,” the giant bellowed once more, turning away with arms spread impossibly wide. That got another, louder cheer.

  “To the death!” That nearly raised the slop shop’s roof. Bets were already being laid and credits changing hands. Even thinking about backing out now would mean being lynched.

  So much for the plan.

  In situations like this, keeping your poise was everything. Showing fear or uncertainty in front of a bar full of bored, restless gangers was like swimming among ripper fish with an open wound. Donna’s opponent was strutting back and forth full of false bravado, assuring anyone that would listen that he was a deadly hand-to-hand fighter. She simply rolled her dew sheet back into its can, drew out Seventy-one, and waited silently while the tables were dragged aside and the crowd drew in to form a rough, jostling circle around the pair.

  The giant Goliath, who someone called Krug whilst betting, had taken it upon himself to be master of ceremonies. He announced both of the combatants with mock formality, raising a lusty cheer for Donna and a lot of pantomime booing and hissing for Kell. He then proceeded to announce the rules.

  “There’s no rules!” he bellowed triumphantly. He stopped as one of the other Goliaths muttered something in his ear. “Oh yeah. There’s no rules ’cept no guns!” That got another half-hearted cheer but the crowd was getting bored of the showmanship now—they wanted action. Correctly reading the mood, Krug surrendered the impromptu ring of sweaty, yelling gangers to the two contenders with a final theatrical bow.

  Kell stepped forward and took a few experimental cuts in the air with his blade. It was an unusual weapon, a short but heavy looking chainsword formed like an espadon with two cutting edges and a needle-sharp serrated blade at its tip. Most chainswords had a single cutting edge with the return edge of the blade inset for around two thirds of their length. This was because fighting with one chain weapon against another was nasty, dangerous work; the contra-rotating teeth could bind and spit each other back with surprising force. It was all too easy to have a chain-blade rebound into you after a messed-up cut or parry; hence the protective cowling. The bounty hunter had to be supremely confident of his skills to wield a weapon like that.

  Donna thumbed Seventy-one into life and darted forward, intending to distract Kell by edging him back into the crowd. Kell held his ground and thrust at her as she closed in, his blade licking out like a serpent’s tongue. Donna caught his attack expertly with Seventy-one and flung it aside with a flick of her wrist. The standard circular parry almost cost Donna her life, as Kell whipped his shorter weapon back across to make a left-right slash at her before she recovered to a guard position. She skipped backward to avoid more slashing attacks, but received a long scratch on her forearm from the serrated point. The pack of gangers cheered, groaned, leered and whistled all at once with every single attack and counter-attack.

  The bounty hunter was grinning like the fight was already won, which was disconcerting. Donna circled more cautiously and tried out a few exploratory feints to see how Kell would react. She learned quickly that he wouldn’t be drawn to attack. He was seemingly happy to bide his time and, like all members of House Delaque, Kell wore dark goggles to protect his eyes (due to a photophobic bloodline disorder which just made the Delaque all the more creepy). Because Donna couldn’t see his eyes, she couldn’t predict his moves very well and had to fall back on the less successful technique of reading his body movements
instead.

  The gangers weren’t interested in a display of fancy swordplay, they wanted flesh hacked off in bloody chunks. Boos and catcalls followed every dodge or parry. The circle of gangers started pressing inward, forcing the duellers toe-to-toe. Jumping back to avoid a blow, Donna found herself being jostled and pushed forward.

  “Frik this,” Donna mumbled to herself and swung Seventy-one in a wide figure eight. It was aimed vaguely at Kell but meant really to shoo the gangers back and get some elbow room. Sure enough, Seventy-one screaming past their faces worked like a charm and the space around her cleared as if by magic. The downside was that the bounty hunter had a ready opening to exploit and Donna knew it.

  She was ready for his rush but it was oddly halfhearted when it came and she beat him back easily. It dawned on Donna that Kell was what her old dancing mistress would have called a “lead foot”, or someone who couldn’t shake the habit of always stepping off on the same foot.

  She tried a couple of looping attacks, one overhead and one uppercut. Each time Kell’s footwork was poor. He still seemed supremely confident though, as if he didn’t need to strike at Donna again. Amidst their circling and sparring her brain churned out the answer with sickening certainty—Kell’s blade must be poisoned!

  The shock must have shown through on her face because it made Kell crow, “Feel it now? Just a little scratch or less and this sludgejelly venom can paralyse you.” Donna could indeed feel a tingling sensation spreading up her sword arm from her small wound. Kell laughed and pressed on with his attack.

  She fell back, Seventy-one wavering in her hands as if it suddenly weighed twice as much. The gangers scattered as she lashed out drunkenly to keep from being cornered. Kell came forward, his heavier blade snarling and darting at Donna’s weakening guard. He didn’t try anything fancy, just battered away and forced her to parry again and again. Presently Donna felt the hard plastic of the bar against her back and slumped against it, struggling to keep her blade up. Kell paused to gloat.

  “Shallej is going to be pissed that I got you first,” he said. “Of all the dumb luck, catching you here.”

  “Wherezeeat?” Donna managed to slur.

  “He went to Two Tunnels. He swore you’d run there. Guess I was right and he was wrong.” He leered at Donna’s inviting curves. “I don’t mind telling you, it’s going to be a fun trip back.”

  “Oi!” bellowed Krug from the sidelines, “No pansy stuff. Kill ’er or we kills yer both!” Angry-sounding gangers assented. Most of them had bet on Donna and were not at all pleased by the performance so far. It was questionable whether they would let Kell get out alive after robbing them of their sport.

  Kell seemed oblivious. He shrugged, pulling back his sword. “Dead or alive makes no odds to me,” he whispered. “Still plenty of fun to be had later.”

  With that, Kell unleashed a killing thrust aimed at Donna’s heart.

  Falling. No hiver was really afraid of heights; they lived their lives as much on the vertical as the horizontal. Sheer drops and dizzying ledges were part of their daily environment, no more remarkable to them than giant rats and toxic pools were to the people of the Underhive. Nonetheless, hivers do have a peculiar horror of falling. For them it’s one thing to have your life in your hands in battle, but it’s quite another to lose your grip on a ledge and fall. Perhaps it’s because “impact trauma” remained one of the most common causes of death among the notoriously short-lived denizens of Hive Primus. According to the hive census, it accounted for thirty-eight-point-two percent of reported fatalities, putting it ahead of gang violence, carcinogens and industrial accidents on a daily death toll that counted in the millions. Of course, that bland statistic covered a multitude of causes ranging from suicide through to carelessness and neglect to outright murder.

  House Ulanti possessed a sweeping esplanade around its outer quadrant on the Spire that was actually open to the skies. It was one of the many fantastic indulgences that D’onne always took for granted whilst she still lived up above. In fact, D’onne didn’t like the esplanade much at all. It was a bright, harsh place beneath stratospheric clouds by day and limpid, hazy stars by night. What made it worse was the power field that enclosed it, creating a constant stink and an accompanying faint buzzing sound that was enough to set your teeth on edge.

  D’onne’s sisters had made up a game to play on the esplanade long before she came on the scene, and it remained a firm favourite of all ages. It was very simple; the girls would line up along the baroquely carved guardrail and hang over it to gaze down at the flank of the hive below. It was perhaps the only time D’onne ever saw Hive Primus from the outside, from that buzzing esplanade.

  What they could see was a craggy metal mountainside that disappeared into roiling clouds miles below them. The hive surface was etched with dishes, platforms, landing areas, antennae, hoists, towers, exhaust ports, pylons and a million other oddities. There was constant activity across the surface of the hive, making the name seem very appropriate. Day or night there were streams of sub-orbital traffic etching their contrails up and down in lazy spirals or straight ascent burns. The inter-hive carriers with fat wings flew lower and slower, and a multitude of lifters and shuttles buzzed around the hive constantly like bees vainly looking for pollen. The traffic never stopped.

  The eldest sister present would act as judge. She would secretly pick a colour and a number and the rest of them would vie to see who could guess the right number of craft of the specified colour first, shrilly shouting out: “Cold: five!” or “Red: twenty-two!” At a nod of approval from the judge, the delighted victor would then take her prize by shoving the other observers one by one so that they flailed at the edge of the balustrade over miles of sheer drop. That delicious sensation of terror before being caught and held by the warm embrace of the power field caused the sisters to scream at the top of their lungs. If the sister judging believed that the cry had gone up too soon, she would shake her head and all the other players would shove the would-be victor.

  Because she was the youngest, it took D’onne a long time to understand what the game was really about. She eventually realised it was actually all about authority and favouritism and had very little to do with spotting flying vehicles. The elder sisters used it as a way to test their subtly shifting allegiances with each other and establish their authority over the youngsters, and the youngsters used it to establish a pecking order among themselves. It was also a test of nerves. To wimp out and jump down from the balustrade was to give in to a social death which lasted several days. It was a vicious little children’s game they innocently played that trained them in the skills they would need so much in later life: ruthlessness and domination.

  One night soon after the artist completed their portrait, D’onne had caught three of her elder sisters—Corundra, J’ustene and Loqui—sneaking off to the esplanade. She had been looking for someone to comfort her because she was frightened by a storm raging outside; one of those statistically irrelevant seasonal variations man had supposedly mastered on Necromunda. She saw them stealing along a hallway, their white gowns glowing eerily as lightning bathed the scene. Not knowing what else to do, she followed them.

  They had almost reached the esplanade before Loqui noticed D’onne tagging along behind. Loqui looked angry when she saw her and said something to Corundra, the eldest of the trio. Corundra was dark-haired and statuesque, almost old enough to marry. J’ustene and Loqui were both willowy and blonde, and indeed sometimes they were hard to tell apart even though Loqui was the elder by almost a year.

  Corundra looked at D’onne and favoured her with a strange smile before saying, “Let her come. She may actually learn something useful.”

  Outside, the esplanade felt surreal. Thanks to the power field, lightning flickered harmlessly only metres away from them and storm-force winds seeped through only as scant breezes. Crackling static showed where the edge of the field started a hand-span from the railing, and it was the first time D’onne had
ever seen the field defined. Beyond it, clouds churned and roiled with fast-forward motion, twisters writhing between the layers and the constant flare of lightning arcing against the hive.

  J’ustene and Loqui went to the edge, J’ustene reluctantly it seemed and Loqui confident. D’onne took a few trembling paces forward but as lightning skewered the skies again before her she gave a yelp and fell to her knees, the wind blasting icy fingers across her body. She wanted to run back inside, convinced they would all be killed if they stayed, but her legs had turned to jelly. She could only kneel there helpless with terror and watch what happened next.

  Corundra calmly announced over the crash of thunder and sighing winds that she had chosen a colour and a number. D’onne couldn’t see how they could spot anything in the storm. Long seconds dragged past as her sisters at the balustrade counted ships.

  “Red: twenty-two!” Loqui shouted. It was a common choice, so common that the game was often called “Red: twenty-two”, or simply just “Red”.

  Both J’ustene and Loqui looked at Corundra, and another actinic flare of lightning etched out her impassive features like an alabaster mask beneath the dark foam of her hair.

  Corundra shook her head. Loqui screamed as J’ustene tipped her over the edge.

  Afterwards they told her it was an accident; a childish game that got out of hand and ended in tragedy. How could a child understand that lightning could make the power field fluctuate for an instant? And how could a child know that the air outside was so thin it was almost a vacuum and could suck things through? But D’onne was there, and D’onne saw and knew that the timing of the push was deliberate.

  The horrible thing was that Loqui flew upwards at first, arms and legs flailing, the open pit of her screaming mouth made silent in the winds. Then she was swept outwards and away, shrinking into a spinning speck in the distance that fell forever towards the distant cloud base.