Something small and hard was clutched in her fist. She smashed it into Ko’iron’s leering face without a second’s thought. The resulting spray of blood shocked her to the very core. The grip on her throat released at once, and Ko’iron fell back burbling out a thin, high scream and clutching his face. In an instant the tables had turned—a small piece of metal had made Ko’iron stop when a hundred pleas had not. Rage blossomed in D’onne’s breast, this was the man she was being sold to, the man her father wanted her to breed with. She smashed the fork in her hand into his other eye, realising at the last instant that Ko’iron’s cold grey eyes exactly matched those of her father.
Donna’s living eye snapped open. The deck lurched beneath her feet as the ekranoplan surged against its last mooring line. Barely a moment had passed. She could still see the woman, the Wyrd, silhouetted on the other side through the frost-scarred porthole, but the sleek chrome shape of the cyber-mastiff was gone. She yanked the heavy steel door open and stepped out. The robed woman took an involuntary step backwards.
“That’s right, witch, your mind games failed. They’ve just got me seriously pissed off instead.”
The woman looked confused and upset, like a child that has had its toys taken away. She kept backing away towards the other door. Donna brought up her laspistol.
“Where’s Ko’iron? I won’t be asking twice.”
The woman closed her eyes and Donna’s nape hairs prickled. She fired, and the las-bolts cut straight through where the woman stood, although Donna was not sure if she really hit anything. There was the stink of burnt flesh and a spray of blood, but when Donna looked at the spot they seemed to fade away, just like the woman herself. The room was empty. Nothing moved. Pretty soon Donna found herself unable to believe the woman had ever really been there at all.
A snaking trail of viscous fluid led off towards the bridge. Bright score marks showed where steel shod claws had run. Had the mastiff returned to its master? There was one way to be sure, and at least it looked like the brute was hurt, leaking out precious fluids, just like Tessera.
The corridor at the back of the chart room was short, with cabin doors hanging open at either side to give glimpses of cramped quarters. A fresh corpse was sprawled half out of a bunk in one room, and bullet holes were everywhere Donna looked. Bak’s men had not been subtle when they took over.
The bridge itself was a complete mess. No lights were left but fires sputtering in the guts of wrecked consoles gave the place a fitful illumination that reminded Donna of a sepulchre. More bodies were strewn around on the floor here. She paid no heed to the dead. She was too numb with pain and exhaustion to give them more than a cursory glance as she walked by.
Some had been riddled with shots but at least two had had their throats cut. The sluggish pools of their life-blood sucked at Donna’s boot heels as she passed. Directly ahead of her a skeletal metal stairway disappeared up through the roof. Bright scratches struck exclamation points in the oxidised alloy of the steps—the mastiff had gone up. Now the question was how to follow without one’s head being bitten off.
Outside, the last mooring line gave way with a crack like thunder. Donna was almost thrown to the deck by a sudden surge of acceleration. The multi-throated engine noise rose in triumph and the ekranoplan slid majestically forward across the sump. Donna couldn’t help but grin—wherever Relli was, he must be pissing in his pants by now.
Anyone up top must be trying to hang on for dear life after that lurch. Whatever she was going to do, the time to do it was now. She bounded up the steps, diving and rolling out from the entry too fast (she hoped) for anyone to draw a bead on her.
She glared around, chainsword and pistol in hand for the expected rush of enemies, but there were none. The steps came up into a groove in the top of the wings that in turn led to the frame of an observation blister that had once been artfully faceted in armoured glass, most of which were now cracked or missing. A perfunctory mast rose in front of the blister at a rakish angle—it had the look of an afterthought placed there only to hang flags on.
The wind whipped past, tugging at Donna’s hair and stinging her living eye to tears. She could see a figure up ahead, just beyond the observation blister. It was only a silhouette but the chromium glimmer of the mastiff was at his feet and that left no doubt.
Count Ko’iron was making his last stand beneath the empty flag-pole of a sinking ship. He was surely ignorant of the rich, unconscious symbolism of his choice.
“You’ve got your own gun, that’s a good start,” the old woman had told her as they had made their way along yet another service corridor worming deeper into Escher territory. To D’onne’s eyes this “Tessera” looked older than her mother, but she seemed fit and able enough as she led them down into increasingly filthy and disused-looking areas with a familiarity that was reassuring.
D’onne had been surprised that they knew about the laspistol she was hiding until she thought about it for a moment. Of course they had scanned both her and Hanno for hidden weapons when they entered—it was simply basic security. Hanno probably knew about it too. They didn’t bother about the pistol at The Wall because no one cared what was taken out of the Spire and into Hive City, just what got brought back inside. The Escher were probably the same way. D’onne felt naive.
Hanno was still blustering furiously and to no avail.
“You can’t just take a noble into the Underhive! Not without personal armour and proper support!”
“She won’t be the first noble to get crap on their shoes, enforcer,” Tessera told him. “Besides, it’s the only kind of sanctuary we can offer now. If she stays here, thousands are going to pay for it with their lives.”
“Lord Helmawr can provide her with all the protection she needs! There must be a proper investigation!”
D’onne was getting tired of being treated as an article of baggage to be argued over.
“Enforcer Hanno,” she interjected, quietly but firmly, “I appreciate your concerns and your dedication to your duty does you credit. However, I fear your optimism in relation to Lord Helmawr’s most likely stance is unwarranted. There will be no investigation. If I surrender myself to the ruling house I can either expect to be held as a hostage against House Ulanti’s good behaviour for years to come, or, more likely, be traded back to my father for some immediate short term advantage.
“Believe me, Hanno, I know what I’m worth,” she concluded bitterly. “Coming here was an act of desperation. If Madam Tessera believes I’ve put these people in danger, then I have to go. And quickly. You can either extend your sense of duty to accompany me for my protection, or go and report back to the proper authorities on what you have witnessed.”
Hanno looked taken aback. Her analysis had been clear and dispassionate, a statement of undeniable fact from someone in a far better position than he to know just what Helmawr would do. Tessera was nodding unconsciously as D’onne spoke but Hanno had been too wrapped up in his own worldview to see it as clearly.
Hanno had looked at the seething, ramshackle Hive City and, like most, blamed its many problems on human incompetence and simple neglect. Only now was he coming to understand that those were just symptoms. The founding fathers of Necromunda had institutionalised corruption, built greed into the city’s very foundations and then set themselves as rulers over it all as the noble houses. For millennia they had made it so and nothing was going to change now.
Poor Hanno. D’onne could see the cracks in his belief system yawning into vast gulfs as he learned more about those he served. The lords of Necromunda had no interest in redemption, or the wellbeing of their fellow man. Their populace was an indentured workforce and nothing more. Even their own sons and daughters were bartered and sold on the open market. That didn’t fit his worldview at all; it made him into a corrupt servant of a corrupt regime, not the fair-minded arbiter of justice his ego told him to be.
D’onne looked at Tessera and tried to radiate calm and confidence she didn’t feel. Her
stomach kept knotting tighter and tighter the longer they stood around. Whatever was going to happen, she needed to know what it was going to be and, most of all, she needed it to happen quickly.
“Madam—”
“Just call me Tessera, D’onne, we aren’t big on titles here.”
“Tessera, do you believe that we can escape into the Underhive without my father knowing?”
“No, I don’t believe we can even escape from House Escher without your father knowing. What’s more, the news of where you’ve gone will hit Hive City about four minutes after we get to the first settlement in the Underhive, but that’s what I’m counting on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh my dear D’onne, it’s all a question of reach. In Hive City there are literally hundreds of thousands of agents House Ulanti can mobilise quickly and easily against any of the industrial houses. Many will work for your father just out of spite and political expediency up here. It’s not like that in the Underhive.”
“No, it’s a shambolic anarchy of crazed mutants, renegades and criminal gangs from Hive City, which is why my father won’t be able to reach me there, presumably.”
Tessera had given her an odd look then, as if re-evaluating.
“That’s a little simplistic, but I expect that’s exactly what you’re taught in the Spire,” she said, perhaps rather archly.
The point was that all the houses have plenty of spies in the Underhive but they have very few agents working for them down there and even less whom they can trust.
“Your father will quickly hear that you have left House Escher for the Underhive, but there will be very little he can do about it, and while he’s searching for a way the attacks on House Escher will stop.”
That made her reappraise Tessera too. She was thinking clearly about the best course for her house, and seemed to know plenty about the Underhive too—which made D’onne wonder about those “criminal gangs” that supposedly plagued the Underhive in such profusion. Could it be that they were all simply shady extensions of the Industrial Houses?
“Well Hanno, what’s it going to be?” Tessera asked as they arrived at a hatch that was caked in rust, centuries old. Hanno gave her an icy stare before turning to D’onne.
“Nobledam, I was given permission by my proctor only to accompany you as far as House Escher territory,” Hanno said to D’onne. “But under the circumstances I think it is clearly my duty to accompany you further if you are determined to go ahead with this plan to enter the Underhive.” He shot a sharp look at Tessera.
Interesting. It seemed Hanno didn’t want to go back to Hive City. D’onne wondered how much of it was a desire to protect her and how much of it was a desire not to go back and explain what he had heard. Lord Helmawr might well decide it was most expedient to dispose of the earnest Enforcer Hanno once his story had been recounted. Calamitous events in the Spire seldom left a surfeit of live witnesses behind. Dead men tell no tales.
Tessera spun the wheel in the centre of the hatch. It turned remarkably smoothly, considering the apparent decrepitude of its mounting.
“In that case, my dear enforcer,” Tessera said with a wicked grin, “you might want to lose the body armour before going much further.”
She hauled open the hatch and a wave of hot, humid air surged out. Sweat prickled on D’onne’s body as the noisome heat enveloped them.
“Deeper down it gets cooler,” Tessera said conversationally, “and the condensation isn’t half as bad, but for the next few shifts it’ll be like this or worse so you want to strip down if you can. Heat stroke can be a killer down here.”
D’onne knew right then that she was going to hate the Underhive.
The hatch opened into a kind of common room. There were bunk beds, crates, chairs and half a dozen Escher lounging around. Their baroquely shaven heads, tattoos, piercings and plentiful weaponry told D’onne that these were gangers, real Underhive scum. They eyed D’onne and most especially Hanno with studied insolence, the threat of imminent violence floating in the air between them.
“Be nice now,” Tessera said. “These two people need our help. It’s not like they’re the first to ask and it’s not like it’s the first time we’ve said yes. These two are just a bit unusual is all.”
Several of the gangers eyed Tessera with overt scepticism but no-one turned away muttering and none of them challenged her directly. D’onne was fascinated. When Tessera had started talking, D’onne had been convinced that it was some kind of foreign language. It was only by listening carefully that she could make out the weird inflections, the clipping and lengthening of vowel sounds that were at work mangling the usual prole cant into something entirely different. Tessera had slipped into it easily, shrugging off her formal, upper Hive City accent like a cloak.
One of the gangers stood up suddenly, a blonde mohawked giant that stood a full head taller than anyone else in the room. She jabbed a blunt, scarred finger at Hanno and declared, “Me an’ the girls say we goin’ nowhere with law boy there, until e drops the armour so we can see that sweet enforcer rearguard.”
The room erupted in hoots and giggles. Hanno went an interesting shade of purple. It was doubtless just the release of tension but D’onne found herself laughing too. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed without thinking first about whether it was “appropriate” to do so. Maybe being in the Underhive wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Tessera rolled her eyes, turned to D’onne, and whispered with theatrical conspiracy, “That is ‘Crazy Kristi,’ I’m afraid. We would have got rid of her a long time ago but no one’s figured out how to kill her yet.”
Crazy Kristi spread her arms like a triumphant pit fighter and lapped up the storm of boos, cat-calls and thrown litter from her fellow gangers. D’onne grinned.
Not so bad at all.
11: SURVIVAL INSTINCT
In the broiling social froth of the Necromundan hives, it is not the strongest individual that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
Excerpt from: Xonariarius the Younger’s
Nobilite Pax Imperator—The Triumph of
Aristocracy over Democracy.
The ekranoplan was skimming across the sump lake on its final odyssey. From the top of its upper wing, the dark majesty of the glistening sable expanse spread in all directions, and the pale lights of Down Town were dwindling away behind them with alarming rapidity. Methane fires twisted in their wake and rippled away to black horizons inestimably far off. Gargantuan stalactites hung overhead like inverted mountains, reaching out to touch the surface as if it were a starry night sky and the ekranoplan was racing across the heavens instead of through the roots of the underworld. Donna had never felt so consciously out of her environment as she did upon the sump lake—she could have been in outer space and felt more at home.
This was a truly alien place, inimical to the intrusion of man.
The sharp tang of pollutants was different out here on the lake, not organic and rotten like it was around Down Town but more obviously chemical, caustic and deadly. The whipping wind made by their progress scoured the skin and stung Donna’s living eye. She could still make out Ko’iron through the tears. His white armour shone starkly against the fantastic midnight panorama behind him, and the glittering chrome enforcer hound lay silent at his feet. He was the very image of some paladin or angel descended from the places of light into darkness to smite the fallen.
The High Cathedra of Hive Primus is full of such images, armoured warriors selflessly fighting aliens and foul beasts to protect their fellow man. There are even relics of crusades among the stars, and scriptoria filled with ancient accounts of battles against impossible odds now long since forgotten. The faithful always point to these as evidence of an earlier golden age of justice and honour, mankind at its best and bravest as it confronted a new dawn on a million worlds across the galaxy.
Little D’onne had always been dazzled by the shining h
olo-liths of the cathedra, its secret treasure houses of reliquaries and the halls of tattered, shot-scarred banners won beneath distant suns. The martial pride of the Spyrer hunt had first stirred her interest and then her long sojourn in the tower had later given her ample opportunity to study the subject at her leisure.
Like any good noble, she had studied the careers of her illustrious ancestors first and foremost. By every standard she had been taught they were the only things that really mattered. The results were disappointing, to say the least. Every time she had followed up some epithet or battle history she found the so-called regimental hero had been a hundred kilometres from the battlefront at all times, or the landfall of a battalion on a hostile planet had been bravely “led” by a noble up in orbit. The family histories wheedled and pleaded on behalf of its paper-thin protagonists but could not conceal their arrogance, ignorance and sloth.
D’onne eventually understood that to her family war was just another business arena, and an unprofitable one at that. It was only commonly proffered as a career to the most wasteful, stupid and myopic family members. Others might toy with it briefly, just long enough to get a few awards and a uniform for attending the correct social events before returning to an undeserved heroes welcome. It seemed those aberrant few that became true, professional, soldiers left Necromunda and never returned. She had been quietly sickened by all matters military after that, and turned her mind to other things.
But nobility still loved to wrap itself in the flag of past glories it had never earned. They spouted martial tradition and rattled their immaculate sabres at every opportunity, and some even went so far as to hunt down in the Underhive. Then they came equipped with weapons beyond the comprehension of their enemies and armour suits that were smarter than those they protected. The suits had stored water and food to nourish the nobles, inbuilt diagnostics to tend to their wounds and inertial maps to guide them to prey located by a suite of sensors. The nobles believed this tradition kept them hardened and honed in readiness in case they were called on to fight for their house or their world.
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