‘Cease fire,’ Bruno said, and immediately the Krusher’s grav-fist deactivated, the Ambot glowing with the suffused light of overheating internal components.

  The automata’s insectile mouthparts scissored together hungrily.

  Warily, the Orlocks began to emerge from cover, taking their places before the levelled edifice.

  ‘That’ll do it,’ said Oss.

  In the aftermath of the building’s destruction, everyone present heard the sharp crack of an autopistol firing, and the top of the big Orlock’s cranium became a red ruin. Eyes rolling up into the top of his head, the Grox toppled forward.

  But as he did so, his dying muscles contracted and his finger tightened on the trigger paddle of the autogun. A sweeping arc of shredding gunfire stitched a bullet-riddled line across the broken ground before carving a bloody channel through Talmi Damascene.

  Oss hit the ground at last, his gun giving up the ghost too. A mere moment later, the near-bifurcated Talmi joined him, now no more than a bloody ruin on the ground in front of the demolished building.

  Klinker Ludd gave voice to his panic in the form of a deranged howl and took off at a run, disappearing into the dense ferns.

  Bruno spun round, making a full three-sixty-degree sweep of their surroundings, frantically trying to determine where the latest attack had come from. Was there more than one assassin out there, in this so-called paradise? It certainly didn’t seem like much of a paradise now, with five of their number dead and one fled, having clearly lost his mind to panic and fear.

  He took in the remaining three Dust Dogs, who were either too stupid, too stubborn or too stunned to run as well. Only Latten, Scoria, Chaly Damascene and himself remained.

  ‘Klinker Ludd was right! We have to get out of here!’ he shouted at them, his pulse racing, his heart pounding against the cage of his ribs.

  All of them were in a state of shock. Silent tears were streaming down Scoria’s cheeks, Latten’s complexion had become grey and waxy, while Chaly just stared at him, her expression slack, her eyes vacant, as if something inside her had died along with Talmi.

  Without waiting to see if they were following him, Bruno set off after Ludd, praying to whatever ancient spirits held sway within the dome that they might let him escape with his life. The Krusher set off after him, having been programmed to always stay within six yards of its master, unless otherwise instructed.

  Moisture-dripping fronds slapped his face and body as he ran through the thick undergrowth, spurred on by a high-pitched buzzing hum that he was sure was now chasing him through the fern forest.

  A pathetic whimper escaped his lips, born of the paranoid fear that a high-velocity round might punch through his heart or his head at any moment. And then the ferns gave way to the stinking morass of the marsh, and his boots splashed through the black mud, stiff reeds whipping at his thighs.

  He heard a cry behind him.

  ‘Boss, wait!’ came Scoria’s agitated voice a moment later.

  He didn’t stop.

  ‘Bruno, please! Wait!’ Scoria screamed.

  Bruno winced, feeling the pain of the emotion cracking her voice and, only a few strides from the fungus forest, turned.

  The Krusher came to an abrupt halt behind him. Behind the Ambot was Scoria, her pleading eyes beseeching him to help, while a few paces behind her Chaly languished up to her waist in the sucking bog.

  ‘We can’t leave her!’ Scoria cried.

  Invar Latten clearly could: the old Orlock hadn’t lasted in the underhive for this long without having a streak of self-preservation as wide as a heat sink. He had already passed Chaly and now overtook Scoria, legs pumping as he charged through the swamp.

  Bruno heard the dreaded humming sound again and then the report of a gun firing somewhere nearby, which was promptly returned as an echo by the curving wall of the dome.

  Latten cried out as he took a dive into the quagmire, clasping the meat of his calf. The gun barked a second time and the Orlock flopped onto his back and didn’t move again.

  Another pitiful moan of panic escaping his own mouth, Bruno turned and resumed his run towards the looming, mushroom-grey growths. Behind him he could hear Scoria cursing, even as she desperately exhorted Chaly to take her hand so that she might help her struggle free of the swamp.

  And then he was sprinting between the towering yellow-capped toadstools once more, the air thick with the heady compost scents of decomposing vegetable matter and fungal spores.

  He could hear the Krusher clumping after him, its hydraulics wheezing.

  From somewhere far behind him now, he heard a cry. He couldn’t tell whether it was Scoria or Chaly.

  He ran on, eyes stinging with rising tears, struggling with shaking hands to load a fresh clip into his autopistol as he did so, having used up the last one during the gang’s bombardment of the building complex.

  The thirty-foot tall toadstools gave way to the thick grey stems of the copper caps, and then there was the babbling brook again. But the crystal-clear waters of the stream had become polluted, running red with the blood of the man lying there with his face under the water. It was Klinker Ludd.

  Less than an hour since entering the dome, as far as Bruno knew, the rest of the Dust Dogs were dead. There was just him and the Krusher left.

  His feet sinking into the soft soil of the fungus forest, Bruno emerged at last from the cloying shadows at the foot of the slope, eyes half closed against the glare of the humming glow-globes overhead.

  As he started to climb the mound of ferrous waste towards the automata-dug tunnel, he glanced back to check that the Ambot was still following him. The hulking excavator pushed its way clear of the thick-stemmed fungi, the yellow and black chevrons on its shoulder armour almost glowing in the bright light.

  Bruno’s heart was racing still, but now it was with the thrill of escaping this haunted paradise as much as the adrenaline rush of the hunted fleeing the hunter. He would be all right as long as the Krusher was with him, he was sure. After all, nothing could stand against it.

  He glanced back at the brute construct as it started to climb the broken slope behind him, the sight of its great ceramite-armoured bulk as reassuring as the weight of the autopistol in his hand.

  The Ambot’s hum changed in pitch, abruptly sharp, and its heavy shoulders sagged, powerful tunnelling claws hanging limp.

  ‘What–’

  It finished its stride, suddenly slow, almost lethargic, and stopped. The lights peppering its body dimmed to nothing.

  The crunch of gravel underfoot had Bruno turning his attention back to the mouth of the tunnel.

  A figure stepped out of the shadows.

  He was tall and lean, his body swathed in a long trench coat that flapped about his legs as he strode from the Ambot-dug accessway, and much of his face was hidden in shadow beneath a wide-brimmed hat.

  Slung at his hip was a holstered stub gun, a twelve-shooter by the look of it. A gloved hand hovered over the grip, ready to draw in an instant, while in the other hand was gripped a slim, black plastek-sheathed device.

  Bruno gave a gasp of shock and collapsed onto his knees in front of the stranger, his pistol slipping from his sweat-slick palm as he did so.

  The figure strode up to where Bruno was pitifully scrabbling about in the dirt, and casually kicked the pistol out of his reach with the toe of a boot.

  Helpless, Bruno peered up into the face half hidden by the hat, taking in the stubble on the grim-set jaw, and the steely half-closed eyes.

  ‘And then there was one,’ drawled the stranger, and cruel realisation dawned like the cold, grey sun over the Ash Wastes.

  This individual was responsible for the deaths of Bruno’s Dust Dogs. Somehow he had taken them out, one by one, and beaten Bruno back to the entrance to the dome. And yet the man clearly wasn’t out of breath. He hadn’t even broken a sweat!

  Bruno heard the buzzing hum again and a servo-skull emerged from between the towering toadstools behind him. It came to a halt, hovering above the ground, not five yards from his position, the compact autopistol bolted to the side of the cranium holding him in its sights.

  ‘Who hired you?’ Bruno railed, finding the courage to challenge his fate as he faced his end. ‘Was it the Brawlers?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to get into this place ever since I learned the Quantum Queen had agents searching for it,’ the stranger said, entirely ignoring the question.

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Bruno.

  ‘Not what, why? And then you turned up with your Ambot and dug your way in and I had my answer. She was after the ultimate prize.’

  Fear giving way to confusion, Bruno stared at the bounty hunter in utter bewilderment.

  ‘That complex of buildings your Luther-pattern Excavation Automata razed to the ground. I take it you didn’t know what it was, otherwise you wouldn’t have been so quick to demolish it.’

  Bruno’s confusion become a cold hard lump in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘It was a purification plant,’ the stranger went on. ‘Priceless. How else do you explain the clean air and water in here?’

  Bruno felt sick.

  ‘Course, with the plant gone it won’t be long before this paradise is lost too. Dome El-One-Six-Gee will be worthless to her now, so there’s that.’

  A grim smile split the man’s rugged face.

  ‘And, as they say, to the victor, the spoils.’

  Nonchalantly, he strode down the slope to where the Krusher had frozen mid-stride.

  From Bruno’s perspective, the stranger simply seemed to raise his hand. With a whir of servo-motors and the decompression of carbon-fibre muscle bundles resetting, the Ambot came online again, rising to its full height, before assuming a standby stance.

  ‘Acknowledged.’ The Krusher’s mechanical mouthparts twitched in imitation of mandibles. The movements did not match its stilted automated speech patterns. ‘Standing by. Awaiting instruction.’

  Bruno stared in stunned horror at his mechanical bodyguard, which was his no longer, shock quickly boiling away to leave nothing but raw rage.

  His gun lay only a few yards off. Crawling through the dirt on his hands and knees, he grabbed the autopistol and, turning it on the bounty hunter, pulled the trigger.

  There was the sharp click of the trigger mechanism but nothing more.

  Bruno cursed under his breath. But of course, the gun was empty. He had fumbled and failed to reload it as he fled through the fungus forest.

  The gun skull’s propulsion unit activated with a shrill whine that sounded like a hiss, as the drone prepared to neutralise the threat.

  The bounty hunter turned, and fixed Bruno with a weary scowl. ‘Stand down,’ he instructed the servo-skull.

  ‘Who are you?’ gabbled the leader of the dead Dust Dogs. With no one left to lead, he was now just a gang-less ganger, simply an Orlock of the House of Iron.

  ‘I’ll trade you,’ the bounty hunter replied, his expression unchanging. ‘A name for a name.’

  ‘I-I am Bruno,’ he stammered.

  ‘Not yours!’ the bounty hunter cut him off sharply. ‘Who are you working for, Bruno... Backshooter?’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’ the silhouette seated upon the ornate throne demanded.

  ‘Nothing!’ Bruno protested. ‘I swear, I didn’t tell him anything!’

  The Quantum Queen said nothing. The silence stretched out between them, becoming painfully thin, until finally:

  ‘So who was he?’

  ‘Creed,’ replied the exhausted Orlock. He felt utterly wrung out. The cold was seeping into his knees, and his gums were throbbing. ‘He said his name was Nathan Creed.’

  Crixus Phall shifted uncomfortably, as if fighting his innate fight or flight response.

  ‘Do not lie to me!’ the Quantum Queen screamed, making Bruno jump. His nerves couldn’t take it any more: he was as highly strung as a Redemptionist preacher.

  ‘I’m not!’ Bruno protested, clearing a gobbet of congealing blood from his mouth and spitting it out onto the floor. ‘That was the name he gave me.’

  ‘Exactly!’ the guilder came back at him. ‘You expect us to believe that you didn’t give him the information he wanted but he still told you his name and let you go?’

  Bruno blanched.

  ‘And there we have the truth of it, as plain to see as the broken nose on your misshapen face. You must have given him something – he would not have given up his name so easily otherwise.’

  Bruno ached all over. Pins and needles beset his toes and fingers, his mouth hurt, his lips were numb, and he just wanted this torment to be over.

  ‘All right, I gave him a name, the only one I could give him.’ Bruno drew his gaze from the guilder to her agent. He pointed at the masked man shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other beside the throne. ‘You. Crixus Phall.’

  Bruno sensed the tension in the room ease slightly, as the Quantum Queen’s posture relaxed a little.

  Crixus Phall raised a gloved hand. In it he held a needle pistol.

  ‘Then that concludes our business dealings,’ he said, his finger tightening on the trigger. ‘Your services are no longer required.’

  He didn’t miss.

  ‘He’ll be coming for you,’ the Quantum Queen said, as she regarded the corpse of the ganger dispassionately.

  ‘With the greatest respect, milady, he’ll be coming for both of us,’ her right-hand man pointed out. ‘And who can blame him, after what we did to him?’

  ‘He doesn’t know what we did to him!’ the Queen hissed. ‘Not all of it, anyway.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Crixus Phall said with a weary sigh. ‘What he believes we did to him is bad enough.’

  ‘Then we must prepare to defend ourselves,’ the Queen said, her voice steel. ‘And I find that the best form of defence is attack.’

  Crixus Phall met his mistress’ icy sapphire stare.

  ‘I want you to make it known that there is bounty on his head.’

  ‘Thank you, mistress.’ Crixus Phall swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. ‘How much for?’

  ‘A thousand credits,’ the Quantum Queen replied. ‘I want Nathan Creed dead!’

  DEAD DROP

  MIKE BROOKS

  Every piece of cargo that arrived on Necromunda came through the Eye of Selene, which of course was untrue.

  Everything legal came through there, certainly, taxed and registered and then shipped off to wherever it was supposed to go. A fair amount of contraband did too, and that was no lie, because the right bribe or piece of appropriately leveraged intimidation could work wonders. But there were some things you just couldn’t trust to the tender mercies of Lord Helmawr’s representatives, just in case someone got a bit curious and took a peek where they weren’t meant to… or, technically speaking, were. For some particularly sensitive things the only real option was to pack it up real good and sling it out of your craft from orbit, aimed at the Ash Wastes. Then you just had to hope the right people got to it first, while the wrong people assumed it was merely a loose piece of space debris.

  Danner Grimjack had no idea what it was that had landed eighteen miles north-east of Hive Primus, and they didn’t need to know. Nor did they need to know about the finer points of orbital physics, atmospheric friction, or even who had dropped it in the first place. What they knew was that the Steel Crescents had gone haring off towards it as though they were the only gang with a working macroscope to see it come down, which meant it was valuable to someone, and that meant that it would be valuable to Danner Grimjack and the Road Dogs. All they needed to do was wait for the Steel Crescents to bring it back to them.

  Which was, agreeably enough, just what was happening.

  ‘Thirty seconds!’ Muzz shouted down. Her words were muffled by the respirators they all wore, but intelligible enough. The winds were low and the toxic ash lay relatively still at the moment, but no one would risk uncovering just for the sake of a little clarity.

  Engines coughed into life, and the noise echoed back off the ruined walls of what had once been a space freighter, until some unknown accident had seen it plummet crustwards too, and spill its metal guts across the wastes. Enough of the shell still held together for it to be a landmark on the routes between the hive spires, and most would skirt it on the northern side: you could drive straight through it, but that was a bottleneck just waiting to happen.

  Muzz hopped down and landed on the bed of her truck, then stationed herself behind the deck-mounted harpoon. Danner slapped the roof of their own vehicle’s cab and it jerked into motion. One by one, the Road Dogs of House Orlock pulled out and, as the Steel Crescents of House Van Saar began to curve around the freighter’s ruins to the north, the Dogs did the same to the south.

  That was the key; you had to get up to speed out of sight. If you lay in wait and let the quarry go past you, they’d leave you in their dust. Approach them head-on, and they could go anywhere. Hit full throttle and converge on them as they came around a large obstacle, though…

  One, two of the Crescents’ trucks flashed into sight round the freighter’s shattered prow, Necromunda’s weak sun spattering off their ramshackle angles, and then the big rig appeared: larger than anything the Road Dogs had, six monstrous wheels churning up the ash as it ploughed along. Big and strong it certainly was, but not the quickest.

  Danner had timed it perfectly. Their truck slammed into one of the Crescents’ trailing escorts, but Danner, Sideswipe Eddy and Mungles the juve had taken hold of the restraint webbing, and none of them were thrown over. The smaller vehicle was smashed aside, engine block exposed and gushing promethium. It slewed drunkenly, and quickly fell behind.