Necromunda: Deadly Business

Chapter 1: Common Courtesy

"What the Escher Witches and Goliath Brutes don't understand is what they cannot crush: our union! They think they've won! They think they're in control! But we're the Sump Docker Coalation! The bond of our union is strong! We control the Sump! We control the goods coming in and going out! We are the SDC.... and we're hard to kill!" - SDC recruiting posters.

Slag Heap Gorge. Twenty miles from Tradesberg

The heavy paddles of Plentiful Harvest's heavy stern wheel, and two smaller ports and starboard wheels, made a constant THUMP, THUMP, THUMP noise as she chugged along. The big belly tithe frigate pushed through the glowing viscous stew making large wakes that splashed up on the larger slag heap piles that gave the gorge its name. Twin stacks puffed out black promethium smoke as she chugged along towards another port. She was full near to bursting with passengers. Workers, tithe collectors, representatives from the water guild, and Hired Guns(1) all hoping to strike it rich in Tradeberg. It was not hard to tell which would strike it rich in that rat's nest.

Two men waited in a cool shelter of a cave watching the bloated ship slowly making her way through the gorge. They were silent, but it was an easy silence, and the only sound was the burning inhalation of one of them as he smoked from a glowing cigarillo.

"See anything, boy-yo?" he asked, voice as deep and smooth as hot asphalt poured over broken glass.

"Few Hired Guns," the other said, surveying the ship one final time through his magnoculars. "See some skeletons though."

"Skulls?"

"Nah, these have theirs on the inside." The other man said. "Dark purple on yellow, Omicron Conclave, I think... and I only see eight of them."

The larger man dropped his smoke and crushed it without a single thought under his massive boot.

"Rather rood for them to be hiring from without, don't you think?" Whiskey Jack asked as he hefted his heavy stubber onto one shoulder. The man was strong enough that he didn't need servo-arms to assist in moving the heavy gun around.

Next to him, not in any way small but comparative to the mass of muscle that was Whisky Jack, was a shaggy-haired, bearded man who already had put his magnoculars away mounted his dirtcycle. Nearby, his cyber mastiff rested - or at least it did the equivalent of resting - and lifted its head in curiosity. He gave his friends a wicked grin.

"Then let's go remind them of a thing called common courtesy," he said, kicked his bike into life, and charged down the sloping heap towards the river, F1-D0 close on his tail. Whiskey Jack swore, jumped on his own machine, and took after his friend with reckless speed.

It was at times like this that Wyl Oreson, Gunner of the Sump Docker Coalition, a proud Orlock, and erstwhile drudge(2), felt most alive.  Other dirtcycles had emerged from their hiding spots and were chasing down the tithe frigate with him, like a pack of Phyrr cats going after a particularly tasty prey. Except, in the purpose of today's job was not the death of a living being - though none of them could count that out - but the reminder that SDC owned any activity on the Great Sump River, a chance of promotions, and hopefully the death of the empty state of Wyl's and Jack's wallets.

If the intel was right, and Wyl would be hard-pressed to say it wasn't, then there would be a very lovely, very large safe filled with Imperial Thrones on board.

"This is a rescue mission," Road Captain Holt Sledge-Thumper had told them. His eyes- both the real and artificial - were positively twinkling when he had told them the plan. "Those poor thrones - probably taken from good, hardworking folks like ourselves. Now there are condemned to line the pockets of Helmawr or some other Upper Hive Family who don't need them. Or used in some nefarious scheme that could hurt somebody. It's our duty - hell, our Emperor given right - to liberate them to where they could do something that truly matters."