Last Call in the Underhive
[NEC]
By Oryn
[NEC]
By Oryn
The shattered and ruined buildings in the abandoned hab-dome were shrouded in a haze of smoke and concrete dust. The battle had quieted, and a choking mist hung in the dead air between the two ruined buildings. Conall hugged the wall of the building, pulled down the cloth mask covering his face and sniffed the air tentatively, taking in the scents in the smoke. He smelled spent powder, ozone, blood and sweat; the stench of violence so often found in the undercity. The pungent scent of human waste was conspicuously absent though. At least that was something. That lack meant no-one had snuffed it, which was good. It meant the other gang wouldn’t be coming back for revenge, and that everyone in the Red Branch had made it through alright.
Conall watched Morgan step through a gap in the shattered wall, and followed him through, hoping that they hadn’t been seen as they snuck behind the other gang’s position. What lay inside the dimly lit structure simultaneously pleased and disappointed him. A fellow ganger stood over an unconscious member of Rabugen. A short distance away, a couple other bodies lay, still breathing. One was another woman from Rabugen, the other prone form wore a jacket festooned with brightly-colored rags, and was topped by a rainbow colored mohawk. Conall gave a mental snort at the outlandish attire of the new ganger as he searched for the rest of the enemy gang.
Rabugen was fleeing, the unhurt members of the gang carrying a couple unconscious members between them, and popping off the occasional shot to discourage the Red Branch from following. Morgan’s clever flanking maneuver would have decimated the Escher gang, but their rapid retreat made it unnecessary. Conall shrugged and shouldered his plasma gun. At least the fight was over. While the Branch put up a strong front, he could tell almost everyone was out of ammo. He watched Morgan pace back and forth, examining the two unconscious women. “Sisters,” their leader exclaimed. “They look like sisters.”
Conall marched up to examine the unconscious women himself. They did look alike. Morgan’s head snapped up to look at Conall as he approached, a strangely happy light dancing in his grey eyes. “We’ll take the older one. No doubt her experience is more valuable to Rabugen, and she’ll be a good piece of leverage to ensure we get the materials next time, instead of a firefight erupting.”
Conall blanched. “A prisoner, boss? That doesn’t always turn out well. And if she’s leverage, then we gotta feed her, and make sure nothing happens to her… ”
Morgan nodded. “Of course, but the gains outweigh the risks here.” He whirled about dramatically to bark out orders to the rest of the gang. Conall tuned him out, checking the readouts on his gun until he heard his name. “Conall, Kell, I need you to wake up Jak and take him out. Celebrate his victories here, but explain to him how we do things in the Red Branch.” This last was said with a hard-edge to his voice.
Conall watched as Kell sauntered over to the garishly garbed and barely conscious youth. The wiry ganger hoisted Jak up and grinned, his face eerie in the dim light. “Gotcha, boss. I understan’ perfectly.”
* * *
Conall limped along with Kell and Jak as they waltzed towards the Cracked Still, their local watering hole. Casting a sidelong glance at the colorfully garbed youngster, Conall had to agree that Morgan had a pretty good point. Jak was new, and he was reckless. That wild mohawk and his brightly-colored jacket didn’t help him blend into the dim undercity at all, and would only draw attention. Fair enough, if one was skilled enough to deal with the ‘attention’ of a dozen firearms, but Jak was just a screwball kid; it was a wonder he hadn’t gotten seriously hurt in this fight.
Coming up to the Still, Conall allowed himself a smile. Seeing the well-kept bar standing out from the surrounding ramshackle buildings always raised his spirits a little. The Still was neutral ground, at least as far as the local gangs were concerned. After the last bar was shot to pieces, it was quite a while before another brewer came along that was brave enough to keep the place open, and no one wanted to go back to the homemade hooch they’d had to suffer for a year. These days, all gang ‘business’ was conducted well away from the Still, and gang members voluntarily surrendered their more dangerous weapons to enter. The patronage of several gangs, combined with the mutual ceasefire had been good to this particular settlement.
Conall frowned as he surrendered his backup autopistol to the enforcers at the door. Even with no ammo, he didn’t like to be separated from his weapons. He fingered his knife as he moved to the Red Branch’s customary booth at the south corner of the building. The Still was smart enough about it’s clientele that it had large booths set aside in the four corners of the room, far away from each other. These booths were required seating for gangs that entered the establishment, as exiting the booths in a hurry to join a brawl was difficult, and weapons other than knives and knuckledusters were collected at the door. The gangers might start a brawl, but no explosives or guns would be available during the fight to threaten the bar or its adjacent brewery.
Conall smiled and closed his eyes as he sat, letting himself relax into the battered cushioning of the seat.
“Hey waitress, bring us some beers!” shouted Jak. “And make it snappy! We fought a long hard battle and we’re celebrating our good fortune!”
Conall winced as his relaxation was interrupted by their younger charge.
Kell thumped Jak hard on the shoulder, giving him the evil eye.
Kell hissed to the kid. “The hell is the matter wit you Jak? Ya don’t boss around the folks who handle yer drinks, or one day they’ll put somethin’ worse in yer drink than spit. Or they’ll put a blade in yer back so’s you’ll stop botherin’ them.”
Jak rubbed the back of his head and looked at the other men in confusion. “But we’re gangers. We’re top dogs, and we take what we want, right?” Kell rolled his eyes and leaned back as Conall stared at Jak incredulously.
“Yer joking right?” Kell retorted. “What’re juves learnin’ these days? Ya do that, it’s a good way to get yerself kilt. Hell, ya almost managed that today.”
“Being a ganger isn’t all blazing guns and glory,” Conall broke in, leaning forward. “It’s about scraping up some scratch, keeping your territory safe, and getting more influence, either from your reputation, or your skills.”
Jak sank down in his seat, sulking. “So we never get to do what we want? I thought that’s what being a ganger was all about. Take what we want at the barrel of a gun. toss off grenades into our rivals hideouts, that sorta thing.” He sent a questioning glance towards Conall “Isn’t that how it is?”
Kell shook his head. “Where did Morgan find ya, a cesspit? Ya oughta have more brains than that. A ganger’s gotta be careful a other gangs. Ya treat everyone who ain’t in ya gang like crap, pretty soon ya end up dead. Folks get tired a taking crap.”
Conall nodded, and backed up his compatriot. “You treat people like scum, pretty soon those people are selling your enemies the location of your favorite spots and your hideout. You spend a little effort to be civil with folks that aren’t already enemies, and you don’t add another name to the list of folks you have to watch your back around. Be nice enough without being soft, they might even warn you when someone’s gunning for your hide.” He watched Jak fiddle with some of the knife scars in the table before continuing. “Besides, being a ganger is about making money. We fight, yeah, but that’s just over scrap, loot, and territory. You just wanna be vicious, go join a gang over in House Goliath, or Cawdor -- I hear those gangs tend to have a few screws loose. Red Branch is backed by House Van Saar, and we’re about efficiency and the quality of our weapons.”
Conall paused again. “Hasn’t Morgan given you the speech yet?”
Jak looked a little embarrassed. “Yeah, but I didn’t really pay attention. I mean, I was part of a gang finally! My cousins all turned me down, said I was too weedy, that I couldn’t lug any scrap, much less my weapons.”
Conall sighed in frustration. “Look kid, Morgan does it way better than I, but I’ll give you the short form. We’re a small gang right now. We’ll be the best eventually, but right now we do better by being efficient and hard to notice than by over-inflating our egos and pretending that we’re already the best. We keep our weapons in good order. We try and be at least civil with the other gangs when we’re not scavenging. Makes us less of a target for the bigger, nastier gangs. You juves always imagine that being a ganger means you’ll be diving back and forth with pistols blazing, mowing down other gangers and looting their bodies for sport. Remember, we want to get big enough that we’ll be serious contenders in the top gangs. If we bring the wrath of a big gang down on us at this point, we’re hosed. Or even worse, if we hurt a Guilder or get the Enforcers after us, that’ll be the end of our dreams of glory. Morgan’s the boss, so what he says goes, and he says to lay low. Got it?”
Kell nodded sagely. “Boss’s orders is why yer here right now, insteada being kicked to back to yer momma. Ya did some pretty stupid s**t out there today, and we’re gonna start correctin’ ya before ya get one of us kilt.”
“What’re you talking about, Kell?” Jak gaped. “I took out more of those bitches than anyone else!”
Conall shugged nonchalantly as the waitress arrived with three tankards. “That’s cause you were lucky. If that gang we were dealing with today weren’t all such poor shots… well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I saw you get hit more than once, you’re damn lucky to come away with nothing more than a flesh wound. If Liadin hadn’t been watching your back, those girls woulda killed you, easy.”
Conall paused again and looked over at Jak’s clothing . “For that matter, change your clothes too. Those threads’ll only get you in trouble.”
Jak looked down at his tattered and rag-wrapped jacket and then back at Conall. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
Kell spoke up this time. “They’re obvious. Too bright to hide in. Get somethin’ in greys and blues or blacks. And get rid of that mop ya call hair. Wash out the dye, re-dye it, throw a cloth over it, or hell, shave it. Keep yourself hard ta see, you won’t get shot so easy.”
Jaks face fell. “I gotta change my clothes?”
Kell took a pull from his tankard and slammed it to the table and shouted. “YES! I nearly took a couple hits today because I was standin’ next to ya and the enemy was such bad shots they were whizzing by me insteada you! If ya gonna run with us then stop drawin’ eyes to yerself, cause yer not just drawing eyes to yerself, yer drawing it to the whole gang!”
Jak looked torn between snarling back, and recoiling from his senior. Conall broke in with a steely voice as he exited the booth. “C’mon kid. I’m gonna give you a practical lesson. Draw your knife.”
Jak looked unsure of himself, but stood, and followed Conall to the relatively clear dance floor, drawing the large, sharpened piece of sheet metal with a cloth wrapped end that served as his knife. Conall’s blade was shorter and stouter, and more of a true knife than the machete-like object that Jak carried.
“Now fight me!” barked Conall as he flung himself at the confused juve.
The fight was short and quick. Jack flung out his arms and swung his blade in a wide arc, using his splayed arms as a counter balance as he took a wild swing at Conall. Conall snorted and dropped his knife as he stepped inside the swing, stopping Jak’s arm cold by backhanding his upper arm. A sidestep and a push later and Jak was facedown on the floor, his own knife dropped and forgotten as Conall manhandled his arm into a thoroughly unnatural and painful position, a boot resting between his shoulder blades.
Conall spoke softly now. “I see you don’t know how to use that rat-swatter you got there. It’s a terrible knife. That kind of steel breaks a lot. You’re really lucky, it could have shattered at any time during the battle, or even during this little tussle. If I had blocked it with my own knife, I probably would have ended up with a face full of broken metal anyway.”
Kell walked up and squatted over Jak’s prone from. “Yer a terrible fighter and a terrible shot, kid. So stop tryin to act tough, cause it’s obvious that you ain’t.”
Conall released Jak’s arm and removed his boot from his back. Jak rolled over, but didn’t get up. Conall motioned to his fallen blade. “You have a choice here kid. You can keep pretending to be a ganger, keep acting hard and pretending to be good. You want that, pick up your cheap rat swatter and get out. Or you can hand me my knife, and stick with the Red Branch. We don’t expect you to know anything; you’re a juve. But we expect that you’ll learn, and that you’ll follow orders, and that pretty soon, you’ll be tough and smart, instead of just acting like you know what’s going on.
Conall watched impassively as emotion flickered over the juve’s face, as he decided between his pride and individuality, and being as thrilling and deadly as real gangers seemed to be. Then smiled as Jak proffered the handle of his knife to him with a hopeful expression.
Conall took the knife from him and pulled him to his feet. “Good choice. You stick with us, you’ll go far.”
He was poised to say more, but the moment was interrupted by the barman’s shout. “We’re closin’ folks! You got teeeeeeeeeen minutes to clear out, come back in four hours’!”
Conall clapped Jak on the back and began moving towards the door. “You’ve got potential kid. We’ll head home and sleep off the fight. In the morning, we’ll get you a decent knife and some good threads. And pointers of course. You’ve got a lot to learn about being a ganger…”
