[Necromunda] Bad Heir Day (Shift 260319, M42)

 "Fragging rutting kutting dammit!"

It's safe to say that Evil Annie is not a good patient.

Her luck has finally run out. So far she's come out unscathed from every debacle that's claimed one or more of her girls, but no more. Now she's laid up in Legal Acquisition, bleeding heavily and bloody furious.

"Will you please stop squirming? I don't want to have to tranq you."

"No tranqs! My full name ain't Anniesthetic! Just get on and splint my leg!"

"Splint? Splint? Annie, half your foot's missing! It's gonna need more than a damn splint!"

This state of affairs is almost entirely self-inflicted, and Annie knows it. This, presumably, is why she's so cross. The worst part is, she had a plan...

It had all been going plont shaped for a while now. They'd been churning out chems by the barrel, but the bazaars were firmly in the hands of that rutwit Drekki. He didn't even know what he was sitting on, that was the worst part! To him it was just a med-shack he didn't care for 'cause he never seemed to take a hit. They'd already tried to score it off him, and that had been the day Harri got to find out what death felt like both ways. Now they needed it - gotta get the base together and make some peace before Steevi Boi ended up running the whole dome with half a brain cell.

She'd been reasonable. Had Shivella run the dome and take a note. Reasonable offer. Complete concession of the outer wall zone. Plenty of scrap, plenty of minerals, plenty of fallen stone, even a way out to the wastes if the squats wanted it. The poor girl hadn't come back, and Annie had known, just known in her bones, that Drekki had refused with extreme prejudice.

So she'd tooled up everyone else except Noisette, and they'd gone to call on the neighbours.

Flash bombs and Scare-All out the ass, and Harri cranked up on that new Special Blend, plus the stimm-slug Annie had traded for last cycle - still itchy, and it made her spine feel tight. How the fragging Goliaths walked around like this all the time... brains in their jockstraps and asses like leather. The girls had dug deep - armourlays for everyone who'd be going in close, hotshot packs for everyone who'd be covering from the back, and Jakki had herself a brand new red-dot so she might actually be able to point a dead girls' bolter the right way for once.

 Problem was, Drekki knew they were coming, and he'd had time to round up his whole crew. That meant a lot more bullets coming Annie's way than there were lasers going back. The lasgun may be cheap, cheerful and accurate, but it doesn't fill someone up with lead. And somehow, even though she'd skipped the centre, they were still getting crossfired...

 

Some stunty had shown up with a krakking seismobomb and decided it was fun to let those things off above ground! That had scrambled Pow-Pow and Jo out of their nest, and Jakki was flat on her face dodging bolter fire. On the other side there'd been plasma strafing anyone who stuck their head round the corner for a shot - Jenna was the only one standing that side of the fight, one-eye Jenna VV who couldn't hit a target that wasn't running straight at her screaming. And she didn't have a hotshot pack that worked, because that junked-down ammo-jack Dakkson had sold them a bunch of photolumens with leaky batteries or something! 

Annie had been over on the other side with the kids - Swordsmari and Grim Sam, both throwing flash flares and both thinking one rutting flare would be enough. The squats hadn't even blinked, and by the time the girls had ducked and covered Drekki was coming their way with that rutting flamer.

The plan had been pretty simple: everyone keeps the stunties' heads down, Annie and Harri rush the lines and start cutting 'em up. Harri K had done kay-kay from what Jenna said, ran straight over the first squat like he wasn't there, tanked a plasma burst and kept on clawing two of them. Annie had to take her word for it, 'cause when she'd jammed her stimm nothing felt like nothing any more.

Everything had been so slow around her. Liquid. Like swimming, if swimming in recyc was legal and swimming in the sump wouldn't kill you six ways from Sanguinalia. So like swimming felt in her dreams. Like mercury. It had been so easy to run, swing, crack the whip, knock that thieving claim-jumper off his feet. She'd been laughing, like her feet weren't touching the ground -

And just like that, she couldn't feel her feet, or her knees. She could feel her face though, full of dome-bottom grit and cold sweat. Annie would swear on her matron mother's grave she'd capped the squat's stupid minebot, but...

Well, something had to have put a drill through her leg, right?

She hadn't even had time to self-medicate. Three full cycles carrying that Fightin' Jollop around and now she needed it and her fingers weren't working 'cause she'd gone comfortably numb...

Felt like she felt right now, actually.

Dammit, Noisette had tranqed her. 

"You lil'... you lil' sump fox. C'mere. Imma..."

"No, boss. You're not. They found Shivella. Did you know that? Ave and the new kids went looking for that dwarf, and they found her all smashed up in a quake fall. And she still had the note on her. She never made it to Drekkson, Annie. You led everyone over there for nothing and now you're bleeding for it. Shivella can't hear squat, can't throw for squat - her whole right side's out of joint. You're rutting lucky nobody else died."

"Don't. You don't. Speak to get me. Like that."

"I do, Annie. You're running out of friends. Next time I don't know if anyone'll pick you up and bring you back at all." Noisette's masked face tipped to one side, or maybe it was the other - Annie's vision wasn't right. She was so, so tired. "Do you... look, nobody's saying this wasn't a good scam, but this place is ratchet rekt. Is Fenni's Dome worth dying for? Or should we get the hell out?"