With the situation dire, Master Voltula Terrabrand - Head of the Cog-Port Explorers Guild - called a meeting of the gang leaders. The meeting was held in the remains of an old hab near the Corpse Town Brewery, freshly decorated with bullet holes and las burns, courtesy of the recent violence in which several of the CCCP’s crystal stashes changed hands.

The leaders, always on the lookout for opportunities to settle a score or two, entered the meeting with concealed blades, despite being told to leave their weapons at the door and enter ‘unarmed’. As a result, Enforcers from Lord Helmawr’s Lawful Murmurations were scattered around the hab, keeping a sharp eye out for any sign of suspicious activity.

“Thank you all for coming” Master Voltula Terrabrand began, “I need to discuss with you pressing matters involving the expedit…”

“Skarg that! What the hell’s wrong with the ammo we brought?!” Tiope of the Screaming Erinyes interrupted him, throwing a selection of shell casings onto the table.

As Master Terrabrand leaned forward to examine the so-called defective bullets, the Squat leader Thane Grimrom of the Skyvault Speculation Guild, cut in: “Maybe the issue’s actually with your shooting!?” Smirking to himself, he leaned back against a wall as the Escher leader scowled back at him. He was sure that the outcome of his last scrap with the Escher gang had been decided not by the poor quality of their ammo, but rather by the superior quality of his gang’s armour, but he wasn’t going to allow that to prevent him getting under the Escher’s skin.

As the gangs continued to squabble J4CKD4W, the Enforcer Sergeant, stood at the back of the room absently stroking his new Ogryn tooth necklace. He had been unable to sleep since the events of the past cycle. It wasn’t the thought of the horrific chaos-mutated monstrosity barrelling through Enforcers and Orlocks alike that troubled him so deeply (after all, he was the one who had brought home the thing’s head). Instead, it was more the fact that the ogryn’s body and its rider, Doc Keet, had vanished when the Enforcers checked the battlefield. Following the skirmish, the Doc appeared to have fled Corpse Town completely, taking his medical equipment with him.

A shout from outside interrupts the meeting and as the gangs spill out of the battered hab, they are greeted by the sight of a crowd gathering around a robed figure lying in the street. Pushing through the crowd they discover a juve from the Burning Purity Redemptionist gang, who had previously been dispatched to discover the reason for the delayed main expedition.

“Heretics! Blasphemers everywhere! They killed them all!”

Thorough interrogation of the Juve revealed that his entire gang had been wiped out in an ambush from unknown aggressors. It is believed that the baggage train - having cleared a path into The Slump - had fallen under attack by forces unknown.

The decision is made for the gangs to double back to the edge of The Slump and rescue the main expedition. A fragile truce is formed as the gangs follow the juve’s lead back to the ambush site. Moving through buildings littered with redemptionist bodies, they find no other survivors. However, the sound of las fire and the distinctive crack of stubber rounds alerts them to a nearby fire fight in progress.

Sneaking towards the source of the noise they come across the main expedition. Friendly fighters cower within a circle of cargo haulers and assorted vehicles exchanging fire in all directions, with figures scattered amongst the surrounding terrain. Showing an astonishing lack of stratagem and discipline, the gangs charge into the fray, firing wildly.

Surprised by the gangs outflanking attack the aggressors melted into the shadows taking their dead and wounded with them. The baggage train and the rest of the main expedition was liberated but not without cost. Many of the gang fighters lay injured on the battlefield and, under the watchful eye of assorted guilders and nobles, the baggage train’s medical staff disperse out to help those they can.

However with the common enemy gone and the onlooking guilders to impress the gangs waste no time resorting back to what they do best. After all as weak as they are, their opponents are weak too, and its hard to take the credit for saving the whole expedition with a stub round in your brain!…