Derus does not join the group at the bar, but after he has some alone time in his room, he joins the group at the bar below the “Moons of Sleep”. At the bar, the group gets talking with a Kasatha who is sharing his viewpoint of the latest fiasco on the news. The Hardscrabble Collective was hired by Astral Extractions to find new mining opportunities. When their ship came back into Pact World space it had an asteroid in tow but missing its entire crew. The ship was placed in quarantine and now the two parties are feuding over ownership of the asteroid. The Kasatha does not have high regard for the Astral Extractions and the PC’s are now aware of current events on the station.

The group heads down to the spike to search Kreel’s apartment for clues. They find that he is not a bad dude. In his past, he was involved with a small mining group called Eradiated Steel which was part of the Hardscrabble Collective in some fashion. They learn about the death of his niece from an Astral Extractions safety violation.

As they leave, Latona gives her Comm unit to Babcock, a boy who lives in the complex and does not seem to have anything better to do. She asked him to watch for any other suspicious behavior outside or near the apartment.

Next, they head to Cyber-X, an Infosphere café, where they research the symbols they find and one gang is Salakau 369 and the other is Hukbalahap. They are not mortal enemies but did not seem to be aiming at anyone else except each other and maybe Kreel. They find out that these gangs are going to be located in the seedy parts of the spike and head there.

After Lotana eats a spike dog from a vendor and you end up at the Fizz Balloon, augmentation shop run by a Haan named Raymond Rackelo and find directions to where the Hukbalahap are headquartered. Then to Mama Fats’ to request a visit with the Hukbalahap gang. They were awarded an audience but had to return the next day. So they ate a meal prepared by Mama herself and went back to check in with Babcock. All they discovered was that he became super good at Candy Crush on Lotana’s Comm link. She let him keep it and returned to their accommodations for the evening.

Anyways, the party made it back to Mama Fats, eat a hoagie, and then are brought into the back where they met Jabaxa, a Ysoki, and leader of the Hukbalahap gang and since the party was willing to have a drink with him, he talked about all kinds of things including; Being hired by the Astral Extractions for protection, denial of killing Kreel, and that they are not willing to start a gang war to help you.

After you believe everything he says, you head into a supermarket called Nonggongshong and speak with the goblin patron named Rick Rackrum and find out that the Salakau 369 is based out of the Fusion Queen down on the 18th level of the spike.

Onward the party goes to the Fusion Queen. Here is where the people skills of an android failed and the doormen pull out a sap and hit Derus. This was a fatal mistake for the doormen, but the party came right in and caused just as much damage to all the gang members who wanted to fight back, scattering all the patrons and ruining the fun.