  Motion of stellar-mass satellites is studied around a massive compact body
which is surrounded by a gaseous slab of a stationary accretion disc. The
satellites suffer an orbital decay due to hydrodynamical interaction with the
disc medium (transitions across the disc, gap opening in the disc, density
waves) and gravitational radiation. Arbitrary orbital eccentricities and
inclinations are considered, and it is observed how the competing effects
depend on the parameters of the model, namely, the mass and compactness of the
orbiters, the osculating elements of their trajectories, and surface density of
the disc. These effects have a visible impact on the satellites long-term
motion, and they can produce observational consequences with respect to
galactic central clusters. It is shown that the satellite-disc collisions do
not impose serious restrictions on the results of gravitational wave
experiments if the disc medium is diluted and the orbiter is compact but they
are important in the case of environments with relatively high density. We thus
concentrate on application to accretion flows in which the density is not
negligible. We discuss the expected quasi-stationary structure of the cluster
that is established on sub-parsec scales within the sphere of gravitational
influence of the central object. Relevant to this region, we give the power-law
slopes defining the radial profile of modified clusters and we show that their
values are determined by satellite interaction with the accretion flow rather
than their initial distribution.
