[u][b]Duranin
Approach vector[/b][/u]

Javelin considered donning a persona for her mission on Duranin. They were useful tools, certainly. When operatives like Javelin assumed a persona, no amount of torture or psionic probing couold pierce through the intensive psycho-conditioning that masked their true nature. On the downside, adopting a persona so thoroughly could make it difficult to disengage. More than one operative had suffered complications over the years, and become so convinced of their assumed identities that they were no longer useful.

Ultimately, Javelin decided against assuming a full persona, deeming it unnecessary. She would rely on more primitive espionage tools; a good old fashioned disguise and cover story. She selected an appropriate one: Sarah O’Connor, rogue trader and dashing ruffian. Javelin opened up a storage container in her ship’s hold and began assembling Sarah’s gear; A long, patched overcoat, two gleaming Delvon F9 pistols, a liberal application of grime, and a wide brimmed hat completed the ensemble. Javelin’s fingers briefly caressed a massive sniper rifle on one wall of the cargo container, but she turned away. It was not the kind of weapon any civilian would have reason to carry around.

With her ship set in auto-defence mode in a vaguely secure landing field, Javelin set off into the city, such as it was. Duranin was an example of how the Commonwealth abused its ‘colonial’ worlds. Not the worst example; Javelin didn’t see any work animals pulling carts, but still not a pretty place. Air cars were few and far between; groundcars were far more common, mostly powered by miniaturized fission reactors, but some belched smoke and exhaust, evidence of internal combustion engines. The great skyscrapers of the city were largely empty and beginning to crumble. Abandoned storefronts and warehouses were everywhere, the bones of a dying world. The people were quiet, sullen even, and largely kept to themselves, backs bent, eyes lowered.

Javelin had access to the latest census data for Duranin, incomplete as it was, so she knew approximately where to look for James Gallagher. She made her way by groundcar to his last reported residence. It was empty, of course, because nothing was ever easy. So Javelin began checking bars and pubs. While massive taxes and rampant exploitation had crushed just about every local industry on Duranin, interstellar megacorps were the main source of income for the average Duranin resident. Without the protection of citizenship, residents could expect miserable pay and atrocious working conditions. Regardless, booz was something that always sold well.

It didn’t take her too long to track down Gallagher. She asked after him at a handful of establishments, under the pretense he owed her money. Soon enough, she discovered he was a shift manager at the local branch of one of the interstellar corps and she made her way to the work site. His office was empty, but a thorough investigation uncovered a hidden door behind his closet. Then the irony tinge of blood hit her nostrils. Something was wrong. Within the hidden storage room the sight was a bloody on. James Gallagher, or at least what remained of him, had spilled his innards over most of the floor.  A trail of blood leading from the entrance to the far end of the room where his body lay implied he’d crawled, or been dragged, after his assailant first attacked.  A charred and gaping hole in his lower leg spoke of a shot being fired, and it corresponded with a neat hole in floor by the entrance, but that wasn’t nearly enough to explain the viscera spread around him.  There was a gash over his stomach from where his innards had spilled out, and by the location of his intestines it looked like it’d been inflicted halfway through his desperate escape.
 
The rest of him didn’t look much better.  A boot mark indicated his throat had been crushed just so, enough for him to breath but so that he’d be incapable of speech.  His arms bore similar gashes to his stomach, but ones that conveniently avoided his arteries in favour of muscles, some of which hung off him.  The man was a ruin, but the grotesqueries inflicted upon him spoke of a particular kind of murderer.  Whoever did this had enjoyed it, relished it enough that they’d taking care to sustain the man’s suffering as long as possible.  Beyond that though, it was precise.  Not many knew where a man could suffer cuts like those and live for long enough to see the look in his eyes, and most of those that did were either waiting for their executions or on government payroll in the more unsavoury states of the galaxy.

The surrounding room had been ransacked, but not totally.  The racks around the room were empty, and the computers left were slag, but Gallagher’s corpse and everything he was carrying had been left untouched. That was a mistake. Javelin quickly rifled through Gallagher’s clothing and found a scrap of paper, ‘Darin, 13, old Pestroyka warehouse’, There was a date as well; tomorrow evening. How convenient. Javelin gave the storage room another sweep to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, then set off, sealing the hidden area behind her. This was an interesting development, but her priorities hadn’t necessarily changed. Besides, if someone was looking to eliminate members of Talon, they’d certainly show up at the scheduled meeting. Two birds with one stone then. Javelin almost smiled. She certainly appreciated efficiency.