[hider=Team 1: Key, Arthur, Lantea]
Key bounced up and down in excitement that the mission was finally getting going. Sure it should have been a much easier mission with the person already on the inside, but she wasn’t about to complain  now that they were actually earning their credits. Plus this would be a breeze! It wasn’t like they were charging into a highly defended bunker or base. Just some accountant who wanted to play at being dangerous and had some shiny toys that were all too ripe for the breaking.

She waved impatiently at Lantea and Arthur, pulling them aside from the main group. [color=yellowgreen]“Unless either of you happen to be very good at sneaking or come with a tactical cloak like [i]I[/i] do, I think I’ll scout the way ahead for us and call for you two to come up as we go. Unless you guys have any better ideas?”[/color] She doubted it, but you never knew. Maybe the guy who refused to wear a helmet and the asari who called quarians ‘bucket’ would come up with an original idea for once.

[i]‘Kill or knock out, it doesn't matter. Just make sure that there isn't any evidence of our presence whatsoever.’[/i] Like bodies or knocked out staff who either remember getting knocked out or have permanent brain damage? [i]Sneaky...[/i] At least they didn’t have to go into the house itself. Lots of open space with no hard cover, barely even concealment.

[color=CF61E1]"Yea, go ahead, we’ll come charging to the rescue if or when everything goes down the shitter. How long does the cloak last though, wouldn’t a drone work better? Sure, it can’t go invisible, but it can fly, fit through a lot smaller openings and if it gets spotted, who cares if it gets shot up?”[/color] Lantea offered as she moved to take up the front of the stack until they get moving.

Arthur had to admit, he wasn’t exactly a fan of sneaking around. Whenever he went into a situation wherever he was outgunned or outmanned, he preferred to let his charm do the work. God knows his fighting style was the farthest thing from subtle. He peered into the gates as Key pulled them to the side. 

[color=lightblue]“Eh, no evidence might be a wee bit unrealistic, but if you’re confident I’ll follow your lead.”[/color] he said. He’d much prefer to simply walk in and start chatting up the estate’s IT team to shut down all the mechanical horrors that awaited inside. But Arty supposed you can’t always get what you want.

Key gave a small defeated shrug. [color=yellowgreen]“Can’t use my drone. It’s too loud. I can’t figure out what’s making the rattling noise inside of it, but every time I tear it apart and put it back together the noise is still there. So unless we wanna alert everyone in the building to our presence, that’s out. I’ll take the lead then. The tactical cloak has a short time but if I only use it to move from point A to point B and then turn it off to charge, I should be good enough. Besides, if I get into any real trouble I’m sure the two of you will dashingly come to my rescue!”[/color] She pretended to swoon, snickering to herself. 

[color=yellowgreen]”Let's get going then, shall we? You guys wait behind.”[/color]
She moved towards the villa, turning on her tactical cloak before she got within sight of the cameras. It wouldn’t be too difficult to scrub anyone from the camera files but she didn’t want to risk triggering an alarm. That wouldn’t look good on her first mission as not-a-spectre-but-basically-like-one. She brought up her omni-tool and quickly accessed the camera network. It wasn’t enough to seize control, that would have to be done from the security building, but she could at least pause them until they were able to do that. She spoke into the comms of the group at large.  [color=yellowgreen]”Cameras have been paused, should buy us enough time to get to the security room and scrub us from it.”[/color]

With that, she made her way into the villa. It was large. Stupidly large. What did one person even [i]do[/i] with all this space? Walk around dramatically staring at things? Play hide and seek with fifty people? Hide a bunch of illegal operations and hope that no one broke in? The possibilities were truly endless. The front door was unlocked, of course. Who would be stupid enough to hack into a locked villa with prototype mechs?

The living room was empty, fortunately. Key didn’t know how many servants the target had, but she was willing to bet that there were more than a couple in the villa. She pressed herself against the wall and turned off the tactical cloak, giving it a breather. She brought up her comms, giving an update to Lantea and Arthur. [color=yellowgreen]”Living room is empty, but I don’t know where any of her servants are. Two mechs are stationed at a door leading to a shuttle pad, best not to trigger those. I’ll do a quick look in the other rooms to see if there are any servants to be aware of and then make my move towards the security room.”[/color]

Activating her tactical cloak once more, she moved around the living room and carefully opened the first door. An empty, ostentatious bathroom. Key was beginning to dislike this person more and more. Who needed their bathroom to be that pretentious? 

She moved towards the next door, opening it. Empty again, this time a work out room. At least that had function. She was moving to open the third door when it opened suddenly and she hurriedly stepped to the side. She pressed herself against the wall as a human man walked out, humming lightly to himself as he carried a duster. He passed by her by inches and Key could feel her heart threatening to burst from her chest. A fight now would trigger the entire villa. She held her breath, glancing briefly inside the room. Empty dining room, just cleaned. The man passed by without noticing her, and she slowly breathed a sigh of relief. She watched the servant walk to the final door, calling out as he opened it. “Lansa, what’s for dinner? You know how she-” His words were cut off as the door closed behind him, and Key relaxed. She brought up comms with Lantea and Arthur again, heading towards the security room. [color=yellowgreen]”At least two servants in the kitchen, one being on cleaning duty. Be aware of him making the rounds. And for Keelah’s sake if you have to take care of him don’t kill him. We don’t want to leave any signs we were here and we definitely don’t want to deal with a body.”[/color]

She reached the door leading outside to the security house and poked her head around as it opened, still on the comms. [color=yellowgreen]”Shit. Two mechs guarding the door to the security room. I can hack them, but it’ll take time and I need someone to watch my back. You two can make your way up here now, but [i]be careful[/i]. I don’t want to have to fight these mechs and listen to screaming servants.[/color]

Arty listened to Key’s updates intently. She seemed to be competent at sneaking, which was a relief. Jobs like these, you never knew if the person you worked with would save your life or get you killed. Mechs and servants. If they followed Key’s path, they should be able to get by without triggering them. The servants might be a different story. Arty put two fingers up to the communicator in his ear.

[color=lightblue]“Lantea and I can handle the servants, easy. Don’t worry, we won’t kill them. We’ll make our way to you and watch your back while you hack those mechanical beasties.”[/color]

He turned his attention to the asari merc. Mercenaries were always a shot in the dark. Being from every walk of life, they could either be some of the best people you ever met or true bastards that deserved to be put in the dirt.

[color=lightblue]“That sound good to you?”[/color] Arty asked. [color=lightblue]“With our biotics we should be able to put the poor bastards to sleep without a fight. We’ll just have to hope that Key didn’t miss anyone on the way in.”[/color]

Lantea followed Key’s updates, wishing she had a feed from her helmet cam like they used to have with the old crew. So far boring. That was good. She didn’t let the door out of her sight even as she replied to Arthur. [color=CF61E1]”I’m going to leave subduing them to you. I can’t choke them out without disabling tech armor, that’s not really something I want to do with two mechs standing behind me, and my biotics are geared more toward wanton violence. Not something I want to use against some poor fucking housekeeper just trying to make ends meet.”[/color] she finished as she started moving into the house with her Stiletto at retracted low ready.

Reaching the main structure, Lantea moved to the side of the door, peering through a window to make sure she wouldn’t open the door right when some servant walked in. Satisfied with the sight of an empty living room, she made sure that Arthur was ready to enter and opened the door, quickly checking the right side of the room where the window had a blind spot, expecting Arthur knew how to clear a room and would handle the other side. And if for some reason he didn’t, she felt confident her armor and skill would give her enough time to address any immediate problems and she could yell at him later.

Spotting an open door that seemed to be the door leading to their current target from the floorplan they were shown, she started that way, keeping her eyes on the balcony overlooking the living room, and muted her voice amplifier, the helmet muffling her voice almost completely to the outside world without any impact on radio communications. [color=CF61E1]”This is a bit too much, and that’s coming from someone from fucking [i]Illium[/i].”[/color] she said the name of the Asari colony like it had a sour taste in her mouth, [color=CF61E1]”A presidium apartment of this footprint, you could fund a small colony with the rent alone.”[/color] She finally reached her destination, taking aim at one of the mechs in their way, ready to throw the other one at the same time if they went loud. [color=CF61E1]”I’m set.”[/color]

Arty shrugged at her suggestion. That was fine by him. He shadowed her as they moved into the villa. He didn’t bother with his pistol. If they got caught in this close of a space, he’d do a lot more damage with his fists. They moved in and cleared the living room. Arty bit back a snicker as Lantea whipped around the corner. She was a little more militaristic than he thought. In contrast to her disciplined breaching drill, he just poked his head into the living room and followed her casually deeper into the building.

They were getting closer to Key’s position. Arty stopped himself by the kitchen door. The muffled voices of casual conversation drifted through. The mechs were just down the hall. [color=lightblue]“I’ll take care of the staff, you go ahead.”[/color] he whispered to Lantea. He watched her move down the hall for a moment before turning his attention to the kitchen. Arty cracked the door open just enough for him to peek inside. The man had his back to the door and the woman was scrubbing dishes at a sink. If he stayed low enough, he could get in without her noticing.

He felt a sudden pang of guilt. He didn’t want to rock these poor folks. Arty scowled and recollected himself. He had a job to do. Besides, he wouldn’t hurt them...much. He opened the door a little further and slipped through. There was an island in the middle of the kitchen and the man leaned on it as he spoke to his counterpart.

“So, Gracia is having a little party this weekend...I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?” the man said, his nerves showing in the flutter of his voice. Arty pushed down a fresh wave of guilt and waited for the woman to respond. As soon as her voice wafted towards them, Arthur leaped toward the man and his arm snaked around his throat and pulled him in. Like a python. The servant scrabbled at Arty’s face but the freelancer was concentrating. On a training mission to Thessia when he was still with the Alliance, an asari biotic soldier taught him a trick to non-lethally take down an opponent. A sort of pulse wave, just with the entire body.

Arty felt the energy well up in him and and he released it with intent, just hard enough to send a small shockwave through the man’s nervous system. The servant went limp in his arms and Arty struggled to keep him from collapsing on the ground. He laid the man gently to the floor. Luckily, his date was still talking.

“...and Tiana said she’d cover my shift so I guess I’m free. But I do…”

Arty supposed he should be grateful that she was a chatterbox. He quickly and quietly moved across the length of the kitchen, charging a small amount of biotic energy in two fingers. Enough energy applied to the temple would knock a person out easily. Maybe he should’ve done that with the man as well.
It was too late now. As she began to turn towards her silent partner, Arty jumped the last few feet and jabbed her in the temple. A blue wave glided over her face and she crumpled to the floor, Arty managing to grab her before she slammed her head on a counter. [color=lightblue]“Christ, I think I prefer just getting into an all out brawl.”[/color] he muttered to himself as he laid her down. 

With a last, furtive glance around the room, he snuck out and went to join Lantea and Key. 

Key fidgeted impatiently while she waited for the other two to show up. Sure it was a stealth mission, and sure she had specifically requested that they be careful, and sure that meant they couldn’t move quickly, but did they have to move [i]sooo[/i] slowly? 

She practically leapt for joy as Lantea showed up and took her position, immediately bringing up her hacking program. A feed of information crossed her visor and she moved her hands to move through it, talking aloud as she did so. [color=yellowgreen]”The hard part isn’t hacking these mechs. They’re prototypes, which means that they don’t have good software security. No one knows how the standard firewalls and anti-hacking measures will interact with the new systems of the mechs, so they focus on the hardware problems first and then worry about making the software interact with it. Which is good for us, because if these were high end mechs we’d be here way longer as I tried to sneak in without tripping any alarms.”[/color]

She swiped a hand across, moving through the systems of the mechs with a practiced ease. [color=yellowgreen]”The hard part is getting these mechs to be shut down without tripping the security system as a whole. See, most security teams know the weaknesses of prototype mechs. Well, most [i]good[/i] security teams know the weaknesses of prototype mechs. So they  hook up a bunch of tripwires and fail safes to the security system at large. If I just went in and seized control of the mechs, the entire system would sound an alarm and we’d have the other mechs closing down on us. Not to mention CSEC would automatically be alerted. Even though we’re technically on their payroll I don’t think we want to deal with them.[/color]

She shut down one mech and moved onto the other, fingers and hands moving like a conductor. [color=yellowgreen]”So what I’ve got to do is set up a feedback loop to the security system, [i]and[/i] shut down the mechs. The feedback loop tells the security system that the mechs are still doing what they’ve been told to do and that nothing is wrong, and shutting off the mechs is obvious. This would be difficult for someone who isn’t as skilled at this as I am, but fortunately for you guys I am [i]very[/i] talented.”[/color]

With a flourish, the last mech was shut down. [color=yellowgreen]”If our insider’s information is correct, there shouldn’t be anyone in the security room. But since our insider couldn’t even be bothered to actually grab the stuff we wanted, I’ll have a looksy with my invisibility cloak first. I’ll signal you guys to come through when everything is all clear.”[/color]

Giving a thumbs up, Key vanished from sight as her cloak activated again and she slunk over towards the security room and inside. A quick look around told her that the insider had been right. Wherever the target was going, it was obviously very important if she didn’t even leave behind a guard to watch cameras. She spoke into her comms to Lantea and Arthur, sitting in front of the computer board and wall of cameras. [color=yellowgreen]”You guys are good to head over. We can keep a watch on things from here.”[/color] She began to shut down the rest of the mechs, talking to the team at large now. [color=yellowgreen]”We’ve successfully taken the security room and have eyes all over the villa. Shutting down the security mechs now, will keep you updated if I see any servants heading your way.”[/color]
[/hider]