Starlance

The Conflict

Yekaterina was about to reply to the driver’s question when gunfire reached them from somewhere up the stream of traffic. She pressed herself flat against the truck to give the roving display of recklessness a wide berth. Normally, she would’ve been worried about where and when the bullets would fall back down, but she didn’t have time for that today as a grenade-like object landed right beside the driver, placing her well within the kill zone by the explosion’s overpressure alone. Stuck prone under the truck, poor Gunther was dead to rights and she only had two, maybe three seconds to change her fate from ‘dead’ to ‘maimed’. Yekaterina took off towards the front of the truck, silently counting as she did.

One. Two.

She threw herself into the drainage ditch, shallow as it was, but minimal cover was better than none whatsoever. Between that and the truck’s left front wheel, the amount of shrapnel that would reach her should be reduced by a not insignificant percentage.

Three. Four.

What?

Five. Six.

The Russian chanced lifting her head up to glance back, her gaze meeting the driver’s, looking as befuddled as she was as he crawled from underneath the ZIL. “Fuck that for a joke.” she cursed under her breath, dusting herself off as she rounded the truck again, careful not to get run over. A flyer tied to a rock and thrown from a moving car puzzled the mind. That was something unlikely to happen even in Russia on a Friday night, and she considered herself fortunate the advertillerist aimed true and didn’t hit her instead. But since someone went through all that effort to get the flyer to them, it’d be impolite not to read it. The driver was already handing it to her anyway

A corporate cookout at the SAMC headquarters? The office should be reasonably easy to find, and sounded like a place mercenaries could be found at. Mercenaries looking for work perhaps, but what of those who already had a task in their mind? It was an option, a good fallback if nothing else. Having skimmed the offered piece of paper, she shoved it into a pocket of her windbreaker and flashed the driver a smile. “Change wheel now, change job later.” She spoke German, leaving out some articles and ignoring conjugation to match the driver’s speech as best as she could, holding her hand out, “I’ll help, give light.” she said, more a demand than an offer. “Go here often? This normal in Matanbai?”

---

Talking to Gunther as they removed the dead tire didn’t yield any results, and as she stopped asking questions he turned to complaining about his shitty lot in life. 30 minutes of work and two hours of driving later, she finally stood in the capital. Gunther refused to take her to the SAMC headquarters directly, wisely choosing to replace the busted tire and be on his merry way out of this shithole back home as fast as possible. At least she would stretch her muscles after half a day of sitting near motionless.

The city itself looked better than the impression her briefing left her with. Besides the amount of guns being higher than rural Texas and the average education of those who wielded them equal or lower than Chechnya. The SAMC headquarters was another nail in the coffin of that illusion of normalcy, looking more like an unusually luxurious forward operating base than a corporate office. Some distance away from the gate, she made sure her sidearm wasn’t printing, wrapped the halligan in a spare shirt and buried it as deep in her backpack as she could and fished the flyer out of her pocket before approaching.

“Privet! Was told there was a shindig around here, is this the place?” she spoke to the merc at the gate, waving the flyer.
“Oui. Name?”
“Yekaterina Belyayeva.” she introduced herself, “Need that spelled out?” she added with a raised brow.
The guard declined with a chuckle and directed her to the garden. He didn’t have to, the noise and smell of meat and grease was easy to follow. She positioned herself within earshot of the only Russian she could hear - a trio of ex-marines from Vladivostok who by the look and sound of it spent a few years in prison. There was also French, German, a few languages she couldn’t recognize and a wide variety of English, from Yankees through Aussies and Irish to something that sounded like Wales. “Quite a menagerie.” the fourth Russian muttered to herself in English, taking in the scene.

The Conflict

Location: Somewhere along the Nambo-Balilon Highway, Matanbai

The ZIL-131 shuddered as the driver released the clutch too early again.

She, along with eight other people, had been cooped up in the back of that flatbed since they left Upington over seven hours ago, and by now was convinced the transmission would sooner break free of its mountings, bust through the cab floor and slap the driver for his sins than they would reach the capital where she’d been instructed to go. Only problem was: The briefing did not mention where to go from there or how to contact the rest of the team tasked with hunting down this ‘Hyena’. The driver may have been told by the agent who hired him where exactly to drop her off, or so she hoped.

Speaking of the team, that was another unknown she could only speculate about. Not being told anything told her they weren’t Russian. She heard good things from her comrades who worked a joint op in Kosovo with Green Berets, but would she be given that sort of work after the Chechen Incident? The Devil would sooner rollerblade to work. That left either locals, or mercs. And while members of the local armed forces ought to be able to speak at least English, or even German in the Namibians’ case, she couldn’t find a reason for the Kremlin to care. Helping out a mining corporation in a land rich with diamonds, oil, uranium and whatnot in a deniable manner, on the other hand, that held more water in her mind.

A crunch as the driver missed yet another shift. At this rate the gears would be smooth before Christmas.

If she’d at least had proper equipment for this, but even that didn’t pan out. Her lockpicks stayed in Samara, confiscated by some busybody still shaking in his boots in the wake of ‘9/11’ as the event came to be known. The issued sidearm may have been brand new, but only qualified as ‘cutting edge’ in the sense that she cut her thumb on the magazine when her fingers slipped loading it. The fact that hers was clearly an early production model, as evidenced by the tool marks that gave the impression of the polymer frame having been made by hand with a chisel and the worker’s own teeth, didn’t help. She got lucky with the halligan at least, in that one hardware store in the entirety of Upington that carried this sort of tools. Whoever her team were supposed to be in the near future, at least she wouldn’t have to explain why they got someone trained for a given role who was unable to carry out said role.

Another jolt, this time with a bang, a pull to the right and the cab drooping slightly, followed by a slow stop. The front right was flat, she knew that even before the driver could start swearing, echoing her own thoughts. Sticking her head out from the back of the truck and looking forward, she could see the driver trying to juggle fitting the hydraulic jack into the proper spot and holding a flashlight to see what he was doing. Up north, one could see faint light pollution rising over the horizon from what she assumed to be Tangayi, while the eastern sky showed the first light of the new day. With a resigned sigh, she jumped down on the ground and made her way to the driver to offer help.

The Conflict

All for equipment degradation, just worried it'll be an absolute clusterfuck for you to keep track of. Here's hoping fresh-off-the-shelf gear doesn't fall apart after a day of use like in FC2.

Which part of the country is the capital in, north or south?

The Conflict

Guards Senior Sergeant Belyayeva

Name:
Yekaterina Fedorovna Belyayeva

Age:
31

Nationality:
Russian

Service Record:

• 58th Combined Arms Army (1996 - 2000)
  • 1999: War of Dagestan
  • 2000: Second Chechen War

• 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade (2000 - 2003)
  • 2000: Kosovo
  • 2001 - 2003: Second Chechen War

MO:
Breacher. Close-quarters fighting in Chechnya, especially the Battle of Grozny, first brought the problems of clearing structures into her mind. After joining the army, she knew she might one day find herself in the middle of such conditions. The last reason was learning that extra qualifications raised the likelyhood of being admitted to special forces training were she to pursue that path. Trained in mechanical, ballistic and explosive breaching.

Infiltration Method:
She was flown to Upington, South Africa, and continued into Matanbai by a hired truck, posing as a humanitarian worker documenting the impact of the current conditions on the people of Matanbai.

Kit:
GSh-18 + 2 magazines, Halligan bar.

History:
Born and raised in Saratov, she enrolled in the Moscow State Linguistic University School of Translation and Interpretation at 18, focusing on English and German and graduated in 1996. When the First Chechen War flared up during her time there, she signed on for a reserve training program offered by the university, which eventually convinced her to join the Russian Armed Forces after graduation, ending up as a rifleman in a motorized infantry regiment.

The first years of her service were uneventful. Her first deployment occured in the War of Dagestan. Following its conclusion and return to Russia, she volunteered for a breacher course in late 1999 before the expected deployment to Chechnya. She applied for Spetsnaz in mid 2000 during R&R back in Russia, and was acepted on account of breaching training, language qualifications (English C1, German B1), driving qualification (A1, B, BE, C and CE categories), recommendation from former company commander and university education.

After passing the entry test, she was assigned to 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade based in Tolyatti, and after a brief time on a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, she returned to Chechnya for counterinsurgency operations in 2001. Promoted to Senior Sergeant in 2003, taking the role of platoon sergeant. Later that year, a controlled detonation of an insurgent munitions cache went awry and swept away a not-insignificant portion of a close by village, leading to casualties among a different Spetsnaz team. Although she avoided a negligent manslaughter charge, as her squad didn't have an explosive ordnance specialist and therefore shouldn’t have been ordered to carry out such a task in the first place, five soldiers and a dozen Chechnyans were dead and some god forsaken hole that wasn't even on a map was for all intents and purposes actually erased from existence. Kremlin sent her to Matanbai to get her out of sight, judging chances of success to be minimal, thus considering the question of what to do with her solved.

Appearance:
A light-skinned, brown eyed ethnic Russian sporting medium length brown hair, measuring just under 176 cm and weighing 68 kilograms, Belyayeva is of an athletic, mesomorphic build, still noticeably thinner than many of her fellow servicemen, built more for endurance than raw power. Small scars on the left side of her face from early childhood injury.

The Conflict

Loader removed. Might be more fun that way, since according to all (and by that I mean both) reviews I found the 18 round mags are damn near impossible to load past 10 without it. The reasoning behind the GSh was that 9x19 is usually more common than 9x18, but if it's a problem timeline-wise I can swap it out.

And in case Skwint is a no-show, I think I know a guy who'd be interested.

The Conflict

Guards Senior Sergeant Belyayeva

Name:
Yekaterina Fedorovna Belyayeva

Age:
31

Nationality:
Russian

Service Record:

• 58th Combined Arms Army (1996 - 2000)
  • 1999: War of Dagestan
  • 2000: Second Chechen War

• 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade (2000 - 2003)
  • 2000: Kosovo
  • 2001 - 2003: Second Chechen War

MO:
Breacher. Close-quarters fighting in Chechnya, especially the Battle of Grozny, first brought the problems of clearing structures into her mind. After joining the army, she knew she might one day find herself in the middle of such conditions. The last reason was learning that extra qualifications raised the likelyhood of being admitted to special forces training were she to pursue that path. Trained in mechanical, ballistic and explosive breaching.

Infiltration Method:
She was flown to Upington, South Africa, and continued into Matanbai by a hired truck, posing as a humanitarian worker documenting the impact of the current conditions on the people of Matanbai.

Kit:
GSh-18 + 2 magazines, Halligan bar.

History:
Born and raised in Saratov, she enrolled in the Moscow State Linguistic University School of Translation and Interpretation at 18, focusing on English and German and graduated in 1996. When the First Chechen War flared up during her time there, she signed on for a reserve training program offered by the university, which eventually convinced her to join the Russian Armed Forces after graduation, ending up as a rifleman in a motorized infantry regiment.

The first years of her service were uneventful. Her first deployment occured in the War of Dagestan. Following its conclusion and return to Russia, she volunteered for a breacher course in late 1999 before the expected deployment to Chechnya. She applied for Spetsnaz in mid 2000 during R&R back in Russia, and was acepted on account of breaching training, language qualifications (English C1, German B1), driving qualification (A1, B, BE, C and CE categories), recommendation from former company commander and university education.

After passing the entry test, she was assigned to 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade based in Tolyatti, and after a brief time on a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, she returned to Chechnya for counterinsurgency operations in 2001. Promoted to Senior Sergeant in 2003, taking the role of platoon sergeant. Later that year, a controlled detonation of an insurgent munitions cache went awry and swept away a not-insignificant portion of a close by village, leading to casualties among a different Spetsnaz team. Although she avoided a negligent manslaughter charge, as her squad didn't have an explosive ordnance specialist and therefore shouldn’t have been ordered to carry out such a task in the first place, five soldiers and a dozen Chechnyans were dead and some god forsaken hole that wasn't even on a map was for all intents and purposes actually erased from existence. Kremlin sent her to Matanbai to get her out of sight, judging chances of success to be minimal, thus considering the question of what to do with her solved.

The Conflict

At the cost of sounding like a vulture: With Theyra backing out, do you have room?

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

Having received the all-clear from Key, Lantea jogged over to the security room, holding outside the door until Arthur was inside. Seeing that Key had made herself at home already, she allowed herself to relax a little. The hard part was over and it looked like it would be a well and truly boring run...

...and then it hit the fan. Lantea switched to her Tornado, taking up the back as they left. Being the rear guard was always a pain. Turn around every few steps and still risk getting shot in the back. As they left the security room, she closed the door, ignited one of her omni blades and thrust it into the door control panel before slicing across, hoping to sever enough important things to prevent the door from opening. ‘If you want to cause problems from the security room when you find us, take the five seconds to breach. If you even can.’ she thought spitefully.

”I expect that will get better with time. When people hire mercs, they’ll always start low and get more willing to pay extra once you’ve worked for them a bit, like a trial period. But if that’s not the case here, I’ll get the torches if you bring the pitchforks.” she replied to Key’s complaints. The Quarian wasn’t wrong though, and while a personal security detail would likely not pack a bigger punch than assault rifles - and even those would be like going hunting for game with a pocket nuke - they could still turn their proverbial pile of scrap into a literal one if they tried hard enough. Unfortunately for her and the crew, the thought of pissing off a criminal with enough clout to have a rogue Spectre on speed dial was a pretty good incentive. ”Did he say how loud we’re going? ‘Do whatever we have to to get out.’ loud or ‘Do whatever we can to grab the money lizard.’ loud?” she turned to her team leader again, wondering whether she'd need her pistol or grenades and biotisc more in the coming minutes.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

The envoy as advertised, a bodyguard as expected, and a diplomat. With some measure of luck, at least two of the three would bring some thinking brains into the group. Avelyn wasted no time letting her mind wander, or rather letting their minds wander into hers, trying to gauge their new compatriots. But where was the complaining coming from? She turned toward the sound of an opening door, catching sight of one crew member who had recently climbed a few rungs on her shit list entering the room before turning back to face the delegates so her crewmates couldn’t see her rolling her eyes. When the self-professed first mate - one of three no less - mentioned a private talk with the two lovebirds, she couldn’t help but shoot them a look that screamed ‘I’m sorry for you two.’, made a bit worse by knowing he was right on that one: Mentioning that could’ve waited until they sat down or something.

The envoy was not what she expected. He might’ve been like that, or it might’ve been all a big show. She didn’t know and couldn’t readily verify. His thoughts were still alien to her and their language unknown to her, concealing their full meaning from her prying neurons. That feeling of uncertainty reminded her of her first interaction with an alien mind. A restrained Rau’Ve prisoner. First there was disbelief. Then terror. She shook her head to banish the uncomfortable past. Then the Gabriel guy whispered something in the language she didn’t understand. And while that might have been foreign to her, thoughts were a universal language. Alien ones could be a little confusing the first few times, but same-species brains always spoke the same dialect. She still didn’t know what he said, but at least his thoughts made it seem like he wouldn’t start stabbing people. “It’s widely considered impolite to whisper among yourselves in a language not all of your hosts might understand.” she joked with a friendly wave. “Sounds lovely though, you’ll have to teach me later.”

Then she had an idea. 50:50 good and absolutely idiotic, but to Hell with it, that wasn’t out of character for this crew. Avelyn turned to Melinae wearing a warm smile. “‘All you can eat’ he says. That’s coming from our rations after he cut them down ship-wide because one of us made a mistake. If you take care not to go overboard and leave some for the rest of us, you might win some hearts and minds. K-rats are terrible.” she spoke a slightly slurred Rau’Ve, watching for Joey’s reaction and hoping he didn’t speak that one, but not holding out much hope.

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

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. “Unless either of you happen to be very good at sneaking or come with a tactical cloak like 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?” 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.

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

"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?” 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.

“Eh, no evidence might be a wee bit unrealistic, but if you’re confident I’ll follow your lead.” 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. “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!” She pretended to swoon, snickering to herself.

”Let's get going then, shall we? You guys wait behind.”
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. ”Cameras have been paused, should buy us enough time to get to the security room and scrub us from it.”

With that, she made her way into the villa. It was large. Stupidly large. What did one person even do 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. ”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.”

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. ”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.”

She reached the door leading outside to the security house and poked her head around as it opened, still on the comms. ”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 be careful. I don’t want to have to fight these mechs and listen to screaming servants.

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.

“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.”

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.

“That sound good to you?” Arty asked. “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.”

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. ”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.” 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. ”This is a bit too much, and that’s coming from someone from fucking Illium.” she said the name of the Asari colony like it had a sour taste in her mouth, ”A presidium apartment of this footprint, you could fund a small colony with the rent alone.” 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. ”I’m set.”

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. “I’ll take care of the staff, you go ahead.” 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. “Christ, I think I prefer just getting into an all out brawl.” 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 sooo 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. ”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.”

She swiped a hand across, moving through the systems of the mechs with a practiced ease. ”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 good 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.

She shut down one mech and moved onto the other, fingers and hands moving like a conductor. ”So what I’ve got to do is set up a feedback loop to the security system, and 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 very talented.”

With a flourish, the last mech was shut down. ”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.”

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. ”You guys are good to head over. We can keep a watch on things from here.” She began to shut down the rest of the mechs, talking to the team at large now. ”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.”