First Reply Bigger Things

[Orson Thorm]

Glee Anselm | Past Midnight
Tags: None, No Preferences
(TL;DR of Situation: Orson is pursuing a Nautolan politician with the intent of killing him as part of his contract. Feel free to intervene, try to steal the kill, or whatever strikes your fancy.)
​

There was something about jobs like these that were just so simple, something that genuinely touched Orson's soul at its very center. Beating the daylights out of some snob's even snobbier offspring was a special kind of joy. Ran Kasim was an old, influential merchant who'd run afoul of the wrong people in his campaign for local office. He'd rallied for a crackdown on organized crime, which in reality meant a crackdown on the groups whose pocket he wasn't already in. The bold, stupid gambit had of course, backfired, and now Ran was on the run after Orson and his crew had crashed his safehouse, killed his security detail, and taken his chosen heir, the son of his second wife, a no less foolish young Nautolan fresh into adulthood named Gar, as a hostage.

Gar had a mouth on him, which he'd thought would be wise to use to insult his captors, proclaim his superiority, and be a general nuisance. Ever since he'd cracked the nose of his first officer in the Imperial Army, Orson had always loved giving those born with silver spoon in their mouths the beatings of their lifetimes. This had been no different. Orson had his fun, beat the snob until it lost its cathartic appeal and became more pathetic than anything, and even got where his father might've run off to out of the bargain. All in all, the night was going well.

Their quarry had gone to the residence of a mistress near the spaceport, no doubt looking to cut and run, but the time to abandon his political aspirations had been before he launched his campaign, not now when half of the cops in the city were being paid to look the other way, while the other half already detested the man so much they did it for free. He'd proposed a few reforms that would've caused some discomfort for them, which was particularly stupid as far as campaign promises went.

The fully armed mercenaries had found the apartment complex easily enough, and Orson had shot the on-duty guardsman after she'd ignored his instructions to leave and instead went for her baton. Now all that was left would be to kick down the door to Apartment 33A, pull the trigger, and get paid. Orson loved it when a job was easy.

 

[Jon Hojkstra]

Adam raised a Cain​

Jon Hojkstra moved through the shadowed alleys of the city, his steps purposeful, his senses sharp. Ran Kasim, a corrupt merchant-turned-politico indirectly responsible for the demise of his former unit, was slipping through his fingers. A local Nautolan fixer Jon generously helped on hanging himself had spilled the beans he'd laid an out for Ran; a speeder was picking him up in an hour to a charter flight off-world.

Approaching the residence of Kasim's mistress, Jon's mind raced with urgency. Time was ticking away, and he was running out of chances to catch Kasim before he vanished for good and with him the list of names the former storm commando had to scratch off existence.

Jon slipped into the apartment complex's dimly lit lobby, greeted by the sight of the night shift security guard lying lifeless on the floor. His trained eye noted the precision of the fatal wounds—center mass, head, double-tap. He grimaced. Professional. Unless there was another high-value bounty in the complex, someone was already hot on Ran's trail. Without Replay's geeky techy supervision to rely on, Jon knew he had to be extra smart about what came next.

The ex-stormtrooper prowled up to the third floor, hoping he wasn't too late. As the shuffle of boots echoed down the intersecting hallway leading to Apartment 33A, Jon pressed his back against the wall. Peering around the corner, Jon's gaze fell upon a funeral procession - Ran's upcoming funeral to be precise.

With every passing second, the window of opportunity closed a little more.

It's high noon somewhere.

Shouldering his blaster rifle, he emerged from the shadows, his movements precise and calculated. As blaster bolts filled the corridor with flashes of crimson, the symbol of a stormtrooper's skull adorned his armored vest, a silent testament to his relentless pursuit of justice in the dark underbelly of the galaxy.

Orson Thorm

 

[Orson Thorm]

Instincts had been the difference between life and death in the trenches, instincts and luck. Stormtroopers had their training, their armor, their gear, but those of them in the army had to make do with instinct and luck. Orson had survived because he had both in spades.

When the shadow appeared at the opposite end of the hall, instinct made him suspicious, and luck made an overeager new higher step in front of him with a blaster raised to take the first shots of their assailants opening salvo. Orson snagged the mercenary by his collar, and used the man to absorb the next three blaster bolts that struck in a storm of flashing red.

“Contact, suppressing fire now!” Orson barked, stepping back around the corner as a pair of his underlings armed with repeaters stepped forth and answered their attacker’s storm of blaster fire in kind. With any lucky they’d cut the man apart, and the rest of them could get back to business.

Orson dropped the lifeless corpse of the man who’d died in his place with as little decorum as possible, and moved to join the fight once again.

Jon Hojkstra

 

[Jon Hojkstra]

The tranquility of the night shattered into a symphony of violence. The emergency lines must've been lighting up like a Life Day tree by now, and those cop radios? They were probably going crazy with a 10-71.

This all meant that time was just halved for every party involved. Him, Ran and the mercs tearing tearing apart the wall where he had just been standing with suppressive fire. Repeaters, had to be given the sound and impact. Joeys were packing heavy iron for a single-target assassination. Add that on top of a clean double-tap downstairs and the military lingo he barely heard through the mayhem, and you've got yourself a crew of former servicemen.

Jon took a moment to steady his breathing, feeling the rush of adrenaline begin to ebb as he registered the burning sensation of a glancing blow across his left shoulder. There was no passing through that tempest of fire and trying to flank them around—those repeaters would cut him down before he made it to the other side; or he'd give them enough time to break into Ran's apartment and end his miserable life. Tight quarters, hardly any other routes, not much of a preliminary intel he'd gathered before to think up of something left him in a rough spot. If they were smart enough, and they seemed to be, they could keep him pinned down here, have someone else enter the apartment, kill the sorry bastard and retreat leaving Jon none the wiser.

The raven-haired veteran had to improvise.

He surveyed the wall behind him, giving it a knock. Sounded like plastcrete, felt like synthecrete. Probably a mix. Cheap enough to keep the cost down, strong enough to keep the price up. He was counting more of the former, less of the latter. Without another thought, Jon unclipped the cryoban grenade from his utility belt and hurled it from around the corner. He didn't wait to hear it go bang. Just needed the distraction.

Turning his blaster rifle to the absolute maximum settings, risking its durability for some firepower, Jon pushed himself away from the wall and unleashed a salvo at the wall of the apartment, cracking a hole big enough to dive through and follow up on the next wall standing in his way. One or two more and he had to be crashing into Ran's apartment. He just hoped he was fast enough and the rifle didn't melt by the time he got there.

**

In the night sky above a speeder vehicle was making its long descent towards Ran Kasim's terrace. The out.

Orson Thorm

 

[Orson Thorm]

“Grenade!” One of the repeater-hefting mercenaries called out breaking from his partner and diving back. The cryoban grenade detonated, and the other mercenary’s arms and weapon became suddenly frozen in a flash. The woman in the armor screamed at the sudden cold, falling back, her partner scrambling away from her. Orson didn’t care, she could get the wounds treated with her own cut, or she could live on the streets without arms, none of it mattered if they didn’t get the target.

The mercenary who had dove looked around haplessly, mouth agape as he looked from Orson to the woman, as though no one else could see her. They saw her fine, what they were more concerned with was the loud blasts, but no sign of any shots coming their way.

“He’s going through the walls.” Hatch spoke up, tone bordering on impressed. Orson didn’t make a comment beyond an aggravated snarl, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and yanking the repeater from the still stunned new-hire.

“Don’t just stand there, move!” Orson barked sprinting down the hall and through the icy haze left behind by the detonation, three more mercenaries trailing behind him. “Hatch! Down the hall, meet you there!” He barked over his shoulder as they rounded the corner, the other ex-army merc flashing a thumbs up and waving for the troops to stay on him.

Orson stepped through the breach their assailant had made, repeater raised, and opened fire. He poured red blasts into the hole, indiscriminately spraying in the hopes of catching the skull-bearing stranger in the back. The last thing they needed was competition, not this close to the end. He didn’t plan on letting the bastard walk away from his attempted steal, whoever he was.

Jon Hojkstra

 

[Jon Hojkstra]

Whatever tenants Jon passed by through each of the apartments he crashed through were busy screaming and scrambling for cover. If anyone had a gun to pull out and blast him, they were too shell-shocked from the sight of a guy purposefully battering through walls.

The final hole to Ran Kasim's apartment was carved open when an onslaught of blaster fire erupted from behind him ripping through the armorweave vest. Gritting his teeth against the intense pain, he fought to throw himself through the opening and into the corrupt politician's flat, crashing to the ground in agony.

Reaching for his fallen rifle, Jon recoiled as he felt the searing heat of the melting metal. Cursing softly, he scrambled to crawl away from the gaping hole in the wall before his assailant could finish him off.

His eyes darted around the darkened apartment, searching desperately for any sign of Ran Kasim, but found nothing. The bastard was either somehow gone or hiding somewhere. Still, the dirtbag came second now. With each labored breath, Jon knew he couldn't afford to loosen his focus from the mercenaries on his trail.

Ignoring the pain as best he could, the ex-stormtrooper forced himself up to his feet and pulled out his side-arm and a vibrodagger before stumbling around a corner leading away from the living room and into the kitchen.

Orson Thorm

 

[Orson Thorm]

Orson moved through after the stranger, he’d seen him take a hit and keep going, which meant the bastard was tough if nothing else. The others would be closing on the actual entrance to 33A, but they’d still get there too late to stop the thieving bastard unless Orson slowed him down. He hurled the repeater ahead of him through the last breach, all but empty and too unwieldy for tighter quarters, instead unslinging his rifle and snapping it to bear.

As he moved through the last apartment, a young Nautolan looked up at him, terrified. Orson didn’t so much as cast the child a glance, instead shoving through the final breach with his weapon drawn, sweeping the room with quick snaps from one side to the next.

The tenants were stirring, and screams of panic were beginning to fill the air. They needed to get this done quickly.

“Didn’t they teach you stealing isn’t polite?” Orson called out, firing off randomly into one of the adjacent rooms. “It’s got quite the penalty too.” Another burst into a different room. If Kasim died, he died, they’d still get a decent cut.

Jon Hojkstra

 

[Jon Hojkstra]

Jon winced as the heat of blaster bolts still seared through armorweave and flesh, blood pooling at his side where the beam's intensity was not enough to cauterize the entry wounds. Under the faint glow of the night sky, a keen eye could spot the trail of blood snaking around the corner into the kitchen.

He heard the man call him out as he fired a few stray shots at seemingly random targets in the apartment. The veteran squinted his eyes in wonder—dark, tight quarters stirred fear into any being in the galaxy. He could recall the numerous times the training sarge back in basic had berated the stormtrooper recruits for producing noise and firing unnecessarily when breaching dark places with no visibility of the enemy.

Fear or frustration, or a mix of both; whatever it was, Jon could only assume his assailants were no graduates of either the Corps or the Alliance's equivalent. Army enlists. Maybe. Didn't matter much. Jon and they were still grunts and what they had in common was—they could aim and they could kill. A blast to the head is a blast to the head, no matter who pulls the trigger.

Jon cautiously peeked around the corner, eyes tracing the source of the voice in the darkness. Whatever shadow was shuffling through the living room was not discernible enough. Could be the merc's arm, could be his torso, could be the flashing lights of the spaceport in the distance playing games. Not a clean shot. Not by a mile. Guess firing and praying meant he was leaving it all to luck. And he'd rather not.

Instead, the veteran called out back at the man, taunting, "Don't think they'd take a dead man as a witness." before silently as a cat shuffling to the other end of the kitchen where it connected with a corridor most likely leading to the apartment's bedrooms. He set the bait and hoped the merc took it. Get into the kitchen, fire wildly into the nothing, before Jon could peek out from the other side and cap him.

**

The headlights of the out speeder could be now clearly seen as it descended towards the apartment's terrace.

Meanwhile, the sirens of cop speeders rang closer and closer. A block away, no further.

Orson Thorm

 

[Orson Thorm]

"Not my problem, mine don't need him for a witness," Orson called back, snapping towards the kitchen and feeling a smile creep across his face. He reached back, fingers wrapping around the circumference of a stun grenade, and armed it with a flick of his thumb. "Besides, if he goes with you, he knows his boy isn't ever leaving that safehouse he left 'im in alive." The count ticked down.

"Not that you mind, right Ran? You probably already knocked your side piece here up with a replacement, I bet. I'd tell you to do a better job with this one, but you've been pretty miserable with the first four, so why would this one be any different." In one of the rooms on the left, he heard commotion and grinned. He just needed to deal with the hunter, and the job was done. Orson hurtled the stun grenade into the kitchen, banking it off a corner so it rolled in, and letting it blow in a flash of light and noise.

Then he moved in, putting a burst of blasts through the kitchen wall, then into the room proper, unaware of his opponent's move.

Jon Hojkstra

 

[Jon Hojkstra]

If it weren't for that loudmouth's loose lips about the kid, Jon might have caught the faint sound of a 'nade being primed. Missed it, lost in his own head.

One moment of hesitation too much.

Then came the crack of the stun grenade, shattering the silence like a bolt of lightning in a dark room. Jon's senses reeled from the blast, the sudden burst of light and sound disorienting him. His cover around the corner, behind the wall, had kept him in the game still.

He staggered out from his cover, blaster pistol instinctively drawn, firing off a violent barrage at the figure advancing into the kitchen.

Orson Thorm

 

[Orson Thorm]

Orson would’ve felt stupid for not seeing the bait before, but he was preoccupied with the immense pain that shot through his shoulder as the first blaster bolt made contact. The after-market armor was effective enough, but it’d taken its share of bearings that night already, and the other merc’s blaster had a mean kick to it. The second bolt took him center mass, but the armor held, and when Orson hit the floor, rifle tumbling away, it was as an increasingly frustrated killer rather than a corpse.

“Son of a-!” Orson bit back the pained curse, now wasn’t the time to freeze. Not while the game was still on.

He didn’t go for the rifle, there wasn’t time. He rolled hard back around the corner, pulling the pistol from his other side with his good arm, and squeezing off a burst of fire to dissuade any attempts to move in. His injured arm siezed, muscles tightening as the burning sensation spread out from the point of impact with tendrils of agony. Orson bit back a pained grunt as he forced the hand to comply, digging into a pocket on his thigh and drawing out an adrenal injector, slamming it into his bloodstream.

Hatch and the others were taking too damned long, he’d do it all himself. His cut would reflect that much too.

Jon Hojkstra

 

[Jon Hojkstra]

The assailant's armor took the bite off the blaster pistol's salvo, either ricocheting glancing bolts all over the kitchen or eating the red plasma head on. Jon wobbled in a dazed hurry to finish it off while the mercenary was still down, a nice double-tap to the face but the damn fether rolled away from death's sweet embrace and flipped the reaper with a desperate onslaught of blaster fire. A few punched through the armorweave vest sending him on the floor for him to also miserably roll away back to his previous cover.

Gasping for air, Jon struggled to regain his bearings amidst the chaos. Blurred vision and ringing ears made it difficult to focus, and before he could react, the room erupted in blinding light. Shielding his eyes with one hand, the ex-stormtrooper barely made out the red and blue lights in the background before everything lit up in plasma. A tempest of blaster fire ravaged through the apartment sending Jon flat on his chest, scrambling for another shelter.

Orson Thorm

 

[Orson Thorm]

Orson's lips tugged upward into a macabre grin as the intrusive bastard caught a few blasts, and in the same moment, he heard the door to the apartment come down with a blast. The men were here, and this fight was over. Until it wasn't. Gunfire tore through the apartment, plasma cut apart the first two through the door, and Orson's only comfort was that there was no way Hatch would've been either of them. He'd have blown the door, hell he'd still be crouched down. Besides him, and the other five who he'd been with since the fall, no one else really mattered.

Orson slid himself back across the floor, pressed to the ground and hissing curses beneath his breath. Whoever the third player was, they didn't care if Ran was alive either, but unlike him, they weren't even bothering with the attempt. They had to go, or else he would, there was no other way. The former soldier grit his teeth, and slid himself behind cover, palming another, far more lethal explosive. All he had to do was survive until they had to reload.

Simple enough.

Jon Hojkstra

 

[Jon Hojkstra]

Light burst from the other side of the apartment heralding the entry of the merc's crew, alerting Jon he was now pinned between a rock and a hard place. He didn't think twice. Using the mayhem of blaster fire tearing through the apartment as a cover, the former stormtrooper crawled, then stumbled with pace further into the large residence towards where the bedrooms were supposed to be.

Jon burst into the first room on the left and was greeted by the sight of a neatly-made bed and a few suitcases. Beyond them, a curtain swayed gently in the night breeze. Before the veteran turned to leave for the next room in his search for Ran, he heard a voice—a voice that stopped him dead in his tracks.

The subtle sulk of a child, shaking in terror and confusion.

Jon opened the closet where a small Nautolan child was hiding and he saw himself.

Once, when he was terrified, taken hostage by a goon.

Once, when the stormtroopers had saved him.

That same stormtrooper lieutenant who'd pulled him into an embrace, now stared back at him.

Then, everything came into focus for Jon. This was no longer about making Kasim pay. This was about duty. About an oath he'd sworn when he'd first donned the helmet. A vow that was shoved deep beneath the darkness of his quest for vengeance that enveloped his mind and heart.

"C'mon, kid, let's go."

He knew he couldn't risk a firefight with the mercenaries, not when there was a kid's life at stake. He had to find a way out of here, get the kid out of this deadly game. Glancing between the open window and the door back to the rest of the apartment, Jon weighed his options.

((ooc: go nuts with Ran, brother. Whether he's in another room, on a speeder bailing or firing the Death Star. He's your guy.))