First Reply Do HRDs Dream of Electric Sheep?

[The Fool]

An ex-cartel lieutenant? Maybe? This side of the galaxy was infested with all sorts of scum. Yet, Sentiri seemed to possess far more finesse for a crime lord’s right hand. She didn’t have that stench of trash that usually followed such associations. The First Order? Does come with that air in her walk and manners but they hated aliens, right? Did it even matter?

"There's the complex," Sentiri said, pulling herself out of her brief reverie as the square of office buildings and manufacturing constructs rose out over the skyline. "I'll follow your lead."

He parked the vehicle at an adjacent parking lot, checked on his gun and the ammo, squinted at the residing pain from the shot, and nodded silently to Sentiri. Time to find this Karn Yoffehrik bastard, see what he knows.

Spoiler: CUTSCENE

The pair infiltrated the building of Chainlink Industries rather easily, considering how good Sentiri seemed to be at being covert; something Roman wasn’t extremely apt at. Karn Yoffehrik turned out to be the CEO of the company, residing at the top - the fourteenth floor- where his office was. With Sentiri’s slicing capabilities they gained access upwards, while utilizing Roman as an obstacle remover. Safe to say, a lot of employees found themselves bound and knocked out.

If they were to learn more from Karn, a man who they learned to be the face of a charitable cause, about his sick adventures at Treasure Pleasure - the two needed to have him alone without being able to call in any security.

When the door slid open to the man’s clearly richly decorated office they didn’t expect to see…

A man completely identical in appearance to their employer - Arkadi Cortez - tied upside down on a chandelier and severely mutilated but still alive. Two familiar women - Lydia and Freya - stood before him with intricate tools of torture in their hands. The surprise on both sides lasted not more than a few seconds before the HRD, fast as the best assassin droid in the market, produced her blaster and fired at the two investigators.

“What the fuck?!” Roman growled as he ducked behind cover. Blaster fire roared unstoppable over his head. “Is that Cortez?”

He fired a potshot but hit nothing that mattered.

They were locked in a fight to the death.

Sentiri

 

[Sentiri]

Generally, when an objective is too easy, traps are pretty easy to sniff out. All intelligence operatives in all organizations are trained to uncover ambushes before they happen. Though paranoia was often seen as a negative aspect for normal people, paranoia for an agent was fine-tuned into a useful tool. Sometimes overzealous agents took that training too far, or too literally, and would end up being jumpy wrecks for the rest of their lives, always looking over their shoulder for threats that most likely weren't there. But if trained right, an operative could avoid those delusions and instead gain an inherent sense for how well or how poorly a situation was proceeding and what that might logically mean for predicting an opponent's next move.

In the case of Chainlink Industries, the difficulty was rather moderate: a fair number of doors to slice past, a fair amount of security to subdue, a decent puzzle of corridors to sort through before they got to their destination. So what was the threat assessment prior to entering the room?

The facility wasn't locked down, if it even had protocols to engage a lockdown. So either no one had figured on Roman and Sentiri coming their way, or there was a trap waiting. The approach by the pair of investigators was precise but rather lackadaisical. Considering the business was a front, Sentiri had anticipated slightly more difficulty. Still, obstacle after obstacle, they avoided triggering alarms. Yet the sheer number of obstacles made Sentiri feel as though they were just beating everything the facility had to offer.

So she was understandably surprised upon opening the door to find a trio of figures in the room: a suspended and maimed Cortez, and a pair of femme fetales in Lydia and Freya. Sentiri's surprise was quickly overridden by survival instincts and she ignored pulling her blaster in favor of diving for immediate cover.

Questions pelted her mind in quick succession. Why was Cortez here? Why were the two women torturing the person who hired the investigators? Why were the two women working together?

The questions kept coming as her brain spun through the possibilities. But the Chiss woman had to set all of that aside. Answers came second. Staying alive came first.

With her back to a flipped over chair, she surmised that living might be difficult if she stayed where she was for too long. The room was wide open, and aside from a few pieces of furniture, there was nowhere to hide. The two women had a clear shot anywhere Sentiri or Roman would try to move. And they also had a meaty shield in the form of their rather rotund recruiter who was swinging from the lights by his ankles. If there was more time, she might try and slice into the facility security systems and take a look at what the room had to offer. But neither Sentiri or Roman had prepared for this possibility.

Another big part of field training was preparedness. Sentiri was not the type to rely on one trick, especially one that could potentially be time consuming and left herself open to direct assault. There was only one option, though, that wouldn't result in killing the three people opposite the investigators though, and she wasn't sure how well it would work on a droid. And even though it wasn't fatal, the wounds sustained by Cortez already were significant, there was no guarantee that he would survive. But she saw no other choice.

The agent pulled the high-powered flashbang from her belt. The small device produced an explosion of light, emitted a brief, high pitch wail, and the resulting explosion produced a small amount of magnetic debris. She glanced briefly at Roman, armed the thumb-sized, spherical device, tossed it over her shoulder, and shoved her fingers in her ears. There wasn't much need for aim. There was plenty of space in between the investigators and the other three.

-BAM!---​

Despite covering her ears, Sentiri still had a ringing sensation. But the blaster fire reduced to a single source for a moment. She could make out some yelling before the speech gradually came into focus...

"...ya! .... ..wn! .reya! .alm down! Calm down! Damnit! Come on!"

That must have been Lydia. Unaffected by the disorientation Freya must be feeling. How much training could a prostitute have in withstanding the shock of a flashbang? Probably not much. Though Sentiri could only imagine at what things the girl had endured at the hands of her clients. She was certainly capable of inflicting damage judging by Cortez. The blaster fire continued but it became more random, like covering fire rather than precision strikes. Moments later, a speeder's repulsorlifts were audibly firing up and then growing more distant.

Sentiri dared to peak around the corner, and saw that the girls were gone. Only Cortez remained, dangling helplessly.

The Fool​