The Fault in our Risk Assesment

[Razelle Breuner]

One of the main reasons Raz could never bring herself to tell Fable what she did was to spare her the body count. Wetwork was a great way to get significant windfall, though with a payday like this, it was less "murder" and more "assassination." It became an even more accurate descriptor after a few minutes of scanning the the...well, mansion she had been contracted to. At least six exterior guards, fine suits and visible armaments, cleverly concealed armored vests. It was like she was taking down a government figure, which might not be altogether inaccurate.

Getting in was going to be tricky, but not impossible. The two guards at the door were standing close enough together that she could get off a lethal shot on both with her Harpy within a two seconds, not enough time to react with commlink, though any heart monitors inside wouldn't be so easily fooled. They likely did regular check ins, too. Cameras were also likely. Looked like she'd be doing this the hard way.

No one went in the front door without a disguise, and as much as the holonet had given her on her target's private habits, it was pretty difficult to conceal weapons in a callgirl's outfit. A knife if she was lucky, and not terribly interested in comfort. Instead, she looked for a window with a spacious room. Dining room? First floor, southeast corner. Lovely view of the sunrise, but two walls of windows made it a security hazard. Hoofing it over, Razelle found another concealed position and kept a long, cautious lookout for patrols, cameras, security trigger in the lawn...which she would likely skip with an ascension gun anyway.

If her target had any habitual positions by an open window, she could have taken a shot there, but it was the middle of the night, and the glass was probably blasterproof. Det charge? She'd give it a squeeze or two with the suppressed rifle, to see. If it resisted, she'd be going in very hot indeed.

Tricky when she didn't have proper gear. If only Razelle had been spending more time outfitting herself for B&E, rather than firefights. At least the armor would help her in the inevitable case of a loud security response...ugh. This was going to be a tricky job. What she wouldn't have given for some artillery support on a secure channel that she could just paint targets for and find cover from the blast.

Oh well. What was life without a little fun?

 

[Tanith Alde]

Lassuria was reclining on her fainting couch, in her study. Chained to the wall of it was one of her only official victims, a petty official whom she was supposed to extract a passcode from without causing permanent damage. Such a specific contract bored her but, it WAS an order from up on high. The official in question was spassming uncontrolably, as the pylons on either side of her flooded her body with increasingly dangerous ammounts of electricity. Lussuria yawned boredly as she listed to this pathetic creature's screams of agony. She stood up and walked across the room smiling at her "Well I think i've grown a tad bored of our chat, I'm feeling a bit thirsty, so I'll be leaving you for a few moments, want anything?" Her victim had been deprived of water for two days and would have gladly accepted, if she was able to speak. She tried, but all that came out were further screams. Lussuria shrugged and left the room, headed toward the Mansion's cellar, to select one of the many rare wines contained within it.

[member="Razelle Breuner"]

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Two men on patrol. Chances were there was security on the inside of the window, too. If Razelle had been packing a decent infiltration kit, she might have had a shot at getting in undetected, but that was only a shot. A place like this? Layered security. She had a sonic charge that could dismantle industrial-grade blast-proof glass in seconds, but the inevitable alarm on the other side of that window was out of her reach. Whatever. She still needed to get to it.

Razelle practiced settling the scope of her Harpy on one guard, then the other. One, then the other. Again. When she'd practiced it a few times, a solid focus took less than half a second when switching between the two of them. From a dozen meters away from the estate, there were two quiet sounds not audible beyond ten meters or so. Two little flashes of light barely visible even to the night sky. Before either could touch their comlink, Razelle's BTI-WWSR had burned very messy holes in their skulls, and she was on the move. The Harpy fit lightly on her back, giving her plenty of leeway to grab her ascension gun, fire a rappel cord to the ledge of the roof, and hoist herself over. A rapidly retracting cord kept her from coming more than six feet from the lawn on her way over, and she landed against the bottom window, combat boots planting firmly against the glass without a single crack. Probably blasterproof, if her target wasn't an idiot.

With a sigh, Razelle reached back and produced a sonic det charge, sticking its adhesive back to the glass pane beneath her boots before climbing up to the ledge above the window. Sonic explosives were fantastic in that they had no fragmentation spray, and in this specific instance were very handy against glass. Even military-grade transparisteel would have difficulty withstanding that. On the downside, it made...a bit of a racket, so Razelle had no time to spare. At the moment of detonation, she kicked off of her ledge and threw a live smoke grenade inside. Concealment was almost as good as stealth.

She dropped her ascension gun as she swung in, giving her a bit more distance, and rolled to a stop near one door to the (currently destroyed by sonic explosions) dining room. Goggles on. Woebringer out. Listen for movement, prepare to strike.
[member="Lady Lussuria"]

 

[Tanith Alde]

The estate's Alarm was two fold, the first would of course set everyone on alert, the second part was what made it so useful. A specially designed shield flickered to life, sorrounding the compound. It wasn't the kind that would block weapons, instead what it did was prevent organic matter from moving through it, essentially sealing whoever tripped it inside of the estate with the guards. As the localisation point of the alarm the guards streamed into dining room, pointing they're weapons at [member="Razelle Breuner"]

Lussuria looked up as she felt and heard, the large explosion that levelled most of her dining room. She growled softly as she realized how long that would take to repair. But no need to let it get to her. She poured herself the glass of wine she had wanted and slowly wandered over to her chambers to await the intruder. If she or he had skill they would probably dispatch her guards, no need to make it easier on them by coming to them. She layed down on her fainting couch , sipped her wine and relaxed.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

First footsteps were just a few seconds after she'd settled into her position. Not bad reaction time, and they sounded like they were coming in pairs. These guys were professionals. She holstered her pistol. A heartbeat later, as they made their way into the smoke, Razelle's arm shot up, driving the ridge of her hand into the first one's throat. She brought back her arm, gripping his blaster-arm wrist tightly as her other hand struck up against the elbow, rewarding it with a sickening crunch. Disarmed. Taking a step back and pulling the blaster out of his weakened grip with her, Raz kicked the choking, crippled man in the solar plexus with one thick boot, then fired a few shots at the collapsed pile of guards right outside the door. Two down. Blaster policed, she dropped it beside her and prepped a grenade around the corner again.

Three or more from the footfalls this time. Pull. Roll. A three second fuse and a large explosion. Expensive mahogany floor splintered everywhere, combined with plastic shards and sterling balls. Chances were whoever was at the epicenter was ripped to shreds. The other two might have been wounded, so Raz pulled her Woebringer and ducked around the corner to fire a couple of shots at them. The next open door was...the kitchen. Naturally. She ran for it and pulled her knife for her off-hand.

No one used gas stoves any more, and her smoke grenade had stopped in the first room. Rolling into cover behind a cookware rack, her eyes scanned the door she had just walked in, listening for anything that might be coming to her from a different angle. The guards from outside had responded by now, and Raz only had two more grenades left. And another sonic charge that she'd carried, just in case...in fact, that would be a good idea. Setting the charge to remote detonation, she flung it at the dining room door, then watched the other one for any movement. Three men passed, two more looked to be coming in to check from this angle...

She squeezed off a quick shot, her heavy blaster bolt finding is mark in the lungs as it punched directly through the light, concealable armor. Even as the bolt came up, Razelle had dove to one side in an attempt to avoid any return fire, which proved the right call when the dead man's partner started unloading suppressive fire on that rack. From her prone position on the ground, she didn't have quite the same accuracy that she had before, but the angle had been unexpected enough that he didn't react in time. Three shots into the meat of his chest bored a burning hole in his torso.

Of course, all of that racket had attracted visitors...from both doorways. Razelle primed a grenade and laid her had on the sonic det trigger. She threw and triggered at once, trying to get her hands to her ears before the almost simultaneous detonations went off. Fortunately, the security force laid largely decimated. Unfortunately, her hearing might take a few minutes of superhuman healing to recover from that...

Sonic pressure sent the man closest to her detonator flying through the nearby support beam. The rest of the squad that had formed with him was recoiling in agony, noses and ears bleeding. The men in the hallway had not fared at all better...and Raz struggled to her knees, wiping the blood from her own nose as she did so.

Body count? About a dozen. She probably still had more inside...
[member="Lady Lussuria"]

 

[Tanith Alde]

The security force totalled out to about 24 men, and 6 repurposed heavy combat droids. Security after witnessing the initial destruction of their vanguard rallied at pre-selected locations. As soon as she stepped out into the hall security would be able to catch her in a crossfire as the guards hiding in the alcoves beside the door would fire at her back, white the heavy droids layed down suppresing fire.

Lussuria felt each death, and it raised her interest in her visitor by a fitting amount. She finished her glass and stood up, She knew her forces wouldn't last much longer, and in truth she didn't want to them to anymore.

Security went against Lussuria's direct orders in relation to combat protocol, and begann grenading the entranceway to the dining room, hoping to catch the unknown assailant with one of them and bring an early end to the strugggle. Their grenades we're not standard thermal detonators or impact grenades, instead they were specifically tailored to Lussuria's wishes. Each grenade exploded outward in a shower of razor wire, causing severa lacerations, and of course pain, to whomever they hit

[member="Razelle Breuner"]

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Struggling to her feet, Raz managed to remember her knife, on the ground, then wiped the blood from her face and did not approach the hall. At least, not from that angle. A killzone was obvious when inside a fortified building. She dove to the side as she neared anything resembling a doorway, shrinking her profile as much as possible while she made for the shelter of a large, ornate-looking column. The front room was ostentatious - it was also about to be obliterated in a firefight.

It didn't take her long to notice that she wasn't alone in this particular line of fire, and she made a point to place a bolt squarely between the eyes of the man who had apparently been attempting to ambush her. Unfortunately, she took two shots to the back before then. Fortunately, a military-grade layered anti-blaster mesh vest was pretty good at stopping energy rounds. Two shots? He had a friend then. She squeezed off a couple of shots in his direction to force him back into cover, then a third when he tried to show back up and suppress her.

The air around her was full of fire and light. There were...probably another dozen men out there, organized into a a pretty decent matrix of violence. She was attempting to formulate a strategy when a few grenades landed near her. Safest thing would be to hit the ground, immediately. Razelle covered her ears to protect from further damage...and wound up having her arms sliced by razor wire? That was new. Those grenades were not anti-infantry. They were meant to hurt, not to kill.

Considering what the holonet had said about this woman, that made sense. She wanted live screamers, not silent corpses. That probably explained why the security up to this point had been pretty lackluster, from her point of view. They weren't as practiced in lethal and efficient takedowns.

A couple of men neared her, still on the ground, and Raz stood still, hands over her head. This put them in the perfect position to move the half-inch she needed to get to her escape plan. Old SpecForce trick. Normally, you needed an immediate and overwhelming distraction when you were being captured. How do you facilitate this? Put a flashbang in a place you can reach while you're being held at gunpoint. The back of Raz's vest held her first flashbang, and she flicked it armed in the same motion that she moved it into clear view of the people around her. Her hands went to her ears again, the third explosive set off in her immediate vicinity tonight.

Blind guards were easy prey. She stood and tore the rifle out of one of their grips, then laid the entire clip into the other four who had come to lay her flat. By the time the cell was dry, she tossed the rifle aside, and kicked the disarmed man's knee out as her hand reached for her knife. One quick swipe and the gorgeous Dathomiri woven rug was covered in blood.

Raz dropped back into a crouched position again and shuddered a little. This is why you took infiltration slow, Sieglinde. The faster you tried to do the job, the heavier fatigue would set in. Behind her, battle droids still beeped rhythmically, and the remaining guards tried to maneuver into a position to get a clear shot. Some very expensive looking vases and meticulously-groomed house plants made that impossible. Two-second breather.
[member="Lady Lussuria"]

 

[Tanith Alde]

Lussuria's guards silently advanced. Even their armour was meant for style not practicality, it was golden and shiny, but left several vital locations unguarded, most notably their abdomens. Another two grenades landed next to Raz before the guards charged forward, firing widly in an effort to pin her down. The front row of guards was armed with stun pikes, which they jabbed at her from opposite sides.

Lussuria herself was observing the action from one of the several somehow intact cameras in her compound. She saw the blood running down the assassin's arms and licked her lips, already thirsty to taste it. The wine simply did not sate her, she had to have this one she decided, nothing less would do. She pressed a button on the console , issuing new order to the guards. They withdrew, continuing pinning the woman through repeated blaster fire as they moved back to the armory to rearm, leaving the heavy battle droids to hold her off for now.

[member="Razelle Breuner"]

 

[Razelle Breuner]

They were...falling back? Well, that made sense. One woman had just decimated the security staff twice over. They'd left her with plenty of droids to shoot up, and that gave her time to make progress. ...And perhaps more importantly, to secure her safety from the vanished human guards. First, though, hardware. Droids were made of stronger stuff than these home detail security guys carried, and her Harpy wouldn't fare much better. Woebringer it was. Clenching the grip of her heavy pistol, she peeked her head around the punished column that wasn't going to hold another few minutes. A red bolt screamed past her head, giving her a burn on the cheek for her trouble. Several more followed, but Razelle was already back in cover.

Dawning realization. Droids were stupid. These were likely using a program to fire first and ask for identification later. Raz hoisted one of the corpses nearby up into a sitting position with her, then standing, and tossed it out the other side of the pillar she was hiding behind. By the time the first blaster bolts were screaming that direction, she was already around the corner of the architecture, and had taken off two clanker heads with her sidearm. By the time she made it to her next bit of cover - a staircase that would provide slightly more awkward firing angles but less physical resistance - she had manged another shot in the chassis of a third, which had sent it to its mechanical rear.

Regroup. Breathe. They're expecting this now. Four more left. She didn't have any explosive ordinance left, but...the corpses she'd left lying around did. Grabbing a couple of those grenades, which she assumed to be razor wire like the ones she'd been hit with before, she activated them and did a blind lob somewhere in the general area of the droids. Not enough punch to cut them up, but the wire entangled them quite nicely. Their aim was off for a moment, and Raz took that moment as her cue.

Pop. Pop pop pop. She slouched down onto her rear, panted for breath, and examined the cuts all over her arms and shoulders. Her nose was bleeding again, too. She could taste it. High-iron meal when she was done with this job. She had one more gas grenade left...that would have to work for this room. She waited until she heard bootsteps again, then struck it against a surface and tossed it into the area in front of her. Goggles on. Fade into the background. Let's do this thing.
[member="Lady Lussuria"]

 

[Tanith Alde]

After the droids were decimated if when the guards once again showed up. This time however they were armed with vibroswords and stun pikes and lastly heavy riot shields, aswell as more of those infernal grenades. They begann to advance on her, then throw grenades, then repeat, untill they were within range to strike at her with their melee weapons.

They sorrounded [member="Razelle Breuner"] Striking at her from all sides, though leaving themselves voulnerable in the process. Finally though lussuria grew bored of their antics. (Side note, i call the grenades Springrazor bombs) What the guards did not know was that during recruitment they were drugged and operated on, each one was a living bomb. And after watching Raz fight her way through most of what remained she decided it was time to cut out the middleman. The last two guardsman exploded in a shower of razors and gore.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

More razor grenades couldn't really do much when they couldn't see where to throw them. Raz found a nice, safe corner where wires had trouble reaching and put her face to the wall and her back to the room until she heard a cessation of metallic whipping noises. That would be her chance to act. She could do this.

Razelle was entirely ready to beat the shit out of the rest of the guards with her bare hands, if need be, and it needn't be, because she was heavily armed and in an advantageous position. Six men after she had taken out three times that number? No problem. Unfortunately, hiding in her little smoky corner, she had a front row seat to the rather unpleasant scene that played out before her. Had she not been accustomed to horrific crap, she might have turned her stomach right there.

Instead, she held her pistol steady in both hands, shaking from stress, pain, and fatigue more than any actual nervousness. Her arms and legs had been severely cut up, but she was still perfectly functional. Adrenaline was a helluva drug. No more guards meant she could find her way to the target uninhibited. Just a little bit more and that fifty kay was hers. She could pay back Fable, get a vacation somewhere tropical, maybe a good doctor...

The mansion was eerily quiet without the sounds of gunfire. Raz listened closely as she moved further in.
[member="Lady Lussuria"]

 

[Tanith Alde]

The mansion provided little struggle to her besides locked doors, not particularly dangerous or difficult, but time consuming. It would give her addrenaline a chance to run out, meaning one was of course more susceptible from everything from poison to a knock on the back of the head. A tired target was an easy target afterall. Lussuria waited on her couch, silenty facing the door [member="Razelle Breuner"]

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Tired? Oh gods, was she ever. Raz had probably spent the last half-hour shooting people, jumping into exploding buildings, being hit in the head with sonic waves, shot, cut, blown up, inhaling a potentially damaging amount of smoke...her body was ruined. There were cuts everywhere, she was bleeding from her nose and, now that she stopped to take inventory, both ears. Her healing blood would make sure she didn't suffer any permanent medical damage, provided a couple of days to recuperate before she decided to have another grenade juggling match, but that didn't help her keep to her feet right now.

She'd been shot in the leg during one of her dives. One of the droids got lucky, probably. It just now occurred to her that her right calf was much, much more burned than her cheek had been. Even so, she pressed on. Knife in her left hand, blaster in her right. CQC grip, though she was nowhere near rote at the moment. If she hadn't long since surpassed her instructors, they'd be rolling in their centuries-old graves. Moving with a mild limp was not helping things. Worst, she was out of explosives. This noble lady had better have gone down easy, because Raz had been to the end of her rope many times, and this was starting to look like it.

She and Mr. Johnson were going to have words when she got back. Fifty thousand was an extremely healthy payday, but she hadn't expected to take on a military frakking bunker.

There was a door down a hallway deeper into the house that had a light shining out of it. Razelle moved in, nudged the door open, and leveled her blaster at the first entity that came into her slightly blurry vision. Woman on a couch. Train on her skull. Don't think, don't reason, don't second-guess, don't strategize. Fire.

And she did.
[member="Lady Lussuria"]

 

[Tanith Alde]

All Lassuria had to do was raise her hand, blocking the blaster bolt. She absorbed the energy using the force, and shot it back at the woman in a painful though certainly nonlethal arc of lightning. She rose slowly and walked over to her, using the force to rip the weapons from her hands and throw them across the room.
"We'll hello there my little one, you've made quite a mess of my estate" She purred, kicking her in the back of the leg and forcing her to her knees. She knealt down to face her "And I will get every credit worth of damage you caused back, and you'll soon learn how I'm going to do that, For now though...Sleep...." She said softly, her voice somewhat tinted with lust. She focused once again, before blasting the kneeling girl with a more powerful shock of lightning, enough to temporarily paralyze her, and knock her out.

[member="Razelle Breuner"]