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Paradise Motel / Outskirts / System Capital, City Moon Warren / Rin System / Procyon Sector

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The planet Aleph hangs in the sky, only a sliver of its swirling, blue-green atmosphere visible between the towering buildings above. The night sky framing it on either side of it is an unbroken, gold-tinged blackness. The megacity's haze and its uncountable lights produce a wispy glow that blots out the stars entirely, yet leaves the lower levels--and especially the alleyways--a checkerboard of lights ready to reveal a helpless victim and shadows perfect for concealing threats.

If everything goes according to plan tonight, you'll be the latter rather than the former.

Your search led you across two systems--and into a few tight spots--but you've finally run down your man. The second-floor walkway of the Motel Paradise is as poorly lit as the rest of the area (and the trash-drift that has accumulated in the corners gives you the impression that it's more from lack of maintenance than any desire to reduce the local light pollution), but you can read the room numbers well enough. Though you can hear the ambient sounds of the city around you--hovercars whirring overhead, wild city dogs barking, the thumping of bass in the distance--the motel itself is eerily quiet. Perhaps the residents can sense the threat of violence in the air. Or maybe business just isn't very good.

You find the room right at the corner of the building, overlooking the intersection of two alleys, and--your movements quick and practiced--prepare to break in.

The sound of a heavy blaster is unmistakable--like a giant, ripping cloth in its hands. Time seems to slow down for a second as a bolt hits the wall maybe three feet away from the room, leaving a sizzling hole in the plaster-and-particleboard construction. Then a second hits, slightly closer. Then a third.

Just down the alley from you is a face that you know well, at least from holos. A man with a pale complexion, his head shaved completely bald, with black tattoos running from a point on the back of his neck to completely encircle his eyes. He's wearing cargo pants and a ratty coat rather than the sleek bodysuit his dossier has him in, but there's no doubt in your mind.

Your target, Cho-Tyrek, is escaping on a hoverbike he has just recovered from underneath a tarp. A small figure is clutched on to his back--it's roughly the size and shape of a human child, but it's swaddled in a bulky cloth that makes it hard to discern any details, other than that it's holding on for dear life. With one hand, Cho is driving the hovercycle; with the other, he's laying down a trail of blaster fire that is about to become, from your perspective, worryingly accurate.

Things so rarely go according to plan.

From his rooftop perch, Ijin had been a bit too focused on the entry team to notice that the target had snuck out of an alternate exit. Thankfully, their target had opted for a loud, guns blazing getaway rather than simply slipping into the shadows. Ijin took aim for the wrist of Cho-Tyrek's gun hand and squeezed Finbl's trigger. The rifle barked like a faithful hound in response as it sent one of the darts Ijin had loaded into it towards the fleeing bounty. The dart contained a mixture of standard issue knockout drugs and powerful hallucinogenics. If its payload didn't knock him out immediately, Cho would still have to contend with driving while both drowsy and high.

The fire is almost a relief. Gone is the suffocating film of anticipation, torn away in an instant, in three instants as one—light and light and there’s the sound, late to the party but welcome all the same. Adrenaline fizzes in Silas’s fingertips. Good. Good, this is what they came here for. Quiet has its place, and it isn’t here. This was never going to be a stealth operation. That hope—that dread, really, privately—died when Cho-Tyrek fled the first system. Not a man who goes down without a fight. Or a few. Silas still has the blaster burns to prove it. Purely dermal at this point, but evidence enough that they can’t count on Cho’s recklessness to save them. The shots spin no wider than the bike’s sudden turn. Silas thanks his lucky stars he wasn’t leading the charge—perks of being a medic, he supposes. Coward.

Ducking behind a slump of garbage bags—this place must have terrible room service—he considers his options. The weight of his gun is reassuring enough, but there’s no way he’s hitting a target that far off, let alone a moving one. Does he jump down? No, no use trying to run after a hoverbike. He needs to be patient. Let the others do what they do best and make sure he’s fit to fix them up afterwards.

Right on cue, a dart whistles past. Nice to see Ijin as quick on the draw as always. Can’t tell if he met the mark from this angle, but it’ll be a hell of a leg up if he did. Nasty cocktail. He should know—it seemed damn near lethal when he first read the formula. Still, he supposes ‘near’ is what they need. He makes a mental note to thank Jackev again later.

Peeking around the makeshift cover, Silas can’t help but notice the mass on Cho’s back. Strange. He’s been far too evasive to have been travelling with a child, so what…?

The air crisped carbs crunched pleasantly in Molly’s mouth as she dexterously maneuvered the suey sticks to collect more from the colorful paper cartoon. The design was a golden dragon laid on in cheap holo-print that seemed to swim around the square cardboard like a particularly demented eel. It was a stock design used by almost every fast food vendor in the sector. She turned away from the battered hover truck, with its neon sign blazing ‘Authentic Oriental Cuisine’ in eye searing glory.

“See,” she said to Quintus, her voice smug even if a trifle distorted around a mouthful of the tangy, spicy, carbs. “Told you we had plenty of time to…” The comm beeped the alert and a moment later the sound of blaster fire whined across it with spiteful attenuation. Quintus arched his ‘I told you so’ eyebrow, Molly’s least favorite of his eyebrows. She dropped the carton but her Ur Bot, jokingly christened RU-0K, who was perched on her shoulder, snatched it and the sticks from the air and continued to feed Molly as she looked around in panic. She made a half hearted swipe but the bot continued to shovel noodles into her mouth. The quest for munchies had carried them six blocks from where they were notionally on watch, and now it looked like it had all dropped into the pot.

“ Ee nee wheals,” Molly sputtered, then spun back to the holofood truck, finally managing to get the offending Ur Bot to pause it’s force feeding if not drop it’s prize. Molly pulled open the cab and climbed in, cast her eyes back to the startled proprietor in his grease stained apron.

“Citizen… we need your truck,” she announced as Quintus piled into the cab and added his much more intimidating glare.

The civilian attempted to climb into the cab on the passenger's side, likely to retake the truck or protest, but an iron grip ripped the man from the step to the curb with a casual grace.

"You can bill the city," Quintus remarked loud enough for him to hear as Molly cranked the engines to life. He gave a sardonic smile for the lie, and they were already a dozen meters away before he even closed the door and settled into the seat. Molly had that look in her eyes, something Quintus had only just gotten used to. It meant despite the insane stunts that were about to be pulled, the worst you would lose would be your lunch. She was good; far better than she had any right to be. Luck or skill, it would run out someday, but Quintus liked taking chances.

He double checked the magazine on his heavy blaster, sliding the mag back in with practiced ease before rolling down the window. Wind buffeted their hair in a whirring torrent, Quintus holding onto the sturdy handhold as he planted his rump on the sill of the window, using the rear-view mirror as a makeshift stand to steady his aim. "Try to keep it steady!" He called to Molly, knowing she was prone to make wild turns at the drop of a hat. He closed one eye as they careened around a corner, this turn he expected, and as the gods had it, they came into line behind none other than Cho-Tyrek. He'd been a pain in their ass for too long.

Quintus approximated his shot, and fired.

Ijin, as it has so often been, your aim is true. The shot was well chosen and perfectly executed; the dart's blackened point penetrates Cho's wrist just an inch or so back from where it meets his hand, depositing its contents into the radial vein. He's a professional--though he flinches, he barely makes a sound at the impact. You think he probably does say something as he smacks the dart against the side of the bike, but through your scope you can only see the grimace of pain.

The move dislodges the dart before it can deliver its entire payload, but the damage is done.

Cho turns back in the seat, his eyes now focused forward. As he approaches the next intersection in the alley, you think you see the bike wobble.

Silas, from your perch on the second floor of the motel you have only a handful of moments to observe the small... thing clutched onto Cho's neck. Your time doing meatball surgery for the Hegemonic Marines left you with plenty of baggage, but it also gave you plenty of practice at judging someone's height and weight at a glance; you estimate that the figure is about four and a half feet tall. The bagginess of the clothes its wearing--perhaps chosen intentionally to hide as much of its body from onlookers as possible--makes it hard to tell what its build is, but if it were a human child, you'd estimate its age at somewhere between nine and twelve years old.

Oh, also--when Ijin's shot rings out, you see it twist its head about wildly, looking for the source of the sound, and from the middle of its visage you see a single optical unit, glowing with soft lavender light.

Molly, the vendor who seemed so happy to see you just a few minutes before is now watching you drive away in his livelihood, murder in his eyes.

Luckily, murder seems to be in no rush to occupy any other part of his body. Maybe your large, overmuscled companion has something to do with that, or maybe it's just your natural charm. Either way, he's apparently content to stand in the street, shouting invective at you and waving his cheap knife in the air.

Unluckily, in his haste to try and prevent the pair of you from carjacking his food truck, he has neglected basic kitchen safety. You really should turn off all the burners if you're going to leave the stove unattended, otherwise someone might steal your food truck and spill a pot full of hot oil on the stove, starting a small grease fire.

That... could be a problem.

Quintus, even perched on the window of a commercial vehicle being pushed far past its design specs (and we won't even mention its maintenance schedule), Molly has put you close enough to the target that missing him completely would be difficult. You line up your shot to hit the rear AG generator, but the bike wobbles unexpectedly and your heavy blaster instead takes off its back bumper. Cho loses control for a split second from the unexpected impact and goes into a side-on slide. The maneuver isn't the death sentence it would be in a wheeled vehicle, but the road is narrow and he just barely keeps from impacting the detritus on either end of the alley. Cho recovers after a beat and looks up to meet your eyes. The assassin's teeth are gritted, and his expression looks... concerned?

(And holy shit, his pupils are the size of dinner plates--that stuff Ijin hit him with must be pretty strong.)

Now it's his turn again, and the heavy blaster comes up; Cho fires a bolt at the front right tire of the noodle truck. At the same moment, he pins down the bike's throttle, shooting off down the alley intersection. He's clearly hoping that you and Molly will have to turn away from the oncoming blaster fire and therefore from him, giving him at least a slight lead.

Meanwhile, black, pungent smoke is starting to come out of the back of the truck.