"I'm so flattered you think so highly of me, Lantea," Sivus remarked, giving the asari both a nod and a smirk of appreciation. "But you're absolutely right. Infiltration is something of a skill of mine. Something to keep in mind!" That was for the others riding in the shuttle. If there were two things Sivus could be counted, they were his abilities with infiltration operations and lacking humility.
And a third was being reminded that the last time he was part of a team that he lost his entire unit, but he tries not to think about those dark days on Omega. Happier days with what was hopefully better information provided to them.
When the shuttle arrived, Sivus had secured his guns on his back and made sure all systems were at peak operation level before he stepped out. Walking with the rest of the team into the parking lot, while everyone might've been focused on Jorge meeting with some Asari, Sivus was looking elsewhere. With one ear, of course, he would at least hear what he needed to from the others, but he was closely observing the layout of the parking lot. Not counting where they came in from, he wanted to note every inch of the place as far as his eyes could see.
After that was done and they made their way to the villa, Sivus had a thought in the back of his mind that might've been vocalized had the mission taken priority and the team began discussing how to go about it. Sivus remained silent during this particular discourse. It was only when it came to the matters of mechs that he felt the need to offer his own two cents.
"We don't want to be seen or noticed, right? Then I think the most logical course would be to disable those mechs first. Ideally, we don't want those bastards making our job a bigger pain than it's looking like it is." Sivus let out a sigh, letting his gaze do a clockwise scan of the group. "Seems Key here has the right idea about scouting ahead. It's what I would suggest, anyway." He glanced at Lantea, "I mean you did say I was the expert here, did you not?" He smirked at her with a chuckle.
Okay, good now that is out of the way, Osum thought. At least one person is fine with his job. Or at least seems okay with him being a medic. Not sure of the others but, it should not be a problem in his experience bearing that one time with those batarians. Those fricking pricks and after getting rid of that angry memory. Osum was slightly nervous about Key's driving as they went to their destination. It is one thing that he is not used to being in traffic on the Citadel, and it is another thing when going as fast as was allowed. Combined, it made him uneasy, and he eagerly waited for them to finally arrive at the villa.
Once they had arrived, Osum was relieved and quickly got out of the shuttle. Curiously watched as a woman approached Jorge and give him a disc before departing as soon as she appeared. Must be someone helping them, Osum thought as he turned his attention to the rest as they were coming up with ideas for what to do. Osum was in the boat of disabling the mechs first. Prototype security mechs do not exactly sound like easy bots to take down, and he would rather not have to face them. That and with the mechs out of the way without firing a shot means less of a chance that his skills are needed. Something he is all for.
Speaking up, "Yeah, I say we go with disabling the mechs. These prototypes might pack a bigger punch than normal, and with them out of the picture, this will be an easier mission." It would be nice to be on a mission that is not a shoot first and shoot later. Like some of the missions he has been on. Hopefully, this will not be one and one that will go quietly. One can hope.
Personally, Liyah might have loved to spend all day bantering with brash asari maidens and telling all sorts of jokes about vorcha doctors. But she had directed her attention to the killer robots that they now knew were awaiting them inside Daezike's nerve center. Her new commander's intel had certainly dropped the ball, but for the most part she'd expect everyone to go in knowing that there would be home security for a big-shot accountant anyway. Verifying that security's existence was trivial. Dealing with it was going to be the trick.
Their turian had a slick, salesman-like quality to his confidence, the kind of guy who had honed his smooth talk bantering with squadmates and pushing his luck at Citadel bars. Liyah could recognize another bullshitter at a glance. But to question a turian's martial or infiltration skill would usually be a losing bet, and she found herself curious what exactly he could be capable of. It was better to find out what everybody in this brash group of assholes could do sooner, rather than later.
"The mechs will probably all be networked together to share combat data and alarms," she told Sivus. "Disabling them would work, or maybe even screwing with their IFFs if we're worried about anyone following us in through the open door. I might be able to help in that regard, but since we have a quarian babe--" she beamed at Key "--you might be in safer hands than mine when it comes to that little trick. She could cook something up for you to upload in her sleep, whatever we choose."
Jorge couldn't help but roll his eyes while his teammates were essentially complaining about his method of planning. He wasn't used to this kind of fieldwork. Hell, he'd prefer to be behind a desk and help the team that way. But, when the target does something unexpected, there isn't any time to plan. Fortunately for him, the group moved on to the mechs and seemed to agree that disabling the mechs first was the best move. Jorge also agreed.
"Alright, if we are planning on disabling the mechs, we need to split the group up into two. One will head for the security room and find a way to shut them off. But it'll have to be convincingly enough not to raise suspicion. While everyone else will sneak our way to Daezike's office and start searching the room." Jorge explained to the group while messing around with his omni-tool. "And our friend was able to provide us with the blueprints for the villa."
Jorge put away his omni-tool and glanced at both Key and Sivus, who offered their services to scout ahead. It was the correct choice since they were more proficient in infiltration than everyone else on the team. So, he nodded. "You two are right. So, you will be in command of the teams. Key, you will lead team one to the security room. Take Arthur and Lantea with you. And Sivus will take the rest of us to the office."
Eventually, the gate finally opened all the way, and Jorge turned to the entire group. "Okay, team, we have our objectives. If things do heat up, the objective always comes first—no matter what or who gets in our way. Kill or knock out, it doesn't matter to me. Just make sure that there isn't any evidence of our presence whatsoever. Understand?"
"Okay then, let's do this!"
Upon opening the file from your omni-tool, you are immediately greeted by the second-floor plans. Luckily, there is only the office and master bedroom and bathroom. A hallway balcony connects both rooms and overlooks the massive living room. For the office, it's a semi-circular room with large impressive windows providing a view of the nearby artificial lake. There isn't anything secretive about this room besides whatever's on the computers.
Downstairs, the living room is the first building you'd enter inside the villa. The first floor also has a kitchen, dining room, guest bathroom, and workout room. In the kitchen, underneath the counter island, lies a hidden passage to the panic room. The room also connects to the shuttle pad and security building. The shuttle pad is in the backyard allows the homeowner to park and store their shuttle safely. Two mechs are always guarding the back entrance.
Daezike convented the guest house into a security building years ago with the latest advantages in modern security. It houses the security monitors surveying the property along with the control center responsible for the prototype mechs. And lastly, the servant building allows servants to rest, eat, and change back into their civilian wear. Across from it is the ladder access to the roof in case of required repairs to the air conditioning. But it's usually locked and can only be unlocked with a code. And at least four mechs are stationed outside the security building when the security guards have left the lot.
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.”
"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."
"Understood, Key." Jorge signed to his team to move forth carefully towards the servant building. "We're making our way towards the office. See if you can help us out with the ladder access."
But before the second team was able to assemble near the building, a shuttle flew above them and started making its way towards the landing pad. Jorge didn't genuinely expect Daezike to return so quickly and immediately headed towards the gate. He pulled out his knife and used it to yank the code panel out of place. And while he started messing around with the wires, Jorge warned the other team. "Daezike has returned. I repeat, Daezike has returned. Download whatever's valuable and get to the shuttle. Then, when I give you a signal, come and get us fast. I have a crazy idea."
"I hope you've done a snatch and grab before." Jorge mumbled towards Sivus as the gate opened and turned to everyone else. "Alright, let's get up to the roof, and we will explain."
There wasn't much to say inside the shuttle. Daezike was still genuinely loyal to her boss even as his mental state vanished since the Council dismantled everything he had ever made. Fortunately, he still had power and influence. And it was up to her to ensure that Saren still had eyes in the Citadel and the pathetic Council. As soon as the shuttle landed, the security team exited out to ensure that the area was secured. Daezike rolled her eyes and quickly departed before the shuttle took off towards the garage below.
"Septidia, you and the guards are done for the day. Please leave me be and head back to the security room." Daezike ordered the head security without looking at her.
"But ma'am, we're required to-"
"I don't care. Do what I say, or you'll be back to sniffing red sand with the other low lives I've fired." Daezike didn't need to stare at her to get the message through. Picking up a datapad on the table beside the backdoor, the salarian resumed working as she made her way towards the office. Septidia and the other guards made their way towards the room without saying a word about what the boss brought up. And as for Daezike, she was too busy staring at the datapad to notice anything unusual.
There was so much that she missed due to the meeting, and it bothered Daezike intensely.
With the situation mostly under control and into the boring phase of 'watch the cameras and make sure no surprises happen' Key went snooping around into the files that the security room had. The vast majority of it was junk. Payrolls, schedules, new orders for the prototype mechs, a guard's secret stash of vids he had downloaded to watch while on duty (It had things like Across the Shanxi Divide. Terrible romance films, but there was no accounting for taste.), and other miscellaneous information.
Certainly useful if they were planning on a long term spying program here, but they weren't here to do that. She was about to give up and assume that all of the juicy bits of information would be kept in the target's personal office, when a name caught her eye. Hel'sasy T'kesava. She'd heard or read that name before. It was someone important. A little more digging and Key discovered why. T'kesava was the Executive Officer of the Customs Division of C-Sec. Not on par with the Executor, but someone with enough pull and power that any chance of her association with Saren would have to be looked into.
Before Key could fully dive into the file and exactly why the head of Customs was being mentioned, she recieved an alert from the security system. Daezike was back. More importantly, Daezike's security team was back. Right as Key saw that shuttle on the security screens, Jorge was in her ear, rapidly giving out orders. Key nodded, downloading anything that mentioned T'kesava and what other information that might be useful. " Grab the data and head to the shuttle, we'll be there soon." They would need a mild distraction to delay the security team. Something to prevent an armed detail of dubious morality seeing a human, a quarian, and an asari skulking around the manison that was under their protection. She activated the two mechs and sent them on an interecept path towards the security team. They wouldn't do much, just repeatedly and annoyingly ask for verification and get in the way of the team, but it should be more than enough to give herself, Arthur, and Lantea time to make their escape back to the shuttle.
As soon as the download finished and the mechs were on their way she whirled around to Arthur and Lantea. She spoke quickly as she began to lead the way back to the shuttle. "Target and her security detail are back. We need to leave quickly before they get back here and shoot us. Don't worry about the mechs, they're going to delay the security detail. Hopefully. Prototypes and all that. We're to make a break for the shuttle and then pick up the rest of the team once the signal is given. Judging from Jorge's tone things are gonna get a little bit crazy, so once we're in the shuttle I suppose it's weapons hot and all bets are off. Shame that we got such a shitty shuttle. Really wishing we'd gotten something with a little more omph, you know? Or at least armor.
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.
