Zolar climbed the back ladder to the roof of the building across the street from Zam’s brothel. He knew where the brothel was, but finding Correl would be a different matter. He reached the top and quickly sprinted to the ledge, getting into the prone position. He took out his stealth carbine, switching on the electronic scope and peering through it. Gorro had given him a description of the target through one of his cronies. Zolar’s scope scanned the brothel, looking through the crowd hoping to get a night’s respite from the worries of the world through a woman. The Gank sighed as he searched, he had no idea when this Correl would show up. That was the problem with on the go hits, no time to prepare. But it appeared luck was on his side, as a man fitting the description emerged from the building, flanked by what looked to be a hired gun. Zolar grinned as he wrapped his index finger around the trigger and he lined up his shot. Hopefully the fool wasn’t wearing any body armor.
PEW!
Kell had been watching the door the Pure hand member had been led into by the Twi’lek earlier, though he looked slightly different then when he had gone in. His eyes were red and his movements more exaggerated as an orange Twi’lek led him out. His hands were fumbling to put his credit chip away. “See you again next week, big boy.” The Twi’lek whore said in a sultry voice. Correl smiled lightly as he looked confusedly around for a moment for Kell. Having seen him come out he quickly chugged what was left of the water he had taken to drinking to help offset the alcohol from earlier. Kell grabbed his client by the shoulder tightly and put his helmet back on over his face quickly. Correl tried to manage out a “Hey” before Kell firmly grabbed his chest. Kell felt the plastoid plate sitting under his shirt and felt better about it.
“This… isn’t… my first pod race before… ya know.” Correl said in a half slur and rather slowly. He was clearly high on something but he had a feeling it wasn’t spice. But it seemed as if he had enough sense on him to put the body armor back on before coming out.
“Alright, we’re moving out the same way we came in. If I drag you around don’t fight me, you're clearly not in a state to run very quickly. I haven’t seen any unusual suspects here yet so we should have a clear shot out. Let’s go.” The Pure hand member just softly smiled and nodded his head to the directions. Kell lifted his left hand to the back of the man’s neck and started moving him towards the door. Before letting him pass through the threshold though he put Correl’s hood back up over his head to help partially cover his face. Kell opened the door for them and took a second to look out the front door to make sure there were no immediate threats. He quickly tagged all the gang members he could find outside the door with his HUD and paused for a moment to look back. Putting his right hand back inside his cloak and on his DC-17m he propped the door open with his shoulder and walked outside. Immediately Correl was hit.
Correl was luckily hit in the chest plate but it knocked him out and threw him backwards. Luckily Kell was able to pull him towards himself and grab underneath his arm pit for a quick grab. He used his free right hand to pull up his blaster rifle in front of him as he dragged the unconscious man quickly to his right and behind a piece of cover. Though the cover happened to be an oversized trash can it was something. He put Correl in lap and swapped his sniper attachment to his rifle quickly. Correl was safe for the moment but he needed to return fire or else he was risking a grenade taking them both out. Kell swore to himself as he peeked his head up over the top of the metal trash can to check the roofs. The only reason he felt the need to check the roofs first was due to the fact that a bunch of people were running around in the streets so there was little threat of a bolt getting through the impromptu meat shield.
Zolar swore to himself as he saw Correl and his guard scramble behind cover. Blasted little rat. He switched to thermal on his mask, but soon realized that wouldn’t do him any good. The place was crawling with people and many of the lights in the street emitted heat. He growled as he switched off his thermal. This is why you plan a hit, he scolded himself. If you had planned this, you would have brought armor piercing rounds you idiot. Zolar scanned as people scrambled out of the way and he saw the guard’s helmet, something reminiscent of the clones of the republic. He squeezed the trigger, sending another round towards the brothel, heading directly for the head of Correl’s bodyguard.
The sniper round impacted the top of his helmet and immediately dropped his shields. While he didn’t have time to actually check he guessed that it probably ricocheted and left a nasty scorch mark. He now had a massive headache but he got something invaluable out of that stunt. He knew where the sniper was now. He quickly looked to his client who was starting to cough roughly as he woke up and he prepared to move him. Kell popped up over the cover again but this time exposing more of his body as he had his rifle brought to bear. While he didn’t have time to be careful with his shots he knew roughly where the shots came from. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could in that direction which spent his ammo cartridge and then he grabbed Correl by the back of his collar and made a beeline down the street behind a speeder.
While it was a logical leap he was still hoping that the angle he was at would not be in the sniper’s line of sight. He set Correl up against the speeder and pulled his ammo cartridge out of the right side of his weapon and slapped another one in the left side. Putting the spent one in the place the new one had come from on his chest. He poked his head out now that his shields had recharged and spotted another speeder he could move to. Deciding quickly on the maneuver he grabbed Correl with his left hand again and trying to half pick him half drag him with the free arm he began sprinting across the street with his cargo, he ducked low so as to use some of the civilians as cover moved quickly towards him.
Zolar swore as he saw the guard dragging Correl behind a speeder. It was out of his line of sight. He got to a crouch and quickly moved along the rooftop, a flurry of blaster shots came towards him and he hit the ground, feeling their heat on his back as they barely missed him. Zolar crawled behind a large vent and got back up, peeking out to see the pair hurrying behind another speeder. He fired off a quick shot from his stealth carbine, which hit the speeder’s headlight and exploded in a shower of sparks. This guy was better than most. The Gank dropped to one knee and peered through his scope. The speeder provided good cover, to those who didn’t know where the tank was. Zolar scanned the speeder for the energy cap. He found it, luckily the speeder was parked to where it was facing him. He took aim and fired, the bolt slamming into the energy tank. An explosion would soon follow.
When a bolt struck the speeder’s headlight Kell took it as a retaliatory shot, not necessarily accurate but still forced him into cover. But the second shot landed in an unfortunate spot. He had barely a second to react to the speeder’s reactor exploding. He slid his gun into his chest bandolier having no time to do much else and with both hands grabbed Correl and put himself between the speeder and his client. He pumped his legs as hard as he could towards the side of the street the assassin was shooting from. Mid jump the speeder went up and propelled him further into a side alley on the same side as the shooter. Even through his armor he could feel the heat from the explosion that made his stomach turn over.
Kell choked back the vomit that the pressure wave had almost given him and pulled out his rifle again. This time he pulled off the sniper attachment and pulled out his anti-armor attachment. Though he wasn’t facing armor an explosion was an explosion. He leaned quickly out into the sidewalk from the alley while he squeezed off the grenade from his weapon at the building he had shot at previously. While he aimed high he doubted it would actually hit the roof the shooter was on but it should atleast cause the ground to come out from him. At this point he was trying to disengage, killing was going to be a hard thing unless this assassin slipped up somehow. He swapped off his grenade launcher attachment and switched it back to blaster mode while also throwing the now semi-lucid Correl over his shoulder while he booked it down the alley. He cut right into another tiny alley but this one had a load of people at shops lining either side of the alley.
He pushed and shoved his way through the crowd with the functionally unconscious man slung over his shoulder yelling at people to move.
Zolar scrambled backwards as a grenade hit the building, shaking the foundations and sending Zolar toppling to the ground. Fuck! He got to his feet and peered through his scope again, seeing the bodyguard fleeing with Correl slung over his shoulder. Zolar squeezed off another round, it went soaring towards Correl, but a bystander was hit instead. The passerby’s neck exploded and he was sent toppling to the ground. The Gank growled audibly as he kept scanning for them, but by this time they were lost to 3030. Zolar activated his comm and reported in. “Target got away, had someone competent guarding him. Tell the boss I’ll be a little later than usual.” He got to his feet and looked around once more, before making his way to the ladder he came up on.
Kell did a quick double take behind him as he rounded another corner into more crowded alley shops, all of which were incredibly brightly lit. Confident for the moment that he had lost the pursuer he put Correl back on the ground on his feet. The man barely stood on his own considering the drugs and the shot he had just taken. Kell grabbed his face and manipulated it in his hands for a moment to get a good look at his eyes. His pupils were dilated and he was blinking rapidly. “What in the galaxy did you take?” He muttered softly to himself, just barely loud enough for his helmet to pick up and transmit. Unresponsive but still able to move somewhat he negotiated his way over to a stall that was selling water in some sort of hard plastic container. Grabbing the container and moving away from the stall before the vendor noticed he had just been stolen from he poured half the water onto Correl’s face. The man suddenly became more alive but was still obviously out of it.
“Hey, you gotta wake up. We’re out, whatever you took and that concussion didn’t mix well. I need you to drink this water while I work out a way back to the speeder. Understand?” Kell said in a very commanding tone to the barely conscious man. Correl noded barely able to keep his head up by himself. He put his left arm under the man to help him stand and he figured it looked less suspicious than picking him up again. Kell quickly checked himself as his client began drinking the procured water. Most of his cloak had been burned up in the chase, it also happened part of his armor had been scorched. But there was also blood on the cloak on his right side, it was green so it definitely wasn’t his. He figured he had to work for his credits atleast once in awhile, usually though his job was prevention, not direct combat.
As they made their way back to the speeder Kell was working out the math in his head about what this little adventure was gonna cost his client. He could probably charge him an inordinate amount of money and get out of dealing with the Pures anymore but he did have to admit, a lot of people hated these guys, that means they’re willing to pay a premium for him. He just hoped that if he kept picking up contracts for these guys he wouldn’t get blacklisted with the other gangs. He would have to talk to his contact in the Sirens later and see what his status was with them. Putting that thought aside Kell finally came upon the speeder and stuffed Correl in the passenger seat while he went around to his pack. He rummaged around for his bacta spray for a moment before grasping the familiar tube of life saving substance.
Moving back around to the other side of the speeder Kell ripped open Correl’s shirt by the blaster bolt and quickly undid his body armor. The blood had adhered to the plate that saved his life so he had to take some more of the man’s skin while he went to work. It was a pretty standard burn wound for a blaster, should heal in a day or two with bacta. Though he probably had a broken rib or two aswell. While he applied the bacta to his chest right where his heart was Kell thought back to the clone wars. He realized how much easier every trooper being the same made treating wounds for the medic’s. He cracked a smile under his helmet for a brief moment. Ain’t no army like a clone army.
Kell zipped the Pure Hands Syndicate lieutenant’s armor back up and made his way back around to the speeders pilot seat. As he felt the satisfying vibration of the speeder Kell felt about his work, he had completed his duty in face of dynamic odds. That was all he could ask for.