Condor's task is to distract the guards, not the guards and Kheshig. XD
Anyway, my post is up. Pretty long, but I've got a sneaky feeling that my work hours are gonna be extended tomorrow, so decided to give @Genni and @Dragonite777 stuff they can actually work with rather than a senselessly long introduction to Kheshig.
No one bothered Kheshig during his preparation for the operation, and that suited him just fine. It was less distracting that way, allowing him to focus his attention fully on packing and sketching out a rough plan for his part. Detailed plans were never his strength, and he never liked them anyway. They left him too little room for improvisation, and imposed unnecessary restrictions on his actions. Operations were rarely ever straight-forward affairs; the ability to change a plan on the fly was itself an often over-looked advantage. It was written somewhere in the Art of War, Kheshig recalled, to be formless as the water when planning, and Kheshig was determined to be as formless as possible.
His task was simple, compared to the others. While Condor and Birdseed had to work their charm to distract any guards, all Kheshig had to do was just lie his way in to access the shop's electronic grid. With his legal line of work, getting his hands on an electrician's uniform had been child's play. He only had to ask around for any unwanted suits, with the excuse that he had outgrown his current one. That effectively made his job a rather literal walk in the park. He would waltz in, give some plausible excuse for his appearance, then proceed to covertly kill the shop's sight, voice and hearing.
Easy.
The open duffel bag on the floor in front of him contained what he needed. EMP charges to disable the cameras - and any unshielded electronics along with them - should he suddenly be required to work fast, resonator breach charges to bring down walls with minimal mess and noise should the need for a rapid exit be necessary and low-frequency, directed noise charges to just give his opponents splitting headaches should they get in the way of his team's getaway. Of course, he had included the tools of the trade for an electrician.
He walked across his bare, austere room towards his closet and carefully opened the doors. Now this was another reason why he preferred to be left alone when preparing, especially with this current team. As far as he knew, most of them were agents from the get-go, but Kheshig had began his career as a soldier, and old habits were very hard to break. He wanted to be able to fight his way out of the shop if it came to it, and while usually he would only be armed with a pistol and knife, this time he had the luxury of using a large duffel bag. Reaching into the closet, he pulled out an AS VAL assault rifle, his most prized possession. It had taken him a lot of trouble and dealings with unsavoury characters, as well as no small amount of money to get the thing into the UK, but it had been worth it.
Kheshig walked back to the duffel bag and gently laid the rifle on the ground. There was a reason he had hunted down this particular weapon, and it was not just because it was one of the few truly silent weapons in the world. The rifle could be disassembled and hidden in a purpose-built, lead-lined carrying case, perfect for Kheshig's needs. He took the weapon apart with practiced ease and placed the parts into the mid-sized carrying case, barely any larger than your standard business briefcase. The entire thing fitted nicely into the duffel bag.
He heard someone call out for him from the outside. "In here!" He shouted out, then quickly got to throwing on his attire. It was time they got the show on the road.
---
Several minutes later, Kheshig walked out of his quarters in his electrician's uniform. It was a pretty tight fit for him, but he preferred it that way; it made it harder for him to get snagged on any protruding objects. The duffel bag was slung across his back, not exactly stuffed to the brim but neither was it too empty. Perfect for someone playing the part of servicing a small shop's security system. While Condor and Birdseed had opted to use the vocal patches to mask their native accents, Kheshig had decided against it. It was far more suspicious for him, a Chinaman, to be speaking with a butchered accent than for him to speak with his semi-Cornwallish accent.
He wore a baseball cap low to obscure the top-half of his face, more for his own comfort than anything else. Showing his full face in public never did sit well with him, and this was not a job where he could use a face mask or anything of the sort. He exited the safehouse, squinting as his eyes were suddenly assaulted by the full-force of the sun's glare. Pulling the cap lower over his eyes, and walked over to the car and stopping in front of Condor and Birdseed. While he supposed that most men - or all men, he corrected with an inward grin - would have had their gazes lingering on the two women far longer than what was polite, Kheshig just gave the two of them a cursory glance. "The two of you are distracting, that is for sure." He said off-handedly as he threw his duffel bag into the backseat and took his place in the driver's seat.
"Strange, never heard of that vote. Sounds like a Chinese democracy to me. Many votes, but only one choice." He said dryly as he started up the engine and got the car moving. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small radio and pressed the transmit button to inform Angelo. "Callsign Kheshig is oscar mike. Break. Transporting callsign Condor and callsign Birdseed. Break. Will stop them no less than ten - I spell, tango, echo, november - blocks away from the target building, over."
The drive was a long one, but Kheshig had plenty to discuss with the two women. "As you heard, I will drop the two of you off a distance away from the flower shop. Safer that way, and the mid-afternoon crowd should cover your approach. Give me maybe twenty minutes to hide the vehicle and get around to the back. I will make sure I am heard when I enter. Once I am done, I will exit through the front door." He said, then glanced at the rear view mirror to look at whoever was seated behind. "That is what I hope will happen, but if things go south..."
He trailed off for a moment, his eyes returning to the seemingly unending road. If things indeed went south, there was very little that he could do that would not at the very least piss off Angelo, but there was little choice. "I will do what is needed to get us out, you have my word on that." He said, then glanced sideways at the person seated in the passenger seat. "Feel free to tune the radio to whatever you want. There is only so much talk we can have."
Anyway, I'll be tweaking Keshik (Or Kheshig, to stick with the traditional spelling) when I get back from work. Main thing would be to drop his stealth specialization and replace it with gadgetry, thereby implying that he's not really all that patient enough to go 'full stealth' on a mission, if I may use video game terminology here. He'll make his way to generator rooms or server farms unnoticed, but after he gets an EMP in place, he'll light the place up.
I'll also guess that just because he's not an expert or master at something doesn't mean that he's completely useless at it.
Name/Pseudonym: Alias - Everett Zhang Xian Jing; Codename - Kheshig; Real name - [REDACTED]
Gender: Male
Age: Late twenties, possibly early thirties
Appearance: Standing at 5'9, Everett is relatively tall for a Chinaman. Almost serious all the time, he looks like the sort of man who could claim to have never smiled or laughed without eliciting disbelief. He keeps his black hair as long as it is practical; too short, and it would be obvious that he was military. Too long and it would affect his other job. Thus, his fringe sits just above his eyebrow, and he purposely keeps it disheveled to give him a more 'civilian' look. His brown eyes seem to be always on the verge of closing, making him look bored or disinterested at best.
Agency: Ministry of State Security, People's Republic of China. Disavowed as per mission requirement following botched assassination attempt on [DATA EXPUNGED]
Back"story": Everett is a Chinese immigrant who has only recently moved to Cornwall in search of greener pastures. He earns a living as a freelance computer technician, and is known among the community as a hard-worker who always delivers and never smiles.
First mentioned by UK immigration authorities, later moved to Cornwall where he currently resides. Information prior to arrival scarce at best. Hints suggest military background, perhaps with Chinese Airborne, but difficult to confirm. Almost too difficult, amount of data expunged or redacted unusual for mere foot soldier.
Past: Before Everett was with the ministry, he was with the Second Department of Military Intelligence. Before he was with the department, he was a member of the elite PLA Special Operations Force. Before that, he was - as described by himself - a bastard in Heilongjiang with no education, no future and no life. Had he been born in the city rather than in a remote village, he would have perhaps fared better, but there was no place for a child born out of wedlock in rural China. Sure, he pulled his own weight, but even as a child he knew that he would never truly command respect from his peers.
Thus, it was little to surprise to anyone that he voluntarily joined the army as soon as he became of age. It had seemed like the best option for him at the time; no one would care about his background there, and even if anyone asked, he could make up whatever story he liked. Which officer would have the time to double-check the background of a single recruit hailing from a remote part of a remote region of a remote province? To everyone in his training unit, he was just another poor conscript who did not manage to evade the draft.
Soon enough, however, his determination to prove himself made him stand out among his peers. However, he never did show any aptitude in leading, and neither did he have the educational qualifications to become anything beyond an enlisted man. Sensing that it would be a waste for a person of Everett's caliber to become just another regular, rank-and-file soldier, he was sent for further training with the elite Special Operations Force. If he washed out, then his name would be among the dozens who would certainly suffer the same fate and would thus be no great loss to the army as a whole.
Everett's time in the SOF was spent between bettering himself - he never did have a trade beyond farming, after all - and taking part on highly dangerous raids against the rising East Turkestan Islamic Movement. It was during these raids that his unusually observant nature was noted. He noticed what most men did not, and identified clues and items of importance where most would write them off as just clutter. Coupled with his slowly-but-surely increasing aptitude with electronic devices and the like, it was only a matter of years before he was transferred to the Second Department to act as a SIGINT operative.
His new job required him to sit behind a desk more than being out in the field, and while Everett initially found it to be dreary job, he soon found a silver lining in the amount of free time he had been afforded. It allowed him to work on some of the more outlandish devices he had dreamed up during his training with the SOF. He started small, creating EMP devices no larger than a brick that could short out partially-shielded electronic grids, and eventually worked his way up to grenade-sized EMP charges that could either be thrown or attached like a block of C4.
It was by pure chance that he was transferred to the MSS. An agent had been burned for unknown reasons and they needed someone urgently to fill the gap left behind. With almost no family to speak of, and very little in the way of acquaintances outside of the military, Everett was chosen. This presented him the perfect opportunity to test out some of his weirder creations, ranging from a device that took down walls via resonant frequency to something with temporarily deafened people with a directed cone of low-frequency background noise. Coupled with his aptitude in hacking, his jobs were quickly characterized by the total collapse of his target's power grid followed by a rapid assault with his silenced rifle.
His time with the MSS came to an end when he was tasked with the targeted killing of [DATA EXPUNGED]. The mission went well initially, but ended in catastrophe when one of his timed EMP charges was late by a mere second. That one second resulted in him tripping an invisible alarm, which in turn led to him being discovered by his target's guards. [DATA EXPUNGED], Everett managed to escape with his objective complete, but his career shattered. The MSS had little choice but to brand him a rogue agent to mitigate the political fallout.
Thankfully for Everett, he had made plenty of friends during his years with the MSS. [REDACTED], a prominent businessman whose career Everett had saved during one of his data-mining missions, provided him with the materials necessary to forge a new life beyond China. Everett made his way to Cornwall, where he decided to stop for the time-being to regain his bearings and decide on his future.
By day, he works as a freelance computer technician, but still keeps himself occupied by taking on less-than-legal jobs that require his kind of expertise. Old thrills are hard to beat, after all.
Specialization: Everett's tactics only appear to be sophisticated simply because of the gadgets he uses, but beneath it all is a simple, brute-force, shock-and-awe strike that takes his target by absolute surprise. Though he never uses timed charges anymore, he can still manage to render his target blind, dumb and mute before going in for the kill with his silenced rifle. Master: Gadgetry Expert: Tech Savvy
Other:
Gadgeteer: There is nothing in the world that cannot be solved by a gadget, and there is no gadget that is beyond Everett's imagination or skill.
Moral Compass: Do not assume that Everett is amoral simply because of his work. What he did for the MSS, he did because he truly believed (and still does) that it was for the betterment of the state as a whole. As a freelance contractor, those who offer him jobs that he deems morally repugnant can very easily find themselves in his crosshairs.
Adaptive: While he cannot account for every scenario, he is adept enough to be able to change his plans on the fly to suit changing mission parameters. Sometimes he can even turn an unexpected hitch into a welcome advantage over his adversaries.
The Great Wall: Saying that Everett keeps to himself would be an understatement. Call it caution, call it paranoia, but the main point is that talking about his person is something Everett seldom does. Coaxing even the slightest of information of his life can be a challenge for the smoothest talker. While this works well for someone like Everett, it cuts both ways. A person who keeps everyone out keeps potential allies out as well.
I've been playing around with an idea that revolves around foreign troops occupying some country (Could be Altis and Stratis, for an ARMA 3 slant) in a peace enforcement/counter-insurgency operation. Less to do with huge, wide-scale military ops or even special operations (the troops would be the regular rank-and-file) and more to do with just getting by without getting blown up by an IED, mortared by insurgents and trying to win over the local population. Sort of like a slice-of-life RP with a military setting.
You could use the idea if you want. I'd start up an RP like this, but I don't have the time, and seeing as how I'm going on a course to be converted to regimental police *coughglorifiedsentrycough*, I'm probably not going to find the time in the near future to run anything.
"Someone else is still alive? Christ in heaven, I might actually start smiling again." Connor said as he gently lowered Risa to the floor, his happiness barely contained. It was still too early to tell whether or not this new survivor would last for any significant amount of time, but given everything Connor had just gone through, he was desperate for something to just lift his spirits. Though he desperately wanted to rush over to the new survivor to give them a quick one-over, he resisted the urge and stayed where he was to continue with his task. Risa was the top priority for now; she could still be saved, even if the chances were slim.
TamTam bounded up through the trapdoor back into the mess and called back down to someone she called 'Interlulz'. That could not be the other man's real name, it sounded much too ridiculous, even for people from the future, or people he assumed were from the future. Then, she addressed another person she called 'Smokie', and it took Connor more than a few moments to realize that that was his assigned nickname. "My name is Connor," He replied and shifted his attention back to the still form of Risa at his feet. Getting her up and through the door was going to be easier said than done, but he had to at least try.
With a grunt, he picked up the girl by the waist and slowly raised her up over his head. "Bloody hell," He said through gritted teeth as his arms slowly extended. "Take her, quick!" He shouted out. It was amazing how some of his fellow militiamen or even regular Shetlanders could make this maneuver look so effortless.
It came as a great relief to him when TamTam took her off his hands quite literally. "She's a heavy one." Connor said, gasping. Catching his breath, he quickly added with a grin, "Don't tell her that, if you would be as kind." This was certainly a turn-around from his previous demeanor. He was actually quipping and grinning again. Then again, Connor could not help but at the very least crack a slight smile when he looked at TamTam. Though he had initially found her odd to say the least, and a bit too over-energetic, he had to admit that her exuberance was both contagious and somewhat of a spirit-lifter.
However, now it was time for Connor to deal with the last of the people that had been trapped with him, and that was the girl behind the boiler. She had been silent ever since the appearance of the creature, and Connor did not just fear the worse, he had accepted it with much resignation. 'Interlulz' was probably seeing to Suichiro - Connor supposed that was the name of the man that had been trapped in the engine room as well - and that left Connor with the unenviable job of slowly pulling the other girl out from behind the boiler. The damned piece of machinery was heavy, but it stood on four stubby legs that allowed Connor to use some leverage to shift it slightly to one side.
He knelt beside the girl's body and placed two fingers to her neck, then two to the wrist, as he had seen countless physicians do. Disappointingly but not too surprisingly, he found no traces of a pulse. Perhaps she still lived, and it was simply because he was too unskilled to be able to find it, but Connor was not about to pin his hopes on that possibility. He let out a long sigh, closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly. How sad it must be, to die so far away from her home. "I know not what Gods you worship, but I hope you find peace." Connor said. He had never given last rites before - he barely practiced his religion, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
He stood up and walked over to 'Interlulz' with a grave look on his face. "The other one is gone," Connor said and squatted down beside Suichiro. The Asiatic certainly looked as if he had seen better days, but at least he was breathing and conscious. Little victories, Connor supposed. He looked to 'Interlulz'. "When you're ready, we should move him." He said, then looked back to Suichiro. "Unless you think you can walk under your own power?"
FourtyTwo