Ask Death as Business

[Arla]

Per my new OP template, thread is death enabled​

Cato Neimoidia was a world that Arla had never visited before, and if it weren't for the fact that a contract had gone out to Apex and the other Guilds, maybe she never would have.

Tarz Quarn - as she had discovered the man's name was - was wanted for the assassination of a member of Czerka. Or perhaps assassination was too strong of a word. One of the executives had been killed and robbed and Quarn had fled the Corporate Sector and headed to Cato Neimoidia. Arla had tracked him down through blood and sweat, and now she was closing in on him.

She would have thought that the target would have been hiding out in a tiny apartment in the slums, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Tarz had taken up in a penthouse apartment - apparently pulling down a decent sum from his robbery/murder - and it occurred to Arla that there may have been more going on here.

An assassination, after all? she wondered to herself. Made to look like a robbery? It was hard to say, but if it was a professional hit then it was a sloppy one.

The sun had begun to set in the distance, and Arla's attention was once again drawn to how weird it was to stand on a city that was upside down. This was... just wrong. An affront to nature with its artificial gravity and all of that. She shook her head and rolled her eyes, continuing to sit on the bench out front of the apartment and simply wait while she munched on some of her veggie snacks. She could feel in the pit of her stomach that something was going to happen soon, but what she wasn't sure.

 

[Damien Pierce]

For Damien, this visit to Cato Neimoidia would be a first as well, but an experience he immediately felt familiar with. Every planet he has visited has turned out to all consist of the same universal equation that he could always provide an answer for. Someone needed to die, and someone was willing to pay whatever price to achieve that. This was no different, despite the unique bridge cities and ornate high-rises that the mandalorian flew in between.

The target was a man named Tarz Quarn, a corporate head who had pissed off the wrong people. Not only had a contract gone out to Apex and the guilds, but an open one had been placed on the man's back too. Usually, Damien sticks away from Guild or Apex businesses, not wanting to deal with the complications of competitors, but the pay was too good to pass up.

Fortunately for him, because of his lack of affiliation with the Orgs and the precious position that Tarz was in, it left him in an excellent position that he exploited. His target was in need of protection, and there was no better option for that than the reputable and storied Mandalorians, leading to a meeting between the two of them. If there was one thing he was grateful about his people, it was that their reputation easily brought them work. As Damien entered the wealthier sector of the city, unimpressed and ignoring the lavish nature, his trajectory lined up directly with the penthouse, the location provided willingly by his target.

A few moments after Arla felt that sensation in her stomach, she would be able to see the mandalorian spearing through the air and right to their target's place. There was an elongated balcony that ran around the entire outside perimeter of the penthouse, Damien swinging his legs underneath to slow down and land upon it in a slight crouch. As he slowly stood to his full height, two guards would approach him, both equipped with blaster rifles, as they gave him an inspection. Tension immediately blossomed, mostly from the pair as they fidgeted slightly compared to his stoic and metal exterior.

After a few long and dragged out seconds, one of them eventually reached into their pocket and pulled out a comm-piece. He lifted it to his mouth before speaking into it with a hushed tone, "He's here." Damien would stare at them as he waited, giving a small tilt to his head, quite surprised with how well it worked out for him so far.

 

[Arla]

Arla stuck a carrot in her mouth and crunched down on it hard, as she watched a Mandalorian fly in to make a landing. Her paths had crossed with the Mandalorians before, but they had never seemed like the particularly open type. In a lot of ways, they seemed like Nightsisters: warrior culture, secretive, with their own religion and rules they clung to heavily. Of course, they lacked the shamanism of the Nightsisters, but of course they did. That was a special relationship to Dathomir.

What she did know was that they were dangerous and not to be underestimated. Professional soldiers and not some street thugs who were just there to look scary like the guys out front.

Her finger tapped on the bench as she popped a piece of celery into her mouth with another crunch, chewing and pondering.

This will make things more interesting, she thought to herself, pushing to her feet and walking around the exterior of the building to check the other exits. She'd seen video footage of her mother shooting herself and Preef Callo out the window of a skyscraper many years ago. She supposed that could be an exit route for herself. A last resort.

For now, she headed into one of the adjacent buildings to gain a line of site on her assassin and his new bodyguard.

---​

Inside the apartment building, Tarz was tapping a foot impatiently. He had had his cover blown and would have to relocate under a new name and identity. His backers in the Cato Neimoidian government had apparently seen fit to hire an outside contractor for additional security as well.

Not that Tarz needed it. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, and the numerous hidden weapons strewn across his penthouse and his own person were testament to that.

He's here, he heard over the intercom and Tarz grunted.

Yeah, send him up, the man said to the guards down front. Incompetent show guards. If someone actually came for him, he doubted the people downstairs would be any use anyway.

 

[Damien Pierce]

Damien was able to hear Tarz's response and couldn't help but smirk underneath his helmet. The annoyed tone was obvious, and he couldn't fault the man for it. Fortunately for him, in a certain sense, it would be the last time he would ever have to deal with this annoyance again. The guards would shift slightly before stepping to the side, allowing the Mando to step past and toward the balcony door.

Damien entered the lavish and comfortable space, the only disturbance to the serenity being the heavy thud of his metallic footsteps. If Tarz was on the run, nobody would have been able to tell with the wealthy and modern aesthetic that he lived in; the place was spacious, with all the rooms blended into one, if it weren't for a few lone walls. There was a black spiral staircase in the middle of the first floor, leading up to the second in what the Mando could only guess was Tarz's whole private level.

The whole display of wealth made Damien uncomfortable. He always thought of such places as a waste of credits, especially when they could be used to maintain or purchase new equipment. In truth, he just knew environments like these were what slowly made someone soft, and that's what got people killed in this line of work. Damien's critiques were interrupted by the sound of footsteps, Tarz slowly making his way down the stairs as he laid eyes upon the Mando. "Shit, you're bigger than I thought," he commented as he scanned the mercenary.

When he reached the base of the stairs, he peered at Damien for a handful of moments, thinking to himself before scanning the nearby windows. After a brief second, he just gave a shrug of his shoulders before gesturing with his head to follow, "Let's go to my office." As he led the way, Damien followed behind and took stock of his surroundings once more, noting the guards that took up the corners of the penthouse.

 

[Arla]

Arla was glad that her trip to the upper floor of the adjacent building had gone without difficulty and she made one final run over her gear. Her fingers ran over the ever-present hunting knife and the freshly crafted lightsaber she had constructed. Perhaps it was an opportunity to exorcise some of her anger and frustration. She could take the head off of this assassin and be done with it.

Her pulled the saber hilt from her belt and held it in her hand as she focused on the Shadow around her. She dove into its current and let it carry her, visualizing the balcony of the penthouse in her mind, and letting the energy carry her up to the area where she appeared once again in a puff of green fire.

She moved quickly, not having been spotted yet by the idiots downstairs and appearing from the side of the office. She triggered the outer door and stepped inside, but the Shadow wasn't on her side today.

The turbolift door dinged, and out stepped a pair of the thugs from downstairs. She was all curses as the saber burst to life in her hand, and she lunged forward. Her free hand sent a concussion bolt into the man on the left and her saber cleaved cleanly through the one on the right.

Unfortunately, that all happened after a trio of blaster shots had been fired and missed. Well, everyone in the penthouse would have heard that, which meant stealth was out the window.

 

[Damien Pierce]

Surrounded and in unknown surroundings, the circumstances would have been nerve-wracking for anyone, but Damien had been in worse. It was one of the reasons he decided to become a mercenary in the first place. The wars his old clan had participated in typically brought bloodshed on untold levels, and he had been in quite a few sticky situations when he had been a young "crusader".

Before their little entourage reached the office, the sound of blaster bolts echoed, and everyone but Damien dropped to a knee or onto the floor. The mandalorian stared right at the direction where the shooting came from, with only a handful of options as to who it was, or less. Apex or hunters. Fuck, he thought to himself, he hadn't been fast enough, and it was about to be clusterfuck because of that. All the guards that had been in the corners before quickly got up and made their way to the shooting, with only two staying by Tarz.

Speaking of Tarz, he turned to face Damien before shouting, "What the fuck are you waiting for?! Go handle it!" The mandalorian brought his visor back on the man and thought to himself for the briefest of seconds. His answer was relatively simple and straightforward he realized, fuck it.

Without warning, Damien shot his left arm forward and fired his whipcord, the wire wrapping around and restraining Tarz while he still thought the two were on the same terms. His hand then went to his blaster pistol to quickdraw as he fired multiple bolts toward the two guards still remaining. Unfortunately, Tarz was still somewhat in the way, disrupting his aim and allowing the bolts to soar past the guards while they dove for cover.

Needing to move fast, Damien yanked on the wire to put Tarz on his ass with a grunt. He activated his jetpack and took to the air, not to fly out but to get them to the second level, firing as he did so to keep the guards pinned. When he landed on his feet and Tarz on the ground beside him, he severed the connection between them before kicking the man into the corner and out of the way. "Don't move," he ordered before reloading his blaster.