Approximately a kilometer out from the homestead, the terrain flattened, providing the mercenaries with a clear view of their target. Huddled up behind a particularly large rock, the team waited.

"Assault should start any second," Blue growled as he stared out across the arid plain at the walled mansion complex. Amber lay prone on the ground, sniper rifle before her, adjusting the scope. Maroon sat cross-legged in the dirt, eyes closed. Beige knelt beside him, carefully prodding at the redhead's strangely floating hair. Olivia stepped up beside Blue. Day was slowly turning into dusk as the sun gradually descended towards the western horizon. Long shadows crept out from the many rocks and brushes that littered the terrain between their position and the estate.

"Reminds me of that job on Sprague," Olivia whispered. Blue grunted an agreement. "Smugglers. War profiteers." She spat the words.

"Yeah," Blue muttered. "Good thing we liberated those supplies." He chuckled softly.

"We certainly put them to better use," Olivia replied, laughing quietly.

Some light banter put her mind at ease. She had spent the entire trek up their current position worrying about the mission. About the assault team going up against insurmountable odds. About the risk involved with their small team infiltrating the fortified compound. About what she might have to do to get Pedro where she wanted. Now, however, it was too late to second guess herself. Everyone was in position, committed to the operation. The only direction they could go now was forward.

Their earpieces briefly sputtered with static, then cleared up.

"Team two is a go."

It was Cyan's confidant voice. Olivia nodded to herself. Behind her, Maroon and Beige jumped to their feet and crept closer to the boulder, glancing out over it. From the east, the faint staccato of gunfire made its way to their ears, interjected by the deeper booming of explosives. Teal and Sage were wasting no time getting involved in the assault on the mining village. Across the plain, in the dimming sunlight, movement erupted within the compound. Orders were barked and engines revved as Pedro's men boarded their speeders, launching over the walls and towards the distant battle.

"See him?" Olivia whispered at Amber as the woman peered through her rifle's scope.

"Hard to identify anyone in this light," she replied. "Wait."

She reached up and adjusted the magnification.

"Yeah, he's taking off. Open-top speeder, looking angry. Got no shot."

Olivia nodded.

"That's fine."

She glanced around at the three men beside her.

"Let's go."

The four of them darted from rock to rock, keeping to the lengthening shadows as the last light of Crete's sun faded away behind the horizon. Ahead of them, the estate quieted down as the last few speeders took off towards the village, loaded with heavily armed, angry Cretans. Olivia hoped that the assault team would be able to keep them busy long enough for their part of the operation to be completed.

Keeping an eye on the compound's walls, Olivia, Blue, Beige, and Maroon approached. With merely fifty meters to go, a figure suddenly appeared atop the rampart, a black silhouette against the flood lights that illuminated the interior grounds. The mercenaries froze, hoping to blend into the darkness around them. The guard moved left to right, seemingly unaware of the infiltrators. Olivia could make out the flash of a lighter and the faint orange glimmer of a cigarette. The man came to a stop, in- and exhaling the light grey smoke.

There was a quiet snap, like the distant cracking of a whip, and the dark figure of the guardsman collapsed out of sight behind the wall, the still glowing butt of his cigarette falling to the ground outside the estate. Amber wasn't taking any chances.

"Good shot," Olivia whispered. Then she nodded her head towards the wall and the team resumed their silent approach.

Scaling the walls, the four mercenaries glanced around the inside of the compound. At its center stood the luxurious mansion that Pedro called his home. Around it were a number of squat buildings, serving as barracks for his company of guards and garages for their speeders. Flood lights stood in each corner of the roughly square fortification, illuminating the grounds within as though it were brightest day, the small structures casting hard four-way shadows. Here and there, a few left-behind guards wandered the estate, clearly bored and disappointed not to be participating in the firefight off in the distance.

"Maroon," Olivia tapped the mercenary on the shoulder. "You make sure none of these guys enter the mansion before we do." Wordlessly, the red-haired man nodded, before dropping from the wall onto the ground below, disappearing into the shadows.

"You two stick with me," Olivia whispered to Blue and Beige.

"Yes, ma'am," Beige replied with a quiet chuckle.

Together, they dropped down. The terrain inside the compound was the complete opposite of the landscape outside. Lush grass covered the entire estate, brightly colored bushes and small trees dotting the open areas between buildings. With the grass muffling their footfalls and the flora providing shade and cover, the three of them quickly made their way towards the villa, staying out of sight of the occasional security patrol. Nearing the main entrance, Olivia could make out the bodies of slain guards, haphazardly tucked away into bushes and behind garages. Maroon was at work.

Two particularly bulky Cretans stood on an elevated terrace, flanking the large double doors that led into the manor. Sticking to what shadows they could find, Olivia, Blue, and Beige split up, she approaching from the left, the two men taking the right. Posting up at the bottom of the short flight of stairs that led up to the entrance, just out of sight, Olivia glanced up at the guards and carefully drew her sidearm from its holster.

"Amber, do you have eyes on the main entrance?" She whispered into her earpiece.

"Stand by," came the instant response.

A minute passed. Olivia looked over at her two comrades, huddled up against the mansion's exterior on the other side of the stairs. Their eyes flitted around anxiously, looking out for any patrols that might happen upon them.

"Any time now," Olivia muttered.

"Stop whining," Amber replied coldly.

Suddenly, the doorman on the left dropped to his knees, clutching at a gaping hole that had appeared out of nowhere in his chest. Then his head whipped back as blood and brain matter spattered across the wooden doors behind him. His lifeless body collapsed to the marble floor. The other guard jumped, his face contorting in surprise and shock at the sight of his partner's sudden death. It then exploded as a third sniper round pierced his skull, effectively decapitating him.

Not wasting a second, Olivia, Blue, and Beige leapt out from the shadows and up the stairs. Blue produced a shotgun from within his heavy coat, braced it against his hip, and fired several shells at the door. The wood splintered, cascading like confetti into the villa's lobby. The deafening blasts seemed to rattle the entire compound, shouts erupting across the estate. With a final pull of the trigger, the doors exploded inwards, falling from their hinges onto the marble parquet with a cacophonous clatter.

Beige laughed, drawing his trusty handcannon from its holster.

"This is where the fun begins!" He guffawed and ran into the villa, casually sinking two bullets into the chest of a surprised guard running down the large stairs that dominated the center of the lobby.

Olivia and Blue exchanged annoyed glances and hurried after him.

The few guards that confusedly rushed down the main stairs into the foyer were easily dispatched by Blue's coatborne arsenal. Half a dozen bodies littered the stairs, pools of blood soaking into the already red carpet.

"We'll hold the entrance," Blue barked as he turned toward the destroyed doors, readying his weaponry for the inevitable onrush of hired security. "Go do what you've gotta do."

Olivia nodded as she reloaded her sidearm.

"Don't forget-," she started.

"Yeah, yeah," Beige interjected, kicking a body to make sure it was dead, "we'll let Pedro through." He turned and grinned a malicious grin. Self-righteous murder was what he felt most comfortable with.

With bounding steps, Olivia leapt up the stairs to the second floor and turned left down a long hallway, remembering the blueprint she had obtained from a black market informant on Leon Station.

Behind her she could hear the stomping of heavy boots. Instinctively, she dropped to the floor. A volley of energy bolts shot through the space her torso had occupied a split second earlier, impacting a marble wall at the far end of the corridor. Molten rock showered the floor. Olivia jumped back to her feet, turning to face her assailants. Three armed men charged at her, mere meters separating them.

Two raised their blasters, ready to burn her to a crisp. But they were too slow. A spray of bullets tore into their bodies, sending them sprawling onto their backs, their lives leaking out of them onto the parquet. The third one, however, was unfazed and leapt at Olivia. She attempted to spin to the side, only for the guard's shoulder to crash into her abdomen, sending them both to the ground.

Pain shot through Olivia's stomach as she scrambled to her feet, spinning to face her opponent. He was already up, reaching out for her gun and getting a hold of the barrel, yanking it out of her hand.

"Shit," Olivia spat and reached for the knife on her left thigh.

Too slow.

The Cretan trained the pistol on her head and smiled. Olivia closed her eyes as his finger tightened around the trigger, but there was no deafening discharge. No pain. And most certainly no death. Instead, there was only a wet gurgling and the splatter of liquid onto polished stone. Cautiously, Olivia opened her eyes again. The man still stood before her, his gun-arm now dangling limply at his side. Blood ran down the front of his body from where a blade protruded from his throat. It retracted with a sickening slurp and the now lifeless body collapsed to the side, revealing a shorter, black-clad man with blood-red hair standing behind.

Maroon whipped his short sword at the floor, flinging blood and viscera off the blade.

"That was close," he said matter-of-factly. Olivia exhaled slowly, relieved.

"Yeah, sure was."

She knelt beside the corpse and collected her sidearm.

"Thanks," she muttered, glancing up. But Maroon was already gone.

Getting back to her feet, Olivia stepped over the Cretan corpse and hurried on down the hallway. She could hear shouts and gunfire coming from the lobby and hoped that Blue and Beige had the situation under control.

Static sputtered through her earpiece before a distorted voice made it through, the signal being interfered with by the thick villa walls.

"Sable, you've got incoming. They're pulling back."

Olivia couldn't make out whose voice it was, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that Pedro and his men had been informed about the attack on his mansion and were returning to defend it.

Jogging down the route she had memorized from the schematics, Olivia turned a corner and came face to face with a surprised guard. Too close for her to aim her pistol, Olivia instead drew her knife from it sheath, jabbing it into the man's abdomen. With a yelp, he staggered back, clutching at the deep cut in his guts. Olivia took a step back, raised her gun and put a round cleanly into his heart. The Cretan collapsed without another sound.

Behind him, however, stood two more.

"Oh," Olivia said. Ducking back around the corner she had turned, she fired off several more shots, forcing the two guards to duck to the floor. With the last discharge, her pistol gave off a faint click, indicating that its magazine was empty.

"Shit."

Reaching into her armored vest, Olivia produced a spare magazine, ejecting the spent one and fumbling to insert the fresh mag. Before she could slide it into the pistol's grip, one of the guards rounded the corner on her, short-barreled scattergun in hand. Down the hallway the men had come from, there was the sound of glass shattering to the floor and the man's head whipped to the side as if struck by an invisible fist. Blood gushing across the walls from a hole in his temple, he fell to the floor. A second later, Olivia could make out the sound of the second guard crumpling to the marble as well.

Keeping her back to the wall, she cautiously glanced around the corner. Blood pooled underneath the now prone guard's head. At the end of the hallway, shards of glass littered the parquet, two bullet holes punched through the window above.

"Get a move on," Amber's voice came through Olivia's earpiece. Olivia obeyed and continued down the corridor.

A minute later, she stood before a large, wooden door, a wreath of pink flowers hung to it from a nail. Outside, she could hear the sound of speeder cars approaching the estate. Taking a deep breath and holding her sidearm at the ready, Olivia pushed at the door. It slowly swung open.

The room was dark, only the light from the hallway casting any illumination into it. Through the windows on the far wall, Olivia could see that the sun had fully set. Cautiously, she stepped over the threshold. The floor was covered in a plush carpet, muting her footsteps. Glancing around, she could make out colorful wallpaper covered in paper drawings. The pictures looked like animals, or at least a child's interpretation thereof. In the far corner to the right stood a large canopy bed, translucent drapes hanging from its posters. A pile of blankets lay atop the mattress, haphazardly bunched together.

In the faint light, Olivia could make out just the slightest movement under the sheets. Slowly, she approached, aiming her pistol at the bed. Coming to its side, she reached out with her left hand, grabbed the blankets, and threw them to the floor.

Energy bolts and tracer rounds crisscrossed through the air, illuminating the small village houses in blue and red light. The staccato of gunfire and booming of explosives echoed through the hills and ravines of the countryside. Shouting and screaming pierced the deafening cacophony of battle.

Pedro stood atop the village elder's house at the center of the settlement, observing the skirmish from a safe distance. The initial attack had easily overwhelmed the few guards that supervised the village and its nearby mining operation. When he, however, had arrived with reinforcements, the attackers were quickly repelled to the outskirts of the settlement. There, outnumbered and outgunned, they had dug in.

It didn't make sense to him. Whoever the invaders were, they had shown no interest in actually claiming the village or the mines. Holding their ground at the edge of the settlement, neither advancing nor retreating seemed to be on their minds. It seemed as if they were satisfied with just keeping his forces occupied...

"Sir!"

One of Pedro's lieutenants came running up the stairs to the house's rooftop, panting.

"Sir! The alarm at your estate has been raised!"

Pedro's eyebrows shot up.

"It's under attack!"

Of course.

Without a word, Pedro shoved his lieutenant aside and stormed down the steps to his nearby speeder. His subordinate followed him, shouting orders at nearby men to board their vehicles and return to the mansion. Angrily, Pedro leapt into his air car's driver's seat and gunned it out of the village, back the way he had come mere minutes ago.

Even over the whine of his speeder's engine, he could hear the gunfire coming from his estate. Descending over the surrounding walls, he could make out bodies strewn over the lush grass and smoke billowing from the villa's main entrance. More crashing than landing, the car settled down on the lawn and Pedro jumped out, hurrying towards his home. A Cretan caught up to and ran beside him.

"Sir, it's a small group, no more than four or five."

Pedro didn't slow down.

"Then how the hell," he barked angrily, "did they make it past your men?"

The Corsair visibly shrunk together at the scolding. He knew better than to come up with any excuses.

"One of the attackers was seen heading towards the living quarters."

This stopped Pedro dead in his tracks. His eyes widened and a series of curses exploded from his mouth. He spun onto the man beside him, grabbing the heavy pistol he was carrying.

"Secure my god damn home!" He shouted furiously and charged through the shattered double doors into the mansion. The Corsair and his men, jumping out of their speeders as they landed on the grass, hurried after him.

The foyer was chaos. Bodies littered the marble floor, smoke and dust filled the air. Behind upturned furniture, guards took cover, peeking over to shoot across the lobby at an indistinguishable enemy. Bullets and bolts of energy crossed the hall in return. Pedro didn't have time for this, his troops would deal with it.

Charging through the mayhem, he bounded up the central stairs, clambering over the corpses that lay strewn over the steps. At the top, he nearly tripped over a trio of dead men, their blood splattering his suit. He ran, stepping through shards of blasted stone and broken windowpanes. Finally, he came upon a large, wooden door, a wreath of pink flowers hung to it from a nail. It stood slightly ajar, no light shining out from the open slit.

"Sofia?" Pedro called out, breathing hard. "Sofia, it's Papá."

Silence.

Carefully, he pushed at the door. It swung open quietly. He stepped forward, sidearm swaying from side to side.

"Darling?"

"Papá!" The voice of a little girl pierced the quiet. Two figures stepped into the rectangle of light being cast into the room from the lit hallway. Pedro raised his gun, then froze. It was his beloved daughter. Held at gunpoint by Olivia.

Olivia's grip on the girl's shoulder tightened. It shook in her hand as Pedro's daughter sobbed in fear and confusion.

Finally.

Finally, she was face to face again with Pedro. They stood across from each other, his pistol aimed squarely at her head, hers pressed firmly into Sofia's temple. The father's face was pale, his eyes wide.

"Drop the gun," Olivia growled. Sofia squirmed before her. "Drop it before my finger slips."

Pedro breathed hard.

"Leave my daughter out of this," he said, feigning confidence. Whether it was to his daughter's benefit or his own, Olivia couldn't tell.

"Just do as you're told," she replied.

The girl whimpered. Pedro glanced down at her. A slight smile formed on his face.

"Hey, darling," he spoke softly, trying to sound reassuring. "Everything'll be alright. Papá will keep you safe." His eyes darted back up to meet Olivia's hard gaze. She could make out the feint glimmer of desperation in his eyes.

"Please, let her go," he pleaded. It sounded sincere.

Damn you, Olivia thought. Of course the bastard chose this moment to display some level of humanity, of decency. The man she had wanted dead for years, the man who had turned her life into a living hell of stress and guilt. He was a thief. A torturer. A murderer. And he had turned her and the other Colors into the same. Olivia wouldn't have been surprised if he turned out to be the devil himself. But now, with his daughter's life on the line, he showed compassion. Concern for another human being, not just for himself. For a moment, Olivia's determination wavered.

She glanced down at the little girl before her, tears running down the child's face. Olivia had come here to kill Pedro. But in doing so, she would orphan an innocent girl, leaving her to her own devices as the sole inheritor to a vast fortune on a planet inhabited by greedy cutthroats and murderers. If her father died, she would be helpless. Olivia looked back up at the man across from her.

Killing him would end one nightmare, only to begin another.

The look of desperation spread across his face.

Too late.

"Drop the gun," Olivia repeated grimly.

Pedro's shoulders slumped in resignation. The pistol fell to the carpeted floor with a quiet thud. Olivia lowered her own handgun and bent over, bringing her face close to the girl's.

"Go on, Sofia. Go to your papá."

She let go of the child's shoulder. Sobbing, Sofia ran to her father, throwing her arms around his waist and burying her face in his suit. Pedro embraced her tightly, keeping his eyes locked with Olivia's.

"Sshh, it's okay," he whispered, stroking his daughter's hair. A tear of relief ran down his face.

"I'm scared," Sofia sobbed.

Her father sighed.

"I know," he answered. "But you'll be okay. Now," he knelt down, coming face to face with his child, "I want you to go to my office. Just down the hall, si? Wait in my office while I take care of this." He stroked her face, wiping the tears off her cheeks. "Can you do that for me, Sofia?"

The girl suppressed another sob and nodded bravely.

"Good," Pedro smiled at her. Then softly, "Now go."

Sofia let go of her father and slowly walked to the door. On the threshold, she stopped and turned around to face him. Pedro still knelt on the carpet, a warm smile on his face.

"Go on."

The girl sniffed and walked down the hallway, out of sight. A moment later, Olivia could hear the office door open and close. Pedro sighed and straightened up, facing her. His expression was one of sadness, of resignation.

"She's my little darling," he whispered. Olivia only nodded, raising her pistol at him. "I know how much you want this," Pedro continued, ignoring the barrel now trained on his face. "Thank you for not making her see it."

"Sure," Olivia muttered. A weak smile formed on the man's face. Was it hope? Olivia wondered.

"She's strong," Pedro said with renewed pride. "She'll be fine without-"

The deafening blast of the gunshot silenced him. Pedro's body fell backwards, collapsing to the floor. Blood oozed from the bullet wound in his forehead, soaking into the carpet. His smile faded.

Olivia stood over the body, gazing down at the pale, bloodied face of the man she had killed. It was over. Pedro was dead and she was free. No longer would she have to spend her days looking over her shoulder, in fear of the man stepping out from the shadows with a new ploy to entangle her in. No longer would the lives of her family be at risk.

She was supposed to be happy, Olivia thought. Instead, she felt... What? What did she feel?

Exhausted. Like she had spent years carrying a heavy burden only to have finally dropped it from her shoulders.

Olivia knelt down beside the corpse and wiped her fingers over Pedro's face, closing his eyes. For his daughter's sake, she would grant him at least that last dignity.

The crackling of static in her earpiece interrupted her thoughts.

"Sable!" It was Beige's voice. "I hope you're just about done up there, because we're about to be all kinds of fucked! " The roar of gunfire supplanted his shouts.

Olivia got to her feet and strode out of the room, leaving Pedro behind.

"Beige, Blue," she barked into the comms channel, "get to the landing pad. Maroon, can you secure-"

"Already done," Maroon's calm voice interjected. Olivia broke into a run down the hallways, heading for the southern exit and the mansion's landing field beyond. The fresh night air was filled with the sound of shouting and gunfire. She hurried to the illuminated pad, a sporty private shuttle parked on it. Maroon stood before it, surrounded by half a dozen bodies, their blood coalescing into one big pool. He nodded at her as she approached, keeping his submachine gun trained at the villa behind her as she clambered up the access ramp into the shuttle's cockpit.

"Where are you?" She spoke into her earpiece, flicking switches and igniting the craft's engines.

"Almost there!" Beige shouted back into her hear. The door Olivia had exited the mansion through erupted into smoke, fire, and splintered wood, and out came Beige and Blue, wildly firing their weapons behind them. They were covered in bruises, blood, and soot, but looked very much alive. Maroon fired bursts past them, showering their pursuers as they piled out into the yard. Cretans went down, struck by bullets and tripping over each other. Bolts of energy splashed over the shuttle's hull as the guards returned fire at the fleeing mercenaries.

"Come on, come on," Olivia muttered through gritted teeth, retracting the shuttle's landing gear. The ramp dug a deep groove into the lawn as she turned the craft to face the house. With the flick of a switch, two energy blasters protruded from the craft's nose. Olivia pulled the flight stick's trigger. The villa's facade erupted as bolts of plasma blasted into it, showering the grass with molten rock and dust. The Cretans scattered.

Blue and Beige bounded up the ramp into the passenger compartment, followed by Maroon, calmly firing off a few last bursts as the ramp retracted after him. The shuttle took off, rocketing into the starlit sky. A few tracers followed them, disappearing into the dark.

Olivia glanced out through the canopy at the countryside below them. In the distance, near the ground, she could make out their dropship, its engine plumes lighting up the rocky terrain beneath it. It accelerated skyward, following the small shuttle.

Blue stepped into the cockpit and rested one bloodied hand on Olivia's shoulder.

"It's done?"

Olivia nodded. Blue gave her shoulder a soft pat and returned to the compartment.

Outside, the stars brightened as Crete's atmosphere receded around them. Olivia set a course out of the system and engaged the autopilot.

All she wanted now was to rest. To sleep and not be woken by a nightmare.






//End.