"This is a story about the betrayal of family members, who all have their own intention to catch Evie Berry. This scene is taking place on Trafalgar in Evie Berry's room. Involved people are Austin Goodman, James Arland, Evie, Jennifer, Amelia and Lily Berry."
Evie lets out a deep breath and stares at the only entrance inside the room. A simple, light wood door that could be easily opened with force. She looks at the pistol in her hand and sighed as she noticed that her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes and tried to distract herself with thoughts, but it didn't work. The room was rather small with a second door to the bathroom. It was a typical place to hide for pirates, but she surely wasn't one. She took the room merely not to be suspicious.
"I can't take this anymore. Waiting for my death is more terrible than the death itself." She said as she stands up to walk towards the bathroom. The door made a loud noise as she opened it and made a even louder noise when it was closed.
"Wonder if I should end it here and now. It would at least spare me the time I have to wait." She said to herself as she looked at her in the mirror. She shook her head and replied to herself. "That would be weak. You didn't get that far for nothing. Consider this your last fight. It doesn't matter if you die here or later."
Her hands finally stopped shaking and her face expression was filled with anger and courage. She was prepared for the end. For some reasons she managed to get rid of the fear and she was glad about that. It was making her crazy. With herself ready for the last fight, she opened the noisy door and sat back on the bed with her pistol pointing towards the door.
"Come now and this will be a hell of a fight." She said with her finger on the trigger.
Lily and Amelia met at the landing pad on Trafalgar and hugged each other as they reached at the meeting place. They were both nervous themselves and both knew that this could be their end, too.
"Are you sure your contact was trustworthy? What if he has set up a trap for us here?" Lily asked her with a raised finger, the other hand resting on the holster of her pistol.
Amelia looked at her and nodded lightly. "He is trustworthy. Don't worry about that. All we have to do now is to find her." She stopped for a moment and pointed towards the bar. "Go to the bartender and ask if she has seen Evie."
She looked around as Lily walked towards the bar and she noticed two ships that looked like ships from the Armed Forces. After seeing these ships she knew Evie wasn't alone. She rubbed her head and followed Lily towards the bar.
Just as Amelia arrived at the bar, Lily already turned around and faced her. "Well, that was easy. Room 101. It's right over there. Let's finish this as fast as possible."
Amelia raised a finger and shook her head. "She has company. Possibly two Armed Forces pilots. I can bet one of them is Goodman."
"And what now?" Lily replied as she looked over to the landing pad. "Why don't we set those ships on fire?"
"Distraction, huh? I don't think that would work. There are too many people there." Amelia replied, reaching out her hand to pick up a bottle and looked at her. "We will wait for now and see how this turns out. We will see when they leave Trafalgar and when that happens, then we can still strike them in space."
"I hope you are right. We are so close..." She sighed as she answered and walked towards the table to sit down. Amelia followed her with the bottle and sat down beside her. "Patience, Lily."
A few minutes had passed since he left the room that Evie was hiding in. Shaking his head lightly he walked towards the hanger, only to duck behind a stack of crates as two women, who hugged each other, came into view. From where he was located, he could easily recognize one of the women as an LSF Agent who went by the name 'Amelia,' and the other woman, he could only assume was Lily.
From his position behind the stacked crates, he observed the two until they walked into the bar where he lost line of sight. Having been on the run for a few years, he could only assume they took a position where they could easily observe people and ships coming and going. At least, if he was a spook, that's what he would do.
He opened his jacket slightly, and looked down at the holstered sidearm that he still carried, having given his emergency pistol to Evie in hopes that she could at least protect herself, should he fail at doing it. After a few minutes, his eyes landed on James Arland, the man who had an excellent marksmanship score.
During the entire... thing that Austin found himself in, he had been communicating through a series of microphone clicks between his earpiece and Arland's. Though the last thing Austin wanted to do now was blow his own advantage, and that was when he saw someone who had a similar hair style begin walking past him.
"Oi... mate, I need you to do something for me." Austin said, stepping out from his cover and lightly tapping the man on the shoulder, then smiling softly as the man turned around.
"What do you need?"
Austin pulled out his Armed Forces badge and held it up to the man. "I need you to take that Eagle, and fly it to Southampton. Don't worry, it's mine."
"Uh..." The man trailed off, looking at the badge, then at Austin, then at the Eagle, and back towards Austin.
"I'll pay you handsomely as well. How does... twelve million credits sound?"
"It... sounds perfectly fine." "Good, I'll also need you to wear this jacket." Austin stated, sliding out of his jacket, and handing it to the man, who looked at the jacket, and then at the holstered sidearm that had originally been concealed.
"Once you land on Southampton, take the jacket off and leave it on the ship. Oh, and I hope you know how to dodge, you might be shot at, though you'll be doing decent service to the crown, and any crimes you've committed should be waved." Austin stated, smiling softly again as the man took the jacket and put it on. Afterwards, Austin gave the man a pat on the back and shoved him in the direction of the Eagle. "Off you go."
***
The two women, who were positioned to see the various activities going on in the hanger, could see a man wearing a clearly marked Armed Forces jacket and blue slacks walk towards an Eagle that had been docked for what appeared to be sometime. The man looked around briefly, before getting in. Minutes later... the ship took off.
***
Austin sighed lightly, watching his ship take off. He silently prayed to the gods that they took the bait, and hoped that he wouldn't be focusing on hunting down a stolen ship after this was all over with. In the mean time, he stepped out of view of the corridor once more, returning to the position of which he thought he had a decent advantage, pulling his sidearm out from the holster.
He closed his eyes, sliding the magazine out and checking to see if it was loaded - thankfully, it was. Afterwards, he slid the magazine back in and pulled the slide back, loading a round into the chamber.
Once that was done, he brought his hand up to his earpiece, and spoke quietly, "Arland, the two women who hugged each other. Those are our targets. Hopefully, my little diversion will drag one or both of the women away, I want you to lay low and find a suitable position to set up your PDW, and I hope you brought a scope..."
Arland, wearing an insignia-free, largely featureless flight uniform, (which was Sabre policy just for the sake of extra deniability) had been leaning against a few stacked cargo crates in the docking area, discreetly observing unfolding events until Goodman's voice came through his earpiece.
He shifted upon hearing his instructions. He remembered the two women Austin had spoken of, he'd watched them head off to the bar. He licked his lips, thinking the scenario through from a tactical perspective.
The bar and the corridor leading to the room with the package - 101 - was not far apart, but the targets would have to cross a rather open area without any notable cover to reach it. He just had to find a good position to cover that area from, and check his fire in case Austin entered his sights.
Cold blue eyes swept the area for anything he could use as a firing position, preferably something out of sight and suitably elevated. He found something soon enough - a maintenance access ladder, out of sight from the bar, leading up to the trusses that held light fixtures and provided additional ceiling support.
He walked over to it, casual as can be and moving with the malignant grace that came so naturally to trained combatants, making sure to not expose himself unnecessarily to the targets' line of sight. Then, when he was confident enough that no eyes were on him, it was up the ladder.
He made good time on his climb, but the small bag in which he'd concealed his weapon and its assorted equipment and ammunition weighed him down, making him short of breath when he made it to the top and crept out on the trusses. Hidden in the shadows behind the light fixtures, he would be all but invisible.
He moved nimbly along the metal supports until he reached a good vantage point, with full view of both the entrance of the bar and the necessary distance the targets would have to traverse to get to room 101. He clocked the time it had taken to get into position unnoticed at about... Three minutes.
Good enough. If the targets couldn't wait to shadow someone for five, they were hardly professional, and Austin would be able to hand their arses to them gift-wrapped.
He opened his comlink to Goodman.
"Goodman, I'm in position, setting up to fire now. Give me an update."
As he spoke, he unzipped his bag and retrieved his firearm: An L18A1 PDW, or Personal Defense Weapon - Best described as a compact assault rifle, it was meant to be a light weapon used by pilots and vehicle crews to fight with if they had to abandon their vehicles or otherwise participate in regular firefights. It was a sleek, menacing design, complete with a retractable stock and an attachment rail system... Capable of firing its caseless high-velocity ammunition at an impressive 900-1000 rounds per minute, on its fully automatic setting. A very much traditional kind of weapon, but advances in ammunition composition allowed it to penetrate even modern body armour with enough effort.
The only problem was that it wasn't exactly a marksman weapon, but at this range - what, 50, maybe 60 metres? - Arland didn't need it to be.
Austin had told him to use a scope, though, so he would. He reached into the bag again and fished out an advanced combat optic, slotting it neatly onto the rifle before laying down on the metal beam and shouldering the weapon.
If the two women just waltzed into his field of view now, they would die, and that would be the end of that.
Amelia and Lily sat there on the table while drinking whatever was in the bottle. They didn't care as long as it was tasty. Both were sitting there, staring at each other and regularly taking a sip from the glass. After a while Lily reached out her hand towards Amelia's and patted it gently. Amelia returned a smile as respond and looked towards the hangar. She sharpened her eyes as if she has seen something, shook her head and stared back at the glass. She was about to take another sip when suddenly a message on her device arrived. Looking at the message she smiled lightly and looks at Lily again. "He made it. We can expect assistance from outside now."
Lily nodded and didn't appear to be impressed nor interested. She looked down at her glass and mumbled some inaudibly things.
"Say what? I didn't understand you." She replied and raised an eyebrow.
"What if there is another way inside the room? It would give us a huge advantage and they would surely not expect that." She said while rubbing her head. She threw the last bit from the glass down her throat and stood up. "I will ask the bartender. Maybe he does know more." She added and walked off towards the bartender.
Amelia sighed and nods as Lily walked off. "You go do that." She looked at Lily talking with the bartender and observed the area. Nothing suspicious. Few seconds later she stood up and looked in the direction to the hangar and observed it closely from the distance. When suddenly she noticed a man, wearing a marked Armed Forces jacket and blue slacks walking to one of the ships. Her eyes were wide opened, she was like hypnotized and stared at the man that was entering the ship. "Could it be...?" She asked quiet to herself, took out her device and wrote a message. "That should fix the problem. One less to worry about."
Suddenly Lily rushed to Amelia and poked her from behind. Amelia made a small jump as Lily poked her from behind. "Dear God, why do you have to scare me like that?!" She said with an angry tone.
"Sorry, Amy. But I have good news." She replied with a smile. "There is another way inside the room."
Amelia tilted her head and looked at her rather confused. "Are you kidding me? Do tell me already! How do we get inside there!"
Lily raised her hand. "There's an air duct that can be entered from various places."
"An air duct? Are you sure about that? And where can we enter it?" She replied, now even more confused.
"I am not trying to fool you, believe me. We can enter it wherever you want. I would advise to pick a room, one level above." She stopped and pointed towards the lift on the other side of the room. "Take the lift and enter the air duct from any room."
Amelia raised an eyebrow. "And what about you?"
"I am going to distract them to give you enough time to get Evie. Don't worry, I will be fine. Go now." Lily said while hugging her and pointed towards the lift. "Hurry now."
She returned the hug, sighed and walked towards the lift. As soon as she was there, she opened the door and walked inside it and pushed a few buttons. Lily looked after her and waited until she was gone. "Right, let's see." Lily said, looked around and walked a bit closer to the hangar. Making herself visible.
A man walked past her and she poked him from behind. The man turned around and looked confused at her. "Is there a specific reason as to why you have poked me?"
Lily looked closely at him and smirked lightly. "I need your help. I will pay you generously." She whispered in his ear.
"And what do you need help with?" The man answered.
"I need you to go check the hangar and the entrance to the room 101. Tell me if there are any suspicious people hiding there, waiting for something. Once you have done that you will get your payment." She explained to him.
The man nodded and walked towards the hangar, looking behind crates and ships.
***
Meanwhile Amelia reached the second floor and went to the first door, room 201. The door was of course locked and she pulled out a picklock to unlock the door. "Let's see if I am still good at that." She said to herself as she started to work on the lock. Minutes later the lock made a weird sound and it slowly opened. She sneaked inside and noticed a man standing near the bed, obviously reading something important. Surprisingly he didn't hear the lock. Slowly sneaking she went closer, pulled out her pistol and hit him on the head with the back of the gun. He fell immediately to the ground and lost the consciousness. Amelia sighed and walked towards the air duct, opened it by kicking against it and crawled inside.
From his position, Austin was quietly observing a man who made it blatantly obvious that he was checking for something or someone behind variety of different crates and ships, so he was ready when the man casually stepped around. Catching the man completely by surprise, Austin brought the handle of his sidearm up hard into the man's throat, then with his free hand, grabbed the man and yanked him behind the crates, straight into a wall.
Shortly after the had happened, Austin's earpiece crackled to life. "Goodman, I'm in position, setting up to fire now. Give me an update." Arland's voice crackled into his ear.
He let out a light sigh and looked at the man on the ground, before pressing his earpiece and replying in a hushed voice. "Cover might have been blown." He replied, leaning over of his cover just enough to see one of the women standing out in the open - though still near the bar, thankfully... she wasn't looking his way. "One of them is in the open, I'll take her. You keep your eyes peeled for the other. Mind you, the one I want you to look for is a Liberty agent, she knows what she's doing. So... take her leg out from under her, and... maybe an elbow."
With that said, he pointed the pistol in his hand directly at the ground, flipping the safety off as he counted silently to four. Once he reached four, he pushed his back off the crate and stepped out from cover, taking aim with his pistol at the woman standing next to the entrance of the bar, his finger resting just on the trigger.
"Lily Berry!" He shouted, pistol trained on her as he slowly approached her, "This is the Bretonian Armed Forces, you are under arrest. Put your hands where I can see them!"
In the corner of his eye, he could see a few people shouting about someone having a gun, while others began to panic - eventually the hanger fell into chaos.
Arland listened to the voice in his earpiece as he cradled his weapon, tensing as he gained a better grasp of the situation. He had no doubts that Austin would be able to handle the one mark, but where the blazes had the other one gone?!
The soldier wracked his mind for possibilities. If the spook wasn't in the bar, she hadn't used the entrance leading out into his field of fire... Which naturally meant must have used another route... But room 101 had only one entrance.
Unless...
He glanced up from his roost. Quite a few beams ahead of him, directly above the field he'd planned on covering, there was a ventilation grate, wide enough to fit a person into. Sudden and alarming like a stab wound, James felt realization dawn - he'd underestimated his mark, and there could be less than a minute until she'd bypassed him completely... And reached the package in 101.
Furious, he rose to his feet and raced across the beams with little regard for the alarming height which a misstep could easily cause him to tumble down, but rage and adrenaline caused him to disregard it.
When he reached the grate, he growled into his microphone.
"Austin, target is in the vent shafts, I repeat, the target is in the vents! I don't have time to climb down, and she'll just use the package as a hostage to make her way out if she gets to her first! I'm going to try and intercept her inside the vent system!"
As he spoke, he affixed a suppressor (to make sure he wouldn't deafen himself inside the confines of the ventilation system) onto his weapon, folded down its stock, and blew the rusty vent grate clean off with a few rounds.
Then, he clambered inside, keenly wishing he had brought a flashlight. He'd have to rely on sense of direction, hearing and touch inside the vent complex. If he remembered what he'd picked up from his days living on, and moving between varying stations in search of work correctly, most spaceborne facilities had a central chamber housing the main air-scrubbing and fan assemblies, into which all the varying shafts eventually converged.
If Amelia wanted to go down a level, unless she had intimate knowledge of the exact shaft layout, which he doubted, (he didn't, at any rate) then she would have to pass through that chamber, just like him.
That's where he hoped to intercept her, at any rate. Bumping into her in the dark of the shafts themselves would probably get very awkward and lethal for both parties involved. So James shuffled along, trying to keep his movements as quiet as possible, feeling out the path ahead with one hand and holding his compact weapon in the other. Finding the way to the central ventilation chamber would be easy enough, he just had to follow the direction the air currents came from...
Evie sighed and stood up as she suddenly heard screams and someone yelling Lily Berry. Upon hearing the name of her sister, she began again to shake. It was obvious that she was filled with fear and she could barely hold the pistol anymore. She slowly walked towards the door, pushed herself against it, her head placed so that she could listen with her left ear, but making it impossible to see the air duct. "I want to get out of here..." She said as the chaos broke out. She laid the pistol on a table that was right beside the door and reached for her pocket to take out the key. The noises began to get louder and louder. She sighed heavily and unlocked the door with the key.
***
Amelia finally reached the central ventilator chamber and stopped there for a moment and looked around to make sure where to go next. She took out her device and looked at it. "Let's hope this plan of the air duct I took moments before I entered it are still up to date." She said quietly and nodded as she found out where to go next. Before she continued the way she looked around again and just before she wanted to continue she has seen a dark figure in one of the air duct systems. The figure was still far away and it took her some time to realize that it was a person. "Damn..." She whispered quietly to herself and entered the air duct that led to room 101. She knew that someone was after her and so she crawled as fast as she could through the air duct without looking back.
As soon as she reached the end of the air duct, she looked behind her and saw the figure far behind her, still following. Sneaking in was out of question with someone getting closer each second, so she kicked against the air vent cover to remove it. Surprisingly enough it wasn't louder than the noise of the people that panic in the hangar. She entered the room and saw Evie near the door, unarmed.
Amelia slowly approached Evie with the pistol aimed at her as Evie opened the door. "Evie." She said with a blank expression on her face. Evie, totally surprised, jumped lightly and turned around, her hands shaking. "Amelia... w-why?" She said frightened while her eyes were focused on the pistol on the table.
"Don't even think of it." She said as she noticed her eyes looking at the pistol on the table. "You better do what I say. Now, go out of the room. One wrong move and I will shoot. Got it?" She said with a serious expression as she moved closer.
She nodded unwillingly. "But why would you shoot your own sister? What did I do wrong?"
Amelia noticed her hand slowly reaching for the pistol and shook her head. "Don't," She said and shot at the table, "Move already!"
Evie looked at her quite surprised, anxious and started to walk out of the room. Amelia followed her and picked up the pistol on the table before she left the room. "Lock the room." Amelia said when they left the room.
Hesitantly Evie nodded and locked the door as she suddenly felt the pistol being pressed against her back. Evie turned her head around and as Amelia pointed towards the hangar, both walked towards it. Once there, both have seen Austin and Lily, whereas Austin had a pistol aimed at her. "Lily..." Evie said with a sigh.
***
Lily was caught by surprise as suddenly a man came out of the covers. "You must be Austin Goodman," She said with a smirk, "Do you even have any idea what's really going on here? Did Evie tell you everything? I doubt it." She looked at the people who panic and giggles. "Look what you have done. You have made a mess. For what? For me? I am not the one who is going to pull the trigger, dear." She said when suddenly a shot was heard in another room. She looked at him and smirked. "You are too late. She is dead."
The very moment she said that, Amelia and Evie appeared. She looked at both of them. "What... Amelia, kill her! Now!" She shouted.
Amelia raised an eyebrow. "What? Why would I kill her? That was never our plan... my plan." She said with one pistol still at Evie's back and with the other aimed towards the door of room 101, as she knew that the other officer would arrive, which was just a matter of seconds.
"You bloody... You have to do everything on your own! You can't even rely on your own sister!" She shouted as she reached slowly for her pistol.
The same moment, Amelia whispered into Evie's ear. "Move to my ship, if you don't want this to end as a bloodshed."
Evie sighed and moved towards Amelia's ship, shortly followed by Amelia.
"Amelia, stay where you are!" Lily shouted and took out her pistol. "You will all die!"
Amelia looked over to Lily, shook her head, pushed Evie inside the ship and entered it herself. She started the engines and left the base together with Evie as hostage.
"Austin, target is in the vent shafts, I repeat, the target is in the vents! I don't have time to climb down, and she'll just use the package as a hostage to make her way out if she gets to her first! I'm going to try and intercept her inside the vent system!"
His earpiece had crackled to life once more, although he didn't exactly hear what was coming through. From the voice in his ear, to the various bystanders who were panicking, Austin had toned all of it out - including the words being spoken by the woman his pistol was trained on. His focus was only broken by the sudden sound of a sidearm discharging somewhere behind him. He could only assume it was from Room 101. Whether Evie was still alive or not, would be found out later.
That was also when he suddenly tuned into his surroundings.
"-re too late. She is dead." Austin heard her say, followed immediately by, "What... Amelia, kill her! Now!"
Austin let out a light sigh of relief upon hearing the dialogue exchange between the two sisters, then the one he had his pistol trained on pulled her sidearm, with it exposed, he had more than a legitimate reason to do what he did next, and it was exactly what he had planned on doing.
A deafening sound filled the immediate area, echoing throughout the hanger. This had caused multiple bystanders to drop to the floor in an attempt to stay out of the gunfire that was bound to happen.
The bullet had met it's target. Ripping through the woman's chest, narrowly missing the heart, and exiting cleanly through her back. After that, Austin watched the woman slowly drop to her knees with what looked to be a shocked expression - either not expecting him to open fire - or that she was actually hit. Once her body collapsed fully to the floor, Austin lowered his weapon and rushed over to her, kicking the pistol out of her hand and away from both of them as he holstered his. He reached down with his left hand to attempt to read her pulse - in the event that if she was still alive, she could be taken to the hospital, though he felt no signs of life.
When he looked up, he could see a Guardian beginning to leave the hanger, and in a futile attempt, he pulled his pistol and fired off two rounds. The bullets pinging harmlessly off the hull. He cursed under his breath, realizing that he couldn't give chase until Arland was done exploring the vent system.
Holstering the pistol once more, he looked down at the body next to him.
"May the gods find a place for your soul to rest, or be damned for eternity for the sins that have tarnished your life, and that of your families name." He muttered under his breath.
Not a moment later, Arland emerged from room 101, preceded by a short burst of gunshots. He'd apparently opted to blast open the door (who makes rooms that you can't unlock from the inside, anyway? Junkers, apparently.) and jogged up to Austin, nodding curtly and looking short on breath.
He gave Lily's dead body a cursory and dispassionate inspection, largely expressionless as he looked down at it. He didn't really have to look long to determine cause of death.
When he looked up, he spoke.
"...I'm sorry, man. I couldn't get to her in time, she was too fast. Bloody hell, I was almost right by her, but I couldn't target her quickly enough..."
He sighed, regaining his breath. He glanced back down at the body, this time with an expression of mild distaste.
"What a mess. Trail's still hot though."
He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, unsmiling, gesturing towards his own Guardian sitting quietly by itself in the hangar.
"We'd better leave. You will follow this up right? We don't leave our work half done."
Right after Amelia and Evie were inside the Guardian, Amelia activated the autopilot to navigate the ship out of the base. Amelia, still aiming with a pistol at Evie, turned around, pushed her down on the ground and tied her up. "I am just making sure you are not making an attempt to run again." She said as she turned around to go back to the cockpit.
"How can I run away when I am trapped inside your ship?" Evie replied and sighed.
As soon as Amelia reached the cockpit she looked out of it. The moment she looked out of the cockpit towards the hangar, she saw Austin shooting at Lily. She sighed and saw Lily slowly falling down on her knees and finally collapsed fully down to the floor. Amelia closed her eyes and sighed heavily.
"He shot down Lily, right? She deserved it and so do you!" Evie said with an angry tone.
Amelia shook her head when suddenly bullets were hitting the ship's hull. She looked once again out of the cockpit and saw Austin aiming with his gun at the ship. "This bloody idiot. Someone has to kill him."
"Hah, you are dead before that happens." Evie replied to Amelia's comment and tried to squirm around. "Get these ropes off me, please..."
Amelia typed some coordinates into the console and turned around. "Not yet, sis."
"Do you want to kill me?" She asked with a sigh.
"No." Amelia replied simply and short.
"Lily obviously wanted to kill me, though." Evie said with a disgusting expression on her face.
"Believe me when I say that I had no idea about Lily's intentions. I thought they were the same as mine." She said as she walked closer towards her.
Evie tried to crawl backwards, which turned out to be too difficult. "What are your intentions then?" She asked Amelia. Amelia stood infront of her, knelt down and put a tape on Evie's mouth. "Enough now. I need to think, without interruptions."
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