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RP [SHADES OF GREEN] SIDE A TRACK002: HARLEQUIN

SirSkully

SirSkully

🦾 FM of Nepleslia
🦊 FM of Neshaten
🎖️ Game Master
RP Date
YE 44.7
RP Location
Funky City
Day 2
Veilfire Tactical Superstore, Funky City

Any other week and the store would have been bustling with activity from various window shoppers and mercenaries looking to blow a decent chunk of their paycheck with Remy's wide assortment of gear, but as far as the general public was concerned the store was closed, supposedly for pest control- the hilarity wasn't lost on Remy.

It was around mid-morning when she assembled the motley crew once more, making sure they all had some form of accommodation when they'd split a few hours before sunrise actual, even offering to set up a cot or two in her store if needed. The store was drenched with the perfume of strong coffee, evidence of last night's feast piled up in a far corner of the building in a few trash bags Remy hadn't gotten rid of yet. Though her reaper-esque friend was nowhere to be seen Angrboda's spine-tingling presence could still be felt, watching somewhere from the shadows~

The greenette herself was wearing an oversized hoodie and emptying an energy drink down her gullet as she poured over a few screens that'd been set up on the counter, bags under her eyes telling everyone what was already fairly obvious. Though lack of sleep hadn't slowed her yet, projections of maps and timetables casting themselves over the walls, various markings and notations scrawled across everything.

"Welcome back everyone! feel free to help yourselves to the leftovers in the fridge or the coffee machine if you need a pick-me-up," Remy piped up, pulling her hair back into a messy bun as everyone started getting comfortable, or even took initiative to look over some of the info plastered around the room.

"The local undesirables are being... difficult and haven't gotten back to my contact yet, so there's a pin in that distraction for the time being, but for now I've managed to pin-point the contractors that were used to retrofit the safehouse. Desperado Solutions LLC? I've never heard of them before but they seem to be clean enough, even have a depot a few blocks away we'll be visiting," Remy began explaining, bringing their location up on one of the bigger projections for all to see, watermarks had been censored but to those in the know it looked like the bird's-eye image had been grabbed from a private satellite only a few hours ago. Running some modified version of some commonly distributed, open source operating system - a hodgepodge of copied and pasted elements the client must have requested.

The place was almost as fortified as an NPF station, with tall, sloped walls and airlocks for vehicles to no doubt be scanned as they passed through. Pretty overkill if the company only did construction work, but some of the info posted on other screens pointed to large-scale demolition jobs and being subcontracted by the navy to set up infrastructure in hostile areas.

"I've got a blank chassis for a shuttle matching one of the models they use ready to go, just needs finishing touches and the right IFF protocols. Plan is to get into their compound and skim a shuttle's systems to clone onto our own vehicle, also maybe nab some uniforms if we get the chance, but ideally the thought somebody was up to no good should never even cross their minds until after Mr Cahill has been dealt with. Luckily for us the NPF are conducting a surprise check there today to make sure their explosives are stored correctly, and someone owes me a favour."

"Myself, Mako, Victoria and Calico are going in dressed as officers - we'll make an entrance into the vehicle bay for the rest of you and try to draw their attention away, uniforms have already been sized from the scans some of you may have felt last night," Remy finished up, crushing the durandium can and half-heartedly tossing it off into the trash pile, taking a moment to stretch out her arms as more caffeine made its way through her bloodstream.

"Data-scraper should be in the drawer under that desk, Magnificent, use your own tools if you want but this one is pretty slim and equipped with a lunebaren storage medium compliments of Ms Vimschev's people. Oh and there's a handheld directional laser antenna in there too, it's pretty precise so you might want to co-ordinate that one with Vana - we've got two hours to do prep work and I'm sure you have more questions, fire away!"
 
Vana had opted to sleep on a cot at Remy's. It was one of the few perks about being deaf, she could sleep anywhere no matter how much noise was going on. Porky would wake her if anything happened. Even though she went to bed late, she was a quick sleeper, a trait she'd learned out on the field. Sleep was a luxury that you took full advantage of in the field.

Vana checked her weapons, which was the first thing she always did when waking up. The whole process took less than 30 seconds it was so automated. She the got herself a cup of coffee and a slice of the leftover pizza before joining Remy. She put on her translation glasses as Remy began to outline a plan. She was impressed with Remy's operation. She'd seen military operations run with less efficiency.

"I can sneak into almost anywhere." Vana said, a little too loud as usual. "Growing up, my brother and I used to sneak into places like this just to test our skills." She glanced down at Porky. "Porky might be a little bit harder to conceal. But I'm still game to sneak into where ever you need me. You're the boss."
 
"Valourous morning, Remy-bell!" Magnificent was the key opposite of Vana; Loud, boisterous, a stand-out with their too-bright-for-the-morning holographic-luminescent bright pink hair and the usual skin-tight bodysuit-leotard that left little to the imagination with old and worn duster over their form as their lithe form wrapped Remy in a tight embrace that belied the strength and restraint the foreign cyborg withheld if only enough to refrain from lifting Remy off the ground.

Lingering well beyond even the most enthusiastic of professional greetings Maggie allowed themselves to be pried off before the embrace could turn into groping as they turned on a pivot and arched their posture down to Vana at almost a ninety degree angle; Almost too far for any non-augmented mortal to perform without falling forwards as the epitome of all things enthusiasm, lust, and ignorance to personal space drooped to make eye contact with Vana, Maggies volumetric cherry-blossom hair mimicking perfectly the way it fell over their unnatural eyes even as they stared unblinking through the volumetrics at the significantly younger woman with a Cheshire grin.

"So we're to be joined at the hip then?" Maggie asked, unclear as towards Remy or Vana and in just a tone enough to make it uncertain if it was innuendo or not, though lost to tone the context was irrelevant.

Still staring, better than a foot from her face, Maggie stared untiringly into Vana's eyes with their own multi-pupil black-red orbs of unblinking onyx expectantly though not eluding as to what.
 
Calico didn't look ready to awake for anyone, cocooned in borrowed blankets on the sordid maroon visitor's couch. The chrome maiden slept like the dead other than the faint hiss of her mechanical auto-lungs, with nary the show of her chest rising to show that she was even alive.

It was not the conversation, but a very specific flavour of ♫breakbeat track♫ on the sound system that energized the doll's synthetic muscles, and dragged them back from the afterlife. Her smile grew, gleaming and pure hearted, and she broke from the shawls of fabric to begin throwing rhythmic shapes, as if last night's minor party had never ended. Red knitted sweater and baggy pyjama pants, skeletal metal feet clicking against the cold tile floor.

Impenetrable to discomfort or paranoia, she then made her coffee very slowly and obliviously, putting far too much sugar in.

"'Ello Remy, 'ello dog lady, 'ello my fellow ironbuns, how are you on this fine enlightenin' morn?~" The mood held, projecting an infectious positivity. "So we going ta do the ol' boostin' credentials by hand, eh? Pullin' whole cards, or doin' the ol' winging a scanner over the shuttle's transmission dish?..."

"...Do we need to, erm... Sneak any more kit inside?..."

A pause. A quick look left and right- Then Calico lifted up the front of her jumper to expose a long rectangular panel on her belly- Which she seemed a little embarrassed about, but was immediately distracted by the clattering sound of a paperback book falling to the ground.

"...Whoopsie, the 'Cannibals of Zaod'... Forgor that wuz in there... Ever read it? I like the bit with the lawnmower..."
 
Victoria's left-side ear lazily twisted back as the mention of her surname took the brief spotlight. The tail-wielding fox had come early and with extra coffee, no longer covered in the suit she'd worn and instead wearing what was clearly meant to be a work outfit - full leg khakis and a long-sleeved shirt - but was far too clean to be believable. She turned one-eighty to look at everyone once it was clear a fresh briefing had begun.

"Desperado sounds familiar. We may have contacted them before. I was not able to translate that meeting yet its name I know," the shortstack said in her half-broken Trade. She was thinking about something, but a shake of the mind dismissed that like of thinking entirely. "Your connections seem quite useful, Miss Belmont."

Remy was likely expecting her to put up some sort of front, but the language barrier would make things rough... Better get an extra cup of the black. No creamer this time, the bitterness gives a longer-lasting kick. Victoria's face scrunched up as she poured a fresh cup from the taxed coffee machine and downed it swiftly. The jolt of stimulation brought a question from the deep.

"Do we know where to look for credentials? Compound like that is going to be complex. Disguises help us until we leave our correct area, then we're in trouble."
 
Magnificent's best efforts to absorb Remy were initially met with little resistance and even a decent bit of the green-haired woman's weight being half-slumped back against her, but slowy Remy came to her senses and pulled herself free, taking a dangerously deep swig from her jet-black coffee. Debating crawling onto the soft depths of their diversity-hire-Daur's tail momentarily before bringing back some semblance of professionalism.

"So! the specific module we need to pull data from is usually located in left side of the pilot's footwell behind a hidden maintenance panel, nothing leads me to believe they've relocated it but keep your minds open, any of the tools in this store's workshop are free if you need them but please bring them back..." Remy explained and pleaded, the dense muscles of Ms Belmont's thighs could be seen dancing around in tandem as she strode across the space, gripping at the mug of inky ichor like it was her lifeline.

"The laser antenna in there should help you work digital wizardry on the camera systems, from what I managed to scrape on their protocols from visits almost everyone will have their eyes on me and my officers," she continued, gesturing to Calico, Victoria and Mako in kind.

"We'll get the back door open for you and, with any luck, you should be gone by the time we're done with the surprise inspection. You're free to use force if needed to keep yourselves hidden, just don't kill or maim anyone too bad, these guys are just impartial contractors from what I can tell so they've done nothing to deserve it. Need not punish the child for the sins of the father or something like that."

Remy rubbed at the bridge of her nose and reconsidered finding somewhere comfortable to collapse, maybe a combination of Calico's pillow-fort and the many coils of the Separa-Shan's tail? Top it all off with Magnificent's coat and the warmth of Pork sitting on her chest? It was too tempting~

"Anything goes wrong and we'll improvise within reason, canine units are common enough and from what I've heard Pork there is one hell of a soldier-dog, we should be fine, should being the operative word."
 
Staring at Belmonts Backside (Respectfully)

"So we, mercenaries that we are, are going to deceive a kinsman company in order to steal their identity so that mayhaps we can use the schadenfreude to..."
Maggie pouted, audibly with exaggerated harumph of dissatisfaction at the plan as they made their displeasure known.

"It is too complicated. You Nepleslians overcomplicate everything" The kuvexian cyborg squared their hips and crossed their arms as they turned from Vana to lock eyes to unnerving eyes with Remy. "It is foolhardy to attempt an assassination in one's own fortress filled with their own army."


"We need no 'If' codes, nor uniforms but for what you say we have already. You say we have a shuttle that needs them but not to make it fly or land; So you take your En-Pee-Eff and use it on the mark. You remove their access to escape through their own craft and flush this target from their fortress and into our midst.

If these are authorities he will neither obstruct you nor will he loiter and will seek the fastest avenue of egress assuming safety under paranoia and we eliminate him when he leaves his fortress with a minimal amount of security."

In their own way, Maggie tried to explain that there was no need to infiltrate as the aforementioned merc company if they could just land on the roof of the Marks building as cops and spook him into re-locating via the street level where they would have an opportunity to nab the target with the least amount of security as compared to stirring up a hornets' nest by taking him out in a fortress of his own men.
 
Remy's lips tightened and her bright-green eyes grew wider the longer Magnificent spoke. Looking from the outer-sector merc to the pile of crushed energy drink cans in the corner of her room, prompting the greenette to drop the half-drank can in her hand into a nearby bin.

"Fuck," Miss Belmont muttered, hands moving to rub at her over-tired eyes.

"Fuck shit fuck, what spy movie nonsense was I trying to get us to do? Thank you, Maggy... thank you for talking some sense into me~" the wide-hipped human continued, a messaging application's interface barely visible against her vibrant irises as the lady began multitasking.

"Posing as cops on a bit of industrial espionage is one thing, but I'm not quite about to go doing that on a raid, that and we don't have nearly enough uniforms. I'm not sure how fast the target's pissbolt... uh, escape craft is but I assume he has one, the shuttle I have gotten my hands on is more for heavy lifting than intercepting... I have a new plan." Remy started, the young woman's speech pattern speeding up as her body language grew more expressive.

"We'll set charges on the tunnel's exit as a precaution, and I'll get my guy to up-armour that shuttle's nose for us. But we'll smash through the second storey of the safehouse, nab or kill Mr Cahill in the ensuing chaos, and egress the way we came in with him in cuffs or his body on a slab - objections?" the head-honcho proposed to her group of goonies, reaching into another drawer to retrieve a silver autoinjector loaded up with some murky orange fluid interlaced with wispy tendrils of green and red.

"Whoever drives the shuttle gets a five-k DA bonus, bee-tee-dubs~"
 
Respectfully~

"I told you there would be merits in constructing a bomb!" Maggie beamed triumphantly before sliding back towards Vana as the designated ground team. The little bird would be more than ample for the shot at their target ground side while Magnificent planted some casual explosives and rejoined her.

"At. The. Hip." They emphasized each word, bumping Vanas' hips with their own at their earlier statement.

Crash a shuttle into a fortress and drive their target out the front while Maggie and Vana got to sit easy and shoot the metaphorical birds in a barrel as it was.

Doing a little hip-swaying left and right in anxious anticipation it was clear Magnificent was raring to go.
 
The planning phase
Going loud, then?

Victoria's rear-end-appendage swayed with a soft swish swish sound as she considered the counter-proposal. Magnificent did a good job pointing out the risks of something overcomplicated and reliant on sub-sub plans going well, but the idea of a brazen assault like this had the Daur a little on the nervous side. She pulled out a pad written in her native language, overviewing her actual objective here and the constraints she had. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, aggressive activities were on the list of what she was allowed to engage in.

Now starting to emote with her ears and tail as she thought to herself, Victoria's mind assessed the possibilities.

With an armored front the shuttle shouldn't kill the pilot, but injuries are still likely. The suit can get me some morphine if I need to just bolt, and the low gravity of this world should help me escape if I need to jump. The cyborg and robot could work too but one seems more the type to get in on the fake extraction and the other was hard to identify. Guess it's down to me.

Internal debate settled, the fomx perked up and focused on Remy. "I can fly the craft. No forgiveness for landing? I can escape after, too." The broken Trade was proving quite the nuisance to talk through, and the confused looks sent her way sent Victoria into a small spiel in her fast-paced talk again, the little tail and ear additions coming back with familiar fluency. She tried again, "Unfamiliar but I can learn. Need to learn anyways."
 
Vana read the plan through her glasses. Though she had at first been a little put off by Magnificent and her invasion of Vana's personal space, Vana had to admit that the cyborg's plan was a good one. Fast. Direct. And best of all, played to Vana's strength. Long range sniping. The strawberry-blond looked at the diagram Remy had up. She zoomed out slightly to show the surrounding buildings and area. There were several good sniping spots ranging from 1000 meters to well over 3000 meters. Well within Vana's range. Her record was 5.7km. And what a shot it had been.

Signing and speaking at almost normal volume Vana said, "There are several good sniping spots I could set up at that would give good field of view but also good cover for me to change positions after my first volley or to escape if need be. The 12.7mm round will easily penetrate and take out PA if hit in the right spot. If you have any Hi-explosive rounds I'm confident that I could even take his shuttle down."

When Magnificent hip bumped her Vana snorted but smiled. Even though the two were the same height, they cyborg had to have at least 150lbs on the sniper. Still, Vana returned the hip bump and said, "I. Guess. So."
 
Remy pulled her comfy pants down just enough to stab the autoinjector into one of the lass' over-ample glutes, while the bags under her eyes remained a fire was lit behind her green peepers, a few blood vessels seen splintering outwards into a red spiders web. Hidden only once she threw on a pair of round-framed sunglasses, small bits of mirrored text visible on their emerald lenses.

"Then it's settled. Vana, Victoria and I will go grab the shuttle, we'll park it out back and once everyone is geared up we'll roll out," Remy nodded, bringing an unmarked duffle bag up from behind the counter. The zip was slowly pulled back to reveal a series of transparent, hermatically sealed bags containing various shades of plastic explosives, along with a hodge-podge collection of techy components; pre-production samples of various communicators that'd be nearly impossible to trace back to them.

"The rest of you are free to mill about or give Magnificent some help, if she needs it, we'll be back in a few - if you two ladies will follow me?" Remy proposed with a little flourish of one wrist, leading the sniper and the Daur over to her glass-walled office, the same cubicle Angrboda had been hiding in just last night.

Early-Evening
Remy had provided Vana with a magazine of anti-materiel high-explosive incendiary/armour-piercing rounds from a tanky-looking safe in the back of her office, explaining them away as potent specialty rounds she'd hand-loaded to very precise tolerances, trying to close the safe up quickly so that Vana and Victoria's gaze didn't linger on the other items in there for too long. Some strange golden handgun of kuvvexian design, a bundle of Freespacer SSDs bound together with a hair-lackey, and three pre-loved 9mm projectiles bearing squashed mushroom tips - it was a strange but not inherently incriminating little collection of oddities.

The shuttle was as elegant as expected given the short time Remy's contact had been given to make the modifications, the hull being comprised of a series of bare-metal plates held together by skilful-but-rushed welds, with parts of the up-armoured front having obviously been sourced from what used to be a pair of side doors. The controls were oddly familiar for the fox-tailed foreigner, while not a perfect replica Remy's Delasaurian chop-shop-owner had managed to mimic the pilots seat of an Urename Skiff. As the Delasaurian explained, he'd been inspired by a series of leaks and forum posts from the playerbase of some vehicle-combat simulator, though it was better than teaching the fox a new control scheme.

After swinging back past the shop to get changed and pick up the others it was time to roll out, the team sticking to back alleys and lesser-used ship lanes as they trundled towards their target's inconspicuous fortress in a less-than-inconspicuous shuttle, avoiding security cameras and congested areas where possible. Vana was dropped off on her building of choice before the shuttle floated back down to ground level, dropping off Magnificent and Calico as Remy moved to half-hang out the side of the shuttle, now dressed in a sleek digicam BDU and a magazine-laden vest.

"Right," the boss started, pulling her hair back into a high ponytail as her voice was broadcasted through whatever communicators each hired gun was using.

"Vana, let us know when you're all set up, same with you Calico and Magnificent, the rest of us are going to get into position. I don't want any of you flaking on me once the lead starts flying," she continued, an underlying threat hiding behind Ms Belmont's honeyed tone, an M3-derivative carbine hanging across her torso.
 
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