[Citadel] The Mixed Front

She snorted, disbeleving. There were many, many people who simply ignored her.

Kayana at leat stayed quiet through the stakeout-though she figeted. A couple times she nudged him with her foot, to point out a man who came out to meet the couriers, who could clearly tell the duct rats and dealers what to do.

Feeling the drell's foot against his side, Snow turned to look at the gathering that caught Kayana's attention. The red hood seeing the very thing that alerted the mouthy drell, a group of duct rats recieving marching orders from a LTE foot soldier, probably in charge of that particular section. The red hood watched the thug at work, giving the couriers their marching orders, collecting the daily take, and administering a clout to a duct rat who didn't meet the quota or was holding out. Snow's eyes narrowing as the LTE goon finished, the duct rats scattering as the dealer began to head down the thoroughfare.

"Let's move", whispering to Kayana, Snow waited for the LTE ganger to create some distance before exiting the hiding spot, the duo trailing the thug, hoping to find Derek's safehouse...

Kayana was off in a different direction, staying up on rooftops and emergency escapes. They followed him for a block or two-he was obviously checking up on their side businesses, because he kept stopping and talking and stepping inside buildings-until he finally stepped inside one of the low warehouse complexes (really, more of a stack of temporary box structures that hadn't been replace after the war) and didn't come out.

"Here we go", musing to himself, Snow began his approach, blending with the crowds as he tailed the LTE block captain. Spotting Kayana on the roofs, Snow hoped that she'd remain discreet, and not try to break in and clean house by her lonesome. Reaching the safehouse, at a distance it looked like a shitty prefab construct, but as he did his walkaround, the red hood noticed the crude cunning involved in the construction, motion sensors at every corner, two duct rats posted on the makeshift roof, and only one visible entrance at ground level. "Infiltration is out, maybe flushing the bastard is in order", grumbling to himself, Snow finishing the walkaround, heading two blocks left, near a drink kiosk.

Getting himself a drink, Snow keyed up his omnitool, sending the drell a silent e-mail, giving her the assessment from ground level and asking her to meet by the drink stand once she finishes her recon, hoping that she doesn't get made in the meantime.

"Yeah, shame I left my tear gas grenades in my other backpack." She sniped, chewing on her thumb.

"I bet I could trip a fire or atmosphere alarm for this sector. Depeneding on how often they go off, they might not leave though. And it'd take me a little time to get back."

"Setting an alarm, it's a good start", Snow turning to Kayana, his mind considering the possiblites, option 1: Storm the gates. Option two; call C-Sec, and option three; take the next logical step with Kayana's idea. "We need to make the threat credible, enough to justify setting the alarm off and getting the indirect attention of the powers that be. Making a false alarm won't be enough." Keeping his face a stony mask in front of the drell, inwardly the red hood was appalled at what he was considering. Snow had already facilitated kidnapping and torture, and now he was considering the unthinkable, destroying the ramshackle warehouse. "How much until this girl will be satisfied", the red hood thought as he decided to voice the unthinkable.

"Set off the alarms on the north side of the, what ever this shithole is called, I'll cause an overload on one of the maintenance panels, if we do that, Derek will have no choice but to move. He'll head straight towards another safehouse, and we can grab him on the way." Keeping his voice level, Snow turned to the drell, wondering if Kayana was willing to go all the way with her vengeance.

Kayana was terrible at poker, and in fact her trainers had often berated her for it-after hours of practice, she had two settings, expressive and blank. Now, she was flipping between them rapidly, furrowing her brow one second and gazing into the distance the next.

"Is that going to light this place up? There's like, shit piled everywhere. And if they're doing like, packaging or processing in there that's like, duct rats and they'd lock the doors.. No."

"The other two options are storm the fuckin' gates, or call C-Sec. Considering your apathy for the latter and the infeasibilty of the former, the alarm and sabotage play is our best one but...", Snow resisted giving Kayana an approving smile, keeping his face impassive but his eyes displayed a hint of approval, "you're right about that, but that's where your hacking becomes useful. You computer sorts know how to keep doors closed and other routes shut down, what about keeping them open?" A wry grin appearing on the red hood's visage, his gunmetal grey eyes meeting the drell teen's as they brainstormed.


"I can do a brute force attack on one of the panels regulating airflow, causing an overload, but if I do that, the doors will lock down as you said," Snow thinking aloud, noticing the two closed large doors on the south end of the building, "Can you hack the security protocols, keep the doors open the moment the alarm sounds? If we can do that, we'll flush out the whole nest of rats and have a better chance of bushwhacking Derek." Keeping the sales pitch to the drell activist short and sweet, Snow tried to stay impassive, though this makeshift plan was rather iffy, not to mention the potential for collateral damage was high, a fact that continuously stayed with the red hood.

"Yeah, but that presumes all the locks are computerized." She frowned, opening her omni-tool. "Kind of a stupid thing to presume. I'd put purely mechanical locks on the doors if I was worried about duct rats walking off with X credits in product."

"You can think I'm a pushy, self-righteous brat, whatever. But I'm not careless." There was a world of judgement packed into that world. "Give me like, two seconds to think. Maybe they have a sprinkler system. Nearly everyone will hustle when they get 20 litres of stagnant water dumped on their head."

"Backed up pipes in general. High-rankers leave, plebes are forced to clean it."

"The pipes...that's fuckin' brilliant Kayana." Snow found himself grinning at the possibilities, a drughouse full of product turned to shit, an LTE high-stepper made the fool, and no collateral damage, "that's the ticket, you hit the alarms at these sections", the red hood pointing at the points with the sensors and surveillance, "while I prime the pump here, and here, for the real distraction," turning to the drell, a look of mischievous glee appearing on Snow's face for a moment, making him look like a 21 year old man, "once I readjust the water pressure manually, you work your magic Kayana." The ex-marine chuckling at the simple genius of the teen drell, and kicking himself for not thinking of it first.

"I'll wait for you to hit the alarms, then I'll set the stage, and one more thing", Snow's voice becoming a soft, almost respectful whisper, "It's true I think of you as a bit of a brat, but I'm glad to be wrong about the reckless part," the red hood giving Kayana Pesh a respectful nod before raising his hood, heading to a nearby lean to, waiting for the signal to begin.

She mock-curtsied, pulling her hood up back over her face. "Problem solved then."

"Dude. You were testing me? Like I was going to burn up a bunch of...Thank you." She waved to him and pointed to her omni-tool to show how she would signal him.

She snuck off to the first of the alarms, opening up the interface. It was a system she was mostly familiar with, and she had the instructions in memory, so she felt fairly confident. She sent a quick message saying she was in position and started work.

"Alright, time to fuck up a drug slinger's day", recieving the signal from Kayana, Snow moved to the southeastern(?) section of the slanthouse, finding the maintenance panel and getting to work. He couldn't set off the water pipes and sprinklers without getting caught, but readjusting the water pressure and distribution was within the maintenance panel's command matrix. Finishing with the southeast panel, the red hood climbed up to the second level, finding the pipe flow panel. Glancing around, Snow saw the false alarms were working their magic, giving the ex-marine the necessary space to reroute the pipe flow to the largest rooms in the complex. Finishing up, Snow vaulted over to the adjacent building, taking cover behind a piece of pre-fab, keying on his omnitool, the message short and sweet,

"All set, work your magic kid."

Kayana crouched over the panel, activating everything on her end. When she was done, she attempted to hack into the video feed, but it was better defended than the pipes.

That was a mistake.

She moved back into position with Snow, straining to hear anything that was going on inside the building. Well, she could imagine it well enough, and it made her grin like an idiot.

As the alarms died down, the human and drell duo began to hear random curses, shouting and movement from the makeshift drug den, first just one sentry exited, drenched to the bone, then another, and another. Grinning for a moment at Kayana, the red hood turned to his attention to the front entrance, now crowded due to the duo's 'plumbing readjustments', a red haired human at the fore, barking orders and cursing his subordinates, "who the fuck did this????? We just lost over 300000 creds worth of product and none of you assholes can tell me how? You know what, you and you, come with me to the secondary, the rest of you fuckers, get to cleaning the place, and destroy anything that could come back to me or the boss." The redhead snarling at the group of low level LTE and indentured duct rats, giving a straggler a kick in the ass before turning to the other two, "let's get the fuck out, C-Sec will be here soon and I'm going to have to explain to boss Zahir why we just lost three weeks worth of slant"

Snow turning back to Kayana, "Let's move, we'll take them in one of the alleys and drag Derek," the red hood gesturing to the red headed enforcer, "to someplace quiet, we'll put the burn to the asshole, and deliver him to C-Sec. Once we do that, I think we can call it a day." The ex-salvager standing up, beginning to move across the building to the next ramshackle structure, making sure to keep the LTE dealer in sight. A small smile starting to form on Snow's face as he stalked his prey, in his mind this was the favorite part, no more trickery, deception, or delaying tactics. The hunt was all that mattered.

Kayana grinned, tucking her face against her shoulder and fighting back the desire to yell and take credit.

Seriously though, don't fuck with the drell.

Kayana zipped ahead of him, using Snow's diligence to help her spot the enforcer when she lost track of him. But with any luck she'd be able to flank him, so she figured it was a wash.

Keeping a steady pace, Snow kept to the rooftops, watching the trio move from the main drag into a maze like shantytown section. Seeing Kayana move to the other side of the quarry, the red hood dropped to ground level, hopping from the vantage point to a cargo container, then to the alley, moving to the nearest choke point. Snow glanced around the makeshift housing, making sure that no extra surprises were in store before he made his move. After a minute, the newly familiar voice of Derek came into hearing, the ex-salvager moved out of the makeshift shack directly in front of them, barring the way.

"Hey there, mind stopping for a sec, I need to talk to you about the Lord," a cold smirk appearing on the red hood's face as the LTE trio stopped, the red haired enforcer not believing his eyes, the goddamn nuisance plauging the LTE since the catholic shelter was here. "It...it was you, get the red bastard!, I'll go get Boss Zahir." Derek stammered as he began to sprint back to the main drag, leaving Snow to tangle with thd two low rankers. As the scuffle began, Snow saw Derek taking a slightly different route, the pimp heading towards Kayana's approach.

"Hope Kayana has another surprise ready," the charity worker thought as he fought with the two LTE low rankers, slamming one face first into a cargo container, the other one attempting to grab Snow from behind, attempting to drive the red hood's head into a nearby instrument panel....

The ladder from one of the fire escapes fell down directly in front of Derek, knocking him back. Kayana herself dropped down a second later, hitting the ground with a loud: "Stand and fight, motherfucker!"

"Ohhhh, this should be fun. I am so going to love making you pay for ruining my merchandise, stupid lizard", Derek smirking as he pulled up, the fire escape making him slide to a dead stop. The LTE enforcer drawing an slimmed down Khyber knife as he advanced towards Kayana Pesh, his full height a good head and then some above the drell who trapped him. The smirk disappearing, the LTE high-stepper let out a snarl as the tip of the blade lashed out at Kayana's face...

Meanwhile, the scuffle between the red hood and the two LTE enforcers was nearing an end, Snow sporting a new cut above his right eye as he gave one of the goons a rabbit punch to the throat, causing him to lose his breath for a moment, allowing Snow to turn his attention to the other one, now wielding a piece a pipe, Snow anticipating the swing, he stepped forward within the swing's arc, catching only a small part of the blow on his left forearm. Ignoring the sharp pain, Snow struck,his right snaking out, hitting his opponent with a right jab to the jaw, a left uppercut to the gut, finishing with a looping straight right to the ganger's temple, making him fall to his knee, right into Snow's left hook, laying him out cold. Pausing for a moment, waiting for the other enforcer to catch his breath, Snow picked up the pipe, and cooly hit him in the small of the back, dropping the LTE flunky. After pausing for a breath, Snow dropped the makeshift club and sprinted in the direction of Derek's retreat....

"Yeah, yeah, you started it..." She ducked, the knife barely grazing her. She kicked out at his knee. After that, and quite sensibly, Kayana shut up.

That didn't mean an end to noise from her end of the alley, as she grabbed a recycling bin, upending it between them in an attempt to create space to draw her tazer again, the recharged battery humming as it activated.

"Rrrggghhhh, that little fucking light show isn't going to save you kid, you and that drell bitch are dead..." Derek snarling back at her as he limped back, taking a bit more care about putting weight on his knee as he adopted a back handed grip on the blade sliding around the recycling crate, the tip flicking out at Kayana as the LTE enforcer slashed at her, his blade work solid yet uninspiring, the kick making him more conservative, Derek content to drive her back against the wall so he could finish her off...