Faye Valentine sat like a bored schoolgirl in the large, expensive desk chair of Domascus Loor. His office was dark, with only moonlight entering through the floor to ceiling windows behind her. She adjusted slightly, loosening the grip on her Glock 30. her palms were sweaty and the last thing she needed was to loose the grip on her gun.
Somewhere in the lower bowels of the mansion a party was still raging, with drunken revelers dancing and stumbling the night away to the wailing sounds of “Little Van Vincent and the Spoof Wailers”. Occasionally the pop of a cork reported through the mansion, sounding like random gunfire. Faye could care less about the party; true, it covered her entrance into the mansion, but that was all it was good for. Soon, Loor would be coming up here to conduct business, and that’s when she would bag him.
She twisted again, trying to find a bit of comfort. The black silk dress she wore was really too tight...but it was the only thing she could find at a moments notice.

Khara secured her hands in her power pitons and glanced around. This side of the mansion was quiet, with only an occasional pass by a slow sentry droid. With the party going on the pattern had been disrupted, so the paranoia was more out of habit than necessity.
Quietly, Khara began to ascend the steep duracrete walls of Domascus Loor’s mansion. Off to her right a window spilled throbbing blue light onto the lawn while music pulsated through the walls. The pitons vibrated ever so slightly, enabling the nimble thief to quietly climb the thirty meters up to the balcony of Loor’s office.
She made a point to stop every ten meters. The fear of being spotted was minimal; she was wearing her black bodysuit and moving parallel to a heavy decorated trellis.
She cleared the last ten meters and vaulted quietly onto the circular balcony protruding from the side of the mansion.

Khara toggled her snooper goggles and peered through the window into the office.

Everything was as it should be. The large room was dark, with a large ornate desk and chair occupying the center of the room, facing away from the window. Off to the right would be a conference table, bar and recessed couch. To the left was the bookshelves and display cases...and her statue. Khara took a deep breath and quietly stepped up to the locked sliding door.

Faye was thinking of how she would celebrate after she turned in Loor when she saw the shadow. If she had been looking anywhere else she wouldn’t have seen it, but there it was: on the ground to her left, the shadow of a person outside of the window. Could it be a guard? No...they would use the office door. Another bounty hunter? Possibly. Maybe an assassin? Whoever it was, they were about to get taken out of the equation. Loor was just too important.
The dark figure was ghostly thin in the cast moonlight and moved with a certain grace. Faye tried to guess at the intruders location by the shadow but just couldn't be sure...were they directly behind her? Or off to the side? As Faye tightened her grip on the Glock 30 the figure slowly slid the door open…

Letting out her breath Khara stepped into the office. She heard the slight “whirr” of the desk chair’s repulsor engine before it had turned all the way around. Reflexes and training kicked in and the thief was moving, darting to her right towards the darkness and out of the moonlight.

Faye unloaded with her Glock. The intruder was fast, almost too fast to track, but the twirling of the chair and its balance compensator gave Faye enough surprise to get off two shots.
The first hit, and the dark shape grunted and spun slightly, spraying a dark crimson across the office window. The second shot thudded harmlessly into the trunk of a potted tree; one of several that lined either side of the sliding door. Faye didn’t see what happened after that; her night vision was gone and all she saw was the afterburn of muzzle flashes dancing in front of her eyes.
Diving from the chair, she scrambled to her right. The desk loomed above her and she backed up against it's short side, the warm pistol still clutched in her hand and the smell of sulfur assaulting her nose.

Blinding pain exploded through Khara’s right shoulder and she spun, crashing onto her back in the darkness. She could still see…a benefit of the flash protectors in her goggles, but small dots were dancing in front of her eyes and she had to fight to maintain consciousness.

Gritting her teeth, she quietly darted amongst the potted trees, until she reached the cover of the bar. Squatting, she slipped a small syringe from her utility pouch and injected it into her shoulder. Another round of pain shook her small frame and she wavered, finally steadying herself and letting the medication work on the wound.
Think…keep it together...she thought to herself. The shooter wasn’t using a blaster, which eliminated the chance it was a napping guard. Guards don’t waste time with slug throwers. But assassins do. But the gun wasn’t silenced, in fact, it let out a loud report that, hopefully, was masked by the thick walls and music from the party going on 4 floors below.

“Hey! I bet you are hurt pretty bad. Why don’t you come out and I’ll see if I can help you?” Faye called from behind the desk. It was unlikely the con would work, but she had to at least try to get a bead on the intruders position. She held her breath and tried to peer around the corner but could see nothing. Her night vision hadn’t returned so she held her position and opened her ears.

Khara saw the young woman poke her head out and suppressed the urge to pop off a shot with her holdout blaster. Crouching near the corner of the bar Khara prepared to dodge, should the woman shoot again. But she didn’t. In fact, from what she could tell, the woman hadn’t focused on the thief at all.
She had to move. She had already lost precious time and a guard was due to check the room in less than 4 minutes. On top of that her arm was beginning to numb. Slowing her breathing, Khara eyed the recessed couch between her and the desk and began to move.

“Don’t take it personally if I don’t trust you...seeing as you tried to kill me and all” a woman’s voice came back. Faye snickered to herself. “Oh that?” she called, letting sarcasm ooze into her voice, “that was just my way of saying 'Hi'...from one Cowgirl to another.”
She stole another glance around the desk and hoped to get a shot off. She thought she saw movement in the darkness but her vision was taking time in coming back, and she wasn’t about to shoot unless she had a target.

“Dammit!” she cursed to herself. She had to eliminate this woman, but wasn’t about to rush into a trap. She would just wait, in a few minutes one of them would have to move...and by that time she would be able to see again.

Khara hunkered down in the recessed pit. The pit was set into the floor, rimmed with a deep maroon couch and a holoprojector jutting from it’s center. The woman had glanced out once again but didn’t make a move. She must have been blinded by her shots, Khara thought to herself. It bought her time, but not much.
Turning to her right she saw several glints of light on the deep carpet. Deep carpet…a thief’s best friend; thanks to it and her skills Khara had made no noise when moving, despite her injured arm.
Reaching down she picked up a round silver disk. A holodisk. Pausing, she grabbed two more and slid them into her black bodysuit. Okay Doone, she thought, easy and quiet…just like they taught you…and maybe you will get out of this intact.

Faye’s vision had returned. She gripped her gun and slowly raised on all fours. Quietly she peered around the desk…

Khara crouched quietly behind the desk. Around it’s corner would be her adversary. Khara hadn’t made a sound when she scrambled to the desk.The chair, now hovering to her left, was casting a large enough shadow that concealed the Wroonian Thief.
She could hear the womans breathing…it was quiet, but still there. Khara slipped two of the holodisks from her bodysuit and waited. Should the woman come around this side of the desk Khara was close enough to get the drop on her…less than a meter existed between her and the edge of the desk.

Then she heard it, a slight adjustment and the spike of one black heel momentarily appeared from the corner. Khara raised ever so slightly and sent the two holodisks sailing high and over the desk towards the far wall like two shuriken. Quietly, she advanced, drawing her vibro-stilleto from it's sheath.

Faye heard the clattering and fired. The bullet thudded into something in the darkness, but this time Faye had clenched her eyes shut, relying on her sense of sound. As she went to stand, something slammed between her shoulder-blades, driving through the front of her dress and exiting as a small silver point from her abdomen.
Faye looked down in disbelief. A scream caught in her throat but wouldn't come out. Dropping the Glock, she slowly brought her hand up and touched the small silver tip protruding from the black silk of her dress.

Khara drew the stiletto from the creamy white of Faye's back and watched her fall face down. A small pool of darkness began to surface between her shoulder blades and trickle towards her waist. Quietly, Khara wiped the blood off on the black silk skirt of Faye's dress and stood, moving swiftly towards the locked display case to her left.

Darkness slowly consumed Faye. Something warm and wet was spreading out under her and she realized she couldn't feel her legs anymore. "I...I...only wanted..." she whispered as the world grew blurry and wavered in front of her.

Khara stopped at the window, the statue nestled securely in her satchel. She threw one more glance behind her at the prone figure of Faye Valentine and shook her head.
"Sorry Cowgirl, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time," and with that, Khara began the slow and painful descent to the ground below.

Winner: Khara Doone