Good-Bye To A Curious One (Cal)

[Raytheon]

Corellia, his birth planet nothing had changed it was still a mixture of urban, city and wild lands slightly more secure than most republic world due to the pervasive CorSec presence. It was both a blessing and a curse, the blessing lying in CorSec's independent security it was often not completely in sync with Republic Military or Intelligence allowing certain wanted individuals to mosey on by without real notice. The Curse being the prideful vigilance of CorSec, they were persistent and efficient for a planetary security force.

It had been a few days as Haust remained in Corellia, no doubt researching his duty it was in his meticulous nature to be thorough to consider all pieces of an equation before acting out. This was one such equation, he'd researched this Shawn Morrey a journalist and one CorSec decided to protect. Reasons being wasn't entirely important but was likely he was investigating a deep story that was in the interest of CorSec.

The blackened night filled the Corellian sky the hour was late and teetering on the edges of midnight. A perfect time to address this irritation of a man, whom had obviously bitten more than he could chew. Tonight would be his undoing, or his lucky day and Haust's undoing either way it was going to be fun.

Dressed in his casual garbs he knelt atop the roof of the building pulling away the piping to the air conditioning unit to Morrey's apartment & floor. Plugging in an industrial vaporizer and filling it to the brim with concentrated liquid Diethyl ether. Haust never used the compound but it was an antiquated general anesthetic when inhaled would render the victims unconscious without undue long term damage. Fitting the tube into the air conditioning vent the vaporizer would provide the compound and the air conditioner would distribute the contents evenly.

Haust hummed a familiar Zeltron tube as he worked using insulation around the piping to form a make shift air tight seal. The leather of his gloves creaking softly with every intricate movement. Afterward remaining knelt and looking at his silver wrist chronometer before scanning the rooftop. and reaching to his belt and pulling off the holodisk before shaking his head and sliding it back to the belt.

"No need to report his death just yet.. almost thirty seconds..." He thought to himself, thirty seconds was the ideal time before making a move it would be the time the compound should theoretically enter the rooms and the floor and allow him thirty to forty five seconds to descend to his floor to hopefully see the effect of the compound taking place, pulling the rebreather from his belt he checked it before placing it to his mouth.

He was ready to end this, and had the proper idea of how.

[Cavalry King]

Shawn Morrey, the so called "Corellian Crusader", had decided to turn in for the night. He had spent the day in the underbelly of Corellia, digging up any information he could on this illusive "Shadow". As far as he knew no one had managed to compile much of anything on the figure. The more he investigated, the more Shawn realized the dangers of this task. Those who had mentioned the shadow in the past always seemed to disappear off the radar. He brought his preliminary findings to CorSec and ever since he had been assigned a permanent bodyguard detachment - a CorSec Security Officer and a Police Droid. They hindered his work but they did give him a feeling of safety.

With each day he was getting closer to... something. Whatever it was, he knew it was big. He didn't have the proof but he felt that this "Shadow" was someone here in Corellia, and that he was someone big. This was a career story, all Shawn needed now was something concrete. Something he could take to the presses.

Now was time for sleep though and he slipped slowly into the night. Soon his CorSec guard, stationed outside the room, despite being fully rested felt unimaginably tired, his mind dulled and he dropped. The droid of course, felt nothing. Stationed inside the house of Shawn Morrey, it seemed to the droid that all was well.

[Raytheon]

"Twenty nine... thirty." He spoke to himself as he watched his chronometer before sucking in the first breath of filtered air from the rebreather with a soft hiss and standing. Canting his head to the side to crack his neck he lifted the small satchel bag with the supplies he needed to pull this off. Heading to the rooftop door he entered and quickly descended the stair well to Morrey's floor, before finally stepping into the main hall way.

While visually the hall seemed serene, calm and normal it was in fact reaming with vaporized general anesthetic. Each breath filtered with the rebreather Haust made his way down to hall to Morrey's apartment door reaching into the satchel with one hand while the other using the force to push back the door latch and pushing it open.

Standing in the door way he withdrew two Ion grenades passing one to the other hand as he slowly pressed the activation switch on each before stepping into the apartment. " Fraking hate droids.." He thought to himself, it wasn't far from the truth in situations of stealth droids were a pain you couldn't sense them, and conventional methods of disabling them didn't work. In his research he'd learned of the droid thus being his reason for bringing the ion grenades.

Quickly tossing one directly into the doorway and another into the opening of the adjacent room. He stepped back and to the side awaiting for the electrical and ionic pop to follow before moving on. He clutched tightly at the satchel as he would walk inside only seconds after the blast to finish this job.

[Cavalry King]

CSD-578, the CorSec Personal Security Droid assigned to protect Shawn Morrey detected something on his sensors. The perimeter had been prematurely breached. None were to enter or leave until 7 A.M. local time the next day. Immediately his Personal Security protocol program engaged. The droid attempted to raise its shields and began to say out loud, "I am Corellian Security Droid Five Seven Eight, Announce yourself or....." then the blast erupted, then silence.

The droid was instantaneously - and quite obviously - forcibly disabled. The droid automatically sent signals back to CorSec headquarters every few minutes to assure them of all clear. Any number of situations would result in that signal to report an issue, one of them was by simply not reporting back at all, indicating damage or sabotage. CorSec HQ policy dictated that high priority personnel would warrant immediate response.

Through all this Shawn slept soundly, in part due to the gas that was increasingly filling his lungs. His life hung in the balance.

[Raytheon]

As the explosion triggered, Haust immediately looked to his chronometer two minutes were all he required as he rushed inside the apartment. He for the life of himself could never understand the mediocre living standards of most as the inside was less than appealing to his tastes. He approached the bedroom looking down to the passed out CorSec agent taking a few seconds to kneel and place a hand to the side of his face piercing his mind with the force to withdraw response times, and breaching methods of the first responding CorSec agents.

He looked around and studied the room for only a few seconds, as time was precious and limited he looked over the droid, the model and that quickly became irrelevant. Checking his watch again it's had only been thirty seconds thus far, he nodded to him self and looked back to the guard plucking the power pack from his blaster and pocketing it.

As he was finished he quickly stood and entered the bed room looking over to Shawn Morrey the man who thought he couldn't be touched. It was amusing that now his bring of demise now stood in reaching distance. He was helpless, laying there relaxed, prime for the killing then a thought rushed into Haust's mind as he looked back to the doorway at the knocked out guard then to Shawn before quickly reaching to his belt and withdrawing the holodisk and sliding it into his comm unit as he pressed to reach Lord Callidus.

Awaiting for the signal to finally breach through, he waited for a response before acting further...

[Cavalry King]

A man in chains was shackled to the center of the floor. Before him lay the bodies of two of his children. At the back of the room was the orchestrator of this small massacre - Callidus, Sith Lord. The unfortunate man was one of Callidus' executives, running his spice trade operation in the Outer Rim. Callidus was not pleased, however if one was to look at him, he seemed perfectly calm. Callidus sat in a large chair, made of the finest silks money could buy, in his hand was his trademark - a Sith goblet filled with Corellian brandy. He swirled the contents of the cup under his nose, savoring the flavor, savoring the moment.

He looked to his executive, "I am deeply saddened by the recent, unfortunate loss of your children. How it must have pained you to see them suffer so. My heart goes out to you... However failure is not an option. It is a most... elementary lesson. Necessity requires that I remind you all of it personally every so often." His tone was cool with a slight hint of practiced empathy. He spoke as if he were a parent reluctantly punishing their child.

The man burned with hatred and almost yelled out when Callidus said in an almost hushed tone, "Ah, I feel your hatred for me swelling inside you. Good... you will need that passion for your work..." Callidus almost went into one of his trademark monologues until he received something most unexpected, a call on his secure channel to Haust. He paused and smiled, "excuse me, I must take this, however I shall return shortly to our chat. For the time being, I will leave you three alone."

In an almost cheerful tone Callidus answered the call, "Ah, Haust! Reporting on your success I presume?" The response was heavily loaded with subtle undertones. It showed that Callidus only expected success when he was to be called. In the event of failure, it would likely be wise to distance yourself as far as you can before Callidus catches wind of it.

[Raytheon]

"Ah, Haust! Reporting on your success I presume?"

The voice called out to him, Haust understood the undertones and it's meaning, he smiled slightly he'd often used such undertones himself when addressing his employees. It was pleasant to speak to Callidus he could hide his anger well, appear calm and collected but quickly Haust responded.

"No, Lord Callidus I am not however success is eminent with no chance of failure however as I stand here over ... our friend I called to propose an alternative method of disposal you may find to your liking."

He paused to approach the bed looking down upon the weak pasty journalist for a moment watching him sleep for a second before continuing to converse with Callidus.

"I can destroy his mind... make him useful for nothing more than breathing and processing intreveneous nutrients. He lives, no one is the wiser I leave it to you Lord Callidus.."

He posed the final sentence while laying down the satchel and pulling out a single auto injector of adrenaline, and a holodisk setting them side by side ready to enact the cold and calculated murder on demand of his soon to be Master. He moved the satchel by the bed stand before looking to his chronometer with still plenty of time to spare.

He was completely calm as if he were organizing a desk, no elevation in his voice no rushed behavior. He understood jobs such as these required a level mind as not to miss details crucial to the task at hand and handled each tool, each movement with delicate precision.

[Cavalry King]

Callidus' eyes narrowed and his anger swelled when he heard that his prospective apprentice had called him but had not been successful. He grew even angrier at the prospect of an "alternate proposal" but then checked himself. The reason he wanted an apprentice rather than another lackey was because he wanted someone with more initiative, freedom of thought, and ability for action. Thus he withheld his tongue and waited to hear this alternate plan. Thinking about it for a moment, Callidus was very pleased with his potential apprentice choice. The man showed enough initiative to make an independent call, but enough respect to inform Callidus first. It was a marvelous balance.

He contemplated the proposal. He was ever thinking of the future and the repercussions of his actions. How would it be explained that a man suddenly lost his mental faculties in the middle of the night? It seemed highly suspicious but then again, the chance of them pinning it on a little known darkside ability was almost none. After a few moments, Callidus spoke. He was highly impressed with the initiative, respect, and skill of this man. As a test Callidus said, "I hope this option is not out of some... misguided sense of mercy... I leave the decision to you Haust, and afterwords I will expect an explanation as to why you did what you did. I will not insult you by reminding you of what needs to be done but please, clean up after yourself when you are finished. We wouldn't want CorSec to be upset now would we?"

Based on Haust's tone, it did not seem like mercy was on his mind but Callidus had to be sure. Callidus had yet to test the source of the Darkside power of the man. Haust's incredible skill in telepathic force powers also prevented Callidus from easily reading it from his mind.

[Raytheon]

"I hope this option is not out of some... hesitation to kill this man. I leave the decision to you Haust, and afterwords I will expect an explanation as to why you did what you did. I will not insult you by reminding you of what needs to be done but please, clean up after yourself when you are finished. We wouldn't want CorSec to be upset now would we?"

The first notion of hesitation made Haust chuckle as he shook his head, he looked over to Shawn before speaking to Lord Callidus it was mostly amusing how easy it would be to take his life and while a small part wanted to make him completely comatose killing him would be fun it was quite the cross roads he was in. But he responded to Lord Callidus as to not appear rude or hesitant to respond back.

"No Lord Callidus, this man is insignificant to me killing him would be like stepping on a meddlesome insect... Thank you for the response rest assured he will be dealt with in a most satisfying and demeaning manner... and as for CorSec lets just say they'll face embarrassment more than... anger."

Haust ended the communication as he finished while some might consider it rude it was also efficient and to the point, further talking with Lord Callidus would be simple pleasantries and to him and in this very moment a waste of precious time. Haust quickly slid the comm unit into a slot on his belt before quickly returning to his work without a moments hesitation.

He immediately walked over to the closet pushing aside many of the hanging clothes and snatching off a scarf as he approached the bed tying it around Shawn's limp neck in a make shift noose tied in a direction that he would have tied it himself. It was too often these type of staged murders the knots were tied in preference to the killer rather than the victim.

Haust had studied how Shawn tied his shoes, the knot used and his training in knots was only the Ian Knot usually found on shoes he tied it as such to be loose not overly tight, another mistake often made by assassins. checking his watch again he still had time as he dragged Shawn from the bed to the nearby closet where he propped up Shawn enough to tie the other end of the scarf to the closet rod and slowly lowering him to hang.

Moving down to pull his pants down to his ankles and plucking a few public hairs he carefully placed them in Shawn's hands as he began to twitch from the lack of oxygen to his brain as he was dying from asphyxiation. Reaching over to the night stand and grabbing the auto injector he reached around grabbing Shawn's rear waiting a moment and feeling for his life force to dissipate before pulling the safety cap, sliding it into his pocket and reaching around to inject it into his inner buttock directly into his sphincter.

The skin folds around it and discoloration worked in tandem to hide injection sights as well as it's... undesirable location it allowed the compound to move directly into the blood steam by passing any bodily filtration since he was technically dead it would sit in his body. In the even emergency services came in time to revive him they'd likely perform CPR pumping the lethal levels of adrenaline into his heart killing him, then attempt to revive using epinephrine a lethal mix.

He would be dead no matter the circumstance, pulling away the auto injector and reaching into his pocket to place the safety cap back on he laid it into his satchel them picking up the holodisk, it was a very enjoyable disk walking over and retrieving Shawn's datapad he slide the disk in as he reached to Shawn's hand pressing his hand to the datapad as if he were holding it before dropping it to the floor.

On the screen of the datapad played Zeltron's Gone Wild, Hausted stepped back looking over the results of his work. Auto-erotic asphyxiation a shameful but very common means of death for single men whom were isolated and too career bent to have working relationships. As it sat the death would be accidental, CorSec would be embarrassed and attempt to bury this rather than pursue an investigation.

Moving to the bed and quickly making it to seem as if he hadn't laid down yet and packing away everything in the satchel Haust stepped out of the room before closing the door to the bedroom slowly and carefully. Once the door was shut he took a few seconds to pick up the remains canisters of the ion grenades and stuffed them into his satchel. With a hand reached out in the force to lift the guard from the floor slowly moving him over to the couch before slowly lowering him unto the cushions.

As he was about to walk out he paused reaching into his pocket and walking back to the guard as he pulled out the power pak and clipping it back unto the blaster before finally approaching the front door locking it and closing it behind him. He twiddled his finger sliding the deadbolt into place to sell the ploy further no one had been inside and no copy of the key used. Looking to his chronometer only three minutes and fifty seven seconds passed.

"Excellent timing" He told himself as he quickly rushed to the roof top door and began to slowly ascend the stairs....

[Cavalry King]

With each passing moment, the life of the reporter was slipping away. When the CorSec operatives arrived to check on the droid what they found was most disturbing. An officer had fallen asleep on the job, the security droid assigned to protect the apartment had apparently suffered a temporary malfunction, all the while though the reporter they were assigned to protect, had managed to kill himself in a most... embarrassing way. The personal space they allowed him was apparently too much and used for very personal reasons.

The scene was extremely embarrassing. CorSec cleaned it up as best as it could. The officer reprimanded and the case shutdown. This incident was buried deep within CorSec files in the hopes that none could find it and report on it.