“Theres nothing quite like a good stakeout.” Emyr said aloud as he finished off his steak dinner meal bar.

He threw the wrapped towards the nearest trash can, where it bounced off the rim and joined the other half dozen wrappers on the ground around the overflowing can that probably hadn’t been taken out for a few weeks. The way the city gig economy worked, there probably wouldn't be someone out here for another week or two. Though emyr supposed he couldn’t blame anyone for it, he chose an out of the spot place for his stakeout on purpose.

He directed his attention back to the docks where the ship was just finishing its unloading routine. And took stock of the guard rotation one last time. T-6 minutes before the next opening in the drone patrol.

The docks were a sprawling complex of warehouses, open lots of storage containers waiting to get shipped off, and bays for ships to pull into for their unloading. The place was a hive of activity even this early in the morning. The place never seemed to slow down. The industrial lights placed strategically around the complex provided enough illumination in the occupied sections that the workers probably couldn't even tell the sun had gone down. Though not everywhere was lit the same. The builders didn't feel the need to light up the automated sections of the storage yards as much, probably because robots didn't need as much light to see.

Emyr traced his route one more time as the clock on his hud ticked down. Blast the cameras with his emp, Dash across the open ground, slice through the fence, dash to the third nearest row of crates, and then disappear among the stacks before making his way to the area the cargo is being stored.

its a good plan, executed perfectly it should take 36 seconds. Which is good, because the window that Han identified is only 42 seconds long, and will immediately be noticed, prompting a search from the drones doing the rounds. Hence the 3rd closest row. It should give him time to break past the search line and find what they came for.

3…

2…

1…

As soon as the patrol drone disappeared around the corner, emyr broke into a sprint. The feel of his cyberlegs going from standing still to a full 36 mph in 6 seconds was almost too much speed, but he had practiced this maneuver many times over his career, and was able to keep control. Whipping out his ray gun he lined up the shot at the first camera, triggering the burst of feedback as soon as he was in range. The camera gave out a soft pop as sparks and polymer glass flew from the mount.

He quickly lined up the next shot, but his foot hit a pothole in the poorly maintained concrete and the shot went wide. He stumbled but was able to roll into it and pop back up the other side without bleeding off too much momentum, or eating a face full of molded stone. Emyr lined up the last shot with the power hungry ray gun and the second camera was taken out of the picture.

As he skidded to a stop in front of the fence, he dropped the bulky gun on its sling and pulled out the torch he was using to get through the reinforced chainlink fence. Quickly cutting a hole big enough to get through. The fuel of the cutter ran out just as he was cutting through the last of the links. Forcing him to have to kick the fence open before jumping through and sprinting for the ally between containers. As he slid behind the corrugated steel of boxed goods, the timer he had reached -42 and he heard the whirr of the next patrol rounded the corner.

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“Not out of the woods yet.” Emyr mumbled under his breath.

The port was big enough that a full search by the security teams would take a full day. As long as he got out of the first search net, he would have plenty of time to get the confirmation of goods the client was looking for and execute his exit strategy. But that meant he had to move, now.

Emyr made his way along the course that would take him to the containers that were just offloaded from their mysterious cargo ship. As he got closer, he started to look around for extra security that might not have made its way to the official blueprint. And a good thing he did because right before getting to the required bay, he found what looked like the remains of a freshly emptied porta-john.

“looks like someone stowed away in one of those containers.” Emyr contemplated. He did a loop around the cargo bay, and found someone was setting up a little campsite, complete with a gas stove, a sleeping bag, and what looked like an exocorp standard issue assault rifle.

The woman that was stirring food in a pot looked like she hadn’t showered in a few weeks, she had a large wide brimmed hat slung over her shoulders and her dark hair was slicked back into a messy pony tail. She had some laundry hung on a line nearby and one of the containers emyr was supposed to search was wide open and clearly contained an area carved out for living. Emyr snapped some photos before deciding he had to confront the guard before getting the other containers open.

Emyr popped a subsonic round into the ground by her feet and said “don't make any sudden movements and there wont be any trouble.” He didn't want to kill her, bodies always made things more difficult. No one cared if you opened a few boxes and snapped a few photos, but you start leaving a trail of corpses behind you and all of a sudden everyone and their cousin is out to get you for revenge or justice or something. Best just to side step that issue.

She froze and looked up. “That box musta dulled me more than I thought if you were able to sneak up on me all quiet like that.” Her eyes flashed over to the rifle that was leaning against the open doors. He saw it was within jumping range, but emyr would probably get a shot or five off before she could bring it to bear. “Looks like I’m dead to rights. What do you want?”

‘For you to keep talking with that southern drawl for one thing’ emyr couldn't help his first reaction to her smooth accent and her piercing eyes. “Put these on, and make sure the other end is tied to that container, away from your stuff.” Emyr pointed at one of the closed boxes and threw her some handcuffs.

*sigh* “well my food is almost done, I don’t suppose you'll let me get a bowl of it to take over there while you have your way with things?” She started slowly reaching for the bowl.

“sure, I’ll scoop some out for you while you get comfy.” Emyr waved his hand to the handcuffs, afraid that she was gonna get clever and try to blind him with soup or something. He really picked a shit day to leave his goggles at home, but this was supposed to be an easy in and out, no resistance expected.

“alright, alright, no need to get your panties in a bunch. There ain't enough money in the world for me to die over it.” She stood up and brushed her hand over her pants, there was a quick movement and all of a sudden she had a pistol in her hand, and started shooting.

emyr fired immediately, getting her in the arm, the chest, the leg, and knocking her to the ground. But not before she was able to send half the magazine at him. He felt one hit his vest, ping off his helmet, and clip his arm between the protective plates. She must have had wired reflexes. To get the drop on him while he was standing ready.

They both cried out.

Her gun fell into the soup bowl as she fell, Emy’s legs reacted on their own to keep him upright. And as he recovered and walked over to check if she was dead he asked, not expecting an answer, “why fight if not for money?”

“There are things worth more than money asshole.” she glared at him as the light of life faded from her eyes.