Competition: Missing From Action

Finished
Missing From Action

You and several of you comrades have been called together by a member of your Summit for an important intelligence briefing. When the indicated day arrives, all are present but the individual who called you together.

You and your comrades have been tasked with discovering the whereabouts of the missing persons, and if necessary to stage a rescue/extraction. Is the absence due to intrigue, betrayal, or drunken escapades at some far off spaceport?

Describe what happens in at least 500 words. Grading will be by a modified fiction rubric: Spelling 10%, Creativity 15%, Realism 15%, Story 30% and entertainment 30%.

Competition Information
Organized by
Adept Bentre Stahoes
Running time
2016-01-22 until 2016-02-05 (15 days)
Target Unit
Clan Naga Sadow
Competition Type
Fiction
Awards
Third Level Crescents
Participants
2 subscribers, of which 2 have participated.
Results
Member
Epis Locke Sonjie
File submission
MissingFromActionCompetitionEntry.docx
Textual submission

It's in the attachment.

Placement
1st place
2nd place
Quo-Wing-Tzun
Member
Quo-Wing-Tzun
Textual submission

It was worrying. Tasha'Vel had called him here to brief him, and up to now she was two and a half hours late.

Whirling from the room Quo had a plan of action. Tasha'Vel wouldn't have been a minute late usually, this was something else, something sinister. Making his was from the Operations Centre Quo headed towards Tasha'Vel's quarters, sticking to the shadows as much as possible, there was no point in attracting attention to himself.

Quo's eyes scanned everywhere as he moved, covering the ground to the accommodation block in under twenty minutes, never once being sighted by the vizeyes, or the security details. He would have to raise that point with the Operations Chief once this little mystery was solved.

Slowing his breathing, reducing the output from his breathing prosthetic, he cloaked himself with the Force. To all intents and purposes he was invisible, only his footprints, should he leave any, would give away his position to the casual onlooker. Even someone trained in observation techniques would find it difficult to see him. Standing in the centre of the plaza in front of Tasha'Vel's block he looked around. There were only two buildings that looked onto it, and one of those was a guard post, unlikely to have any watcher from there. The other was a smaller accommodation pod, SevBee, and although only three stories high, would be a good vantage point for any watchers of her room windows, some two stories higher. Not ideal, but the most advantageous without actually climbing up the outside of the building.

Quo crossed deliberately to the side of SevBee, looking for an access route. Made of mostly plascrete, there were very few hand and footholds, but not unscaleable to someone brought up in the forests of Dathomir. He climbed, inch by inch, using grips he'd learned as a boy, seemingly inhumanly climbing the apparently sheer side. He paused at the roof, reaching out with his feelings, sensing for anybody, or thing, that was up there. All clea......... no wait....... over on the far corner, behind the communications array. Silently he crested the lip of the roof, landing silently, moving silently. Traversing the roof, keeping the array between himself and his quarry, he slinked, another shadow in the night.

He was now within a couple of yards of whoever was up here with him. Pantheresque in his movement, he stayed low and quiet. He didn't want to kill the prey, he needed answers. Maintaining his cloak of invisibility, he approached the corner of the communications box, housing pre-amps that boosted the signal, he looked around, cautiously.

Prone on the ground before him was a figure, clad in black, a sniper's slug rifle held into their shoulder. Quo looked along the line of the barrel towards the target. _Tasha'Vel!!!_. Through the window he could see his Master, seemingly unconscious, binders round her wrists and ankles, attached to a chair. Moving slowly Quo stood over his quarry. He had to strike quickly so that there was no chance of the shot being fired. His left hand struck out toward the breech of the weapon, pushing it to the right, simultaneously dropping his right knee into the back of the would be assassin. He felt reassured as the breath left the body below him in a voluptuous "ooomph". They never got chance to squeeze off the round before the rifle skittered and clattered across the roof.

Moving quickly Quo applied a lock to the assailant's arm, pinning them face down into the roof. Ensuring as he rolled his quarry that he knelt on one or two pressure points he quickly had them rendered harmless, and satisfyingly, in a fair amount of pain. Pulling the hood from the face, he finally looked down on the person trying to murder his Master.

"You have done well, my young apprentice, I never felt you coming until the rifle was ripped from my hands."

Quo looked from the assassin to the room opposite, a bemused look on his face.

"Oh her? She's just a shadow of my former self," she smiled slowly, "she is a useful decoy at times. Now, after you get off me, you lump, you can come and meet her, and tell me why it took nearly three hours for you to come looking for me"

Placement
2nd place