<span style="color: SeaGreen">Negative, all elements are on lock down.</span>The hub security officer responded to Darion. Shortly after Malcolm barked an order to the security.<br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Hub, sidestep security. Trigger a fire alarm!</span><br/><br/>A few moments later, a section of wall in the shaft unfolded, a column of panels dropping open like sideways doors with rungs. On their edges were red lights that pulsed in the dark, running up the shaft - an emergency fire ladder.<br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrchid">I'm getting close.</span>Ashana said over the comms.<span style="color: DarkOrchid">Where's my backup?</span>She asked, her breath short.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">We're almost there. Do not engage him alone.</span>Firas responded.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Ashana reached out from the support she was clinging to grab the railing on the next level of the building. Vega's architects loved open, vertical spaces in the tower, she had come to conclude as she had begun to scale the open shaft that ran up a number of floors on the southern wall of the tower from where the elevator had left her. There had been enough embellishment and nooks in the design to allow her climb the supports to the open balconies and windowed overlooks to ascend. What remained of her skirt had been hiked up nearly above her hips several times as she moved, lifting her legs to step up. In another circumstance she would have enjoyed the unusual thrill of climbing like this, but it was tiring and at the end of the climb was someone who wanted to kill her.<br/><br/>She pulled herself over the railing and crouched, looking across the open floor plan. She spotted the elevator a distance away and quickly got close enough to read the floor number etched into the sleek double doors. 86. She was making excellent time, but her method of ascension had reached its maximum.<br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrchid">Do we know if he's still on the 89th?</span>She asked. The voice that answered her surprised her.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Negative.</span>Cantenelli said over the comms.<span style="color: Blue">He's moved down one floor, and probably about to drop another.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Who the hell is this?!</span>Malcolm demanded.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">This is Captain Cantenelli of the Acheron. I spoke with Mr. Vega earlier. My team has isolated the intruder's hack pattern in your security system and we're working on undoing it. For now we're tracking him.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Tracking him? How?</span>Malcolm sounded as surprised as Ashana felt that the Acheron crew was not only participating, but that they had managed to get into Vega's security net.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">We're watching which doors are opening.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrchid">Where is he?</span>Ashana answered, putting a hand on her hip as she tried to calm her breathing.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Last opened access was on the eastern side of the building on the 88th. Its near a drop off to the 87th, so I'd bet on hi - 87th floor, central, he's just opened the door to an atrium.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Red">All units, converge.</span>Malcolm ordered.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Not bad.</span>Falkris mused as he looked at the tower readout, which continued to update with new information as the counter hack probed deeper, opening more of the security net to Kala and Sorv.<br/><br/><span style="color: Navy">Another fun little toy...</span>Taseer said, looking over Kala's shoulder,<span style="color: Navy">is the Acheron's cyber warfare suite. She's very good at getting to where she's not supposed to be with a little help. </span>She grinned, watching the lines of code running across parts of Kala's screen as the ship's security system worked with the two hackers, cracking codes and security counter measures as Kala and Sorv worked. To the trained eye, the Acheron wasn't just breaking codes, it was identifying the hack patterns of the previously intruding system and following them, bypassing system in the same manner as the previous hack.<br/><br/>A message appeared, designating that a cluster of systems had been isolated and command lines were ready to insert into the door locks.<span style="color: Navy">They've got door control.</span>Taseer said. Cantenelli nodded.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Not bad at all. Lock him in. Acheron to ground, we've got control of door locks and access ways. We're removing the lock down on everything, and shutting the intruder into the atrium. We do not have elevator control yet, but it shouldn't long.</span><br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>He paused looking across the atrium. It ran from the center of the tower where one elevator shaft ran the length of the building to another glass wall that was several stories high at the tower's edge. He scanned the hallways and doorways for his route, then moved, keeping a quick but carefully measured pace. He quickly scanned the area again before he approached the door, nothing. He was alone.<br/><br/>He hit the door key and nearly walked into the closed door when it beeped at him in protest rather than open. He stared at the door in mild confusion and hit the door key again, and again it denied him access. He opened his omni-tool and looked at the readout. He ordered the locks to release, but the system didn't respond. A moment later his sub-routines stuttered and an alarm went off. There was another program in the system, fighting his own - several, in fact. Two primary systems and one system branching from them. He traced the line and confusion turned to genuine surprise as the answer returned a location several tens of thousands of miles away. Space.<br/><br/>He looked up at the roof of the atrium several stories above. There was no ship, no station, nothing that Vega owned or was connected to in space. It didn't matter though, he returned his gaze to the surrounding area, looking for an alternate route, but he was on the ground floor of an atrium and he needed to go down, not up. The floor was littered with furniture for relaxation and various tables and other common area appliances. He crouched down behind a broad planter and opened the tower's schematic.<br/><br/>A bullet ricocheted off the planter, making him jolt. On a floor above, a security team had arrived at long last, several humans and a Turian. They used the balcony as cover where it wasn't glass and began firing down at the assassin. He shifted, and aimed, returning fire. He quick tapped the trigger, with one hand, lifting a thermal clip from beneath his coat with the other. He fired quickly between the teams positions, expending ammo fast. He stood, when he had them mostly suppressed and walked backwards, still firing, distancing himself from their position. As his clip overheated and stopped his firing, another was already ready. He ejected the old and inserted the new in a bare second and continued firing. The shots were into cover, meant to prevent attack, not deal damage as he retreated to another position where their height didn't give them as great an advantage.<br/><br/>His kinetic barrier flared as another group of security officers emerged from a doorway on his level, all of them firing at him. In an instant, the assassin stopped trying to suppress the Turian's group and turned and sprinted down the atrium toward the glass wall, further from their fire, and more importantly further away from any doors that security officers could flank him from. As he neared the glass wall of the tower, the atrium's balconies ended, creating a shaft that ran up parallel to the wall, making it impossible to flank him from above as well.<br/><br/>His shield burst and flared and his armor buzzed at him in warning of their rapid depletion. Then, they were gone. He felt a round hit the edge of his left shoulder, burning a stripe through his jacket and on his armor as it ricocheted. He dove and rolled and skidded on the floor as he made for the last piece of cover before the wall. A solid bar with several glasses sitting clear and clean on it.<br/><br/>He reached around, and returned fire, sparking shields from security officers before having to retreat back again.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Ashana rounded the corner with the gunfire on the ground floor as the more of the security officers arrived. They were all in cover, slowly moving up while an endless peppering of bullets flew down the hall from one source or another. She saw Malcolm emerge from a doorway with more of the men.<br/><br/><span style="color: Red">Keep him down! Move up slow!</span>She saw his mouth move, but his voice was drowned by the gunfire so that only the earpiece she had emitted his order.<br/><br/>She took up a position of cover behind a table that one of the security men had overturned. She risked a glance out from behind it to see where all the bullets were aimed at. The bar at the far end of the atrium was receiving rounds all over and around it while glasses exploded on top of it. She looked, trying to catch of glimpse of the assailant, the one responsible for the entire mess she and Firas and Sorv had been trapped in. She saw him lean out from behind the bar for only a brief instant before the muzzle flash had her right back behind her own table. She didn't hear anything strike the table, but the security officer she was sharing it with flashing a brilliant blue and jolted and spun as the second shot punched a hole in the right side of his chest, just below his collarbone. He shouted and fell, his gun hitting the floor next to him.<br/><br/>Ashana grabbed him and dragged him as best she could back behind the table, and he writhed in pain and grabbed at the wound. Two shots. He fired two shots in what felt like no time at all, and both of them hit his target. She couldn't help but be slightly in awe of his marksmanship.<br/><br/>Beyond her cover, a pair of security officers tried to advance, but were met but another rapid burst of fire, forcing them to fall back. Ashana looked past her cover again. He was cornered... and she wanted to think him a fool for retreating to such a position. He had no where to go and eventually they would be on him. What the hell was he doing there?<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>