Risk Assessment

Scarlett Goldstein closed her eyes and held the position. Her hands gripped the horizontal metal bar, and her body stood perfectly vertical. One wrong move would send her crashing to the floor some 30 feet below the bar.

Slowly she brought one hand up and around, turning one-hundred and eighty degrees around. Her eyes still shut, she leaned back and folded her legs up at the same time, keeping her center of balance perfect.

With a sudden flick and flip, Scarlett was standing on the bar with her two feet touching and her arms outspread. She turned right and began walking casually along it. Not once did she open her eyes until her left foot located the end of the bar.

Another flip and she was under the bar, grasping it tightly. The bar quaked and bent under her weight of a mere 70 kilos. She waited for the quaking to stop before dropping lightly on to a vertical pole barely large enough for her to stand on.

"Agent Goldstein!"

Scarlett's eyes opened, and a slight sneer creased her face. She hated having her concentration interrupted. She turned and saw Captain Raik standing on the gym floor looking up at her, expressionless. He held a folder under one arm, his uniform immaculate as usual. Scarlett was glad she wasn't required to wear one when on base; They looked uncomfortable.

She turned and stepped off the pole, wrapping her legs and arms around the cold metal. She slid down it, and then bounced off a meter from the ground to land in from of the ONI Captain. Scarlett saluted.

"Yes, sir?"

He held the folder out to her. "We have a mission for you."

She took the folder and opened it. It contained the usual: Dossiers on targets, estimated threat levels, blueprints of the building, everything she'd need to know in order to take what was needed. What caught her eye was the risk assessment.

"Extreme risk of capture and/or death?" She asked. "This is something you should be giving an Elite Operator, not a standard infiltrator like myself."

"I know that full well, Lieutenant." Raik responded. "This is an assessment mission. Command wants to give you Elite operator status.  I'll be accompanying you while you're undercover.  We will be posing as a Aileen, that's you, and Richard Walker.  We've just been married and are on our honeymoon."

Scarlett flinched. "Hopefully we don't have to go too deep undercover." The Captain was a nice guy, but he wasn't Scarlett's type.

Raik chuckled. "I'm not old, young 'un. And that cover will only go as far as the bug search in the hotel room.  After that I will run surveillance while you infiltrate the penthouse and find our man.  Kill him, grab his laptop, and get back to the room.  Simple, quick and clean.  However, he has top-tier security in place.  Lasers, cameras, robots, automatic turrets, as well as ex-ODST guards.  If you get caught, odds are you're dead, so you need to perform flawlessly."

"And if I do die?" Scarlett didn't mind dying, but she did wonder what would happen to this... Johansson character and the info he was carrying.

"This is our only shot at this. If we fail, he goes deep undercover, and it would be years until we found him."

Scarlett nodded, but she still had one more question: "There are two dozen other operators who are better qualified for this than I am. Why me?"

Raik smiled again. "Because the hotel is only a block from your old home. We're going to Yggdrasil."



This was definitely not something that Scarlett was used to.

She hated dresses. They restricted her movement too much if she got in a fight. At least she'd be able to take it off once she got to her room. For now she simply smiled and hung off Captain Raik's arm as other couples smiled and greeted them.

The room was a brisk walk from the elevator. As per ONI efficiency, their luggage was already in their room and waiting to be used. Raik picked up a scanner and began looking for bugs. Scarlett followed suit.

The sweep of the room took almost an hour, but turned up no bugs.

ONI must have a man on the inside. Scarlett thought, and began tearing off the dress and putting on her infiltration suit. The sun was starting to sink below the horizon, and it was time to go to work.

She heard Raik make a strange sound. The Cellular Operator turned to face him, but he was turning away, red-faced. Scarlett knew she was fit, but it still surprised her when men reacted to her body like that. And she'd just stripped down to her undergarments in front of him.

I honestly don't see the difference between that and my suit. She wondered to herself. They reveal about the same amount. But she knew there was more to it than that. Maybe she'd actually make use of it someday.

First on went her matte-black jumpsuit. It was skintight and unarmored. She knew some operators liked to wear some armor, but she found that if she needed it, it meant she probably deserved to get shot.

Or maybe she was just that good.

Next went her equipment belt. That and her jumpsuit were generally all she took with her. Alpha-9 provided an abundant array of tools for Operators to use in the field, so many that Scarlett had yet to use them all.

The only weapon she carried was an SP500 .45 caliber compact pistol with an integrated silencer and a 20 round magazine. She didn't bother grabbing reloads, knowing that if things went well she'd only fire it once.

If they didn't go well... then she probably wouldn't get the chance to fire it.

The last piece of equipment to go on was her headset. It included a vast array of hyper-advanced scanners. She'd heard that her pair of goggles could rival the sensor suites that were standard aboard the Mark VII MJOLNIR armor. Unfortunately, she could not confirm that as her security clearance wasn't high enough. She flipped through them all to make sure they were working. Included in the headset was a microphone and earpiece for direct communication.

Captain Raik was already set up at a table with numerous computers. "Let's do a check. Testing." Scarlett heard him both next to her and in her ear."

"Good on this end." She heard her voice play through Raik's computer speakers as well.

"Good." He said, pulling out a cigar and biting the end off. He held it in his teeth as he tapped.

"Since when did you smoke?"

"Since a friend of mine gave me one of these to try." Raik said, holding the cigar between two fingers and pulling out a lighter. He lit the cigar and took a drag.

"Let's get on with this." Scarlett said, making sure the goggles were secured firmly. They did a nice job of bundling up her hair that was slightly too long.

"Right. Go out the window over by the lamp and climb to the starting point."

Scarlett went to the window, opened it, and climbed out. Looking down, she saw that there was about a one kilometer long fall if she fell. Good thing she only had to climb a few hundred meters, as the wind was starting to pick back up. She'd be able to rappel back down.

The set fully as Scarlett reached the top of the building and entered Johansson's penthouse.



The first obstacle to tackle was a few lasers. Nothing that a little acrobatics wouldn't solve. She made it through just fine.

The next was a lot trickier. Twice as many lasers covered by cameras with overlapping fields of view, an automated turret and an armed guard. The guard seemed to be sleeping, but the turret was a problem, and being seen on the cameras would activate an alarm, and the turret would target any break in the laser within milliseconds.

First Scarlett pulled an old trick: She turned out the lights. The cameras weren't motion sensitive, but she knew that no one would be watching them as they were automated. After memorizing where the lasers were spread, Scarlett carefully navigated through them, sometimes balancing her body on a finger and a toe. It took her half an hour to cross the room.

The guard made a sound as Scarlett cleared the lasers. She froze, waiting to see what he'd do. He simply adjusted himself in his chair and went on sleeping.

She reached up and felt around the turret's base for any exposed wires. Finding one, she pulled out her knife and made a quick slice. No alarms went off. Scarlett felt that the trade-off was worth it - Johansson reportedly wore a heartbeat monitor that would trip an alarm if it stopped. Perhaps the guard knew something...

Said guard was brought to a rude awakening and pulled to his feet. A knife was pressed against his throat and an arm wrapped around it.

"Be silent." Scarlett hissed. "Or I cut your throat."

The man's eyes bugged out, but he nodded.

"Now tell me where I can find Johansson."

"In the top-most floor! Bedroom!" The man said quietly but hurriedly.

"Is there a way to deactivate the alarm?"

"Security post! Opposite side of the penthouse!"

"How many guards are in here?"

"I know of about a dozen."

"Good work, my friend." Scarlett went silent, and there was a pause as she listened to Raik.

"He's not lying. I'm reading all security measures going to that room.  If you can get there, all you'd have to worry about are the guards."

"Thank you." She said.

"... So... do I get to live?" The guard asked, a spark of hope dancing across his face.

There was a short pause. "Let me think about it for a minute. I have one more question.  Is there any way to bypass the lasers?"

"In my pocket. There's this device Johansson gave us.  It deactivates the lasers when we get close to them."

"Thank you." Scarlett tightened her grip on the guard. He struggled for a few seconds, then went limp.

"For a 160 pound lady, you sure are tough." Raik said.

"I have to be." Scarlett said, fishing a small box out of the guard's pocket.



The trip to the security room was easy Scarlett only had to worry about cameras and guards now, and both were a cinch to fool. She almost got caught once by a guard, but she managed to give him a smack on the head before he could call out. He was now snoozing quietly in a janitor's closet.

"What's it look like in there?" Raik asked. Scarlett switched to thermal scanning.

"Three guards. One closest to the door is armed."

"Take them out, but leave one awake. They can access the security systems, and that'll save some time."

Scarlett pulled out her pistol and opened the door. The armed guard began to turn around, but she landed a knockout blow to the back of his head and turned to the other two, who were now rising. She fired twice, both bullets catching the second guard in the throat. The third froze.

"Deactivate the security and I might let you live." Scarlett said, her voice taking on a no-nonsense tone.

"Alright, alright." The last guard said, eyes flicking from her to his compatriots, the sweat on his face glistening in the light.. It was not every day that you saw a little lady take out two men who resembled shaved bears. "Just don't kill me."

"Hurry up, then." Scarlett said impatiently.

She made sure to hit him twice before she left.

The security now disabled, all Scarlett had to worry about were the remaining eight guards, who were easily avoided.

Johansson was sitting at his computer when she crept silently in to the room. As she approached he pushed his glasses up on to his nose.

"Peter Johansson?"

He whipped around, face turning sheet white, and found himself staring down the barrel of a sidearm, with a small woman on the other end of it.

"Oh shi-"

Scarlett fired. Once in to his head, and then a double tap to his torso to make sure he stayed down. She gathered up his laptop and left the way she came.

"Good work, kid. Come on back and we can leave.  Pick-up is waiting outside." Raik said.

"That was too easy." Scarlett commented as she pulled out her rappelling cord.

"Yes... yes it was." Raik said, as if he was just realizing something.

As Scarlett began the descent, her PDA chimed. Still holding on with one hand, she pulled it out and squinted at the screen.

Acknowledge new orders.

Scarlett pressed the acknowledgment button, and the screen blanked. Then her new orders scrolled across the screen. Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes went wide.

Eliminate Captain Raik.

Time froze, and a torrent of questions whipped through Scarlett's mind.

Why did ONI want Raik dead?

Who wanted him dead?

What had he done?

Then she remembered who she was.



"I know you've come to kill me." Raik said as Scarlett entered the room, SP500 held in front of her.

"Why? What did you do?"

Raik spun a glass of whiskey around. He'd lit up another cigar, but it was already half burnt. "If I told you, they'd kill you, too."

"Why?" Scarlett was still struggling with the fact that she had to kill this man. He was just sitting there, knowing he was going to die.

And he was calm about it.

A sad smile spread across his face. Raik raised the glass to his lips and downed the last of the whiskey, and then took a long drag on the cigar.

"All I can tell you is that I am tired. I have not lived a full life, but the life I lived was one full of lies and failings.  I have done things I never wanted to do and no human should have to do."

"I know most of your history." Scarlett said. "You followed orders, you were always faithful to ONI."

Another smile. Another puff on the cigar. Sweet Williams Cigars, Scarlett noticed. "Until a couple of months ago, when I was asked to kill a good man."

"You didn't kill him."

"I did more than that. I helped him escape.  And I'm glad I did."

Scarlett's tongue was caught in her mouth. Raik sighed again, took one last pull on the cigar, and then put it out in the ash tray.

"That cigar was special to me. I hope you find something special to hold on to, someday.  Whatever it may be."

The SP500 kicked against Scarlett's palm, three times. All three rounds found their way in to Raik's chest.

His head went limp and fell on to his shoulder. The smile was still spread across his face.

Several men in suits burst in to the room and gathered up the equipment. One took Scarlett by the arm and lead her out.

She didn't take her eyes off of Raik's body until she was out of the room, and she didn't even change her expression during the long ride to the spaceport.