I believe the title is self explanatory. This chapter though has quite a bit of action, wow, I've never said that this early in any fic have I? I don't know actually. I can't even remember typing other fics. I kind of just drift from one to the next. Yeah blah, blah, blah. I'll shut up, just read & review. I like hearing what you think.

Chapter 4: Assassination

Twilight had fallen as Mara scaled the roof of the person whom she was going to kill building. There was one simple way to get in. A skylight. Mara could find none at the very top center of the roof, but there were three on the very perimeter. She scaled the roof to the closest one and began searching her belt for something. For this assassination she was now wearing a stealth suit, made entirely out of thin and flexible black armorweave. She had a number of weapons on her, one thermal detonator, her lightsaber, her blaster pistol, plus a very small backup pistol, not much bigger than her hand, as well as a very sharp tempered durasteel blade, which was what she was searching for. Her gloved hand came to rest on its sheath. Moving it up she pulled the blade out.

Taking it down with her hand she carefully and gently eased the tip of it through the glass of the skylight. Thankfully it was glass and not transparasteel, otherwise she would have to use her lightsaber, or more preferably a welding torch. If anyone saw her with a lightsaber the suspect of assassination could be easily narrowed down.

She took her knife and cut a hole in the glass, making sure to grab it before it feel. The hole was about two times the size of the circumference of her body. Easy enough. She looked down into the room below, not seeing much except the floor. It was a good ten feet or so down. Maybe fifteen. She could get down but it would be risky, mostly because traveling down a wire with now wall to rappel down was slow business. She had no choice. Tossing the glass off the side of the roof where it because about a ten minute long fall she grabbed a rappel gun from her belt and shot it into part of the roof near her. After testing that the grappling hook was firmly lodged into the durasteel off the roof Mara clipped the rappel gun back to her belt and slowly began inching her way down on it.

The room she set foot on was circular. Literally in fact, it was a room that went all the way around another wall of an other circular room. It seemed to be a longing area. There were several sofas along the perimeter of the wall and a HoloNet screen that looked highly expensive. Taking her silenced blaster pistol she aimed and shot it, stupid rich people, spending so much money on useless things. Not that a HoloNet screen was useless but really, do you need a sixty inch one. With a slight his and the quiet sound of a breaking glass HoloNet screen it broke. Mara smiled satisfied. Now she had to find the entrance to the inner circular room. She walked the perimeter of the room she had entered in quietly. No one was in it.

She found a staircase winding up the inner wall and disappearing into the ceiling. Perhaps she had stumbled upon the man's main living area. Why not? Lots of people like to live at the very top of buildings. Silently she crept up them, not surprised to find them leading very high up into a living area. When she came out into it she nearly screamed as she nearly collided with a man looking out the window in front of her. Apparently watching fire crews put out her burning ship which had crashed into a building nearby. This was her target. Crouching somewhat she crept towards him. She preferred the break her targets neck. After she was just a few paced from the end of the stair well she froze as the man stifled a yawn and

Turn her way. He jumped when he saw her, and took a quick glance at her, realizing what she was his hand flew towards a small control panel strapped to his wrist. The moment his finger hit the button every light in the room flashed for white to red and continued doing so, then a huge annoying alarm rang out. Mara cursed and the man turned to run, pulling out her blaster she squeezed off two shots. Both hit him clean in the back of the head.

Mara ran up to the man and checked his pulse. Dead. Excellent, grabbing his hand she yanked the biggest ring he had on off and turned to go back down the stairs. When she reached the bottom she found herself staring into the barrel of a guard's blaster rifle.

"Don't move." He commanded. Mara took a moment to look at him. He was standing in the complete wrong posture, or stance. His entire body was turned towards her, with his hands stretched out and aiming the gun. There was a very simple way to get rid of him and Mara could almost laugh at it. Before he could even see she brought her booted foot up hard into his groin. He keeled over, shooting off three laser bolts that burned into the carpet and disappeared with a wisp of smoke. The man turned and began an descent towards Mara's feet. He had seen her already, he had to die. Reaching out she grabbed him by the next as he was halfway done with his fall and twisted upwards.

There was a sickening crack as the man's neck snapped and his body went limp. Mara let him finish his fall and grabbed his blaster rifle. Aiming at a window on the outer wall she pulled the trigger and blaster a chain of shots that shattered the window, and set glass particles flying down to the streets of Coruscant, which would be dangerous and inconvenient for the people strolling them, though it wasn't as though Mara gave a flip for the dirty crime bosses and drug dealers that lived down there.

And it was then that she realized she had stood in one place for too long. There was a hissing boom as a blaster discharged and the bolt narrowly missed Mara's face, she could feel its heat go across her nose. She turned to the direction of the shot. There were five guards, five! This was not one of her better assassinations, and she would not count it as an assassination if she did not escape, in which case would it would be an attempt. Attempts did not sit well with her. She shot a glance at the shattered window. It was already night. She was wearing a stealth suit.

Quickly she pulled her blaster upward and shot out the blow stick above her, and it in turn caused a chain reaction, stopping the circuit and shorting out every other light in the circular room. And that sadly is how all big government buildings were wired. Mara ducked and rolled as the guards fired at her previous position. Through the flickering light of their blaster bolts they still could not see her. But she didn't want to give her position away either. Quickly she pulled out a pair of night vision goggles and switched them on.

It seemed that the room was bathed in green light. She could clearly see the five guards, each of them had stopped firing and were now slowly walking in her direction. She knew how to take them out one by one, but to kill the first she would have to sacrifice her knife since she had only four grappling hooks left. Unsheathing her knife she flipped it and held it by the blade taking careful aim at the man furthest to the right. When she judged it right she pulled back, and launched the knife. It hummed as it cut through the air and landed smack in the man's neck. His comrades quickly turned as he fell and shot. This gave Mara a fraction of a second to kill another. She took out her grappling gun and snapped in a grapple magazine. She aimed it at the next guard and shot.

The grappling hook made a similar sound as it cut through the air. It hit the next guard in the chest and flew all the way through, spreading out its hooks and going back as Mara pulled. She cut the cord from it and watched as the remaining three looked at the one who had fallen. They all seemed very nervous now. Mara repeated the step two more times and by the time the fourth fell the fifth located her and shot. She had no choice, he was going to die anyway. She pulled out her lightsaber and deflected the bolt. It ricocheted off the blade and hit the guard in the head. Mara deactivated the saber and ran for the window as she saw ten more guards quietly enter the room.

Again she was freefalling and again she pressed her jetpack on. It flew her up and then leveled. She threw off her night vision goggles from the glare of the Coruscant lights and glided her jetpack down towards the landing platform, which thankfully was deprived of guards at the moment. A few feet above the platform she switched the jetpack off and landed on her feet, running to the nearest ship which happened to be a shiny and new Lambda class shuttle. Man, that guy was rich.

She ran up the ramp of the Lambda shuttle and into the cockpit. Starting the ship up she raised the ramp and took off, turning left and up towards the sky just it time to see a small Imperial troop transport headed to the building, and guided by four TIE fighters. Mara cursed and punched the engines full throttle, shooting up towards the night sky. It took a moments for the TIE fighters to register what exactly that meant before they flew off in pursuit.

Mara pulled her ship up, going straight at the sky at ninety degrees. The TIE's followed the same way and one launched off a warning shot that grazed the left wing of the shuttle, shaking it but doing no damage. Mara didn't slow. She switched the afterburners on and shot forward. Then the TIE's opened fire. Nearly all of theirs bolts missing. Two grazed off the top of the shuttle and one hit the back, below the left engine. The rest missed and flew away, one hit a passing speeder at the very top traffic land dead in the engines which exploded. The speeder shook and dived downwards, burning and the pilot dead. It shot past the shuttle and smashed into one of the TIE fighters. Ironically the one that shot it and both ships simply welded together as the fighters fuel exploded, and both went down towards the streets of Coruscant. Mara shot out of the atmosphere, having already calculated a route through hyperspace she flicked the switch. The stars grew into needle thin lines and Mara shot past them, going into hyperspace. The counter said she would reach Cato Nemodia within one hour or so.

For the first time in her assassinating career Mara sat back against the pilot's seat and let out a relieved breath. She had never had such a close call. She breathed out again. And closed her eyes.

"Fancy flying lady." A voice said from behind her, making her jump. She leaped off the seat and turned. A man in a pilot's uniform, similar to the guard's was standing at the cockpit entrance with a blaster pointed at her chest. The pilot of the ship had been on, he hid when she had boarded. "But this is my ship and I want it back."

Mara frowned at him. "It's mine now, unless you want to buy it."

"Damn it woman, I am going to kill you and you're going to sit and make jokes. Mara sighed and turned the pilot's seat around. Sitting back into it.

"Well will you at least kill me sitting down then?"

"Fine." The man replied smiling. "Prepare to die assassin."

And then, with the sound of a discharging blaster, and a thud… the man fell to the floor of the cockpit dead. Mara looked down at the blaster she had pulled to her side.

"Moron." She muttered as she turned back to the control console and looked out into hyperspace.

Thanks for the reviews I have so far people. I like 'em. They make me type faster. And that is no joke. I am serious. Usually after I get a review I go and type more.