Lieutenant Laytn Aarom lurched forward as the transport truck came to a sudden halt. Without the benefit of a warning, Laytn’s head collided with a dull thud against the metal casing of his mobile suit’s beam sniper rifle. Spitting a curse as he brought a hand to rub at his head, Laytn stood and yelled towards the front of the truck.

“Care to [i]ease[/i] into the brakes, eh corporal?”  

With the loud rumble of the [i]Samson[/i]’s mechanical systems filling the desert air, Laytn knew the young soldier in the driver seat had no chance of hearing him. This fact somehow made the pain in his skull all the more sharp, as his rebuke drifted heedlessly into the cacophony of noise. [i]Damn kids[/i], he thought, wearily inspecting the hand he had held to his head for blood. Only grimy dirt and grease caked upon his fingers met his gaze. 

Satisfied his wound was nothing more than a bump, Laytn stood beneath the tarp in the rear of the transport, and looked to the mobile suit that accompanied him. Sporadic pools of sunlight danced and shifted through the torn and hole-riven fabric that covered the aging MS-05L Zaku I Sniper Type, affectionately christened “Old Crow.” The scratched, pocked, and dented coyote-tan armor plating that covered the mobile suit was specious, even in the relatively low light. On Old Crow’s right shoulder, the once dark silhouette of a cackling raven with a large roman numeral ‘III’ in its beak, looked back at Laytn with a dim, dusty luster. 

[i]She’s seen better days,[/i] He thought with a wry smirk. [i]And so have I.[/i]

The thirty-year old lieutenant glanced down to his uniform, and decided he and his mobile suit made quite the pair. His brown boots were scuffed, and caked with sand. The fabric of his uniform was worn, and slightly lighter in color and threadbare at the knees, elbows, and shoulders. Irregular stains of layered sweat marked his shirt beneath his armpits, and around his collar. His rank insignias were no longer crisp, and stray threads poked out irregularly. That coupled with the lengthening crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and the stubble of a beard at his chin, made Laytn for quite the opposite image of a dashing spacenoid military officer. That was the reality of war, however. Spit and polish were appropriate for control rooms and state dinners, not the front lines. Laytn had learned long ago that it was more important to clean your rifle than it was to clean your shirt.

Grumbling at the sweltering heat, and the ache in his head, Laytn closed the access panel to the electronic scope on Old Crow’s beam rifle. Recently the calibrations within the digital zoom had been glitching sporadically, and that was the hallmark of sand finding its way into the circuitry. The damnable sand got everywhere. It was worse than water in Laytn’s mind, and he, along with the rest of the Zeon military, had been fighting that natural plague since landing on Earth. It had become so commonplace an issue for Old Crow that Laytn had to take to cleaning various systems on the mobile suit during transport. Today had been no exception. Satisfied, if not necessarily pleased with his progress on the scope, Laytn decided to check on the disposition of the convoy and his comrades. 

Sliding beneath the edge of the tarp, Laytn jumped down to the hard sand. The wind and sun immediately began to berate him with heat and grit, and he squinted against it as he looked down the direction of the convoy’s front. Up ahead, he could see the engineers and mechanics clustered around a listing [i]Samson[/i]. They were working quickly to repair an apparently blown tire on the massive truck, and seeing this, Laytn found himself adding a scowl to his already squinted eyes. [i]At least it’s not a turbine.[/i]

Laytn pressed a desert camouflaged boonie-hat upon his head, and began stalking his way towards where he knew Lieutenant Tyranne’s truck to be located. As he walked, he passed his fellow soldiers of the 261st dutifully, if somewhat exasperatingly, using the opportunity of the unplanned stoppage to check over their equipment and loads. This sight gave Laytn a twinge of pride, and his mood buoyed slightly as he found his way to where Milo stood beside the cab of his truck. 

“Damned trucks,” Laytn called to his fellow lieutenant. “Whoever’s brilliant idea it was to use pneumatic tires in a place like this should be thrust out an airlock.”

Moving to stand his 5’-10” frame beside his shorter companion, Laytn clapped a hand on Milo’s shoulder. “How are you holding up?”