[i]Whir. Grind. Grind. Clank.[/i] There were a lot of those noises. Mostly grinding, honestly. The mechanized portion of the local military was in a state of serious disrepair. There was plenty of metal left of the planet between the wreckage and the mines, but the wreckage was an irradiated hell-scape and the ore in the mines was of low quality. The mining facilities were also slow and horridly outdated. There was no way to mass produce high quality alloys.

That meant mechs, weapons, and vehicles alike were constantly rusting, overheating, and wearing themselves down. They were also usually small and unable to support much weight. And slow. So... fucking... slow.

But that made them easy targets.

Maedoc sat crouched on a clifftop, old, brown duster protecting him from the sun and sand. A convoy was slowly grinding and whirring its way by, half of the men on foot since they couldn't afford better transportation. It comprised itself of two mechs, six foot soldiers, one atv with two passengers, and a transport truck with a simple canvas covering on the back.  He had to fight to keep himself from coughing. The exhaust from the two mechs was foul and rising right up to him. He pulled a bandana, a simple gray one, up a over his face to make it a little more tolerable. 

If any were to look up, his scraggly mess of bright, red hair would probably give him away -- but no one wanted to look up into the harsh sunlight.

Right on schedule, the convey, literally, ground to a halt. A man had walked out into the road in front of it. A pair of soldiers, likely suffering in their stuffy combat armor, marched forward to shove him out of the way, but they never got the chance. A rocket streaked out from behind a sand dune across the road, blasting one of the mechs to pieces.

The other quickly rotated on its hip joints, twin autocannons on its right arm firing wildly in the direction the rocket had come from. Meanwhile, the man in the road had retreated, but not before shooting one of the soldiers in the head. That was his cue. He jumped from the cliff, landing on the back of the surviving mech, nearly unbalancing it just from that. He grabbed the nearest handhold and reached back with his free hand, grabbing what appeared to be a hatchet, but with a very small blade. 

He flipped a switch and with a crackle of energy, an unstable blade of hot plasma burst to life. He smashed it into the mechs exhaust twice, and soon it was shooting flames and shaking itself apart. He leapt clear just before the engine gave and it toppled, a smoking wreck. By then, ballistic gunfire was raining down on the remaining troops, one shot having disabled the trucks engine. 

A nearby soldier rushed at him, his weapon having jammed. He raised his energy hatchet... and it fizzled out, leaving him to smash it just about uselessly against the soldier's helmet. The soldier returned with the butt of his gun, knocking him to the ground. With the push of a button, a bayonet popped out, and the soldier moved for a finishing blow. 

A bolt of energy struck the soldier in the chest, burning straight through his armor. Energy weapons were faulty, which was why Maedoc carried two. The second was a bulky pistol... that burned through its power cell in one, albeit deadly, shot. He snapped it open, ejecting the fizzling cell before it slagged the entire gun. He sighed, he didn't have a replacement this time.

He quickly dashed to the truck, jumping into the back. There were no guards. All the soldiers were dead or soon to be at that point. This was his best chance to get his prize. There were numerous crates on the truck, but the small one in the back was his goal. It was locked, but he pried it open quickly enough. Inside was another container, held safe by foam padding. That one wasn't locked. 

He snapped the lid open, revealing a large electronic chip. He slipped it into his jacket, replacing it was another, considerably less value fake. It wasn't that he didn't trust his companions, but...

OK, he didn't at all trust his companions.

He jumped back out of the truck, and already two of them were standing there waiting among the wreckage and corpses. 

"So, already nabbed it have you?" The first, a grizzled older man asked him. He had plenty of stubble, buzzed hair, and a very large machine gun. 

"Of course," Maedoc gave a small bow. "Plenty of other loot too." What little it would be worth. Hopefully some of it was edible.

"Good. Hand it over." The second was a woman with similarly short hair. She had a large revolver in his face.

"So rude..." Maedoc scowled, fishing the small container out and handing it over. The man opened it and then nodded.

"Rude? No. This is rude." She pulled the trigger.

- - - [b]Two Days Later[/b] - - -

A man drunkenly stumbled his way through the streets of "The Bowl." It was essentially a small dent in the planet. Over the years they'd erected a set of curved walls around it, effectively shielding it from the wind and harsh sand. The taller buildings still got blasted, but it was better than nothing.

He was in the downtown portion of the settlement, staggering past people and trying not to knock anyone over. He was pretty sure he wouldn't get up again if he crashed. However, vision blurry, his luck finally ran out. He stumbled around a corner and roughly bumped into some woman with dark hair wearing a sarong. He grabbed her shoulders, using her to steady himself and somehow not bringing either to the ground. He looked up once he felt a little steadier, opened his mouth to apologize... and coughed up a spray of blood right in her face before collapsing anyway.