The warm, fragrant desert air went still, as if an invisible gargantuan entity held its breath in anticipation. The only sounds present would be the slow, thudding flap of a nearby Phalanx Nymph's wings, and beating of your own heart. It always felt that way before a job - before blood would soak the sands. Miles Clarke knew that feeling well, and it was on a quiet, peaceful midweek morning that the mercenary found himself waiting in ambush along a trade-route miles from civilization. Beside him, sheathed, his rapier glistened in the sun, and caught his near-black eyes in a moment of distraction. Beside it, a holster held his laser pistol: the tool of his trade. Tucked behind a dune out of sight was a small land speeder, modern but not showy, courtesy of his part time employers, the Babylon Advanced Armaments Corporation. It was because of them that he was in the desert that morning. A faction of bandits had stolen a weapons shipment en route to Edessa, and were now transporting them along the road toward one of the shadier Tower villages. BAAC intelligence estimated a resistance force of half a dozen; as Miles peered out from cover toward the oncoming convoy, he determined nearly double that.
Across the road, he got the attention of his partner for the mission, John Hu. Hu was a friend and associate, not to mention a skilled mercenary, and the BAAC often sent them on missions together. John nodded at him, and readied his laser rifle at the convoy. Miles could see that the weapons container was bringing up the rear - in front of only a small speeder much like his own, and guarded in the front by two more speeders and a smaller, modified sand skiff. This made their job easier, but messier. The convoy got into range, so close now that Miles could hear the conversation between the two bandits at the helm of the sand ship.
"... to go into thuh city sometime. And I look to him, and I sehs', yeah I sehs' to him, 'why go there when I gots a bottle a' Mezcal right here?!'" The other bandit chuckled.
"He's nuts! And who'd wanna go into the city, anyway? A buncha wusses in there. Can't shoot for shit, can't work for-"
The explosives buried beneath the dirt road blew the front of the skiff to pieces, obliterating any evidence of the first man, and blasting the second clear off the vessel. One of the accompanying speeders veered off the road in an effort to avoid the wreckage, and the pilot spun out and hit his head on the wheel, knocking him unconscious. Miles and John stood from cover and opened fire, catching the recovering bandits completely by surprise. The bodies began to fall. The rear speeder attempted to make a getaway, but John adjusted his aim, fired, and nicked the pilot in the shoulder, forcing hum off of the vehicle. By this time only four bandits remained in fighting condition, and they began to return fire with their antiquated weapons. Miles maneuvered around to the side, hitting one, then two with his pistol, before boarding the rear of the sand ship and dispatching the last two with a series of deep slashes with his sword. The battle was over. John secured the shipment and began to loot the vessels, while Miles checked for any survivors - taking the dead's belongings as a bonus. Such was the life of a mercenary. You never knew when you'd have another job, so you milk every contract you do get for as much as humanly possible.
Miles approached the body of the man from the sand skiff who had been thrown at the start of the firefight, and who now lay crumpled facedown in the road. The mercenary made it to within four meters when he saw the body shift. Miles saw it just in time - he unholstered his own pistol just as the bandit flipped himself upright with a weapon in hand, and shot the injured man twice in the chest. The life drained from the criminal in that instant, and for a moment Miles felt sorry for the man - for all of them. But his job demanded stoicism, and his face quickly returned to the mask it had been, and would be until he received his payment. John returned to his side dragging an unconscious bandit - the last survivor. The two mercenaries looked to each other, silently agreeing on what they needed to do. Then, without another word, they left the man and his belongings untouched by the side of the road with his undamaged speeder, solemnly leaving the burning remains of vehicles and human corpses and the one lone survivor for the city of Babylon, in all its grace and depravity.
