Dresden had sworn he was going to retire.
His last job had stolen six months of his life, the full use of his left leg, and his ability to sleep soundly. The nightmares, the skittishness in public, the constant, overwhelming burden of being aware of everything and everyone around him had conspired to rob him of his peace of mind and, after a few weeks, his love.
Dru had tried to be understanding, but it was clear coming back that Dresden was not the same man he was before he left. Gone were the easy laughter and quick smiles. Gone were the goofy jokes and the bad puns that had made the otherwise awkward man so endearing to her. Maybe they would return one day, but the constant brooding, the jumpiness, and the ingrained instinct to react violently to surprise had been too much.
Dresden, in turn, had discovered that what he knew of Dru had largely been a lie as well. She was a criminal. A powerful, wealthy criminal, but a criminal none the less. Maybe he could have made peace with that before, but how could he trust a woman whose whole life was built around profiting from the exploitation of the weak willed?
And so, after less than a month, they had agreed to part ways. There were no tearful goodbyes, just the crushing knowledge that what could have been was lost forever. It had died somewhere on that hellhole that had already taken so much.
For a little while, Dresden had tried to lay low and enjoy the hard earned fruits of his labor. He bought a small but posh apartment on Coruscant for a price that would have been more than he'd make in a year before that fateful mission, and had started work on getting officially certified as a structural engineer. Years of destroying buildings had been excellent study for constructing them, and he excelled in class. Unfortunately, the phantoms of his past had made coping with the peaceful life too much. At some level, he missed the thrill of fighting for his life. He would never be satisfied coasting through it now. He would never be satisfied growing fat and happy, toiling away in an office somewhere. And he would never be able to tolerate those simpering idiots who disdained those who put themselves in harm's way to protect the innocent.
He decided it was time to put out his resume. It was extensive and well referenced. His exploits hadn't exactly made him famous outside of that one world that he hoped to never see again, but the word had started to spread in some circles.
And now he stood with another group of fighters on Ossus, for a job that promised easy pay for minimal effort. All he had to do was be on hand in case anything needed blowing up.
At nearly 2 meters in height, the young human towered over the average man, though the intimidation factor was lessened somewhat by his painfully skinny build. His clothes were simple, utilitarian. He wore dark gray cargo pants, a dark green T-shirt, black combat boots, and a light bantha leather jacket with an armorweave lining. Over the T-shirt and under the jacket was a simple tactical vest with ceramic strike plates that would offer limited protection from small arms fire without overly restricting his movements. Hanging from a carabiner on his right shoulder was a simple AR-15 style rifle chambered in 5.56x45. It was nothing fancy, just a semiauto with a 3x magnified ACOG sight and a flash suppressor. He carried a combat load of 210 rounds, distributed among 7 magazines. Six were kept in pouches on the front of his vest, with another in the weapon's magazine well. Also on his vest were two flashbang grenades and a thermal detonator. On his right hip was a .45 ACP slugthrower pistol. It used 12 round magazines, of which he had four total.
In his pack was the good stuff: twenty one-kilogram detonite blocks, 150 meters of spooled detcord, and enough detonators to supply a small demolitions company for a year. You could never have too many detonators. The damn things were usually reliable enough, but long experience had taught him that they would invariably fail when you needed them most if you were too stingy with them.
He stood uneasily off to the side of the group. Social situations were still uncomfortable. It wasn't just that he didn't know what to say; he never knew what to do with his hands, how much eye contact was appropriate, which jokes were supposed to be funny, so on and so forth. Here, that mostly wasn't a problem. He kept his right hand on the pistol grip of his rifle, his left hand resting gently on the upturned stock, his mouth shut, and his eyes opened. They'd tell him where he was needed eventually, and when that happened, maybe he could finally feel alive again.
[member="Khaleel Malvern"]
[member="Anja Aj'Rou"]
[member="Kana Truden"]
