Stryfe may have been the best mechanic of their rag-tag group, but Aaron knew enough to get on by. A combat armour was the best protecting gear he'd ever seen, at the expense of bulk and restricted movement. After everyone starting settling down for the night, Aaron selected a few items from the basement and found himself a quiet place on the first floor.
There, he unwrapped his tunic to reveal the curious armour underneath: not much heavier than a leather armour, the weird assemblage offered much better protection overall, though not up to par with the cumbersome metal armours favoured by some tough caravan guards and raiders. Most importantly though, it was completely silent; there was no squeak of leather, no clink of metal plates, nothing to betray the wearer as he skulked through streets, buildings or the desert to fulfill his current contract. And it was his father's last gift to him; he was dead when the young assassin took the silenced Desert Eagle.
Aaron's idea was to re-assemble the various parts of the combat armour onto his using thin yet resistant metal wire to secure them. It took him the best part of the evening, but in the end he had the best he could create: it retained a good deal of flexibility, the weight was well balanced, and all the combat armour panels could be separated by slicing the wire with a high-powered cutting torch. In fact, he pocketed two of the small ones he'd found in the tool kit; they were just good enough to bypass one locked door, though you never knew when you might need one open.
He lay down in his long tunic on a matress he'd discovered in a corner of the room, and went to sleep. Then the nightmare came.
He knew it was a dream, yet it made no difference. He was fifteen years old, a man already in the harsh wasteland. His father, the son of the son of a Capitaine in the French Foreign Legion, had taught him all he had learned from his grandfather about survival, and all he had learned himself. Yet nothing had prepared him for the savagery of the raider's attack on their peaceful community. They came at dawn, whooping and cursing loudly, a brutal transition from the sleep of night to the slumber of eternity.
Aaron had got up early as was his habit, for one might manage to catch the morning gecko. It was a difficult creature to hunt, a dangerous one too, with little meat as a reward; on the other hand, it was the only creature they could actually kill as a lone hunter. He was humming along as he walked back to his father's tent, proud of his catch of the day, a large gecko with unusual markings; he was wondering what could be done with the skin when his father ran towards him, carrying two rucksacks and their pistols.
From the cover of a large boulder, Aaron listened to the screams of his people as they were tortured and slain; he wanted to run away, and at the same time he wanted to go back in there and kill all of them, all these unknown men who had decided to satisfy their need for violence in this little community of farmers and traders. His father gave him his old armour, a rucksack and a pistol, and told him to meet the caravan that was bound to arrive from the south in a few days. As he walked away, despising himself for his cowardice, yet knowing only he could prevent the caravan from being attacked on arrival, the screams continued to echo across the desert...
