Easy Money? Not So Much.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

The lift came to a halt and its doors opened smoothly. The street beyond was barely lit in comparison to the bright vibrance of Tier One, though there was still some light, mainly in the form of the occasional functioning street lamp, and the grimy headlights of the cars and other vehicles which packed the roads. Clearly, despite being an utter dump, Coruscant's slums were packed to the brim. It was sad to see that such a thing lurked beneath the veneer of the proud, powerful nation which the Empire liked to display to the tourists above. Hijiri hoped that one day these people too could be blessed with the same peace and security afforded the well-off citizens of Tier One.

“Alright, move out.” the sergeant ordered, and his men began cautiously exiting the lift, leaving behind its comforting illusion of safety. During the trip here he had been quickly introduced to his new companions, and though he had yet to memorise all of their names, and still had no idea how to tell them apart in their armour, he had at least learnt that their sergeant was called 'Davion Calrime'... not a name he'd heard before on Earth, but not too weird, especially compared to a couple of the others here. He also now knew that Dodson's first name was 'Trevor'.

In addition to being introduced to one another, his squad-mates had also suggested using some of the supply of Omnilium which he previously hadn't even realised he had to summon something called a 'Mobile Dataverse Device & Communicator'. Judging by the description they'd given him, it sounded like it served much the same purpose in this reality as a smartphone would have done on Earth, and so that was what he had pictured in his mind when summoning it. It'd be useful if he got separated from them during a fight, they'd told him... though so far he had been using it just to browse the 'Dataverse'; their version of the internet. Stuffing the phone in a pocket as the last of the stormtroopers left the lift, he followed them out into the streets.

“Most of you already know the drill, but I'll go over it again for the sake of our two newcomers. Starting from this spot we have a specific circuit to patrol. Whilst patrolling we look down side-streets and through the windows of buildings, as well as those of any stationary or slow-moving vehicles; which with the usual congestion around here means almost all of them. We do not go on detours and we do not react to 'suspicious noises'. Walking into a dark alley after hearing someone coincidentally scream for help at the exact moment you happen to be passing by is a good way to get yourselves ambushed and slaughtered... no matter how tough you might think you are.” Davion looked directly at Hijiri as he said this, and the ex-Battle Rabbit assumed that beneath the helmet he was being glared at. For some reason, around here new Primes seemed to have a reputation for being either extremely overconfident or perhaps just plain stupid.

After making sure to get a 'yes, sir' from both Hijiri and Trevor, the sergeant led them out towards the roads. Since the traffic was rarely moving faster than a crawl they were indeed forced to look through the windows of just about every vehicle they passed, just as the sergeant had said, searching for anything obviously illegal, such as stashes of drugs, piles of weaponry or perhaps even bound and gagged abductees. It wouldn't be the first time if they spotted a kidnapping-in-progress, Davion assured the squad's new members.

To begin with Trevor practically jumped out of his skin at every sudden noise, and Hijiri was attempting to match the diligence with which the other 'troopers performed their duties... but the novelty soon began to wear thin. Rudely peering into the cars of frightened or angry citizens was hardly the heroic fight against crime he had envisaged when signing up. In fact, in the entire first hour of their patrol the most interesting thing to happen was when they saw a little kid who looked to be about eight playing with a bundle of toy weapons.

The man who spotted them immediately levelled his blaster at the car, terrifying the child and his mother. It was then that Hijiri learned of the existence of 'anime swords'; apparently it was possible for Primes to make absolutely anything into a deadly weapon, simply by pouring enough Omnilium into it; even if the item had originally been nothing more than a child's toy.

As it turned out in this instance, though, the kid's 'arsenal' was, in fact, just a bunch of regular toys, and the squad was forced to awkwardly apologise to a very angry parent. Hijiri was just barely able to avoid sighing out loud. He got the distinct impression that this wasn't anywhere near as rare an occurrence as he would have liked.

And so it was that he and Trevor ended up taking their duties a little more lightly than was perhaps wise. Of course, their sergeant had prepared for this, and so until he had time to train them properly – a process which would begin the moment they reached the barracks that lay at the end of their patrol route, he assured them – he was making sure to have more experienced members of the squad covering the same areas they were, so that nothing would be missed.

Nevertheless, that didn't change the fact that neither of them were actually expecting anything to go wrong by this point, and so when the first gunshots rang out and two stormtroopers collapsed immediately, they were both taken completely by surprise.

Word Count: 962, according to OpenOffice's word counter.
Total Word Count: 3697/5000-10000.