AN: I know OCs are often cringy and I'm 21 and married and should be over this phase in my life, but goddamnit. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I'm trying. I hope you enjoy the story anyways. :)

AN #2: This is it. This is the revised edition. I have put songs at the beginning of each chapter, you can either ignore them or listen to them, whatever you want. There is also a Spotify playlist where I have gathered all of them (the kind of music is wildly different, because the music I listen to is wildly different as well).

Here is the link: playlist/2H72Wx3m8E3UEd1ogNGfsc?si=VGzF6WR4SnyuSo4h8vulnA

Now, without further ado: Have fun!

song: Sedaa - Tal

I pulled the scarf in front of my face just in time, before the hot winds of Pandora could blow a shit ton of sand in my mouth. I really should be wearing a full face scarf all the time, but as I said - the winds on Pandora are fucking hot. And I was already half-dying without more sticky clothes. And without sand in my mouth or my anything for that matter. It was days like these when I wished for some nice, clean water to soak in on this absolute shit hole.

Also, what was it with bandits never being on time for anything? Every single time I made a deal with them they were late for the exchange. It was just ridiculous at this point. As if I had nothing else to do. Well, truth be told, I didn't have anything else to do, really. Not since most people had left Pandora ages ago and since most of the bandit clans had settled in more or less peacefully.

It was easy to get by just after Dahl had left. Everyone wanted everyone dead, so doing the odd contract kill and selling some explosives here and there was pretty profitable. But things had started settling down and I was making less and less cash, which meant I was probably damned to die on Pandora. Which was just great, because who didn't want to die out here?

I could still do some odd jobs here and there for several bandit gangs, but they were getting really sparse and the supplies to the planet were getting few and far between. I had barely any decent food left (except skag meat, but that was what I was eating almost every day by now) and my coffee supplies were running low as well.

Still better than being enslaved by any of the big corporations in my opinion, no matter how much I despised the bandits. A job was a job and as long as I got paid, I didn't really care where the money came from. So here I was, with a bunch of explosives, stacked up in a neat pile, out in the damn desert, waiting to rendezvous with a group of bandits, so I could finally get my damn money.

I squinted into the distance, thinking I had heard some sort of noise. I automatically had my hand on my revolver. It wasn't my favorite kind of gun, but it was fairly handy and easy to conceal, especially for meet-ups like this. I normally preferred shotguns and sniper rifles, but well. This and the submachine gun holstered on my other side would have to do today.

I had been armed to the teeth for my first few jobs, but over time, I got a little more trusting. A lot of these people were scientists, engineers or just some poor sods left behind by Dahl and Atlas. Maybe I was getting careless, but I liked to think that me and the bandits had some sort of secret agreement not to double cross each other. The more I thought about it, the dumber it sounded in my head, actually.

I saw some figures approaching in the distance. Looked like it was them, alright. I really hoped the exchange would go smoothly, especially since I had started to rethink my decision to trust them. I had my car parked a little further away and while I was a decent runner, I was by no means great at it. I was good at running long distances, but it wasn't like I was especially fast.

Then again leaving the car close to the bandit camp would have been a bad idea as well. Hell, my whole life up until that point was a bad idea, but that was a story for another day. I concluded that there was no perfect solution for the car dilemma and left it at that. I squinted against the sun.

The group of bandits came closer, heavily armored and at a reckless speed of course. I really didn't like them, but I couldn't be too picky when it came to making money. Not on Pandora. This planet was bad enough without me making things more difficult for myself. Too bad it was the only place I could afford at the time I moved. But well, I was determined to make the best of it, until I could leave this desert wasteland far far behind me. If... When I saved up enough money to leave.

I put on a sly smile as the bandit leader approached me slowly with a big grin on his face. God, I really didn't like doing business with them.

"You got the stuff?" he asked. I nodded.

"Three C-Charges, 25 pipe bombs and two large propane bombs with a timer." I replied and nodded to a bunch of containers leaning against some rocks and covered up with some light-coloured material. Obviously I'd blow them up if they tried to scam me on this, but they didn't know. Their leader nodded to one of his minions to go over and check. The guy weasled over there and took a look under the covers. He probably had no clue what the hell he was doing.

"All there!" he shouted over at the leader. He looked at me with his big, ugly grin again.

"Good girl. Now about your payment..." he said. I still had my hand on my revolver. If they were trying anything I'd have them mowed down within seconds. Or at least I was telling myself that.

That was when I felt something hard hit my head and everything went black.