The Sun Sets Over a Paper Moon

bugs bugs bugs

The Sun Sets over a Paper Moon 

 

 

Run fools, run! Head for the ships, forget about objectives, we’ve been compromised.  This place is ready to blow.  Go! Go! Go! As I ran, a blast knocked me off my feet.

 

When I woke, I found myself lying in a ditch, head face in the dirt. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, checked for broken bones, found none, climbed out of the ditch and surveyed the area.  My men, equipment, ships, gone; I was alone. The outpost we came to secure was in ruins. Half of my squad was dead, hopefully the rest escaped. The situation seemed bleak. Left for dead without food, water or supplies, and slim hope for rescue, sure as hell wasn’t a good recipe for survival. But I’m a soldier, trained for worst case scenarios. Panicking would only be a deterrent to finding solutions. My head’s clear, heartrate good, time to get off my a*s.

 

Faced with a grim situation, a soldier needs to put aside his emotions and moral compass and do whatever it takes to survive. I needed to pick through the dead for any supplies I required. This was not a time to mourn the dead, but a time to strip them of anything useful.  I gathered up some weapons, a few canisters of water, and food rations. Enough to last for a week or two. I let the disgust wash over me and moved on to the next objective; the bombed-out outpost.

 

The place was in shambles.  The scientific outpost used to contain a contingent of three hundred men and women. Most of them are dead. The stink of decayed corpses attested to that fact. Our mission was to fortify the outpost with advanced weaponry and scientific equipment for the science geeks. Instead, one of my technicians, may she rot in hell, sabotaged the facility and blew the freaking place up. I saw the b***h put the bomb in place. I killed her, but disarming it was near impossible with that type of explosive device.  It was set to blow in ninety seconds.  I ran like hell and set the evacuation alarms in effect. I don’t know how many survived, but the majority didn’t make it. I rummaged through the labs and cafeteria and precured additional foodstuffs, communication equipment and sonic devices.

 

I decided to make this my home base. I now had plenty of food and water to last for months, and with the equipment I had, I could make a communications array that would get me off this shithole of a planet. I secured the perimeter by putting up a sonic fence and placing weapons in strategic locations. If any of those shape-shifting b******s tried to get in, they’d be crispy critters.

 

My mind keeps reeling back to when I killed that shapeshifting saboteur. Whenever I think of her, I cringe with disgust. I thought I loved her; I screwed her countless times. In truth, she was some hideous bug like creature who shifted into a beautiful woman so that it could infiltrate my crew. I was duped, a disgrace to the uniform. How could I have missed the signs? That throaty voice, those violet eyes, that tantalizing smell of hers. Beauty blinds and lust make us see mirages.

……

 

 

It’s been months since I was stranded here. I’ve been sending distress calls with the communication array I built. No nibbles. I’ve been having dreams, no, nightmares of Lea, no, no, of that bugfucker.  She haunts me. I had to kill her; it was my duty. That look she gave me before I shot her, it was pained, apologetic. I think it, no, she loved me too. What the f**k did I do? I killed the only thing I ever loved, even if it was a monster. Aren’t we all?

 

Lights, I see lights in the sky. Rescued, finally. I think I’ll join Lea in hell instead.

 

(((((((Boom))))))

 

Author's Note

let her rip