A Soldier in Love (10 page)

“Just put the hose in
the gas tank and blow. Blow like you are blowing bubbles,” Michelle said wearily,
trying to endure the heat along with the blood loss. She could feel the rest of
her uniform becoming damp with both blood and sweat. The heat was becoming
increasingly more intense without the cooler pack.

Kate dropped to her
knees by the gas tank and followed her instructions.

Michelle gripped the
rifle tighter to steady herself. “OK, now clip part of it with your fingers and
suck, it should start coming out.”

Kate did as she instructed
and watched as the gas started to fill the empty gas can.

Michelle was beginning
to feel woozy. She shook herself and looked around the vast red sands to see if
any other molcos hunds were coming back.

She looked over to see
Kate finishing up. Michelle stumbled back to the Jeep and turned the engine. Kate
jumped in the side. The vehicle responded with a loud boom from under the hood.

“Are you OK?” Kate called
as Michelle shifted gears and she took back the rifle.

Michelle didn’t answer
she just concentrated on getting back to base.

“I should be driving,”
Kate yelled out fully concerned for her friend.

“No, you should be
shooting,” Michelle called out as another molcos hund began to chase them.

Kate fired several
shots. Michelle couldn’t see if she hit him since it was chasing behind them.

“It’s OK. I killed it,”
Kate said as she held the rifle steady looking for any others.

Michelle felt as though
she might pass out. The heat was too intense without the cooler pack, not to
mention she was becoming faint from the amount of blood she had lost. Somehow,
she got them back to base.

Kate helped her inside.
She didn’t protest she felt far too woozy and hot.

“Take the gas, too,”
Michelle called.

“You first,” Kate
replied.

“It’s deep but luckily
it didn’t hit any veins,” Aaron said as he wrapped her arm up in a cast-like
contraption.

“I stitched you up. You’ll
have deep scars and you need to rest, your body needs to recover the lost
blood,” he continued.

She nodded.

“The others?” he asked
cautiously as his light blue eyes met her emerald green ones.

“All dead,” she
whispered.

“Damn molcos hund,” he
muttered.

Michelle nodded and
looked down at her hands.

“I’ll be back,
Michelle. I’ve got to go check on something,” Aaron stated.

Michelle relaxed
against the bed as Aaron left the room.

“I am lucky to have my
arm, I am lucky to have my life,” Michelle whispered quietly to herself as she
traced over the thick plaster like texture of the cast.

There were only six
left; five soldiers and The Commander.

Michelle was deeply
grateful that Aaron and Kate had stayed behind. She was grateful she had stayed
behind. She wasn’t sure why The Commander had chosen those soldiers to go but
he did.

Michelle sat in
silence. She wished she knew what to do.

***

After Aaron completed
his rounds, he gathered Kate and made his way back into Michelle’s bunk.

“We have to be quiet,”
he said softly.

“The Commander, well,
I’m just going to make this short; he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing,”
Aaron whispered angrily.

“He doesn’t know what
he’s doing. He sent everyone out into certain Hell,” Kate added.

“But what do we do?”
Michelle asked.

“We’re waiting one more
day until you’re better, then we are getting off this Hell hole,” Aaron said
decisively.

“But how?”
Michelle questioned.

“Were going to the
shuttle,” Kate answered.

“But, what if we get
attacked again?” Michelle furrowed her brow.

“Do you want to stay
here and starve or take your chances?” Aaron hissed.

Michelle shook her
head, “Let’s do it.”

“OK, try to rest today.
We will go in the morning. We have to get everything together we can and you
have to get up to traveling condition,” Aaron explained.

The next morning Michelle
awoke slightly terrified that she was going to be left on the base. She heard
the sound of Kate and Aaron talking as she woke up. She was thankful they
hadn’t left her to die.

“Hey, you’re up. We’re
going to get some water and then we’re leaving, OK?” Kate said softly with a
small smile when she saw Michelle sit up.

Michelle nodded and
watched as Kate took all of three their canteens.

Aaron made his way over
to her beside and fastened a new cooling pack to her neck. She felt a rush of
coolness overwhelm her as it meshed with her system. He cracked the cast off as
gently as he could.

“Shit,” she exclaimed as
she gritted her teeth in pain.

He put a more flexible
cloth like one on in the plaster like one’s place. “Just until we get somewhere
else, you know, in case you
gotta
use your gun. We
gotta
get out of here.”

Just then Kate came
back in with the canteens.

“Did you put bleach in
my cooling pack?” Michelle asked as she hesitantly stretched her left arm and
fingers. She was thankful they all worked.

Aaron shook his head.

“No, we didn’t,” Kate
said softly.

“We just have a little
left,” Aaron said with a grim look on his face.

Michelle nodded as she
slowly got up. She steadied herself and then stooped down at the edge of her
bed and picked her boots. She put them on and laced them up as tight as she
could. She didn’t feel great but she felt alive. Her stomach growled with
hunger. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.

“Here,” Aaron said
handing her a protein bar.

Michelle took it
without hesitation. She practically inhaled it.

Michelle grabbed her
rifle and fastened to her back. “So, what’s the plan?”

“There’s a docking zone
with a few other ships,” Aaron replied.

“Are these our ships?”
Michelle asked.

“No idea,” he replied.

“I thought we all came
together on one…” Michelle said thinking back.

Kate shook her head,
“No, I came ahead of you guys, remember?”

“We don’t know about
the other ships. They said they look different from ours,” Aaron said as he led
the way down the hall.

“Guess we will have to
take our chances,” Michelle murmured.

“Let’s go get the others,”
Aaron said as he took the lead.

Serik
looked out the viewscreen. He could see what looked like an Earth Army vehicle
approaching.

Serik
loaded his gun with the special molcos bullets and opened the shuttle door. He
stepped out into the blazing heat. The heat, the cold, the snow, the desert,
whatever it was he was used to it. He had been hardened through his life not to
feel such erroneous details of the environment.
 
Redex was a shithole and he wanted to get off the planet as fast as he
could. He would do the deal and be done.

“Fucking
finally.
It feels like I’ve
been waiting forever. What kind of shit circus does the Earth Army run,
anyways?” he muttered to himself.

The Earth Army
Commander had said he was sending people two days ago. He had seen no sign of
anyone approaching. He decided to wait it out a few more days in the shuttle.
He hadn’t brought the supplies and came all this way not to get paid.

He saw the Jeep slow
down and then come to a stop close to the docking bay.

He shifted his gun and
grenades in his hand in case of any molcos and made his way closer to the vehicle.
The humans seemed to be running as fast as they could towards him.
No, not towards him, towards the docking bay.

He sniffed the air.
“Shit, molcos!”

He could see in the
distance there was a molcos pack coming towards the humans. He watched as the
humans tried to fight them off.
 
He
cocked his gun and made his way out to help. Serik knew they needed help. There
was no way they had the means to fight the things if they were asking for
supplies to ward them off. He sprinted to scene as fast as his legs would carry
him.

For some reason he
thought back to his past fighting experience with
goldoarg
monsters in
Zein
. He remembered the vicious, nasty,
horrible creatures attacking him and his squad. They had been left to die. The
details of the fight were blurry to him as he had gone into a killing rage. He
made it out, but he was the only one.

No, no I can’t let that happen again.

***

“Go,” Michelle called
to Kate and Aaron who had
ran
out of ammunition. The
pack of molcos hunds were
coming closer. She could smell
their stench and hear their growling noises.

“Michelle, we are not
leaving you,” Aaron yelled.

“I’ll be right behind
you,” Michelle called as she fired more shots towards the pack.

“Run!” Bryce called out
grabbing both Aaron and Kate.

Michelle began to
shoot. She quickly watched as they were able to safely run to the shuttle
before focusing her efforts back on the molcos hund. She had hit several of
them and knocked them down but there were three others fast approaching. She
fired again and again until she ran out of bullets.

She grabbed the bottle
of bleach she had fastened to her back. She attempted to hurl some of the
liquid on one that came closer. Only part of the liquid splashed onto its hide.
It was the largest one out of the entire pack and it was more than angry. It
let out a horrible ear piercing howl. Michelle stepped back and held up the
knife part of her rifle. She didn’t know how much good it would do but it was
all she had.

She screamed in panic
as it knocked her to the ground pinning her against the desert sand and a rock.
The back of her head pounded.

Surely I am dead,
she thought to herself as it all went black.

Serik pushed the molcos
hund off of the soldier and let out a primal Baat growl. The molcos hund cowered
back in fear. It left its prey and lunged at him but Serik dodged him.

He fumbled for his gun
and quickly shot the beast. It lay dead. One needed special bullets and special
gun for such a vicious beast.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed as
the entire pack of the nasty creatures approached him.

He threw a can of
acidic fog toward the pack. He watched as the fog rapidly drove them back. His
eyes watered and burned as the fog began to rise.

He coughed and
desperately looked around for the soldier the molcos hund had almost killed.
The soldier was down, he wasn’t sure if he was alive or not.

No not him, he saw
her
.

His eyes burned
stronger this time. He coughed again as the gas entered his lungs.

Shit, I
gotta
get out of
here and do it quick.

He picked her small
uniformed clad body and carried her out of the fog and to his ship.
 
He held her in his arms as he ran as quickly
as he could. He had to look down several times to make sure she was still
there; she was incredibly light and it felt as though he was carrying nothing
at all.

He held her body close
to his chest to make sure he didn’t drop her.

Serik barely made it in
the cabin with the little female in his arms. The heavy door began to come down
as soon as he entered.
 
He could hear the
growls of the molcos hunds trailing not far behind him.

He looked down at the
unconscious female.

“You’re safe now. I’ve
got you,” he said softly. He knew she couldn’t hear him but the words had come
out any way.

“Sally, lock down
initiate rapid mode,” he commanded his ship.

The ship obeyed his
orders as he heard the massive frames lift down and seal.

He heard snarling and
barking and a loud thump. It was coming from the outer shuttle door.

“Fuck,” he exclaimed. The
molcos hunds were trying to get through the ship.

“These damn things just
don’t give up,” he said looking on the viewscreen as they attempted to attack
the ship.

Serik looked to the unconscious
female. “Let’s get the fuck off this shitty planet, right now. I knew it was a
bad idea to come here.”

He set the controls as
quickly as he could. He strapped the little female in as best he could and then
himself.
 

“Take off initiate,” he
commanded.

“Take off denied,” the
robotic voice boomed.

“The Hell, Sally, take
off initiate NOW,” he commanded again.

“Take off denied,” he
looked out the viewscreen to see the other ship launching.

“Now, Sally, now take
off initiate,” he yelled.

“Take off initiated,”
the robotic voice replied.

“Take off in rapid
mode,” he commanded as he input a sequence onto the nearby keypad.

“Request granted,” the
ship replied.

Serik felt the familiar
pull as the ship hurled them out of Redex’s atmosphere into the galaxy above.

He took a sigh of
relief. He looked at the viewscreen to the other ship that he guessed was
filled with the others he had seen. He guessed that they were also soldiers who
had made it out. He watched them on the viewscreen as they took off from
Redex’s atmosphere, but they were going in another direction. They were headed
towards another place, a place he was unsure of.

“I guess it’s not the
wrong direction any planet is better than this shithole,” he murmured to
himself.

Serik unstrapped
himself and looked down at the small unconscious female. He unstrapped her from
the helm of the shuttle and took her back into his arms. He cautiously brought
her to the spare bedroom and set her down on the bed.

He had studied humans
briefly in secondary school. He wished he would have paid more attention
instead of looking at the glossy photos of the beautiful human females. He
recalled they were much smaller species than his but they shared most of the
same genetic makeup as Baat. He guessed the medicine he had would work on her.

I’m no fucking healer but Hell, here goes nothing.

Serik ripped off the
top part of her uniform. He started an IV and checked her pulse. It was slow
but he could have sworn that humans had a slower heart rate naturally than that
of a Baat.

He breathed in a heavy
sigh of relief when he realized she was stable.

Suddenly, it hit him.

Her scent.

It was a fragrant,
playful aroma. It was something he had never experienced before and it was
difficult to pinpoint what her scent was composed of. The best he could
describe it was that she smelled like warmth, happiness, sunshine.

He brushed a long
auburn lock of hair behind her ear. He had never seen such a color of hair
before.

He had seen some females
with pink hair and a few varying shades of deep pink from
Kapra
but no, not like this, her hair was vibrant and beautiful. It wasn’t pink, no
it was close to red but it wasn’t red. Plus the
Kapratians
were a cold bunch of people. Most all of the
Kapratians
he had ever met were stuck up and rude. They had a low tolerance for anything
different, especially him.

He studied her delicate
features. He had never seen a more beautiful female in all the planets he had
visited.

He inhaled deeply
taking her scent into his nose. It was sweet and slightly intoxicating.
 

He looked over her
uniform.

Surely, she is not a soldier. She is far too tiny
and delicate to do any good. What sort of planet let’s their females fight
their battles?

He looked over her
features again.

I hope you make it baby, let’s see if I can fix you
up.

He sighed when he
realized she would probably be terrified of him when she awoke, that is if she
awoke.

I’m one ugly mother fucker and she’ll probably
scream when she seems me
, he thought to
himself remembering the incident with the exotic dancing girl on
Jax
.

What female wouldn’t be upset when she sees me?
 

Most females got away
from them as soon as they could. His looks were a sign of evil in
all of the
universe it seemed. It had caused him a rather
lonely and hermit-like existence on his ship. He thought back to his deep green
scars a few which were on his face from a fight with
goldoarg
monsters in
Zein
.

Humans…

Humans,
his
mind raced as he tried to think of how their bodies worked.

They’re smart but not as technologically advanced. They
didn’t do as much space travel as us. They are similar to us except their
blood.

She’ll be OK. They are a durable species.

He didn’t even know the
little female but he desperately wanted her to live.

You have to make it, you just have to.