A Soldier in Love (7 page)

Serik configured the
controls of his ship as he set a route to Planet 8932. He needed to stop and
refuel if he was going to make this long haul.
 

Serik sighed. He hated
to admit it but he was lonely. It had been many years since he had started his
journey through the vast universe. He had mostly done it alone. The years
before he had been spent in the Baat explorations. Those years were hard on him,
he thought back to the battles with unknown enemies, charting the unknown, and
just trying to survive.
  

What had it all been
for?

He shook the thoughts
and feelings away and turned his attention to the beeping viewscreen.

“Will you accept the
incoming call?” the somewhat feminine robotic voice of Sally called out. Although
Sally was not real, he had affectionately named his ship.

Serik moved closer to
the screen to examine it. “Yeah, Sally, I’ll accept he called out.”

“
Yo
,
Serik!” a loud voice echoed through the cockpit.

“What’s up, Bock?” he
said into the viewscreen that revealed his old buddy from Baat.
 

“Hey man, I just
thought I’d let you know there is a bounty out in your area,” Bock encouraged.

“Really?
Where and how much?”
Serik
replied eagerly.

“Well, it’s um… it’s on
Redex,” Bock mumbled.

“Smart guy, no one ever
goes to Redex,” Serik muttered.

“Yeah,” Bock replied.

“Bock, man, come on.
Redex?
That’s a shithole…” Serik continued.

“It’s a Cabaka terrorist,
they
are wanting
to pay 500,000 intergalactic
currency,” Bock interjected.

“You say, 500,000?” Serik’s
eyes got large.

Bock nodded. “Yeah,
that’s right. I know you’re the guy for the job. I bet you could do it. You can
just give me a little cut for telling you about, you now?

Serik grinned. “Well, I
don’t know… I got to take this
luvoxko
to Sora,” he
paused to scratch his chin, “but I’ll think about it.”

Capturing terrorists
always helped him to chase the loneliness away. It gave him a sense of purpose.
He wondered if it would be worth the trouble.

Michelle looked up from
the notebook to see Aaron come into her bunk. In his right hand he held a
tattered notebook, it looked ancient. He gently shut the door behind him.

“Well, it looks like
you’re going to get your wish, Z,” Aaron said.

“What do you mean?”
Michelle gave him a concerned look.

“We’re running low on
supplies, lower than low. We are going to do some basic knife training, and
then we will be more sedentary so we do not eat as much,” he said hoarsely.

Fear and anxiety welled
in Michelle’s
stomach,
She was afraid of what she was
going to ask next, “We are low on supplies?”

“Well, the molcos hunds
broke into the supply shed,” he began.

“Supply shed?” Michelle
interrupted.

“Yeah, we have one offsite,
so I guess soldiers didn’t take from it.”

“Glad, to know
that they trust us.
That’s idiotic
to have a supply shed so far away,” Michelle spat.

Michelle was a bit
annoyed that Aaron was just freely given information while the rest of them
were to remain stupid. She was annoyed but also thankful since he often relayed
the information to her.

“Well, we could grow
our own food,” Aaron said.

“Aaron… I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either
but I told The Commander you used to be a farmer on Earth and you’d know what
to do,” Aaron said casually.

“Aaron!” Michelle
cried.

“What? He totally
believed me,” he grinned.

“Geez, I’m going to get
my ear cut off because of you,” Michelle sighed.

“No, you won’t. I’d be
the one to cut your ear off any way. You’ll be fine,” he reassured her.
 

“Look, I listened to
the IS and I don’t know if we have enough time to grow anything, we don’t have
any seeds,” Michelle said solemnly.

“We were supposed to
get a supply drop months ago now, but The Commander can’t get a hold of anyone
from the Earth Army. In fact, he can’t get a hold of anyone from anywhere,”
Aaron said slumping down a bit. “But no more running,” he added with a weak
smile.

“We have to trap one of
those molcos hunds,” Michelle said.

“Look at this,” Aaron
said with an intense look in his blue eyes as he flipped through the notebook
to reveal a crudely drawn cage.

Michelle shifted her
weight and looked over the drawing. “Let’s get the supplies and let’s do this.
Do you think you can get everything we need?”

Aaron nodded.

“Tell The Commander,
I’m out gardening or some shit,” she grinned.

“I’ll tell him you’re
wrastlin
’ cattle,” he grinned back.

“No, but for real…”
Michelle sighed.

“Is there any way you
can sneak out?” Aaron asked quickly.

“I know a way,”
Michelle smiled mischievously.

***

“Call
out,
this is The Commander of the Earth Army stationed on
Redex. Call out,” The Commander said sharply into the radio.

His voice was met with
silence.

“Call out, do you read
me?” he tried again.

He had been trying for weeks
now. He felt in the past weeks he had lost more hair and gained more wrinkles
than any other time in his life. He had been through five different wars, but
none were like this. None were on another planet. None of the wars involved him
being one of the last survivors of the human race.

“Call out, again, call
out. Supplies are needed,” his voice was becoming hoarse.

He slammed the receiver
down in a fit of anger.

“
Damnit
all,
damnit
!” he yelled angrily.

“No, no I’ve got to
keep trying,” he berated himself.

He picked the receiver
up and tried again.

Serik decided he had to
do something to ease his loneliness before his trip to Redex. He hated that
shithole. He had went there a few times to refuel but never stayed long. It was
too hot and the molcos hund were dangerous. He wondered if there was really a Cabaka
terrorist there or if it was rumor. He sighed pulled his ship into Planet 8932.
Serik grumbled as he docked at the fuel station. It would be a couple of hours
before his ship was refueled. There wasn’t much on Planet 8932,
Hell,
it didn’t even have a real name yet. Since it was
still a newly discovered planet, it didn’t have much except for a refueling
station, a few bars for wanderers like him, and an exotic dancing girl club. He
decided that a trip to the exotic dancing girl club would maybe ease his
loneliness for one night. He knew it wasn’t real, the females there only wanted
his money but it was the only thing that could possibly help. He didn’t mind
seeing a few beautiful women without their clothing either. He was male after
all.

Serik sat in the dimly
lit room with other various males. He noticed there were a few other Baat, a
group of males from
Qali
, and some others he hadn’t
seen before. The club wasn’t too crowded it was still early out. He made his
way up to the bar and ordered a glass of prasna and took a seat in a corner.

He took a sip of his prasna
and watched as many of the others inhaled various flavored vapors and let the
steam out of their mouths or noses. He had heard a rumor the
Qali
could do it out of their ears. He suspected that might
have been a false rumor.

He heard the music
start to play and the other males yell and clap. The music became louder and
the dim lights got a tiny bit brighter as an exotic dancing girl came out on
stage. A spotlight appeared encompassing the girl in the light.

She was pretty. She was
a
Jax
girl, very small, very petite, but she had
large full breasts. She had deep purple hair and black eyes.

Serik watched as her
hips sway to the music.

She began to disrobe
and the other males began to shout and throw money at the stage. She removed
her top completely revealing her tight nipples.

Serik noticed a few
more girls come on the stage. He turned his attention back to the purple haired
girl, watching her erotic moves. She removed her underwear revealing her sex.
She slowly made her way off of the stage bearing only a tight string around her
waist for males to put money in.

She swayed around the
room table to table as the males put money in the thin piece of string.

His heart pounded as
she made her way over to his table.

“Hey baby,” he grinned.

She smiled moving in
closer for him to admire her form. He looked up at her face, studying her
features.

Terror filled the
girl’s eyes as she stumbled backwards.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he
asked.

“Two eyes, bad luck!”
she hissed turning away from him.

“For fuck’s
sake!
This damn planet just
got discovered,” he groaned. He gulped down his drink and made his way out of
the club.

Can’t even catch a break with a damn exotic dancing
girl,
he sighed.

He wondered why he even
bothered. He should have known better; he couldn’t even pay a woman to pretend
to like him. He made his way back to the ship and turned on the radio.

“Let’s see what’s going
on with business then I’ll call Bock and let him know I’m taking the damn Redex
job,” he said to himself as he adjusted the dials.

Suddenly, a voice, a
desperate voice at that, came through.

“Call out, again, call
out. Supplies are needed,” the voice cried out.

Hm
, sounds desperate, maybe they’ll
pay more.

“Call received, what
are you coordinates?” Serik’s loud voice boomed over the intercom to the
stranger.

“Sir, we are in
desperate need, please assist,” the voice called.

“Coordinates?” Serik
repeated.

“Earth Army compound,
Planet Redex,” the voice said.

Fuck it might as well go to Redex, even the
strippers don’t want me
, Serik thought
to himself.

“OK, what do you need?”
Serik replied.

“Thank God,” the voice
said.

“What do you need?” Serik
replied a bit annoyed with the dramatics of whoever was on the other end.

“We need food. We just
really need food,”

“Anything else?”
Serik huffed.

“Do you have anything
to ward off these molcos hunds?” The Commander asked as he tried to keep his
voice calm and steady.

“I’ll see what I can
find…” Serik replied.

“When can I expect
you?” The Commander asked.

“About three day’s time
and payment will be due in full,” Serik stated as he configured the route to
Redex into the ship’s navigation system.