A Soldier in Love by A. Petrov

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.

 

Chapter Seventeen
                                                                                               
    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