Sometimes, we’re together, and we’re so happy. It’s a dream come true. Other times, we start out happy, but then we’ll start to fight and argue, and she leaves me. I just know she won’t forgive me and give me another chance.
And then, there are the nightmares. Those are the ones I have most often, and I can’t. I can’t handle them anymore. They’re enough to make me not want to sleep, but I also can’t avoid sleep because what if it’s one of the amazing dreams where I can hold her?
But even in my dreams, I can’t kiss her lips. It’s as if my subconscious knows that I can’t kiss her, not without her permission.
Hell. This is my own personal Hell. I’m trapped in this neverending cycle of work, sleep, and eating. That’s it. There’s no way for me to break free, no way for me to see her except in my dreams. I long to see her again, to be with her. Just to hear her giggle one more time…
Yes, this is my Hell. She’s my god. I don’t know if she would appreciate my thinking of her like that, but I do. She’s my everything, and while she might not be all-powerful, she holds all of the power over me, even more so than the overlord.
She’s dangerous. She’s a threat to my very existence.
Even so, she’s my life, the air I breathe, and without her, I am dying.
Every day, a little bit more, I die over and over again.
There’s no hope for me. None.
I deserve this anguish, this pain. I brought it on myself.
Does she even think about me anymore? Has another found a way to her heart? If she moves on, I would hate myself, but I could never bring myself to hate her. She deserves happiness, and if I can’t bring her that, then I don’t deserve her.
Forgive me, Callie.
Forgive me.
Even despite the weeks or even longer that I’ve been a soldier, we’re still continuing to do drills. We’ve already mastered the weapons used against the Grots, but that had been when fighting in a spaceship. Soldiers are meant more for ground attacks and defense, and we have different weapons for that.
We’re even being trained how to use weapons from Earth, their guns, their rifles… They have other weapons as well, like rocket launchers, flame throwers. There’s even an entire vehicle that’s a weapon called a tank. We just learn about those, though, without having access to one. Their other weapons we have here on Kuria. Chrix or one of the other pilots brought them to Kuria before the soldiers were formed by the overlord.
Day in and day out, we train. We practice. We eat, and we sleep. That’s all we do.
Eventually, though, I learn something new, something that gives me a bit of hope.
Ron, Ichi, and Yodo are the other soldiers in my training block, and we’re all eating dinner together.
Ron’s laughing about something as I join them with my zinger mutton and apaya bread.
“What’s so funny?” I ask as I sit on the empty rock. There’s a cluster of four rocks in a near oval that we always use as our chairs for meals.
“We’re going to be getting a lot more soldiers in the coming days,” Ichi says.
“Why’s that?”
“Because.” Ron bursts out laughing again, too hard for him to explain what’s going on.
I eye Yodo. He's the most even-keeled of us all. "Can you tell me what's so funny? What does it matter if we're getting more soldiers?"
“It’s because of who the soldiers are,” Yodo says simply.
“And they are?” Why aren’t they giving me all of the details at once?
“They’re like you,” Ichi says. “Well, kind of.”
My heart skips a beat. “Breeders,” I grumble, surprised at the rising level of anger storming inside of me.
“Yes.” Yodo nods. “There aren’t any more breeders.”
“The females…”
“They can do whatever job they want,” he adds.
“Does that mean they can be with who they want too?” I ask.
“I would think so,” Ichi says dryly. “They can work, but they still have one other job that’s never changed.”
“They need to have babies,” Yodo says.
“What do you think?” Ron asks me. “Do you think any of them would go for me?”
“Never,” I mumble.
“Never? Why not?” Ron flexes a muscle. “I got what they need.”
“They don’t need a Novan with rocks for brains,” Ichi says with a laugh.
“The only rock I’m packing is the one in my pants. Rock hard and ready to unload.” Ron laughs.
The others do too, even Yodo, but I ignore them. Callie. She's been freed. What would she do with her newfound freedom? What is her dream job? Why don't I already know what she would want? Something… Let me think. Maybe something that doesn't involve a lot of people. Not a doctor, then. Not something with the new babies that will eventually be born. Not a soldier. She's not a fighter. Will some of the women want to fight? I know that they have women in their military on Earth, considering Captain Lara Barnes is a woman.
“What about that captain?” I ask, interrupting them.
“Who? Stox?” Yodo asks.
Actually, I meant the female, but it doesn’t matter.
“Is he with…”
“Yes, he got himself a female,” Ichi complains.
“That doesn’t matter. He has one. There are others to be had.” Ron rubs his hands together.
“You act like that and think that about them, and you’ll never get yourself one,” I inform him as I stand.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Yodo asks me.
“The air’s getting to me. I’m going to eat in my tent.”
The others try to stop me, but Yodo just nods.
Tents. Yes, each of us has a tent. It's small, barely enough room for us to lie down. I
