~
"Can you be flawless?" you ask me.
"So you love me less because of them?"
I reply.
~

Unknown enemy


In an alien world with three moons in the sky,
A luminous thing flies high in the air.
It looks like a pterodactyl,
But it has three heads and breathes fire.
My fellow soldiers and I are searching for resources,
Among the dead bodies, inside a spaceship called ‘The Debonair’.


It’s been here for over a hundred years;
But no man has been to this planet since.
It was just a coincidence that we heard its distress signal,
As we passed by, heading for Alpha Six.
Our home world we haven’t seen now,
For seven months and sixteen days.
But now we have a new mission:
Salvage what we can and bury the bodies in graves.


Sergeant Angelos is reading an elegy, to commemorate the dead;
While the scouts we sent out earlier, haven’t reported back yet.
The scouts are on gravity bikes looking for anything we can use,
But so far they have found nothing but volcanoes and rivers of sulfur…
But something has found them.


They didn’t know they were being followed as they returned to base.
There is a loud other-worldly scream in the distance
And we are all put on high alert.
“What the Hell was that Captain?”  “I don’t know Pike;
Hit the dirt!”


A huge ball of blue light is flying straight towards the medi-bay;
Soldiers run this way and that and thankfully we are all safe.
But the medi-bay is destroyed by an alien weapon.
“Fire at will!”  Shouts the Captain,
As strafes of bullet fire fly off into the distance,
In search of the alien.


“Where did it go?  Anybody see it?”
There is silence; then a shout.
“It’s there!  Two o’clock, beyond the red rocks!”
We all open fire and create a dust cloud.


As the dust disappears the Captain says:
“Did we get it?  Is it dead, or not?”
Before anyone can answer, there is another scream
And this time it comes from behind us.


“Oh my God!  This thing's got friends!
Round up the caravan’s lads, we’re hunkering down for the night.”
As the sky gets darker, more aliens surround us
And our bullets fire, lighting up the sky.


Blue luminous fire rains down upon us and our barricade.
Our ground to air ship, takes a Hell of a beating,
But it’s been through worse than this in its days.


By morning light, the shooting has ended.
We all walk out our ground to air ship and see what we can find.
There are dead aliens all around us, seventy five in total.
The cheers and joy of our victory,
Has been sullied by the number of our side who have died.
Fourteen gone from us; taken by an unknown enemy.
This is our job, our life, our fight and our destiny.


As we leave the planet behind, the memories stay with us.
We have conquered one enemy;
Now we are heading home to our family and friends.
The people we do this for and the people that we love.


(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.