What if you met someone you really, really loved them. What if that someone loved you back as much if not more? Imagine you found that One. That One person you would spend the rest of your life with. Now imagine they were torn away from you between words. Just gone. No way of contacting them again. Never knowing if they've moved on from you or not. Now you know how Gem felt when Leo was torn away from her. Enjoy the tale of the two literally star-crossed lovers, in every sense of the term.
She never really thought about it. How much she loved hearing his voice, seeing his face. Even just reading his words gave her so much pain now.
She looked at them again on the screen. The letters became fuzzy, then blurry, then completely out of focus. Water rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto the platform screen of her visor. "I could've sworn you were right here next to me. : )" The last words she'd heard from him in over two months.
What room did she have to complain though? Many other women and men had been torn apart by longer periods of time. Still. These past two and a half months have seemed like years. She couldn't hold on much longer. She was going to join the IF. She had to. There was no other choice. She had to know if he was okay. If he was still alive.
2 Years Later
Still no word. But tomorrow Gem as getting shipped out to Eros where he was last established. She hoped he would still be there. He had to be okay, she didn't know what she would do if he was….
In just 24 approximate hours she could potentially be with him again. Please be okay.
24 Hours Later
On the shuttle now, heading for the asteroid. There are no windows in the new pods since the last invasion of the Buggers. She could only hope all was good on the asteroid.
She stepped off the last step with her mouth open in horrible awe. No. No, no, no, no, no. There's no way. They couldn't have kept this a secret. Not on this scale! No! It was impossible!
The rock was in ruins. Fire everywhere, Buggers everywhere. Dead men and women, some children. The IF is just sending troops here to die! To keep the peace on Earth in death. Once deployed some people are never seen again and listed as so called "Heroes" but the reality is they are being slaughtered by the hundreds, and the Fleet wasn't doing ANYTHING about it!
She ran around, desperately searching. Maybe he was okay, maybe he lasted. Then she saw it. A small, makeshift graveyard where the common cafeteria used to be. She walked the rows of the dead, firepower and enemies around her. She looked closely at the names on each grave, giving her respects to each and every one of them wile praying she wouldn't find his.
She walked to the last one sighing with relief too early. Leo Scott Veraldi. She fell to her knees. The last one. She pounded her fists against the ground and screamed. The Last One! No! That moment of relief gone, flying away like her breath on the cold, space air.
A shadow looms over her now. Too big to be human. Definitely Bugger. She turns, drawing her gun and aims it at that monster. That horrendous thing that probably had killed her one love. She fires one shot. It misses by an inch. The terrible thing looks at her and brings it's hand high above it's disgusting head. Then…..
Blackness.
