MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

My eyes snapped open and adjusted to the darkness.
The stars, as well as Goguen’s only moon and a red nebula were the only sources of light.  Small, burnt pieces of debris lay around me, visible only in my peripheral vision.  My head was pounding as though someone had taken a shovel and hit me in the neck.  Every bone in my body was aching.
The last thing I remembered was standing in the door of a Moebius when suddenly I was thrown from the door by an explosion.  I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around in the meager light.  In the valley between my dune and another sat the charred remnants of a Moebius.  So many pieces were missing that it was barely recognizable.  The missing pieces were scattered across the two dunes and most likely beyond.
My armor felt heavy as I struggled into full consciousness.  The buckle clicked as I undid the strap of my helmet and let it fall into the sand.  Fighting against reluctant muscles, I removed the arm plates and slipped out of my vest.  Only the armored belt and leggings remained.  I felt sedated beyond all reason.  All the blood pooled in my feet as I tried to stand up.
I fell backwards and rolled down the dune and landed next to the dropship.  Looking up at the starry sky, the charred hull towered over me at the top of my vision.  With a groan, I rolled onto my stomach and got back up using the wreck to stabilize myself.  I worked my way around to where the door used to be and peered inside.
My hand flew up to my mouth and I buckled over, stumbling away and trying to hold down my vomit.  Inside a few of my squad members were still buckled into their seats, their bodies charred beyond recognition.  I ran as best I could on my drowsy legs, tripping once and burying my head in the sand.  The sand poured off of me as I pulled my upper body out of the dune and shook off.  I rolled to a sitting position, looking back at the crashed dropship.
I was all alone, I realized.  My map was slightly charred, but after checking a compass I began limping towards the town we had just been extracted from.  The walk seemed to take forever and a day.  I noticed the stars were fading as I passed identical dunes.  The suns were rising to my right as I crested the final mound.
When I saw the town below I dropped prone and surveyed the landscape.  It looked exactly as it had when we left: deserted.
It had not always been deserted; that was our doing.  Just a day ago we had received a report that the town was hiding radioactive materials for building bombs.  They had deployed two squads, mine and Severein’s.  We entered the towns and the people gave up without a fight.  The search ran smoothly at first, but once we got closer to the center of the town they got much more nervous.  Finally we were preparing to enter one particular building and it all hit the fan.
One of the civilians tried to take Rhys down.  The rest of the crowd immediately began slowly closing in.  After Rhys shot his attacker the mob rushed in.
Needless to say, we ran.  The Molay above dropped low-yield bombs into the crowd.  Body parts flew up amidst screams of terror.  We all fired into the crowd chasing us down the streets despite its appalling losses.  Bodies fell and were trampled like a rolling wave.  There seemed to be no stopping them.
We shot at them, we threw grenades, the ships above fired down.  No matter what we did they just kept on rolling forward.  At least, that was how it seemed for a while.  We had run out of rifle ammo and were down to using pistols by the time the onslaught began to slacken.  Most of the townspeople were lying dead on the street and the remaining few had scattered into the alleys between sandstone buildings.
After a little more running we arrived at the Moebiuses  and started flying back to base.  I don’t know why, but during the run we had found a small local boy and I grabbed him and put him in the other dropship.
I caught movement inside the town.  “Figures,” I thought.  “Someone had to shoot us down.”  I checked my pistol; only one round left.  Things got much harder.  Clutching the weapon with both hands at my waist, I sprinted into the town.  Movement was a lot less taxing on my weary body without my armor, but I felt vulnerable and unprotected.
I moved towards the main street of the town where I had seen the man.  The rising suns cast a shadow into my alley, obscuring me in darkness.  I leaned around the corner to inspect the roadway.  A gasp escaped my lungs as I saw a man kneeling a dozen meters away, a rocket launcher on his shoulder.  I dove into the road as he fired into the building behind me.  Debris and dust exploded from the alley and landed around me.
Groaning, I struggled to prop myself up on my forearms and coughed up a throat full of dust.  I looked left and saw the man running at me, wielding the expended launcher tube as a bat.  It slammed into the ground next to me as I rolled away to my right.  As quickly as I could I got to my feet and brought up my pistol.  My attacker also readied his bludgeon.
He ran towards me.  I could not decide if it was bravery, stupidity, or a blind lust for revenge that made him do it, but I fired nonetheless.  His body crumbled to the ground, the launcher tube flying away, as the slug tore through the side of his neck.  The severed major arteries sprayed blood out the side of his neck as he thrashed around in the sand.
I took a step back from the flopping corpse in disgust.  Something hit me in the back and I whirled around.  A second man had snuck up behind me.  He had no weapons, only some rocks he was hurling from a short distance away.  Pressing the button on the side of my pistol, I clicked the slide forward, covering the heated barrel so I could use it as a bludgeon of my own.  Gripping the front of the pistol in my right hand, I charged towards the man, swatting the stones out of the way with my left.  He clutched a large stone and kept it in his hand as I closed to hand-to-hand range.
The stone and hand whistled through the air towards my head.  I ducked down and swung my pistol into the man’s kidney.  He grunted in pain and stumbled to the side.  We circled each other for a short time.  I discarded my pistol and drew my knife from the sheathe on my belt.  Holding it in my fist facing down, I began my assault.
He threw up his arms in defense, holding my knife arm back by grabbing my wrist.  With a twisted of my hand I sliced the tendons in his own wrist.  I pulled my arm back, easily dislodging it from the useless fingers.
The man screamed and clutched his wounded arm in pain.  A new man came up behind me and wrapped his arms across me, interlocking his hands and holding my arms down.  I swung my forearm down and sliced his thigh.  Taking advantage of his surprise, I broke free of his grip, spun around, and plunged the knife into the side of his neck.  He froze in shock and stared forward open mouthed, the knife tip protruded a little from the other side of his neck.  I ripped the knife towards me, pulling pieces of his throat with it.  He coughed and choked, sending small globules of blood into the air as his nearly-decapitated body fell backwards.
I whirled on the man with the stones.  He was still clutching his hand in pain.  When he noticed me turning on him he broke for an alley.  I chased him through the shadows.  Every time he rounded a corner I was only a few meters behind and closing fast.  A small trail of blood showed me exactly where to go whenever I lost him down a short bend.
I rounded the next corner, following the blood trail, and came face to face with a small carbine being held in his good hand.  Without hesitation I slipped my knife under the rail of the rifle and pinned it to the wall.  I drove the palm of my left hand into his nose, breaking it and sending him backwards.  The knife made a soft noise as I pulled it from the wall.  The gun fell into the sand as I inserted my blade into the man’s stomach and twisted.
He screamed the most horrible scream I had ever heard as he fell backwards.  I stepped over the writhing man and calmly slit his throat.  Then I walked over to the carbine, sheathed my knife, and picked it up out of the sand.  Armed with a firearm once again, I returned to the main road.
A woman was checking the two men I had killed earlier.  “Freeze!” I shouted, raising my carbine.  She shouted in panic and threw her hands into the air.  I cautiously advanced on her.  When I got close one of her hands flew behind her back.  “Stop!” I shouted, shaking my weapon menacingly.  She did not obey and drew a pistol from the back of her belt.  Before she could bring the pistol up I pulled my trigger.  Nothing happened.  I cursed and threw the jammed weapon away.  She fired a few shots as I dove back into the alley.
I wound my way through the alleys until I was satisfied I was far enough away.  Then I made a bee-line for the road again.  I had my knife back out, ready to throw.  As I entered the road I could see her back at the corpses, the pistol was not visible.  I crept towards her, my knife at the ready.  Suddenly she noticed me and reached for her pistol again.  I hurled the knife and it stuck into the side of her head.  She fell over to the side and landed on top of one of the dead men.
This was how the first week of my life on Goguen went.  Knife work and more knife work, with an occasional weapon encountered.  Every night I retreated to the dunes and dug a sleeping hole.  Every morning I returned and checked the town over.  The number of people I encountered each day steadily decreased until I was sure the town was completely devoid of life.
I wandered through the empty streets, collecting bodies and burying them on the top of the dune to the South.  It was the least I could do for them.
After that was done, I chose a building and made myself at home.  I grabbed things from other buildings and made myself a comfortable living space.  After all, I would be spending the rest of my life there.  Most likely.