Last Ship Home

By Erica Rue

Everyone else is dead or gone.

After a failed military assault, Specialist Rodney Baker has been left behind on an alien planet. He’s making peace with the fact that he will die there, alone, when another lost soldier makes radio contact. Impossibly, there is one final evac ship coming in three days. Baker and the other soldier, separated by the alien wilderness, plan to meet at the extraction point. It will take a miracle to pull off, and on top of that, something doesn’t seem quite right. Even if Baker does reach the last ship home, can he be saved?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erica Rue
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005346263

Erica Rue

Erica Rue is a reader and writer of science fiction and fantasy, especially YA. Her abandoned biology major and handful of astronomy classes have prepared her well for writing sci-fi. She enjoys learning new words and promptly forgetting them so that she can rediscover them. When she’s not writing, she forgets to water her garden, completes every side quest she triggers, and boosts her dog’s self-esteem.

Book preview

Last Ship Home

A Short Story

By Erica Rue

Copyright 2020 Erica Rue

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages.

Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com

Previously published as Trompe L’Oeuil in The Curator (An Hourlings Anthology)

Published by Erica Rue at Smashwords

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons or events is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Visit ericarue.com for more information.

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

Last Ship Home

Also by Erica Rue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Last Ship Home

Every morning, they’re laughing at me, those damn birds. As soon as the sun tints the horizon, the cacophony begins. The green scaly ones chuckle in short bursts ― hehehe hehehe. The long-beaks draw out their throaty guffaws ― haw haw haw. The feather heads simply click at me with pity, like they know I’m going to die here. I ditched my armor weeks ago, but not as soon as I should have. I kept clinging to it like hope, sweating out all of my fears into its thick protective layers, only to find myself drenched in them.

My stomach rumbles. Time for breakfast. The Dians could have killed me already, but I think they’d rather let me starve. We had enough intel to know what we could eat, and they have some sort of a giant squirrel that tastes pretty good, when I can catch it. At least