Hard times
He sat by the fire at night near his small, carefully installed folding tent. Something small resembling rats from the Earth was fried on the stake. He was not a man. He was a reptile. One of the best male reptiles in physical training and using of various types of weapons remaining on the planet. His name was Aggie. His temporary shelter was surrounded by almost lifeless wastelands.
Wasteland, desert, exhausted bare and lifeless land. The remains of buildings, rusty equipment, bones of various local animals, birds and reptiles - the owners of the planet. Flora and fauna almost extinct. Very rarely could one meet a small animal or bird, something big is a rarity. With the flora, the situation is similar - in the wastes one could see a couple of blades of grass and weeds, a rarely tormented bush, and the trees were mostly all dead. So now this long-suffering planet looked like. She had to endure a terrible war with the use of high technology, which the reptiles once owned. Previously, the planet was covered with dense forests, shrubs and grasses, there was a lot of water and it was clean. It was a paradise for all living things here. But because of local strife between reptiles, this paradise was destroyed. The planet was devastated and its remaining inhabitants suffering because of this. Survived reptiles were engaged only in survival - the constant search for food, the manufacture of clean water and the search for useful things and remains from the past happy time.
Another very important occupation was the protection of settlements. It would seem from whom to defend? All dangerous beings extinct! All but not all! After a terrible war, awful creatures started up on the planet. They were immediately tamed and taken under their care by local terrorists. So, to protect themselves, reptiles coached and supplied with the best weapons and equipment of the most capable male reptiles. It was a hard time. Not like before.
Dinner was ready. The rat-like animal smelled like the smell of a Earth hen. Aggie began eating fragrant meat from a skewer, which was always with him. Also always with him were: a blaster with ammunition and edged weapon of excellent alloy, resembling a machete and a device for preparing drinking water from the air. Aggie’s armor was from the strongest skin of the thick-skinned large animals that had disappeared forever from the surface of the planet. There were inserts in the right places - shields made of light and very strong alloy. As you may have guessed, Aggie was a special agent. Having finished with the dinner, the agent lay down in a tent, laying down his faithful weapons near his hands. He could sleep peacefully thanks to a device similar to the drones that earthlings had in 2019, only much smaller and more compact, hovering above the tent in the air and constantly scanning the surroundings.
The night was quiet, calm and windless. The moon and the stars shone brightly. Auggie was full and tired and slept deeply. The drone scanned a small plain with a tent, remnants of a campfire and a few large stones, low hills surrounding the plain with sometimes lonely bushes, grass tufts, weeds, pieces of scrap metal, someone’s bones, and remnants of dead forest away. Suddenly the drone began to transmit a signal with vibrations, silently, so as not to attract attention. Vibrated the bracelet on the agent’s hand. Aggie woke up in an instant, grabbed his guns and hid, looking at the small display of the bracelet, where it was clearly visible in which direction the object was moving and what was the distance to it. Something was moving right in the direction of the tent. The fire went out a long time ago, a couple of embers barely glowed in the dark. It came out to smell the dinner and the tent, which smelled of reptile. The creature was coming fast. Aggie, guided by the drone’s testimony, abruptly and very quietly darted out of the tent and hid behind a stone that was almost the height of a reptile, a few meters in height from the agent’s shelter. The agent already guessed that it was approaching the characteristic movements of the creature and waited for the right moment to jump out of the shelter and cut it in half. The creature quickly turned around the tent.
- Eh! Now tear my tent, scum! I must to spend a precious blaster charge on him, I won’t have time to run up - thought Aggie and sharply fired from blaster in creature so that the pieces of flesh and blood did not splash the tent.
The agent approached a corpse, or rather a pool of blood with meat. These were the remnants of a worm. It is for such worms and their owners that the special agents of reptiles hunt.
- Loner. Perhaps he somehow managed to sneak out of the lair. Shaman apparently overlooked. What if it’s their scout? Then he would have been wearing a transmission image and sound equipment. And maybe a lair somewhere nearby, Aggie thought.
Carefully examined the remains of the worm, he did not find any devices.
- So the fugitive. He wanted to be free. Maybe tired of taking feed and wanted to hunt itself! I must to try to search the lair in the vicinity.
It began to dawn. The agent gathered the tent in a compact bag and went in search of the lair on the trail left by the prodigal worm.
To be continued...
