cricket

Gloria enjoyed the Chrono Mocha le Chocka,
a finely filtered mixture of two domestic blends,
found only on the furthest fifth Rocky Planet,
before she checked the terrain transport out
at the Outpost's kiosk.
Now nestled into the vehicle's beverage holder,
the cooled hot drink was available only when the closest
moon was in an outbound orbital phase,
as the orb's incessant buzzing
disturbed the aggressive obsessive pollinating
crickets of Outpost X V one one.
Commonly known as Black Bombers, these
unruly octopods were alien to RPV,
and ravenous in their transplanted purpose.
Only when the offending moon, Little One,
dive bombed over the horizon as a
broiling briquette did the crickets forgo duty
and throw berserking battalions at
the Outpost's glassy trusses.
Half the bean crop would be destroyed as
the troops fed, then fixed diamond encrusted
mandibles on the double plasticized ramparts.
Twelve hundred colonists were lost over
the first inbound phase and unexpected onslaught.
Six long weeks of hell followed and the rescue
jump came too late for some.
But scientists with their pebble computations
and domino facilitators came and discerned
future disasters, and with rodentious robots
construed then constructed a terraced city,
layered and eternally reproducing,
to withstand the bioengineered
bean blooming bug's cyclical incursions.
Now, Gloria; she sipped her cromolacho and eyed
her buff rodential co-passenger and fellow computerate.
Gloria computer geek 3rd class in the field,
with synthetic robot (bipedal and
circuited for robot procreation recreation),
cataloged backflipping crickets as they
happily foamed voluptuous bean bushes.
At the cusp of their joy, she partook of
a handy robot appendage joining
with the cricket frenzy and collapsed
on the verdant slopes with a
defragmented cigarette
among her scattered frocks.
Robot hummed autonomically and Gloria bloomed.
But joy was short lived, and
she from a peripheral eyelid espied
the muddied treads of the transport
when alarm sounded.
A sudden conniption of Black bombers
took to wing, scarring the rodent robot
into a blackout and Gloria sprinted
sans wardrobe to the enclosed transport
knowing well it afforded the only protection,
and scant. The scraping larval limbs of
spooked crickets tore her naked flesh,
but at this juncture the crickets
were off attack mode and merely
scattering as a splinter of the Little One
attempted a reunion with its mother
and scorched the terrace with its doomed orbit.
Tricked into a marauding mood,
the terrible black swarms arose and
took the offensive. Robot felt nothing
as the surge tore into his bleeding
conduits, and Gloria barely
reached the pinging terrain transport
and threw open the cockpit to enter
the womb of excursion
and collapse amid the ergofabrics,
as a swath of black razors coerced
the minimally fortified pod into
submission.
The singular supersonic shard of moon
passed, ceased its empty screed,
leaving a wake of drifting black char
and the remaining cricket mass
swirled into a graceful swale
unto itself, challenging the
scourge's trail with beeps
and mocking hiccups.
What was left of Gloria
rested in the decapitated transport.
Detached legs blood-streaked upon the floorboard
and two gruesome hands gripping
low lever controllers—the afternoon
robot liaison unknown to any but
two Outpost patrols atop their parapet
with long range transgression binocs.
Bad luck, that; they said.