Adapted from After-
The wind howled and made the already cold weather bitterly so. Still, he held his ground. The bodies around him were piled high, their blood frozen on the ground. The bodies of friends and enemies mingled together in a tangled bloody mess. He waited calmly. It was his honor to be the last to fall. Death held no fear for the man; he was a Starfighter.
Soon the attack would begin again. The man readied his weapons. He only regretted that the heater in his body armor had quit working. Otherwise, he was as ready as he could ever be. Fueled by anger and rage he waited for the bugs. The cost to take this outpost would be high. A handful of Starfighters had held the outpost for 6 days against an entire bug battle group. Now, only one Starfighter remained.
A massive wall of bugs came charging up the hill. Hundreds upon hundreds of bugs raced toward the outpost and the man. VICTORY OR DEATH, the man shouted with all his might. The rage in his heart was poured out in his battle cry. The bugs slowed their charge up the hill when they heard the man cry out. There had been less than a dozen Starfighters manning the outpost. Hundreds of dead bugs already littered the battlefield. To hear the battle cry meant that there was at least one Starfighter left alive. None of the bugs wanted to be the first to die.
As the bugs reached their objective, the top of the hill erupted in flame throwing shards of steel everywhere. Bullets and laser light beams crisscrossed the battleground for hours. The end was inevitable the man lay dead among his comrades. VICTORY OR DEATH were the last words from his lips, but they would be remembered by the few bugs who survived the charge up that hill. It was a battle cry that echoed across the great void of space, and filled with dread the halls of power on the bugs' home world.
Eleven Starfighters had died defending the outpost. Seven hundred and eighty-