On [insert random date here], the UNSA Retribution and the captured SDF Olympus Mons launched a frontal assault on the SDF home planet of Mars, to disrupt the construction of more intergalactic space-faring warships. However, in the face of this reckless action the UNSA Retribution (the last UNSA warship still operational) and the SDF Olympus Mons (Flagship of the SDF) were destroyed, and in the process, buying time for the UNSA to re-organize and fight back against the SDF. It was both a noble sacrifice, but at the same time as reckless as a human mind could be, as from that point on, a new warship, fresh from the production lines, had to take the place of the UNSA Retribution in the fight against the Settlement Defense Front and beyond, as humanity's shining hope for exploration into the expansive unknown that is space.

Across the harsh days of the desert, a man trekked the sands despite its unbearable climate and his dwindling supplies in his backpack he had used for so long. He had gotten used to this weather, but at the same time, his mindset didn't. After all, he once remembered how he awoke in this world, one that surprised him as he realized he had been stuck in a desert world with just endless sand spanning from every angle he looked at it. And yet, he didn't bear it as someone who'd gotten used to this climate.

No matter where he went, it was just the same vast stretch of land that would always greet him.

Sand.

Sand that stretched on for miles with no suitable landmarks in sight.

Truthfully, he wasn't one to traverse this type of landscape, as he preferred the more... forgiving part of the world in lieu of the unforgiving part. But he was in fact dumped in this godforsaken land and was forced to survive in it on what little he had in his grasp.

As the man walked the sands, the surface slowly began to change to a rougher tone in contrast with the smooth yet soft surface that he had seen and walked for miles on end.

Until he came upon the wreck of a rusting interstellar spacecraft. Something that the current humans of this time period hadn't thought about nor created as it defied the laws of physics in space, apparently.

"Ah... there you are... Retribution..." He spoke subconsciously as his mind followed the same script he had been saying every time he returned to this rotting vessel which he had turned into his makeshift home due to nearby towns not existing. Despite his attempts at making, it sort of "grand", it failed to even amuse his own self. Not in the slightest.

The UNSA Retribution stood in front of him as it slowly blended into its surroundings that had slowly begun to consume the stricken and damaged intergalactic spacecraft- or well, what was left of it, anyway, after that 50% disastrous 50% success attack on Mars' orbital shipyard.

Retribution's personification sighed at the sight of the stricken vessel with a downtrodden expression, as he resumed his pace towards the vessel he called home; despite it being a makeshift one.

A Few Hours Later

Sandstorm In Progress

2:30 PM

December 11, 20XX

Retribution, as the personification now adopted the vessel's name after previously denying to himself that he was the vessel itself, bit an apple he had saved like 7 others, with others being grown from trees inside certain rooms in the spacecraft; as he analyzed the map he had drawn based on what he had seen in his trips to far neighboring towns which would usually drain him of virtually all his energy except his reserve energy.

He didn't even know where the SDF Olympus Mons was. Not like he cared, anyway. His war was over, and he knew it after coming to accepting that fact after leading an eventful service history under the UNSA and SATO. So it really didn't matter if he would find her or not. After all, she was just one of those many cliché anime girls with a tsundere personality, with a high sussy baka rate-

"Damn it's hot..." Retribution groaned as he stretched making his bones pop loudly energizing him for another 3 hours at best with no coffee whatsoever, realizing that he was sweating profusely in the process.

Retribution looked at the rations he had eaten and depressingly sighed, realizing that he was running low on rations that he needed and depended on to survive each day.

"Well," he began, "Shit."

Elsewhere...

"Memes and the world, do not standstill. Memes are the law of life. And those who only post cringe are certain to miss the memes! I said are certain to miss the memes!" A man spoke, with a voice similar to that of John F. Kennedy's voice; even the tone he spoke with was the exact same thing with the president's, as he smacked the table repeating the latter part of his sentence.

"Hahahaha! I missed that!" Exclaims Fidel Castro. As the blackness soon unraveled revealing a few... popular faces surrounding a table, as the man the myth, the legend, Fidel Castro took a puff from his tobacco cigar, of pure Cuban quality.

McNamara stood up from his seat and walked towards where Fidel was seated with a more... angry tone unlike President Kennedy's calm and chill voice, "Prime Minister Castro. This meme crisis was the last straw. We almost posted cringe. We invited you here today-"

"In good memes!" The president cut off McNamara and possibly completed what he was supposed to say.

"Yes, in good memes. To sort this thing out." McNamara walked back to his seat and sat down after giving a short sermon to the Cuban leader.

"Then why, is HE here?! He lost!" Castro shouted, "He posted cringe!" He continued, pointing a rather accusing cigar at the former President, Richard Nixon. Giving the vibes that Kennedy was also not the Kennedy we all know who got assassinated by a former US Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald.

"As I always say, forgive your enemies, but remember their memes," Kennedy stated calmly, retelling a quote his counterpart, the 35th president of the United States of America, once told, except... with a more meme-like twist to it.

"Now gentlemen, as I like to think, in the memes of the world that there are only a few cringe posts-"

Kennedy is cut off by a sudden interruption of someone banging on the door that led into the room that he and his so-called "friends" were seated in, having a meeting that had already lost its purpose by the time they had begun to talk.

"Sounds like someone posting cringe!" Nixon exclaimed as he shot up from his seat after hearing that sound that disturbed the atmosphere in the room.

"It's just a meme, Dick. Sit down." Kennedy told the former flagship with some hand gestures to support that, as Nixon raised his hands in defeat and did as he was told, sat down.

However, as he did, a zombie came barging into the room through the supposed "armored" door, where the banging had rung from. How it managed to break through that heavy of a door, they would never know. But that would be a problem for later.

"OH, MY MEMES!" Nixon exclaimed as he fell off his seat overturning it in the process, almost as if he had a stroke at a young age. On the other hand, McNamara stood up to protect the president despite the fact that those zombies were nowhere near him, seeing as though the zombies had just broken into the room, "It appears the meme database has been breached."

"Cringe," Kennedy spoke, saying the word cringe similar to when you notice that you've run out of milk in your refrigerator, "Gentlemen, in times like these, our capacity to post memes must be and has to be massive, to deter all forms of Cringe."

Kennedy turned and slapped his hand into the wooden wall with the seal of the president implanted upon it, making the wall suddenly turn, revealing weapons. Weapons for days.

The president turned his head back at his supposed allies, "Gentlemen, lock, and load."

The presidents take their guns they preferred, most especially shotguns as the place were close quarters and, of course, they knew that shotguns were the magic in close quarters... unless you're a full auto mayhem lover.  Though most of them just took the full-auto instead in lieu of the shotgun which was only used by the main man Dixon himself.

"Any last memes, Mr president?"

"Yes, Jack, any superlative memes of inspiration for our humbled meme posters?"

"Do not pray for cringe, my friends, pray to post, stronger memes."

The group, having armed themselves with whatever they could find (excluding Castro, because he has a revolver and a cigar... which were all brought by him to the place when he first arrived for the meeting), cocked/pulled the charging handle of their weapon as the zombies slowly poured into the room, almost as if they'd overwhelm the four high ranking officials with sheer numbers.

[Scene Break]

Retribution sat in an Indian sit; sat beside a periscope he had bought from a wandering trader a few years ago unintentionally. But it was a blessing that he even bought the periscope nonetheless, as it did keep him occupied at times when he was down.
No one knew why he was still up, neither did he, but it was mostly a he.

Usually, he wouldn't be up at a night like this, as desert nights were infamously cold, almost as if the direct antonym to that of its daytime counterpart. But, unusually, there was something bright in the sky that prevented him from having a good night's rest. Not a moon, but brighter. Not a star, but something larger. Almost like something that was out of this world, given by the Lord God to represent the coming of the savior, Jesus Christ.

(And no, that wasn't scripted at all.)

On a footnote, it would seem that it was a star of a distant solar system. But how would it even appear all these light-years away? Unless he got his science and universal theoretical work wrong and instead went heads up and failed with a straight flat 0.

"I wonder why." He sighed as he stared into space, as the moon continued to glare down on him alongside the mysterious "star".

However, he would soon get his questions and confusion answered as the star grew brighter and brighter until it reached a point that it was even lighter than the sun could ever show upon the world; other than the same star that shown upon Mary as she gave birth to the newborn king named Jesus according to the words engraved within the holy book that was the Bible.

A loud thud caused his reflexes to suddenly activate and, unconsciously, he dove away from the impact point almost thinking that it was a grenade of sorts, presumably from an SDF soldier or warship. Unless he was wrong. Which he was, but didn't know that he was in fact wrong.

The next thing he could hear was the groaning of 4 men (males) behind him, making him curiously look at the source.

"Uh..." Retribution stared at them, while on the ground.

Except, perhaps because of the extreme exhaustion they had endured; based on the breathing he had heard from these 4 men wearing bloodied clothes, they were unconscious instantly as they found the cool metal floor that was Retribution's ship.

"Not again..." Retribution groaned.

On The Following Day...

He was sleeping in the hangar as always, that was, somehow, not buried in the sand just yet, as time had some sort of dilemma with this part of the desert, though that still to him is unknown despite all the time he had spent in this lifeless desert.

A few seconds of pure snoring noises (ASMR) pass before Retribution's scrap metal clock rang its mechanisms producing a sound that was ungodlily cursed in the carrier's head, forcing him awake, like it always did.

Retribution awoke to the smell of... food? Of which he could easily trace to this ship's mess hall, as he had lived in this place for pretty much a good portion of his life now that he thought about it.

It wasn't like he had anything better to do with his time, thus leading him to get up from his hammock and make his way towards the mess hall through the twisted, bent, and rusting halls of the interstellar space warfare purposed carrier.

Retribution eventually arrived at the mess hall but not after tripping 5 times because he wasn't really in the mood of walking somewhere so early in the morning, only to find his mess hall turned into a massive bar for customers to come in or out, even having a ramp dedicated to it as an entrance/exit bay.

It didn't take a skilled eye to determine that Retribution was furious; even furious than furious. Angrily he marched towards the President gang's leader, Kennedy, and slapped him, instead of throwing a full forced punch that would send Kennedy into hell and back, going through alternative dimensions and returning in the process.

"Who the hell told you to turn MY ship's mess hall into a BAR?!" He shouted.

"It's a source of wealth damnit!" Retorts the American "president".

"Wealth doesn't exist in this f*cking wasteland!" Retribution cursed, "And I don't give a damn whether or not you want to turn MY ship into YOUR business without my consent!"

The two... Americans (?) were at their boiling point, a point where if the anger overflowed then it was game over for pretty much everyone around. Even the entire world was in danger judging from their "superpowers".

Luckily though, one random wandering trader approached them to diffuse the situation that was beginning to turn into an all-out fistfight.

"I heard that there was a war going on out there in the ocean, I don't know against who though," says the traveling merchant, hoping that it was enough to diffuse the situation as it was the only thing he knew about that had the chance to diffuse a situation such as this.

"Interesting." The two Americans say in sync with one another, as their attention was easily diverted to something else rather than beating each other up like how MMA fighters would, but the fight would end with one of them on the ground bleeding to death.

"You know what?" Retribution said, making everyone turn to look at him, nervous that he would be closing down the bar forcefully, "I'll take a vacation from this mess." He finished, then stepped out of the bar, not caring anymore about what would happen to it when he was gone, as it was up to the 4 "presidents" to maintain that bar and collect profit and pay their rent to the hosting man who had hosted them against his own will.

Although, since he left the mess hall/bar, he could tell...

Something was calling out to him, begging him to return.

Something...

That was when he realized something,

Was it asking for a savior?

~~~

This took way longer than it should've to be completed, as I, at first, didn't have the guts to even continue nor re-upload this entire trilogy of trash stories. Aside from that, I genuinely didn't know why I created this first segment, but it's fine, I suppose... it has some surprises later on, 😉 you can expect that.

I apologize if this story felt rushed, I was actually rushing to complete this on the exact same day of Christmas, and I ended up finishing it up at 4:15 pm, December 25, 2021.

Merry Christmas!