The world was light. The universe’s eternal darkness gave way to a sunrise. The camera feeds froze as the lenses tried to adjust to the new colorations and failed spectacularly to capture the contrast.

  Precious seconds passed looking at a still image of pure whiteness. The mapping feed however revealed a different story. An unending line of little blue dots connected our fleet to the alien monster swarm.

  The beasts ate them all up. My heartbeat hammered loud enough to echo around the main hold but did so only to my eardrums.

  We stood on the lowest level, emptied of cargo; just metal sheets, the floor and walls of the ship encasing us in a cage that left no escape. Our only exit lay closed, but not for long.

  With a sound the portals ascended, opening their mouths to the universe and we greeted marines peaking from portals on the other side, on the neighboring Dreadnaught. The identical spaceship was imposingly long, with a pointed nose armed with lasers. At the Dreadnaught's bow above the nose, at a slight sleek incline, was the ship's bridge, and control room, with the succeeding ranking officer accommodations and their reinforced viewing windows. A stark difference from the windowless cabins in the rest of the ship. On the midship section, turrets, blasters, and missile launchers could be seen on the ship's husk, whereas on the inside just like on our Dreadnaught were the crew cabins and living areas. The tail was where the storage and hold facilities were located together with the portals from which we were now peaking, before ending at the ship's engines and biosupport systems.

  It was a monster of a battleship. Yet the presence of 27 Dreadnaughts should have been more comforting. It didn't quite ease my mind.

  My concentration was focused in front of me, on the men and women waiting in line. The biosuits and helmets hid the humanity in us, revealing only the technological husk we wore. The stillness and silence of robotic machines following orders.

  The officers standing a level above signaled for each company to depart. The lines moved outward in an organized manner, and when it was time for me to cross the threshold, the overlapping artificial gravity and atmospheric field, I jumped to the weightlessness of the beyond.

  The comms once more were muffed. Without any short-range radio signals to distract us from the orders we would shortly be given, time rolled painfully slow.

  We gathered in open space, and I gasped when my eyes finally landed on the killzone. The yellow puss clouds once clear were now stained by dark smudges and dead alien parts. Since the exploding lights of our missiles snuffed out, it was also eerie quiet.

  The yellow veil of toxicity was all I could see in front of us, it spread to swallow the universe, dispersing slightly as it expanded outwards.

  We all waited for the reaction, the aftermath of our firepower, blind as newborns with the world in silence, holding its breath.

  Reinforced defensive drones with blasters pointing forward orbited the Dreadnaughts and one of them passed me by dangerously close. The damned AI controller was programmed to maintain flight paths for optimum defense no matter what it encountered along the way.

  That distracted me when I should have been focused, as I consciously adjusted my position to avoid colliding with the heavy-armed balls of machinery.

  As planned our group gathered together, those who shared the F567 company anyway. For the rest, I could do little but pray for their survival.

  Movement ahead focused my attention back to the front. A dark shadow swam under the yellow clouds, then another. I zoomed in through my optics and carefully observed the edges.

  A long slender tentacle burst out of the toxic puss.

  **Marines commence operation**

  The order vibrated in our headsets like an earthquake, shaking us into action. The thrusters on our boots lit up, and we flew forward ahead of the safety of our ships. Thousands of Marines in grey-black biosuits flooded into the open dead space.

  An Overlord, ugly and wounded, with blackened holes of flesh decorating its outer armor and missing tentacles spelling the aftermath of destruction our weapons brought, faced us and didn’t cower.

  With an angry puff of puss, it shot forward. Following in its wake, other shadows burst out of the puss clouds.

  We faced them all head-on. I screamed as loud as my humanity allowed me. Alone, none could hear me but myself. But I imagined my comrades doing the same and felt a kinship with them that I had never felt with anyone, not my parents, nor my mentors, or my childhood friends.

  —-

  DTTRRRRHHHZZSS

  The manual drill hissed hot, vibrating my hand as I pushed downward. Melted alien flesh burst outward, slimy and thick, and stuck to me like glue as it froze. My other hand held a pointed hook beaked on the Overlord’s exoskeleton that wouldn’t let me fall off. I groaned with the effort, maintaining both points during the chaos of battle.

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  My team was above me fighting the tentacles trying to pry me off its body. The blasters shined blue as they pounded against the enemy, pushing back and damaging its gonorrheal limbs. When it extruded puss we jumped off, retreating from the toxic antimaterial substance.

  If we stayed too long inside it, our biosuits would corrode and open space would become lifeless without their protection to safeguard us. It was not the same for the Overlord, and taking one down required a constant fractious engagement.

  It gave chase, of course it did, leaving the protection of its puss behind and we started over. The hunted and the haunted in a continuous gorry dance.

  We were constantly mindful not to be surrounded, for other engagements not to spill over onto our retreating route and cut us off. Thousands of marines were fighting in similar skirmishes against hundreds of the beasts.

  It was a mess. Chaos like any of the SFC marines had ever experienced. Many did not realize they were already dead when they dallied and the clouds surrounded them. But not for my team. During our preparations, I rigged the ‘brainchips’ I had previously installed to temporarily revert their limited capacity to memory loading instead of the optics.

  We had trained through several battles with Overlords and knew what to look out for. One of the main dangers was…

  A slimy tentacle grabbed Ginny as we jumped off retreating from another puss cloud. It pulled her inside the corrosive puss, hiding her from our sight.

  The short-range comms having returned to normal operation to accommodate better communication during the battle lit up with sound.

  “GINNY, NO!” Nik called out. It happened so fast that none of us had any time to react.

  I cursed. We had mere minutes to save her before her biosuit failed if the beast hadn’t already crushed her in its grip.

  “HELPP, AHHBZZT”, her voice from inside the clouds was barely audible, carrying static.

  If we chased after her, we would fly blind inside the corrosion that would attack us with its passive damage nonetheless. It would be suicide. I knew it, everyone knew it. But I could hear her screams on my headset and the terror I felt was nothing compared to hers.

  I brought out the rifle. “Clear the way! I’ll make a path,” I said surprised by the steadiness in my voice, and launched two metagrenades toward Ginny’s last position on my mapping feed. The scanners relaid wonkily against the puss clouds.

  The metagrenades activated the moment they left the rifle's barrel. They moved slowly, painfully so, since nothing would stop them from flying boundlessly forward and I needed the active deconstructive field near me until I found her.

  The moment the metagrenades reached the puss it sizzled and collapsed, leaving nothing behind, only the familiar nothingness of space in a wide range around them. They penetrated the yellow clouds piercing through the toxicity creating a wide tunnel for me to pursue in their wake.

  I didn’t expect anyone to follow after me but without a word Tommy and Nik stuck by my sides and we dived into the tunnel after the metaspheres, before the yellow clouds could close up the open gap.

  The distant lights of the universe disappeared from view. I lit up my helmet to banish the immediate darkness and so did my two friends. The empty corridor we flew in was suffocating, it pressed against itself narrowing further after the metasphere's active field moved on.

  “HELBBZZZTPP.” The static was a constant companion, wailing in my head.

  “Ginny, we are coming! We are near!” Nik said through the comms, but there was no way of knowing where the spacebeast had taken her.

  “HZAARGGBBZZT,” A scream of static answered him.

  I searched endlessly for shadows swimming in the yellow puss surrounding us and prayed I saw anything indicating where the alien bastard had taken my friend.

  While looking around, I missed the moment when one of the metagrenades hit the Overlord head-on. Tentacles spasmed swiping around the open tunnel and the alien monster shied away from the small metallic sphere.

  With some savage satisfaction at the pain it was probably feeling, I smiled. I had tweaked the metaspheres to break down biological matter. Exterminating all life inside the field array.

  Fortunately, we were safe inside our biosuits with the sealed material blocking the active field. The only worry would be for Ginny’s biosuit, if it had been compromised... she would be already dead either way. A thought I did not wish to consider further.

  We pursued after the alien beast, it was moving groggily, possibly hurt and I think I saw Ginny held in one of its gonorrhoeal limbs.

  “There she is,” Tommy confirmed as we near.

  “I’m moving in,” I said, “Keep the tentacles off my back.”

  I was ready to fight to take her back but more static flooding our headsets gave me pause. And this time it was not coming from Ginny.

  “BZZZTTT AMONZ, INCOMIBZZZNG.”

  Different voices, drowning each other.

  “INCMNBZZZ, HZZEELBBBP.”

  Whatever it was, it was picked up from the team we left behind, and it didn't sound good–another reason to finish the rescue quickly and head back to help.

  I launched two more metagrenades to clear up a flight path among the gathering puss. My boot thrusters pushed me forward, giving me a nice angle to screw the tentacle that was holding her captive.

  I was close and personal, my intentions were clear with the hot drill ready to dig in one hand and the hook to hold onto in the other. I would tear the offending tentacle apart. To pieces.

  Her head idly tracked my movements, while her body was wrapped by the alien limb and only one of her hands could move freely. I saw her lift it and wave--A simple gesture as if saying “hello”, or maybe “goodbye”. A greeting.

  The voice that came through the comms, was not a voice but a sob. It was comprehensible and clear now that I was close enough.

  “Ginny..” I said involuntarily, almost frozen, but when I landed on the alien flesh, I grabbed it with my hook and settled into position to drill in the meter-wide tentacle until it left my friend alone.

  I was distracted, there was something I was missing. I looked back at her as she flailed with the limb's movements being dragged.

  There was a trickle of something staining the air around her form. I wouldn’t have noticed but for my optics zooming in. It was a dark frozen liquid, that could be coming out of the wounded beast, but it wasn't. It was coming from my friend. Blood was pooling and freezing around the tentacle that was holding her. It had crushed the biosuit, it had crushed her body.

  If she was released, a puff of the puss might come inside the suit, melting her flesh in seconds but even before that, she would have exploded by the different pressure, emptying the body of oxygen. Only the wrapped tentacle was keeping her intact.

  She waved again slowly, as if the trip she was taking was long, and felt regret that it would take time until we met again.

  My eyes watered. I knew because the image before me distorted. I pulled the drill back unused and took out the rifle.

  “Amon? We don’t have time, why are… AMON? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Nik shouted in the comms.

  “She is gone buddy, the suit is busted,” I said with a heart that had no warmth left in it, and I lined up the scope. Her waving became more insistent, begging, pleading for me to hurry.

  I fired the rifle.

  —-

  Silence, I only wished for silence but I listened to the comms. A fight was raging behind us. The Overlord had fled, repulsed by the metasphere’s decomposing field. We let it go, too numb to seek revenge.

  My two friends grieved with me, but they could hear what I heard, and they knew we had to get back into the fight.

  I launched another metagrenade to guide us back through the yellow clouds. We picked up speed, slow at first, mindful of the dangers other Overlords might cause. We could see them only when they were almost upon us.

  “BZZZZTTT, AMON DO YOU HEAR ME?” A familiar voice broke through the static.

  “Gardenia? Where are you?” I asked and pressed on faster, right behind the flying metasphere as if urging it to fly faster.

  We almost collided when she appeared onto us flying from inside the puss. Her biosuit was partially steaming from the corrosion but thankfully it appeared still functional and intact.

  “Gardenia! What's happening?” I asked with dread.

  She shook her helmet holding a hand out to pause our momentum.

  “Don’t go back...Amon, th-there, there is no one left,” She said barring the way.