The tunnel the metasphere creates is wide enough for us to fly comfortably, but just as narrow in case an Overlord emerges into our path. There is not enough clear space to maneuver around the massive beast, which makes any such confrontation especially dangerous and potentially deadly.

Plunging into the surrounding puss even for a few seconds may get us lost. What if you can’t return to the tunnel and eventually get separated from the rest of the team? We are so deep inside the corrosion that kilometers of puss separate us from the outside space. There is only one thing we have going for us. I have securely tied an active metasphere to each team member, trailing a meter behind each, in case we do get parted.

"What a lovely experience," Tommy says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. It's not a pleasant feeling being compressed from all sides that's for sure. "If one of these overgrown spaceleeches comes along, we are clusterfucked!"

In these cases, the SFC Marines are trained to follow a code of conduct that all personnel must obey and abide by. One rule concerning active missions states that completing objectives is a priority above any autonomous action that might endanger the mission.

If the enemy Overlords strike against us right now, continuing to complete the objective should be prioritized above any injuries our small team of four might sustain. We would leave behind our fallen comrades, prey to the enemy’s tentacles, only to reach the Overlord Queen.

What a load of bullshit that is. I’m never leaving a team member behind. Screw the SFC code of conduct and the mission objective if they believe themselves above my friend’s lives.

I’m only risking my skin for the benefit of all fighting this battle, mine included. Right now everything hangs on the tipping point, and I don’t see how someone else might cross the battlezone to reach the Queen. Not before we do.

With our lives on the line, our rules are set on the table. Either we reach the Queen together, and kick her ass out of our Galaxy, or we make the best of the hand we are dealt with.

Moving on, I see more floating eggs to our left and right, and pray we don’t encounter any newborn Overlord hatchlings on our path. It’s said that they are so nasty they make adult Overlords seem docile. The universe is not a friendly place, and I guess to survive out there you need to be a special kind of asshole.

We fly silently, not even pausing to shoot at the defenseless eggs for fear of attracting the parent’s attention. I calculate the speed and distance we have left to cover. Just over 5 kilometers left to the point the initial coordinates indicated. We are close enough that we might intercept a stray Overlord if any are gathered near the Queen.

At this point, so many things can go wrong that I’m surprised at myself for being where I am. It’s not a risk that I would normally consider taking. Worst for wear it's not only my hide in danger here, my friends and allies are with me, following my lead, trusting me to save their asses in case something does go wrong. After all, I have a good track record for it. So I hope their trust isn’t misplaced this time as well.

And I am convinced something will go terribly wrong somewhere in this yellow hellscape. Maybe it will be the Queen deciding she wants to move to a different location and we will be searching blindly swimming in the puss clouds, cut off from any communication update until the rest of the Overlords notice us.

Maybe we won’t even reach her, set upon by the hungry alien beasts, seeing us for what we are, a juicy meal delivered to their doorstep.

We have just two kilometers left, and we are still alone. Everyone is tense and fidgety, looking at the dark shapes drifting inside the clouds. The corroded dead stay where they are, creating green puddles of puss in the otherwise yellow sea.

And then without any notice, it's the other way around. Green is the color of our suffocating world whereas yellow previously dominated. It's a feasting zone of broken-down matter.

A kilometer in we are forced to strafe around the decomposing materials or risk carrying the splatter with us. Since the puss is a gaseous substance it is swiftly dispelled by the passage of the metasphere’s active field. However, the heavier, more complex materials aka 'the dead' take longer to eradicate, leaving us with a vile obstacle track.

We aren’t rushing ahead, but when a colossal shadow darkens our front vision I rely on SensoChronometry to slow down my sense of reality. Frame by frame I calmly observe the numerous tentacles uncovering from under the green puss.

There is something different about them. Meter-long hair roots extend in all directions along the tip and shaft of the tentacles, creating a wide brush that reacts with the broken-down matter. It appears it is sucking the green-saturated puss back in. I believe…it is eating.

I stare in wonder and notice clearly when the tentacles come under the effect of the metashere’s active field. They flinch, hazily in my eyes, but I’m sure it's rather fast for everybody else. None of my allies had a chance to react yet.

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The sucker-hair retracts under the tentacle’s ‘skin’ and the whole thing retreats, coiling close to its main body which is now starting to appear. A purple outer armor reflects our helmet’s lights, gleaming against the intrusion.

We have found the Queen.

“As we planned,” I shout through the comms, my words take a while to form, but my mind is racing ahead, selecting the most suitable location to ‘dig in’. My team, unable to operate at the same time-perception as me, follows my lead as best they can.

The seconds between my calculated moves and their reaction time create a small gap between us. I plunge ahead toward the nearest tentacle-main body junction.

The Queen is beginning to feel the effects of the active field with her tentacles flailing wildly, swiping at the nothingness around us. I see the long trunks of alien rubber flesh from miles away but I can’t say the same for the rest of the team.

“Watch out!” Tommy warns, and my eyes track the slow decline of the blind attack that will overpass me by a comfortable margin, but I’m not sure the same can be said for all of us.

I don’t have the leisure to look back. The hook in my hand punctures the rubber skin of the Overlord Queen and I hang secured from her alien flesh. Nik lands next to me a second later grabbing for a hold and similarly securing himself on the spacebeast.

I glance over my shoulder to see Tommy and Gardenia flying disorderly, their boot thrusters lighting up, maneuvering to avoid the swiping tentacles. It's chaos all around them.

There is not much I can do to help them, they have to find a way to approach before the drilling starts in earnest. I expect the Queen to react strongly to our little extermination project.

I watch them for a few seconds. The Queen doesn’t relent in her barrage of attacks, and finding a safe pathing to our position while avoiding the maelstrom becomes a mounting complication. One hit from a tentacle would strike them away, and despite the damage it would cause, the disorientation and surrounding puss could finish the job as easily.

“Tommy! Link up with Gardenia and find a place to encroach and dig in.” I say, fearing that the Queen might bolt unexpectedly and separate us.

“Roger that. Give us a second,” He replies, and I see them change their approach from trying to get to us to flying up to the nearest available spot.

Once I see them securely hook themselves on the Overlord’s chitin-flesh, Nik and I take out our drills. The drill machine is a square-shaped cone with handles on two sides. The moment I activate it the tip twists and turns, and burns hot, lighting my vision in an angry orange hue.

It's showtime. I push the heated drill down on the junction between the tentacle and the chitin armor of the Queen, a location where the natural purple exoskeleton is absent, leaving it almost defenseless to my actions. At the drills’s touch, the beast’s alien flesh explodes outward.

The plan is to dig a hole, push a metasphere in, seal it, and do so again repeatedly for as long as we have to. For the Queen it won't be a swift death, but a terrible one, decomposing slowly from the inside. The alien beast will probably flee in painful agony, recalling the rest of the swarm in its crazed flight. Or that’s what we hope will happen.

As plans go, it was probably the best we could come up with on short notice with the limited weapons we have on hand.

Well, we didn’t expect the big fuck you that the Queen had in store for us.

The tentacle hair the Queen used to eat her disgustingly-green-gaseous meal resurfaces and starts whipping about. Nik is forced to abandon his drilling just to defend himself and me. I am better suited for the manual work anyway. My strength and size reduce the chances that I would cave from the onslaught.

It still hurts, however. Even with the biosuit on I can feel the whipping tendrils having a go at my legs and hands, messing with the positioning of the drill as I push it lower inside the Queen's body. The team comms are full of grunts and curses.

When the tentacle hair fails to dislodge us, the Queen vibrates violently. While I can’t see much with the puss swirling around us, I see a fine mist releasing from the Queen. The gaseous toxicity is almost drowning the active field of the metaspheres currently tied on the meter-long metallic string attached to each of us, helping provide the breathing room we need to survive the prolonged battle.

The mist mixes with the green puss and turns purple. That can’t be good, but I concentrate on my task. The hole I am drilling expands adequately, and I take one of the last few metaspheres I possess and place it deep in the wounded slimy flesh of the Queen.

With a twist, the two separated parts keeping the metasphere inactive click together and I see the lines merge before an invisible blurry field starts expanding outward. The alien flesh around it blackens to a dry husk almost immediately.

I cover the hole with an expanding foam mainly used for temporary biosuit sealant or ship armor repairs and try to get Nik’s attention who is still fighting off the tentacle hair. His blaster is out and it’s blowing the little whipps apart.

“Hey Amon, when you are done over there, we have a lady’s hole right here you might want to satisfy with your little toys.” Tommy jokes. We are not too far apart but getting our asses over there through the spasming tentacles and whipping hair will be harder than I anticipated.

“I’m not sure she is my type, she has some serious anger issues. Can you hold on over there? Closing the distance is a tad difficult right now.” I say and recheck the hook securing me in place. The vibrations and sudden movements of the Overlord are pulling at us hard.

“In that case, I’ll use the one I have on me. Gardenia’s metasphere is more than enough to cover for the both of us,” Tommy replies and I understand it’s the right thinking, but it's still dangerous to disregard the one thing protecting you from kilometers of death degrading corrosion.

“Okay, be careful not to get separated buddy,” I say feeling the tingling sensation of worry swarm inside me.

“We moving?” Nik asks me with a grunt. There is a nice open space around us free of tentacle hair. Blackened damaged flesh tars the base of the tentacle.

“Unfortunately we have to. We should try to bury at least one or two more. You did a nice job remodeling this place though,” I say lightheartedly and Nik nods with his helmet.

“Where to?” he asks, but before I can answer a tentacle comes crashing down on us. If I had kept SensoChronometry on my brain would have been close to spent from the strain, but I would have seen the attack coming.

The angle helped reduce the impact but I was still flung violently away. My shoulder bursts in pain as it was hit with force. A blinding burning sensation that my nanomites would soon be working on to heal.

I don’t worry about the injury much apart from the temporary mobility restriction, the brainchip in response to the pain spike automatically reduced my pain receptors to 50%.

“ARGGHH,” Nik groans as he is similarly tossed away from the safety of the pocket, flung inside the purple clouds in a flailing dive.

The toxic puss similarly greets me but the active metasphere tied to the backcompartment of my biosuit keeps it at bay. Another tentacle swipes in my general direction, and my boots help me swerve from its trajectory.

Before I lose sight of the Overlord Queen, I see Tommy and Gardenia, linked arms in arms, fleeing the other way, maneuvering under a constant barrage of swiping attacks.

All of the team has been repelled with little chance to approach again now that the Queen is aware and riled up. I can only pray the two metaspheres we buried are sufficient to finish the mission.

“Team, everyone’s made it out?” I ask in the comms hoping to hear the familiar voices of my comrades.

“BZZZZTTTTMMON HHBZZRE,” I listen closely to the incomprehensible static words. At least they are alive.

At least I’m not alone.