The world is light. The universe’s eternal darkness gives way to the sunrise. The camera feeds freeze as the lenses try to adjust to the new colorations and fail spectacularly to capture the contrast.

Precious seconds pass looking at a still image of pure whiteness. The mapping feed however reveals a different story. An unending line of little blue dots connects our ships to the alien monster swarm.

The beasts eat them all up. My heartbeat hammers loud enough to echo around the main hold but does so only to my eardrums.

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

With a sound the portals ascend, opening their mouths to the universe and we greet marines peaking from portals on the other side, on the neighboring Dreadnaught. The identical spaceship is imposingly long, with a pointed nose armed with lasers. At the Dreadnaught's bow above the nose, at a slight sleek incline, is the ship's bridge, and control room, with the succeding ranking officer accommodations that have 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 can be seen on the ship's husk, whereas on the inside just like on our Dreadnaught are the crew cabins and living areas. The tail is where the storage and hold facilities are located together with the portals from which we are now peaking, before ending at the ship's engines and biosupport systems.

It's a monster of a battleship. Yet the presence of 27 Dreadnaughts should have been more comforting.

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

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

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

We gather in open space, and I gasp when my eyes finally land on the killzone. The yellow puss clouds are stained by dark smudges and dead alien parts. Since the exploding lights of our missiles snuffed out, it is also eerie quiet.

The yellow veil of toxicity is all I can see in front of us, it spreads to swallow the universe, dispersing slightly as it expands outwards.

We all wait 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 orbit the Dreadnaughts and one of them passes me by dangerously close. The damned AI controller is programmed to maintain flight paths for optimum defense no matter what it encounters along the way.

That distracts me when I should be focused, as I consciously adjust my position to avoid colliding with the heavy balls of machinery.

As planned our group gathers, those who share the F567 company anyway. For the rest, I can do little but pray for their survival.

Movement ahead focuses my attention back to the front. A dark shadow swims under the yellow clouds, then another. I zoom in through my optics and carefully observe the edges.

A long slender tentacle bursts out of the toxic puss.

**Marines commence operation**

The order vibrates in our headsets like an earthquake, shaking us into action. The thrusters on our boots light up, and we fly forward ahead of the safety of our ships. Thousands of Marines in grey-black biosuits flood 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, faces us and doesn’t cower.

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

We face them all head-on. I scream as loud as my humanity allows me. Alone, none can hear me but myself. But I imagine my comrades doing the same and feel a kinship with them that I have never felt with anyone, not my parents, my mentors, or my childhood friends.

—-

DTTRRRRHHHZZSS

The manual drill hisses hot, vibrating my hand as I push downward. Melted alien flesh bursts outward, slimy and thick, and sticks to me like glue as it freezes. My other hand holds a pointed hook beaked on the Overlord’s exoskeleton that won’t let me fall off. I groan with the effort, maintaining both points during the chaos of battle.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

My team is above me fighting the tentacles trying to pry me off its body. The blasters shine blue as they pound against the enemy, pushing back and damaging its gonorrheal limbs. When it extrudes puss we jump off, retreating from the toxic antimaterial substance.

If we stay too long inside it, our biosuits will corrode and open space will become lifeless without their protection to safeguard us. It’s not the same for the Overlord, and taking one down requires a constant fractious engagement.

It gives chase, leaving the protections of its puss behind and we start over. The hunted and the haunted.

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

It's a mess. Chaos like any of the SFC marines have ever experienced. Many do not realize they are already dead when they dally and the clouds surround 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 have trained through several battles with Overlords and know what to look out for. One of the main dangers is…

A slimy tentacle grabs Ginny as we jump off retreating from another puss cloud. It pulls her inside the corrosive puss, hiding her from our sight.

The short-range comms having returned to normal operation, light up with sound.

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

I curse. We have mere minutes to save her before her biosuit fails if the beast hasn’t already crushed her in its grip.

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

If we chase after her, we will fly blind inside the corrosion that would attack us nonetheless. It would be suicide. I know it, everyone knows it. But I can hear her screams on my headset and the terror I feel, is nothing compared to hers.

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

The metagrenades activate as they leave the rifle. They move slowly, painfully so, since nothing would stop them from flying boundlessly forward and I need the active deconstructive field near me until I find her.

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

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

The distant lights of the universe disappear from view. I light up my helmet to banish the immediate darkness and so do my two friends. The empty corridor we fly in is suffocating, it presses against itself narrowing further after the metasphere's active field moves on.

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

“Ginny, we are coming! We are near!” Nik says through the comms, but there is no way of knowing.

“HZAARGGBBZZT,” A scream of static answers him.

I search endlessly for shadows swimming in the yellow puss surrounding us and pray I see something indicating where the alien bastard has taken my friend.

While looking around, I miss when the metagrenades hit the Overlord head-on. Tentacles spasm swiping around the open tunnel and the alien monster shies away from the small metallic spheres.

With some savage satisfaction, I smile. I had tweaked the metaspheres to break down biological matter. Exterminating all life inside the field array.

Fortunately, we are safe inside our biosuits and if Ginny’s is compromised, she is already dead either way. A thought I do not wish to even think about.

We pursue after the alien beast, it’s moving groggily, possibly hurt and I think I see Ginny held in one of its gonorrhoeal limbs.

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

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

I’m ready to fight to take her back but more static flooding our headsets gives me pause. And this time it's not coming from Ginny.

“BZZZTTT AMONZ, INCOMIBZZZNG.”

Different voices, drowning each other.

“INCMNBZZZ, HZZEELBBBP.”

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

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

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

Her head idly tracks my movements. Her body is wrapped by the alien limb and only one of her hands can move freely. I see her lift it and wave. A simple gesture as if saying “hello”, or maybe “goodbye”.

The voice that comes through the comms, is not a voice but a sob. It's comprehensible and clear now that I’m close enough.

“Ginny..” I say involuntarily, almost frozen, but when I land on the alien flesh, I grab it with my hook and settle into position to drill in the meter-wide tentacle until it leaves my friend alone.

I’m distracted, there is something I’m missing. I look back at her as she flails with the limb's movements.

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

If she is 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 pressure, empty of oxygen. Only the tentacle is keeping her intact.

She waves again slowly, as if the trip she’s taking is long, and feels regret that it’ll take time until we meet again.

My eyes water. I know because the image before me distorts. I pull the drill back unused and take out the rifle.

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

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

I fire the rifle.

—-

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

My two friends grieve with me, but they can hear what I hear, and they know we have to get back into the fight.

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

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

“Gardenia? Where are you?” I ask and press on faster, right behind the flying metasphere.

We almost collide when she runs into us flying from inside the puss. Her biosuit is partially steaming from the corrosion but thankfully it appears still functional and intact.

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

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

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