Oculus - Part I

            "Come on, take cover! What the hell is wrong with you?!" corporal Oswald Reeves yelled at his squadmate, dragging him out of the line of fire.

            He pushed the man behind one of the many weirdly shaped columns that held the ceiling of the room their team has just secured. The private - Oswald seemed to recall that his name was Saide Amari - collapsed against its smooth surface, visibly unharmed, but breathing heavily.

            "Dammit..." Oswald cussed under his breath. "You're trying to get yourself killed?!"

            It all went down too fast. Only a couple of days ago the disturbing news reached their humble colony world of New Hope: humanity had encountered another race of sapient beings capable of interstellar travel. But there was no celebration to honor the First Contact, no establishment of diplomatic relations of any kind... No, instead legions of unclassified alien spacecrafts coming from beyond the charted region of the Local Arm flooded the frontier star systems.

            The unknown enemy launched an unprovoked assault on the military forces stationed in the quadrant, decimating entire fleets. The broadcasted list of casualties was shockingly long and the high command wasted no time preparing a counterattack. Gathering an armada from the reserve units they struck against the invaders, disorganizing their ranks and claiming one victory after another despite being outnumbered at least three to one.

            Oswald recalled being woken up by the sound of sirens earlier this morning. Apparently a group of alien vessels managed to break through the human ranks and jumped directly into the system he called home. The orbital defenses successfully repelled the assailants, but several dropships attempted to reach the planet's surface despite being fired upon from all sides. Most were vaporized long before they even reached the upper levels of the atmosphere, but at least two miraculously survived the barrage of hot plasma and old fashioned nuclear missiles, crash landing dangerously close to the capital city.

            The colony's securities were put on red alert and as a member of the Planetary Guard Oswald got assigned to one of the teams dispatched to deal with anything that might try getting off those shuttles. Arriving at a landing site of one of the dropships corporal Revees noted that it looked like giant mechanical version of an Earth hornet if it decided to start flying backwards. He and his men faced the difficult task of driving the horrifying alien crew back into their spacecraft. Although the monstrous green freaks seemed undisciplined they fought back with appalling ferocity. On the other hand the group of Guardsmen Oswald commanded were well-equipped and trained by frequent drills, but lacked any real field experience. He lost many good men and women in an effort to infiltrate the downed vessel.

            Eventually the battle shifted in their favor and the attacking side was able to get inside, securing what appeared to be a cargo bay from hostiles. An order came to push forward and take the ship's command center and just when the corporal commanded his subordinates to regroup he noticed one of the privates just standing there, gazing absent-mindedly into an opening from whence a sniper shot could come at any moment.

            Oswald looked down at the careless squadmate who struggled to remove his headgear. Finally the man was able to take off his helmet and the look of genuine terror in his eyes made corporal forget about the breech of protocol.

            "It's... It's in my head" Saide mumbled and his dark face turned unnaturally pale. "I-I can feel it squirm inside my thoughts!.."

            Oswald felt a chill go down his spine: nobody said anything about those monsters being able to take over a human mind! He watched silently as his fellow Guardsman pressed his palms against his temples as if trying to keep something out of his brain and slammed the back of his skull repeatedly into the column.

            "No! Get out!" the man screamed through clenched teeth. "Get out of my mind!.."

            Feeling his blood begin to boil Oswald opened the comlink and instructed the rest of the team to get ready and follow his lead. Corporal snatched a smart grenade from his utility belt and sent it flying into the gaping archway where the enemies entrenched themselves. As soon as he released the grasp on the explosive a microscopic indicator on its side lit up and the little destructive sphere changed its trajectory mid-flight, aiming for the closest baddie hidden in the shadows.

            The corporal imagined that the entire spacecraft trembled when the detonation resounded throughout its interior. The enemy didn't fire back so he assumed their watchmen to be dead and rushed out of cover, weapon at the ready. He ran through the cloud of dust and smoke raised by the blast relying on the sensors in his visor to warn him if anything alive still lurked in the darkness. The tech highlighted some movement to his right and Oswald sprayed the spot with fire. He turned to continue onward and suddenly found himself face to face with one of the loathsome invaders.

            Corporal Reeves was a man of considerable stature, but the horrible creature towered over his head, balancing on its long serpentine tail. Its body covered with asparagus scaly hide, a multitude of strong tentacles protruded from what Oswald assumed was its torso. Above them hanged a tubular appendage resembling a proboscis of a butterfly or a mosquito's nose and a single enormous yellow eye with pulsating catlike pupil that stared unblinkingly at the human before it.

            Momentarily paralyzed by the shock of the encounter, Oswald was able to make out a peculiar tiara that rested on the creature's abhorrent head the likes of which he didn't see on any other of these fiends. He heard someone's panicked cries behind him and recognized the voice as Saide's. The corporal realized that this metallic object must've been what the enemy used to fry the poor man's brains and raised his deadly rifle with cold determination.

            "No! Please don't!.."

            Oswald pulled the trigger and the gun's beam cut through the horrid beast's flesh. The private's pleas turned to inhuman shrieks of pain, but they drowned out in the loud screech of the plasma weapon. The walls of the corridor turned dark purple with the monster's fluids and pieces of soft tissue. Its lifeless body collapsed on the floor and corporal Reeves kicked it aside.

            There were the sounds of footsteps as the rest of the team caught up to their leader.

            "Wow. That's a big one. Nice work, sir!" a private commented, surveying the mess Oswald made.

            "What a smell... Wonder if the stench of burnt alien meat is poisonous to humans?" the other jested, poking the dead carcass with the barrel of his gun.

            "Remove your helmet and let's find out" corporal snapped and quickly remembered about Saide. "What happened to Amari?"

            "He passed out I think. What caused him to go nuts anyway?"

            Oswald wanted to warn his squadmates about the mind controlling technology the enemy appeared to possess, but just then there came a loud swoosh caused by a huge door sliding open somewhere ahead of them.

            "Lights everybody!" the corporal barked the order, switching his own tactical flashlight on.

            The others adhered to his example, illuminating the space before them. Only a few meters away the corridor ended in an open doorway and behind it...

            "Dear God..." one of the privates gasped, recoiling instinctively.

            The combined energy of their torches revealed another chamber like the one they captured minutes ago, albeit somewhat smaller. And this one was crawling with slimy horrors. Nauseating alien forms of all sizes and shades of green were clumped together on the floor or hanged on the columns and even from the ceiling. Attracted by brilliant glare a hundred of inexpressive eyes lazily turned to the incomers and an uncountable number of writhing limbs simultaneously reached out to them menacingly.

            "Take that you ugly sons of..." Oswald couldn't hear himself finish the sentence under the storm of plasma shots that ensued.

            Rapid flashes and the tumult of gunfire, the wheeze of the dying monsters and the hissing of molten metal... Chaos and destruction reigned supreme for a few lengthy minutes as the Guardsmen didn't stop shooting until their weapons ran out of charge. When they finally seized and lowered their rifles the room before them was full of charred and deformed corpses.

            "We got all of them, sir."

            Oswald nodded in acknowledgement, looking over the scene of the massacre.

            "Don't let your guard down yet. We still need to locate the bridge..."

            Continued in part II...