I awake in my bunk, my skin is pale white from the weeks without any heating units,
fleets generally keep the interior of their ships cool to help keep personnel awake and to make
keeping the ship’s various systems from overheating slightly easier. I check my watch, it informs
me that the ship should make it to Ceres Prime today. I heard that the fighting on the world has
been intense, after the planets communications stopped and a wave of refugees landed in the
nearby systems claiming that horrific monsters overtook their world and consumed their people.
The higher ups think that the planet fell to some kind of mass revolt and rebellion, it is an
agri-world so it won’t have a lot of defenses but with it being on the fringes of the frontier
worlds it should have a sizable defense army. I head to the cafeteria and eat a light breakfast
before heading to the barracks where the Captain is waiting to give us our orders.
Once everyone shows up the Captain addresses us, “I know you have your watches but I
felt that I should tell all of you in person. Ceres Prime has recently reached the fleets scanning
range, it appears that the situation is far worse than originally believed. Whatever has attacked
the planet is no mere rebellion, scans have found no presence of any hostile fleets but devastation
and destruction seems to be all that is left of the planet.”
He pulls out a hologram projector and flashes it on, in an instant we see an apocalyptic image,
the planet’s surface looks like smoldering cinders as great fires rage across its surface. The size
of the fleet needed to carry out a bombardment that widespread would have to be massive. We
watch in silent rage at the destruction of one of our worlds and the slaughter of our people. The
Captain gives us our orders. We drop from orbit tomorrow when the fleet finishes the initial
scans of the planet, the platoon on our ship will be tasked with reactivating the planetary
communications array and finding out what happened if possible.
Sleep is difficult tonight but I force my eyes shut in the hopes that I’ll drift into it
eventually. The thought of what happened to Ceres Prime consumes my thoughts and even gives
me a feeling I haven’t felt in years, dread, not just fear but true dread for what’s to come. The
refugees claimed that it was monsters and demons that attacked. Could that mean it was an alien
fleet? Could this be the first contact with an alien species since humanity first started traveling
the stars two hundred years ago? If they start a war with us could we even win? Thoughts
continue to circulate through my mind as the ship’s simulated night drifts by, hour by hour, until
at some point I eventually drift off and any fears and worries are lost in a cloud of darkness as I
lose consciousness.
The next day, me and the rest of my platoon eat a hurried breakfast and start suiting up,
because we don’t know what kind of bombs they used, we have to wear our environment suits in
case of radiation or poisonous materials. We suit up and wait for ground command to inform us
of our objectives and answer any questions. After the briefing we head to our drop pods. I hear
the metal creak as the heavy steel door of the pod lifts open, I and three others enter the pod, we
squeeze into the pod, buckle in, and wait with bated breath for the timer on our watches to
initiate. We watch as the timer hits zero and then a timer for our ETA to the surface begins. The
pod jerks as it is launched and then we all simply wait for gravity to do its work. As the pod
descends I feel weightless and the sick feeling in my gut worsens by the minute. One of my pod
mates, a private, vomits, his helmet vacuums most of it out but I can’t imagine the smell. The last
time I heaved on drop was on my third time during training in the Sol system over Europa. As
we finally reach the last thirty seconds of drop we all breathe in as deeply as possible and relax
our bodies for the impact, getting super tense will only lead to broken bones. Finally impact
happens, there’s a deafening BOOM and I feel the restrains stop my body, my armor being the
only reason I don’t break several ribs, the restraint on my head keeps it from flinging forward
and getting a severe concussion or worse. After the initial fatigue wears off, I unbuckle and help
my three squad mates with their restraints. Once we have all recovered and grabbed our rifles, I
flip the latch at the top of the pod and the two safety buttons on each side of the pod door. The
door ejects off the rest of the pod and we let our training take over. We fan out and check for any
enemies trying to ambush us. It’s clear, thank God.
The soldier that couldn’t hold it in asks, “Sir, I don’t see anything, command said it was
likely that this place would be crawling with hostiles.”
I respond “I agree private, something feels very wrong.”
I try to hail command’s comms but only get static. I order my pod mates to meet up with me in
the abandoned diner across the street.
After talking about what to do, we ultimately decide that we should continue to the
planetary array, it will allow us to establish communications and the rest of our platoon will
eventually meet there anyway. Our watches tell us that the array is north. We move as a group,
always ready, always alert for ambushes and patrols. As we travel through the husks of the
buildings in the small town around the array we don’t ever notice anything watching or waiting
for us. I start to feel a deep dread that we are being toyed with and start to think that something
must be watching us. No force would bomb a planet and then leave no one to make sure it isn’t
retaken, but if the invaders are alien then how can I expect to think like them at all? I and my
men look at the devastation before us with sorrow, so many people must have died trying to
defend this place.
The private asks over comm, “Anybody else notice their ain’t no bodies?”
One of the others responds, “Maybe they were all vaporized by the orbital strike.”
The private corrects, “No, if they used an orbital strike then the town would be nothing
but ash.”
After another hour of cautiously moving through the streets we see the array in the distance, its
massive satellite dishes gleam in an open field several miles away. We pick up the pace when we
hear radio chatter from fellow soldiers in our comms.
When we finally reach the planetary communications array, I feel some of my anxiety
being relieved knowing that others made it safe. We enter the large concrete tower to find two
other teams going through room after room, checking for anything hiding. My team joins them
and once we go through the first three floors, one of the teams stay to make sure nothing comes
from the upper levels. My team secures the first floor and we wait for another hour as more of
our platoon reach the building. I notice that a scarce few have made it to the array, only five
other teams of four, meaning that well over half our platoon hasn’t made it so far despite the fact
that many more should have appeared by now. I feel my stomach tense as my anxiety rises once
more. I can’t shake the feeling that we are being watched despite seeing nothing doing so. With
the new numbers, four teams search through the rest of the tower for another hour and a half,
ultimately finding nothing. Engineers from various teams begin to assess the damage to any vital
systems while everyone else stays on lookout with snipers posted on the fourth and fifth floors,
while riflemen and gunners occupy the three under them. We wait for three long hours for the
engineers to finally announce that the array should be up and running once again. I hail
command and hear panicked chatter.
The voice on the comm says “There is widespread casualties, platoons all across the
surface are going dark. If you receive this message then retreat to the nearest bunker and hold
out. Fleets have been spotted entering the system.”
I end the call in silence, we’re being ambushed en masse, the invaders are waiting for us to try
and reclaim the planet.
A sniper from the upper floors calls out, “I detect enemies heading to the tower.”
Another sniper calls, “Can confirm, also spotting hostiles headed to our location. Should
we open fire?”
The highest ranking officer among us, a lieutenant commander, orders them to hold fire.
Everyone immediately begins setting up defensive positions around the front entrance, my men
taking cover behind the receptionist's desk, I notice a wave of black clad creatures begin to
descend upon the tower, there’s dozens, far more of them than us. As they get closer it becomes
clear that they are in fact aliens, each of them has four arms with a big toothy mouth showing
from the opening on their helmets, everything else has armor over it making it difficult to see any
other features.
The lieutenant commander yells out over comm, “Open fire on all hostiles!”
I hear a chorus of machine guns and rifles tear into their ranks, the creatures don’t even
seem to stop or be affected by the sight of their allies falling, they simply return shots, black
bolts fly at us, I take cover after seeing a soldier’s arm get blown off from a single shot to his
shoulder. Their black bolts pierce through the less dense cover and eviscerate whatever poor
souls are on the other side. I stand and empty a mag into the crowd, I see two die by my fire
before their comrades fire back. As the battle rages, it becomes immediately clear that they
outnumber us at least four to one, how they were able to remain hidden for so long eludes me but
we have to defend this point. After an eternity of fighting, it seems more and more hopeless as it
feels like every enemy we kill, two more come through the rubble to reinforce their allies. They
fight relentlessly, almost as though they don’t even feel the pain as bullets hit their armor and
flesh, I fire five rounds to finish off a wounded one trying to flank a gunner. As I go to empty
another mag, I notice a firestorm rain down from the distant sky, and see an enormous black ship
blot out the shine of the planet’s star. Panic consumes my mind as a black tide of pods race
toward the surface and land behind the attackers. After another couple minutes a flood of the
alien soldiers comes pouring out from the rubble and debris, we quickly become overwhelmed
by the bolstered forces. I watch soldier after soldier fall as evil black bolts pierce into them and
they cease to suffer any longer. I know I won’t survive this battle, the fleet has fallen into a hail
of fire and metal all across the planet, we are doomed. The aliens used our ignorance of them
against us, I feel rage course through me and I recklessly fire into the black horde, I wince in
pain as a bolt pierces my abdomen. I duck into cover and realize that I’m only one of three
people left on the first floor. I stand up when I hear creatures begin to walk into the lobby and
blindly fire into the crowd of approaching aliens, I don’t flinch or panic as I feel bolt after bolt
pierce into me until all goes black.