thought @ short story

The sound of mud sucking at the air and the putrid smell of the swamp bog rushed my senses. Pulling at my attentions firmly, as i awoke from yet another lucid day dream. My head blurred and i struggled to regain focus fending off fatigue again. Loosing my balance, I threw a clumsy automated step forward into the sludge, swallowed whole by the infernal muck that surrounded our unit for miles. Days had passed, since the last skirmish with local inhabitants leaving us at a feeble ten of fifty.

Living shadows of some sorts with bodiless eyes of a brooding crimson and multi appendage forms. Able towield the very moonlight that ominously illuminates everything around us, as weapon and shield.Blinding greenish flashes that seem to rip apart the fabric of night, streaking down in sudden death,followed by surprised screams of anguish through our comms.. Then seamlessly vanishing back into the gloom about us. We've battled them off several times before. Each time loosing a portion of the squad. Suffering costly trial and error as we found our plasma bayonets and flash bombs were the only success thwarting the assailants. Tirelessly we marched on.

We received weak intelligence at best. Just a short week before in Cryo-sleep as we landed on the dark side of Targus. The second moon of Remos, the fourth largest planet of one of the main systems in the Gem-Eye Quadrant. Infamously known part of space for having endless caches of raw untouched mines of vast untold riches. Diamonds, ore, gold, utonium, you name it, it was there. We were a black raidercompany, commissioned for a simple search and recover gig. Drop and pop over to some lost probe beacon,and *caaaacching!* A years pay for a third of the time, heavier pockets are always a bonus! I figured it was about the "Spaced traversed" hence, why we were charging so much.

Previous expeditions were only sanctioned to go into the first twenty percent of G.Q.. Where it was explored and deemed void of all hostile life by the Marshalls' of Eminent. A bad-ass squad of royally appointed Terminators.And the next best thing was us, a group of mercenaries seeking profitable endeavors. without any legal bindings We were hired to travel about a fort-night deeper into the G.Q. unknown. With only the slightest probability of conflict. Previous scouting indicated a very small threat if any. Possible claim jumpers, rogue militants and/or some pirates. I prefer all three, it makes it all the merrier when they turn on each other in panic.

Hysteria would've been easier. Our predicament had me blinded with rage making me relish the moments where my subconscious replayed over the future dealings of my sweet revenge! Inflicting onto the fool who signed and approved the contracton this one. I should of known better when my instincts went ape-shit, on vague rumors of the night coming alive and the moonlight burning skin. Elaborate ghost stories meaning to dissuade any space travellers looking to score big on some undocumented dig site. What any of us wouldn't of paid out at that time for a little fore-sight into this hair-brained operation. Where we stood only a couple miles from the felled beacon. With rationed supplies and a low oxygen reserve.

Preparing for an inevitable clash from our vicious hosts. Highly aggressive up until then with guerrilla strikes and ambush tactics. We assumed the next one to be something a little of the same. But My instincts were starting to fire off on all sides and consider me a quick learner. The lunar night grew increasingly quiet, eerily still. The hair on my arms pricked out and wormed about my skin in the little faux gravity my suit created. The circle formed up in seasoned rhythm, shrinking in radius. As the chill of battle rippled through the remaining squad. The air tingled with anticipation and we slowed to an ankle deep relief in the trek. A long minute followed, slugging by as we steadied our breaths.

At first, I figured my heart that was racing to be the source, a low vibration from my feet, to a wobbling in the knees. Perhaps adrenaline to be the cause, of my stomach absently clenching and my back building with energy. I assumed the best until, my mecha-suit sensors registered the worst. A booming thunder rolled over us like a powerball stadium cheering with the force of thirty-thousand fanatics. centered just about a half a kilometer in the direction of, of course, our destination. My visor rattled under the sonar onslaught from some really freakishly huge, unknown. I almost lost my footing again, but oddly the mud held me up this time. I motioned a hand signaled to the front four, two on either side of me rushed into action, with a quick burst they took flight, followed by fire in rapid succession launching the flash bombs flying toward the faceless doom.

One popped a few hundred meters early, above a small copse of gnarled swamp trees. Melting away a part of the depth less night. A silent jab into the face of the heavyweight to come. After that, two popped within a couple seconds in between. One reaching a little farther than the first and then the third being closer to the distance my suit registered. Leaving the detonating area a tad lighter shade of greenish grey with another scattering of the moon night creatures. The final one, taking a graceful space roll-bounce about a hundred meters after, almost directly at the epicenter. Coming to rest into a small dip in the landscape.

An hour-like moment passed before the flash bomb blazed into glory. Revealing a ribcage-like form of what seemed to be a living mountain of swamp bog, murk and trees. A substantial mass of pure blackness pressing back at the flash bomb with noticable effort. Finally crashing down with an earth shattering force swallowing the light source whole. Making the rest of us instinctively take flight. Blood pounded in my head and my heart beat even faster in my chest. I scanned the horizon and notice it starting to flicker with crimson speckles of light. Hundreds of sinister eyes glared back in unison, silently conveying our deaths. Instantly wishing for a different turn of events.

We floated there anxiously; exhausted, stranded, outnumbered and blocked from our escape, i figured it couldnt get any worse? Right?. Maybe if I were a lucky man, but as usual the karmic forces of the universe work against me. When ever it can, and will, and always more than what degree of worse i think of. Just as i figured we could probably make one last stand, a hundred to one , managable odds. The ground beneath us violently split open and several mud geyser exploded into life! Spraying the muck and bog in every direction imaginable. Noxious gas clouded the air, making our mecha-suits toxicity sensors overload. The murky ground cover started to flow in small streams. Toward the speckled sea of crimson and the growing living mountain of darkness. All around us theswampy landscape groaned and shrieked in protest, as if the very life was being sucked out of it.

The soldiers were getting restless, and one by one, set their plasma bayonets a flame! Casting a fierce glow upon thecoming swarm of living night. As if in response to our battle cry, everything seem to stop. Like an eye of a storm, an unfamiliar calm settled over the coming battlefield, within a span of a few seconds all the speckles of eye light twinkled out and blackest curtain of night decended upon us. I breathed a few calming words on the comm, and held our position. The very next moment another blood curdling roar, echoed its presence, and three enormous eyes of crimson blazed into all its alien magnificence! The radiating heat alone had us rocking back, stealing our breaths! No less that five-hundred meters away, three demonic looking pupils focus their attention, and glowered in fury upon us. At that very moment, i did what any ones instincts would tell them to do... I ran!