Blue Team

"Command, this is blue leader. We have found the bishop."

"Blue leader, this is command. You are cleared to engage."

Inside the biggest room of the alien ship, the cathedral's nave, Blue Team steadily advanced using the cover of the pillars. A small number of enemy troops had remained behind, offering a token resistance against the Republic's best of the best.

Whenever their magnetically accelerated carabines shoot out a bullet, one or more alien heads would pop like balloons. And, in the remote chance a stray bullet was to hit them, It would bounce or splash harmlessly against the virtually invincible heavy armor and energy shields.

In this fashion, the six men team made their way through almost a hundred aliens of various species. They advanced on the end of the nave, where a circle of robed figures chanted around a chimeric creature sitting cross-legged on a black mirror-like surface. Their arms waved incense burners around, raising a thick white mist.

The abomination had a squid instead of a head, with a small beak covered by tentacles on the front and on its forehead two yellow eyes surrounded by feathers reminiscing of a hawk. On the side of the head, two black holes where the ears were supposed to be.

Its body, just like the head, was a mix-mash of different alien species. Leathery crocodile-like skin, then feathers, fish scales, and fur.

As a testament on why such an abomination was a clear failed product… It had three arms, two in the right places and a deformed third growing from its back, covered in feathers like an undeveloped wing.

However, the robed cultists surrounded the heinous creature and softly prayed to it as they swung incense burners by the chain. Pure reverence and devotion painted over their alien faces, partially hidden by the smoke.

The blue team knew that the vile thing was their target, the Gu'Ranti bishop. Gu'ra was the name of the deity officially worshipped by the alien empire encroaching on humanity like a shadow; Literally, it meant dark mind or soul of the dark.

Its symbol was the black mirror, and according to their tradition, it could serve as the medium for it to spy on the physical world like a dark pupil.

As the members of the Blue Team aimed their sights on the bishop and devoted ones, the fiend opened its asymmetrical pitch-black eyes and clicked the beak once.

Suddenly, every human on the ship became blind. Their minds or perhaps souls pulled away from their senses and sunk in infinite darkness, their bodies left behind like puppets with their strings cut.

This small elite unit captain, Rosa Ayton, saw the world around her sink into darkness, her six senses sealed by a higher existence.

As her breath accelerated, she couldn't feel any air enter her lungs or hear her labored breath.

She felt as if she sank into the dark heart of the universe.

Before the big bang, back when darkness ruled without ever knowing the tyranny of light. Or maybe in the future, when every star would grow old and dim, and night would again rule uncontested.

Yet, in a time when nothing existed, she knew something was there, watching her.

In this weird atemporal dimension, only the two of them existed in a silent confrontation.

Hours could have passed, or days, or years. She slowly felt herself disappear and fuse with this overwhelming dark dimension, her memories and thoughts drifting away like sand in a desert.

Tantalizing whispers silently tempted her to give up, let loose and join them in the land of eternal rest and peace.

She had no body to move or skin to feel, yet she felt the slimy tentacles of darkness exploring her, coldly feeling her up like a doll.

Without being able to point how, she knew the presence was hungry. If she let go now, it would invade her most private parts and devour her from the inside. A small crack was all it needed.

Her will rose and trashed like stormy waters against the oppression of gravity. She wouldn't bend down to this abomination.

"I'm Rosa Ayton, third lieutenant of the ECP Republican Army. This is just a psionic illusion, and I'll get out of here. I'm Rosa Ayton, third lieutenant of the ECP Republican Army. This is just a psionic illusion, and I'll get out of here. I'm Rosa Ayton, third lieutenant of the ECP Republican Army. This is just a psionic illusion, and I'll get out of here."

She repeated time after time like a mantra, her inside voice steady against the passage of time. The ECP wasn't new to this kind of mental attack. High members of the Gu'Ra church could do the same to varying degrees of effectiveness.

Particularly the abominations like the one that was in front of her. Results of hundred years of continuous genetic experimentation and hybridization to enhance their psionic capabilities to greater heights.

The Gu'ranti believed that their deity had seeded the universe with its DNA, and once its descendants could piece it back together, then he would be back and lead them to eternal dominion over the universe.

Rosa conjured the images of her family and all the people she enlisted to protect. Just like her, the members of her team and most humans on board fought hard against mental corruption.

Some thought of their husband or wives; others thought about their families, friends, and children. Their memories and mental images resonated with each others, and in the darkness small beacon of human will burned, linking together and echoing their challenge to the monster.

All of this finally culminated with the thousands of human boarders forming the personification of the human fighting spirit against the cruel universe.

The guardian spirit of humanity blazed forth in the darkness. Rosa could see the revealed writhing masses of tentacles as far as the eye reached. Shrieking they retreated from the burning human spirit and escaped.

The illusion broke with a shriek of pain, and Rosa immediately opened fire on the gathering. Almost simultaneously, her team followed suit, mincing the few dozens of robes to nothing.

"GRAH!" The bishop disappeared from the circle with a beastly scream and appeared behind Rosa, its right hand surrounded by black mist.

"Behind you!" Rosa's sixth sense warned her just in time. She spun around with superhuman speed and reflexes and placed her coil-carabine between her and the ghastly hand.

With *fwoom*, the carabine split perfectly in two, spatial currents overwhelming the solid object before dissipating.

Rosa saw the monster disappearing again and, this time, didn't need her intuition's warning. With a pirouette, she turned around and intercepted the scrawny arm by the elbow.

The alien looked in horror at his arm caught in her iron grip and, in panic, warped again, far from this room. However, as Rosa had been holding its arm, they warped together.

"Trying to leave so soon? The party ain't over, sweetheart." Rosa smiled behind the helmet and punched the bishop in the head.

The poor psionic user tried to stop her by erecting a forcefield between them. However, hydraulic punch after hydraulic punch, it weakened to the point it shattered like glass.

While weakened, after the shield absorbed most of its kinetic energy, her last punch cracked the bishop's skull without unfortunately killing it.

In a last-ditch attempt, the Gu'Ranti focused all its power and tried to control her mind directly. Rosa's arm stopped before it could deliver the fatal blow and smear the alien abomination on the floor.

Her forehead pearled as a migraine split her brain in two. Illusions of ants eating her skin or worms digging in her body attacked her suffering mind, but she resisted with all her force.

Mind against mind, will against will.

While the first attack had engulfed every human on the ship diluting its power, this second one focused on her, making it much harder to resist or break free from. Each second, she felt herself diminish and get closer to ruin. Blood poured out of her nose and eyes as her forehead veins popped like snakes.

"Oracle, punch!" She called her last ace in the sleeve.

The non-smart Artificial intelligence understood her user's intentions and remotely controlled the power armor to rob the alien of its victory with a swift punch.

Typically, Oracle would have no way of controlling weapon systems. Certain circumstances had led to most AI research and technologies being buried, never to see the light of day again.

However, special forces had tangoed with enemy psicasters for quite a while. Their mental attacks particularly had reaped hundreds of special forces, not to mention the thousands of normal troops and Folgore. The need for limited autonomy in emergencies was a countermeasure too good not to take advantage of, at least when within the strict boundaries of the law.

The servo-motors of the armored fist shot forth and sank all the way to the floor through the alien's soft skull.

Rosa broke free of the mind attack and panted hard at the sight of the blue jelly all over her armor.

"Haa, haa. Command. This is blue leader. Do you copy?" She contacted the HQ on the EPCV Taste of Payback.

(V stands for vessel.)

"This is command, over." The voice of another woman entered her ear.

"Target terminated." She transmitted dryly and sat down.

"Copy that. What's your status?"

"I'm fine. However, I got separated from my team, and I don't currently know my position." She looked around. The alien jump had brought her to a neat small apartment with a hoovering bed. Probably, his private quarters.

"Roger. Red Team is about to infiltrate the enemy command. As soon as they access their systems, we will locate you and send a rescue team.

"Understood." She had lost her primary weapon, and besides her power armor, she only had a gun. She sighed and started bunkering up the room.