I NEVER EVER thought I'd see what I saw on that station. To this day, it still haunts me everytime I try to sleep. In all my years in the Army, I've never seen anything like what happened then. We were responding to a distress call. We should have left it alone. Our transport changed direction and we locked and loaded with live rounds. Our first indication of trouble was the lack of updated docking telemetry. The crap they were sending was over twelve hours old, last updated shortly before the S.O.S. was sent. Our pilot still managed to dock. I wish he hadn't tried so hard. We docked, and the sensors said the air inside was breathable, no hull breaches. We formed up, covering the airlock, safeties off and fingers on the trigger. Second Lieutenant Jenkins hit the button, and the airlock slid open. Nothing. Not even a frickin' mouse. I stepped off the transport first. The station just gave off a creepy vibe. You know, like when you can't physically tell anything's wrong, but you mind just KNOWS it. It didn't hit me then, but it should have. If you had sent an S.O.S., and were waiting for rescue, where would you wait? I'd wait in the first place that rescue would arrive. The docking bay. And then there was the weird smell. Kinda like stale lemons. It seemed to put everyone on edge. We moved through the station with full rucks, everyone communicating with gestures and hand signals. We came to an intersection, the captain seemed unsure of what to do. We didn't care what de decided, just as long as we had orders like good little soldiers. He couldn't decide which way to go, so we split up. Brilliant tactical decision. Then again, it's not like I had any brilliant ideas either. Second platoon went left, third platoon went right, and the rest of us continued on. We moved tactically through the long hallway for God only-knows how long, before second platoon radioed in.

"Sir, we've got blood-oh my God......" Jenkins said, followed by a noise I recognized the sound of vomiting through a throat-mic. I'd heard it enough in zero G training. From both my comrades and me.

The link was quiet except for gagging and several other troopers vomiting. Jenkins got control of himself again and continued his SitRep.

"The room's full of bodies, parts of bodies. Men women, children, human bodies ripped in half, piles of guts, blood everywhere. It looks like they've been chewed on, eaten. Oh my God, what would do this?"

"Are they UAC?" the captain asked, radiating calm.

"Ye-yeah."

"Calm down, lieutenant you've still got a job to-"

The captain was cut off by yells from members of Jenkins's platoon.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" someone yelled, followed by rifle fire.

"It won't die!" a trooper yelled, punctuated by shots, growling filling the background.

Someone let loose a blood-curdling scream, a scream that could only mean a horrible death.

"Second platoon, fall back." Captain Davidson said.

"How many of'em are there?!" Someone yelled.

"They're everywhere! We can't disengage!" Jenkins yelled.

"Third platoon! Move to second platoon's location! They are heavily engaged from multiple directions!"

"Roger that."

The captain signaled for us to move back to the intersection and join up with third. That was the fastest tactical movement I've ever seen. We practically double-timed it to the intersection. Second platoon had taken the left passage, which was now to our right. Third had already arrived, and was holding the passages leading to the meat locker. A couple of the hallways had crude barricades made of furniture partially blocking them. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was the dismembered corpses. It was like a slaughter house, only with humans. Blood, guts, organs, chunks of flesh were everywhere. I felt sick and tasted bile in my mouth. Several of the other troopers did vomit, and the chaplain, Newland, made the sign of the cross across his chest.

"Sir, there's no sign of second." I overheard someone tell the captain.

Looking around, I realized he was right. The only signs of them were hundreds of spent shell and cartridge casings on the floor. Then I noticed the blood trails, as if something had dragged them away.

"Lieutenant, did your men make these barricades?" the captain asked.

"No sir, they were here when we arrived." Lieutenant Vicks said.

I suppressed my gag reflex and started digging through the piles, when something struck me. There were a LOT of 10mm casings. We only used them in pistols, but there were probably hundreds of'em. I picked one up, and noticed tell-tale striations on the body. I walked over to the captain.

"Look, sir. SIG-COWs." I said showing it to him.

"That would explain why all the bodies were in a central location. And the barricades."

"Last stand, sir?"

"Maybe. I doubt there's anyone left alive. With the quantity of munitions expended here, I doubt we can make a difference. First sergeant, give the order to return to the ship."

"Hu-ah, sir."

The captain switched to the transport's frequency.

"Prep for launch." he said.

Apparently he didn't get a response. He tapped his radio twice, then told me to continue trying to establish contact. Then it happened. The pilots of our dropship came over the radios. It was a lot of yelling, then screaming and growling. Then just growling. They were gone.

I looked at the captain, he'd heard it too.

"Any ideas, sergeant?" he asked me on a private channel.

I though for a second, before an idea popped into my brain.

"Lipski! Front and center!" I yelled.

One of the sergeants ran up.

"Sergeant?"

"You used to be a flyboy WO, hu-ah?"

"Yes sergeant!"

"Excellent. I've got a mission for you. Can you fly our transport?"

"That's a heavy lifter, sergeant! That's completely different from the helos I used to! It's not even-"

"Can you fly it, or not?!"

"I guess I could-"

"Good. Saddle up boys! We've movin' out! Fall back to the transport!"

The men quickly fell back to the transport, the front men peeling off and holding every junction and doorway as the main body moved past. The door of the station's airlock was torn open. Ripped apart like foil.

"This is not good." PFC Henderson said as he stepped through the gaping hole in the door.

Lipski, Davidson, and me headed to the cockpit. It was not good. Blood everywhere, but no bodies. But that wasn't the worst. The controls and instruments, all destroyed; burned, melted.

"Wha-what the hell could do this?" Lipski asked.

"Dunno, thermite maybe?" I said.

"Is it flyable?"

"What kind of question is that?! Look at them! They're destroyed! What the hell could I do with these?!"

"Great. Just great."

So there we were, trapped on a hostile space station, outnumbered easily 20 to one, only about 300 rounds each, and besieged on all sides by the minions of Satan. Oh, yeah, just another GREAT day in the infantry. I really should stop volunteering for things.