The Staging Bay raged with combat, blobs of plasma and gunfire sailed through the air as demons continued to appear from portals. The Marine was using the newly acquired assault rifle, devastating the nearby Imps and Demon. A Security Marine on a higher landing suddenly becomes possessed, it took the strength of every nearby survivor to tackle it and push it from the railing. The former human falls and splashes into a toxic waste tank and quickly dissolved into the green corrosive sludge. The Marine climbs to the next level above with little effort and begins mowing down the hordes amassed there. He sensed a large-jawed demon closing in from behind. He pivots slightly, tightly swings his shotgun toward it and fires two rounds. The Demon collapses with a dying grunt.
A Hell Baron suddenly materialized on the main level, roaring fiercely. A blob of green plasma closely zips past the Marine. The Baron took a few steps toward him and reached its arm back to throw another volley when almost every survivor opened fire on the hulking demon. The beast roared with fury and hurled the searing mass toward the Marine, it roared past as he narrowly shifts out of its path. The Baron was staggering against the barrage but still standing until a screeching grenade rolled to a rest at the demon's hoofs and explodes. The blast severs the Baron's midsection and injures some nearby Imps, the alien splattered to the ground with its unusual organs spilling onto the cold floor. The Staging area starting to come under against the constant onslaught, but there were still several Cacodemon attacking throughout the Staging Bay.
He climbs higher and gets into range of the bloated abominations. The first shotgun blast went up what passed for the demon's ass. Then crossing to the next demon, he presses the barrel against its single eye. Blue blood splashed over the walkway, the Cacos tumbled and splattered to the ground. A blob of blue plasma hurls toward him from a demon at the far end of the walkway, he dodges by briefly bounding onto the handrail. He approaches firing both weapons at once, the Cacodemon hissed angrily and sank into a bloody deflated mass. He then stomps up the adjoining metal staircase where a squad of survivors was holding out. They turn their heads and see him approaching. A Security Marine was continuing to bark orders, an Engineer wades through the squad and greets him.
"Amazing work, marine" he states, thankfully. "I don't know if we would have been able to hold out much longer" he says, as he resumed firing. "I'm Takeshi, I used to be a technical specialist around here. Who are you?"
Unable to come up with an answer, the Marine remains silent. "How did all this happen?" he returns.
"Something to do with the teleporter, but that thing is way beyond my security clearance" Takeshi says in a mild Japanese accent. "From what I've heard, the damn thing just started running on its own, these freaks started pouring through and they couldn't shut it down" he loudly explains, picking off possessed humans one at a time, the sound of exploding grenades echoed from below.
"We sent a scouting party to find some escape pods, I hope we don't have to send another"
About ten minutes passed when they noticed two of their scouts approach. They jogged toward the squad shouting,
"We found a bunch of pods! Sector-H has full suites of escape pods on all levels" they shout their report over the continuing gunfire. "The rest of our team didn't make it"
"Excellent work. I'm sure your team did all they could" Takeshi says.
"You've just saved our asses" yells a survivor.
"We gotta go and fast" the scout continues. "One of those possessed cock-jockeys is going around destroying pods"
"That's all I need to hear. Let's lay down some suppressing fire and move out" Takeshi orders.
They moved strategically to the top level of the Staging Bay and through the passage leading to Sector-H, returning fire against the demons and former humans as they went. The corridor was wide, cables and large conduits stretched down its length and curved down intersecting paths, smashed maintenance robots lay motionless alongside the corpses of humans and aliens. Every meter they encountered more invaders. Several waves of devilish skulls with tongues of fire charged through the air toward them and erupt against their storm of bullets. They turned down a right hand path and stumble upon a mob of Imps and Demons, the Marine and survivors clear a path through the horde, painting the hall dripping in blood as the hall vibrated with alien screams. They gun down the last Imp and they moved on. After a couple more minutes of fighting they soon had a clear path to the outer rim.
Something suddenly occurs to the Marine. In the brief gap from combat, he asks broadly, "Are there anymore survivors on the station?"
"Actually, there are some survivors in a Data Storage Vault in the Central Processing Facility. Sector-B. They're trapped inside." Takeshi recalls.
"You plan to go after them? It's a bit distant" another survivor asks.
The Marine remain silent in thought, weighing his chances.
I can make it, I know it. He decides to himself.
They walked into the ring and the survivors wasted no time assembling into the escape pods on that level and trickling down the access staircase to the other pods below deck.
"I'm going after them" he states.
"You're braver than I am, Marine, Takeshi states, pausing at a pod's hatch, You really came through for us back there, what's your name?"
"I… I can't remember. I woke up and found myself in some pod just recently and I have no idea how I got there" the Marine explains.
"You were in artificial hibernation? Sounds like a classified project. It doesn't happen often, but the UAC won't think twice about breaking laws to further their agenda" Takeshi offers. "This squad has had about all it can take, we've lost a lot of friends to these aliens. If you're really going after them, then you should know that the reactor probably has a little less than two hours before the radioactive gas will leak. You need to secure your escape by then, because you won't survive the initial flood of the gas"
Without saying another word, Takeshi ducks into the pod. "Good luck, Marine" he says, then closes the hatch.
The Marine studies a nearby station schematic posted to a wall, finds the most direct route to Central Processing before moving out. Outside the base, several escape pods undock from the station and are launched into space.
In Central Processing Administration, the emergency rescue squad lays defeated. Their bodies were scattered in close reach of each other on one side of the long rectangular common area, along with the charred remains of aliens. Their armour held cracks and gaping holes that revealed charred, smoking flesh. A pair of the fallen squad had been dragged to the centre of the room by large-jawed demons who were making disgusting blusts of noise from their feasting on the disgraced marines. The disturbing smacks and slurps of the gorging Demons rouses Major Sergeant Martinez from unconsciousness.
Knowing the danger undoubtably surrounding him, he stays perfectly still. He found himself on the cold floor with one of his marines strewn atop him. He allows his vision to restore, then quietly takes inventory of his equipment, he still had his pack stocked with energy cells, but couldn't find his plasma rifle. He peeks out from his place on the floor and scans the area, carefully taking in everything he could see. He sees his dead and mutilated squad, the large-jawed demons were in view. He sees only one plasma rifle that wasn't smashed or overloaded, lying on the hexagon floor tiles just behind the foul beasts. Silently, he reaches into his pack and readies a magazine of energy cells
He slips out from under the corpse and sneaks toward the armament with one delicately placed step at a time. He closes on the rifle and lifts it from the floor. Standing barely a meter away from the demons, he carefully extracts the magazine and sees that only three rounds remained. Gripping both at once, he almost drops the empty canister trying to insert the new one. Martinez reloads and a confirmation tone rising in pitch emits from the rifle. The demons made a curious grunt and turned toward the sound, Martinez fires point blank at the pair, turning them to finely textured, smouldering ashes.
He allows himself a sigh of relief, there didn't seem to be any more aliens nearby. His eyes were inevitably drawn to the sight of his squad, they were mauled by Imps and missing limbs or heads. The image of their motionless bodies becomes permanently etched in his mind, fuelling his fury. He drops his pack onto a desk and retrieves the armour shards from an inner pocket, he snaps them twice into four sections and applied them to damaged spots on his armour. The nano-tech shards reform and patch the damage. During the repair, he finds his data-disc computer. He activates it and sends a signal to the UAAF Hurricane. Disturbingly, the ship did not respond. He uses a homing scan and received a signal from further out in Mars' orbit, the ship had somehow undocked and moved away.