In the Data Storage vault, Dr. Manning, Dr. Osborne, and Dr. Stone were crouched beneath desks as the marine continued to fire on the teleporting intruders.
"You're sure that they're coming?" Diane asks.
"All I could find out is that the station computer registered the arrival of the rescue team" Louis replies.
"Aren't we able to monitor their progress?" she presses.
"I tried, I don't have high enough authorization" he explains.
"We can't tell if they're in trouble?" Hugo asks.
"No, we can't"
"This is bad! We're stuck in here and the reactor is going to leak in a few hours, and finding a functional escape pod could take longer than we'd like" Hugo laments.
Shots continued to ring out as more aliens appeared from flashes of green energy. The Major's pistol ammunition was soon spent as the flashes of portal energy began to ramp up. He drops the useless pistol. Looking away from the intruders only for a moment as he bent to reach for the chain-gun, he lifts the weapon as his eyes fell upon a sizeable mob of demons. The barrels of his chain-gun were turning. He fired a long stream, decimating the hoard, then rapidly shooting small bursts on each target as it teleported into the sealed chamber. Beads of sweat began to spill from his brow as he swung the armament from target to target. Blooms of erupting gore cascades through the air, the stench of death was overwhelming. Major Daniels let out an enraged chord when he saw the demons spawning ever faster.
Location: Phobos, Alpha Labs Division, Level 2 of Sector-D, Bio-Medical Laboratory R7
The lab was dark and silent with a large and spotless interior. Three examination tables filled the centre of the room, a wheeled scanning apparatus rests nearby, a pair of tall medical cabinets were against the walls. A sealed door led to a short junction ending in a secured observation room. Metallic tiles line the walls and floors of the modestly sized room, the ceiling was dotted with small lamps, and held a robotic arm. The walls housed a pair of monitors displaying the words "System Failure." A large capsule sat in the centre of the room. A harshly emotionless voice of the Artificially Intelligent Automated Command System boomed.
"Subject stasis revival is now complete. Scanning"
The diagnosis system silently checks the subject's vitals.
"Subject stasis: good. Stasis procedure: successful. Pod opening"
A hermetic seal is released and a curtain of smokey condensed air drifts from the seam. The robotic arm came to life and locked into a port on the surface of the pod and lifts the lid away. He was wearing a special suit designed for subjects of artificial hibernation. He wakes from stasis, lifts himself from the capsule and examines his surroundings. Red lighting illuminated the room, emergency notifications scrolled across the wall-mounted monitors, he hears a distant station notification.
"Alarm: Critical. Reactor failure" it wailed.
The stasis pod dominated the room, it was sapphire, framed with chrome lining and had rounded edges. Thick tubes and cables converged on the pod leading from outside the walls. The marine could recall most of his memories, but couldn't come up with his name, or any identity, nor could he recall how he came to be placed in the pod. Through an adjacent passage he sees a suit of space marine armour lying on the shelves of a wide open security locker. He walks over to it and picks up the helmet, he found it strikingly familiar. He examines the call number but finds that it had been removed, only the scratches from a crude grinding job remained. The marine takes the armour and slips it on, hiding behind was a pistol and magazine. He picks it up and looks it over, more waves of familiarity washed over him. This was his pistol, he was sure of it, but again, the sidearm's serial number had been ground away.
The marine walks through the bio-med lab and into the adjoining hallway, where he stumbled upon what would be the first of many gruesome scenes. A trio of scientists were lying dead in pools of blood, huge claw wounds marred their still flesh. One scientist had been torn in half, the head and shoulders were lying at the far end of the short hall, the lower half rested on the floor beside the marine's feet. Another scientist with a critical spinal injury was twitching horribly. Splashes of blood coated the walls and floor of the beige coloured hall. A over-turned sample cart sat nearby, its contents spilled upon the ground. The sounds of grunting and heavy-footed stomping in the distance was quickly noticed. Without any idea what he would encounter, the marine heads toward the sector's main corridor.
On the CSV Navigator, the surviving top-level researchers from the doomed Demios base had rendezvoused with Dr. Allan Mason who was also roped into their secret mission. He was previously on a separate medical escape pod with Dr. Leonard Philips. The four of them were in a luxurious Spec-5 vessel in the Navigator's hangar bay parked on a plasma docking field, they had little trouble obtaining it from the crew. Nexson was programming the auto-pilot while others performed equipment checks for a fifth time or explored the cramped cabin.
"Okay, the auto-map looks good. We're locked in" Nexson announces.
"Undock vessel and fire maneuvering thrusters" Dr. Banks commands.
The ship's clamps unlock and the thrusters lift the vessel above the plasma surface. Warning lights blazed as the ship slowly moves toward the widening airlock doors. It reaches open space and the main propulsion sails it into the star speckled darkness.