The Martian dust, thick and ochre, tasted like pulverized rust and forgotten hopes. Sergeant Major Axel "Apex" Kael, mid-thirties, a man whose face was etched with the grim resolve of countless battles, pressed himself deeper into the shattered remains of what was once a hab-dome wall. The air, thin and recycled through his rebreather, offered little comfort. Over his comms, the static-laced cries of his dying squad still echoed, a symphony of agony he wished he could deafen himself to.
"Fall back! Fall back! Goddammit, everyone pull back to Sector Gamma!" His own voice, hoarse from shouting over the din of plasma fire and concussive blasts, was a ghost in his ears. But there was no one left to fall back.
He was MARSOC. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. His unit, designated "Wraith," had been deployed to Mars to quell a burgeoning alien insurgency – a conflict that had spiraled from containment to a full-blown planetary siege in a terrifyingly short span of time. They were supposed to be the tip of the spear, the scalpel, the precision strike. Instead, they'd become the final, desperate shield.
A searing green energy beam lanced past his head, vaporizing the ferrocrete behind him into molten slag. Axel didn't flinch. His M79 battle rifle, its polymer chassis scarred and pitted, felt like an extension of his own arm. He sighted down the barrel, tracking the source of the blast – a hulking, segmented alien automaton, its optical sensors glowing malevolently through the dust. It moved with an unnatural fluidity, its metallic limbs ending in razor-sharp claws.
"Looks like a party," he muttered, a grimace twisting his lips. He squeezed the trigger. The rifle spat a high-explosive slug that detonated squarely on the automaton's chest plate. A shower of sparks and shrapnel erupted, and the machine staggered back, momentarily disoriented.
That was his opening.
Axel launched himself from cover, moving with a predatory grace that belied his heavy combat armor. Two more automatons emerged from the swirling dust, their plasma cannons already charging. He knew the odds. He'd known them for hours. His entire squad, a team he'd bled and trained with for years, was gone. Corporal Jenkins, the medic, cut down trying to retrieve a fallen comrade. Staff Sergeant Miller, his right-hand man, vaporized by a direct hit from a heavy-caliber projectile. Even Captain Chen, his CO, silent on the comms for the last thirty minutes.
He was alone. Again.
The familiar bitter taste of loneliness mixed with the dust in his mouth. But it wasn't debilitating. It was fuel. Fuel for the sheer, unadulterated rage that burned in his gut, a cold, focused fury that allowed him to compartmentalize the grief, to push it down and let the instinct take over.
He switched to his secondary, a combat knife with a serrated edge, and closed the distance with the first automaton. Too big for bullets to reliably penetrate its vital components quickly, he knew. He had to go for the joints, the optical sensors, the exposed wiring. He ducked under a clumsy sweep of its claw, the wind from the blow rustling his comms antenna, and plunged his knife into the machine's knee joint. Sparks flew, a high-pitched whine emanated, and the automaton buckled.
As it went down, he sprang onto its back, driving the knife repeatedly into the vulnerable nexus where its optical sensor connected to its chassis. Green fluid, like corrosive alien blood, splattered across his visor. The machine spasmed, its plasma cannon firing wildly into the sky, before going inert with a final, shuddering clang.
He dropped to the ground, already pivoting towards the second automaton, which was now swinging its plasma cannon to bear. Too slow. Axel was a blur of motion. He yanked a fragmentation grenade from his belt, pulled the pin with his teeth, and tossed it with practiced ease. It sailed through the air, arcing perfectly into the machine's open energy core, a glowing blue aperture on its chest.
"Enjoy the light show," he grunted.
The explosion was deafening, rocking the ground beneath his feet. Shrapnel rained down, forcing him to shield his face. When the dust settled, the second automaton was nothing but a mangled, smoking wreck.
Axel took a moment, leaning against the still-hot remains of the wall, his chest heaving under the weight of his armor. He took a long, deep breath. The Martian wind, untamed and mournful, whistled through the ruins.
Then, a low rumble started. Not from the ground, but from the sickly purple horizon. It grew, quickly, into a thunderous roar that vibrated through his very bones. Axel's eyes narrowed. He knew that sound. It was the Syndicate's heavy artillery. The "Void Purifier." A planetary-scale weapon designed to sterilize large areas.
He peered into the dust-shrouded distance. A titanic silhouette, a monstrous fusion of technology and bio-organic menace, began to materialize through the haze. It was miles away, but its energy capacitor was already glowing with an ominous, sickly purple light.
This wasn't an attack. This was an extermination.
Axel pushed off the wall, a grim acceptance settling over him. There was no escape. No retreat. Just this. His last stand.
He raised his rifle, aiming at the distant, colossal machine. It was futile, he knew. His rounds wouldn't even scratch its paint. But he was a Marine. And Marines fought until the last breath.
"Semper Fidelis, you bastards," he growled, pulling the trigger, a lone, defiant figure spitting lead into the maw of an encroaching apocalypse.
The Void Purifier's beam fired.
A pillar of pure, concentrated energy, wide as a city block, tore across the Martian landscape, incinerating everything in its path. It was coming straight for him. The heat was immense, even through his advanced suit. The light was blinding, searing his retinas even through his filtered visor.
He closed his eyes, bracing for oblivion. He saw his squad's faces, his family, the green fields of Earth that felt a lifetime away.
But the oblivion never came.
Instead, a strange sensation enveloped him. Not pain, not heat, but an overwhelming pull. Like he was being stretched, pulled apart at the seams of reality itself. A shimmering, iridescent light, unlike anything he had ever seen, pulsed around him, morphing the orange dust into a kaleidoscope of impossible colors. The roar of the weapon faded, replaced by a high-pitched, harmonic hum that vibrated inside his skull.
He felt gravity give way, then reassert itself from a different direction. The smell of rust and dust was gone, replaced by something sweet and earthy, like damp soil and blooming flowers. The oppressive darkness of the Martian night was replaced by a soft, ethereal glow.
Then, darkness. Complete, absolute, disorienting darkness.
And then, nothing.