"The court finds you guilty, Private Blazkowicz. Did you hear me?"

The marine looked up from his feet, pulled from his daze by the judge's question. Without real care he asked, "What was that?"

"I said the court finds you guilty. Guilty of disobeying orders and assaulting a superior officer," the judge sternly informed.

"It's not like I pleaded otherwise," Blazkowicz retorted, earning him the glare from the guards watching over him.

After a moment's silence the judge continued, "Typically this results in you being stripped of your rank and a long term stay in a federal penitentiary. However, the Union Aerospace Corporation has recently struck up a deal relating to cases like yours. A three-year position as a security member of the Mars research station, in exchange for your freedom. What do you say, Private Blazkowicz?"

Blazkowicz suppressed a chuckle at the thought of getting off easy and replied, "That sounds great, your honor."

"Wonderful," the judge said, looking over the paperwork before him. "May God watch over your soul out there."

Blazkowicz's already faint smile fell from his face as he said, "If God were real, I would have killed that fucker instead of just breaking his neck."

One week later…

Like most military transports, the shuttle to Mars was hell. Blazkowicz found himself crammed between three other former marines, who told jokes and shared tour stories for nearly the entire day long ride. Still, the shuttle did its job, and allowed for a fairly quick trip to the red planet, who waited with open arms for them.

As the marines climbed out of the shuttle, their helmets secured and skin already freezing, two men stepped out of the station's airlock to meet them. The first dressed in similar green armor and tinted helmet, while the other wore a white lab coat and a less intimidating helmet that showed off a bearded face.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Mars," the marine said with a sarcastic wave of his arms. "Jameson, who do we have here?"

The scientist pulled a clipboard from his coat and looked over several pieces of paper. As he read their names, the marines each stepped forward. "Private Lance, Private Jeffers, Private Blazkowicz, and Specialist Po."

"Specialist Po?" the marine asked as he looked over his subordinate. "You aren't scum like these other three, are you, boy?"

"No sir!" Po quickly replied.

"Then why the hell are you up here?" he asked, glaring at the young marine behind his visor.

"I was offered a decent paycheck," Po said before quickly adding, "and a chance to serve my country."

The marine looked over them once more then said, "My name is Sgt. Miller, and I expected to be referred to by rank at all times. The way I see it, all of you are criminals, aside from Specialist Po here, who instead is just a pussy who couldn't handle a real mission." He waited to see if any of them would interrupt, hoping for it, before he continued. "Jameson here will show you to your quarters and assign you a bunk. There will be no trading. Any contraband found on base will result in swift punishment, a day in an isolation room. Any rule breaking will be severely punished. Your shifts will each last eight hours, though most likely you'll be working together. Your job is simple, to watch screens and make sure the other worker bees don't get in fights. There will be a more thorough rule book waiting on each of your bunks, and I expect you to have it memorized by your first shift, tomorrow morning at 8:00 PT. Welcome to hell, marines."

Miller turned and began walking away, leaving Jameson to say, "Follow me, I'll show you to your bunks, like he said. Don't worry about Sgt. Miller, he just talks a big game. Things are pretty boring here; we're really just studying the planet and mining for anything interesting. Last month, we found water! An entire ounce! I tell you, that was the highlight of my stay here."

The marines followed along, bored by Jameson almost immediately. They passed through steel hallway after steel hallway, almost everything the same as the previous section of the station. When they reached the guards' quarters, it almost came as a relief to see something different, even if each bunk looked exactly the same in a long room with four symmetrical walls, a door on opposite ends.

"Well, here you are!" Jameson said with an awkward smile. "If you'll notice, each bunk has a name on it, and a work assignment, along with the UAC handbook. Rest up, gentlemen, I think you'll need it."

With those words he left, leaving the marines to themselves. Blazkowicz looked over the handbook before stuffing it beneath his bunk, then looked back to the others. The only one who seemed remotely interested in it was Po, and even he was only skimming over it. While none of them quite regretted choosing this path, they still wished for it to have been something more interesting.

After several minutes of settling in, Po asked, "So, why exactly are you guys here, anyway?"

"Killed a couple civs in a crossfire," Lance said with a smirk. "They should have stayed on the ground like I told them."

"They don't like it when you decide to beat up on the POWs," Jeffers said as he thought back to the man he tortured, and of how he wished he had done more.

"And you, Sakowitz was it?" Po asked, uncomfortable at the answers offered by the other two.

"Blazkowicz," he corrected.

"Well, what did you do?" Po asked once more.

"I put my CO in a full body cast," he replied without elaborating.

Lance let out a whistle while Jeffers said, "Damn. That's messed up. Bet you wish he was dead instead, huh?"

"More than you know," Blazkowicz agreed.

"You really up here for a paycheck, Po?" Lance asked.

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Three times my pay on active duty, for a glorified desk job."

"Well hot damn, good for you!" Lance laughed, hiding his jealousy. "Say, what are you, anyway?"

"Specialist?" Po asked, surprise.

"No, like, you're Asian, right?" he specified.

"Oh," Po said, still taken back. "Um, half Chinese."

"Couplea white boys and a Chinese guy, huh?" he asked with another laugh, making Po even more uncomfortable.

"I'm Jewish, Blazkowicz corrected, his cold blue eyes drilling into Lance.

Meanwhile, on Mars' surface…

Michaels pulled his arms in front of his face as the gravity drill fell apart overhead, raining massive pieces of metal throughout the area. Screams filled his ears, but it was nearly a minute until he opened his eyes. Reese thrashed on the ground in front of Michaels, his engineering suit shredded, and body burned. It took Michaels a moment to realize his oxygen tank had exploded, briefly consuming him in flames and shrapnel.

He looked to his left and saw Wynn holding a large piece of shrapnel sticking out of her gut, unsure of what to do. He then looked to his right, where there was a splatter of blood surrounding a piece of the drill. Then he looked back ahead, to see whatever it was that the drill had struck. It looked like orange stone, but stone couldn't break a gravity drill. A rocket launcher couldn't even do that.

Michaels attempted to take a step forward, but instead fell forward. He pushed himself up then looked down, his eyes widening as he looked to exposed bone and a mutilated left leg. He could see the ice crystals materializing in the wound and knew it wouldn't be long before he had to lose the entire limb. Soon after, it would be his life.

A feminine voice came through the radio in his helmet, "Don't worry crew, we have medics on the scene, and gravity is being scaled back by 30%. Everything will be alright."

In the observation booth, Doctor Holland looked over the carnage. From behind her, Jameson said, "Jesus, how could this happen?"

"I don't know," she quietly replied, her attention being drawn to something half submerged in the excavated hole.

"This is going to set us back a month, at least!" Jameson said, before he realized they may end up needing more crew replacements.

"What's the word from Phobos?" Holland asked, peeling her eyes away from the glass.

"Last I heard, they had discovered some type of ancient text," he said, before clarifying, "a prophecy, I think."

"You know," she said before pausing for a sigh. "In the movies, when you discover ancient alien text and everything starts going wrong, it's a sign you should pull out and fuck off."

"You think we should just leave?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No," Holland said. "I just think it isn't wise to continue. Any idea what the text says?"

"Not at all," Jameson chuckled. "Well, there was one thing."

"What?" she asked in surprise.

"Well, there was the alien text, and hieroglyphics attached," he said. "Most of them are what we believe the aliens looked like, a very diverse race, or maybe multiple races. Odd that we haven't found any skeletons or fossils though."

"Anything else?" she asked.

"Yes, actually," he said as he took out a tablet. "There's an image, I made sure to save it because, quite frankly, it looks really cool."

Holland looked over his shoulder to see a colorless image carved into stone with utter precision. It depicted an armored humanoid figure, being pulled down by an army of slightly less humanoid creatures. In one hand the figure wields a sword, which he uses to cleave an enemy in half. In the other he holds a shield, which seems to be bashing in the skull of another enemy."

"Impressive," Holland said as she looked over it. "Has anything been deciphered yet?"

"Nothing more than a few words," he replied. "They call this one The Killer. Or maybe, The Slayer. From what we have so far though, everything seems like it's future tense."

"So like, this Slayer hasn't been born yet?" she asked.

"Or," Jameson said with a grin. "Maybe it wasn't the Martians that he would slay. Maybe it was us."

Holland slapped him in the back of the head and said, "Would you shut up, Jameson? That's not funny, especially when people just fucking died a minute ago!"

"Sorry, jeez," he said as he rubbed the back of his head. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Go down to Human Resources," she ordered.

"For that!?" he almost yelled. "It was just a joke!"

"I meant, to file the paperwork for the dead," she darkly informed.

"Oh," Jameson quietly said. "my bad."

Holland's gaze was then pulled back to the observation booth. She was now spared the bodies and wounded that were there minutes before. Now there was only blood, metal, and stone. As Jameson left the room, her eyes fixated upon the unnatural stone shape. It seemed more prominent than before. It almost called to her, as if begging to be uncovered, as though it had been waiting eons for her to discover it.

"Ma'am," came a gruff voice from behind, pulling Holland back to reality.

"What is it, Miller?" she sharply asked, turning to face the marine.

"We gonna need to do anything about the dead?" he asked.

"It depends," she stated. "How many were there?"

"Three dead, four wounded, one disabled," he informed.

"Hm," Holland pondered for a moment. "Wait for the disabled to heal, then re-station to HR."

"You know," Miller said as he thought of how to phrase his statement to a corporate puppet. "Them scientists in the uh, cybernetics division?"

"Yes, what is it?" she asked, growing increasingly annoyed by his presence.

"They've been wanting more folks to work on," he said. "They can only get so far on flash frozen corpses. A live one might do them good."

"Fine," she agreed. "Send them the disabled, and the wounded for that matter. But tell them that if any of those subjects die, they're on their own until the next shipment."

"Understood, ma'am," he said, turning to leave, before his eyes glimpsed something beyond the observation booth.

"You were leaving, Miller?" Holland reminded, now growing angry.

"Right, sorry ma'am," he said before finally taking his leave.

Holland looked back to her fixation, a smile growing on her lips. She wouldn't let Miller have it. He would never even see it again. It would only be hers. It would give her great things, she knew it. It promised her this. It promised her everything she wanted.