PART FIVE
–ENDGAME–

Jack thought he might be dead.

Sadly, this was not an unfamiliar thought. He wasn't sure how long he had been unconscious, but he had an idea it was more than a few minutes. But if that was true, then how was he still alive? Getting knocked out seemed like a one-way ticket out of life in a place like this. So was it just luck? Or had something else happened? Had something finally gone right for once? Jack didn't want to open his eyes, but his senses were already coming back to him.

He hurt.

That was the biggest thing his body was telegraphing to him. His head, his shoulder, his ribs, his feet, his knees. Everywhere. Just everywhere. His ass hurt from falling on it so many times. He could smell things: blood, death, sweat, but these scents were not overwhelming at least. He heard movement, someone mutter quietly, a voice he wasn't familiar with. Or maybe he'd heard that voice once, sometime recently…

Jack opened his eyes.

His gaze, blurry but coming into focus, stared up at a bland ceiling of gray metal with a few dim bulbs providing light. They flickered briefly.

"Holy shit, you're awake."

A face came into view, staring down at him, a vaguely familiar face.

"Who're you?" Jack groaned. "Where am I?"

"Storage room. Mars City." The man looked anxious. "I'm PFC Sanders."

"Private Ward," Jack said.

"What the hell happened to you? I found you and your friend naked out in the hallway. There was this crazy electrical sound, blew out a lot of lights, and then I found the two of you on the floor. There was smoke coming off of you."

"Long story," Jack replied. He sat up suddenly. "My friend?" A blanket fell away from him. He looked over and saw Jennifer beside him, still unconscious, but breathing, and safe, also beneath a blanket.

"Yeah," Sanders said. "Uh...so you two are Space Marines then? Where'd you come from?"

"Hell." Sanders stared at him. As he did, perhaps waiting for more elaboration, Jack realized that he did recognize the man, although he knew why he'd had a hard time with it. He was one of the Marines he'd seen patrolling around Mars City back before all this shit went down. He had an idea that him and Thompson might have been friends.

"I need some water," Jack said.

"Oh. Right. Hold on."

Sanders got up and moved over to one of several crates that had been pried open. The storage room was small, one wall taken up by a shelf packed with smaller crates. There was an untidy stack of the silver boxes in one corner, and another was taken up by a table. There was just one door to the room and it was shut.

Sanders returned with a canteen of water.

"Going to need more," Jack said, opening it up. "And some food. And uniforms. And guns."

"Got you covered," Sanders replied, moving over to the other side of the room again. Jack drank half the canteen away and then returned his attention to Jennifer. He gently put a hand on her shoulder, began to slowly rock her.

"Babe, wake up," he said, not wanting to scare her awake. They hadn't exactly passed out under the best circumstances. "Jennifer-"

Too late. Her eyes snapped open and her fist came up, connecting squarely with his cheek. He grunted, canteen flying from his hand.

"Dammit!" he snapped.

"Oh fuck, Jack! I'm sorry!" Jennifer said, sitting up, reaching out. "Shit, babe, I'm so sorry. I just, you know-"

"I know," he replied, sitting back up, rubbing his cheek. "It's fine. We're safe. We're at Mars City, in a storage room, and Sanders there is helping us out."

She looked across the room at him, then looked around the storage room. "How bad is it here?" she asked flatly.

"Sanders?" Jack asked.

"I don't see how it could get much worse," he replied morosely.

"Oh, it can always get worse. We've got light and air and heat," Jack replied.

"Ugh. Yeah. Good point."

He returned a moment later with a crate that he'd thrown a bunch of stuff into. Jack looked through it, finding all the things he'd asked for. Well, except for the guns, but those could wait. Though not for very long.

"Got any rags? Soap out of the question?" he asked.

"I'm not sure...why?" Sanders replied, getting back up and moving over to the crates again.

"In case you hadn't noticed, we're fucking filthy and we reek. I'd love to even get a basic wash in," Jack replied.

"Oh."

In the end, after the two of them tore through what food there was, Jack helped the man sort through the crates while Jennifer stood and went to the table, which, he saw, had a small arsenal on it. Emphasis on the word small. After a bit, he managed to produce a single bar of soap and a pair of rags. Moving over to a relatively unoccupied space of the room, he and Jennifer each took canteens of water and used them, the rags, and the soap to wash up. They did it as quickly as they could and then dried off with a few more dry rags. Once that was done, they pulled on fresh uniforms, underwear, socks, boots, and all. Jack felt like luck was finally with them for once.

And, of course, he felt like the other shoe was getting ready to drop, and drop hard.

"Tell me there's some kind of command structure," Jack said as he finished lacing up, then joined Jennifer in looking at the armory again.

"Technically, yes."

"Technically?" Jennifer asked.

Jack took a hip holster, attached it to his belt, and then checked out one of two pistols. It was in good shape, loaded, functional. He holstered it and pocketed two more magazines of ammo for it, then looked over what was left. Just an SMG and a shotgun.

"Which one do you want?" Jack asked.

"Shotgun," Jennifer replied.

"Fair enough."

She grinned at him and kissed him. "You're a sweetheart. Fuck flowers and chocolates, I'll take this over those any day."

Jack smiled back stupidly at her, not sure what to say. He'd been decent with casual flings, but he still hadn't really figured out how to handle genuine affection like this. He also hadn't felt like this about anyone before. Even the relationships he'd considered serious, he hadn't felt about them as he felt right now about Jennifer.

"Thanks," he said finally. There was something he should say, but now probably wasn't the right time. Was there a right time?

He took the SMG. "So, chain of command?" he asked.

"Master Sergeant Kelly is still running the show from Marine HQ. It's not too far from here," Sanders replied.

Jack checked over the SMG ammo. Just three magazines. Sighing, he loaded the gun up and pocketed the rest. "And forces? How many Marines do we have? How many civilian survivors?" he asked.

"Less than a dozen Marines, last I checked. And I'm not sure anyone else is alive."

"Christ," Jennifer whispered.

"We need to get to Kelly. We've got a hell of a lot to report in."

"Come on. I'll take you there," Sanders said, making for the exit.

They followed after him.

Jack had always feared that something would have happened to Mars City, ever since Carmack had told them that there was a portal between Hell and it. But he felt almost certain that it was ridiculous, there was no way they'd be so stupid as to let something like this happen. Then again, he was dealing with the UAC, and a bunch of burnouts, rejects, and pariahs from the Corps. The only good thought he had was that at least there weren't going to be any awkward questions. Well, not yet at least. He hoped Kelly was an on-the-ball kind of guy.

He supposed he'd have to be, to still be alive and running things.

"What were you doing out here?" Jack asked as they hurried through the corridors.

The place looked awful. The walls were dented and sprayed with blood. There were bodies spread out everywhere, spent shell casings carpeting the deckplates, mixing in with the pools of blood. It must have been an utter slaughter.

"Making a repair, actually. There was another guy with me, a tech. We needed the tracking system back online, so we could get a better idea of who's left, and all it needed was one repair. We got jumped by a bulldog though, he didn't make it."

Jack didn't need to ask which one was a bulldog.

"Sorry," he said.

"Me too," Sanders replied.

As it turned out, Marine HQ really wasn't all that far away. They slipped down half a dozen corridors, through a pair of mess halls, and finally came out to the area in front of the HQ. Jack hardly recognized any of this. There were bodies everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Zombies, Z-Sec, Imps, Demons, and some Marine bodies mixed in as well, but it looked like the Corps had struck a major blow against the forces of Hell here.

Spent shell casings literally carpeted the floor.

"Damn," Jack said as Jennifer let out an appreciative whistle.

The door to Marine HQ suddenly opened up. "Who goes there?!" someone called out.

"It's me! Sanders! And I found some survivors!"

"Dammit, Sanders, you're supposed to call us on the fucking radio. I almost blew your fucking head off."

"Sorry, I lost it. We got jumped by a bulldog and...Wells didn't make it."

A pause. "Shit. All right, come on, hurry up."

They hustled across the sea of corpses and came in through the reinforced door, which the man closed and locked firmly behind them. It was unreal, being here again. He remembered reporting here when he'd first arrived on Mars. God, how long ago had that been? Less than a week. It was less than a week ago.

That seemed impossible.

They found Master Sergeant Kelly seated at his command post, looking pale, miserable, and bleary-eyed.

"You two," he said, looking up. There were barely over half a dozen other Marines in the command center. "I know you...holy shit, you went up to Phobos. How in the hell did you two manage to get back here?" he asked.

"You want the short version or the long version?" Jack replied.

"Short version. All we've got time for. Gather round, Marines! I imagine this is going to be one crazy fucking tale," Kelly called.

Jack spun it for them quick.

"We hit Phobos Base and found it in much the same condition as Mars City is now. We got separated, reunited, killed our way to Command Control and Phobos Labs, and basically figured out there was no way we were leaving or calling for help, because there was a signal blanketing the moon preventing such things. And it was coming from Phobos Anomaly. We killed our way there and ended up getting sucked through to Deimos. We kicked our way across that moon and eventually got to Doctor Carmack, who let us know that on the far side of Hell, there was a portal that would take us here. We crash-landed in Hell and kicked our way through eight goddamned different areas across the region, and killed the biggest fucking demon you ever saw."

"Fucker was twenty feet tall," Jennifer said.

Jack nodded. "And then we got here. And we lost a lot of good men and women along the way...a lot of good Marines," he finished quietly.

"Goddamn," Kelly muttered.

"You believe them?" one of the Marines asked.

"Yep. Look at them. I can just tell you've been to hell and back." He sighed heavily. "Well, I'm sorry, but I am glad you're here. We're at the end of our rope."

"What's been happening?" Jennifer asked.

"For frame of reference, it's been three days since your squad went up to Phobos," he said. "About a day after that, that's when everything went to hell. From what I've been able to piece together, that portal you were trying to come through to get here just turned on and demons came out. They were everywhere. We fought like hell, but there were hundreds of them, seemingly no end to them. I did manage to get a distress call out, we stabilized the nuclear reactor and kept it from blowing, and by the end of that first day, Bravo Team, the brave men and women you see around you, successfully led a mission to blow up the portal."

"So, wait, the portal is destroyed? And there's not another one?" Jack asked.

"Yes, and as far as we can tell, yes."

"I wonder how the hell we got back here then."

"Luck, probably," Kelly replied. "Unfortunately, it didn't stop them. We've seen some of them just pop into existence, teleport in all their own. We tried an evacuation, but like you said on Phobos, the ships don't work. We were lucky to get that distress call out. The past twenty four hours...they've by far been the worst. What you're looking at, with one exception, is every living human being left on Mars." He looked around the room.

"So it worked? You used the scanners?" Sanders asked quietly.

"Yeah. Confirmed it. Just us and that asshole."

"What asshole?" Jack asked.

"There's a scientist we found at the far end of Delta Labs. Saw him through the security network. He's locked himself inside one of the specimen chambers. Genius, actually. Place is built like a vault. We've got a line in to the room, but he won't answer. He must know something about this, he's pretty high up in the science department."

"So we go get him," Jack said.

He'd about had it with scientists lately.

"Yeah, see, that's the problem. There's about half a dozen brutes roaming around Delta Labs. They're between him and us. I sent in about half of Bravo and the other Marines we had and it didn't exactly work out."

"Brutes?" Jack asked.

"About nine feet tall, horns, throws balls of green energy," one of the Bravo Marines, a big guy that looked like he'd been through a lot, said.

"Ah, we call those Barons of Hell," Jack replied.

"That's way cooler," Sanders said.

"We don't have any other options," Kelly cut in. "I can't see any other way of finding some way to stop this mess. This guy is our Hail Mary. Either he's got the answer or we're fucked. With you two here, I think we might have a shot."

"All right, we'll do it," Jack said, looking at Jennifer, who nodded tightly. "We're going to need a team and access to an armory."

"There's still one in fairly good condition we hit beforehand," the big Marine said, stepping forward. "I'm going."

"Guess I will too," Sanders said.

"I can only spare one more," Kelly said, looking around. "We need to keep Marine HQ secure. McNeil, who goes?" he asked, looking at the big Marine.

"Pavel," he said. "You're with us."

"Good. McNeil...I know you're the ranking Marine, below me, but I'm putting these two in charge. I think their resume speaks for itself."

"I'm fine with that," McNeil said. There was a weariness in his voice, an exhaustion. Jack knew how he felt.

"I don't suppose there's any spare armor around here?" Jennifer asked. "All we have are these uniforms."

"At the armory," McNeil replied.

Jack sighed. "Then let's get to that armory. I want to get this over with," he said.

McNeil nodded tightly and led them out of Marine HQ.