SOLAR YEAR 2429, LEO SYSTEM, SECTOR ONE, PLANET RED 420, 1555 HOURS, THE SOUTH SOUTH WEST OF IO TWENTY SEVEN HOURS AND FIFTY MINUTES AFTER INVASION

Major Tabansi cook took a deep breath and sighed, savoring the dusty acrid air. The open crimson fields of and dotted late afternoon sky of Red 420 was a welcome change of scenery. He never like the cramp holds and the polished metallic secretes of the navy ships. Aside from the artificially filtered oxygen, eerie atmosphere and claustrophobic isolation, Tabansi Cook hated the feeling of helplessness when dogfights and blank parties occur. The Mars’ Finest division under his command was lucky; they were aboard the mighty Galleon Poseidon. A stoic behemoth of a ship with over two meters of external composite armor built to sustain damage while it dishes out its own from its hundreds of mounted cannons and missile ports. Although none of it comforted Major Cook when the Poseidon was pummeled from all sides in what command is calling the Second battle for Red 420’s Moon—a mouthful, so was his vomit back then cause by the same nauseating cacophony of the unrelenting GEOM fire.

Cook surveyed the open plain on the outskirts of Io’s south south eastern flank, cratered, blistered and glassed otherwise uneventful. He knew that was about to change in a few minutes. He checked his wrist watch, a gold plated relic with carefully oiled leather bands, his wife’s farewell gift two years ago. The hands clocked five minutes from earth standard 1600 hours. From the open hatch of his Revenant tank he signaled wide palmed gesture to the team commanders parked in a line from either of his sides.

“Five Minutes,” he said through the short range radio band. Dozens of confirmation checks answered him. The GEOMs were still jamming their long range communications so coordination relied on mixed signals and messaging through short frequencies.

The men he had was one of the most veteran UTSF armored units, over forty skirmishes and five major battles under their belts including the Two Battles for Humanity. In a war where monsters could slice a composite armor in two in one swoop or a parasitic corrosive discharge could melt a tank to a steel meat puddle, the division’s statistics where impressive. Too bad half of their numbers were decimated in ships not in tanks. There was a blessing from the tank corps that goes, “May your steel coffin be your tank not the stank sanks.”

Major Cook watched as the minute hand made its final ticking seconds before striking exactly 1600.

Ten. Nine. Eight. Cook nodded to the immediate commanders on his flanks; the commanders saluted, their hard faces creasing to prompt grins.

Seven. Six. Five. The Major pulled the heavy hatch cover and sat on his tank’s command console.

Four. Three. Two. He switched the division wide channel and picked up the radio transmitter.

One.

“All units commence attack.”

Engines roared invectives and exhaust piped wailed resistance, the three hundred strong armored division screened the plain with upturned crimson dust. They thundered through the open stretch of scorched no man’s land, weapons trained and engines at full.

Major Cook carefully checked the scanners and reports from the lead tanks. The GEOMs had years to fortify the Queen hives on Red and this was clearly a trap and they were the bait to spring it. Revenant tanks were akin to miniature land Galleons: largely armored, resistant and heavily armed land hulks designed to match the largest and most dangerous of threats with pure firepower and thick armor. Each tank of the Mar’s Finest was painted with a bleached skull on three red streaks over a peeling black backdrop symbolizing the regiment’s persistence and the battles they have barely survived.

Bleeps on a scanner alerted him of GEOMs directly on their positions and that meant three things, they were either above them, below them or both.

Unfortunately it was the latest.

“Open fire! Fire at will!” Cook yelled at the radio transmitter.

Tracer fire and all sorts of projectiles erupted from the attack group. Machine gun and flak fire burst from the pintle-mounted auto turrets to meet the flying horde of GEOMs peppering most of the aliens and successfully deflecting the first airborne wave. Cook knew that the GEOM “Moles” cannot directly destroy the heavy vehicles from underground or coordinate to dig pit fall traps from Intel given by the survivors of FOB Geronimo. The turret gunners held their fire until the monstrous blind GEOMs popped out of their underground ambush. But none came. He made sure to check every minute or so as they advanced deeper into dead man’s land.

The experienced division had split into three columns, main guns pointed at drilled directions and firing devastating volleys at the massing horde, startling up a red cloud-dust behind them creating an improvised smokescreen from GEOM artillery and sniper fire, minimizing the effectiveness of their long range weapons. If they wanted to take out the tank division the GEOMs would have to fight closer into the potent range of the Revenant guns. Cook could hear the colorful spouts of Private Alvarez, his assigned tank gunner, as he pelted the smaller and faster GEOMs with his heavy machine gun above the gun turret, pings of large caliber bullet casings rained down inside the command Revenant from his weapon. Tabansi Cook was in his environment, in control of his fate, his men’s fate and in full speed of his preferred vehicle on planetary gravity. Groups of Abominations tried to disrupt the tank formations by attacking tanks mid formation but the adept tank division merely zigzagged and circumspect the GEOMs and dispatched the confused creatures with routine effectiveness. Hornets did their aerial raids trying to pick off the least protected machine gunners but were easily deflected by coordinated batteries.

They were five kilometers from Io, closer than planned. The invasion force was warned of luring tactics of the Red 420 GEOMs and advised to exercise extreme caution on their missions and this smooth advance rang alarmed Major Cook.

He checked again his scanners, the red dots still bleeped on top and around their position. As half of the armored division passed them, the red dots started bee lining towards the tail end of the tank column.

The smartasses are cutting as off! Cook thought alarmingly. He tried to hail their rearguard platoon but the advanced had stretched their column too far out to contact them directly and he had to coordinate with other command tanks to modulate a direct radio band but the process took too long. A low accumulating rumble followed by a resonating crack signaled the success of the GEOM trap.

After the wall of upstarted crimson sand had dissipated behind them, a deep ravine ran concave from Io’s west to its eastern side. The Mar’s Finest were effectively cornered. They had expected this and Cook knew that HQ was now deploying countermeasures and hypothesizing follow up scenarios to impede. His division did its job and they had entered the second phase of the plan, the phase that the Mar’s Finest took pride off and were lauded for.

Survive.

“All units wedge overlap formation Alpha!” Cook commanded through the comms.

The veteran tank division followed with drilled cohesion, Killing GEOMS as they went to form six rows of inverted Vs and a line of fifty tanks faced towards the ravine—they’ve been in this situation a dozen times before to know that the parasitic aliens attack everywhere.

The ruins of the industrial city seemed to dance and sway with the sweltering Red 420 day light then burst its millions of alien inhabitants, spreading out to meet the opposing human force. Major Cook repeated the steady command to his men. Revenants have lethal firepower but not the greatest accuracy at long range. They have to hold off the hideous creatures long enough for their aerial and artillery support to range in their targets. Synchronized beats of munitions fire from the Mars’ Finest tanks echoed the scorched warzone, hitting their targets but were immediately replaced by more GEOMs. The aliens answered with their Firefly artillery fire scoring hits on several tanks.

A modulated comm-report from the rear line mumbled about GEOMs bubbling from the depths of the alien-made crevice and had open fired on them. Cook slammed his chair in frustration, even with all their preparations for this exact maneuver they failed to counteract it. Either the GEOMs had adapted with their responses or the frequently used excuse of “human error”.

The radio-comms blurted of GEOM repositioning, skirmishing attacks and the appearance of more heavily-built parasitic creatures such as Abominations. The foremost wedge formation was temporarily overrun by a group of GEOMs taking out five Revenants but was eventually held and the gap filled up by tanks from the second wedge formation. They were holding but just barely.

A dissimilar voice came from the comms that commanded the Mars’ Finest to hold position. Cook did not question the command as he would have before the battles he had experienced and immediately commanded his radio-operator to relay the order to all tank platoons. Such odd orders from unknown call signs meant only one thing:

Knights have brought the Cavalry—or for a more accurate depiction, brought themselves.

Explosives and munitions carpet bombed and strafed the aliens that surrounded them. Human artillery created blooms of crimson debris and patristic ocher, pummeling the advanced positions of the charging aliens. Their bludgeoning attack was imperfect but did the job. The Mars’ Finest radio band was filled with cheers and whoops as the concentrated fire of their fire support tore through the enemy. Victory strafing runs from brightly colored fighters passed by the wedged tank formation fueling the morale of the ground troops.

Major Cook sighed in relief. They had managed to survive yet another close call. The platoons had begun reporting their statuses. They were bruised and badly needed resupply but the tank division was mostly intact and would be able to fulfill its role on the next phase of the Ionian attack. He was about to order one of the tank platoons to assist and cover the engineers that would be surely be deployed to frame makeshift bridges over the entrapping ravine when something hot and sticky dripped over his hand. He glanced at the blood drops and instinctively wiped his bleeding nose. He tasted copper and salt, his head whirled. He looked round his crew and they didn’t fare better. They were also nose-bleeding and suffering headaches. Some even had blood seeping from their ears and eyes. The radio bands reported the same occurrences.

The scanners alarmed. A massive red dot pinged five hundred meters from their position. It was huge; Cook roughly calculated the scale as his throbbing brain would allow him to. It was at least Four Kilometers in diameter and it was resurfacing fast. The Major looked at the manual periscope and watched as the ground before them buckled, quaked and cracked, taking the dead remains and cratered ground aground or about. A sickly colored dome gradually rose from the fast-growing rift, bulbous and boils patches of flaccid hide and bloated mountains of jellied innards littered its surface. Revealing its ribbed lower stem that made it look more like a massive mushroom. The more it revealed its disgusting bulk, the more their headaches swelled and their blood streamed.

A GEOM Hax has arisen.

A congregation of infected psionic, A GEOM Hax is a parasitic super bio-weapon. The GEOMs had made use of infected lower level potentials by melding their nervous systems together until they turn into a single life form of gargantuan psychic potential--able to disrupt radio communication, act as antennas for a GEOM hive queen’s commands or, as a final recourse, as a tide-turning weapon.

Normally dormant to fulfill their duties as psychic signal antennas and jammers, Haxes hide deep within the earth, using its extensive number of flagellants and tentacles to move or bury itself--going through what seemed to be a hibernating process at it telepathically relayed orders to the billions of parasitic monsters assigned to it. Haxes are also known to be carriers of some sort, ferrying infested armies under the billows and inside perforations of its mushroom-like dome.

But when its culminated powerful infected minds are used to attack, a Hax could level entire armies in one mind blast or pummel hundreds enemies with one strike of its tentacles.

Tabansi Cook watched the Hax’ hundreds of boils and bulbs glowed scarlet then purple through his command Revenant’s periscope. He gave up staunching his nose-bleed and ignored his throbbing temple mesmerized by the colorful display of impending death. He had only encountered a Hax once before but it was already battered and lifeless--Destroyed by a squad of the Knights.

The Hax raised one of its massive appendages, about kilometer long and fifty meters wide, preparing to swipe at the stunned, stranded tank division. An explosion had whipped the humongous tentacles aside and a second salvo blasted it in half. The same squadron of fighters swooped past the behemoth.

“Wake up Major and start opening fire!” the same voice yelled from the comm-link.

It roused Major Cook from his anemic reverie and started shouting commands at the radio receiver employing synchronized salvos at the GEOM Hax at assumed weak spots to maximized damage output with the remaining ammunition they have. Artillery bombardment had started shelling the psionic creature but appeared to deal little damage or none at all. It continued to glow hypnotically.

“Why is it doing that sir?” Sergeant Hernandez, his young loader, asked.

“To be honest son, I don’t really want to know.” Cook answered.

Black spectacles poured under its umbrella, some crashed to the ground but most seemed to drift into the air. Cook gulped. The Hax had released its hoard of infected inhabitants. Screams of crew of destroyed tanks filled the radio band with static. One heroic tank crew managed to report that Moles had emerged from the ravine along with Abominations and other infected and destroyed the bridges before being taken out. The sixth wedge formation had turned to face the outflanking aliens but Cook knew it would be a fruitless effort. The salvos of tank main guns began to quiet as munitions ran out. Private Alvarez, descended from his hatch, blood drenched the front of his uniform, his eyes bloodshot behind his protective goggles. He told him that the Revenant’s main machinegun had emptied. The radio blurted that their left flank had just been decimated by one of the Hax’ tentacles, more static filled the comm-links.

Major Cook asked Alvarez to close the hatch and take his seat or stay above and fight with his sidearm. The veteran private chose the latter even though he knew what little effect his pistol could do. Cook nodded and gave an encouraging smile to each of his crew members, joked about being fed up living with them too long anyways, which the his crew laughed at, and commanded what remained of the resilient Mars’ Finest to charge and fight with everything they had. Ninety engines revved to life for the last time, kicking up trails of dusts. The radio frequencies shouted with rallying last words of men fighting for their race, beliefs and families. Each Martian made his peace and faced his death head on.

The Hax radiated blindingly white as they closed in and forced Private Alvarez down from his hatch and Major Cook to avert his eyes from the periscope. He had removed his wristwatch earlier and now held and felt its aged leather and cold golden casing.

“Sorry Maria, not this time.” He whispered. Seconds later the Hax released its charged psychic energy and disintegrated the tanks and men of the Mars’ Finest to fine specs.

SOLAR YEAR 2429, LEO SYSTEM, SECTOR ONE, PLANET RED 420, 1600 HOURS, THE WEST OF IO TWENTY EIGHT HOURS AFTER INVASION

Sergeant Parks had narrowly dodged a swinging GEOM arm. He slid sideways and fired a full clip at the infected. It shuddered and fell lifeless. He controlled his erratic breathing. He had to stay calm to make it through, for his squad to make it through. He ran from crater to crater rallying his disjointed squad. The GEOMs had made a counter pushed when the combined forces of 114th Spawn Chasers and the 9th UTSF Footmen made their advance. Unlike the other main avenues of Io, the western outskirts were hilly and craggy. Armor was all but useless in these conditions so command had the Spawn Chasers to take point in the attack while the numerous conscripts of the 9th UTSF foot would support them. The parasites had punched through their lines and succeeded in splitting their forces. The front was in chaos, every man for himself.

The Sergeant finally found one of his lost troopers, a woman named Joan Fisher. She was crouching on a hurriedly made foxhole trying to make herself small. She was wide-eyed with fear, muttering incoherencies.

“Fisher! Get up Fisher! You’re a sitting duck here!” Parks shook her and tried to drag her upright, “You’ll die here soldier! Is that what you want?”

Fisher screamed and crumpled once again over her hole. Parks noticed all her finger nails were peeled off, her hands bloody from the wounds. She had dug the hole with her bare hands out of blind terror.

“Sir! Sir!” A soldier shouted from the thermite smoke about them, five shadows jogged towards the non-com.

Recently promoted Corporal Dawson and Private Porter briskly and, almost mockingly, saluted followed by three others. Parks read their green tags, Ynu, a middle-aged Martian mechanic now squad engineer, Delgado and Lee, remnants from other divisions that survived incapacitated UTSF ships.

“Where are the others Corporal?” Parks asked. Serving in a conscripted regiment meant that they had double man squads to compensate for the inexperienced of the troops.

The quiet corporal only shrugged. The sergeant sighed, ordered Dawson to drag Fisher with them as they searched for the rest of his squad. They were too deep into enemy territory now to safely escort the terrified Fisher back to friendly lines. He couldn’t risk separating his troops or retreating with his whole squad just to attend one soldier. Also with this largely inexperience regiment, friendly fire was commonplace and walking back towards frightened soldiers would achieve just that.

Weapon fire and explosions hazily lit the smoke shrouded battlefield. Roars of GEOMs, buzzing of wings and wails of killed or dying soldiers damaged the morale of Sergeant Parks’ squad besides Dawson and Porter. Their encounter with the GEOMs on the Marshall had changed the young men. Being cornerstone pieces of the ship’s defense had numbed them and molded them into hardened soldiers. He had Porter take point. Parks knew that he had the best hearing in his squad and was an inexhaustible runner albeit because of curious circumstance. The Sergeant glanced behind him and saw that Delgado had propped up the becalmed, treated Fisher over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry followed by Lee and Ynu. He could just make out Dawson’s silhouette from the heavy smoke, the corporal holding their rear.

“Look out!” Porter suddenly shouted.

The sergeant tried to tackle Delgado with his human load but was too late. An Abomination with largely dissimilar arms swatted the two soldiers with his heftier fist and launched Delgado and Fisher a good dozen yards, instantly killing them. A high caliber round whizzed over Sergeant Parks prone figure, hit the monster and stunned it. Porter had fired his sniper rifle.

Ynu and Lee hip-fired their weapons riddling the Abom with bullets, the GEOM crouched and used its larger arm to try to shield most of its body. Parks rolled sideways, took a flanking position and open fired at the GEOM’s stubby legs and succeeded in turning one of its legs into a bloody pulp, careening it off balance. It roared as it felled on its heavier side.

Parks loaded his grenade launcher fixed on his rifle, yelled at the two to take cover and fired the explosive and hit the Abom squarely on its disfigured head. It erupted in a plume of rotting meat and splattered the sergeant with post-mortem revenge.

“Clear!” The Sergeant shouted as he walked towards the prone bodies of Delgado and Fisher. Delgado’s head was twisted and was almost decapitated; a flaccid patch of skin was only what connected his head to his body. Fisher did not fare better; her head was bashed into her ribcage, only bloodied black hair was above her shoulders. Sergeant Parks was impassive as he commanded Lee and Ynu to dispose the bodies as properly and hastily as possible. The two weren’t immune to the emetic scene as Sergeant Parks was and poured their guts out. Sergeant Parks wiped the gore off his face and fatigues. He and a hundred other officers and non-coms were assigned to train and lead the inexperience conscripts after the Second Battle for Humanity, one of the battles where most of the fighting population was wiped out.

He used to be part of a Saturn orbit city regiment called August’s Sons, brave, stubborn men-- traits that contributed to their inevitable downfall. The few that survived were assigned as drill instructors for new recruits and then as officers of conscript regiments. Sergeant Parks spat out a ball of abomination secretion that strayed inside his mouth as he watched the pale Privates stacked the bodies inside a shallow crater. Lee gingerly took Delgado and Fisher’s bloody dog tags, the boy puked twice before he successfully ripped the tags off the bodies. Parks sighed. He has to fight with what his got. A few meters behind the Abomination corpse, Corporal Dawson was signaling him to come. The sergeant checked his weapon and marched towards the Corporal.

“What do you have for me Dawson?”

The Corporal pointed at the cesspool of mauled and maimed bodies stacked like a giant bonfire just below a shallow rock ledge. Some of the remains still had active green tags and Parks confirmed that some of the corpses were part of his squad, but not all of them. He heard the Corporal say a silent prayer.

“Didn’t know you were the religious type.”

“I’m not Sarj.” He answered as he walked towards his position behind the column.

It was hard for them to identify where they were with all the smoke and natural makeup of the land. Sergeant asked Ynu again if he made contact with the other squads in their company but he only shook his head. They were limited to short-range comm-links and it was too quiet, very quiet. They had fought sporadic GEOM resistance so far but none of coordinated strength. The GEOMS they recently encountered seemed lost or forgotten. The weapon-fire had died down; the roars and incoherent chatter of infected hosts were distant or hushed. Either they were too far from any friendlies or they were too close to something they weren’t supposed to be.

The squad scaled a rocky hill face which scraped their elbows and shins, scarlet starlight barely penetrated the battle-fog but it was fierce enough to shield their eyes from it. Just when they were about to crest the hill, Two iron-clad soldiers were rushing towards the rough slope, a third one hung unmoving on one’s shoulders. Before Sergeant Parks could question them Private Porter was shouting right behind the shock troopers.

“TAKE COVER! TAKE COVER!” He waved frantically as he ran towards them at full speed.

The Sergeant didn’t second guess the private and shoved his remaining squad members off the hill’s craggy crest, kicking the traumatized Lee behind the back.

“Move! Move!” Sergeant Parks bawled. He glanced behind him and beckoned Porter to quicken his pace.

And there he saw what Porter and the armored men were retreating from. A mushroom-shaped GEOM with its beating incandescence was in the horizon. Writhing humongous arms littered its physique lashing them on something. They were often briefed of GEOM Haxes being top priority, second only to queens—being the most dangerous kind of GEOM, second only to queens. Blood dripped from the Sergeant’s nose.

“Get down sir! Get down!” nimble Porter had finally reached the sergeant and dragged him by the collar. They rolled down the steep edge, bruising and cutting themselves on the sharp rocks. Before they reached the bottom the smoke cleared for a brief moment, Sergeant Parks momentarily saw the autumn colored Red 420 sky. It reminded him of Saturn’s many ochre-colored storms that he used to watch on galleries back home. The smoke then retracted back as fast as it went like being sucked by some sort of vacuum. Parks was buffeted by the invisible force like a rag doll before hitting his head on an outcropped rock, knocking him unconscious.