Armed with his mechanized power suit, Commander Exacta and his squad stood on alert at the entrance to Port Aldrin. Behind them, the last space shuttle off Mars prepared for departure with the few remaining uninfected civilians aboard.

With the last civilian having boarded the shuttle an hour ago, Exacta decided no one else was coming. He commanded his men to board the shuttle. He’d protect the rear and join them once they’d boarded.

As the last man reached the elevator, the earth beneath Exacta’s feet began to shake. It wasn’t the space shuttle. Not yet, at least.

It was them…

They came like a tsunami destroying everything in their path. The gates surrounding the spaceport fell against the sheer weight of the creatures plowing through them. Exacta roared with blood lust as he unleashed his entire payload of weaponry upon them. Bullets ripped off limbs and appendages. Plasma rounds melted corrupted flesh. His head lasers fried them in place.

Yet, more still came.

There would be no victory here. Their numbers were too great for the power suit to make any difference.

Exacta had never seen them up close, only in blurry photographs, and it almost made him hesitate. Before the plague had turned them into savage monsters, these were human beings. What were once arms and legs were now warped bones, sharpened into instruments to sever and eviscerate prey.

Their faces remained human except for the holes where their eyes had been before they exploded in their sockets.

Exacta’s power suit held against the slashes on the hull. However, it wouldn’t last forever. They’d cut through the power suit eventually.

On-screen, Exacta could see the shuttle begin to lift off. Exacta used his suit’s propulsion system to leap across the port and latch onto the shuttle. With his remaining ammunition, he blasted the creatures clinging to the ship.

As the ship broke through the atmosphere and into space, Exacta relieved his breath. The suit could hold onto the ship until they reached Ray Port, where it would be disinfected along with the shuttle. Considering it was a civilian colony, they’d probably place everyone on the ship in quarantine until they were deemed safe.

But at least the danger was over now. He shut his eyes, exhausted from days of constant vigilance and battle.

It would be twelve hours till they reached Ray Colony.

Inside the shuttle, a woman cried silently in a bathroom stall. Her face and clothes are covered in blood and vomit.

From inside the carry-on luggage she’d brought on board, a little piercing scream came from an infected infant.

She’d heard the soldiers were executing the infected. She couldn’t bear to abandon her baby to die alone in his crib, nor could she allow him to be killed at the checkpoint.

In their rush to examine evacuees, they hadn’t bothered to check the luggage.

Blood streamed down the infant’s face.

Its eyes, three times as large as normal, burst.