"Sorry, Sarge, but I think that the only logical choice would be to go back," Porter said.
"Thank you," Cray gloated.
"Are you sure?" Steber asked.
Porter nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, I'd love to avenge Mitchell, Crowley, and Edwards as much as you, but we've got to be realistic. Obviously whatever force has seized this base has more surprises in store for us and I'm willing to bet there are much stronger monsters waiting for us as we go deeper in. We simply don't have the numbers or the firepower to take back this installation."
"Ok. I won't fight you two on this," Steber said. "We'll return to the dropship." The three humans stepped into the elevator and Cray hit the button that would bring them back to the main entranceway. As the lift began to move and pick up speed, no one spoke. Finally, the door opened and Steber half expected to see some horrible monstrosity waiting for them but there was nothing. The corridor leading back to the umbilical was as silent as a tomb, at least a conventional tomb where the dead didn't come back to life. Encountering no further challenges, the group passed by the body of the slain scientist at the door and hurried back to the ship. The pilot, Helen Lombardi, did a double take as she saw the team returning. Leaving the pilot's seat, she rushed down to meet them.

"What's going on? Where's everyone else?" she asked.
"Long story," Cray said. "Right now, we've got to take off. Immediately!"
"Ok, you've got it," Lombardi said and ran back to the controls. Less than a minute later, Steber heard the sound of the engines starting up and soon afterwards, the dropship lifted off the ground. Before they left the atmosphere, Steber stood up and stared out of one of the viewports. Sensing the man's distress, Porter joined him.
"What the hell went wrong down there?" Steber said softly. It was a rhetorical question.
"You did the best you could," Porter said. "No one will blame you for what happened."
"I know, but still... Jesus," Steber could only sigh.
"Don't worry, as soon as we report back to UAC Command, they'll send a stronger force to finish the job. They'll level the complex if they need to."
"Hmm." Steber mumbled.
"What is it, Sarge?"
"I think they'll be too late," Steber said. "We had the chance to get down there and finish the job but let that opportunity slip right through our fingers." For this, Porter didn't know what to say.

An hour later, Steber was back in his cabin onboard The Godspeed, getting ready to transmit his report to Fleet Command. Reading over what he had written, he actually laughed for the first time since this mission had begun. Zombies, monsters, pyrotechnic beings... If he hadn't experienced those horrors himself, he never would have believed any of it. Now he had to convince his superiors to buy into this story. By the time he did that, and UAC actually got mobilized and ready to deploy, it would be at least two weeks from now. Who knew what Phobos would resemble by then? Steber looked out the window of his cabin, which by sheer luck was facing the side of the moon with the research station on it. Though he couldn't actually see the base from this far away, he knew it was there. He looked down at his feet and was about to turn away when a bright flash emanated from that spot on the moon. His eyes now glued to the viewport, Steber held his breath. What the hell was that? He watched at two, three, then four more bursts of light lit the surface of the moon. Finally, he lost count and the flashes still kept coming. A terrible feeling in his stomach, Steber ran from his room to the bridge of The Godspeed, where Cray and Warren were going over some last minute details before the ship broke orbit and returned to Earth.

"You've got to get the shields up!" Steber shouted, out of breath. "They're firing on us!"
"Who?" Warren said. Having stayed onboard the mothership the whole time, he had missed what had transpired down on the moon.
"The demons, monsters, or whatever they are that have taken Phobos!" Warren raised his eyebrows and shot a skeptical look at Cray, who shook his head.
"Oh God, you haven't even told him yet?" Steber cried. "How could I have been such a fool to think that they would just let us escape?"
"Sergeant, you are delusional. I understand the situation on Phobos must have been hard for you to cope with," Cray said, "but that is no excuse for starting a panic here. If you remember, I lost several of my colleagues as well."
"I'm not delusional!" Steber shouted. "Look outside the goddamn window!"
"Steber, you will return to your cabin now or I will have security escort you there," Cray said.
"And furthermore..."

His sentence was cut off by the first gigantic blow that rocked the ship. Cray and Warren were thrown to the floor. Steber stumbled, but managed to stay on his feet.

"What was that?" Cray screamed. "Someone answer me!"
"I told you, the moon base is shooting at us! They don't want us to get away and warn Earth!"
"That's ludicrous!" Cray shouted. "There are no surface-to-orbit weapons of that magnitude on Phobos!"
"There weren't before, but there are now!" Steber said.
"Where did they come from?" Cray yelled.
"Who cares where they came from?" Steber shouted, losing his temper. "For all we know, they came from the same place that those monsters did. What we should care about is defending ourselves!"

Before Cray could answer, two more jolts shook the ship. Alarms were screaming for the crew's attention and the room was quickly filling with smoke. Suddenly, Steber's ears popped and he knew that the hull of the ship had been breached. The precious life-support that kept everyone onboard alive was being sucked out into space.

"The shields aren't responding!" A panicked technician shouted above the din. "The ship has been too badly damaged!"
"NO!" Steber shouted and ran to the viewport once more. There, he could just make out several huge balls of light that were streaking towards the very window he was looking from. He had just enough time to turn around and notice that Cray and Warren had vainly fled the bridge when the next volley impacted The Godspeed dead on. The ship was torn into two large pieces as the energy ripped through it. Minutes later, the flashes from the moon died down and the space around Phobos was calm once more.

The attack happened so fast that not even a distress signal had been sent. Of course, Steber's report was never filed either. And so an unsuspecting Earth went about its business, oblivious to the enormous threat poised above it until only a week later when Phobos, all of its forces finally in place and at full strength, began its bloody and unstoppable invasion.