The Survivor

"Corporal! Corporal Ran! We are losing your position!  We can no… longer…" the connection between the last surviving human in the fueling outpost on Jupiter's fourth largest moon, and the command vessel twenty-seven million miles away, failed and went out.

In the last six hours, he and the rest of the three-hundred and ninety nine personnel began to fight off an invasion.  The aliens had been able to reach the surface of Io, and they did it quickly and undetected.  The commander believed that it had to be a traitor amongst the forces on Io. It had to be.

Before long, the aliens and their superior armor and weapons, quickly dispatched the security forces in a strategic attack.  Panic ensued, and before long, several scientists and assistants barricaded themselves in the various reinforced safety zones.  It did not take the aliens long before they pinpointed the safety zones, and eliminated everyone in them.

The commander was gone, the security forces were gone, and all communication systems were destroyed.  Being the last survivor on the Io station, Corporal Ran contemplated his situation.  The aliens wanted the fueling outpost, but why?  What was the purpose of invading and taking a somewhat insignificant resource?  Why would they chance a significant invading force to pierce enemy lines and attack the refueling post, when there were much more valuable and vital targets further out and near the battle fronts?

Corporal Ran could not understand why.

Having been assigned to Io, the Corporal had been trained in defense.  If that defense was lost, and invasion had been accomplished by the enemy, his secondary assignment was to destroy the station.

"Destroy it, and deal with the consequences later.  Set the destruct process, and make my way to the hidden transport and escape vessels!" he said to himself, thinking about the process, "don't allow the enemy access to our technologies and collected resources!"

Io was a very valuable moon, and the nuclear devastation that would result from destroying the station would not harm it very much, but the aliens would not have it.  The Corporal made his way from corridor to corridor.

He entered the seemingly insignificant room where the detonator systems had been housed.  He set the destruct process, and quickly left the room.  He hoped that soon enough, he would be in the hidden transport hangar, and out into the deep of space.

Explosions rocked the corridors, as Corporal Ran noticed that the aliens had discovered the hidden hangar.  He entered and discovered several destroyed vessels all around him; the remains of several aliens lay smoldering amongst the chaos.

Braving the intense heat, the Corporal moved throughout the hangar, and found one intact vessel.  Climbing in, Corporal Ran initiated the hidden hangar doors.  Several aliens ran towards the small vessel, as the Corporal turned it and flew it out into the cold of space.

He watched his monitors as massive explosions spread across the surface of Io.  It was the only home that he had known for several years.

He turned to see several alien vessels all around him.  Behind them, the command vessel and many of his own fellow forces, finally arrived to engage the alien force. Later, Corporal Ran would discover that a massive deposit of vital materials had been discovered deep under the surface of the moon, which the aliens had detected.

The battle itself would be known as the battle over Io, and he, the hero of Io.