Ch35: Mars Undersiege

It was not just Interamnia being sieged. The other two asteroid resource bases under martian control, Pallas and Vesta, were also being sieged.

Yet, the three EFSF fleets at these three locations did not even fire a single shot, nor did they attempt to puncture through the defensive formations surrounding the three bases.

Commander Khan could easily see the situation-- the sensory buoys surrounding Interamnia displayed hints of the EFSF's movement. Only hints, because the EFSF fleet did its best to restrain any electromagnetic signature, and only occasionally did the sensory buoys transmit some movement of the EFSF.

The EFSF only circled around the outskirts while deploying many of their own various sensory and weapon systems to form a shell around Interamnia's own defense!

That was enough for Khan to understand her enemy's general strategy. Her initial suspicion should be accurate. The EFSF fleet here was not interested in trading blows. They only desired to trap all the martian forces here! With the new shell of major buoys formed, it was basically impossible for any martian ship currently on Interamnia to jump and leave the asteroid resource base.

That must mean that the EFSF's primary target was elsewhere. Khan immediately attempted to contact Vesta and Pallas. She was relieved to find that the few outbound communications formed by different chains of buoys that reached beyond the EFSF encasing shell remained intact

Unfortunately, her message would take time to reach the other asteroid resource bases. There was also the possibility that the EFSF might have identified those communication chains on the other bases and destroyed them.

What Khan feared the most was that all three asteroid bases were under the same situation. That would mean that the primary EFSF force was attacking Mars! Though she had immediately suspected this upon the first set of actions by the EFSF, it was still too late.

She changed her orders for Lieutenant Sanchez to hold his position. If Sanchez were to attempt to leave with the two B-class starships, they would not be able to escape against the EFSF siege that consisted of at least one S-class, two A-class, and many B-class starships.

At the same time, she did not dare to send the whole martian fleet stationed here to leave. That would be the equivalent of abandoning this asteroid resource base. 

As for breaking the siege? The martians simply do not have the amount of materiel comparable to EFSF. They had always played defense to inflict costly losses to the more aggressive EFSF.

Thus, Khan knew in her heart that they were likely stuck. She could only trust that the martian defense under the primary EFSF attack would hold. That did not mean she would sit idly by and attempt nothing.

"Lieutenant Sanchez." Her voice was calm and serene as a mountain lake on a windless bright clear day. "Begin harassing the EFSF. Pretend to desperately attack their buoys and flee into our defense sphere when you attract their attention. Do your best to drag them into our minefields. Be careful not to overextend out of our defense sphere."

"Yes, Mam!"

"Respectable Allira. Take the A-class starship and the other two B-class starships and do the same as Sanchez."

"Yes, Mam! But what of the last B-class starship?"

"I will assume control of said ship remotely. All crew is to abandon the last B-class starship and reinforce Lieutenant Sanchez and Allira." Khan's eyes gained a razor-sharp determination.

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Pallas, the Belt

Zheng received the message from Khan. He immediately understood what Khan intended to do from her words. Pallas, too, was surrounded by a shell of buoys and patrolled by an EFSF fleet that clearly had no intention to engage in proper battle.

Zheng nodded to himself. He chose to not reply to Khan. Any form of communication risked interception. Their configuration for encoding was new for this day, but the more messages sent, the easier it would become for EFSF to decode theri comms. Khan must do her best without the knowledge that he had received her message.

He gave similar orders as recommended by his protege. Pallas had more starships as part of its defense due to its higher importance as a larger resource base. He, too, completely cleared out a B-class starship and ordered the others in his fleet to begin harassing the patrolling EFSF.

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Vesta, The Belt.

Cold sweat rolled down Laurent's temples. He was facing an EFSF double the size of his. Granted, he had the defense of Vesta to rely upon, yet…

The reality was that the EFSF was fully aware that the four martian nexarms had been placed under Laurent, as per his request after his faction's clash with the T3ST unit.

Unbeknownst to the martian fleet, the EFSF had very much deployed more strength to contain Vesta and prevent the four martian nexarms from providing reinforcement to the martian moons! They had deployed an S-class, four A-class, and fifteen B-class ships just to Vesta! In comparison, the EFSF deployed around one S-class, two A-class, and seven B-class starships to the other targets.

Laurent ordered his subordinates to send for reinforcements from the other two asteroid resource bases.

"Sir!" The soldier named Lieutenant Pereira returned before him. "All our outbound comms buoys have been severed! The EFSF is also employing jamming technologies. We have to reestablish our communication buoy chains to bypass their jamming!"

The EFSF was far more serious in surrounding and locking down Laurent and the four nexarms under him!

Later historians would find this event rather comical. Due to Laurent's more nationalistic and belligerent stance towards non-martians, his now-deceased subordinate Jacobs had come into conflict with the T3ST colony.

As a result of that conflict, the T3ST unit had opted not to cooperate with the Laurent faction. In order to placate Laurent's dissatisfaction, the martian high command had agreed to give Laurent priority control over the four martian nexarms.

Now, it was precisely the EFSF's knowledge of those four nexarms under him that led to the EFSF taking every measure to blackout Laurent's forces on Vesta!

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Deimos, Mars.

A fleet had come out of jump and began immediately firing all weapon systems with impunity. The S-class and two A-class starships immediately activated their particle beam cannons aimed at the primary military base on Deimos.

"Commander Zulu! All three cannons are ready!"

"All B-class starships, hear me!" She communicated through her neuro circlet. "Side shift and part the sea." Commander Zulu was back with a vengeance after her prisoner of war exchange. The EFSF command had offered her a chance to take an extended break after her tribulations, but she rejected the option, returned to the belt and captured quite a few smaller resource bases.

The seven B-class starships had initially positioned themselves in front of the S-class and A-class starships in an arrow formation to provide protection and stable conditions for the mega-particle beam cannons to charge and take aim. Naturally, the initial wave of kinetic rounds came from these B-class starships.

With Zulu's command, the B-class starships shifted their position to form a ring, opening a hole and clearing the primary path for the mega-particle beams.

"Particle cannons. Sync firing systems!"

Particle cannons. Firing in five, four, three, two, one!

Three mega-particle beams simultaneously fired from three starships positioned a safe distance from each other to limit any potential internal interference, with their aim at different important sections of the military base on Deimos.

Their targets? The particle beam cannons on Deimos, of course! The moons did not have any significant atmosphere, thus it was possible for the particle beam cannons to be installed as its defense.

The sensory systems on all the starships turned white with static upon the energy release of the beams. A few seconds later, the sensory systems began working again.

"Status?" Zulu asked.

"Three particle beam cannons on Deimos have been struck. Two remaining, Mam!"

There were quite a few reasons as to why Zulu and her fleet could ambush Deimos and immediately cause such devastation.

Deimos is, to put it simply, tiny. Its diameter is just over twelve kilometers, its weight, 1.51x10^15 kilograms. In comparison, Interramnia's diameter is at three-hundred-seventeen kilometers, weighing 2.73x10^19 kilograms. What exactly does that mean? The surface gravity of Interamnia is sixty-two times that of Deimos! Moreover, Deimos' orbit around Mars took thirty hours or so, and Mars also orbited around the sun.

As a result, maintaining any significant defensive buoy cloud around Deimos had always been too costly, if not impossible. Other martian orbiting defensive sensors were too sparse to cover for Deimos' weakness.

Deimos does have the advantage of cover from Phobos and the incomplete martian umbrella, but those are being currently attacked as well!

"Any news from the Pham fleet assaulting Phobos? The Duterte fleet assaulting the incomplete umbrella? Any signs of weapons being fired in our direction from Phobos or the buoys orbiting Mars?"

"No to all, Mam!"

"Good! Continue! Prepare the second particle beam wave!" What Commander Zulu worried the most was if those other fleets communicated the need for reinforcements. No news was good news!

The EFSF did not just randomly select a time for this assault. They had specifically waited for the moment right before Phobos would be at the maximum distance from Deimos around Mars. That would minimize any potential cooperation between the two moons.

"B-class starships! Form a frontal shield with automatons!" The B-class starships formed a tight pack again. The crew of all seven B-class starships deployed many spherical automatons that formed layers upon layers of x-alloy shields.

"The five railguns on Deimos have begun firing! The two remaining enemy particle cannons have reached full charge! They're firing, Mam!"

"Continue charging our particle cannons," Commander Zulu calmly ordered without worry. The primary danger to her fleet, the total of five particle cannons on Deimos, had already been nearly neutralized.

The starship's sensors turned white again. When their vision cleared, of the twenty automaton shields formed, ten had been thoroughly disintegrated, with another five layers severely damaged.

During her recent forays into the belt, Zulu had long come to an understanding of the strength of these spherical automaton shields against mega-particle cannons. She knew they would survive this strike.

Synced particle cannons, all at full charge.

"Aim at the remaining two particle cannons! B-class starships. Maintain two automaton shields and shift to ring formation again!" Zulu's choice to maintain two shields was to prevent the enemy's railgun rounds from disturbing the S-class and A-class starships' aim. The particle beams of the three would easily punch through the two shields before striking their targets. These two automaton-formed shields should be enough to temporarily block the enemy's railguns for a minute or so.

Commander Zulu found assaulting Deimos almost freeing, in a way. Yes, she had attacked quite a number of asteroid resource bases in the belt. Yet, against those targets, she could not use the particle beam cannon. The EFSF needed to hold the resource bases they captured, and as such, she was ordered to avoid overly damaging any of the existing defenses. Not in Deimos' case. She had been ordered to utterly decimate the military base on this moon!

Firing in, five, four, three, two, one. Particle cannons firing.

The sensory system blanked out once again.

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Outskirts of Mars' orbital space.

Starship Oneiroi jumped into existence. The T3ST unit had received orders to defend Mars. A far cry from the initial expectation of reinforcing the asteroid resource bases.

And yet, just a moment later, Starship Atlas flashed into space as well. Enine, within Oneiroi's bridge, only raised an eyebrow. It did not surprise him that they may have triggered some EFSF buoy around the outskirts of Mars' space.

What did startle him was the fact that Starship Atlas was accompanied by a B-class starship with the wide company logo Neurorevo a shining golden orange across its hull.

They were hailed.

One hologram displayed a man unknown to Enine, and James MacLeod. Another displayed a mesmerizing woman who's age could not be guessed at first glance. Her facial features appeared rather similar to that of Jen MacLeod's.

"I am Vice-admiral Son. Grand Elder Enine, I presume?"

"I am Enine, yes."

"I would not have offered this. However, James MacLeod has requested this offer. T3ST colony. We are willing to compromise. As long as your genes are tested to be stable, you will be allowed to return to Earth, under parole. However, those whose genes remain of uncertain status will have to remain in the asteroid belt. That is, if you leave the vicinity of martian orbital space immediately and no longer interfere in the proceedings of this war."

What a shit deal. So thought all within the bridge of Starship Oneiroi.

"The martians will lose," Son continued. "Deimos is already on its last legs. It is unnecessary for this battle between my ten nexarms and your four to occur. A waste of time and resources."

The inevitable tone of victory in Vice-admiral Son's voice certainly explained the shit deal offered to the T3ST unit.

Grand Elder Enine shook his head in rejection. How could they shrink at such a critical moment? There was always a chance, so he thought. 

"Very well." It was not Son who spoke, but rather, the woman who looked like an older Jen MacLeod. Her voice was both melodic and firm. "We will be retrieving our Neurorevo engineers. They should not be allowed to perish in your senseless final breath."

Grand Elder Enine had no choice but to nod in acceptance. They very much relied upon Neurorevo technology. Not allowing Neurorevo to retrieve their trained employees could lead to far worse a situation.

A small transport ship departed from the B-class Neurorevo controlled starship towards Starship Oneiroi.

In the hangar, Xeight stood silently and professionally shook hands with Jen. Their recent interactions no longer carried the infatuation of a month to two prior.

There were no major arguments of any sort. To Xeight, it felt like a natural occurrence. From the very start, he had come to understand certain aspects of Jen MacLeod. She preferred to wholly focus on her interest in neurotech, and detested any involvement with what she saw as pointless conflict.

Initially, she had somewhat encouraged him to somewhat participate, but he now clearly understood that she had only wished to observe the data of the nexarm's functions under his control. Once he had put his mind to the task and taken the life of an enemy nexarm… their interaction changed.

Xeight did not blame her. He was the very same until his grandpa's death awakened something in him. As to what that might be? Not even he fully understood.

The woman that must be related to Jen MacLeod descended from her visiting ship.

"Mother," greet Jen with a bow of her head.

"Girl. Had enough, have you?" She sternly glared at Jen. "I've played along with your whims for far too long. This is a life and death situation and we are leaving. Did you find what you were looking for? It's time to grow up. You can't just lock yourself in your mind lab."

Jen did not reply, and allowed her mother to drag her onto the transport ship. Other Naurorevo employees followed.

Yet, before she entered the transport ship, she could not help but glance back at Xeight. Her eyes seemed to be almost pleading. What for? Xeight did not know. In his eyes… he had long left the desired world of Jen MacLeod.