Chapter 4: Preparations for COD: Infinite Warfare

"Report!" Clutching his helmet in his arms, Ethan knocked on the oak door in front of him.

"Come in!"

Ethan pushed open the door and was greeted by a rising puff of smoke and the pungent smell of cigarettes.

Ethan coughed twice and finally fanned the smoke with his hand before he could see the man sitting in the recliner opposite him.

The dried skin was like the bark of a tree, and on top of this bark a scarlet mechanical eye was scanning everything in front of him, and below the electronic eye was a high hawkish nose and a large mouth with a cigar dangling crookedly.

He was dressed in a red and black spacesuit with a pair of crossed golden sword oak leaves at the nape of his neck and a dozen medals Ethan didn't recognise hanging from his left pocket.

"Sir?" Although his subconscious told him the man in front of him was familiar to him, Ethan still, cautiously, mentioned it.

"Well, it looks like you had a good meal on Earth!" The old general sat up straight, looked Ethan up and down, and nodded approvingly.

"Er, indeed!" The crops produced by the soilless farms were added with various trace elements and then made into a nutritional paste, which tasted like soap, except slightly salty, and the real food and stuff were only available to the top brass, but these officers who went to study on Earth could eat pure natural unpolluted special delicacies, so it's not like there weren't cases of Martian officers defecting over their meals.

"Humph, how was your study on Earth, tell us how you felt about it!"

"The army is disciplined, the society is prosperous and quick war is out of the question!" Ethan knew what this General Lefrancois wanted to ask. After a pause, he continued, "At present, Earth is highly united internally because of the aggressive stance of the Eighth Fleet, the military and the people are united, once the war starts, if we can't win quickly, then Mars will be in a place of no return!"

"Oh, An Aviation officer understands, what Salen Kotch just doesn't!" LeFrancois spat a mouthful of thick spit on the ground with disdain, followed by a few crunches of his military boots on it.

"One month, fourteen provocative incidents, shootings on both sides, brawls, many casualties, he's starting a war! Mars can't afford to be consumed by a protracted war!"

In fact, he was already preparing for war, and Ethan looked across at the cursing old man and thought to himself that if you saw how miserable you would look on the day of the war, you would probably just die of anger.

The infiltrating agents had taken control of the AA guns, only to have them snatched back so that even though the Eighth Fleet of Mars had nearly wiped out the Solar Alliance fleet it still dared not enter Earth's high orbit.

The Eighth Fleet was wiped out one by one in a guerrilla war, leaving only the Olympus Mons, and as a result, Salen Kotch lost his ship in a desperate raid on Earth's UNSA headquarters.

Such a crotch-pulling performance reminded Ethan of Tadamichi Nagumo, well, Infinite Warfare was the mapping of the World War II sneak attack on Pearl Harbor!

After cursing for a while, the old man stopped, looked at Ethan who was standing straight and said, "I'm going to send a group of the best officers from the Home Fleet to the Eighth Fleet!"

"To hollow out Admiral Salen Kotch?" Ethan was not surprised by this appointment, he had just had a chat with the civilian adjutant on the transport and the other had already told him about the officers the general had met in the past few days who belonged to him, plus his own status as an aviation officer who had just returned from Earth and was among the top talents in the fleet, so Ethan easily deduced the other's intentions.

"Yes and no!" LeFrancois gave a winning smile.

"I see!" If the Eighth Fleet succeeded in dealing with Earth, then the Home Fleet would also get a piece of the action, if not, then their junior officers in the Eighth Fleet would take control of Salen Kotch and use him as a scapegoat to negotiate peace with Earth.

"Oh yes, you've just come back from Earth, a few days of acclimatisation first, I think you'll remember how to drive a gale!"

"Er, maybe!" Ethan sweatdropped, maybe the Altas equipped F52 and the Berserker should have similar handling procedures!

"Well then, you've got two weeks to recover from training and then report to the USS Olympus Hill!"

"The USS Olympus Hill?" Ethan wondered a little, shouldn't the ship still be undergoing sea trials?

"Yes, the flagship of the Salen Kotch, the Olympus Mons, that is a collection of all the efforts of our Martian scientific staff, it will definitely blow your mind!"

"Then I'll see what happens, sir!"

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If on Earth, to become a pilot, you have to go through 300 to 500 hours of ground simulation training before you can sit behind a trainer for a few hundred hours and finally fly in front, whereas on Mars? all this is greatly compressed, after less than 50 hours of ground simulation, flight trainees go straight to the ship, and according to the words of some former Martian general, the most worthless thing on Mars is the equipment and people, if it breaks, it breaks, just replace it with a new one!

And they have the strength to do so, with the abundant titanium ore in Phobos and Titan, Mars has shipyards in Phobos. Pluto and Titan, producing equipment like hamburgers, while Earth's production schedule is far less than Mars' because resources need to be sent back from distant colonies.

"Sir, this is the robot assigned to you!" Ethan, who had not waited for a plane at the airport, instead waited for a tin head.

"The IR15 droid, it's here to be your weapons officer!" The logistics officer, dressed in white, pointed to the robot behind him.

"Weapons officer?" Ethan's face showed a look of surprise while inwardly he was sneering, because of the harsh environment of the exploited universe, both camps had a large number of complex models of robot soldiers in service, the multifunctional C6, the IR15 dedicated to combating, the heavy attack robot C8, and the robot main battle mech C12.

Of these droids, the C6 is designed so that it can do some battleship handling as well as flight assistance, while the IR15, given a volk energy assault rifle perhaps it could take out a platoon in thirty seconds, is asked to assist Ethan in the control of the fighter? Ethan would rather do it himself.

Not just Ethan, but all pilots and officers posted to the Eighth Fleet from the Home Fleet were given a droid follower.

"A connoisseur of infighting!" Ethan could only give a mental nod to the Eighth Fleet so that he would have more peace of mind when digging in behind him.

But while Ethan didn't mind, the other native-born Martians did, and a large bald man, almost two metres tall, tugged disgruntledly at the collar of the logistics officer's shirt.

"What do you mean, you're defending yourselves against us, aren't you?"

"We're all comrades in arms, we're all Martians, half brothers!" The logistics officer was helpless, he was just an ordinary groundskeeper, usually in charge of fixing planes and stuff, and Big Baldy was a major or an aviation officer, a proper first-class man, he really didn't want to get involved in this!

"The family sent a tin can to spy on me, you want to die, don't you?" The bald man was obviously not satisfied with this explanation and immediately swung his arm around and gave him a big slap on the ear.

The logistics officer covered his face and spun around in a big circle before collapsing to the ground, looking at Bald Head with eyes full of hatred.

"How dare you glare at me, you want to die!" Baldy tried to go up and add a kick, but he had just taken two steps when the side door of the hangar was ripped open with a crash.

"Stand at attention!" A bellow rang out, and out of the red smoke that swirled in from outside the room came a colonel in a red uniform, and on his chest hung a gold Flying Eagle medal, the ace symbol for reaching a hit count of 20.

"Sir!" The previously arrogant and domineering bald major immediately shrivelled up, the Martian army was a place where it was all about who had the biggest fists, and the presence of an ace pilot colonel could naturally hold down a bunch of pricks.

"You are given droids because we are about to go on a dangerous mission, pilots are a valuable asset to the fleet, the combat droids are assigned to you for your protection, besides, many of you are still studying on Earth, who knows if there are any spies in there!" The colonel said and gave Ethan a deliberate look.

"?" Ethan slowly typed out a question mark, not to mention the loyalty check after returning to Mars, there were about ten pilots in this batch who came back from Earth alone, you're staring at me? You're staring at me?

Ethan made up his mind, don't let me catch you in battle, I'll shoot you in the dark, and I'll even send your ashes into space.

"Commander Ethan, I heard you studied ship command at Kilimanjaro International Academy, but we are currently short of ships and have no ships to give you, so you can only fly fighters.

"No worries, it would be nice to serve my country and have a fighter jet to fly, and the Admiral was a pilot first after graduating from Kilimanjaro, I'm very honoured to follow in his footsteps!" Ethan could see that this guy was making an example of himself, the highest-ranking officer, and wanted to make an example of him, so he did.

Seeing Ethan cooperating like this, the colonel was like a punch on cotton, he had no place to send his anger, and Ethan was also saying Kilimanjaro left and right, which made the colonel feel as uncomfortable as eating flies.

The Kilimanjaro Military Academy was a complex military school set up on Mount Kilimanjaro in the early days of the Solar System Alliance, which trained many space officers, and even many officers of the Mars Colonial Army, which had not yet defected at that time, came from here, Admiral Salen Kotch also studied here when he was young. He would also give a warm greeting to his younger brother. In the event of a run-in that day, Ethan would tell a tale or something, and the admiral wouldn't care if the ace pilot under his command went to wash the deck and empty the toilets.

"All right, take the team back to quarters, the fighters are still in transit, meet at 0600 tomorrow morning for acclimatisation training!" The Colonel, who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity but couldn't, didn't bother to make rules and waved his hand for all personnel to line up and leave the hangar.

"See you tomorrow, then, Colonel!" Ethan stepped forward with great enthusiasm and extended his right hand.

"What a crapy habit!" Despite this muttering, the Colonel extended his hand, and as he shook it, the Colonel subconsciously glanced at Ethan's face.

"Good day to you!" The flames in Ethan's pupils reappeared and the Colonel froze for a couple of seconds, and by the time he reacted again, Ethan had already left with the others.

"Strange, what did I just do?"

....................................

"Whew!" Ethan took off his helmet and touched the sweat on his head, thought influence was a very psychic job, especially for these soldiers who had served for many years, the stare-down just now was only two seconds, but it still took a lot of energy from Ethan, the heat and sweat rising from his head made the thermostatic maintenance system of this combat suit too late to dissipate the heat, but the goal had been achieved, although at the moment his thought control was still But the goal had been achieved, and although his mind control was not yet able to make him do as he was told, whatever he did would take priority over Ethan's needs, and Ethan would be able to ask for things that would not cause him strong resistance.

Once back in his assigned quarters, Ethan kicked the IR15 off to the sleeping compartment in the living room to recharge and sat at his desk examining the energy pistol that had been issued to him only a short time ago.

It has to be said that with the development of technology, it is always the weapons that are ahead of the times. Take this EMC pistol in Ethan's hand, it is no bigger than the size of Ethan's palm, but its energy magazine can support 12 shots, and even if you don't use up the energy inside, the magazine can slowly recover its energy. And the maximum range is almost two hundred metres.

When it came time to collect the weapons, Ethan deliberately asked for two extra pistols and a bunch of magazines; his excuse was that I liked to use double guns when I was studying on Earth anyway, and the armoury keeper didn't ask much. If it wasn't for the fact that you can't carry a long gun on Mars, Ethan would have asked for another volk, which is known as the future version of the AK.

"Well, let's get some samples of weapons first then aircraft, the priority is to fix the engines and fire control radar, but I just don't know when they will be on board and about leap engines, oh yes!" Ethan snapped his head, he had forgotten the most important, "Artificial gravity systems!" The gravity of Mars was only a third of that of Earth, if one walked on it with a slight bounce one could jump a long way, but Ethan had been on this world for three days and felt nothing like he was on Earth, thanks to the artificial gravity, which to Ethan was even more important to the Altas's outer space exploration plans.

"Not enough people if you want to make a big mess!" Ethan said and looked over at the dormant IR15, he kind of regretted not learning any hacking skills, otherwise, he would have hacked this robot, and then hacked the row of C6s on the charging rack in the corridor outside, and a few dozen robots would have made some slight commotion and he would have been able to muddle through like crazy.

But the problem was that he knew nothing about this, so the robot riot plan had to be passed.

But Ethan didn't give up hope, the ace colonel pilot he had just met during the day had already been hinted at, and the next thing he knew, all he had to do was to work a little harder every day, and within ten days, the colonel would be his close friend, the kind who specialised in taking the fall for him. Just thinking about it, Ethan couldn't help but let out a lascivious laugh.

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Anthony Oskari, that was the name of the ace pilot, born on Mars he had a natural hatred for Earth, so when he saw others going to Earth for study or business he became very angry, these sons of bitches, does the air on Earth smell good, why do they all have to run to Earth, my Mars technology is the most advanced, you guys are a blatant betrayal!

He was especially depressed when he found out that he would be in charge of the rehabilitation training of this group of aviation officers deployed to the Eighth Fleet, but when he thought of Salen Kotch's mandate, the Colonel could only sigh silently.

In order to suppress the Earth fleet, the Eighth Fleet of Mars had been expanding, and although the Martian arsenal had sufficient warships, there had been a shortage of trained sailors and pilots, in the case of Salen Kotch's Mount Olympus, the ship was fully manned at 6,300, but there were now only 2,700 human crew members, with the rest of the vacancies being filled by C6s, and its hangar was fully loaded with what should be a coalition of thirty Rafale fighters (six on standby) now only one squadron was in place, with another waiting for pilots.

To fill these gaps, Salen Kotch has squeezed even more of the last vestiges of Mars' manpower, with adult males in service, women in production camps, children either in a military school or on the firing range, what, old people you say? Mars is 007 all year long, working overtime 24/7, and the elderly basically don't live past 50.

So the Eighth Fleet takes the men transferred from the Home Fleet very seriously, there may be problems with some of these men, but they are at least qualified soldiers.

Antonio's confidence was immediately boosted by the thought that he was on a great mission to raise Mars.

Only his confidence and fighting spirit were once again disturbed the next morning by Ethan.

"Ah, the Colonel is here, line up!" No sooner had Antonio reacted than Ethan was already in front of him saluting for instructions.

"Uh!" Antonio looked into Ethan's eyes as if there was a black hole that sucked him in.

......

"Colonel! Colonel!" A soft call woke up Antonio in a trance.

"Why, what is it?"

"Training is over for the day!"

"Oh-oh then dismissed! Good work!" Looking at Ethan, who was carrying his flying helmet with a head of sweat, Antonio suddenly felt that the other party's figure was suddenly taller, like the legendary hero that millions of people admired.

"Yes, thank you!" Ethan reached out to meet his eyes again.

One day, two days, three days, and by the time two weeks had passed, Antonio had become such a fervent believer that he would not have hesitated even if Ethan had asked him to jump naked from the Grand Canyon of Mars, and not only Antonio but also the officers who had trained with Ethan had been influenced by him in a way that was not too far from Antonio.

"I have a feeling that if I go round Rome, the Pope will have to step down his job!" Ethan was also amazed at the power of his psychic abilities, which he didn't dare to use when he was at Comic-Con, but at most used it slightly at shareholder meetings and during inspections of the grassroots, to shut up shareholders and wait for their share of the money, or to get his men to chant a few tawdry slogans.

"Boss, orders from Fleet Admiralty are here!" Just as Ethan was contemplating whether he should try his psychic powers with a trip to Hollywood to find some actresses, Antonio respectfully sent over a PDA.

"What's wrong?" Accepting the PDA, Ethan found that it was an order for training to end early and for all personnel to await assignment.

"The Mount Olympus is in port!" Antonio gestured silently overhead.

Ethan hastily lifted his helmet and rushed out of the hangar door to look up at the huge battleship that looked like a U-sucker in shape that had somehow been added to the orbital dock, high above the sky.

It was the flagship of the Eighth Martian Fleet, the Olympus Mons.

"The ship is 927 metres long, 151 metres high and 128 centimetres of titanium armour!" Looking at the huge starship, Ethan's face was filled with yearning.

"Boss, what now?" Antonio chased after him as well.

"Empty the hangar first! Then prepare to board the ship!" Ethan had already pushed his desire for the big battleship back into his heart and turned his head to run towards the hangar. In the tradition of a thief never leaving the hangar, he shoved all the maintenance equipment he could take with him, power supplies, maintenance robots and so on into the subspace, and luckily using his psychic energy every day for a while had increased his power a lot, so he could take it all, but the Gale fighter was still Even with Ethan's pale face, he couldn't stuff it in, so he had to let a bunch of maintenance droids and pilots work together to dismantle a Rafale, rolling away from its engines and radar and weapons systems before he could stop.

"Fuck, I'm exhausted!" It was only after pouring a few bottles of unpleasant nutritional fluid into his mouth hard that Ethan felt more comfortable, but he had also discovered some patterns about his power, the total amount of psychic energy was growing constantly after constant overloads like he had been using, and the Star Torch's light was returning much faster than before.

"If I'm strong enough, I'm afraid I won't even have a problem towing the battleship in, hiya, good grief, why didn't I exercise earlier!" Understanding over, Ethan could only look at the sky full of battleships and jump in anger.

"Earth's government, rotten and corrupt, they are like a pile of castles made of sand, we only need a gentle push and their faith, their fighting spirit, will completely crumble!

"Mars Aeternum!"

It was the largest fleet Ethan had ever seen, frigates, destroyers, carriers, hundreds of massive starships of varying lengths just resting silently in the high orbit of Mars.

From the ground, these ships were not very clear, but when a transport ship carried Ethan and the others high into the sky, Ethan was able to see the full extent of these steel beasts through the portholes of the transport.

Achilles' heel, the Ghost of Blood, Archimedes, the white outlines and names painted on the metallic titanium armour, despite the Martian regime's determination to wipe out Earth, they had a strong reverence for Earth's mythology and a whole host of ships were named after mythological characters or stories. Perhaps they feel that they are gods in comparison to Earth at the moment!

The most notable of these ships was the Olympus Mons, which was slowly pulling into the central area of the fleet. In the centre of the u-shaped hull was a huge ion engine, and above the engine was a huge cluster laser cannon.

In addition to this laser cannon, the Olympus Hill had two hangar exits on the side to drop flight squadrons, while at the two tops of the u-shape there were personnel drop ports to release landing troops.

"So where do we go now?"

"To the various battleships according to the list, Boss, the war is about to begin!" Antonio gave a bloodthirsty and maniacal smile, "But don't worry, I'll protect you on the battlefield!"

"No, do your own thing! Don't worry about me, just let me move freely!" Ethan saw the list of assignments, and on Antonio's strong recommendation he became a pilot in the 1st Squadron of the Aviation Wing of the USS Mount Olympus, whose commander was none other than Antonio.

"Yes, Boss!" If it wasn't for the fact that the personnel transfer of the Olympus Hill required permission from Salen Kotch, Antonio was going to let Ethan go straight to squadron leader and arrange for eight Rafale to be his bodyguard.

But Ethan refused, how would he pick up trash on the battlefield if he was protected, and to say bodyguard, there was also the silent robot in the back seat of his Rafale, which Ethan had named Fly Over because, in IR15 raid mode, the robot could sprint even a few points faster than Bolt. Combined with the short alloy blades on its robotic arms and rapid-fire machine guns, it's a god of alleyway killing.

The IR15 is also equipped with a more powerful processor and logic core, which provides effective feedback to Ethan's more complex verbal commands, and although it is not as versatile as the C6, it will be more accurate and effective in combat missions.

As if that wasn't enough, once aboard the Olympus, Ethan was given a minimum of 40 square feet of quarters, with one room and all the appliances, and even an ice cream machine from the logistics department if Ethan wanted it.

"I'm very sorry, that's all we can offer at the moment, as for mental needs, there will also be a boxing ring and training room on deck 33, well, if you need that kind of service, you can claim priority status for the pastime at fertility camps when the battleship is next in port!" The logistician who had come to the ice cream machine said respectfully to Ethan.

"No, thank you very much for that!" Ethan sent a few people out of the room before he lamented the treatment of Mount Olympus.

It seemed that Admiral Salen Kotch also knew the truth that the Emperor was no worse than a hungry soldier, and the soldiers on the ship enjoyed plenty of all-natural meat and fruit and vegetables every day, while the officers were allowed to sip a glass of wine every day. With plenty of food and fanatical propaganda, it could be said that everyone on Mount Olympus was the most hardcore Martian of all.

....................................

"Admiral, the fleet has been resupplied!"

"Very well, get me Fleet Command!"

"Understood!" The image of the Logistics Minister had just disappeared when the holographic projection again projected a huge conference room in front of Salen Kotch almost instantly.

"Admiral!" The dozen or so senior Martian military and political officers who appeared in the conference room nodded their heads in salute to Salen Kotch.

"Thank you, gentlemen! Thank you for coming to this meeting!" Salen Kotch spread his hands in welcome to the others.

"This ..." Seeing Salen Kotch's doings, a group of military and political officials looked at each other, knowing that after becoming the consul of Mars, Salen Kotch usually had a commanding tone when interacting with other personnel, but today he suddenly changed his tune, not a good comer!

But unlike the old men, several of the younger generals looked like they had guessed something and were flushed with excitement.

"Admiral, could it be?" A Rear Admiral asked tentatively.

"That's right, the Eighth Fleet has completed its integration and replenishment tasks, and we are about to depart!"

"An expedition?"

"Is the target the Mercury domain?"

"Isn't it a bit presumptuous to start another war at a time when relations between Mars and Earth are improving?"

"Can our logistical lines hold up?" The crowd of officials shouted.

Looking at these bickering officials, Salen Kotch was glad he hadn't given up his military power when he became consul, cowardly and incompetent bureaucrats would have only ruined his efforts!

"Enough!" Salen Kotch bellowed, stopping the din in the arena.

"Whether you admit it or not, willingly or unwillingly, the Eighth Fleet will depart, targeting Earth, and my men have infiltrated Earth during the year, waiting for an opportunity to destroy their orbital defences, while the Mount Olympus will also face the Terran fleet with a thunderbolt, and I will show them that those ships of theirs are, in the face of Mars, nothing more than a pair of expensive toys! Mars Aeternum!" By the end of the sentence, Salen Kotch's tone had taken on a murderous intent, and if these guys said no, then in less than ten minutes his gendarmerie would throw this guy into the sun!

"We, for one, will do our best to support the Eighth Fleet!" It was Admiral LeFrancois of the Home Fleet who finally clapped his hands, the old man's eyes half-squinted and looking as if he were asleep, Salen Kotch completely unaware of his presence.

"Thank you very much, Admiral, you'll just have to wait for the good news of victory!" With those words, Salen Kotch switched off the projection system, while a few words popped out of his mouth, "Old thing!"

Having overwhelmed all opposition with a single word, Salen Kotch then ordered the fleet to set sail, targeting Earth, while the Olympus Mons changed direction, there was one more thing he had to fix before he could tackle the Earth fleet!

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Jupiter's Domain

The tragic defeat of the last war has split Earth into two factions, the warlike and the peace like. The peace like politicians are like ostriches with their heads shoved in the sand, knowing only to lick the ass of Mars, just begging the other side not to raise the butcher's knife while they are in office, while the warlike military has learnt from their painful experience, they reflect on the reasons for Earth's defeat and try to develop new types of weapons as a way to break the high-tech superiority of Mars, and these powerful weapons cannot be placed on Earth, so the asteroids, moons within the Earth-controlled area become their first choice.

The secret laboratory, codenamed Rainbow, the mission of this laboratory is to develop new types of laser weapons for the UNSA military, but unfortunately, because of the betrayal of the Lord and politicians, the spies of the Mars fleet easily learn about this laboratory, in order to continue to ensure the superiority of Mars in terms of equipment, Salen Kotch decided to personally take action to solve this trouble!

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"All hands on battle positions!" The piercing battle alarm had just sounded when Ethan had already jumped into his fighter with his helmet on, he hadn't been back to his quarters since the departure of Mars and had been staying in the hangar.

"Whew~~" the fighter's engines ignited, and the vectoring nozzle on the tail of the Rafale gradually emitted an ear-splitting roar.

"Golden Squadron ready to depart, targeting opposing patrol aircraft, range six thousand kilometres, two-plane formation, they're flying in an air mass!" The tactical briefing was sent simultaneously to the heads-up display of Ethan's helmet.

"Sir, engines OK, flaps OK, weapons systems OK, ready to go!" After confirming that there were no problems with the fighter, the ground crew sent a communication.

"Roger, Golden Three, entering orbit now!" Casually turning the comms to the Flight Wing's dedicated channel, Ethan's fighter was then secured to a huge steel turntable, which rotated 180 and then slowly rose, sending the fighter into the launch orbit of the Olympus Mons.

Poof! The electromagnetic lock holding the fighter in place automatically unlocked and the electromagnetic catapult was attached to the landing gear of the Berserker.

"Three, two, one! Eject!" As the countdown expired, Ethan felt a strong force slam into him, pressing him dead into the fighter's seat and immobilising him, while the view on either side of the portholes receded wildly, and after a few more seconds, the pressure on the fighter suddenly disappeared, while the space outside emptied! Ethan had finished leaving the ship.

Because they were going to solve the problem in one fell swoop, the Olympus Hill's hangar didn't stop working after launching the play gold squadron, several other squadrons were also launched, only instead of going straight for the UNSA HoWs patrolling the air mass like the gold squadron, these fighters made a wide turn in the universe and flew towards the direction of Earth, disguised as reinforcements coming from the direction of Earth, and then clearing the orbital defences deployed.