Vesta, The Belt, June 23, 1000 Solar Era.
Bridgehead of Starship Oneiroi.
“This adjusted mission plan…” muttered Enine. “Very well.”
It might be inexplicable that someone like Xeight could improve such military endeavors. However, there has not been a space war or any major ground war for a thousand years. Especially not with the use of the neuro circlet system. This was very much a time of intuition.
“Coordinator. Execute this plan.”
“Yes, grand elder.” Asix began relaying and coordinating with the combat unit that controlled the many weapon clusters on board the Starship Oneiroi.
“Have we finished building an image of Vesta’s defense based on our sensory analysis?”
“Yes, grand elder.”
“Attention crew. The mission will now commence.”
“Deploying diffractive cloud.” Asix intoned.
In the hangar of Starship Oneiroi.
“T3ST-NEX unit. Setting off.”
Many neuro devices had attached itself to the three nexarm units, giving them a weapon porcupine look. This was to make it significantly easier to transport these weapons onto Vesta. Launching each piece of neuro armament device to reach the resource base was far more complicated.
Both Bone and Yfour had thirty-four channels, while Zseven had thirty-two. Xeight was very much a sudden anomaly with his forty-two channels. Some of these channels are used by the integrated sensory systems in the nexarm itself.
On another note, certain systems could not be attached to the nexarm, such as the drone swarms. As such, they had to be delivered separately to their destination.
“Launching drone swarms to destination.” Around ten containers shot off into space towards the bright-white Vesta one after another.
“Nexarm Bull. Launching.”
“Nexarm Skull. Launching.”
“Nexarm Eel. Launching.”
A launchrail shot the three units forth towards Vesta.
“Remember to restrain your energy usage so we remain in the dark. The starship will help give us cover.” Senior Zseven was mostly worried about Bone, who he felt lacked necessary restraint. Perhaps the stealth mode on the Nexarms would compensate for that.
In the bridgehead, Starship Oneiroi.
The starship began slightly tilting downwards relative to Vesta. It stabilized itself in a position where the front of the decagonal tube form pointed directly below the asteroid that is Vesta.
This slightly slanted position essentially placed the top surface of the ship at a fifteen degrees angle towards Vesta.
“Target-lock all potential defensive sites.”
“Yes, grand elder. Target locking.”
“Begin firing railguns!”
“Fire!”
The railgun on the top surface of the starship was already primed and with a sizzle of electric release, a large kinetic round was launched.
“Rotate!”
The starship rotated thirty-six degrees such that a second surface of the decagonal tube was on top.
“Fire!” A second railgun launched a second kinetic round.
Starship Oneiroi had ten railguns, each attached to a different surface of the decagonal tube that is the starship. In this slightly slanted position facing Vesta, the starship could rotate on its long axis in space, allowing the railguns to fire and take a rest to cool down before firing again. This slanted position also allowed the railguns to be able to adjust their aim at whatever target on Vesta that they needed to hit.
By now, five railguns had fired, each targeting a different military facility.
“Missile barrage!”
Many lids on the starships’ side opened and missiles flew out and looped towards Vesta.
“Barrage!”
Numerous turrets appeared and began firing without necessary proper aim as the starship continued rotating in space for the railguns to continue firing. These turrets weren’t meant to be all that threatening from such a range, but it served to ‘lightly’ pepper the defensive areas to limit mobility of forces.
After a minute of this barrage. Enine stood up from his seat.
“Blind them! Laser systems, fire!”
A few lasers fired and struck the previously set up diffractive cloud. Instantly, all the sensors on the ship turned static as the EM waves that bounced within that cloud completely blocked all their senses.
Meanwhile, Xeight had released many drone swarms. He did not activate any projectile or laser weapon devices, as there was more than enough fire power on board Starship Oneiroi. Instead he had picked a spherical type of drone swarm.
With his forty-two neuro channels, he could effectively control twenty-one swarms. He did not need to control each drone individually-- He simply needed to direct the swarm, and an AI would coordinate the drones within each swarm. All these swarms also provided sensory feedback and functioned as Xeight’s eyes.
Currently, twenty-one swarms wrapped themselves as various hovering defense shields around Starship Oneiroi. Xeight’s nexarm \remained inside the hangar-- he had no need to exit the hangar to control these drone swarms. Now, if he did not have the nexarm, he would not be able to control these swarms from such a far distance.
Grand Elder Enine repeatedly ordered the crew to laser the diffractive cloud as the railguns continued firing in the general direction of Vesta.
They could no longer accurately determine the target. The diffractive cloud, when hit by the laser systems both blinded themselves and the opponent.
However, that would not stay the same, for Xeight soon maneuvered a number of his swarms past and around the diffractive cloud. Thus, he was able to see anything approaching from Vesta. He further set up many of these swarms in layers that would further protect Starship Oneiroi.
He soon noticed quite a few railguns on Vesta that pointed towards their direction, and activated the tracking systems on the sphere swarms.
“Asix. Xeight here. The swarms past the blind have been set up and will track any projectiles. Linking tracking system to you.”
“Thank you, Xeight.”
At that very moment, a railgun fired at their location. Blinded as Vesta was, they managed to get a pretty good guess at their location due to luck.
“Laser defense systems. Fire!”
In response, intense lasers at the front of Starship Oneiroi combined an intense laser beam along the predicted path of the projectile of this enemy railgun.
The heat from the laser struck the round immediately after it traveled past the blind, and softened that round to the point where it flattened as a thick fluid and deflected off the slanted x-alloy hull of the starship.
Meanwhile, Xeight’s sphere swarms’ integrated sensory systems also began providing coordinates that the starship itself originally could not target-lock due to the blind in place.
Asix once again began coordinating the starship’s combat unit to fire accurately at these targets.
The defenses on Vesta did the same as the starship. They, too, attempted to use high-powered lasers to melt kinetic projectiles or detonate any missiles.
However, their success rate was significantly lower, seeing as they were unable to predict the path of projectiles-- Unlike Starship Oneiroi, they did not have devices on the other side of the blind that could track the position and angle of the opposing side’s weapons.
Through those spherical swarms, Xeight noticed a rather… funny scene. Someone defending Vesta had idiotically decided to fire a missile at one of their approaching missiles. These missiles had competent AI-directed functions. The result was that the missile fired from Starship Oneiroi made adjustments to its flight path to loop around and hit the target from another angle. This resulted in the defending missile attempting to change trajectory to chase after the other missile.
It quite naturally failed. This was precisely why the laser defense system was so important, as the AI on missile systems would struggle to respond in time.
It was under this artillery bombardment that Senior Zseven, Bone and Yfour landed onto Vesta.
The very moment they landed, the weapons attached to their nexarms separated themselves. Each of these devices was powered by an e-cube for their energy source, and they began spreading out.
The surface of Vesta was rather open but had quite a number of military facilities spread throughout in clusters.
“The terran military center is in that identified location on our shared navigation. Let us be about it.”
Bone’s devices covered the conal area of their travel direction, while Yfour covered the back right and Zseven covered the back left. Combined, their devices were rather dense in concentration and would notice any approaching enemies.
They weren’t particularly scared of friendly fire from Starship Oneiroi. The nexarms were fully capable of taking a few hits from kinetic rounds and would even recover given time for the collision energy to dissipate. Internal nanobots also provided emergency repair if needed.
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This was not the same for the terran defense force.
The current terran defense force on Vesta had no nexarms. The closest thing they had were large mechanized exo-armors around five meters tall.
A defender had noticed the three’s neuro devices perched everywhere and but his attempt to notify command was quickly foiled when a single kinetic round shattered his exosuit.
All the devices that were connected to this defender’s exosuit immediately powered down on their user’s death.
“Bone. Where did two of your crab swarms go?” Zseven suddenly noticed some of Bone’s neuro devices missing.
“Senior. I sent them to the civilian area. You never quite know who’s in charge of the police force on Vesta. They might assist the military.”
That was certainly not in the plan. Not in the adjusted or the original mission plan sent to them by Mars.
In the terran military command center on Vesta.
“Commander! We are unable to target-lock the enemy, They have a blind!”
“How are they striking us so accurately?”
“Swarms, Madam! There’s layers of them between us and the blind!”
“Immediately set up a blind in between us and these swarms! I will be requesting backup from Ceres!”
Commander Zulu would love it if she could position swarms behind the blind, such that she could see the attacking ship properly. That was unrealistic-- there was no way for her to quickly break through the layers of spherical swarms that Xeight had already set up.
______________________________________________________________________
EFSS in orbit around Earth, June 23, 1000 Solar Era
“Sorry, Commander Zulu.” Admiral Petrov was staunch. “We are unable to provide any support. You may not care about my reasons, but I believe it necessary that you understand my position. I grew up in an orbital colony and have somewhat interacted with the martian fleet.”
“Historically, more often than not, the martian fleet only truly fought when they had a significant advantage. That is why their past skirmishes with the belt’s pirates often involved either running or chasing, and never anything in between.”
“I cannot risk losing Ceres. It is my belief that Ceres would be attacked if I were to mobilize forces from there. Protect your soldiers’ lives. The EFSF is in a state of rapid expansion. We will not forget your contribution. You may be a prisoner of war for some time, but not for long.”
The man saluted as he ended his message. This message would take a bit over twenty minutes to reach Vesta. By the time this message reaches Commander Zulu, close to an hour would have passed.
“Is the construction near completion?”
“Yes. Three S-class ships are nearing completion. Five A-class ships are in the final testing stages. Many B and C-class ships are already ready. Thank you, compatriots. I will leave the rest to neurorevo reps.” The words came from a man of a similar appearance to James MacLeod. He was George MacLeod. The surrounding representatives all nodded with joyous smiles.
The starships’ construction efforts were only so quick with the cooperation of most of the orbital colonies. Once the rapidly trained EFSF forces occupied these new state-of-the-art starships… there will be a reckoning.
Originally, many wanted to find fault with the Kasvallian Group’s lack of contribution. However, the Kasvallian Group had shown up eventually and announced their intention to rebuild Warsaw. Thus, those complaints became void.
This also played a role in Admiral Petrov’s decision. Commander Zulu’s message indicated there was an A-class starship, no doubt, stolen from Neurorevo. One ship? The martian fleet must be elsewhere, silently waiting!
_____________________________________________________________________________
Unidentified Space, June 23, 1000 Solar Era
“Any movement?” Vice-admiral Zheng furrowed his brows.
“None, sir.’ Khan replied. “The battle has started. Ceres should have been notified and begun moving.”
“Is our buoy defective?”
“No, sir. Our multiple buoys observing Ceres are all functioning properly.”
“Wait a while longer.”
“Yes, sir.”
____________________________________________________________________________
Vesta, The Belt, June 23, 1000 Solar Era
“Commander. Our diffractive blind is ineffective. They are still hitting our missile launch systems accurately. They have chosen to ignore our railguns.”
Commander Zulu was perturbed. Their diffractive shield should have… it was then that she realized. The enemy must also have eyes on the surface of Vesta.
Indeed, that was so. Zseven had long sent his crab swarms, much more suited for the surface compared to the spherical swarms, to many high points on top of the defense structures on Vesta. These swarms had long been transmitting their data to Starship Oneiroi.
Combined with the Xeight’s sphere swarms that now laid in the area between the two blinds, Asix was able to perfectly coordinate offense and defense with precision.
“Ground squad! Report status!” Commander Zulu anxiously yelled.
“Commander. This is Lieutenant Benoit. We’ve lost a few members but we haven’t detected any enemies on the surface. It’s likely some of them were unlucky and got hit by a few stray kinetic rounds or shower pellets. I will rendezvous with--” The connection was suddenly cut off and only static noise could be heard.
Commander Zulu balled her fists. The enemy had definitely reached the surface.
In another area on Vesta.
It was almost too easy. An absolute cakewalk. The nexarms designed for space naturally had an incredibly long-ranged connection to their neuro devices, in addition to their x-alloy plates that provided defense and stealth qualities.
This made it impossible for the defensive ground force to detect the three invaders with their neuro devices before getting struck by any sniper systems being operated by Bone, Yfour, or Zseven.
The detection systems built into the military complex would have normally detected their presence. However, the initial barrage from Starship Oneiroi had caused untold damage to these systems. The follow-up and continuing barrages with the EM-wave screen certainly made it worse for the commander trying to organize the defense.
User. We have been detected.
Bone chuckled at the notification from the nexarm’s AI. He had been expecting this, but to think that the detection systems on Vesta had been so extensively crippled in but a few barrages. Either it was luck or Asix’s coordination skill. Or possibly the technology of the new starship.
He spotted another meandering enemy exo-armor. A single kinetic round and the five meter exo armored soldier was promptly pulverized, and all the neuro devices attached to said soldier promptly disabled.
With much of the ground force already downed, vast areas of the defense built on these pilots controlling multiple neuro devices over their own individual zones became practically defenseless zones. If they had even survived for a few seconds extra, they might have been able to notify the others. But their exo-armors, which weren’t constructed with the x-alloy, were simply outdated for this day and age of battles in space.
Bone’s senses discovered that the enemy had finally organized themselves properly. The detection of his unit had allowed the defending side to rally six five-meter tall exo-armors together. He attempted to strike the group but the six exo-armors split apart and began maneuvering towards their location while performing a non-uniform zigzagging motion with their thrusters, making it difficult to strike them accurately.
“Bone!” Senior Zseven sounded frantic through the comms. “We need to stealth our units. With our sensory and detection advantage, we can maintain our distance and stall them out. Their energy supplies will quickly be drained performing this dodging maneuver.”
“Senior Zseven,” Bone sighed. “No disrespect, but there’s no need to play this safe! I will meet them head-on! There’s barely any area to hide in anyway!”
The buildings on the surface of Vesta were purely for military use. They were sparse facility clusters spread across the surface.
“Let’s perform this maneuver that Xeight placed into the mission plan!”
Although Senior Zseven was supposed to lead the team, he had to admit he was not at all experienced in combat. He always saw his role as protecting the youngsters that had been trained for this. Thus, he agreed to Bone’s approach.
The three lined up with Bone in front and engaged their thrusters towards one target, as they lightly tapped against the surface of Vesta.
A kinetic round suddenly came flying from the front, but Bone only tilted his nexarm slightly as the round deflected off the plate.
Suddenly, multiple holes in the ground opened up in front of them to reveal a multitude of turrets! They began rapid-firing at the three.
“Did I not say that this was not a good idea?!” Zseven yelled.
“Shut up and switch!”
Bone’s unit slowed and moved to the rear of their line. His nexarm quickly dissipated the heat from the turret rounds as Zseven’s unit now took the brunt of the heat.
Their sniper devices perched on some buildings began firing, and the stationary turrets were rather easy targets.
They kept rotating and angling themselves such that the nexarm at the front would take most of the rounds before switching to the back to recover. Soon, all surrounding turrets were destroyed, and Bone drew a vibrating dagger from the back of his nexarm, and with a single swing, the exo-armor they were aiming for was sliced in half, including the body of the man inside.
That soldier quite literally had his body dissected at the waist, and his internal organs spilled and steamed upon contact with the ice cold space environment.
Soon a second soldier and his exo-armor were split apart, but he laughed maniacally as he died., “Your snipers are done!”
Bone stared into this man’s dying eyes with a mocking expression. Were they?
The other four soldiers had directed swarms that they controlled to seek out the sniper systems that Bone, Yfour and Zseven had hidden.
However, Bone, Yfour and Zseven had long positioned their crab swarms to protect the sniper systems!
The three’s crab swarms completely dissipated their enemy swarm. Seeing as the three had over thirty neuro channels, the number of swarms they controlled far outstripped even the combined swarms of the remaining four soldiers. These normal terran soldiers only had, on average, six-to-eight neuro channels.
In a short five minutes, all these soldiers met their demise at the three nexarm units’ dagger blades. A few even began accelerating their exo-armor away in panic, only to be struck by a kinetic round. They had forgotten the necessity to perform irregular maneuvers to avoid being hit.
As such, the military command center on Vesta soon found itself also surrounded by many crab swarms and sniper systems that began bombarding the facility alongside the continuing barrage from Starship Oneiroi.
A white flag was quickly raised above the military center.
Out walked Commander Zulu of the EFSF followed by the remaining lieutenants directly under her command, all in their spacesuits.
Commander Zulu had just received the message from Admiral Petrov.
She raised her head and the three nexarms opened communications through the neuro circlet system to the EFSF comms.
“We surrender.” Commander Zulu bit her lips as she gazed at the three dominating twenty-meters tall nexarms.
A lieutenant added, “we expect proper treatment as prisoners of war.”
At this moment, another voice sounded through.
“Commander… Commander! A swarm of crab automatons have killed fifty civilians!”
The row of lieutenants following Commander Zulu immediately began yelling obscenities into their connected comms.
“You murderers! Civilians are non-combatants!!”
“You don’t deserve this resource node, you son of--”
A shadow of a large hand descended and the man was instantly crushed into pulp, his crimson blood splattering onto the frozen compatriots to his sides.
“I, Bone, and my people, have suffered years in the belt. So what if a few of these civilians died? They deserve it. They had occupied such an important resource point and never given any assistance to us! If they had rebelled, then I would see them in a better light!”
“Bone, those crab swarms that disappeared earlier… you…”
“Senior Zseven. You’ve seen the friends that had grown up with you die simply because their bodies failed due to the experiments done on our ancestors. These… these rats that continue to stay on Earth’s side even when Mars and so many in the belt are in revolt. This is their true face. Don’t you understand? If we have suffered for so many generations, what if a few of these rats, who continue to stay on Earth’s side, died? They only deserve it! A thousand times over!”
___________________________________________________________________________
Unidentified Space, June 23, 1000 Solar Era
“Vice-admiral. There continues to be no movement from Ceres.”
“Hmm. Perhaps, they are simply waiting.”
“Vice-admiral! Vesta has been taken!”
“What?! With the mission plan we gave them, it should have taken longer. Perhaps that would have eventually drawn the indecisive in Ceres to reinforce Vesta!”
“Sir,” Khan muttered. “I do believe we never indicated to them that they were to intentionally drag out their attack on Vesta.”
Vice-admiral Zheng sighed. Indeed, they had not expected the T3ST unit to win. They had expected Ceres to reinforce Vesta, which should have placed the T3ST unit on the backfoot and thus firmly under their thumb. At the same time, they would be able to take Ceres while those EFSF troops remain mired at Vesta.
With the T3ST unit’s victory, Ceres now certainly would not reinforce Vesta.
“To Vesta. Let us set up a new line of defense there.”