Location: Mars, and Mars Orbit, United Commonwealth of Colonies

PFC Billy Coleson stood at the base of the ridgeline. Boulders that had fallen into position thousands of years ago offered cover and concealment from any prying eyes. His V2 LACS’ sensors scanned the area around him and returned a plaintive beep: negative findings.

“For a planet that’s under siege, it’s way too quiet here,” Billy muttered to himself as he left the boulder he was using for cover and started back up the slope.

“What was that?” his squad leader asked.

Billy winced at the SGT’s words. He was still getting used to TACCOM and STRATNET being down. The squad of HI tasked with protecting orbit defense cannon Delta-Six-Six were communicating based on a portable node that had been flown out to their position when the nets went down. The node used laser-burst and line of sight tech. It was good for several kilometers of coverage, and would even daisy chain responses to other nearby nodes if contact could be made with someone linked to it. In that way, the Mars defenses had created a semaphore system based on the outdated node technology. It led to more hurry up and wait than usual, but there wasn’t really much of a choice without the nets the entire infantry had come to know and love.

“Nothing, Sarge. Everything looks clear out here.” Billy replied.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” stated another PFC occupying an observation post five hundred meters up the rock face. “Second fleet is gone. They took out the cannons in orbit, and the satellites have to be down if we’ve got no network access. Everything in the planetary assault handbook says warships should be taking up overwatch position over strategic targets and landing troops. They don’t need to take all of Mars to own it, just a few dozen key locations.” Everyone in the squad knew those strategic locations were the most heavily defended, which was why seeing nothing going on was so unsettling. Combined with the communications issues, it had everyone’s nerves on edge.

“Lock it up,” the SGT ordered. “We need to keep the node clear for incoming orders.” To Billy’s ears, the SGT didn’t sound his usual confident self.

Billy took a glance up into the sky and his LACS optics zoomed in on the target. In the upper atmosphere an enemy ship was in geosynchronous orbit. The thing was huge, bigger than the assault carriers he’d seen in Mars’s orbit before this whole thing kicked off.

It was a real headscratcher.

He guessed it made sense not to shoot at the things that had just torn through second fleet if they weren’t shooting at the planet, but Billy knew in his gut this couldn’t last forever. It was the proverbial calm before the storm, and Billy didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it finally hit.

***

ADM Tamika Reyes rubbed her eyes and snapped her fingers. Her staffer obeyed and placed a small vial into her open palm. She unscrewed the vial’s top and tipped it up to deposit a single drop in each of her eyes. The contents did two things. First, they acted as a stimulant, and second, they provided instant relief for the dryness in her eyes. Endlessly staring at a holo-tank was hell on her vision.

“Report,” she ordered.

“Nothing, ma’am,” the haggard comms officer replied with no hesitation. “We’re getting nothing from the latest set of hails.”

the ADM didn’t know what else to do.

She’d always wanted a fleet command, but this was never how she wanted to get it. ADM Blackbird had been a mentor and friend to her for decades. Tamika was Janet’s hand-picked successor to the important role of Mars’s defender. Now, Janet was dead, and Tamika’s fleet command involved millions of ground pounders who had little faith in her infantry tactics, and the fleet screening and support vessels that had scattered away from Mars when second fleet’s final defense posture failed. Even worse, she couldn’t talk with any of those ships. TACCOM and STRATNET were still down, and the news coming from her team wasn’t good. Whatever the enemy had done, they’d crippled communications.

She didn’t bother pestering the poor CMDR tasked with getting the network back up. He was one request away from a heart attack.

“Admiral,” a gravelly voice accompanied the swish of the bunker’s doors opening.

“Admiral,” Tamika tried not to roll her eyes. Admiral Garrett, despite being a legendary ground commander, was becoming a legendary pain in her ass. He clearly thought he should be in command, especially since second fleet was gone, but the navy was the senior service. Garrett might be the head of the infantry, but Mars was second fleet’s responsibility. “How go the fortifications?”

“All of our shelters are filled with personnel ready for subterranean deployment in the event of troop landings. Fabricators are running at maximum capacity to produce food and spare parts.”

“So, holding off on targeting and firing on the orbiting ships was a good idea then?” she turned to face the much larger man with her own confident smile.

Garrett had wanted the powerful land-based defense cannons to open fire before the enemy could get into position. Since the unknown ships had just blown through second fleet with few casualties, Tamika had her doubts about even the powerful cannon’s effectiveness. She’d ordered everyone to hold fire unless fired upon. Garrett argued she was ceding the initiative to the enemy, but she thought she was just being practical. In the meantime, they’d been allowed to ramp up production on everything from beans to bullets. Mars and its vast resources were ready for a siege.

A siege was something she was ready to commit to. Second fleet might be gone, but they’d wounded the enemy. The enemy was not invincible. She didn’t have data of the battle thanks to her systems being taken out, but she had visuals. She was imagery of second fleet’s energy weapons pounding through enemy shield, splitting the hull and goring them to their core. These enemies were tougher than anyone she’d ever seen, but they were beatable. Janet had sacrificed herself to show everyone that.

The number of ships amounted to fleets, with a S, and she left the logistical tidbit for people not under siege to figure out. All she needed to do was survive.

“Comms,” she turned away from the infantry ADM.

“Nothing ma’am,” switching to one of the alternative messages.

Tamika had them hailing the enemy every five minutes, but so far, they hadn’t even acknowledged Mars. Despite that being in violation of every human treatise concerning warfare. Even a hail about negotiating surrender was ignored. The last one had Tamika worried.

“We need to…”

“Ma’am, I’m getting a massive energy spike from the enemy ships!” a petty officer near the holo called out.

“Send the alert,” Garrett announced over whatever Tamika was about to say.

She glared at the man, but didn’t want to get in a pissing contest right before a planetary invasion unlike anything Mars had ever experienced. Several seconds passed, which became minutes, and nothing occurred.

“Ma’am,” the petty officer not had a chief looking over her shoulder. “The energy build up is still occurring, but we aren’t getting any reports of anything coming down at us.”

“What the hell are they up to?” Garrett frowned, and Tamika couldn’t help but agree.

Everything about this engagement had been unorthodox from the beginning.

***

To anyone with eyes on the enemy ships, the energy buildup was visible. The spine of the ships set up in a spiraling helix between Mars and Phobos lit up like the fourth of July. Everyone had been perplexed when the enemy pulled half its remaining strength and repositioned it between Mars and its closest moon, and assumed it might be some logistical or resupply formation. Whatever it was, they hadn’t seen anything out of those ships until now. But now that they were lit up, it was obvious they were the point of main effort, not the ships in orbit.

It was obvious because Phobos started to wobble. A moon that had been in orbit around Mars for millions of years was starting to shift.

Orders were passed for the defense cannons across the planet to open fire. With the moon only being six thousand kilometers from the surface of Mars, that meant the enemy ships were all in spitting distance. No sooner had the cannons started to aim and charge than they were brought under bombardment. The ground forces got to see firsthand how much more powerful the enemy’s energy weapons were than anything they’d face before. Dozens of cannons, their crews, and their garrisons were wiped off the map before they even got into firing position. In some cases, whose ridgelines, hills, and small mountains were blasted down to the bedrock.

But the defense’s quantity was their saving quality. Despite staggering losses in the first few seconds, cannons were able to open fire. Still outclassed, the defense cannons still pounded the enemy ships repeatedly until they were wiped out.

All during the brutal engagement, Phobos continued to become more and more unstable.

The crew at PFC Billy Colseon’s cannon gave out a ragged cheer as their cannon finally broke through an enemy ship’s shields. Billy could see hull plating explode outward, but there was no expulsion of atmosphere or any bodies. His final thought before the same ship turned its weapons on Delta-Six-Six was wishing they’d done more. A direct hit vaporized Billy, the cannon, and anything else for a quarter-kilometer.

Just like the ground defenses were struggling with the ships, the ships were struggling with Phobos.

“Are they doing what I think they’re doing,” Tamika couldn’t keep her voice from rising to a near panic. Garrett didn’t answer, but he visibly paled at the possibility.

Within twenty minutes all of the ground cannons with line of sight on the enemy ship formation were down, and it would take time for other cannons to rotate with the planet and bring sustained fire on the enemy. That was time they didn’t have. All anyone could do was watch helplessly as the ship’s spine’s flared, and Phobos broke free of Mars’s gravity.

The eleven kilometer ball of rock traveled down the helix path of enemy ships, which looked frighteningly like a rifle barrel; now that people bothered to give it their full attention. It picked up a surprising amount of speed, propelled by whatever energy technology the enemy ships engaged, until it hit Mars’s atmosphere.

Tamika couldn’t help but gulp as the headquarter’s AI traced the path of the incoming projectile. It wasn’t skipping across the atmosphere as much as smashing through it. There was going to be some drift, now that it had left the path provided of the enemy ships, but it was clear where she was sitting, the capital of Mars, and nexus of its defenses, was the intended target.

“Fucking geniuses,” Garrett chuckled from behind her. “Those definitely aren’t humans up there,” his chuckle became a laugh, and the bunker’s staff looked back at him like he’d gone mad. “It’s true,” he got a hold of himself. “They turned their ships into a giant fucking gauss cannon. Their spines are probably magnetic accelerators…fucking brilliant. No way can we do anything like that with even our new tech. This ain’t the Blockies, Windsor’s, or some other human group. This is some Hegemony shit right here. Those ET bastards told us right when they met us. The Twigs made it clear that Clause D of the Compact of the Hegemony of Peace and Tranquility of Sapient Beings stated they couldn’t speak for other races. None of the aliens we talked to have said any different.”

Tamika was too busy dealing with impending death to care about an alien treaty.

“Fuck!” Garrett’s hand slapped into the top of a console with enough force to make the room jump. “We’re going to be fighting some tentacle-looking asshole tomorrow and I won’t be here to see it.”

That was about the time the shockwave of the incoming moon reached the capital. It hit like the punch of an angry god. People had cleared the streets hours ago, but trees, cars, anything not bolted down, and sometimes lower-grade buildings were flattered and tossed through the air. Everything shattered, even the shatter-resistant stuff. Buried deep in the ground, the command bunker still heard and felt the boom.

It was only the preamble to the end. The moon itself came barreling through the atmosphere like hellfire trailing black smoke across the sky. It had shed about a third of its mass during its fall, but that was still nearly a nine-kilometer projectile heading for the planet’s surface.

Tamika wondered how fast it was going, and would have to wait until she got to heaven, was reborn, or ascended to whatever plane of existence awaited her to find the answer. The impact point was a few kilometers outside the actual capital, but when it was nine-kilometers wide, that didn’t much matter. The capital of Mars was obliterated, the command bunker smashed into dust.

The flash of the impact, could be seen from Earth with the naked eyes, and was later measured to be as powerful as ten billion nuclear weapons. The Commonwealth would just have to wait and see if it was an extinction level event, but one thing was sure, the fortress of Mars had fallen.

All that was left was Earth.