Mars was finally within reach.
According to the pre-war plan devised by Azure General Staff, three source energy vessels, including the mothership Zenith's Blade, hung back in concealment to serve as a fallback contingency in case of defeat. The remaining sixty-three ships closed in directly upon the crimson extraterrestrial battlefield.
Humanity's first extraterrestrial war was on the verge of erupting.
Bearing down from above as an aerial armada, looking down on the battlefield and the swarm of Great Spikes from high overhead, offered an unspoken thrill to soldiers who had spent half their lives crawling through the mud and living through the terrors of the Great Spikes' sky-blanketing invasion.
Yet they now found themselves in an extremely awkward predicament: humanity still had no idea how this war ought to be fought.
Before departure, Azure's staff officers had drafted numerous contingency plans. But none possessed clear intelligence on the battlefield environment; even the enemy situation had been pieced together from Pegmont's chaotic ramblings. Drafting them had essentially been an exercise in fulfilling due diligence and making an effort.
In truth, many decisions could only be judged once they reached the front line.
This was precisely why Wen Jifei had insisted on coming.
It wasn't that he believed Azure's commanders were incompetent, but rather that the success or failure of this battle directly concerned Qingzi, Xu'er, Rusty Sister, Tangtang, Yang Qingbai... Under no circumstances could he entrust their lives and fates to someone else's hands.
"Reporting, battlefield communication array deployed and verified. Ready for operational status."
"Reporting, planet-to-ground communications deployed and verified. Latency assessment underway."
"Reporting, battlefield observation grid established. Entering operational status."
"Reporting, secondary battlefield observation grid established, ready to take over at any moment. Entering operational status."
Of the 240 "Find Peg"-class space exploration craft and their modified variants brought along by the fleet, 160 were dispatched immediately, simultaneously shouldering communication and battlefield surveillance duties.
The crisp, solemn reports delivered one after another by fleet officers swiftly pulled the expedition back to the state of tension it rightfully demanded.
"Good. Gather intelligence as quickly as possible. No need to compile it—report in real time," General Yelgena said steadily. At the same time, his hands rested unconsciously on his knees, his tightly clenched fists damp with sweat.
He was seventy-one years old. He had fought Great Spikes his entire life in Azure and served as a commander for decades, yet he couldn't remember how long it had been since he had felt this nervous.
The catastrophic defeat of his old friend and disciple Siglo in Antarctica, along with the image of Siglo dying in remorse beneath the polar tractor field, played through his mind like an inescapable nightmare, suffocating him.
As a seventy-one-year-old Azure soldier, General Yelgena had long ceased to fear death when joining this expedition. But he feared defeat. If this battle ended in failure, the guilt he would bear toward the fleet's one hundred thousand troops and the whole of humanity would weigh far heavier and deeper than Siglo's ever had.
"Logically speaking, launching an immediate surprise attack would undoubtedly be our best course," General Yelgena said into the microphone after making an effort to steady his state of mind.
The expedition staff officers present nodded in silence, their eyes brimming with earnest hope and prayer.
If the Great Spikes' tractor field stood right there in the open, if they were unprepared... the expeditionary fleet would without question launch an immediate air strike, diving straight toward the tractor field with all sixty-three source energy ships while concentrating high-end combat power led by Major Qing to launch a decapitation strike on the Daie, settling everything in one stroke.
Only after that would they consider the task of finding Pegmont.
"Agreed." That was indeed the best-case scenario. Wen Jifei concurred as well, then fell silent, waiting.
Outside the conference room, Rusty Sister had already donned her iron armor. The weapon at Qingzi's side had switched from a single long blade back to his iconic twin blades and twin pillar swords. Every warrior aboard had put on their source energy dead iron respirators, finished pre-battle inspections, and stood in formation, primed for combat.
Master Dosang Gyatso had also put on a set of full armor—the Great Spikes certainly wouldn't engage him in a bare-handed brawl—with a long blade strapped at his side. Perhaps because he had never set foot on a battlefield before, he was trembling slightly with nerves... or perhaps with excitement and anticipation. In any case, the old man did his best to conceal it.
General Jiang couldn't find his little hatchet... He went to look for it, then forgot what he was looking for, and finally forgot what it was he had forgotten.
Shen Fengting drew the small hatchet from behind his waist and handed it over. "Take it. Stay with me later. I am Lieutenant General Shen Fengting, and you are my personal guard. Understood?"
"Oh." Jiang Longchi nodded, then glanced sideways toward Han Qingyu. "Then who's that? I feel like I know him... Is he my grandson?"
"No... Whatever you say," Shen Fengting replied.
"Reporting, preliminary reconnaissance has not located the tractor field. The Refusers request authorization for small reconnaissance craft to conduct a close-range sweep. Awaiting orders."
"Reporting, Great Spikes on the surface are relatively concentrated. Current visual estimates put their numbers around fifty thousand, with one Daie confirmed among them. Further observation underway."
"Reporting, preliminary counts indicate approximately two hundred Great Spike craft patrolling the airspace, densely blanketing the skies directly above the swarm's encampment. One mothership has been identified, with the remainder predominantly large and mid-sized craft. Surface-docked vessels remain unverified."
The stream of tactical reports plunged the spirits of General Yelgena, Wen Jifei, and every staff officer present straight to rock bottom.
A surprise attack had become nearly impossible.
On one hand, the tractor field's position remained unknown. On the other, a massive fleet of Great Spike craft maintained constant aerial patrols, blanketing the operational theater.
This meant air superiority belonged to them. And it would belong to them from beginning to end.
They recalled Pegmont mentioning earlier that when he had launched his lone assault against the tractor field, his ultimate failure had been caused by the relentless interception and ramming from the patrolling Great Spike ships.
He had also said that at the time, the tractor field had been located underground.
These were likely tactical adjustments and lessons the Great Spikes had developed after the Total Incursion War and their half-year occupation of Antarctica. And today, those very adaptations choked off the expeditionary force's single most advantageous strategic option.
Fifty thousand. Two hundred. Those two numbers weighed heavily on everyone's minds, crushing their emotions and clouding their thoughts.
Fifty thousand was an enormous force. Though far fewer than what had gathered in Antarctica, the expeditionary force numbered merely one hundred thousand. Even with humanity's massive leaps in source energy combat capability, a two-to-one battlefield ratio remained a recipe for slaughter.
What was worse, fifty thousand was only an initial estimate.
"Actually, we never planned on waging an all-out war against them," a staff officer spoke up. "So if it's fifty thousand, let it be fifty thousand. That's already far better than our worst-case projections."
In a sense, he was right. This was not Antarctica, nor was it the Lost Continent expedition. When the expeditionary force had brought only a hundred thousand troops, neither Azure nor the troops themselves had ever intended to line up across the plains of Mars for a full-scale war. Their sole purpose here was to kill the Daie, destroy the tractor field, and find Pegmont.
Once those objectives were achieved and Mars was secured, the war would enter its next phase: larger human contingents from Blue Star would arrive to conduct follow-up mop-up operations.
The true, far more lethal threat was the two hundred Great Spike craft patrolling above. Their very presence and roving formation snuffed out every favorable scenario for the expeditionary force. Worse, they possessed the strength to annihilate the entire expeditionary fleet before the war even properly began.
A three-to-one numerical disadvantage in the air was more than enough for them to hunt down and scatter all human source energy ships, or smash them to pieces across the void of space.
"Order the fleet to pull back collectively first." Although they were still a good distance away, they had to retreat further. General Yelgena's voice sounded cautious and laced with helplessness. "Also, compile the current intelligence and transmit it back to the ground. Request decision-making support from General Staff."
"What do you think, Second Lieutenant Wen?" he asked.
"Agreed," Wen Jifei replied tersely.
General Yelgena then turned to the staff officers present aboard the Mechanical Cradle. "The rest of you may also deliberate on subsequent options—for instance, whether it is feasible to dispatch several small detachments to land on Mars first, conducting reconnaissance while searching for Major General Pegmont..."
"Report!" This sudden shout carried intense urgency and panic. "Abnormal movement detected among the surface Great Spike craft! Ships are launching, while a portion of the airborne craft have begun climbing, fanning outward in an arc!"
Discovered?!
After all their caution, at such a distance, had they still been spotted? The exploration craft hadn't even closed in for reconnaissance yet, and wasn't the distance Craft 066 was at supposed to be safe? Could the Great Spikes detect large-scale source energy fluctuations in the atmosphere? Regardless of the cause, everyone's heart leapt into their throat.
They had been spotted. As soldiers, they could not wage war on wishful thinking and prayers. The movement of the Great Spike craft was almost certainly aimed at the fleet, whether they had detected the fleet itself or the exploration craft. While there remained a slim chance this was merely a routine sweep, they could not afford to gamble on that possibility. With the limited assets at their disposal, they had no room for recklessness. Even if their assessment proved wrong, they had to respond immediately.
"Order the fleet to accelerate its retreat and quickly find a position to conceal themselves." General Yelgena's voice remained steady, a reflection of the veteran commander's long service, but he had already risen to his feet.
"Yes, sir!" The staff officers responded briskly, preparing to transmit the orders.
"No!" Wen Jifei's voice cut through. "We cannot retreat, General."
The command bridge of the Mechanical Cradle fell deathly still. All commands were paused, and eyes turned toward the communicator speaker on the wall.
"Our modified ships suffer a performance gap. If we retreat now and they expand their search and aerial sweep radius, we will never make it back," Wen Jifei said grimly. "And in all likelihood, we will be wiped out in the ensuing void skirmish."
"...Correct." General Yelgena did not let pride make him stubborn. He asked, "Then what do we do now?"
"It's impossible that they've already detected our entire fleet. Spreading out in an arc means they are searching—that is my assessment," Wen Jifei said.
"Agreed. Go on," General Yelgena said, doing his best to regain his composure. He knew his mindset was slightly off, perhaps even compromised, but it was hard to rein in.
"Therefore... we take the initiative and dispatch a small contingent of ships to strike the Great Spikes' concentrated area, drawing their attention. Meanwhile, the main body of the fleet can seize the opportunity to detour around and execute a rapid landing on the opposite side of Mars. After touchdown, leave ten ships behind to dig underground as quickly as possible, serving as living and hiding quarters for the troops. The remaining ships will make no permanent landing; they will hover at low altitude to deploy ground forces, take off immediately, and disperse in small squads across multiple vectors to seek cover. Then, acting as a suicide squadron, they will await the command for a final death charge."
Wen Jifei pressed on.
Chapter 905