Patriot's Blood

Canis, located within the asteroid belt surrounding Korhal IV.

This is a small moon about three million feet (over nine hundred kilometers) in diameter, with a surface gravity only a fraction of that of Korhal IV. Smaller asteroids with carbonaceous and metallic cores, as well as icy bodies, orbit around it under its gravitational pull. These brownish-gray asteroids, within the range of the moon's fortress turrets, reflect the star's light, some rotating, others motionless.

When Lieutenant Colonel Kurt Josephine arrived at his garrison in a speedboat equipped with an afterburner, he could see through the porthole the dark brown satellite, which was now completely covered by steel fortifications, intergalactic space missile silos, and anti-aircraft missile towers.

The moon, named Canis, has given birth to many beautiful fairy tales and poems. However, observers at the observatory can now see that its original rocky surface has been completely transformed. Hundreds of towering fortresses on the lunar surface and far side are now equipped with thousands of railguns and cluster laser weapons.

Those solemn and magnificent polygonal fortresses are nestled among the craters, connected by countless underground pipes, missile launch towers, command centers, radar stations, and barracks into a vast whole. The ten-foot-thick armor plates of the fortresses gleamed gold under the starlight, and the flags of the Korhal Revolutionary Army and the Golden Wolf Banner of the Mengsk Family were diagonally inserted on the top floor of each fortress, drooping low due to gravity.

Canis has been transformed into a colossal space fortress, its core containing a massive nuclear fusion reactor that powers all weapons and internal systems and can be manually detonated if necessary. The extent of human alteration on this small satellite is so vast and imposing that Canis's landscape has been permanently altered, with even gravity and diameter significantly changed as a result.

At this moment, approximately 80,000 Korhal Revolutionary Army soldiers and operators of turrets, missile launchers, and other defensive facilities are stationed at Canis and sixteen orbital stations within a 20-mile radius. More than 85 percent of these soldiers are from Korhal IV, while the remainder are mostly Umojan Volunteer Army soldiers.

Josephine's shuttle came to a stop on a platform in a fortress on the far side of the moon. The artificial gravity and internal air circulation system allowed him to walk as if on flat ground and breathe freely. A dozen adjutants, division staff officers, majors, and the commander of the Umojan Volunteer Army approached him, surrounding Josephine and bringing one bad news after another.

"Lieutenant Colonel, twenty Behemoth-class Battlecruiser," said the commander of the Umojan Volunteer Army. "Based on images transmitted by the galactic telescope and drones, and judging from the paint schemes and markings on the sides of these warships, this Fleets should be a mixed Fleets of Delta Squadron, Nova Squadron, Beta Squadron, and Omega Squadron."

"Their attached Fleets is still en route to the jump. According to calculations, the last location where the Omega Squadron appeared was a thousand light-years away from Korhal, indicating that they began their jump to the core star system at least three standard Earth cycles ago."

"The enemy's hybrid Fleets flagship is less than two AU (astronomical units) from Canni. They haven't deployed any reconnaissance drones or assault ships. At their speed, they could reach the Siren giant planet in no more than twenty minutes. The Revolutionary Army has nearly a hundred high-energy gas refineries on that planet," a staff officer said. "And we only have less than 50,000 troops stationed on that planet."

"Who is their commander?" Josephine, dressed in a thick officer's uniform, looked up at the starry sky. After Augustus handed over nearly 20,000 Revolutionary Army soldiers to Josephine half a year ago, even if he was incompetent, he had acquired some of the qualities of a leader.

Josephine was not a seasoned strategist or a skilled general. A graduate of the Sterling Academy of Fine Arts, she knew nothing about leading troops in battle. However, she knew that she should listen to the advice of professionals on how to manage a large army in an orderly manner.

"The flagship is the Nord I of Beta Squadron. According to intelligence provided by the Umojan Intelligence Agency, this battlecruiser is under the command of Gaser Duke, who is said to be related to the famous Confederacy Navy Admiral Edmond Duke," the staff officer said.

"Perhaps they will stop on the giant planet to refuel," Josephine said. "The Confederacy Navy has the victory in its grasp, and Gaser Duke is an overconfident man. We have no Fleets to use to stop them and can only hope for the folly of the Confederacy Fleets commander."

"Command—" Josephine said, "All aircraft take off and charge the fortress's main guns."

"Yes, sir." The order was relayed swiftly and without hesitation.

From the top-floor landing platform of the fortress where Josephine stood, he could see Avenger fighters with crimson base paint and gold stripes taking off from the fortress's electromagnetic projection track, thousands of fighters rising into the sky like sharp swords.

At this moment, the far side of the moon in Canis was shrouded in darkness, with faint lights flickering on the fortresses. The flames of the Avenger ' ice-blue plasma thrusters resembled soaring points of light, while the fighters emerging from the other side of the satellite looked like comets passing by.

A thousand-foot (three-hundred-meter) long interceptor Mothership sailed past Canis under the cover of Avenger, with ten corvettes, converted from Giant -class frigates, lined up laterally behind the Mothership. These warships were only a dozen miles above the surface of Canis, and from the fortress they looked like dazzling stars.

This is our only Fleets.

These warships and aircraft had virtually no chance of returning safely; all the pilots and crew members set sail with the determination to die.

Josephine was filled with sorrow and grief, thinking, "If you were here, Augustus, what would you do? We have no Fleets, we can only passively take the blows. Korhal IV's fate was sealed the moment he rebelled."

Although Josephine was a broad-minded person, even she felt a tragic sense of mission at this moment. Everyone fighting alongside her was prepared to sacrifice themselves for Korhal. Josephine had always thought that great people did not exist. She never realized that more than a million Korhal soldiers possessed such noble character and a spirit of selfless dedication.

In times of crisis for our race, many ordinary yet extraordinary people always emerge from among us.

These Revolutionary Army soldiers were not reformed, Resocialized Soldier; they possessed sound and independent personalities, their own thoughts, and of course, they felt fear. Many of them were merely sons and daughters of workers and peasants before they took up Gauss Rifle, and some even acted selfishly in their daily lives, yet they remained in Korhal.

Everyone knew what they were about to face: if the Confederacy wanted to turn Korhal IV into scorched earth, then the "Sons of Korhal" would also be reduced to ashes.

"Where is Marshal Mengsk's Fleets?" Josephine asked, putting on a military overcoat handed to her by a subordinate, and walking down the spiral staircase leading from the berthing platform into the fortress.

"A Level 5 encrypted communication from a day ago mentioned that the First Fleets had arrived in the MTY324586 System, less than six light-years from the Dela IV, where the Dylarian Shipyards is located. They must have arrived by now," said one of Josephine's young adjutants. "Even if the Terran Confederacy's intelligence department were to find this one among millions of forged puppet messages, it would take them several days to completely decipher it."

"If all goes well," Josephine said, descending the spiral staircase into the command center, "The members of the Tarsonis Confederate Congress should be crying and begging for mercy by now."

The fortresses of Canis are all built using modular panels, each equivalent to the Fort Howe of Turaxis II, capable of accommodating 5,000 fully armed Revolutionary Army soldiers. Their interiors are interconnected, and underground fortresses contain shelters capable of withstanding a level 4 nuclear blast.

Along the way, Josephine saw many Revolutionary Army soldiers patrolling the corridors. To this day, the Revolutionary Army still only had Power Armor for officers, so the privates were still wearing ordinary dark gray uniforms, with boat-shaped caps and armbands.

Because the Korhal Revolutionary Army was not a loosely organized peasant uprising, the requirement for junior officers and soldiers to salute senior officers upon seeing them was written into their enlistment oath. Therefore, the soldiers saluted Josephine immediately upon seeing her, displaying a serious and respectful expression. It was a highly disciplined army, and Josephine felt genuinely proud to command such an army.

Josephine never imagined she could become a field officer. She had many dreams and nightmares, but none could compare to the magic of reality. Josephine probably never thought she would stand here in this position. Just a year ago, she was just an ordinary Confederate Marine Corps soldier, whose only thought was to join the army to avoid trouble.

In his youth, Josephine was considered an incurable playboy, and his mother, Mrs. Josephine, was so angered by his dissolute behavior that she became bedridden. Josephine himself never repented or had any intention of changing. His life was probably just like that: he died as a Marine in some unknown battle on an unknown battlefield.

No one cared, and no one mourned.

Compared to his former boss Augustus, Josephine was far more of a scoundrel in her youth. Among her former lovers were noble ladies from excellent families, doctoral students from prestigious colleges, and the only daughter of Sterling underworld leader. As for the countless one-night stands, she couldn't even remember them all.

By the time Josephine came to her senses, the hired assassins were already eager to cut off her head. To prevent her family from suffering, Josephine had no choice but to join the army.

It wouldn't really matter if he died in the Confederacy Marines; a scumbag like him has no worthless life.

But Josephine survived. The war forged her strong will, and the camaraderie within her group somewhat reshaped a sense of responsibility that she may never have had before. Her experience in the Heaven's Devils taught Josephine that people could form a strong and inseparable community. So Josephine began to revisit her escapist past, trying to make amends for the mistakes she had made.

Before this battle, Josephine could have escaped with the last group of colony ships leaving the Korhal system, but she did not. Josephine's aging father had also joined the Korhal Revolutionary Army Korhal Revolutionary Army and was now serving in its First Fleets.

House Josephine is a noble family in Korhal, and the nobles of Korhal have always stood between the people and disaster. Like those knights-lords who have been rendered obsolete by the times but still take up their armor, pick up their greatswords, and ride their warhorses, Korhal is a much younger colony compared to Tarsonis, and the nobles there still retain the bloodthirstiness left by their ancestors.

Josephine stayed for a simple reason. Like Londerstein, she was Korhal, and an Heir to an old Korhal noble family. If outsiders like Harnack and Lisa were willing to stay and fight for the Korhal, they would see themselves as cowards for fleeing.

Of the generals from the Land of the Heaven's Devils, only Josephine and Londerstein were born and raised in the Korhal. Their ancestors swore an oath to protect their people in the early colonial era. Although the glory of that oath has long since faded, almost every nobleman who survived the Korhal revolution sent their children to the battlefield, while those whose lineage had ended took up arms themselves.

"What do you need us to do?" asked a young Revolutionary Army soldier, probably only sixteen years old.

"Stay at your post, soldier." Josephine could sense the young soldier's intense nervousness; his legs were even trembling slightly. No one had forced him to stand there; his determination to fight today, in this place, and in this manner was entirely of his own volition.

"Fight for Korhal!" the young soldier suddenly saluted and said, "I am ready to die."

"Fight for Korhal!"

"Fight for beautiful Korhal, for the homeland of our ancestors." Josephine said as she walked into the command center. In front of a huge radar and star chart, about twenty radar monitors were speaking at the control console.

A Behemoth-class Battlecruiser of the Terran Confederacy Navy appeared on the radar scan map, its bow flashing a dangerous red light, with the rest of the warships following closely behind.

"If this is just the vanguard, sir," a major said, looking at the radar image glowing a deep green, "How many more Fleets?"

"What's that?" a radar monitor suddenly shouted.

Josephine looked in the direction of the sound and saw the AI in the command center's annotations on the dense red dots on the radar image: missiles or other small flying objects, some of which were likely air-launched missiles used to confuse the view. Their debris, traveling at high speed in the vacuum after exploding, appeared as dozens of reflective signal sources on the radar image.

"A dense barrage of long-range missiles and space torpedoes, with over four thousand signal sources, and more."

"But the Confederacy Fleets is 1.5 astronomical units away—another Fleets, Zeta Squadron— "

"One of them is a nuclear bomb--"

"Apocalypse level."

"One hundred—one hundred more—three hundred—by the Holy Son, four hundred—"

"Blocking --"

All of Canis's anti-aircraft missile turrets and all its kinetic weapons opened fire. In the near-vacuum environment, everything was quiet. Josephine and his men could only see thousands of firing points simultaneously, their lights flashing.

"We couldn't stop them." Josephine's tone sounded surprisingly relieved. "I hope they only brought that many nuclear bombs."

In space warfare, nuclear bombs may be a less efficient weapon. Nuclear explosions in a vacuum do not produce shock waves and the resulting light pressure is negligible, thus failing to cause the mechanical impact that occurs when detonating in the atmosphere. All of its energy will be released in the form of radiation and electromagnetic pulses.

However, just as Josephine saw, at the very center of the Apocalypse-class Nuclear Missile's detonation, the extremely high-temperature electromagnetic waves caused the steel fortresses on the surface of the Canis satellite to begin to melt, like a melting sugar cube, and everything before her eyes looked like a distorted mirage.

"You son of a bitch--"