The Siege of Tarsonis

The hemisphere where Tarsonis City is located is facing the opposite side of the star, and the number of meteors is far greater than ever before. City-sized orbital station debris is falling from the sky, its light as it streaks through the atmosphere making it look like a fallen sun.

Bright orange spots of light shimmered in the sky, twinkling like dazzling new stars. These new stars were hundreds of times brighter than Polaris, and for a fleeting moment, some even surpassed the sun in brightness—these were battlecruisers that had fallen into near-Earth orbit.

The air raid sirens blared all night, ravaging the already heightened nerves of the Tarsonis residents. The piercing alarms and the occasional booming of explosions rose above their heads. Chaos and a massive exodus from the city were unstoppable. Men, with their families, suitcases, and children, drove away from the brightly lit city.

The looting of weapons shops and department stores turned an area into a sea of fire, and the billowing smoke led many to believe that rebels and government forces were already clashing in the city.

Chaos, screams, and cries.

In the third hour after the air raid sirens sounded, seven major cities, including the main city of Tarsonis, descended into hysterical chaos.

Flying cars and private yachts filled the skies, while the ground transportation network was in utter chaos, with accidents, traffic jams, and the resulting conflicts occurring one after another. The number of casualties caused by mutual harm and accidents quickly jumped to tens of thousands.

Before the rebels could even send a single soldier to land on Tarsonis, order had already collapsed on the planet.

Even the most conscientious Tarsonis police officers were unsure whether to evacuate the crowds or prevent people from fleeing the city. The deputy police chief was furious because 70% of the Tarsonis police officers had disappeared, while his superiors were busy holding meetings in heavily fortified underground "conference halls."

Due to mismanagement and the incompetence of some officials, Tarsonis's administrative system was completely unaware of the battle situation except that the enemy was a rebel force from Korhal.

Everyone outside the Confederate Congress and the Cabinet was completely baffled. They didn't know how many warships the rebel Fleets hovering in orbit actually consisted of. The Confederacy Naval Command repeatedly emphasized that the advantage was in their hands, but several hours passed and the alarm still hadn't been lifted.

Almost all the losses came from within Tarsonis, while the rebels merely deployed their Fleets to planetary orbit. Although Korhal's rebels have not yet launched any attacks on cities or large settlements, the losses inflicted on Tarsonis every minute will take dozens of times longer to recover.

Both officials and civilians were bewildered. They had been informed that a large-scale rebellion had broken out in Korhal IV, but they had never anticipated that the rebels would have the strength to launch a surprise attack on Tarsonis.

During the four-year Guild Wars, the Kel-Morian Combine only managed to reach the vicinity of the main world of the Sara System. Their Fleets did not have the initiative when fighting against the Confederacy Navy and could only passively defend.

The Kel-Morian Combine also has a homeworld and mining worlds to defend, and the Kel-Morian Combine government cannot afford to mobilize its Fleets for a desperate attack on Tarsonis.

At this point, even the drunkards who loudly discussed politics and the situation in the bars began to believe that the problem of the Korhal rebels was no longer a geopolitical issue or a rebellion that would be quelled within one to two years at most.

The Korhal problem is likely to persist alongside the Terran Confederacy's regime for a long time, with little chance of compromise between the two sides. The only other possibilities are either the Korhal establishing an independent government separate from the Confederacy, or the Confederacy's executioners exterminating all the Korhal.

A harsh reality was laid before the Tarsonis people who had experienced this nightmare: Tarsonis was not invincible.

--We never imagined that Tarsonis would fall, just as someone told me that God could be assassinated and Jesus never rose again. Whether it was the politicians in the Confederate Congress who were dressed in fancy clothes but were actually rotten inside, the Supreme Court judges in the Confederacy Court who wore smelly wigs, or the officials in the Cabinet who were all hypocritical and full of bureaucratic airs, everyone was in a hurry, shouting: Where is the carriage to take me home? Pick up my twenty lovers and a stack of diapers, let me run first!

As UNN News Service editor Mike Liberty was still typing away, the "earthquake" struck. Flowerpots in the office shook and fell to the ground, bookshelves swayed, and the ceiling shifted from side to side.

While casually sipping his coffee, Mike made a note at the bottom of the document: 2489.6.21, earthquake, felt in Tarsonis City.

"Why are you still sitting here?" Anderson, the editor-in-chief of UNN Universe News Network, was a stout middle-aged man who was bald except for two curls of black hair at his temples.

Anderson glanced at Mike Liberty's office as he passed by with his briefcase, then suddenly screamed, the layers of fat on his stomach jiggling with each gasp of his breath.

"The rebels are on their way!" he said. "Run, Mike! Do you want another shot from a rebel rifle butt? To be honest, you're only alive because you're incredibly lucky."

"Rebels?" Mike Liberty immediately looked horrified. "Anderson it, I thought it was an earthquake."

"Didn't you hear the alarm?" Anderson was also very puzzled. This young man didn't seem panicked at all. Could it be that there was something wrong with his hearing?

"I overslept." Mike shrugged. He wasn't worried at all about what the Revolutionary Army would do to him, because, to be precise, he was now a Revolutionary Army soldier himself.

Not long ago, he joined the Pan-Terran Party, which is officially recognized; he's a revolutionary comrade now.

Anderson was shocked by Mike's blatant slacking off and his honesty, but overall, Anderson admired Mike's composure. Only someone who could remain calm even in the face of a collapsing mountain could appear at the first sign of trouble and make a big splash.

Furthermore, Anderson greatly admires Mike's sharp and incisive writing style, and news reports that emphasize authenticity always have a considerable market.

However, just as Anderson was about to leave, another deafening explosion turned his face ashen. Outside Mike's office, a Leviathan- class battlecruiser had crashed in the northern part of the city, and the flames could be seen even from miles away.

The impact point resembled a fleeting, semi-circular sun. The shockwave shattered the glass of skyscrapers, stripping away the superstructure and exposing the underlying metal frames. The phosphorus dust from the explosion ignited massive fires that swept through residential and commercial areas for miles, sending thick smoke billowing into the sky.

"Now, the casualties will definitely be more than ten or twenty thousand. Heaven knows how many people will be burned alive."

Mike shook his head at the horrific scene outside the ship. "We should send more people to rescue the civilians affected by the disaster."

"Tarsonis is burning."