Duke's Offensive
It was already 4 PM on February 19th, seventeen hours after the Alpha Squadron landed in Ma Sara.
Augustus stood at the very center of the command post at Martin Fortress, closely monitoring the communication network of the Revolutionary Army's various command headquarters. In front of him was a Holographic Projection screen composed of blue-green lines, displaying a constantly changing battle map.
Behind Augustus stood rows of control consoles lined up against the walls and glass observation windows, a massive amount of information being fed into the command center via wireless communication. This information came from dozens of different regions and departments, including the capital region battlefield, the mobile Raynor, Tychus, Mira Han, as well as Revolutionary Army outposts and mining areas. It would all be reclassified, filtered, and summarized before being transmitted to the main control console where Augustus was located.
Standing before the control panel were Revolutionary Army Revolutionary Army operators and command staff officers dressed in dark gray, stand-up collar uniforms. They all Revolutionary Army insignia, and their uniforms featured golden wheat ears, a golden wolf's head, and the panda emblem of the Pan-Terran Party. To enter the staff, Revolutionary Army officers had to be of impeccable character and able to perform their duties without reproach; secondly, they had to be members of the Pan-Terran Party and pass the Psionics tests.
The Holographic Projection battle map in front of Augustus was constantly changing with the timeline. The markers representing the positions of friendly and enemy forces changed and remained unchanged at times. This data came from the last report two hours earlier, which was neither accurate nor without delay. The main force of the Alpha Squadron may have moved hundreds of miles overnight by vehicles, while Augustus's command center was completely unaware.
Even so, for Augustus, this battle map could still clearly and intuitively reflect the battlefield situation.
Before the landing, the Alpha Squadron's Fleets launched an attack on the Revolutionary Army's First Fleets, which was stationary in a synchronous orbit around Mar- Sara. After a brief but intense exchange of fire, the Revolutionary Army's six battlecruisers made short jumps to the three nearest star systems.
After careful consideration, Duke ordered the Fleets to pursue the warp signals detected by the probes. The Fleets split into four, leaving only the flagship of the Alpha Squadron and three other Behemoth-class Battlecruiser on Mar- Sara. Two hours later, these four warships encountered eight battlecruisers from the Revolutionary Army's Second Fleet, which had warp in from another star system. The two sides immediately engaged in a fierce battle in their synchronous orbit.
On the planet's surface, the first forces to clash were the air forces. The Revolutionary Army, with its three airports in the Capital Region, Martin Fortress, and the Hilo Autonomous State, deployed over two thousand Avenger fighters to engage the four air wings of the Alpha Squadron in multiple battlefields. Due to the Revolutionary Army's air force's superiority over the Alpha Squadron's air force, the Confederacy forces could not indiscriminately use transport aircraft to deploy troops throughout Mar- Sara and were forced to rely solely on rail and road hubs to deploy ground forces.
Two divisions, an armored brigade, and an artillery brigade of Alpha Squadron landed on Bone Plains and Red Plateau north of the capital region. This force of more than 20,000 men, all armed with Power Armor and Gauss Rifle, advanced forty miles south before encountering Tychus Finley's four mobile battalions.
As Colonel Duke, the enemy commander, had predicted, the poorly equipped and weak "rabble" crumbled at the first contact. Tychus fired a few shots and ran, leaving a pile of supply crates for the advance troops of Alpha Squadron before retreating in armored personnel carriers obtained from the Mar- Sara planetary defense forces, bypassing the capital region and heading towards the Barren Canyon to the south.
A triumphant Duke then ordered two Marine brigades of Alpha Squadron to pursue Tychus's forces, while he led the remaining six brigades to support the capital region, arriving two hours later.
However, at that time, Augustus had already ordered the First Division of Londerstein, located west of the capital region, to launch a general offensive. Londerstein drove Governor Mar Sara and nearly 30,000 defeated planetary defenders out of the capital region in just half an hour, forcing them to flee north.
This resulted in the first two Marine battalions of the Alpha Squadron, which rushed to relieve the siege of the capital region, colliding head-on with the routed planetary defense forces and militia at night.
This led to disastrous consequences. This army, a combination of planetary defense forces, civil defense forces, and a small number of marines from various parts of Mar- Sara, came from dozens of different regions and had dozens of commanders with equivalent positions and authority who did not belong to the same system.
Because the supreme commander, Governor-General Ma Sara, failed to fulfill his duty to control the army during the rout, the panicked and disorganized army, lacking unified command, ran headlong into a convoy of marines and Armored Vehicle vehicles.
Chaos ensued as tens of thousands of panicked Mar-a- Sara soldiers mingled with Alpha Squadron troops, amidst shouts and the scattered beams of Power Armor searchlights. When the first untrained militiaman accidentally discharged his weapon, the soldiers began firing at each other.
Colonel Duke, the commander of the Alpha Squadron, was forced to order his soldiers to clear out Governor Mar- Sara's deserters. After leaving behind more than a thousand corpses and several times that number of wounded soldiers, the governor's troops turned back and scattered in all directions.
This unspeakable chaos lasted all night, and by the time the Alpha Squadron arrived at the ruins of the Governor's Mansion in the capital region, it was already broad daylight. The Revolutionary Army clearly had ample time and resources to transport heavy artillery and supplies during their retreat, leaving behind not a single seriously wounded or fallen soldier.
This morning, Augustus's surveillance department intercepted Duke's report that he had defeated the rebels after recapturing the capital district. This report would take at least two weeks to be translated and amplified by numerous interstellar communication stations before being sent to the Terran Confederacy Naval Headquarters in Tarsonis.
In his report, Duke proudly called the campaign the Duke Offensive, stating that the rebels were utterly ineffective.
At this point, Augustus was finally able to confirm that it was indeed Edmond Duke who personally led the Alpha Squadron to land at Mar- Sara, which was consistent with his usual combat style. In addition, he was indeed angered by Augustus and was eager to avenge his previous defeat.
Alpha Squadron's motto is to be the first to attack and the first to leave the battlefield. They always charge ahead of their allies, tearing through the enemy's defenses like a heavy hammer, and then retreating in triumph.
After recapturing the Capital Region, Duke's Alpha Squadron continued its southward advance without rest, pursuing Tychus Finley's fleeing forces across the Capital Region, Lorenzana State, and the Sandworm Desert in six hours, traversing nearly ten million square miles of land. On Augustus's battle map, the Alpha Squadron's marching route was an almost perfectly straight line.
Meanwhile, over 60,000 soldiers under Augustus' command, including Raynor, Harnack, Mira, and the retreating Londerstein, were converging on this line from different directions—an encirclement was rapidly taking shape.
If Augustus and his staff and military advisors were not mistaken, then Duke's target should be the command center at Martin Fortress, where he was stationed. The Alpha Squadron Fleets in the Mar- Sara synchronous orbit could easily detect this massive military base, making it an obvious primary target and the heart of the Revolutionary Army's command system.
At that moment, Revolutionary Army transport planes were taking off from Martin Fortress airport. Augustus received a report that Tychus's forces had fled into the Barren Canyon. The two Confederate Marine Corps brigades that Duke had initially ordered to pursue Tychus were now close behind, while the main force led by Duke was rapidly approaching from the direction of the capital district.
At Duke's marching speed, it would take them less than an hour to reach the last barrier before Martin Fortress —the rugged, Barren Canyon.
In Augustus's eyes, Duke was like a flying insect about to fall into a spider's web.