The First Ceasefire Agreement

As per the pre-arranged battle plan, Augustus's Heaven's Devils Special Tactical Platoon, after concealing their ship, proceeded on foot to the assembly point outlined in the mission briefing, leaving two Heaven's Devils and pilot Jack to guard the ship.

The Meinhoff hemisphere is as barren as the moon, with fierce winds carrying sand and gravel relentlessly eroding the heavily weathered rocks.

At this latitude, the seasons are not distinct. The nights are dry and cold, often causing sensitive skin to dry out and crack, while the temperature rises too quickly and too high when the sun rises, so houses here emphasize airtight insulation.

The initial modular prefabricated building was quickly replaced by Meinhoff's distinctive stone architecture.

Unobstructed, expansive plains that can be seen at a glance are not common here. High mountains, low hills, and relatively small highlands, along with the depressions and valleys between them, constitute the main landform of this region.

The CMC-300 Power Armor Augustus's troops were equipped with two weeks ago can easily handle this complex terrain. The HUD display on the helmet visor constantly displays data such as altitude, temperature, and air pressure. On a slowly rotating three-dimensional terrain map, green dots represent friendly forces that have landed.

The dark gray armor of the Heaven's Devils provided excellent camouflage on the Meinhoff, making it difficult for the Kel-Morian fighters in the sky to spot the small troop moving thousands of feet below.

Augustus the first to arrive at the assembly point; a resocialized platoon was already waiting there.

To huddle together in the battle against Kel-Morian would be tantamount to foolishness; fighter jets and missiles were capable of accurately destroying a large army assembling from miles away. After a brief exchange with the commander of the resocialized forces, Augustus distanced himself and ordered his men to spread out and crawl among the hollows and rocks.

Warfield, who had been fighting alongside the Heaven's Devils, did not disembark but went to the front lines. His responsibility to oversee the overall situation required him to remain on the ship.

Because the commander of the 33rd Ground Assault Division and several senior officers suddenly retired before the start of the campaign, a group of officers like Warfield, who were brave in combat and had made outstanding military achievements, were promoted one after another within a month.

He is now a lieutenant colonel, serving as the executive officer of the battlecruiser HMS Steel Justice, and commanding a newly formed Marine brigade whose personnel mainly come from Antiga Prime and Edge World like the Sara System.

--By mid-October 2488, the situation in the Guild Wars was clear: the Kel-Morian had lost control of their once vast and invincible mining empire, and the Terran Confederacy was winning the war.

The campaigns launched by Kel-Morian on multiple planets all ended in failure, with these battles lasting for several years ending in victory for the Terran Confederacy forces.

Kel-Morian's army was annihilated in large numbers, with the remaining forces retreating to the core territory of the Kel-Morian Combine. The Terran Confederacy had reclaimed almost all of its lost territory, and the ensuing fierce counter-offensive wiped out the last vestiges of dignity of the union government. Several planets with populations exceeding one million were destroyed by nuclear bombs, and many more peripheral mining planets fell.

Although the sudden retirement of a group of high-ranking officers was indeed surprising, there were quite a few people who were overjoyed. Some officers who were of noble birth but had performed extremely poorly in the war were gloating out of jealousy, while others were considering whether they should take this opportunity to fabricate more merits in order to get a share of the increased benefits.

After a series of investigations by the Confederacy Central Security Service, the Confederacy Intelligence Service headquarters, and the Tarsonis secret police, Arcturus and his followers retired smoothly without much trouble.

Augustus speculated that the application of multiple technologies, such as the full deployment of CMC-250 and CMC-300 Power Armor, the large-scale production and service of Wraith, a new round of modifications against Arclite Siege Tank, and the deployment of entire brigades of fearless Resocialized Soldier into battle, were important reasons for Kel-Morian's defeat.

The primary reason was the disparity in size. The Terran Confederacy had far more colonies and a larger population Kel-Morian Combine, giving it an advantage both economically and militarily. Had it not been for the fact that, in the early stages of the war, the old aristocratic officers of the Confederacy, who had never experienced war before, were caught off guard by Kel-Morian's aggressive and decisive offensive, and that most of the Kel-Morian soldiers were also highly skilled in battle, the Guild Wars would not have dragged on for so long.

When another company from the 33rd Ground Assault Division arrived, Augustus accompanied them to the Kel-Morian Industrial Park, a pre-arranged target of the Dominion Fleet Command.

They climbed a hill before the assembly point and ran about a mile south, where a vast cluster of industrial buildings built along the mountainside and towering furnaces came into Augustus's view.

Unlike residential buildings, the factory buildings in Kel-Morian are mostly simple geometric structures, including rectangular industrial buildings and cylindrical condensation towers constructed of cold gray steel plates. The geometric buildings of varying heights are stacked on the hillside, with electrified barbed wire fences on the outermost walls.

Large blocks of crystal mined from nearby mines are transported to the industrial area via the mine railway. After being cut, the Ardien Crystal are finally loaded onto trucks and transported to the Meinhoff ground launch port.

Before these three forces launched their attack, the Terran Confederacy bomber squadrons had already destroyed the few Bunker and defensive structures already present in the industrial complex. According to intelligence, there were no Kel-Morian garrisons here, and the workers must have been evacuated in advance. Therefore, Augustus and his men only needed to occupy an unmanned factory.

It sounded simple, but based on past experience, all the commanders above the platoon level present believed they would definitely encounter resistance. After discussing with several other officers, Augustus decided to abandon the original battle plan, bypass the main gate of the industrial park, and instead blast open the wall to attack from two other directions.

Augustus's Heaven's Devils launched an attack from the south. After Zander used explosives to blow up a section of the wall, the 1st Squad was the vanguard to break in. But it turned out that the intelligence was quite reliable this time. There were not only no resistance forces inside, but not even a trace of people.

Before disembarking, they had heard that the Kel-Morian people would fight to the death when their homeland was invaded, and that it was common for an entire family of men to be wiped out in battle. But now they were handing over the entire industrial park.

"These groundhogs who only know how to hide in pits and rummage for crystals, they know fear now?" Josephine said with no small amount of disdain, standing next to a centrifuge room.

"I'm afraid things are more complicated than you think." Raynor pointed to the wall behind him.

Josephine turned around and saw a Holographic Projection screen on the wall that was repeatedly playing a video clip. The video had no sound, only a constantly scrolling subtitle:

After discussions with the independent government, the Moria Workers' Union unanimously decided to agree to the comprehensive ceasefire agreement between the Terran Confederacy, effective from 8:00 AM on October 30th. This will be the first ceasefire agreement since 2485. The agreement will last for one standard Earth month, and all...

"Damn it, looks like I spoke too soon. We'll be able to go home next month!" Raynor shook his head.

"Is the war over?" Tychus was disappointed that his chances of making a fortune had greatly diminished.

"Cheer up, Tychus," Augustus said, looking at the glittering Ardien Crystal inside the factory that hadn't yet been moved.

"We are now the occupying forces."