Ironclad

War on Two Fronts

River's tank convoy continued to roll on through the narrow passage that went through the mountains, making sure to keep a close eye out on the ledges and cliffs on either side of them in case an enemy ambush was laying in wait.
She looked down at Briggs and spoke 

"How much further will we have to be single file?" she asked, concerned for the safety and tactical strength of the convoy.

Briggs quickly answered after bringing up the information and contacting the lead Badger, before turning to River "It's at least another mile according to Badger Lead"

River nodded and exhaled, leaning back in her seat as she swallowed her stress. A mile isn't as bad as it could be, she thought.

Her eyes were drawn back to the satellite images from the ships above, and they finally got an image of their target. The enemy compound was on the other side of the valley and over a large river. It appeared to be heavily fortified, with a large array of automatic defense turrets. They would be an issue, but River could easily order an orbital strike on the base.

A few of the leaders on the UPA board wanted to just bomb the moon until there was a giant crater where the base was. While it seemed simpler, the majority voted for a boots on the ground mission so there could be proof that the Pro Independence leaders were dead.
The war had been going on for so long that both sides have gone through a fair few leaders. But the Pro Independence leaders weren't elected, but instead chosen by the current leaders. Though due to recent battles, they no longer have any close friends or associates skilled or knowledgeable enough to pass on the leadership to.
With Titan being their final stronghold, once the forces here are eliminated the only people to continue supporting the Pro Independence campaign would be the remnants of their fleets. Which would only culminate into a handful of smaller vessels. 

The people they were after specifically used to be commanders for the previous set of leaders. The current three that were leading were known as Fredrick Taveli, a mercenary turned brutal commander. Scarlett Celeo, a veteran of the war known for her surprising honour code. And Vladistov Harp, a former Ironclad captain who defected after leaking schematics to the Pro Independence forces. He was even friends with Dasyil before he did so, and his defection took its toll on Dasyil.
But they couldn't dwell on the past, and they all had to push forward for the safety of the solar system.

River was about to ask Briggs a question when the ground began to shake and a deafening boom echoed through the valley. An explosion had went off further up the convoy. Destroying a few Badgers and Enforcers.

River looked at the satellite images but it was just a giant cloud of smoke and dust, she turned to Briggs, a concerned and alert expression across her face.

"What just happened?" she asked, typing on her screen as she contacted the other tanks in the line.

She would get a response through the radio, though it was crackly and hard to make out. She could just hear the words "Enemy artillery" before another explosion rocked the valley again.

River scowled and then looked up as she ordered the convoy to press on. They had to get out of the chokepoint that the valley was and spread out. But she suspected the artillery was coming from the enemy base.

She placed her hand onto the communication console and typed in her authorization code, and she would get a response immediately.

"Olympus Mons to General River, what can we do for you?" a male voice asked over the comms.

"I need all external guns and cannons on the enemy base dealt with, they're pelting us down here and we need to keep the tanks safe" she said, ordering a strike.

"Roger that General. Aligning magnetic accelerator now" he said, and went silent for a few moments.

River watched through the cameras as they began to race through the valley as fast as they could, crunching burning trees under themselves as they tore through as fast as the tanks would go.

She expected to see the streak of light from the Olympus fly through the sky, but nothing came. She was about to contact them again but just as she moved her hand over to the communication panel, a crackled voice came through.

"Enemy ships, they came out of nowhere! MAG is offline, power is draining fast. Unknown weapon fired upon us!"  he yelled out, panic in his voice as the sound of alarms in the background went off.

The Olympus Mons was in trouble, but she didn't know about the Everest or Atlantis. She contacted them quickly and as she suspected, those two ships were under attack as well. 
Unsure of what to do in the situation, River continued charging the convoy through to get out of the chokepoint and towards the river that was separating them from the enemy base.

Meanwhile, above the moon's surface, the three ships were fighting two ships of an unknown design.
They were similar in shape to the one that attacked the Pellet, although much larger and heavier armoured. The Olympus had been caught off guard and attacked with one of the enemy vessels main weapon. The sheer power of it had cut straight through the middle of the Olympus and disabled the main magnetic accelerator gun and cut off a lot of main power to areas of the ship.
The Olympus was stuck facing directly down at the moon due to the previous strike they had requested, and a lot of the guns couldn't fire properly at the enemy.

The Atlantis and Everest moved to help, placing themselves between the enemy vessels and the Olympus. It wasn't long until shells, bullets and blasts of energy were pelting both sides. 

The enemy ships seemed to have the same weapon that was almost used against the Pellet, though it wouldn't be as effective against the super heavy armour of a whole ship than it did against the lightly armoured Pellet in comparison. 

The light off of the sun glinted and gleamed against the shiny hulls of the enemy ships, likely just fresh off the assembly line. Their advanced guns were firing rapidly, shooting off giant artillery shells like a machine gun. 
Both the Everest and Atlantis were equipped with much smaller point defense guns designed for taking out these bigger shells before they hit their target, but so did the enemy. It seemed they were both evenly matched, and they would have to do something before they used the weapon that disabled the Olympus again.

Down below, Dasyil could only watch at the flashes of light that were happening above him, but he smiled to himself as he felt and heard the reactor of the Pellet roar back to life, and he had an idea to get them all back into the fight.