After several hours of hasty repairs and preparation, the Iron Hedgehog boarded yet another transport. Venerable Irene Mox was glad that she and her expert mech weren't forced to ride a dinky civilian cargo transport this time. The Quillims in control of Dershin still retained a sufficient number of military transport vehicles that could quickly relocate slow and heavy mechs such as an expert heavy artillery mech. In fact, the large heavy-duty transport also carried three other heavy artillery mechs. Their imposing weight certainly induced a lot of strain on the large vehicle's engines. Many more transports flew in the air at a fairly low altitude. Each of them carried mechs, supplies and other goods necessary to put up a good fight. Hundreds of Quillim aerial mechs patrolled the entire perimeter and ensured that the Bontues would not be able to intercept the transport train. There was no way to hide such a major movement from their Bontue adversaries. They originally reigned over the Korinna System in the first place, and every city and location on the planet still had ways of tracking movements and covertly transmitting the data to other locations. It was good that the Quillims did not intend to hide their movements in the first place. The plan formulated by Colonel Harvey Dost and his staff counted on this. The entire mech force needed to serve as bait in order to occupy the attention of the Bontues. Irene still recalled her shock when the colonel pulled her to a shielded chamber and personally briefed her on the full details of Operation Black Dawn. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮 "The purpose of deploying our forces to New Kreon is not just to block the Bontue vanguard troops that are trying to make their way to Dershin." The elderly man spoke to the expert pilot. That caused the woman to frown. "You mean we aren't making a serious attempt to advance on one of the cities held by the Bontues in an attempt to hijack one of their FTL-capable starships?" "It will never work." Colonel Dost admitted. "The Bontues have a million different ways to sabotage their own starships. At worst, they will blow up all of the combat carriers that remain grounded and cannot be taken away. While it may look as if we have become so desperate for an escape route that we are willing to disregard the truth, our actual operation is much more viable than this half-baked plan." The commanding officer activated a projection that displayed Korinna V as a globe. Soon enough, lots of tiny points of light started to appear around the planet. One of those points of light was marked in red. "When the Bontues sabotaged all of our starships by hacking their navigation systems and deliberately inducing them to crash onto the cities that we have captured, not all of the vessels fell out of orbit. Many of our vessels remained in high orbit, so the Bontues sabotaged them in different ways. From destroying their FTL drives to deliberately inducing them to collide against each other, the fleet in orbit have all turned into broken wrecks." Irene frowned. "It is hard to believe that our old enemies managed to infiltrate and sabotage our fleet to this extent. It can't be done without the help of traitors who are deeply embedded in our mech army." "We are already in the process of rooting out the turncoats embedded in our ranks. Now that we know what to look for, they should not be able to destroy our layout." "What is this layout, sir?" The colonel gestured at the red point of light. The projection zoomed in to display one of the most prominent starships of the original Quillim fleet in orbit. "The Peyton Phoenix." Irene gasped. The flagship of the fleet was once a proud and modern 3.2 kilometer-long fleet carrier. She was capable of carrying lots of mechs and supplies and possessed enough hull plating to enter into contested areas. Now, the Peyton Phoenix looked as if she had been snapped in half. Her entire front half had been sheared off due to a combination of internal explosions and external collisions. The rear half looked ragged as her entire hull suffered a lot of internal explosions as well. Her thrusters looked wrecked and her engineering bay was exposed to open space. "This is our ticket out of the Korinna System." Colonel Dost declared. "...Are you certain about this, sir?" Venerable Irene quietly asked. She wondered whether the colonel had completely lost his sanity after suffering a huge setback. "The Peyton Phoenix is dead. She can't fly anymore." "It may look that way to you and the Bontues, but the damage does not look as bad as you think. My best engineers and technical staff believe she can still be restored to working condition." Dost claimed. "Capital ships of her class are designed and built with many backups and redundancies in mind. We have survivors who have confirmed the location of at least one spare FTL drive and power reactor that can quickly be hooked up and restore basic functionality to the capital ship." "Colonel…" "Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this vessel shall fly among the stars once again, if only to take us back to the nearest base occupied by our fellow Quillims." That sounded like a crazy plan! It wasn't just Irene who looked shocked! Even Ves was astonished by the measures the Quillims planned to take in order to escape the trap set by the Bontues. Irene continued to frown. She couldn't believe that this broken fleet carrier could be repaired quickly enough. "Aren't there better choices up in orbit? It should be much simpler to restore a combat carrier." "Combat carriers are also easier to break." Colonel Dost responded. "The Bontue sabotage has wrecked all of them to the point where the Bontues will have already completed their blockade on the planet before we can restore even one of those vessels. It is the Peyton Phoenix that gives us the best hope. The Bontues had to put much more effort into disabling our flagship, and even then she has managed to retain enough of her systems to bring her back to life." Though Irene still couldn't wrap her mind around this bold and crazy venture, Ves eventually came around to support this initiative. Blinky appeared into Irene's view and floated around Colonel Dost's head. Strangely enough, the other man completely did not notice anything amiss! "The good man is right, Irene." The Star Cat spoke to the woman. "Fleet carriers can hardly be vessels. If the engineers are good enough and as long as the ship infrastructure still remains decently intact, it may only take a day to install the replacement FTL drive and power reactor. The Peyton Phoenix will only regain a paltry amount of functionality and many accidents may occur, but as long as she can jump to another star system, that is enough to buy time to implement more extensive repairs!" A rust bucket could fall apart at any moment, but one that was actively being worked upon could last a lot longer. Besides, the evacuees aboard the Peyton Phoenix might be able to get in touch with the rest of the Quillim Mech Army and be rescued at that point. It was at this point that Irene understood what the operation was truly about. "You want us to hold New Kreon and pretend to advance just to buy enough time for your engineers to repair the Peyton Phoenix, is that correct?" Colonel Dost grinned. "That is correct. Operation Black Dawn must succeed. We have already taken the first steps. Our stealth shuttle has secretly been ferrying our engineers, work crews and essential equipment to the derelict fleet carrier. It is paramount for us to hide what we are doing. If we do nothing but hold Dershin, the Bontues will eventually become suspicious and start looking in every direction. By launching a high-profile offensive, many of the enemy analysts and tactical officers will become preoccupied with strategizing against our units on the ground." Irene nodded in understanding. "Stopping the Bontue vanguard troops from closing in to Dershin also makes it more convenient to trigger a general evacuation. All of the shuttles and transports bringing our fellow Quillim soldiers to the restored Peyton Phoenix won't be as easy to intercept by our enemies." The operation sounded a lot more viable and well-thought than she initially assumed. However, Ves could see that it was not without its problems. Blinky gestured with his paws. "Don't overlook the details, Irene. The troops stationed in Dershin will be able to evacuate to high orbit without much issue, but the same could not be said for you and your fellow mech pilots stationed in New Kreon. The only way you can get out is to evacuate under fire. Many transports won't be able to escape the gravity well of Korinna V before they are downed by the Bontues who are eager to turn this planet into your graves." That was true, but Irene did not actually mind it. She understood the necessity of doing her part to preserve the bulk of the Quillims trapped on Korinna V. She was not eager to meet her demise, but as long as her sacrifice could serve a greater purpose, she would not hesitate to do what was necessary! The renewed conviction and belief radiating from Irene caused an immediate reaction from Colonel Dost. The older man raised his arm and patted the expert pilot on the shoulder. "I am sorry, Venerable Mox. I should be keeping you and your expert mech here in Dershin so that you have the highest chance of making it back to friendly territory, but you can save a lot of lives if you participate in the fight at New Kreon. We need your firepower over there. The more Bontue mechs you can destroy, the less pressure our vehicle train in New Kreon will have to endure when they flee to orbit under fire." "I will do my best to ensure that as many of our soldiers make it out of this star system alive as possible, sir." Irene reassured the colonel. "Good. Your Iron Hedgehog will not be the only expert mech to hold the line at New Kreon, but our opponents have been able to gather large quantities of mechs from different locations. We also suspect that the Bontue defenders may be able to deploy an expert mech or two in this coming battle." This was the final and most important battle of this campaign. If the Quillims could not hold New Kreon, then the general evacuation would come under serious risk! Ever since then, Irene constantly poured over all of the data she could get her hands on. As the heavy-duty transport brought her Iron Hedgehog to the upcoming battlefield, she meticulously studied the map of New Kreon and even examined the surrounding terrain. She already tried to envision the routes that the Bontue mechs would take in order to close in on the city. Ves had remained fairly quiet at this time as he did not want to distract Irene. That didn't mean that he had been sitting still all of this time. He had access to the same data as Irene. As he skimmed the intelligence reports on the advancing Bontue mech troops, he became more and more concerned at how badly the Bontues might possibly outnumber their Quillim adversaries. The previous calamity had eliminated a huge amount of Quillim mechs originally deployed onto the planet. The Bontues had suffered a lot of losses during most of the campaign, but they still retained or held back thousands of perfectly intact machines just so that they could launch a furious counterattack! Though Venerable Irene and her Iron Hedgehog were good against massed enemy units, Ves began to feel increasingly more concerned that their might was not enough to turn the tide. Maybe he should give the future god pilot a little boost in advance.