Mei and I took the elevator back to the command deck, and walked back into the bridge.
"Status report." I said.
"The engineering team have started their repairs on the starboard main hull and armor plating." Katyusha said. "Most injured personnel are back on duty."
"An Alliance tanker ship just passed by our fleet at 178 kilometers. It was performing a Lunar slingshot to reach interplanetary space." Karl said.
"Transport Utzok has crash landed, and there is an unknown number of casualities. Transport Centaur has landed only about 1.5 kilometers away from Utzok's landing site." Aziz said. "General Sanders has started deploying troops and vehicles already."
"We have 13 anti-ship missiles, 319 flak missiles, 398412 railgun projectiles left. Active laser mediums are OK." Sungho said. "All manned fighters and 2 ECM shuttles are in flight, leaving 5 shuttles in our hangar. 81 drones survived the previous engagement."
"We are continuing on our orbit. Engines are shutdown. We will pass over the transports' landing site in a minute." Eliott's robotic voice was the last to report.
Since Lodos had to preserve it's tagential velocity to remain in Lunar orbit, we didn't have the chance to stay above the Republic army all the time. We would simply fly past overhead, and see them again when completing the next orbit.
"I hope this ends well..." Mei said.
"Shall we recall our shuttles and fighters?" Sungho asked.
"No." I said. "Task them with protecting and aiding the ground forces."
Unlike large warships like Lodos, the manned fighters and shuttlecraft of the Republic had the capability to perform powered landings or simply hover above the Lunar surface, watching over our army. Maybe a few fighters couldn't help in case Federation somehow sneaked a capital ship into Lunar orbit to bomb our army, but it could give General Sanders the upper hand in ground combat.
"Lieutenant Karl, please aid Mr. Sungho with locating and destroying ground targets." I said.
"Yes, sir!" Karl said.
While the Republic army was still deploying, Light Carrier / Missile Cruiser Lodos and Gunship Persephone was going to destroy as many targets as possible; observation stations, military bases, military factories, anti-space weapon platforms, comms arrays...
Our fleet was occassionally getting fired upon from the Lunar surface, but most of them were not posing a real threat. We already knew the locations of major missile silos, allowing us to detect and destroy incoming missiles rather qucikly. Laser weapons, on the other hand, were suffering from dispersion because of our distance to the Lunar surface. Coilguns and railguns were by far the most serious threats; but by angling our armor cleverly relative to the Lunar surface and our velocity vector, we could bounce off most projectiles (which were losing most of their kinetic energy on their way up because of Luna's gravity).
The fleet continued the bombardment for a whole orbit. When it was about time to fly past over the Republic army again, we would have the chance to see how the operation was going.
"Sir, General Sanders have sent a report." said Aziz. "They have engaged the Federation Lunar army to join the Alliance army to the north of Mare Imbrium. Both the Alliance and the Republic armies are bombarding Federation positions with artillery fire."
"Very good." said Mei. "Very good indeed."
While passing over Mare Imbrium, Karl took lots of high quality pictures of the Lunar surface through the sensors console.
"Sir, if you are interested..." he invited me to take a look. I walked over to his console. Mei, Sungho and Dave curiously followed. We made a semicircle behind Karl's seat to look at the screen. Karl started showing the photos.
"Here, you can see two destroyed vehicles. If you look really closely, you can make up a Federation soldier next to the tank."
Karl skipped a few photos.
"A few frames later, he drops dead." he continued. "Probably a sharapnel made a hole in his spacesuit, causing him to suffocate."
Karl skipped a few more photos.
"This is the COAR-042 artillery battery of the Republic, being set up. On Lunar surface, it can theoretically shoot targets up to 500 km or so." Karl was so enthusiastic about this.
"Awesome." Dave commented.
"And this... I couldn't quite understand myself, but could be a laser weapon trying to cut through our transport's outer hull." Karl said.
Suddenly, a blinking light appeared on the corner of the screen. Karl immediately closed the pictures to have a better look at his sensors.
"And what is THAT?" Mei asked.
"Hold on, Commander." Karl said while playing with some switches on his console.
"Can it PLEASE not be something bad?" Dave said.
"Get back to your posts, immediately!" I said. Dave and Sungho ran back to their own consoles.
"Sir, we are getting unusual levels of radiation." Karl said.
"What can we do?" I asked.
"It is not at dangerous levels... yet." Karl said. "But it is quite unusual."
"What is the source of the radiation?" I asked.
"Seems like it is coming from the Sun itself..." Karl said. "Somewhere on the surface of the Sun."
"We can just let the scientists examine it." Mei suggested. "We are in the middle of a war right now."
"But wait." Karl interrupted. "Such levels of radiation from the Sun has never been recorded in history, and it shouldn't happen according to our current understanding of how the Sun works. This is... This is too big to ignore!"
"I will have to agree with Commander Mei, Lieutenant." I said. "Hundreds of scientists around the Solar System must have already detected this event by now."
"Commander, wait!" Karl said in excitement. "Have a look yourself. The radiation levels are rising!"
I sighed and took a look at the sensors console. Contrary to my expectations, he was right. The solar emittions were rising to extremely unusual levels, eventually tripping an environmental alarm.
"I've never thought I would ever get to say this..." I said. "ALCON 0!"
Lodos' sirens started wailing, echoing through every one of it's corridors.
"Mr. Eliott, rotate the ship to protect crew segments!" I ordered.
Eliott rotated Lodos to get the thickest layers of material between the Sun and the crew segments in order to block as much radiation as possible.
"Pardon me, sir." Karl said. "It may not be the Sun... It looks like there is something in a very low orbit around the Sun!"