The infantry, guided by processing power and senses far beyond any human, stride to the belly of their transport craft. Highly advanced things modified to operate effectively in the low-atmosphere and chilling cold of Mars, up-armoured engines and internal oxygen fuel supplies to allow high-efficiency rates for the jet engines.
Moments after the armour follows them up and into the rear of these aircraft. Trundling things but still decades beyond the last truly deployed war vehicles, capable of vast speeds and their turret-mounted railguns give them the equivalent punch of a dozen weaker vehicles. Thickly inset armour provides a punishing exterior profile, all done up in a consumer-friendly white and blue.
Rocketing out with their own extremely high-performance engines, the multi-role jets scream to their positions, watching the horizon and everything beyond it to keep their slower comrades safe, programming driving dozens of sensor suites to the nearest brink possible.
All this combines with the lifting off of the transport craft, taking their warrior loads with them into the higher reaches of the atmosphere. Around them circle the multi-roles bent towards their defence, immediately for good reason, as far away radar catches sight of the oblong fighter-equivalents rising out of a plateau, twelve signatures burning hard towards the troops.
From kilometres out the fighter wings break away from their transport crafting, activating missile locks on the tremendously obvious enemy engine signatures. The systems give go-ahead and the missiles fire off, roaring across the distance assisted with magnetic launch systems and solid rocket assemblies.
The enemy craft seem unable to respond to them, or perhaps simply do not regard the missiles as threats, letting them slam into their bellies and gutting them completely. They fall out of the sky to slam into the ground below in great plumes of dust and explosives.
Your own fighter-craft return to a guarding position around the transport wing, satisfied with their offensive result.
For hours the loitering continues, only the fighter craft having to lower and refuel once in that period. And then it seems all hell breaks loose from a chunk of terrain some three kilometres distant to your landing craft, nearly half a million signatures break free from the underground, coming up and out.
The creatures are identical to the ones faced before by the PMC's, large walking armatures with a single gun-like growth on their right-hand side. After sensors get a read on them, the immediate response is to use your artillery, or more accurately, ortillery.
AI-targetted coordinates are fed into Prometheus-class Casaba Howitzer arrays which laze onto the ground below, aiming for the clumps and slamming kilotonnes of energy into them, after atmospheric dispersion. The colossal impacts raise mushroom clouds as they incinerate more of the creatures than can easily be counted.
Your own mobile forces disgorge from their transport craft in hyper-mobile task forces and begin skirmishing with the shattered remnants of the enemy, single tanks ridden by squads of foot mobile infantry.
The scenario plays out many hundred times. Small groups of dazed creatures, no more than a few hundred get spotted by flying sensors, a single task force moves towards them and then defeats it in detail. Railguns bark their hyper-velocity slugs at tremendous distances, annihilating them without any chance of retort, the infantry only moving in closer to confirm deaths and properly put down targets who are not actually deceased.
Still, some repairs are needed as injured targets prove far more combat capable than expected, firing off their limb guns in response to incoming infantry robots, denting the armour and damaging components though achieving no permanent kills on your hardware.
This all goes well enough, complete orbital dominance granting constant, never-ending fire-support on any further attempts by the creatures to deploy forces to respond to your own mobile ones.
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The process of sieging continues for many weeks, drone infantry and tanks providing the resistance needed to hold your claim for as long as is needed. Massive craters dot the surface of Mars as the orbiting ships make their best ICBM impression on the ground.
There is a single effort to tunnel underneath your current base of operations which is completely annihilated by the deployment of an orbital rod, accelerated by its own thruster into incredible speed, slamming into the earth and digging deep, sending tremendous kinetic shockwaves and shattering their tunnel network for hundreds of kilometres around, collapsing it all inwards and killing what must be truly incredible numbers of their species.
It's revealed through the construction of seismic sensors that the tunnel network spreads through a large portion of the planet's subsurface, with what must be at least tens of millions of them scrambling their way through it, with deeper tunnels that you can't place at all.
An idea starts being bandied, possible only with modern means. A full-scale bombardment over a long period of time with all means available could crack open the crust in key points, shattering much of Mars's surface and removing the creatures by force.
However, if any sort of biological colonization is the intent, there would not be much of Mars left to inhabit, much less put to profitable use.
On the other hand, a protracted ground campaign may be valuable as a source of economic growth, especially if you can involve the Union or PMC's into it, but may risk failure and more damage from the current Martian inhabitants.
What is the call that is made?
[X] Begin full-scale bombardment, crack open Mars and shred them. (Your fleet, solar laser and many asteroids will be put to use in brutalizing Mars and its inhabitants.)
[X] Continue the ground war. (Your turn actions should include some method to engage in greater warfare, as one thousand ground troops will not suffice at all.)
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Earth
The European Union has begun to deploy what it calls "civilian grade cybernetics", IE, limbs, organs and neurological enhancements for sale at subsidized prices to assure most, if not all citizens can get it.
Beyond that, minor alien cults are beginning to worship the alien species on Mars, these are quickly and brutally handled by the Legion where they are under your authority, and with much kinder methods by European intelligence when they are not.
Finally, the last event and by far the most interesting one, having seen their responsibilities quadruple whilst demand for them similarly increases due to the engagement of Corporate Wars in North America and South America, many Private Military Corporations are merging, creating what is being referred to as Corporate Military Unions.
These agencies are capable of mustering many times more troops than they could before as well as deploying far more hardware by far, allowing real military engagements to take place.
PMC System overhauled to meet demand by large corporate states. Check Military Threadmark for changes.
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Luna
The Lunar City expands further, descending deeper into the subsurface for protection from various regional hazards. Whilst population increase is within expected norms and general industrial output is reasonable, with the promise of possible fusion technology, Helium-3 mining concerns are already appearing, hoping to cash in on the process early.
If Fusion is deployed enmass this coming turn, profit margin increase will be quite large.
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Venus
The Venusian Aerostats are slowly expanding their size and population, just now breaching half a million souls, but that's a far cry from the massively more populated sections of the system.
All is quiet on this front otherwise, capitalisms wheels churn, but no great innovation comes from it.
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Mars
The AI driven forces on the Martian surface can easily stalemate the enemy, especially with their orbital allies and occasional kinetic strike from the rods to demolish tunnels.
You kill millions of the creatures over the course of weeks of operation, but it seems no concerted effort comes to stop you, only probing attempts that are easily shattered by orbital fire and mop-up efforts.
Any attempts to penetrate into their tunnel network and clear it is repulsed rather easily by the aliens, massed fire and stranger, larger armatures being sighted on the inside of them, mounting guns more in line with tanks than infantry.
Worrying.
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Total Profit Factor-1230
PMC's disbanded with reorganization, rehire if you want to have them on retainer.
Updates will be relatively slow, if at all existed as I still have quite a bit to handle personally. Otherwise, enjoy and begin to plan!
