The Xavier Gravitic Envelope drive revolutionizes humanity's projection of force across interplanetary distances. The TDF launches a food and munitions relief effort for Mars. The ships arrive in Martian orbit mere days after leaving LEO. A salvo of XGE-mounted missiles launched at the mid-point of the journey shreds Cybrid orbital defenses. Though the cost of producing these missiles with the dwindling store of gravitic components is astronomical, the TDF owns Martian space almost immediately.
Alliance sensor boats patrolling the asteroid belt detect a hidden Cybrid ore processing and refinement facility. A taskforce of XGE-equipped destroyers and corvettes is dispatched to destroy this objective. As the ships begin the assault, the Cybrids detonate nearby Asteroid NX-232 with horrifically precise timing. The huge blast causes a meteor tsunami to rip through the taskforce, damaging many ships. In the ensuing confusion, the ISS Hellfire Rose reports attack by a Cybrid boarding party. The ship's captain blows his fusion reactors to prevent capture of the Rose's XGE drive, and the rest of the taskforce falls back to Mars.
Cybrid forces in South America venture north to suppress human insurgents in the Central plains of North America and the northwestern watershed of the Mississippi River valley. The reinforced Cybrid legions retake Denver and devastate the Furious Stars after a pitched battle. An alarming number of Trojan Horses among the Stars officer corps plays a significant role in making sure almost no one in the Order survives. The Blood Eagle immediately begin counter-insurgency operations to purge their own ranks of Trojan Horse infiltrators.
