As Lysander’s charge begins, Virginia watches his destroyers plunge through withering fire toward Phobos. She realizes the ships are largely empty and intended as rams to crash the moon’s defensive shield so the Lightbringer can disgorge infantry. She briefly concentrates fire on the Lightbringer, then redirects to the destroyers when she grasps the true plan.

With several rams still inbound and the shield near failure, Virginia orders the main shield dropped. A destroyer slams into the city, carving a vast crater and devastating the surface, but the system avoids a catastrophic overload. This forces Lysander to shift his landing zone north toward Bastion One, where Virginia intends to retaliate.

The Lightbringer brakes to a hover over the shattered city and trades brutal close-range fire with Phobos’s guns. Lysander deploys swarms of fighters and hundreds of clawDrills to bypass bastions and bore into the moon’s interior. Virginia orders her squadrons to prioritize the drills and tasks Red Legion I, under Legate Dunlo, to intercept the penetrations, while Hawk and Haemanthus Legions move laterally from adjacent bastions to contain spread.

Virginia designates a surface counterstroke at the breaches with Drachenjäger, and Kavax volunteers to lead it. To enable the sortie, Virginia and Kavax press the engineering teams to restore the shields despite lethal radiation; Centurion Murani Legard accepts the order, committing to bring them online in ten minutes. Holiday arms Virginia and enforces her commands. Kavax bids Sophocles farewell and departs, as Virginia steels herself to direct the defense of Phobos.