As the fleets moved, the tankers that were carrying soldiers and other equipment for impending land battles started heading in a different direction from the main fleets, executing a plan they had come up with.
They continued to advance as quietly as possible, while also hoping to not attract any undue attention to themselves, praying fervently that their movements would go unnoticed. Their objective was to land the soldiers so that they can start the ground assault to seize control over the port. Once successful, they would dock and unload all their vehicles from their tankers before they embarked on the next mission of capturing the cities.
When the tankers reached about fifteen kilometers from the shores, they came to a halt. Their halt was followed by the deployment of high-speed boats which started coming out of them, rapidly descending into the waters and were swiftly being filled with heavily armed soldiers, who were ready for combat.
While this was happening, the fleet continued moving ahead, while maintaining their course, coordinating with the tankers through their communication channels. Their coordinated movements resulted in them reaching the effective range of their destroyer missiles by the time all of their combat soldiers had already loaded into the high-speed boats and had started moving for their landing zone.
With the high-speed boats en route to their landing zones, their four almost outdated guided missile destroyers sprang to life. The lids of the vertical launchers opened up at once as the pencil-like missiles started being propelled out of their tubes by the controlled explosions. After being propelled into the air and reaching a height of fifty meters, the projectiles adjusted their trajectory and locked onto their designated targets– the nearest port within their reach.
The SM-6 missiles coming out of those vertical launchers surged toward their designated targets as fast as they could, while the fleet that was now assured that the ports would soon be overwhelmed by the appearance of missiles started deliberately slowing down their advance, moving as slow as possible despite aware that their presence had already been discovered by Eden's military.
While they were closing in, the other fleets also initiated their own barrage, firing whatever they could while still keeping a vigilant watch on their radars, wary of potentially being ambushed by those monstrous fighters and bombed to oblivion. And because of that, the soldiers on board remained tense, feeling the weight of the operation.
But just when the missiles were about a kilometer away from hitting the targeted port, a series of red dots forming a line started appearing in the sky that was then directed towards the missiles. Following that, an abrupt explosion occurred and before they could even express what they were feeling, the sound of what the explosions that had happened just before their eyes finally started reaching their ears.
"BRTTTTTTTTTTTTT"
"Shit"
No one knew who was the source of those words, but they didn't disagree with him since they knew that their surprise attack was now out of the window.
The commanders were swift to recover from the shock and regained their composure, with that they started issuing orders to their respective fleets to continue their attacks.
They commanded an intensified barrage, aiming to saturate and overwhelm the port's anti-missile defenses. They hoped that at least some of the missiles might get missed by the defense system and they would be able to cause harm on the port, making the soldiers landing job easier.
Amidst their hearts experiencing fear and tension, the soldiers responded by forcing themselves to focus. They knew that any mistake they do from now on would very likely result resulting in their deaths, hence their minds did all they could to make them focus as much as possible, ensuring the survival of the body.
This resulted in the soldiers operating beyond their normal mindset as they truly fired whatever was available, sending everything the ships had in the direction of that port, hoping that they would buy enough time for their landing ships to be able to arrive at the landing zones and initiate a fierce fight to take over those ports.
Alas, no matter what they tried to smack towards the ports, they were always met with the same response: dotted red lines converging on the missiles before those bullets started shooting down the approaching missiles followed shortly by the hearing of the distinctive sound of the defense system "BRTTTTTTTTTTTTTT" being the results of the bullets soaring at a very high speed to shoot down the incoming missiles.
While all that was happening, beneath these fleets, the ocean surface was still retaining its tranquility, four black submarines could be seen trailing behind all the four fleets, their presence concealed by the undisturbed waters.
These submarines were of a similar size as the Virginia Class Submarine, yet they could still be said to be slightly larger than the Virginia Class Submarine by a few meters.
Within these submarines, they looked very different compared to any of the world's other submarines. Virtually, every aspect of this submarine differed from any submarine found elsewhere in the world while everything on the outside couldn't look any more than a normal submarine.
....
In the meantime, the boats that were dispatched from the tankers were making their way towards the nearest place they could disembark to start their land operation.
However, as they saw all the missiles that were launched by their fleets were completely turned useless even before they could cause any harm, all the soldiers on the boats stared at the sky with utter shock.
"What the fuck is their missile defense system made of?" The commander of one of the fleets cursed, because of these missiles, their planned saturation attack was completely thwarted without being able to hit even the waters on the navy bases, which would have at least caused a slight disarray within the port, at least that would have been of slight help for their soldiers when they started attacking the would have been disoriented enemies.
"The fast boats team should be arriving soon so tell everyone to start turni..." Just as he was about to start ordering for his fleets to retreat, his command was intercepted by the sound of a massive explosion.
'BOOOOOOOM"
When he turned to look at the direction the sound had come from, his face turned deathly pale as he wasn't able to believe what he was seeing with his eyes.
One of the ships of their fleet was now bent from the middle, forming a triangle with the sea surface as its base before it was divided into two pieces, joined by just a few meters of metal sheets, as the two portions of the massive ship fell back in the water, tearing the very little metal that supported the two portions, the ship was now completely split into two halves as they started plummeting into the water and slowly started sinking beneath the water surface.
BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM.
This nightmarish scene was soon followed by three more consecutive detonations, all of them targeting the smallest ships in the fleets which should be considered as an enough warning.
The scene was now something neither the commander nor anyone who had seen those explosion would ever forget in their lives.
It was now become a trademark of the Eden's military which in the future they would be known for: The Mare (A malevolent spirit or being that is said to sit on the chests of sleeping individuals, causing them to experience nightmares and sleep paralysis)
