How the Vietcong Cracked Kusari’s Lunar Fortress. Part 2

Port Izumi Industrial Complex | Izumi

For most of the roughly forty-thousand personnel stationed on Port Izumi, the first signs that a dangerous situation was developing came just minutes before the assault. Work had been proceeding through its mundane rhythms all that morning, as cargo was offloaded, raw materials processed, and deliveries coordinated through the orbital lift. At no time were employees in the refineries, terminals or those scattered across the colonial township, informed that dozens of starships had suddenly cut their transponders and split off from regular orbital traffic. They had no idea that Port Izumi was now under attack.

The battle in orbit was by all accounts, swift and violent. Through forged transponder signals and in possession of IJN naval codes, Vietcong starships managed to enter Izumi’s intermediate engagement zone, bypassing the thorough detection methods employed throughout the Hirakubo system. Its fleet was a mixture of export-grade, last generation warships, and heavily modified civilian craft, with the Phan Bội Châu, a captured, Manchurian-built heavy-cruiser, serving as flagship. In the opening salvo, Izumi’s outnumbered orbital defense forces were eviscerated.

The battle in orbit was by all accounts, swift and violent.

Of the two Byakko PMC frigates guarding the approach, one was destroyed outright, believed to have been struck amidship by a Soviet P-210 “Izumrúd” anti-ship missile. The other, sustaining engine damage but still operable, traded fire with Vietcong escorts for several minutes, before a secondary explosion, likely the result of internal fires, led to a catastrophic reactor detonation. A single scout destroyer, Byakko’s largest warship in the system, may have been targeted hours or even days before the battle had even begun. Several reports speculate that Vietcong “spacefrogs”, elite combat cosmonauts, likely placed a naval mine on the vessel’s hull that was later detonated at the start of the operation. Izumi Station quickly became the sole axis of the defense effort, centered within a small network of armed facilities, guarding the orbital lift.

In tandem, Vietcong special forces pre-positioned on Port Izumi itself, had already begun launching hundreds of dronecraft, most targeting anti-aerospace or anti-orbital batteries, but also sensor installations, command and control centers, and the homes of prominent Kusari and Byakko personnel in the township itself. Even after dozens of targets were hit, most alarms remained silent as the confusion and institutional rot that had already weakened Izumi’s response continued to paralyze its defenses.

By the time Vietcong starships were entering the atmosphere, Kusari’s stations in orbit had been completely pacified, mostly by precision railgun fire as the fleet approached. On the ground, a final flight of ECM drones unleashed vast ribbons of chaff and constellations of decoy flares into the skies, blinding Port Izumi’s fire control AI and saturating radar coverage just moments before the landing craft broke atmosphere. Surface fire, where it did appear, was random and light, hardly enough to disrupt the landing and quickly suppressed. 

Two immense landing cruisers, representing some of the largest warships in the Vietcong inventory, formed the vanguard of the assault, disembarking the equivalent of a full mechanized regiment directly onto the facility's tarmac in a matter of minutes. Flanking them, a variety of smaller gunships and assault craft began deploying their own forces across the wider port, targeting communication hubs and logistic centers. Post-action analyses would later reveal that Kusari shipping records, interstellar traffic data, and staffing reports, stored in several on-site server farms, were a primary target of the Vietcong, and likely what necessitated a planetary raid.

Several reports speculate that Vietcong “spacefrogs”, elite combat cosmonauts, likely placed a naval mine on the vessel’s hull that was later detonated at the start of the operation.

Within thirty minutes of the landing, what remained of Byakko’s ground forces had been confined to a small defensive perimeter surrounding Izumi’s orbital lift. They were relentlessly hammered by Vietcong tanks and mechanized infantry as squadrons of aerospace craft, deployed from the Phan Bội Châu began to sweep the skies in force. Meanwhile, squads of assaulting infantry stormed the facilities’ offices, with multiple accounts of unarmed staff caught in the crossfire. Both the Japanese government and Vietcong representatives have repeatedly accused the other of intentionally targeting civilians.

Yet the raid dissipated as quickly as it had begun. Two hours after the attack, with much of the facility damaged beyond repair, the first dropships began lifting off, laden with physical drives, sensitive equipment, and an undetermined number of captured personnel from both Kusari and Byakko. Controlled demolitions were set off in several structures, while others were targeted by both ground and orbital-based munitions. Intense fires and secondary explosions, centered around the airfield’s fuel storage systems, were left to burn unchecked. 

The retreat was staggered but deliberate as Vietcong starships swiftly disappeared back into the swarms of civilian traffic now mostly blind, confused, and adding to the chaos in the wake of the attack. Several of the attacking craft were intercepted in the following days as forces from both Kusari PMCs and the Japanese Navy raced to reinforce the system. But of the Phan Bội Châu, the landing cruisers, and other key assets, thousands of competing leads and traces produced nothing of substance.

Though the destruction of a flagship industrial facility will be certain to dominate the headlines, the incredible capacity of the Vietcong to plan and execute an attack at this scale cannot be overstated. Planetary raids remain among the most difficult military operations in interstellar warfare; that a non-state actor, well-armed and well equipped, but a non-state actor nevertheless, can achieve this level of competency, marks a turning point in any future conflict.

This report was originally prepared for the Centauri Sentinel. Published here in full with additional context.

A detailed account of the attack’s aftermath and the Japanese response will follow in Part III.





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