Building upon the original intelligence ‘scrape’ done by the UASV Grayback, an infiltration and operations support AI is injected by the same vessel into the planetary and orbital network employed by the Shil on Earth. It’s main tasking is to effectively monitor all probable insurgency operators and gently nudge situations to ensure a higher rate of survival. This effort is especially targeted at surviving US, Mexican, and Canadian military personnel, the AI utilizing behavioral and personal history patterns on top of the list kept by the Shil’vati of said personnel. It’s secondary objective is to act as the ‘man in the middle’ through various human and Shil’vati hardware to permit encrypted untraceable communications.

One of the first contacted is General Paul D. Ripper, USAF, and primary head on the hydra that is the Free Army of Colorado and the general resistance elements in the rocky mountain theater. One of the main organizations responsible for keeping the rockies either black or red by Imperial ‘safety’ classifications.

Named for the Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, Operation MARION would be the beginning of Ghost Fleet’s intervention on the North American continent and would serve as a roadmap for any future endeavors elsewhere on Earth. With contact established and some vetting done by both boots on the ground (Marine STRIKE teams deployed by stealth dropship and Omicron Special Detachment troops in plainclothes) and via AI ‘snooping’ that the Imperials could only dream of. The first contact was carried out by a Major of the UAMC direct with one of General Ripper’s own surviving Majors. Terms where set, agreements made, and the start of site selection for stage three was begun.

The primary item traded at this meeting on a mountain top was several cases of AN/PCS-201 encrypted handheld digital COM sets. For the first time the FAC had fully secure digital communications.

Operation Beaufort remains one of the most complicated deployments in UAMC history, in both their home timeline and the current one. The goal was simple, the deployment of operational support bases in the Colorado Rockies, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada. What remained was determining sites in which would be both appropriate to their needs and to the complication of needing steep sloping hills to employ holographic cloaking equipment to hide them from the ever watching presence of the Shil’vati’s Navy. Both Omicron Teams and trusted local operators from General Ripper’s network where employed in concert with orbital scans from the UASV Grayback. Sixteen sites where selected, ten where discarded due to ‘tourist’ activity of both human and Imperial types. Of the remaining six, two were in Colorado, three across Idaho and Montana and a singular site in western Nevada.

Nearly a month is spent shuttling supplies from the fleet to orbit via stealth craft during periods of low naval activity and then down to the surface via stealth dropship. But in the end Ghost Fleet personnel are now on the surface of their homeworld providing arms, training, medical support not tied to Imperial medical facilities, and above all… material and manufacturing support.

During the course of the Colorado drops a group of insurgents on the front slope are sighted, a satellite organization to the FAC, they are being pursued in a do or die manner by a group of Colorado Sector Militia. Outnumbered and being herded into a box canyon the marines supervising this load after witnessing the tactics the insurgents employed decide to intervene and risk being spotted. Jamming the Imperial COMs and dropping in behind the IMPMIL unit, they annihilate them and make contact with the survivors before extracting them to what was designated by then as Camp Wildfire.