Perhaps you would enjoy reading about one of the greatest cover-ups in American history. Where would you like to begin?
The Iowa Conflict: Part One
The Iowa Conflict: Part Two
The Iowa Conflict: Part Three
The Iowa Conflict: Part Four

Maybe, just maybe, you'd like to read:
The Martian Situation: Part One
The Martian Situation: Part Two
The Martian Situation: Part Three
The Martian Situation: Part Four
The Martian Situation: Part Five
The Martian Situation: Part Six

Diamond in the Rough:
    As luck would have it, Vice Admiral Hinkoff's controversial attack on the alien fleet off Uranus proved to be quite beneficial.  Although the entire human force that had been deployed was destroyed and morale had indeed been decimated, the Earth force managed to recover amazing amounts of alien material.
     Hinkoff's forces had destroyed one World Smasher and shattered another.  The ensuing debris clouds were treasure troves masquerading as mine fields.   Using his best pilots and most maneuverable craft, Hinkoff swept the area clean.   The resulting salvage mission turned up two major discoveries.
     Spinning in low orbit of Uranus, a recovery team grappled a semi-truck sized piece of equipment.  It's small size, however, was betrayed by it's immense weight.  After being scanned and measured and extrapolated by every technician in the fleet, and through brief laser consultations with scientists on Earth, it was determined that Hinkoff had most likely got his hands on the main mechanism of a gravity gun!  Most agreed that the unit was incomplete, as it seemed to possess no aiming capabilities, but the discovery was monumental to say the least.  After all these months of interstellar cat and mouse fighting, man had come to somewhat know alien circuitry.  As such, Lockheed techs on board the USS Kretch were given the task of designing some sort of controlling mechanism for the gravity gun. 
     In just three short weeks, they accomplished the improbable, test firing the weapon on some useless light cargo pods that had been emptied weeks earlier.   With minor adjustments and tweaking, the team of technicians and engineers finally managed to firmly lock on and crush the titanium reinforced containers.

Number Two in a Series:
     It has been mentioned that Hinkoff stumbled upon two major discoveries after the human victory at Uranus.  One, the gravity gun, was an explicit discovery...technology.  The second was implicit...information.  It had always been assumed the enemy was singular...another race competing with mankind for control of the stars.  The ever-expanding military capabilities of these aliens both frightened and intrigued the humans.  At every turn, the aliens introduced another cog in their destructive machinery.  How one race could continuously astound with major technological advances was awe-inspiring.  It was also fundamentally flawed.  It was this flaw that Hinkoff uncovered.
    Although the source of the following information has been lost to antiquity, it is an accepted fact in relation to the USSC's campaign in this System.   Perhaps through capture and interrogation, or maybe through salvaged functioning databases or even more informative plaques (as recovered from the defense satellite in orbit of Jupiter), Hinkoff learned that the alien threat was not a homogenous population.   Despite hailing from one apparent planet, there were at least three different species serving in the alien fleets.  The crews were segregated across ships, but the ships all operated collaboratively.
    This information shattered the image of the super-being alien that was forming in the heads of the USSC troops under Hinkoff's command.  Sure, they still possessed unmatched destructive power, but it was spread across at least three species...with little intermingling of weapon systems across vessels.  The comet cannon, for instance, belonged to Type B (Hinkoff's terminology named the aliens as Type A, B, and C) and only existed on ships operated by Type B.  This was great news to the humans.  With their own gravity gun now functioning and a greater understanding of the enemy, perhaps they had a chance after all.

Fig. 7.34
The distorted Hinkoff drawings, as transmitted by laser from Uranus.

The Hunt Resumes:
     Operating at full potential and freshly reinforced from Mars Base, Taskforce Showdown finally left its longtime mooring off Uranus.  New ships had arrived with the troops and techs from Mars, including new space fighters, carriers, and destroyers.  Schematics of the gravity gun had been lasered to Mars and basic versions of the weapon were installed on light destroyers that joined Hinkoff's fleet.  Hinkoff's stronger fleet left system following the retreat path of the aliens.  He hoped to encounter some resistance soon, if only to test his new weapons and boost his men's spirits.

Neptune:
     Space travel is unusual in that it is highly non-linear.  The planets rotate about Sol on independent schedules.   This means that you can't just fly straight out from Earth and expect to come across each planet on your way out of the system.  Alternatively, if you do fly straight out, you could actually travel forever and never encounter any solar bodies.   Therefore, in an era of primitive space travel, one must make several sacrifices.   One sacrifice is that if you time your travels right, you can aim for an area of space that, when you finally arrive, will also be home to a solar body.  The second sacrifice is convenience.  Sometimes, to get out, you have to go in first.  What is meant by this is that, to accurately navigate a ship across vast distances, you sometimes have to back track over existing traveled space to enter "new," untraveled space.  It really isn't too complicated if you just accept the fact that it works, given enough time and forethought.
     With that said, Hinkoff eventually entered the neighborhood of Neptune.  The dark, gas giant loomed menacingly in the frigid emptiness of space, it's giant dark spot looking upon Showdown like the eye of a Titan.  The mythological ramifications did not deter Hinkoff, however, from exploring the system.  Probes were launched and nearly immediately, contact was made.  Hinkoff split Showdown into a classic Hannibal maneuver and swept in toward Triton, Neptune's largest satellite.   The probes had detected strong electromagnetic signals on Triton, among other red flags that indicated an intelligent presence.  A Marine crew was dispatched to the source of the signal as had been done at the relay station in the asteroid belt.   This time however, the Marines encountered nominal living resistance.  The blitzkrieg nature of the human attack, however, overwhelmed the ill-prepared relay station and prisoners were taken.  The poor ground fighting skills of these C-Type aliens was another important discovery for Hinkoff.

Fig. 713.000
A heavily damaged World Smasher is captured by Hinkoff's forces.

A Live-fire Test:
     While the Marines attacked and captured the base on Triton, a lone World Smasher engaged one of the splinter wings of Showdown.  It was sluggish and battered looking, and it most likely was the World Smasher that was hammered by humanity at Uranus.  The struggling ship was really no match for the newly beefed up taskforce.  The USS  Stuyvesant, a light destroyer, engaged the alien behemoth with its gravity guns and inflicted major structural damage to the vessel.  With no support vessels in sight to assist, the World Smasher was a sitting duck for green fighter pilots who needed some live-fire training.  It's defenses decimated, its hull cracking, and its engines burnt out, the World Smasher was dead in the water, so to say.  Hinkoff, when made aware of the situation, ordered a cease fire and a full scale Marine boarding. 
     The Marine boarding shuttle plunged into the World Smasher and injected its cargo pods- each containing fifty combat hardened space Marines.  The hundreds of soldiers were not shocked to see the fatal, self-inflicted wounds of the WS crew.  They were Type A aliens, just like those who had been seen (and recovered) on Mars.  Like the Japanese soldiers of World War II, Type A aliens did not surrender.   Type C did.
     The "A's" had also managed to initiate the self-destruct systems of their gravity guns, but heavy damage to circuits had spared one controlling block.  Score another for Hinkoff!  The actual aiming mechanism was far more precise and easier to use than the one the human engineers had come up with.   As a result, the human units were ordered to be phased out as alien copies were produced.  Showdown  had managed to once again greatly strengthen itself by sheer luck.

Onward, to Pluto:
     The base on Triton was in perfect working order.   Hinkoff established a Marine garrison in the base, as well as a small space port (with dry dock), and a marginal defense fleet and defense satellite network.  With the human foothold at Neptune somewhat secure, he then led Taskforce Showdown further into the unknown.
     The base on Triton was another major victory for mankind.   News of its capture sparked another fleet to leave Mars and head for Neptune.   Man now had two strongholds beyond Earth.   

The story concludes...later!