Chapter 269: Approaching Timeline - I

Hans walked down the central aisle of the Command Center and entered the main command room.

The place had become busier over the past several days.

Most of the seats around the central section were occupied. Communications personnel moved between several stations carrying reports while another group worked through the latest Radar and reconnaissance updates.

A few Air Commanders occupied one side of the room.

One was reviewing Raptor imagery from the south while another had several flight paths open across the northeastern side of Ashington. Farther back, two commanders assigned to local defense were going through the latest patrol and readiness reports around Grefort.

Barely anyone gave him attention as they were too focused on their work.

The Command Center was supposed to make everything easier to manage. If everyone stopped working every time he walked inside, then there wasn’t much point in having one.

Dianne stood near the central table with several officers around her. The pile of reports on her desk had shrunk compared with a few days ago.

Unfortunately, they seemed to have moved here instead.

"Good morning, Commander," Dianne greeted.

The rest of the officers stopped what they were doing and stood up, giving Hans a salute. He waved them down.

"As you were. Everyone, take a seat."

Hans took his seat. "Let’s start. What’s first on the agenda?"

"Silverpeak."

The main display changed as several images appeared across it.

The first showed the old transport yard shortly after Golden Eagle army occupied it. The Pioneer Construction Vehicle still sat near the center while the Power Plant Hans deployed rose behind it.

The next image was newer. The yard barely looked the same.

The War Factory occupied another cleared section while the two Barracks stood farther apart near the existing warehouses. Defensive positions had appeared around several approaches, and the number of vehicles moving through the area had increased considerably.

Another image showed Guardian APCs passing through an MDC checkpoint.

The one beside it showed civilians climbing down from several vehicles while MDC personnel and Golden Eagle soldiers directed them toward an occupied shelter.

Then came the industrial areas.

Engineers stood beside local workers around damaged machinery. One image showed an entire workshop with part of its roof missing. Another showed several heavy vehicles towing equipment away from an area where multiple buildings had already collapsed.

Hans crossed his arms.

It seemed that Southern Command had been busy.

"Commander Brandon’s forces have spent the past several days processing requests from both the Municipal Emergency Authority and Industrial Continuity Directorate," Dianne reported. "Most of the easier civilian concentrations have already been reached. The harder ones are being handled according to route condition and infected activity."

She changed the display.

Several sections of Silverpeak appeared on the map.

Golden Eagle and MDC positions overlapped through much of the areas already under control.

"Industrial recovery is moving slower. Several sites on the ICD list were either too badly damaged or no longer occupied when our people arrived. Some were still usable."

More photographs appeared.

Workers gathered outside one recovered facility while Golden Eagle Engineers inspected machinery deeper inside.

Another site was reduced to little more than burned walls and twisted steel.

"The useful locations are being secured first. Local specialists have already started evaluating what can be repaired and what should be stripped for parts."

Hans nodded slightly.

"What about the Hive in the city?"

"No major change. Brandon’s group has only detected one so far."

The map shifted toward Silverpeak’s more dangerous sectors.

"The central concentration remains active. Brandon has avoided another direct push. Reconnaissance continues, and Fires has broken up several larger groups every time they started concentrating outside occupied areas."

There was no need to throw thousands of soldiers at the Hive just because the army had more ammunition than the MDC.

Silverpeak wasn’t going anywhere anyway. They could take their time, but even then, progress shouldn’t become so slow that it bordered on incompetence.

"Does the MDC have any problems with our presence there after a week of occupancy?"

Dianne paused for a moment.

"The general consensus is that they’re mostly happy with it. Although there is a small group of soldiers who have other thoughts."

"Oh really?"

"Some are suspicious of Golden Eagle. Others are worried we’re slowly replacing the MDC’s position inside Silverpeak."

Another report opened beside the map.

"A few have also started talking about leaving the MDC entirely and joining the military installation farther south."

Hans stared at the report for a moment and was less surprised than he thought he should have been.

Their army arrived, fired more artillery in one night than some of these soldiers probably had seen in months, brought its own logistics, established a base inside the city and immediately started solving problems the MDC had been struggling with.

Someone was eventually going to misunderstand what that meant.

"And their Colonel’s thoughts?"

Individual soldiers could complain about the Golden Eagle Army all they wanted. Hans had more than enough people complaining about him back in Grefort already.

If Voroltz himself started believing that the G.E.A. was trying to replace him, that would become a different problem.

"Colonel Voroltz remains supportive of the current arrangement," Dianne replied. "There has been no formal objection from MDC leadership for now."

"Let’s keep it that way."

She moved to the next section of the report.

"The MEA and ICD are both satisfied with the results so far. They keep submitting more requests, though."

Hans almost laughed. "Tell Brandon that his services aren’t free. One way or another, Silverpeak has to understand that."

He worried that everyone would start thinking that the G.E.A. was a pushover, something he did not want to happen.

"The ICD’s leadership actually gave a proposal of cooperation between us and their industries. Should our army bring back many more facilities, the ICD is more than willing to supply us with materials, parts, and everything else."

"That’s very generous of them." Hans furrowed his brows. "Bring the proposal to my desk after this. I want to review it first."

Dianne nodded, then shifted the display once more.

"The registered civilian population inside the secured parts of Silverpeak has also risen to more than twenty thousand."

A graph appeared on the display.

Twenty thousand might have sounded like a lot, but not on the scale of Silverpeak itself, let alone Grefort.

Twenty thousand people could fill an entire settlement. In a city like Silverpeak, they barely represented a fraction of the people who had once lived there.

The rest were either dead, infected, missing, or still somewhere in the area Hans’s army couldn’t reach.

He left the thought alone. There was nothing he could do about numbers that had already disappeared long before his army reached Silverpeak.

"Make sure to provide better accommodation for them as well. I hope the Engineering teams we recently gave to Brandon are more than enough."

"He is very grateful for your support, Commander."

"Enough with the flattery. Let’s continue."