Chapter 289: From Silverpeak to Main

The first complete report from Silverpeak reached Main Base later that day.

Hans was back inside the Command Center when Dianne brought it over.

He had already received shorter updates while the fighting was still happening, but those mostly told him whether Southern Command was still intact and whether Hawford was continuing the attack.

This one was much longer.

Hans opened the report. The first section covered the battle.

Several Golden Eagle Army vehicles were damaged, with Vanguard Five taking the worst of it after being immobilized during the armored engagement. None of the System units were destroyed, and recovery teams were already working through the damaged equipment.

Hawford was another matter.

Their first formation took heavy losses before withdrawing, while the second group barely entered the engagement before deciding not to repeat the same mistake.

Hans stopped there for a moment.

"Why would they attack us in the first place?"

That was the part Hans couldn’t make sense of.

The Golden Eagle Army had never attacked Hawford, and Brandon’s people were operating alongside the MDC when the confrontation happened. Even if Hawford distrusted them, there were far easier ways to keep Golden Eagle away from the facility than opening fire on a force that had already established itself around Silverpeak.

A competent command wouldn’t throw soldiers into that kind of fight without believing it had a reason.

Which meant somebody was either giving them one or making sure they thought they had one.

"Someone’s behind this. Brandon and Voroltz probably reached the same conclusion already."

Dianne looked over from the other side of the table.

"They also left prisoners behind."

"How many?"

"The final count is still changing. Mostly wounded soldiers, vehicle crews and personnel who couldn’t withdraw with the rest."

Hans continued reading. Golden Eagle Army Medics were already treating the wounded among them.

That didn’t bother him. He had no real hostility toward these people. The bigger problem was what to do with everyone afterward.

Then came the separate report from Voroltz.

The suspicious MDC personnel Brandon had been watching were now in MDC custody, with Genevieve involved in the investigation. Voroltz apparently believed someone deliberately pushed both sides toward the confrontation, although there still wasn’t enough evidence to say exactly who.

Hans leaned back.

Voroltz’s suspicion made sense.

Hawford had every reason to remain wary of the Golden Eagle Army. The name alone sounded Valerian enough to make people nervous, and Hans still found that mistake irritating whenever he remembered it.

But suspicion was one thing.

Sending two armed formations toward a disputed facility while Golden Eagle and MDC were already working together was another.

Even an actual Valerian force probably wouldn’t have been given that much warning before responding.

"Where are we keeping the prisoners for now?"

"Wherever Brandon can accommodate them."

Hans stared at her. "I thought the Detention Camp I had set up was for that exact purpose."

"They still need to recover a bit first, Commander. Also, wouldn’t you be willing to try to test those people for the Personnel Integration?"

"Don’t tempt me."

He’d built it during the lull as a precaution for something he might eventually need. Apparently, that time had finally come.

"Tell Brandon to send them over once the wounded are stable enough to move. Let’s get some information out of them first, then convert them if they can still be converted."

"And if they don’t?"

"Then they’ll remain prisoners for now."

Hans returned to the report.

There was no reason to mistreat them.

In fact, doing the opposite was probably more useful.

Whoever arranged this confrontation wanted Hawford to see the Golden Eagle Army as an enemy. Beating their soldiers in battle, treating their wounded, feeding their prisoners and eventually sending some of them home alive would make that story much harder to maintain.

And if a few decided afterward that Golden Eagle wasn’t such a terrible place to stay, Hans wasn’t going to complain.

The report wasn’t finished yet.

Dianne moved to the next section.

"There’s also the facility."

Hans’s attention returned to the screen.

He had already seen some of Brandon’s shorter messages about the DAEDALUS markings. The full report confirmed the rest: advanced materials, impulse engineering, pilot fabrication and VULCAN qualification work.

Samples and recovered media were already being prepared for the Tech Center, while the larger equipment remained in place for documentation.

Then Hans reached another line.

Probable articulated-platform structural testing. Possible mecha application.

He stopped.

"...Mecha?"

Dianne leaned slightly closer.

"That’s what Engineer Three wrote."

Hans read the accompanying description.

It wasn’t a complete machine. Most of the actuators were gone, but enough of the articulated frame remained to show what the researchers had been testing. The same strange materials found throughout the facility also appeared around its load-bearing joints and armor mounting points.

Large piloted machines weren’t unheard of on Aurelia, so the idea itself wasn’t what interested him.

Rather, it was the frame.

If DAEDALUS had been applying the same materials and structural techniques to articulated platforms, then the useful part was everything underneath the machine they eventually intended to build.

Hans kept reading and reached the next section, which concerned AWP.

His expression changed as he read farther.

"No weapons? No personnel? Nothing?"

"Nothing that explains where they went," Dianne replied. "The Engineers found the service bays and weapon mounts intact. They haven’t found evidence of fighting or an evacuation either."

The report described empty maintenance cradles, intact docking stations and fixed weapon mounts with nothing attached to them.

The Northern Nuclear Power Plant had already shown Hans what one surviving AWP deployment could become. ASS-116 kept doing its job after normal command collapsed, even when its interpretation of protection became increasingly twisted.

Silverpeak was different. This wasn’t another facility centered around one surviving security authority. The laboratories, AWP support infrastructure and ordinary workspaces were still there, but the people and the machines were missing.

"Could Kimmy find anything the Engineers missed?"

"She is still recovering, Commander. I would rather not send her across the country again so soon."

Hans nodded.

Dianne continued. "She has also been complaining about a promise lately."

Hans stared at her for a moment, then his mind slowly remembered.

The night when they talked about the parks, and the flight Yunera had volunteered him for.

Although Kimmy had ridden inside a helicopter once, Hans vividly remembered that she wasn’t as intrigued as he had expected.

"...Right."

He really did owe Kimmy both of those.

"Leave her alone for now. Tell Brandon to keep searching the facility. And make sure the prisoners are handled properly."

Hans looked back toward the Hawford section of the report.

"There has to be a reason they attacked us. I’m not accepting ’they were stupid’ as the answer."

"What about another Hawford force?"

Hans didn’t need long to answer.

"If the Radar shows them as red, engage immediately."

"Understood."

Hans wasn’t interested in turning one manufactured firefight into an actual war with Hawford.

That didn’t mean he was going to let his soldiers stand there and get shot while everyone figured out who was manipulating whom.

Hawford could explain itself when it was ready.

Until then, the Golden Eagle Army would defend itself.