Chapter 299: Beyond The Coverage

There were a few more cities far to the east, but those could wait.

Up north, Marianne’s battalion moved as well.

Saicine appeared first.

The harbor still held under Felix Voss. Blue markers filled the docks and the main approaches, while the fishing boats that had started going out again remained close to shore.

Most of Saicine’s civilians continued keeping some distance from Golden Eagle’s soldiers.

A few had started approaching Felix about something completely different.

"They’re asking him who should become mayor?" Hans asked.

"Felix keeps pushing the problem back to them."

"He can deal with it however he wants. Just don’t drag me into this mess."

Beyond Saicine, the Radar followed Conrad’s ships. His original task group wasn’t one group anymore.

The additional ships Hans queued after ASR-003 were operational now, and Conrad had divided the larger force into several sweeps working north and west along the coast.

Blue markers moved in long, slow lines across the water.

Then Hans noticed the gray ones. It was a large group that was approaching from farther north.

"Albia’s far out past our coverage. What are their ships doing here?"

Albia was one of the AWN’s strongest maritime nations.

Before the Event, its navy and merchant fleets outclassed Ashington’s by a wide margin. It had never been particularly friendly with Valeria either, and a completely unknown group of warships off the Ashington coast could easily assume the worst if the first thing they saw was another unfamiliar armed fleet.

"Tell Conrad to be careful with those gray markers. They could be Albians. If they see us before we introduce ourselves, they might fire first."

"Understood. I’ll relay it, Commander."

Hans followed the coast west.

Near the far edge of Saicine’s coverage, the Radar started resolving something much larger.

Long breakwaters stretched into the water. Docks sat behind them, built for ships far larger than fishing boats, and a city spread inland beyond the harbor.

Anchorage City, though only the outskirts were relatively clear.

Red markers moved through the waterfront districts. Several clusters of gray remained around what looked like the naval yards.

Hans couldn’t tell whether they were surviving sailors, soldiers, civilians or something else entirely.

At least now he knew somebody was there.

He pulled the map away from the coast and back toward Grefort.

Then he moved west.

The Main Base Radar refits had finally pushed enough coverage toward Ashbourne for part of the capital to appear. Only its eastern edge fit inside the current picture.

Red markers filled most of the districts Hans could see, while between them were gray pockets.

They didn’t look scattered, but rather, organized ones.

Some moved in lines along cleared roads. Vehicles sat at intersections. One bridge ended at what looked like a functioning checkpoint.

Hans watched them for several seconds.

The Radar couldn’t tell him who they were.

It only showed that someone inside Ashbourne was still fighting and doing it in an organized way.

He looked farther west, toward the old defensive emplacements scattered across the capital approaches.

Hans still guessed many were leftovers from the war with Valeria years earlier, part of the defensive systems protecting the capital and the western approaches.

Whoever had survived around Ashbourne could wait for a different reason than Stonefall.

They didn’t know Golden Eagle existed yet.

Hans preferred keeping it that way until he knew who they were. He did not want another Hawford incident landing on his desk.

He moved away from Ashbourne and returned to Saicine before pushing northeast toward Pylow.

Once Saicine’s Radar Facility finished its refit, Marianne’s entire picture of the mountain valley changed.

Her Scouts no longer had to sit beside the first concealed entrance simply to watch whether something moved through it.

The Radar could watch it for them, and more importantly, it could see through not only the door, but beyond it as well.

Several hollow spaces appeared beneath the rock.

Some were large enough to be chambers. Others stretched into long rectangular sections that followed the mountain before turning sharply.

Tunnels connected them.

More branches disappeared deeper inside before reconnecting farther away. Shafts climbed toward higher sections of the mountain, and several smaller passages ended near structures hidden beneath the snow.

A few areas gave off faint heat even through the rock.

Completely isolated spaces would still remain invisible, but anything connected to the underground network could be followed.

The door the Scouts found was only one way in.

Hans slowly moved through the model.

"This whole damn mountain is full of them. How did they build all of this without the public knowing it existed anyway?"

The storms had returned twice since the first entrance was discovered. Both started farther north, near one of the other underground structures.

This time, however, they were weaker than the storms that Marianne originally encountered. Neither lasted longer than an hour.

Aside from that, Marianne sent a request the previous evening. She wanted permission to enter.

Hans approved it one condition: Kordula would go with them.

"Commander Krile sent another update," Dianne said. "The entry team will be ready at the forward position by tomorrow afternoon. Engineers, one DASF squad, and two Crystal teams on overwatch."

"And the Overseer?"

"Her Falcon leaves at dawn."

Tyrus would remain at Main Base and see the Induction Wing through.

Kordula would go north.

Weather control wasn’t her specialty. Pylow seemed to have invested heavily in it, but recognizing what a program did and knowing how to operate its machinery were very different things.

AWP was another matter.

If Marianne’s search teams found automated security systems inside that mountain, Kordula was the best person Hans currently had for it.

Hans looked over the underground picture one last time before closing the operational map.

A notification had been sitting beneath it for several minutes. He almost dismissed it with the rest.

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[ Rank 5 — Regiment Commander Promotion Requirements ]

[ Battalion Force Requirement ]

EXCEEDED

[ Required ]

5 Formed Battalions

[ Current ]

20+ Formed Battalions

[ Distributed Production ]

COMPLETE

[ Multi-Battalion Operations ]

COMPLETE

[ Combined-Arms Readiness ]

COMPLETE

[ Major Research Integration ]

COMPLETE

[ All requirements satisfied. ]

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Somehow, while all sorts of prgoress was happening around him, his army had grown enough for this.

No, his army count was actually larger than that. The force requirement wasn’t a problem for a long time.

What held him back was research.

Rank Four gave him the Tech Center, and for most of the time since then, Hans had been too busy expanding everywhere else to actually make full use of it.

At least not until Tyrus became his Research Director.

The Advanced Radar refits were the newest thing on the list. Researching the network wasn’t enough. It wanted the result deployed and doing something useful.

The upgrader Radar Facilities gave him all of that.

Another panel appeared below it.

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[ Rank Promotion Available ]

[ Rank 4 — Battalion Commander ] → [ Rank 5 — Regiment Commander ]

[ Proceed? ]

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A few weeks ago, Silverpeak was the largest problem in front of him.

Now he could see Stonefall, Skinshank, Hawford’s side of the south, ships that might have come from Albia, the outskirts of Anchorage, organized survivors inside Ashbourne, and an entire underground complex beneath Pylow.

Before he pressed yes, he remembered the cracked ceiling in Saicine.

Hans closed the prompt.

"It’s time for an upgrade."

Dianne looked toward him. "An empty facility has been prepared exactly for your use, Commander."

"You work fast," he looked at her with more approval than ever. "Where is it located?"