I took the momentary respite to check up on the convoy. I had tasked Delta 1’s AI to follow the convoy while I was concentrating fully on the battle at the base. Looking at my virtual screens I could see it had followed the convoy without incident and now they were almost halfway to the caves, winding their way through the forest along a little used logging trail. Before leaving the base, the commander had launched another recon drone, which so far had avoided being shot down. It was now trying to track down the missing enemy forces that Iella had reported. They weren’t anywhere near the militia base or our route. Instead the drone finally spotted them to the south of the starport. I took a quick glance at the recon drone’s feed then returned my attention to my TAC armor. I wasn’t sure what the enemy was up to but we couldn’t do anything about it from our current position. As we reached the edge of the forest I glanced back in time to see a huge fireball blossom up from the base. My hunch was correct as I looked at Alpha 2’s schematic. Iella had initiated the self destruct before Alpha 2 could be captured, hopefully taking some of the enemy with it.

The enemy didn’t seem too eager to follow us into the woods and we reached the logging trail without incident. We made good time and caught up to the convoy just as they were reaching the first set of caves. The next hour was extremely busy. The injured were taken care of, supplies were unloaded, and repairs were made to our TAC armor. Ammunition was also loaded into our machines. After all our machines were repaired and reloaded, the techs started on the militia’s remaining two TAC units. Once repaired, new software would have to be installed so our command vehicle could control them. Iella would get one of them to replace her lost Alpha 2 and the second would become Charlie 2, under Nate’s control. They were both medium machines with identical weapon load outs. They each had arm mounted lasers and a turret mounted missile rack for a head which could rotate 360 degrees. The turret mounted missile rack and missile auto loader on each unit had been malfunctioning, causing the missiles to jam dangerously when being reloaded after firing. I had to admit this was the first time I had seen a missile launcher mounted in that particular position on TAC armor. One of the techs later told me that the Red Fang had sent the machines to test different weapon configurations.

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The scout units were repaired and rearmed first and immediately sent out to keep an eye on the enemy. The second recon drone had been shot down not long after we reached the caves. It was however, up long enough for us to pinpoint where the enemy’s remaining AG forces were heading. They were on a course straight for the military academy located several miles southeast of the starport. Sonya attempted to warn the school, but all the frequencies were being jammed. The school itself held no strategic value, so the secret underground R&D lab must be the target. How the enemy even knew about the lab was anyone’s guess. Most of the remaining AG vehicles and all our TAC armor would head for the starport. The scouts would meet us there. It was too late to try and reach the school, but we could stop them from escaping. The remaining token AG force would guard the caves and the command vehicle. The militia’s TAC armor wasn’t ready yet but we couldn’t wait for them. They would have to catch up once the techs had finished. The AG vehicles took the lead while our slower TAC armor followed behind. We took a different route through the forest this time, coming out about a mile north of the militia’s base. Our plan was to hit the starport from the north and hopefully take the enemy by surprise. So far we had seen no evidence that the enemy had drones or aircraft.