[You know you’re the Commander, right?] Nico laughed as Max saw the group chat open to make the request.

[She’s still your mother, and she’s got a particular knack for getting past my defenses.]

Somehow, Mary Tarith always found a way to turn the conversation around on him, and Max had no sure counter to her verbal skills, so it was better to let Nico do it. She had a lifetime of experience in dealing with the woman and her doublespeak.

The signs of the enemy disappeared overnight, hunted to extinction or hiding so well that nothing they had could find them. It was possible that a few Omwat had hidden in caves and deactivated their cloaking technology, then powered down their weapons so that they wouldn’t give their position away, but that small force shouldn’t be a threat to a city defense force.

Just after dawn, when the night watch had a few hours to sleep, and everyone else had gotten a hot meal in and their gear repaired from the little battle damage they had sustained, Max sent the order to move out and meet with the Tarith Reavers to form a sweeping line across the forest. They would march straight out in a spread pattern and clear out any threats that they found with the help of the drones.

[You are moving out with your forces, Lord Commander?] The City Defense General asked as Max broadcast the orders for deployment.

[They might need me on the front lines. Fear not. We have cleared out all the detected threats in the region. You shouldn’t have to face anything more than a few stragglers after we leave.] Max assured him.

[While we do feel much safer with you here, I am certain that the other cities would as well. Safe travels, Commander.]

Max walked a few kilometers behind the main lines so that he wasn’t a shining beacon alerting the enemy to their presence before the Regiment could get into weapons range while Nico and the Drone Pilots flew patterns overhead, keeping up an active sensor net that gave them a good idea of what they would find in the forest, right down to animals smaller than the common housecat.

As they walked, Max collected updates from the other planets that were under attack, listening to the reports of entire Reaver Companies and Mercenary forces landing on the surface, with the Reavers using Disruptors near maximum range to disable the enemy Mecha without destroying them.

They hadn’t shown up with just a few ships per planet as they had promised. They were on a mission to full-out loot the Omwat forces before the Border Nations could make a claim on the military assets as reparations.

The Cygnus Compliance Fleet was also competing with the majority of the Tarith Reavers for the Omwat homeworlds, which were largely depopulated by orbital strikes already, a fact that Max hoped had been withheld from the aliens aboard Terminus, who were watching intently as his Regiment marched through the woods.

The Shin would be somewhere between overjoyed and shivering in terror at the footage, as they viewed the trees as the victims of this battlefield, and unlike the open badlands where the first fights took place, they were marching into a thick ancient forest now.

The occasional flash of Ion fire from the Drones was followed by the report of Thunder Guns blasting at the marked threat from beyond visual range as the Regiment herded the enemy force in front of them.

The Omwat had given up on communications, as it was all being intercepted and decoded by the Border Nations anyhow, so there was a chance that they hadn’t yet noticed that the line was as wide as it was or that they were being forced into a dead end, where the two Mecha Regiments would force them back into the guns of the city defenses.

[Contact with the Two Three] A wing leader reported, meaning the Second Battalion’s Third Company, giving the Regiment a good idea where the enemy was along their line.

The Mecha had stopped to take up positions while the flanking units split off half their members to reinforce the unit under attack, keeping the integrity of the line intact in case this was a diversion.

This time it wasn’t, and a reinforced wing of Crusader Class Mecha was quickly eliminated when the Company Commander managed to get a firing solution and turn her Ion Bombard Arrays on them.

[Good work, everyone. Back in position, and let’s keep our pace up. The faster we push them, the less likely they will be to realize what we are doing.] Max ordered.

[Sir, we have a large incoming force on the western edge of the city. How far out are your forces?] A frantic voice asked a few hours later.

That must be the Commander of their destination city’s defense forces or the commander’s radio officer anyhow.

[Terminus Trading Company is holding pace with the Tarith Reavers to sweep the forest clear. ETA to your location is four hours.] Max reported.

[Requesting an advanced force. We are taking fire from enemy Super Heavy Mecha, and our lines cannot hold against that.] The voice over the radio reported.

[Reinforcements incoming.] Max replied, then changed to a secure channel to hail Nico.

[What do you see? How strong is the force attacking the city?] Max requested.

[The city is taking zero fire at the moment, according to orbital scans. There is some movement along the lines as the shifts change, but I do not detect any damaged Mecha.] Nico informed him.

It was a good ploy, luring him into a trap where they had set up heavy weapons to bombard Cleansing Light the moment that it appeared. But not good enough with Terminus in orbit. It would only take him a few minutes to fly there, and a more impulsive Commander might have done it without thought, but Max preferred to double-check everything before he redeployed.

[Find me the ambush. I want to know where it is before they open fire on the city defenses for real.]