Expanding the Force

"How feasible is this plan of yours?"

"No idea. And a lot of the details still need work. It's not really ready to use as is."

Amber had no intention of hiding the problems with this operational plan.

Since Randall had asked, he answered honestly.

"So what do we do?"

"What do we do? That's not my problem anymore. Let the tactical staff officers around Lieutenant Colonel Dallas tear their hair out over it."

"Wait. You're planning to send this to Lieutenant Colonel Dallas?" Amber's answer made Randall drop his joking attitude.

"You think they'll adopt it? No, whether they'll even read it is another question."

"You're right~"

After encrypting the operational plan, Amber turned to look at the bewildered Randall.

"But suppose the intelligence on the Space Elevator in this plan came from Major Randall of Lansford Port."

Amber pointed at Randall, then at himself.

"And the details of its execution came from Warrant Officer Amber of the Combat Intelligence Center. I'm sure that would get at least some of their attention."

"Tch. You've got quite the ego for a warrant officer, putting yourself alongside a naval major like me."

Randall pursed his lips, speechless. He had no idea what to say to Amber's idea.

"Don't worry, Major." Amber turned back to make the final adjustments.

"At a time like this, I doubt many people besides me still have the time to put together an operational plan."

After the convoy traveled a little farther, the Communications Relay Vehicle finally reconnected to the Brigade-Battalion Backbone Network.

Seizing the opportunity, Amber immediately had the Communications Officer send the encrypted operational plan file through an encrypted transmission.

The "recipient" was, of course, the breakout force Lieutenant Colonel Dallas was with.

Their much larger force naturally had more communications relay vehicles available to receive messages from other units.

Soon, this operational plan, which Amber had marked "Important," "Urgent," and "Top secret,"

After being checked and confirmed to contain no viruses,

Was forwarded to Lieutenant Colonel Dallas's command vehicle.

Amber's guess had been correct.

At this stage, the other Federation soldiers and officers were all busy breaking out and fleeing. None of them had the leisure to put together an operational plan.

So this unusually conspicuous file immediately caught a communications soldier's attention.

Lieutenant Colonel Dallas found the operational plan presented to him rather unexpected.

He had never imagined anyone would spend time on something like this at such a critical moment.

When he looked at the name on the operational report and saw the somewhat familiar "Amber,"

Lieutenant Colonel Dallas immediately recalled that he had indeed met this warrant officer from the Combat Intelligence Center.

And when he continued down to the second name and saw Major Randall of the naval forces,

The lieutenant colonel genuinely became a little curious.

"An army warrant officer and a naval major. How did those two end up together?"

The breakout force Lieutenant Colonel Dallas was with had just breached an Imperial blockade and was enjoying a rare moment of peace.

So he opened the operational report with interest.

But the more he read, the more serious he became.

At first, Amber's wild idea had stunned him too.

He had nearly started swearing inside the command vehicle.

But as he read on carefully, he discovered that this seemingly fantastical operational plan actually appeared to have a chance of working.

"That kid really did find a way out?"

A faint smile appeared on Lieutenant Colonel Dallas's face. He distributed the operational plan to several other combat staff officers in the force.

Then he left two instructions:

"Work through it, flesh out the details, and assess its feasibility once you've refined the plan."

"You have five hours. I want to see your revised first draft in five hours."

Just as the combat staff officers in another command vehicle had finally managed to catch their breath and rest,

The file and messages from Lieutenant Colonel Dallas sent these staff officers, whose faces looked much like pandas', into a chorus of groans.

Having successfully sent the operational plan, Amber had no idea that several of Lieutenant Colonel Dallas's staff officers already hated his name with a passion.

He was busy studying the latest battlefield situation map.

The reason Robert IV had become an agricultural planet

Was primarily that land covered 35 percent of its surface.

And that land was relatively concentrated, with just two continents and a number of island groups across the entire planet.

The continent mostly in the northern hemisphere was called the "Northern Continent," while the smaller one to the south was called the "Southern Continent."

A very straightforward naming scheme.

Both continents consisted largely of broad plains, making them suitable for large-scale "industrialized" farming.

The military bases of the Federation Military's various "forces in being" were scattered near transportation hubs across the two continents.

At present, the fighting around these critical nodes had turned the Northern Continent, where Amber was, into utter chaos.

Friendly and enemy positions were interlocked, each side mixed in among the other.

Sometimes, looking at the situation map of just one area, it was impossible to tell who had surrounded whom.

Amid this complicated battlefield situation, Amber soon found the objective for his next move.

Less than twenty kilometers from the convoy, a Mobile Infantry platoon was requesting support from nearby friendly units.

After overlaying the battlefield situation map with the terrain map on his command terminal, Amber discovered

That this Mobile Infantry platoon was probably holding a village beside a vast stretch of automated farmland.

They were most likely under siege by Imperial forces.

After quickly weighing the pros and cons, Amber ultimately decided to go support the Mobile Infantry platoon.

He did have a personal motive.

After drawing up the operational plan for a strategic maneuver toward the equator, Amber had begun thinking about how to expand the force under his command.

After all, if the plan succeeded, all the units would eventually converge near the Space Elevator.

In that chaotic situation, there would naturally be no way to split the forces apart and reorganize them, so whoever had troops under their command would have a say.

Even setting those distant goals aside, Amber still had too few Mobile Infantry soldiers under his command right now.

And they had wounded with them.

In many situations, Amber did not dare let them fight freely.

He feared that one careless moment would get these “precious gentlemen” wiped out by a single burst from an enemy Chain Gun.

As the convoy moved, Vehicle Two launched another Drone by catapult.

At the same time, they recovered the Reconnaissance Drone launched by Vehicle Three, which had already been flying for an hour and a half.

Watching through the vehicle window as the Mobile Infantry soldiers clumsily set up a recovery net in an open patch of ground,

Then folded the wings of the Drone that hit the net at low speed and stowed it away,

Amber guessed that these Mobile Infantry soldiers rarely practiced launching and recovering Drones.

Aside from cramming in some training before their annual year-end assessments, they probably hardly ever touched this tactical equipment.

"This is basically a slap fight between amateurs..."