Chapter 280: Updates on all Sides

Hans watched from the observation section for several more minutes. Below them, Tyrus had already forgotten that anyone was watching him.

Another simulation finished.

"Run it again."

One of the assistants hesitated.

"Director, the result is already within the expected parameters."

"Then make the conditions worse this time."

Hans slowly turned away from the glass.

"Yeah. He’s going to be fine."

Dianne followed beside him as they left the observation section.

"You sound rather certain, Commander."

"He looks happier breaking simulations than he did when I gave him an entire research center."

"Perhaps that is his definition of happiness."

"Like worsening test conditions? That’s concerning."

The door closed behind them.

Hans could still hear the activity inside the Research Core through the corridor, although the sound gradually faded as they continued toward the main section of the Tech Center.

He opened the Advanced Radar project one last time.

------

[ Advanced Radar Network ]

[ Research Status ]

Active

[ Research Director ]

Tyrus Shearman

------

Everything was moving.

There wasn’t much reason for Hans to stay there and stare at scientists doing things he barely understood.

Tyrus knew what he was doing, probably...

Hans closed the panel.

"Give Tyrus the intel about the recurring strange blizzards within Pylow. Perhaps his Shearman Network may give us an idea about what’s happening."

"I have already instructed someone to do that on your behalf, Commander."

Dianne smiled.

Hans could only give her a five-star rating out of five for being extremely competent.

"With the doctor out of the way, what’s next?"

Dianne looked at him.

"The recruitment program. The announcement went out as scheduled, Commander."

Two days after Tyrus entered the recovery cradle, all surrounding areas received the message.

Specialists, veterans, former security personnel and anyone else interested in joining the Golden Eagle Army had been allowed to submit applications.

Hans remembered giving the order. He just hadn’t thought much about what would happen afterward.

"What are our numbers?"

"More than a thousand applications." Dianne turned to the next page. "Most of them want to become soldiers or guards. A few specialize in research and industry."

Dianne changed direction toward one of the exits.

"The nearest intake center is outside the Main Base perimeter. We kept the applicants away from the restricted areas, as you instructed."

"And the background checks?"

"Already underway. Some of our personnel are checking the applicants against city registry files, school and university records, and even old employment records."

Hans raised a brow.

"You still have access to all of that?"

"Not everything survived, Commander. But Grefort had a population of millions before the Event. Even after everything that happened, quite a lot of records remained."

They stepped outside the Tech Center.

A Falcon was already waiting farther ahead, its rotors turning slowly while several soldiers stood around the landing area.

"Back to the Command Center?" Hans asked.

"Unless you intend to personally interview more than a thousand applicants."

They boarded. The Falcon lifted away from the Tech Center and crossed over the Main Base.

Hans looked through the side window.

There were more civilian vehicles moving through the surrounding roads than he remembered. Some headed toward Grefort while others waited at temporary checkpoints farther beyond the restricted perimeter.

Dianne sat across from him and opened her tablet.

"We have live feeds from the intake centers."

Several camera views appeared.

The first showed a converted administrative building somewhere outside the Main Base perimeter. Temporary barriers divided the road outside while Golden Eagle personnel controlled several entrances.

People waited in separate lines.

One of them was larger than the others.

Hans pointed toward it.

"Military applicants?"

"Yes, Commander."

Another feed opened beside it.

This one showed the inside of the processing area.

Applicants moved from one desk to another while personnel checked documents, entered names into terminals and directed them toward different sections.

Some carried folders. Others had little more than whatever identification they managed to preserve after the Event.

A few still wore pieces of old military or security uniforms.

Hans narrowed his eyes.

More than a thousand applicants—the number itself wasn’t what bothered him.

It was what came afterward.

Background checks could catch criminals, liars and people whose records didn’t match what they claimed.

But records were only records.

If someone eventually passed everything and reached Personnel Integration, they would be getting much closer to things Hans had spent months keeping away from ordinary civilians.

"How confident are we with the screening?"

"We’re not relying on one check, Commander."

Dianne switched to another feed.

"Identity records, employment history, military and security records where they survived, interviews, medical screening and cross-checking between different databases."

"How long will it take before any match is found?"

"Within a day or two. If a case is troublesome, it may even take a week."

Hans looked over the feeds one more time.

People continued moving through the lines without ever knowing the man deciding how close they could come to his army was watching them from several kilometers away.

The Falcon continued toward the Command Center.

A few minutes later, the building appeared ahead of them among the larger structures of the Main Base.

The aircraft descended onto one of the nearby landing areas.

Hans stepped out.

Unlike the intake centers outside the perimeter, there were barely any civilians here. Most of the people moving between the surrounding buildings wore Golden Eagle uniforms, carried equipment or worked under one of the Main Base’s support sections.

Hans and Dianne crossed the short distance toward the Command Center.

The guards outside recognized them immediately and allowed them through without stopping.

Inside, the place was just as busy as ever.

Communications personnel moved between stations. Several officers were working around the central table while another group watched the wider operational picture across Ashington.

Hans walked into the main command room.

"Alright. What else happened while the doctor was sleeping?"

Dianne set her folders down beside the central table.

The main display came alive.

Several reports opened across it.

"Marcus and Evelyn’s recovered archives have been inventoried and are ready to be processed by the Tech Center. The physical media that can be transferred safely are being prepared for the Tech Center’s Secure Intake."

Hans looked over the list and realized that there was quite a lot of it.

"Organize the intake properly. And schedule Marcus for an integration."

Decrypting something and understanding it were two different things. They still needed Marcus to do the rest of the hard work such as connecting information to one another.

"What about the Directorate?"

The display shifted into several diagrams of the underground facility.

"The Engineers are still working through the entrances Ms. Asters identified. Progress has been steady, but some sections are proving more difficult to access than expected."

"DAEDALUS materials again?" Hans frowned.

Considering how tough these materials were, he wondered if TETHER also made use of the same materials engineering behind much of DAEDALUS’s hardware.

"What about Kimmy?"

"She is resting for now, Commander. The search has taken quite a toll on her body."

"Hmm." Hans nodded.

"Agent Schandler has been asking to see you lately. The recent recruitment has piqued his interest."

"That’s a given. He’s bound to ask me questions anyway."

Hans did not mind Johannes’ curiosity. In fact, he was already lining up the agent as one of the candidates for Personnel Integration.

However, he wasn’t planning to meet them all. Yet.

Dianne quickly adjusted the display as it zoomed out of Ashington’s map.

"The advance toward Pylow has been slowed down heavily, Commander. Conrad is still patrolling our northern seas, Horjus is slowly recovering after its liberation, and Silverpeak has seen new development."

Hans straigthened.

"As Brandon’s forces push southward, contact with the southern military installation has increased."

The images popped out one after another.

"Their attitude toward our soldiers is lukewarm at best. At worst, they’re simply indifferent."

"Do they not want to establish contact with us?" Hans frowned.

"All attempts were rejected by the southern military installation."

"So they have already chosen." He clicked his tongue. "Will this become a war between us and them?"

"That is a likely possibility, Commander."

He shook his head. This was the outcome he did not want to happen.

"What does Brandon intend to do?"

Dianne zoomed in on a particular point near the edge of the Radar coverage.

"The MDC has provided us intel on a nearby facility that was previously used for ammunition and weapons production and storage."

Several images appeared beside the map.

From above, the place looked like an old military-industrial compound built around a freight yard.

Long warehouses occupied most of the outer section, separated by wide concrete roads and several reinforced loading areas. A rail line entered through one side of the compound before splitting between storage buildings and disappearing beneath a larger structure farther inside.

Some of the warehouses had partially collapsed while others remained standing.

Beyond them were several hardened buildings surrounded by thick walls and open strips of ground that looked deliberately cleared of anything that could hide an approaching force.

Hans narrowed his eyes.

"That’s a lot of security for an ammunition depot."

"There is more."

Dianne switched to another image.

Near the center of the facility stood several large reinforced structures that looked different from the warehouses around them. Their roofs were thicker. Their entrances were wider. Heavy service lanes connected them to several loading bays, while parts of the compound continued underground.

One section looked almost like a fabrication hall.

Another had several buried access points and large utility connections running beneath the ground.

MDC records did not explain all of them.

"The facility supported weapons storage, maintenance and limited production before the Event," Dianne continued. "But several sections were restricted even to ordinary military personnel. The surviving records only identify them as strategic infrastructure."

Hans stared at the underground layout.

There were also several strange cleared positions around the inner compound. They didn’t look like ordinary storage areas.

And some of the buried utility lines seemed far larger than what a simple ammunition depot should have needed.

Something about the place bothered him.

Hans scanned the images.

If the place was still usable, it could become another Strategic Facility—something he hadn’t encountered in quite a while.

But the deeper he looked at the layout, the less it resembled an ordinary military depot.

Another DAEDALUS facility?

"Tell Brandon to approach that area with maximum care. And put more experienced troops on the exploration teams."

"I will relay your advice, Commander."