Chapter 41: Chapter 41: The Sudden News

In the end, as Athena, Captain Rayne, and probably even the colonel himself, expected, nothing real came out of the colonel’s attempt to hold the group of troops from the 317th accountable.

Colonel Gavin did bring the matter up to General Pierre. The general, after some thoughts and likely out of respect for his personal relationship with the colonel, mentioned what happened to Brigadier General Ethan. The Brigadier General, not wanting to dismiss his superior officer too casually, patiently explained that the 317th officer in question was the captain of one of the vanguard companies known for their courage and skills. The captain himself was responsible for a daring assault that led to one of the major victories of the 317th. Punishing him for something so petty might hurt the morale of the men of the 317th.

General Pierre didn't want to alienate the 317th for such an insignificant matter, and Brigadier General Ethan had no intention of making the commander he reported to feel slighted. The result was a concession on both sides. The group of soldiers from the 317th would lose many of their privileges in the next month, including leave days and access to alcoholic drinks while not on duty.

These were superficial punishments, but even these superficial punishments were only put in place because it was General Pierre who talked to the Brigadier General. If Colonel Gavin or Captain Rayne brought it up…they might not even get an audience in the first place.

Colonel Gavin, of course, wasn’t satisfied when he was summoned to General Pierre’s office and given the update. No leave days? No alcohol? For the next month? This was the entire extent of the punishments for those who broke the military law that everyone in the Imperial Army had sworn to uphold? Since when had achievements or ranks become a get-out-of-jail-free card? The Imperium was supposed to be better than this!

Yet General Pierre made it clear that this was already more than what would normally happen.

“Let this go, Jason!” The general insisted when the colonel pushed him to do more. “Forget about the damn military law! The law doesn’t apply to everyone! If you don’t know when to make compromises, you won’t last long in the Imperial Army! I can guarantee that!”

Ultimately, Colonel Gavin agreed to let this matter go. Not out of want, but out of need. Even so, this event that most might consider minor left a deep impression in the colonel’s mind. It was just another one of the many things that made him realize how incompetent and corrupt the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy truly were.

A lesser man would’ve given up and gone along with what everyone else was doing, but Colonel Gavin refused. He truly loved the Imperium and he truly believed that the Imperium would bring peace and prosperity to this war-torn galaxy. Despite what others kept on telling him, he would continue to do his duty as an Imperial officer, even if it might mean the end of his career.

---

Another week went by without much of a fuss. With over 100,000 SCVs mining in the mountain range, Athena was making one to two million units of minerals every day. She did have a lot of workers, but her margins were quite low due to the extra cost associated with working underground. A lot of SCV hours and minerals had to be spent on preventing the mountain from collapsing on top of the terran base.

It didn't take long before her total mineral count reached over 31 million units. It was a lot of money. If she put everything in upgraded marines, she could get 10 divisions of marines. Put everything in zerglings without worrying about the supply, and she would have a horde of over one million upgraded zerglings. Even if she was to leave this world right now and no longer get income from this planet, she still had enough minerals to build up a sizeable army of units. Still, she didn't have enough to challenge the Imperial Navy head-on.

As the days went on, Athena patiently waited for a chance to leave this world. She didn't know much about how the overall campaign was going. The three satellites she gained full control over allowed her to eavesdrop on a lot of communication between various Imperial personnel, but most Imperials garrisoned on the planet didn't know any more than she did. More classified channels tended to be independent of the three S-78s and solely relied on the communication arrays on the warships.

Everything changed in one fateful evening. It was four weeks after the destruction of the terran base. The time was around 2 AM on the planet. Most Imperials on the world, including Athena, were asleep. That was when completely unexpected news reached the officers and soldiers of the 329th and the 317th.

Athena was alerted slightly before everyone else. In fact, it was the feminine mechanical voice of a terran adjutant that first woke her from her sleep. The adjutant was one of the adjutants in the orbital command centers in the underground terran base. Part of its job involved keeping track of the Imperial satellites and the communications they were transmitting.

“Commander, 20 seconds ago, a message was sent to the command staff of the 317th Armored Division and the 329th Infantry Division from the flagship of Task Force Epsilon. The message instructed the command staff to prepare their units for immediate extraction. Eagle-class transport ships are already sent toward the planet's surface. They will arrive in 15 minutes. The command staff is instructed to complete the boarding process within 30 minutes of the arrival of the transports. After that, all transports will depart. No exceptions will be made.”

“What?” For a second Athena thought she was still dreaming. As soon as she realized she wasn’t, she entered the game and paused time in the outside world. “Adjutant. What is going on?”

“The message from Task Force Epsilon appeared to have been sent in a hurry. It didn't include any explanations. It would appear that the Imperium is planning on abandoning the planet of Diego Nine. All units are to be evacuated as soon as possible.” The adjutant did its best to explain given the limited amount of information it was aware of.

“The Imperials are leaving? I thought Diego Nine was a valuable asset for them!” Athena did her best to understand what the message meant. “Maybe they discovered the terran base? But if they did, they should be reinforcing the position, not evacuating its garrisons. Maybe they found out more about the Terrans than I thought and instead decided to quarantine the planet from orbit?”

“Commander, I don’t think it is related to the terran forces.” Nova reminded Athena. “This may have something to do with the wider campaign against the Republic. Most likely, the Imperium is losing the war, and with the momentum on the side of the Republic, it has become impossible to hold onto conquered worlds like Diego Nine. Any armies or fleets left on these worlds may be at risk of being destroyed. That’s why this evacuation is happening, and judging by how sudden everything is, the defeat might have come as a surprise.”

“Regardless of why this evacuation is happening, the question is what I can do right now.” Athena agreed with Nova’s guess, but ultimately it was impossible for them to verify the truth in the near future. “You’re right in that the only reason for the Imperials to leave this world is that they can’t hold it. I will leave my underground terran base as it is. While I’m gone, it can continue to accumulate resources and units until I eventually return. Nova, will an adjutant be able to handle the task of commanding an entire base?”

“Yes, commander. Like queens, adjutants will be able to handle tasks such as unit production, resource mining and allocation, and combat organization, if the need arose. However, adjutants will not be able to adopt complex, long-term strategies that may be needed to adapt to different situations.”

Athena nodded, knowing what Nova meant. If the terran base was under attack, the adjutant would spend resources on producing combat units and send these units against the enemies. However, the adjutants wouldn’t know to set up ambushes. Or to feign defeats. Or to adopt decapitation tactics against enemy commanders. They would just send troops against the enemies until the enemies were defeated or the terran base ran out of units. It was unsurprising, given adjutants were mainly designed to assist human commanders who would come up with strategies and tactics.

Since she didn't have any alternate options, it seemed like she had to stick to using adjutants as the commanders while she was gone.

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“Very well. In that case, I will just evacuate from this world with the 329th.” Athena had no intention of deserting right now and staying on the planet. If the Republic was indeed taking back its lost worlds, then remaining on this world would mean she had to stay underground for the foreseeable future. Of course, she could also try to go out on her own with liberators, but liberators only had short-range warp drives. In the worst-case scenario, using liberators as her personal transport might leave her stranded in space for a long, long time.

None of these were good ideas compared to hitching a ride with the Imperial Navy and returning to an Imperial world. She would still have trouble leaving, but it was likely more and more deployments would be waiting for the 329th. She already unlocked the terran starport and acquired a massive amount of resources. She was sure she could find a chance to escape the 329th Division if she wished.

Overall, despite how things might have gone for the Imperium, this campaign was a grand success for her.

With that decision made and after leaving the adjutants with a series of instructions on how to proceed, Athena exited the game. She waited in her private quarters for half a minute before a call reached her PEI.

“Captain Dane! Captain Dane, come in!” The voice belonged to a lieutenant from the Regimental Command Staff of the 3rd Infantry Regiment. The command staff often stayed with the colonel, and when Colonel Gavin moved into the barracks from the Raven-class command ship, he brought his command staff with him.

“Yes.” Athena quickly answered. She wasn’t too concerned about being too fast in picking up the phone. Insomnia was common within the Imperial Army, and something told her people had more pressing matters to worry about right now.

“Captain Dane! Thank god…listen to me very carefully, sir. Gather your company and bring them to the landing pads in front of the barracks. We are evacuating from this world right now! We have transports arriving in ten to fifteen minutes! We need to get everyone aboard in forty!”

“Ten minutes? What about the equipment…” Athena asked a question any officer in her situation would despite knowing the answer already.

“Forget about the equipment, sir! Just get your men onto the transports when they arrive! This is an emergency!”

“I understand.” Athena nodded and ended the call. Still in her pajamas, she made her way out of her private quarters. The first people she woke up were her personal bodyguards who were resting in two nearby rooms. She notified them of what was going on, and the six of them, as confused as they were, started helping Athena with waking as many people as they could.

As the barracks gradually returned to life, countless soldiers cursed, some louder than others, about the bastards who decided to have an emergency evacuation in the middle of the night. It didn't take a veteran to see this wasn’t how retreats were typically supposed to go.

Most retreats took hours, if not days. There were so many things that an army needed to bring along with them when they left. Weapons, armors, munitions, vehicles, drones, rations, and even classified documents all needed to be accounted for before the unit moved out. The assets that couldn’t be taken usually had to be destroyed or sabotaged. Yet this time they were supposed to just drop everything and go? Ten minutes weren’t even enough for everyone to put on their power armor!

They were evacuating a planet they spent months garrisoning, not going on an impromptu coffee run!

Of course, a normal retreat was supposed to go down over a span of days. However, a lot about this campaign deviated from normalcy a while ago.

In reality, Imperial forces all over the Orion Sector had been pushed back for the last standard month. For the last three standard weeks, almost all of Lord Augustus’s veteran admirals and advisors have been telling him to acknowledge the reality that they weren’t going to win this campaign. The Republic forces were more resilient than expected, and once the initial momentum was lost for the Imperials, they were never going to win a war of attrition. Their best course of action would be to retreat back to Sector 9A2. Even defending the conquered systems would likely only lead to more fleets being lost with nothing to gain in return.

Yet Lord Augustus refused. As the oldest son and heir of Lord Anton Vitz, Lord Augustus Vitz refused to see the first campaign he had complete command over end in complete failure. The humiliation would be unbearable for him. Just think about what the other Lords within the sector would say behind his back! Instead of ordering a retreat and preserving most of his forces, the heir decided to throw in all his reserve forces, draw reinforcements from conquered sectors, and place all his bets on a final offensive in an attempt to break the Republic defenses.

For one reason or another, Lord Anton Vitz didn't intervene. Perhaps he was hesitant in overriding his son’s instructions. Perhaps he believed there was a chance the last offensive could work and salvage his heir’s reputation. Perhaps the aging Lord had less control over his sector than most beneath him expected. Perhaps, due to communication errors that were common in a galaxy this big, Lord Anton Vitz was simply unable to act in time. Regardless of why, the reality was that Lord Vitz allowed Lord Augustus to remain in charge of what was left of the campaign.

When this gamble inevitably failed, partially due to the lack of support from many Imperial Minor Houses within Battlefleet Silver Lance, Lord Augustus finally had no choice but to accept reality and withdraw his forces back to the safety of Imperial Sector 9A2. This, unfortunately, was too late for many Imperials.

Even as the campaign turned against the Imperium and a withdrawal was the most ideal decision, most of those in the Sector Military Command didn't dare convey the possibility to their generals and admirals on the front. From their perspective, it was for the sake of self-preservation. No one wanted to be arrested for allegations of spreading misinformation and hurting morale. It was entirely possible Lord Augustus could decide to make an example out of them. More have been executed for less. Those who did warn their people tended to do so in secrecy. A handful of units closely tied to Minor Houses might have been prepared, but most units garrisoned in the Orion Sector still thought the Imperium was winning when the retreat order arrived.

When the order was finally given, it came as a surprise to almost everyone. By then, the Republic forces have already broken the Imperial armadas and were in the process of launching a sector-wide counterattack to recover lost worlds. The Republic had already deployed a lot of resources to the war-torn sector, and its defenders weren’t going to allow the Imperial forces to leave untouched after causing so much damage.

For many admirals, retreating was just a matter of setting the coordinates and leaving, but for the garrisoning forces of the Imperial Army that were often stationed on a planet’s surface, going home safely happened to be a much more daunting task.

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