Over the next five days, the southern force operating from Site Three no longer resembled the two provisional columns that first entered Westgate.
The third, fourth, and fifth platoons had completed their organization, placing all five formations under the First Mobile Company.
South One and South Two retained their callsigns and remained at the front under Anton Weiss and Sabine Krüger.
They had already fought through most of the western routes and knew how the two columns supported one another.
The newer platoons followed behind them, widening the secured road, taking over checkpoints, and protecting the recovery vehicles moving between Site Three and the cleared districts.
The additional Guardian APCs kept more infantry mounted during the advance, while the expanded Vanguard force allowed armor to remain with several routes at once.
The six Hellhammers assigned to the company no longer had to stay together whenever the formation divided across parallel roads.
The repeated engagements also continued adding promotions throughout the force.
The newly trained replacements gained their first promotions as they rotated through the forward sections, while the max-promoted veterans remained in permanent garrisons behind the advance.
With the expanded armor and promoted vehicles supporting them, ordinary concentrations were destroyed before the infected reached the first positions.
The remaining infected had not become weaker; the army moving against them had grown faster.
Every major intersection still received the same inspection before the armored column crossed.
Scouts checked the service roads, underground entrances, vehicles, and upper floors overlooking the approach, while Engineers marked damaged surfaces and buildings that could collapse across the route.
The difference lay in how much of that work could happen at the same time.
After several days of controlled practice at Site Three, Kimmy rejoined South One once the Field Hospital cleared her for field operations.
Hans kept several restrictions around her return. She remained inside Bastion One while the company traveled through unsecured streets, and Yunera continued accompanying her.
The Medics also required her to report any headache, loss of concentration, or return of the pressure she had experienced beneath Highcross.
Her work itself remained familiar.
She searched for survivors and infected beyond ordinary sight while the platoon continued its advance. Scouts, Attack Dogs, and infantry still inspected every location she identified; none of them changed their procedures merely because Oracle had reported something inside.
The Field Hospital added only one procedure to the process.
Each report included her estimated direction, distance, and number of presences, followed by whatever the platoon later confirmed.
The roads gave them enough situations to test her without arranging anything.
Survivors remained hidden behind covered windows, inside service rooms, and beneath damaged stores.
Some refused to move even when the armored vehicles passed outside. Infected stayed motionless behind closed doors or crossed between connected buildings where the Scouts could not see them from the road.
Kimmy usually noticed them before South One reached the structure.
Before Highcross, several people occupying the same area could gather into one crowded pressure. She might know that someone was present without separating how many signals belonged to the infected, the survivors, or the soldiers approaching them.
That limitation had weakened.
She could follow presences between floors and separate smaller groups concealed behind larger ones.
Familiar people remained easier to recognize, but unfamiliar signals no longer disappeared as soon as they gathered together.
Anton understood the change through the platoon reports.
Oracle identified a presence. The Scouts reached the location several minutes later and found the same number, or close enough that the difference came from movement inside the building.
Attack Dogs sometimes confirmed her direction before the infantry entered, while several structures contained additional rooms that the soldiers might otherwise have left for a later inspection.
By the third day, Anton had begun treating her as something close to a moving Radar for living presences within her reliable range.
The comparison ended there. Golden Eagle’s Radar covered a much larger area, distinguished battlefield classifications, and transferred its markers directly to the army. Kimmy needed time to sort through crowded signals and explain what she found.
Golden Eagle, however, was not traveling with the First Mobile Company. It was Oracle who did.
Her reports did not replace the Scouts, dogs, or armored sensors. They allowed Anton to direct those assets toward the right structure sooner, which became increasingly useful as the company approached the more populated southwestern roads.
Two smaller commercial centers stood along the route.
Neither approached the size of Highcross, though both contained banks, jewelry businesses, pawnshops, office safes, and secured storage areas.
The expanded company prevented either location from stopping the entire advance. Newer platoons secured the surrounding streets and protected the recovery lanes while South One and South Two continued opening the southwest route.
Together, they raised Hans’s treasury by another 268,765 Gold.
------
[ Industrial Storage Yards bonus applied: +40%. ]
[ Gold acquired: 268,765 ]
------
Another round of production began at the Main Base soon afterward. Whatever Hans ordered remained there for the moment, while the First Mobile Company continued operating with the forces already assigned to it.
By the fourth day, a continuous military route stretched from Site Three, through the western sections of Westgate, then farther southwest toward the edge of Grefort.
Checkpoints remained at the major turns. Soldiers occupied several fuel stations, warehouses, and reinforced commercial buildings, while recovery vehicles moved through the secured road without waiting for the forward platoons to return.
The company continued toward the final unconnected section.
Beyond it waited the Colony.
Commercial blocks had given way to smaller stores, residential compounds, and scattered structures around Grefort’s southwestern fringe by the afternoon of the fifth day.
South One advanced through the western approach while South Two followed a parallel road several blocks east. The newer platoons remained behind them, securing the adjoining streets and filling the growing route between Site Three and the southwestern boundary.
Bastion One followed South One’s forward element.
Kimmy sat inside the troop compartment with Yunera beside her. The movement of the Guardian APC no longer distracted her as much as it had during the first day.
The soldiers inside remained easy to separate from those moving outside. She could follow the Scouts ahead, the infantry inside the vehicles behind them, and the smaller recovery group several hundred meters north. Their positions changed whenever the formation turned, though their signals no longer collapsed into the same crowded pressure.
Something larger entered her awareness.
It waited beyond the remaining buildings, wide enough that she could not understand it all at once.
Kimmy straightened against her seat.
The soldier assigned to record her reports noticed the movement but said nothing. Yunera also remained quiet beside her.
Kimmy took a slow breath and focused.
The outer presences separated first.
Several remained near the road, while others occupied positions farther along both sides. Some moved through short, repeating paths before returning to the same locations.
Guards.
Behind them, a much larger gathering occupied the northern entrance. More people approached from farther inside, crossing through streets and buildings until their signals joined the crowd.
The Colony extended well beyond them.
Hundreds of presences overlapped inside the settlement, spread through homes, workshops, roads, and larger structures. Kimmy could not follow all of them together, though the closer groups became clearer as Bastion One continued forward.
She concentrated on the northern side.
The civilian gathering slowly divided into smaller clusters. Some stood beside the barricade. Others remained farther behind them, while several people moved repeatedly between the crowd and the inner streets.
Patrols occupied both sides of the approach. Their movements followed regular paths, although they lacked the same precise order she felt from Hans’s soldiers.
Kimmy continued separating the signals until the limits became clear.
She could isolate the guards, follow the nearby patrols, and understand how the crowd gathered around the entrance. The entire Colony remained too large and crowded for her to process as a single field.
That was enough.
She released the breath she had been holding. No headache followed, and the pressure she remembered from Highcross did not return.
"The Colony is ahead."
The soldier beside the recording equipment prepared the entry.
"There are guards along the northern approach and patrols on both sides," Kimmy continued. "A large group has gathered behind the entrance. More people are moving toward them from inside."
"Any infected?"
Kimmy checked the perimeter again.
"None within the area I can separate clearly."
The soldier recorded Bastion One’s position, the time, and the direction of her report before sending it to Anton.
"South One Actual, Oracle confirms the Colony ahead. Multiple perimeter positions around the northern approach, with a large gathering behind the entrance. No infected presence detected within reliable range."
"Received," Anton answered.
The formation continued without changing speed.
Echo One crossed the final junction while the Attack Dogs checked the roadside structures and abandoned vehicles. South Two remained several blocks east, moving toward its own approach.
Yunera turned toward Kimmy.
"You looked like you stopped breathing."
"I was concentrating."
"You still need to breathe while doing that."
Kimmy gave a faint smile. "I know."
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