From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 387 Go and invite Alanita!
"Will, what's going on?"

"I don't know. The sergeant and his men are negotiating in front."

Will, hiding behind a multi-legged chariot, quickly answered his companions' questions, then continued to stick out half of his head to look at the situation ahead.

Right now, the sergeant of his platoon was negotiating with several armed men wearing white combat exoskeletons in front.

After these days of "seeing and hearing", Will already knew that these guys painted in white were the armed forces of the Atlas Group.

At this moment, the reason why Will appeared here with the troops was very simple. They came here to "beg for food with arms".

The heavy synthetic battalion that Will was in was one of the few relatively complete battalion-level units on the planet Pella IV. In addition, it had gathered a lot of imperial remnants during the battle, so its strength was now almost as large as three battalions.

But the problem was that most of the remnants that were gathered were combat troops, so this put the original battalion's combat support company under great pressure.

Whether it is food, drinking water, medicine or ammunition, all supplies are almost exhausted.

After a long and fierce battle with the federal army, the supplies in the war zone where this combined battalion was located had already been almost completely looted.

Seeing that if this continued, the troops would not only run out of ammunition and vehicles, but also could not even guarantee basic living supplies, the military chief of the battalion set his sights on the Atlas refugee camp, which was extremely conspicuous on the battlefield.

He had personally seen these days that airdrop boxes kept falling from the sky, and that there were constantly surrendered soldiers and refugees from the empire "fleeing" there, and the size of the camp was growing day by day.

Under such circumstances, the entire camp has remained in good order and no humanitarian crisis has occurred, which is enough to show that this company called Atlas is indeed unique in terms of material support.

"Will, do you think the sergeant and his men can get food? I mean, can they borrow supplies?"

"How should I know that?" Will shook his head, and after a moment he seemed to think of something and said:

"But I heard from others that the battalion commander and his team are planning to 'use courtesy first and force later'. If the negotiations fail, they may consider using force to seize the place. After all, we have nearly three battalions of troops, and after observing the Atlas camp for the past few days, we have only one combined battalion of guards."

Before Will could finish his words, he saw the sergeant who was negotiating in front of him hurriedly walk to the back, pull the signalman aside and say something.

Soon, the sound of heavy vehicles came from the rear. Will looked back and saw a "Revenant" main battle tank driving up.

Then, a figure jumped out of the tank and walked towards the negotiation location.

And Will also recognized this very familiar figure, this was their battalion commander.

"The battalion commander is here, we are going to have some fun."

"I don't care whether it's a good show or not, just let me have a full meal."

Will's comrade shook his neck lazily, although this action was not easy to do while wearing a combat exoskeleton and a neck brace.

"This battle is getting weirder and weirder. I thought I was going to die after being abandoned by the navy. I wanted to drag a few more federal guys with me before I died, but who would have thought that they would be defeated by a private company. I heard that even the fleet in orbit was crippled."

Will's comrades were still chattering about the news they had heard in the past two days, and Will's mind began to think about what had happened during this period.

After the conflict between Atlas and the Federation broke out, these remnants of the Empire watched the fight from afar.

Although the main area of ​​the fighting was not the Atlas refugee camp on their side, the Atlas troops here also had small-scale conflicts with the federal forces.

Then one day, the federal troops became confused as if they had suddenly lost their backbone, and quickly retreated to an unknown place.

Under such circumstances, Atlas' camp began a large-scale "infrastructure" project.

A large number of "spider-type" robots came from nowhere, and the camp area was expanding day by day at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the scale and level were also constantly increasing.

From the initial outpost + board house model, it has become the current large camp with composite armored walls and protective weapons. Judging from the take-off and landing of aerospace transport aircraft, 80% of the camps have also built high-standard field airports.
Just as Will was thinking about this information in his mind and wondering what would happen to him in the end, there were some sudden changes in the negotiation location.

Eight white-painted HCPs suddenly arrived at the negotiation area. From the red crosses and logos on their shoulder armor, it was not difficult to tell that they were from the Atlas Armed Forces.

Will and his battalion commander kept looking up at the sky, as if something was about to fall from the clouds.

Immediately afterwards, a full-frequency broadcast of the highest level suddenly came from the communication channel.

After the initial silence, the voice of the commander of the Imperial Heavy Synthetic Battalion suddenly rang out:
"Attention all members of the 177th Composite Battalion. Considering the current supply situation of the troops, in order to avoid more unnecessary sacrifices and non-combat casualties, I have decided to lead my troops to surrender to the Atlas combat force."

Everyone, including Will, was shocked. Several of Will's comrades even cried out in surprise. No one could have imagined that things would turn out like this.

And the Imperial Battalion Commander had not yet finished his words.

"Please rest assured, this is my decision alone. I will be solely responsible for all future problems. If you don't believe me, you can record this and keep it as evidence."

Will was stunned. He had thought of many situations, including a fight with Atlas's combat troops, and even thought that they would be defeated by Atlas's combat troops like the federal army.
But he never expected that the military commanders would surrender directly after a few negotiations.

"John, I don't know what your situation is like now, but it seems like I have no hope of getting a military medal."

Will muttered to himself absentmindedly that this country youth, who had once boasted at the military depot that he would carry a sack of military medals back home, now seemed to be getting further and further away from his goal.

But, in a way, maybe this is a good thing?
"Because the number of refugees and Imperial surrendered soldiers has increased recently, the size of our ten refugee camps on Pyla IV has been rapidly expanding, and the daily material consumption has also increased exponentially.

Although the Infinity has built a 'heaven-to-earth round-trip channel' near Camp No. 5, solving the problem of material transportation for this largest camp and freeing up our transportation capacity to support other camps, the main problem now is that we may not have enough supplies.

Judging from the current consumption, the supplies carried by the fleet can only last for 40 days at most."

In the main conference room of the Infinity, decision-makers including Amber, Isabel, and Cleves were gathered here, and Randall, who was temporarily in charge of the fleet's logistics coordination, was reporting on the latest situation.

"The Federation has temporarily stopped transporting supplies to this planet, which means that only our own transport fleet is still in operation. Even if the transport fleet is running around the clock, it can only barely keep the troops and camps running."

Everyone in the conference room fell silent. Apparently, no one had expected that after gaining the upper hand in the conflict with the Federation, logistics would become a difficult problem to solve.

Amber also added at this time:

"Now it's not a question of whether we have enough money or not. Judging from the current income of the group, even if we take into account the material consumption and personnel maintenance costs in the Pella galaxy, the group is still in a profitable state. Don't be surprised, this is true. Our company is actually very profitable."

Amber put her hands together to stop everyone from talking, and continued:
"What we are facing now is purely a transportation capacity problem, and this is just the beginning. As the material consumption rate on this planet exceeds the production and transportation rate, such pressure will only increase."

"Why do I feel like the Federation is deliberately waiting to embarrass us?"

Cleves suddenly spoke up.

"You're right, the Federation is just waiting for us to make a fool of ourselves." Amber snapped her fingers, approving of Cleves' question.

"Don't forget, we are here to carry out a humanitarian aid mission. If we can't even guarantee the supply of materials, what's the point of talking about 'humanitarian aid'?"

"The Federation is really capable of doing this. The two lieutenant generals have been in our hands and have not asked or done anything about it. Now they are doing this. This is more uncomfortable for us than a direct conflict with us."

Isabel also shook her head and said, her words also revealing a hint of anxiety, but she quickly thought of something and looked up at Amber.

"How about we ask Alanita for help?"

(End of this chapter)