Schwarzehand shot off a quick message to Dulechamp before turning his attention back to the main show. To hold position, and only engage if the enemy came close. It didn’t suit the aggressively minded Captain, but thus far the Aurora Legion had avoided taking any significant losses. To turn that right at the end just to have a few slightly more pristine captured vehicles of unknown quality was unwise.

The brawl in the south of Arheuz lasted twenty more minutes, though that wasn’t what the Harzwohlkan were fitfully murmuring about, according to interpreters listening in. They’d been far more concerned about their Casemates, which had rushed off to engage the talk of enemy armor. Yet the news was dire. They didn’t want to believe it, but to such people silence told plenty. Their armored spearhead had been soundly defeated, and it was looking like their other contingent might also suffer the same fate.

Finally, the shooting quieted, though it certainly didn’t cease. The Sovereignty conscripts fought hard on the flanks, commendably resilient considering the disdain their fellow mole rats had for them. Even being closed in on from two sides by a superior enemy, the beak-masked Glows didn’t give up their ground in the north, they were resolute, their positions well prepared and thought out, able to delay even if they weren’t trading ground for anything but time. It wasn’t enough, though. The center of the Sovereignty’s line gave out, formed by the most exhausted defenders as it was. Once they were broken in two down the middle, it was over. Half of the enemy was retreating, and the other half was trapped. It was only a matter of time until they surrendered.

It didn’t take long. Within another twenty minutes, the fire slackened off completely, and Waltz reported that the remaining enemy was laying down their arms. The rest had retreated, and civilians had begun streaming out to the hills only to be seized by Wolkmihnar infantry now freed from fighting anybody who could shoot back in force. The enemy armor didn’t act- neither did the reinforcements. Dulechamp sat ready for them, but they only went to destroy the disabled tanks before leaving the way they came.

So that seemed to be that. Victory, of a plain and painless sort, for the Legion at least. The 1st Wolkmihnar Reserve Battalion had suffered mightily, on the other hand. The second of their Casemate companies met the same fate as the first, when they were outflanked by a lone platoon then charged by the enemy that had just handed their fellows their heads. Schwarzehand wasn’t very familiar with armored combat, let alone the sort adapted for the underground, but it seemed that just like many sorts of fighting down here they engaged much closer than normal, so that if one side surprised the other, the results were quick, deadly, and decisive.