While ruminating on the drone factory output, he received an alert from his wrist panel. Looking down at it, he saw it was a message from Yayha titled URGENT.
Furrowing his brows, he quickly accessed it.
'Urgent!
Some of the men on the walls at the main base scouted what appeared to be fungi scouts; before they could get too close to the walls, the men shot them down, and after carefully inspecting the quickly browning bodies, it was confirmed to be the fungi.'
Closing the wrist panel, he tapped the driver of the trailblazer on the shoulder, "Bring us back to base quickly!"
The driver quickly shifted the heavy vehicle and turned it around; luckily, the way back was much quicker since the road behind them was more or less a rudiment dirt road that hadn't been compacted yet rather then foilage and trees blocking the way.
Letting the others know via messages on the panel, Ridge and the others rushed back quickly. Once at the gate, Ridge climbed down and jogged over to the main building where Yayha gathered some of the idle soldiers and George inside the meeting room.
Entering the room, he also saw Caroline and Berkay, the navigator.
"Alright, give the quick rundown of what happened," he said somewhat breathlessly from rushing over.
"Commander, around 01:00 pm, some of our patrols on the walls noticed movement within the forest tree line. As you know, we already cleared out the trees to create an open area border surrounding the base, giving us great sight of incoming enemies. Due to this arrangement, as soon as the scouts stepped out from the distant forest line, our soldiers were able to quickly take care of them.
According to the quick report received from them, they shot down a total of five before everything seemed all clear. We also sent out an extra ten soldiers around the base's wall to increase security.
I suspect the fungi species is preparing an attack of some kind," he said grimly.
Frowning Ridge understood the implications immediately. They had taken care of the ship on the beach after spotting it crash-landing within a day or two, but even then, they had seen how quickly the fungi's capabilities grew. Not only able to spawn out some more of their cannon fodder units, which he assumed were soldier fungi with a mix of the parasite fungi, but also able to grow sturdy defenses even against the battleship's weapons. Granted, they didn't use the heavier guns on them so as to not waste ammunition, but either way they were able to shield bombings quite effectively and retaliate with their own plasma cannons which did some damage, however minor.
If there were scouts appearing now, that meant somewhere on this planet they had managed to create a hive or home base similar to their own and were looking to take care of them one and for all.
"I understand, Caroline. I want you to redirect all our efforts to build up the drone factory quickly and, for now, halt the construction of the greenhouses in favor of the veltrite ore outpost. Furthermore, George, I want more soldiers posted up on the walls and patrolling the perimeter of the base. We have eighteen plasma rifles that can be distributed amongst them as well, though keep in mind that we only have 200 plasma rounds remaining in storage.
We lost most of it when we got attacked in space, so choose your targets and shoot only when you're certain you can kill them. Besides those plasma rifles, we also have five select-fire kinetic rifles with 800 rounds stockpiled, so whoever takes those five guns can shoot much more recklessly, but choose your targets well," he paused.
He had also thought of mentioning the battleship as a weapon they could use, but he refrained from doing so. It was currently being used as a transport vessel to expedite the process of getting veltrite ore, so until that's finished, he would keep it as a trump card, only being used when necessary or until it finishes its job and they have enough veltrite ore for a drone swarm.
"Commander, given the bases currently capablities we can actually create a munitions factory for the kinetic weapons. Unlike Plasma rifles, which require a higher degree of materials, kinetic weapons are much easier," Caroline said, interrupting his thoughts.
"Really? Then get to work on that immediately; once it's finished, give me the resources used up and the amount of rounds it can produce. The rest of you are dismissed. I want you to keep your guard up at all times out there, and more importantly, make sure to let others know if you spot anything. I don't care if it turns out to be just leaves falling from the trees; we can't afford to be complacent," he replied seriously while telling Caroline to get started on her idea immediately, even if it delayed the drone project.
In reality, being able to produce and use munitions was much more important to him than having simple surveillance drones, so it was a no-brainer on which project to prioritize; he could only regret the fact that he hadn't asked for a munitions factory earlier. An oversight on his part.
The room quickly cleared out, with plenty of the soldiers going straight to the armory. In there they equipped their spacesuits, or, to put it more bluntly, armor, and grabbed whatever weapons were available. Of course they left the flamethrower that Ridge had placed there a while ago. It wasn't necessarily that no one dared to use it; it was just more of a close-range weapon even compared to the plasma rifles.
Ridge still hadn't left the meeting room, and neither did George, Yayha, and Berkay. Caroline, of course, left quickly alongside the soldiers so she could arrange the construction of the munitions factory rapidly.
"Commander, you reckon they are planning an imminent attack?" George asked quietly, as if afraid of being heard.
Rubbing his stubble, Ridge frowned in deep thought. Whilst he was thinking Yayha replied to George, "I think it's highly plausible. They wouldn't send scout-like units on the perimeter of our base if nothing was going to happen."
"Yeah, maybe, but Becke also has information about our defences and general movements since we didn't detain him right away. You even gave him a tour personally; I don't see the point in sending more scouts," George quipped.
Yayha frowned at his sarcastic remark before disregarding it; arguing with these types of meatheads really didn't do well for the brain, he thought silently. George, seeing him remain silent, smiled triumphantly.
"Yayha is right on this, George, although it's true Becke was able to scope out the entire base, that was also what, a few weeks ago? If they have some sort of commander units like the generals and commanders within our federation, then it's very reasonable to send out scouts to find out more about your enemy's capabilities before you go all in on an attack," Ridge said, interrupting their bickering.
Yayha simply nodded, deciding to take the more even-headed route of staying neutral and not antagonizing George for no reason.
George, though technically losing face, still nodded in understanding at Ridge's words and dismissed his previous actions of antagonizing Yayha.
"Berkay, do you think it's possible to simply take the battleship around the planet and back? If we can't have the drones I want for now, we'll just use the ship's small-scale scanners that haven't been destroyed and our eyes to see if we can spot anything," he asked Berkay, who was relatively quiet.
"I'm just a navigator, sir, but I do think it can be easily done. The problem that I worry about is that the enemy ambushes us with positioned plasma cannons. Seeing how organized they seem to be, I wouldn't be surprised if they had some tactics they haven't used or shown us," He replied, somewhat unsure of his answer.
"You're right, I didn't think about that. I suppose we'll just keep it supplying the resources needed for the veltrite ore deposit for now. When you're in the air, just make sure to scan your surroundings down below at all times. If the enemy ends up discovering our movements in the south, it wouldn't bode well. Especially considering our large mining outpost is down there as well," He warned.
Dismissing Berkay, he continued his discussion with George and Yayha, mostly pertaining to protocols and plans on what they would do in an all-out war. Naturally, they also discussed retreat plans deep into the night.
Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any more movement judging by the silence on the wrist panels, but Ridge knew for sure that those five scouts wouldn't be the end of this. Once the meeting ended, he returned to bed and fell asleep as fast as he could. It was during these times of quiet that one should take the opportunity to rest peacefully.
If full-scale fighting does break out like he feared it would, he probably wouldn't be getting much sleep.
The next morning came quickly; his wrist panel showed a few unread messages, but nothing labeled urgent, so he relieved himself and took a quick shower. In fresh clothes, he checked the messages.
'Three unread messages: Patrol report, Caroline, Yayha.'
Opening his messages, he ignored Caroline and Yayha for now, clicking on the patrol report from the night team out patrolling the walls.
'No attack or enemy killed; however, as expected, the night patrol did notice some shadows shuffling in the forest. Nothing came close enough to shoot, unfortunately.'