Richard and his honor guard made their way across the desert in a wide half-circle around the main thrust of the fighting, the same route that Ovid and Grand had taken to get to reach him, to get back behind their own lines and hook up with the unit that his two would be rescuers had left to come save his bacon. With the explosions that continued to rock the air you'd think there would be some tension in the air, but Richard actually found it very relaxing.

He was riding up on one of the Zakus shoulders. Ovid had insisted that it would be faster this way with their robots longer strides and Richard was no stranger to being carried into battle. In the meantime and amused himself watching the fighting through the scope of his gun. It wasn't a great view. It was nothing compared to the panorama you got from above. He could hardly see the sides through the dust, least of all what he assumed was the main event still presumable happening near the enemy dropships.

He would have had to be blind, however, to miss something like a mass retreat.

It started when he heard the air battle suddenly intensify, then just as suddenly die down again. Then he started seeing the ground troops start behaving...oddly. It was hard to notice, but the density of fire coming from their side noticeably decreased. Then he saw the pods shooting up into the air and the lines he could see started collapsing. 

Then he got deadly confirmation from Ovid. "Sir, I'm hearing a lot of chatter! The men are confused, but from what it sounds like the Imperials just cut and run." He said, his voice stained with sudden stress.

This was bad. The Imperials fought together, so if they were retreating then there were now huge rips in their defense. He could picture the resistance rushing through, pouring around the sides and sweeping their lines aside like a wave. The Reign troops obviously didn't know what was happening. Was this a full retreat? If not, is anyone else running? Should we try and stop them? Why are they doing this? Why aren't we the ones running? Is this part of the plan? Some thought or another like this was now swirling in the head of all but the most zealous of Reign fighters, combined with the natural urge to run when you see another man running. 

This was all the makings of a rout. He'd read enough military history to know that routs were when the killing happened. He'd personally seen enough military history to know that.

He wasn't able to linger on the thought for long, because Grand shouted "Incoming!" and three fighters streaked over their heads in a strafing run. Richard jumped off his perch, hiding behind his comrades as their sturdy armor was peppered with fire. Richard watched as they vanished off toward the base along with several other squadrons he could see. They were using the weakened air support as an opportunity to attack the fortress itself, the explosions that peppered the artillery and anti-air batteries was testament to that.

Then fire started coming from another direction, drawing Richards attention back to the ground. In just the time it had taken him to look up the Reign troops near them had been overrun, and now a detachment of Resistance was making it's way toward them. He swung around and raised his rifle. The rest of his weapons clattered to the ground next to him as the Zakus turned to bring up their own guns.

If something wasn't done about this then Reign resistance would break completely. Then it would be every man fir himself.