In the mountain pass, the state of the battle had suddenly taken a turn for the better, in Nico's mind. The enemy forces had given up on trying to reach their base through stealth, and they were regrouping to make a push to eliminate Nico's force from the pass and take the mountains as their stronghold.
If you could hold both ends of the pass, with forces in the mountains, it would be incredibly difficult to force you out of the region, which was what Nico was planning right now, with the aid of the troops that Max had ordered back from the battle at the base.
She held this end, and they were almost to the other. Once they were in place and the units could spread through the mountains, they would have their secondary stronghold from which she could deploy more troops, thousands of kilometres away from the main base.
