An intermediary base station supporting mobile terminal (MT) functionality and/or a user equipment (UE) may receive a time alignment (TA) command and associated timer value from one or more distributed units (DUs) and/or a central unit (CU) of a parent base station. The TA command and timer value may be based on an experienced or potential timer expiration associated with a TA of a communication link. The TA command may specify an updated TA value and a timer reset for scheduling communications on the communication link. In some examples, the TA command may be in response to a TA command request provided by the MT or UE on allocated resources or configurations indicated by the parent base station. In other cases, the TA command may be in response to a random access procedure on allocated resources or configurations indicated by the parent base station.