Progress became stunted the closer she came to the reintegration of the lesser tunnels to the greater tunnel tract. She was willing to bet the Aud were attracted to their own, gathering in places where a population already existed. Her suit creaked like it was voicing agreement.
She'd waited ten minutes for her surviving drones to reach her. Then she'd been forced to double back and choose a new path or make a new path for herself several times. Her HUD was improving at identifying weaker walls, but the WAV couldn't continue this activity for much longer. It was a scouting vehicle, for crying out loud! Not a bulldozer!
She found it ironic the drones of all things would outlast her suit. Maybe the sitesman should've strapped data stores onto a hundred drones and sent them in her stead. She was already shaking her head at the ridiculous idea. Drones didn't have enough space for a long-lasting battery and a long-range command receiver. When confronted with the conundrum, the developers chose to enhance the machines' endurance over their versatility. She couldn't blame them. Confronting beasts that were so hard to kill made efficiency and endurance humankind's foremost concern in the conflict.
Her current tunnel was clear, drawing a sigh of relief. What she was prepared to do if it wasn't wouldn't have been pretty, and she'd rather conserve the limited explosives she had left.
The HUD alerted her. "Hazard: Purple fur detected. Calculation: Likelihood of purple Aud in vicinity…please wait…please wait…please wait…twenty-eight percent. Advisory: Proceed after assessing individual case and willingness to risk life."
A less than forty percent scenario was good enough for her. She didn't have the time to continue making detours in the hope of finding a safe path. She stopped by the mouth of the new path, breathing deeply. She took another drink to ease her nerves, wishing the suit could inject more hormones without adverse side effects. She wanted them badly.
Jumping onto a high ledge, she crept along the path, grateful that the higher junction continued until the eventual reconnection. No Aud would be small enough to get her up here.
That didn't mean much. All it'd take to bring her down would be another cave-in. A purple Aud, rare as they were, was the apex of what the damned anomalies could become. And it was in part due to their rarity that she felt secure enough to make this choice in the first place. That, and her time constraints.
She had to question how hopeless her actions were, as she swung across a gap in the ledge's path. It was completely unknown what the Aud would do next. Would they lick the minuscule wounds they'd suffered and make a move immediately? Or perhaps, would a period of relative peace occur again?
Pa-5 didn't know much about the oldest Bastion Outposts. Fort Callipso and Fort Clyvis had fallen decades before her birth. As far as she knew, not even her father was older than those incidents.
Fort Callipso had been the first, a wake-up call for the leadership of the time that the previous lull in conflicts wasn't the new status quo, just a break from the violence. And Fort Clyvis hadn't even been fifteen years after it. The loss of the guard posts blocking the Northern and Southern Greater Tunnel Systems had generated mass hysteria for a time.
There would be a reckoning, she was certain. Of what, and by whom, she wasn't able to say, but she knew something had to give. The Aud had to have limits. It wasn't like they were machines. They weren't even cyborgs. The rare dissected Aud had been publicly reported as nothing more than a biological mammal, with no number or type of internal organs radically different from humans.
She missed the whispered intake of air. The HUD registered it, but dismissed it as a peculiarity of the caverns; it would only bother its user with priority details of the environment. The error on both their parts was their first mistake.
Like a storm, a crashing wave of fur and claws slammed into the back of her WAV. She was sent flying, slamming into the opposite cave wall, and falling from the ledge. Her mind was blank with panic for a few precious seconds which felt long, so long, until--
The ground proper punched her from below, knocking free what little air she'd held onto after the scream. She struggled to rise, to get an angle on her attacker, to prime the cylinder still clenched tightly in her palm--anything! The HUD made a whining noise but persevered through the abuse.
"Diagnostic: WAV has suffered musculature tears; left knee servo jammed."
Pa-5 worked on the spot, turning off the suit's front visual feeds, and smashing the cylinder into the ground. She sat through two agonizing seconds, feeling the heat from the flash grenade seep through her armored joints, hearing the familiar roar--no, just growl this time--of pain.
She squinted, flicking visuals back on and rising. A thud and a shaking wave throughout the tunnel informed her her assailant had fallen from the ledge too. She used the brief respite to prime another cylinder. Through teary vision, she could see the telltale purple, no matter how faint or blurry the silhouette was.
She couldn't let up, not even for a second. She threw the next one, turning her back and limping away. Damn suit. It had worked perfectly, or as well as it could, until now. But one fall and now the joints threw in the towel? She slammed her fist into the knee repeatedly, ignoring the pain going through her actual joint. Come on. Come on. Come on!
The HUD informed her: "Advisory: Another cave-in is best chance of elusion and continued survival. Notice: Appli--"
It interrupted itself to inform her of the fruits of her painful labor: the knee was back to normal. Or as normal as a dented and near-broken servo could be. The whirlwind of thuds at her back and the HUD blaring a warning claxon in her ears prompted her to roll out of the charging behemoth's path. Her hand tossed the next cylinder of its own volition. Another bang, another growl, and a second crash. She launched her second explosive as well.
This tunnel was larger in circumference than the last; the explosion covered less ground without being squeezed further along by tight tunnels. Pa-5 was well clear of the impact zone when the cave-in started. The purple leaped at her, maw gaping. She had no illusions the suit would last any longer in its bite than she would.
A chunk of the ceiling double its size cut the arc short, pinning it. She didn't wait to see how long it'd be held, already on the move. She winced as she dodged a rock of her own, feeling the pinch in her chest. She would've ignored it if not for the blood she coughed up. "HUD."
It already knew what to do. Painkillers, coagulating agents, and the smallest dose of liquid sun were pushed into her blood by injectors. Internal bleeding was tricky. Without immediate treatment, neither she nor the suit could judge the severity of her injuries. She shrugged, wincing at that too.
Contrary to her expectations, the new pile amounting to tons of weight didn't stop the purple for a minute. Barely ten seconds passed when a rattle reached her ears. Muffling a curse, she dove behind a growth of inverted stalactites, the thickest she could find on short notice.
Like grapeshot, the purple's freed roar and the rubble shot outward, slamming into the walls of the lesser tunnel with enough force to pulverize a white Aud. She crouched down, making herself as small as possible while covering her head and neck. Please hold, she silently begged the tunnel. Please hold, she pleaded with the stalactites.
Maybe they were close enough to the greater tunnel that the rocks had hardened somewhat. Or the accumulated damage was worse than it looked. Whatever it was, her chosen barrier held. So did the walls and roof of the tunnel. She opened the leg compartment, despair catching hold as she took out the last flash cylinder.
Fine. She'd make it count this time.
Steeling herself, she was ready to jump up and toss when she heard something she wouldn't have expected in her wildest dreams: footsteps. "HUD?"
For once, the program had nothing to say, its calculations useless in the face of such an impossibility. She peeked through a crack in the stalactite.
The purple Aud stood tall and unbeatable, just like it had always been. But it wasn't looking in her direction anymore. She did not doubt that it knew exactly where she was hidden.
No. Its complete and divided attention was upon the silhouette marching in its path. The human silhouette. Pa-5 received another injection, its effects lost on her as she stared at the human.
She couldn't tell the gender. It was garbed head to toe in black. A body glove? And what were those shiny instruments grafted to the arms? She switched the clarity optics around, quickly finding a setting that enabled her to see into the distance.
If she was puzzled before, she was stumped now. Starting halfway down the forearms, the person's limbs ended in blades. They scraped the ground, tiny sparks lighting up the darkness. The Aud growled, taking the newcomer's presence as a challenge.
She recognized the telltale signs of the beast preparing for a charge. But the warning she'd been ready to call out died in her throat. They, instead of running…took a battle stance, arms held like a praying mantis.
The Aud charged, its bulk presenting an unstoppable force. When it reached its target, the newcomer delicately twirled to the left, blades spinning hypnotically. The Aud screeched to a halt, turned around, and repeated its actions.
Each time, the newcomer treated the intrusion into their space like a nuisance, spinning out of danger with so little effort Pa-5 felt embarrassed for her clunky, panic-induced rolls and dives. Each movement was orchestrated into a greater dance; the blades whirled, steadily picking up speed as she watched in amazement.
A spatter of something stole her attention. She focused on the ground, noticing strange marks. No, those were stains. From fluid. Blood? She refocused on the blades, realizing they'd been dripping in viscous purple. Aud blood! Their blades were drawing blood!
The Aud screamed again, coming to a stop. She had lost track of how many charges it had initiated. It didn't matter. It was leaking blood freely now. Even if she couldn't see them beneath all the fur, matted down and sticky, she could imagine the great array of cuts it suffered. She clenched her fist, the defeat of one of humanity's greatest monsters occurring right before her eyes.
The newcomer never spoke a word. The only part of their body that broke the silence was the feet. They clapped and stomped and met the ground like a friend, tumbling and inducing impossible movements like it was child's play. She feverishly wondered how many others would have to sacrifice their lives to bring down this lone apex predator. A hundred? No, at minimum, hundreds, maybe a thousand.
Screeching in frustration, the Aud backed away from the figure at last. Pa-5 noted with interest that their blades were soiled in purple, yet not a speck of blood or gore--even stray fur, had touched the outfit itself. The figure stepped forward twice for every hoof trailing in reverse, maintaining the same distance.
For the first time in her miserable life, Pa-5 watched as a high-tier Aud was routed. Not by an army, but by a single individual. Not by the greatest technology humanity could muster, but with two simple swords. The figure kept pace with the Aud. She realized it was being herded away.
The Aud was the first to vanish beyond the suit's optic range. Before they similarly disappeared into the darkness, the silhouette turned, their eyes finding hers.
She froze. The HUD enhanced the visual, bringing two fiery yellow orbs into view, the first splash of color she'd seen. Their eyes remained locked for an eternity. When she blinked, the sudden absence of the newcomer's presence was disorienting.