The horde falling from the shaft would reach them first, so it received priority targeting. The emplacements shifted their aim, bristling with energy as they waited for the first specks to fall from the distant ceiling. Focusing down as many Aud in the air as possible would be their best bet on survival.
Realistically, the situation was more complicated than that. The Titan not only had to contend with a pincer assault from two directions but was forced to divide its resources across multiple planes as well. The falling horde would be focused down first. But the Aud were heavy, so gravity acted on them with greater impunity. They would hit the ground in less time than a WAV would.
Then two-thirds of the firepower focused on the airborne Aud would be diverted to face the surge on a level plane. The cylinders were unwieldy projectiles to be fired at distant, fast-falling targets. They would be reserved for the ground assault.
Re-5 watched the screens, scarcely blinking for fear of missing the moment. Further and further down the shaft, the rush of movement was close to reaching its end. She heard confirmation calls from other stations below: their closer-range scanners were beginning to add their sensory observations to the picture. She grimaced.
Then steeled herself, and looked to her assistant. "Are the electrics primed?"
"As always, sir."
"Then what are we waiting for? Engage!"
Most of the military's weaponry was divided into four categories: cylinders, sonics, electrics, and netting. Given the Nyx Breaker's perchance for frequent movement, the last category was unsuited to be equipped on-mass as a portion of its limited emplacement slots.
That said, the other three were still potent tools to aid in the conflict. Cylinders were simple in function, concept, and design. They were explosives. Some tossed up an obscuring smokescreen. Some delivered large payloads in a small detonation chamber. And others still had more exotic effects.
Sonics were hybrid weapons that relied on physical ammunition to deliver hefty blows. The size and range of the ammunition varied, but it was only half of what made sonics special. The other half were the emitters. Like a secondary booster, a concentrated burst of amplified sound kicked the round forward, increasing its velocity even further. In this, they were efficient slug-throwers.
And the last category, electrics. Unlike the other two, nothing was needed for their function but energy. Energy was the input, energy powered the process, and energy was the output. A beam could be slung as easily as a laser pointer by running this surge of energy through a focusing agent. Upon impact, a dispersion of heat and residual electrostatics would burn and char.
Cylinders were too slow to hit targets at that distance and speed. Sonics suffered the same problem, even if they were faster and could hit targets further away. But electrics were energy ripping through solid matter. They were exempt from a great many restrictions, chiefly gravity.
Which made them the perfect emplacements for the opening salvo. The tunnel lit up as beams of crackling light ripped apart the darkness. The first falling Aud was too far away to be heard, but those in the command compartment could easily imagine their roars of pain and rage.
Hundreds of these beams were launched from the length of the Titan's coiled body. Re-5 clenched her fist as their targeting systems rewarded them shortly with small victories. While it was difficult to gauge whether or not an Aud was dead from that distance, the general rule of thumb was to move on after reducing a falling body into a charred mess.
The sheer volume of electrics was dizzying, but Re-5 remained lucid. They had a gratifying number of emplacements, but the horde had barely begun to flow from the shaft. As things stood now, these were just the first Aud lucky enough to fall faster than the rest. Soon, there would be enough to have trouble observing the shaft, and then enough to create the illusion of a flood exploding free.
There would be too many to afford to be picky with targets, but they could manage that now. Even if a killed target had white fur, it would still be one less target to confront later. So the electric emplacements located and focused on those with white, orange, and yellow fur. It was fortunate those were the most common colors.
"How soon until the fastest targets enter the range of sonics?"
"They already are." The officer held up his hand. "But their predicted accuracy is not too high. I recommend we keep them in reserve until the targets are close enough that the targeting programs can guarantee hit rates greater than seventy-five percent. We only have so much ammunition to spare."
"Lower it to sixty-five. We can't afford to wait that long." Their survival hinged on knocking as many Aud out of the air as early as possible before the horde from the north came into view. The electrics might pack a punch at a distance, but they couldn't deliver an iota of kinetic force. No matter how much an Aud was hit, its trajectory would remain unchanged. The sonics, though, could bruise and break as easily as they could knock the Aud off-course. Normally, this would be challenging, but a free-falling target had nothing to brace itself against. "How do the electrics compare?"
"The initial salvo was running at a ninety percent hit rate. The earliest targets have now entered a range where the shots are all but guaranteed to land."
"Good. Divert additional generators to the power lines. I don't want us to have to be frugal with the electrics. Unless they're running close to their heat limits, I want them firing at a staccato pace."
"Already on it," he assured her.
In the time she spent collecting diagnostic data, the firing rate of the electric emplacements received an impressive increase. The hundreds of beams per second became nearly a thousand. More and more of the falling targets were turned into unrecognizable, blackened corpses.