Another salvo ripped into the falling targets. The deadly light show was a sight to behold, just as much for the servicemen as Re-5 imagined it to be for the Aud. She wondered if her reaction would differ.
Aud were impervious to impressive amounts of firepower, and even heavily injured, they still hounded their prey with a single-minded fixation that couldn't be a natural phenomenon. Was it disregard for their safety? The Aud were tunnel-visioned, even when others above and below were reduced to smoking caricatures.
She checked the progress of the other hordes. The movement clusters from the south were coming closer, but they had to climb a near-vertical tunnel segment before reaching them. The Titan could've launched cylinders down with comfortable impunity if they were closer to it. Where they were, she was glad, regardless, that they still had some time to whittle down the initial mass of targets.
The horde coming from the north was closer. It would soon be within range of the electrics. None of them looked forward to it, but they would have to divert some emplacements to knock down some of the northern horde's numbers too. She winced at the thought of abandoning all those easy, free-falling targets.
This wasn't anything particular to linger on. Fights against a foe they couldn't easily kill, trap, outrun, or avoid tended to remain unfavorable from start to end. She should be grateful for how the Aud approached: it was almost ordered in waves. But the knowledge that this was what passed as good luck left her blood in a helpless boil.
As she'd predicted, more Aud fell from the shaft. Enough that the opening was obscured. The targeting programs were running close to their full capabilities, the autonomous intelligences within the Titan dividing the many responsibilities among each other. Some differentiated individual targets and applied unique markers to each. Others were responsible for directing the focusing fire at said targets, and moving on when a predicted lethality threshold was reached.
She watched her people continue their activities within the command compartment. It was with minute pleasure she noted the tense atmosphere had receded somewhat. Even while in an unfamiliar situation that all but promised a brutal end, the servicemen were well-trained and devoted to each other.
They all had thoughts of cowardice and surrender in their heads. She knew because she did too. In the back of her mind, something continually shattered and pulled itself together again, only to shatter once more as she witnessed the number of targets on the screens only increase, no matter how many were killed.
But the one thing keeping the servicemen disciplined and in line, hopeful they would get out of that mess, was the knowledge that so long as they did their duty, so would the rest. There was a reason that the Beacon Outposts and the Titans required a stationed crew of hundreds or thousands to function.
This knowledge--this truth--let them continue their tasks with indifference.
"Our sonics have a positive lock, sir." The officer interrupted her thoughts, looking over at his communicator.
"Don't wait on my account." She waved her hand. "Are the accuracy parameters still below seventy?"
"They reached sixty-four not too long ago. They will need another few seconds."
"It's acceptable." Strictly speaking, a single percentage point wasn't worth much. But the larger the quantity, the larger the impact. Dozens of shots would miss, their targets escaping the hammering rounds when they flailed their bodies in impossible-to-predict ways, or when the targeting programs made errors.
"I'll inform the gunnery crew."
She nodded. He would do that, she would continue to monitor the entire situation from above. Ze-4 had told her commanding a Titan was like playing a game. She hadn't entirely understood at the time. Given her position as his immediate assistant, she handled plenty of matters from head to tail, concerning everything from the output of the generators to the storage method of rationed goods.
But, she mused now, that was why she was there in the first place, why the sitesman all had assistant officers. There was just so much more to handle at his level. She had controlled the output of the generators concerning the emplacements before, but now she needed to consider how much power was being sent to every part of the Titan. Her attention was divided among five different tasks and considerations at any moment when another five waited at the periphery of her mind.
She was amazed Ze-4 had performed his role with effortless stoicism; she wore assistive modules in her flesh, not him. Was it a matter of experience? She had plenty of it in regulations and logistics, but this was the first time she'd been uncomfortably thrust into a position of leadership. It didn't help or escape her notice that several servicemen in the command compartment took quick breaks from their consoles to glance up at her. They gave her the same nerve-wracking assured looks they had given Ze-4 not too long ago.
She replaced those concerns with another task. The echo-room had transmitted another request, asking for more generators to be diverted to their compartment. She had asked for a status update beyond that, but to her chagrin, she was chided by the Ancient on the other end, who requested she remain patient.
Instead of invoking her authority to chew him out as Ze-4 would have done, she closed the line and decided her time was better spent solving more logistical issues that arose. Her assistant swiftly rescued her from the bulk of them, intercepting the smaller considerations that could be handled without requiring awareness of the whole picture.
Her eyes were inexorably drawn back to the main screen when the sonics fired their first salvo, finally joining the electric emplacements. Hundreds of scutumsteel rounds spun through the air, straining to break free from gravity. Those at the head of the metal cloud arced and connected with their targets.
The smile she wore was strained, but was produced by satisfaction. She wasn't sure what miracle the gunnery crew and the autonomous intelligences had conspired together to create; directly contradicting the predictions she was offered, almost eighty percent of the salvo struck true, hammering into the Aud with a vengeance.
Even targets only hit by a single round were sent tumbling back, their new trajectories ensuring they would land further from the Nyx Breaker. So long as the majority of the falling horde was hit at least once, they could regain twice the starting distance!