Were this order issued five hundred years ago, three hundred, or even two hundred, chaos would've taken hold of the pilots. Their formation, already strained from withstanding a dozen charges, would've cracked and then broken down the middle. The Aud would've passed through and doubled back to attack those holding fast from the rear. And they would've lost.
But this wasn't two hundred years ago. These days, humanity walked a tight path, loss and hopelessness squeezing and poisoning it. It left little to strive for, little to dare to want to achieve, but it did do one thing well: it tempered expectations. From those behind the Last Light's walls to those here on the frontlines, not one expected much. These days, much of anything at all.
And the First Ray's mortality rates eclipsed the other rays, so they all knew what they were in for. It served as a dose of reality, even more potent than the everyday experience of humanity. Fight and die. Die, and let others fight.
The retreat began with the light WAVs returning to cluster behind the formation. They continued to fire their emplacements, doing little and serving death to few Aud. They emptied their power cores and sonic munitions all the same. The Nyx Breaker entered a more active role now.
Its turrets remained confined to supportive duties for most of the skirmish, but all that went to the wayside when retreat became the foremost prospect on every pilot's mind. The mounts rotated and flexed, aligning the targeting sightlines closer to the defensive line than before. Without waiting for the serious part of the retreat to begin, every turret with a clear line of fire exploded into action. The gunnery crews spared nothing, and supportive techs in the command center assigned more engineers to fueling and reloading crews so full munition belts, cylinders, and pristine focusing agents could be maintained in every turret.
The heavies took it as their cue to begin their withdrawal. There was hesitation–every heavy WAV was a valuable asset, and saving themselves appealed to even the most stoic of pilots, no matter the shame that pushed back. But they were still leaving their comrades behind. If not to die, then to be forced to fight one of the worst conflicts: a skewed fight that grew more skewed.
Yet an order was an order. And every serviceman of the Nine Titans, pilots included, received their postings due to personal merit. Some, for their knowledge bases. Others, for their leadership and adaptive skills. But all for their ability to remain calm under the worst pressures and follow an order to the letter, even if it were to lop off a leg.
Done in segments down the vanguard, the heavy WAVs pulled back, deactivating their shield cores. Although speed was of the essence, they walked backward, keeping their targets in sight to contribute every iota of firepower they could. And where a new gap formed, two defaults took charge, squeezing in and forcing back the Aud with a renewed frenzy. It was true, they were sacrificial offerings; if that was how things were, they wouldn't fail in this duty!
Soon, the vanguard found itself without a single heavy to offer aid in close contact with the Aud. And while Re-5 wouldn't deny even if she were blind that the pilots in it weren't doing everything possible to keep it together, they had too many factors playing against them.
Aud breached the lines, some doubling back to pounce on the rear vanguard, others continuing forward with the retreating heavies reflecting off their eyes. The light WAVs regrouped and split into teams, each harassing two or three Aud. They couldn't afford to let one of the heavies get trapped in conflict with an Aud now. The lights could kite whatever their targets threw at them so long as their pilots stayed vigilant, but the same didn't apply to the heavies. In other words, no light WAV had to engage and could freely choose their targets and maneuver because of it.
There was still hope for the vanguard. Re-5 hadn't forgotten about them, or written them off as a lost cause. The proximity of turrets' ordnance to the vanguard's front line decreased. When they retreated a meter, it followed, acting as a curtain that held back the worst of the horde where it could, and making them bleed when it couldn't. Her goal was to have the Titan shadow the vanguard with its ordnance and lessen the pressure to the point they could think about staging a mobile defense. A defensive retreat.
Several techs coordinated with the vanguard, overriding their piloting HUDs to create patterns of retreat that didn't interfere with the formation and kept them together to watch each other's backs.
The heavy WAVs didn't waste the opportunity given. Most were back by the garage ramp, still firing their emplacements to limited success. Shooting straight-line beams past gaps in the vanguard was difficult, so electrics were useless unless one wanted to risk hitting another WAV on accident. And their sonics and cylinders were long exhausted. Arching projectiles went first.
Re-5's officer refocused them on the Aud behind the vanguard. With support from the distant heavies, the light WAVs began finishing off enough targets to be ready for the next group that broke through. A few of the light WAVs even stepped into the rear layers of the vanguard to bolster the formation. Their presence seemed superficial, but by filling up the less vulnerable spaces and ensuring no Aud could pass through the center, the defaults could reorganize themselves and create an outer shell.
"How many flash cylinders remain?"
Her officer flinched, immersed in his duties deep enough that her sudden inquiry jolted him. His hands moved faster than his thoughts, connecting his communicator with one of the techs monitoring the inventory staff. He repeated the inquiry, already guessing why Re-5 wanted to know.
"Enough for every cylinder launcher to fire them twice."
She nodded. A double burst of blanketing blindness would do the retreat some good. "Have the crews load the first, then resume firing whatever they receive in their lists next. But don't have them fire the cylinders until I signal it!"
As the prevalence of ordnance lightened, the heavies began retreating inside the garage. It took over a minute to get each back onto a lane, but the urgent garage staff expedited the process. Once the first lane had every spot full, the conveyer rotated, replacing it with an empty one.
The vanguard halted as a crack appeared on the left side. It'd be dangerous for them to continue retreating with that flaw in the formation. The decrease in the rate of fired cylinders didn't do them any favors. Rotating in place, the outer layers of the vanguard swapped positions. The breach then faced the Titan, and a fresher line of defaults took the brunt of the assault.
At the edges of the vanguard–it only stretched for so long before compromising the thickness in the lines–light WAVs darted around the edges, poking at eyes, maws, claws, and anything else not covered by a layer of fur. The Aud leaned into the pain, compressing against the lines with disregard for their bodies.
The Nyx Breaker spread out its segments, lowering the glaring head. The action may have increased its volume and decreased the space between it and the horde but it flattened it out. Every launcher gained a clear line of fire, and none wasted the opportunity. "Now."
As one, the entirety of the launchers released the first burst of flash cylinders. The ordnance streaked overhead, cutting paths to carpet the horde. Rigged to detonate early, the casings broke apart nine meters above the Aud. From the front of the formation to the rear of the Aud horde–if they had launched the furthest cylinders far enough to reach its end, a line of light descended. It robbed the command center of visuals, but they didn't need it. Neither did the pilots in the vanguard.
Every pilot still deployed lost their visual and audio feeds. To protect their eyes, the HUDs acted fast and dropped an opaque black, while leaving the feeds open to collect information independent of their users. Unable to see, every pilot in the outer layers shouldn't have lasted longer than a heartbeat. Their targets suffered the same fate, but they had no HUD to protect their eyes and ears. The collective scream from hundreds of Aud would impress, but only if anyone could hear it. The carpet bombing eclipsed even that.
Like before, the Aud became their own worst enemy. Those pushing forward bowled over and crushed Aud trapped against the vanguard's front, and those near the edges of the horde broke away, stumbling around in delirious oblivion. Unable to focus their fury on the vanguard, it was free to back away once more and used every extra second to put another meter between them.
Although their visual feeds still revealed nothing, their HUDs remained as trusty as ever. The pilots could still see the projected tracks, showing them where to backstep and where not to go. The piloting HUDs coordinated with autonomous intelligences, maintaining the formation's shape. Blind except for that guidance, they trekked backward further.
Re-5 controlled the situation from a top-down view, coordinating it all with the various moving parts operating in the command compartment. An officer in the garage got back to her, informing her only a fourth of the surviving heavy WAVs still needed loading. The light WAVs wouldn't take half as long, even if there were more of them left than the heavies.
She wanted to have the engineers load the last burst of flash cylinders, but caution wrapped her in its chilly embrace. The ordnance loaded was doing fine, and waiting for the Aud to be ready for a second strike of blindness was antithetical to the philosophy all sitesmen needed to embody: don't wait for opportunities. Make them.