"How is the runner? Don't sugarcoat it?"
"I wouldn't bother, sir. She's missing her legs, a finger, and most of her body's blood content, and that's what's on the surface. We'll have medical do what they can to keep her breathing, but I wouldn't expect any miracles. She's already had several making it this far."
Before she could edge in another question, the officer continued. "Should I have medical rank extracting her chip?"
The chip. Every serviceman had one inserted into a module at the base of the skull. The only mandatory cybernetic augmentations the soldiers of humanity needed to undergo after enlisting, and it was mandatory for good reason. A war against nigh-unkillable opponents like the Aud was bound to produce many unforeseen or complicated circumstances, and one of the best ways to predict or avoid these circumstances in the future was information.
They could gather information in several ways: drones, scanning technology, and other means of surveillance. Seismic readers could feel the tremors unleashed by roaming hordes kilometers away, and the Nyx Breaker's echo-room could create three-dimensional models of spaces it hadn't visited or had long left behind.
But even this wasn't enough. So, the First Ray took things one step further, like they always did, and turned their servicemen into another layer of surveillance, one so widespread in coverage that nearly nothing escaped notice. The chips tapped the electric impulses running between the brain and the eyes, recording everything the servicemen saw like a camera. There wasn't sound, but the engineers responsible for its creation pulled an impossible feat by tapping into the eyes as things stood. Upgrading it to tap into the ears would be greedy--and costly.
So this was the latest tough decision Re-5 found herself making. The Nyx Breaker's crew piloted the Titan out west to see what happened to Fort Io. They accomplished that and should've turned around. But they pushed onward, even saving a suicide runner. Of course, "saving" was a gross exaggeration. They got to her in time, but she was teetering on death's door.
By plugging into a serviceman's most vital functioning organ, the chip sacrificed its redundancy to function until replacement or the host's demise. If the suicide runner died while in medical's care, the chip within her would expire and break down too; all it recorded would be unrecoverable. It came down to which she thought held greater value to humanity: a first-hand witnessing of the events leading to Fort Io's fall, or a survivor of that fall.
"Rank the chip." The words came out hoarse like she was choking and forcing something too large out of a throat too small. She disregarded the acknowledgment and keyed off her communicator, returning to the skirmish still waging. She might have doomed another to die, but there were still lives outside that she could save. How did Ze-4 do it?
Most of the defaults fell while maintaining the outer shell of the vanguard. While they held the line, the inner layers broke apart one by one. A mixture of light WAVs and defaults broke rank, climbed the ramp, and distributed themselves along the slotting lanes. Without the need to secure the extra clamps keeping the returned heavies secure, the other two weight classes took less time.
When it lost a layer in the rear, the vanguard took the opportunity to compress itself further, drawing the lines closer together and sometimes merging, like a phalanx. The front tightened, and the skirmish intensity increased at the formation's head like a rock parting a waterfall's relentless downpour. There the casualties on both sides were heaviest.
Re-5 ran some calculations and passed them on to her HUD. It was merciless, breaking apart each half-formed plan and criticizing every small flaw, but she didn't fault it. It did its duty. It was her that wasn't working right. She needed a way to bring every serviceman back inside. The latest involved moving the Nyx Breaker forward to swallow the rest of the vanguard. That might result in further injuries on their side. But it would have to work.
"Sir, the formation is being overrun on the left. Permission to start the second blanket-bombing?"
"Is that the best option we have?"
"I'm afraid so. We can't redirect more emplacements toward that side without neglecting the center and right sides of the horde. Without the added support from the heavies, the vanguard won't have enough kick in their WAVs or ammunition to watch their backs." They only had enough flash cylinders for one more blanket-bombing, but what were the alternatives? She could only be grateful she didn't launch them earlier, after the first.
"Then, go ahead."
The launchers running along the Nyx Breaker's back halted and discharged their latest load. Reloading the flash cylinders was shorter than the first, and the targeting programs did their due diligence in delivering fantastic results. As a result of hounding after a smaller vanguard, the horde compressed itself too, many times smaller. The targeting programs coordinated their efforts, overlapping the explosion radius of the cylinders to create a stacking reaction. When every launcher fired a second time, the Aud took notice.
But they couldn't dodge, since none of the cylinders aimed for them. They aimed above. A second before collective detonation, the Nyx Breaker's visual feeds darkened again, and the same occurred with the pilots still fighting for their lives. The tunnel exploded with light, generating wails.
A few Aud realized the same thing happened, and tucked heads under their midsections. Others let the rest of the horde trample over them, putting several layers of tough, dampening bodies between them and the explosions. Neither course of action was enough.
The vanguard retreated, some of their fallen supported between two standing WAVs or dragged along by a courteous comrade. The Titan roamed forward to meet them, its head resting against the cracking rocks. The electric eyes glared at the writhing horde at the pilots' backs.
Coming closer to the horde with its garage wide open was one of the most dangerous things the crew could let the Titan do. But where there was risk, there was reward. The WAVs furthest along crossed an insignificant distance before their boots clunked against the base of the ramp. Inside the garage, activity boomed and the air was alight with nervous, frantic energy. Worried they wouldn't clear enough space to fit the last members of the vanguard aboard before closing the garage, Re-5's officer sent down ten groups of engineers and techs from other positions across the Titan's length to assist. While every remaining lane waiting for filling became more packed, the time between securing each WAV decreased.
A few WAVs remained by the garage entrance, firing into the horde. It only took a group of stray techs half a minute to top off their empty sonic munitions. In prime fighting condition, the select WAV pilots on guard duty waited along the ramp edges. With replaced power cores, renewed shield cores, and the promise of escape no longer distant, a group of thirty defaults held the line against hundreds.
Another ring of fire erupted, drawing a line between the ramp and the horde. The WAVs on the ramp were so close they could feel the heat sear their skin through two layers of scutumsteel and shielding, but no complaints arose. Techs hijacked their piloting HUDs, advising the best locations to aim into the horde. The techs kept them updated with how far along the slotting was. A hundred left. Then fifty, twenty-five, ten, and one.
When the number hit zero, the WAVs retreated up the ramp as a single body, disregarding the defense. They had to be quick about it too. The ramp retracted, gears and servos pulling the great slab of scutumsteel away from the ground, and then rods hidden within folded into themselves. The ramp mirrored them, rolling into itself. If the pilots didn't move like a combustion orb was under their butts, they wouldn't make it.
The last WAV fell short, a scream ripped from the pilot's lips as the ramp disappeared under his feet and gravity took its place. He fell, mere air unable to support his weight. The pilots ahead of him made it with a second to spare, hearts pounding in a shared beat. They shared sorrow too, but it could wait for release until they were free of the WAVs.
Re-5 felt like she waited an eternity to hear "They're all back." Stress and relief intermingled with her orders, but those answering to her had little mind for it; they felt likewise, and most were controlling themselves worse than her. The Titan's pilots couldn't wait for the garage to tie down every WAV, so she had some techs on a different platform to increase the presence of the anti-grav fields.
The Nyx Breaker remained stationary, a horde closing in like a rainbow tide from every direction. They should've been dead to rights. But the Nyx Breaker only waited for its pilots to get their bearing, and its acting sitesman to give a direction. The rest of the crew never idled for a moment, rushing about with franticness belied by military precision. Even in such a dire strait, they didn't forget they were the best of humanity's offerings.
The drills creaked, spun, and a second later resumed their work chewing through the tunnel. Re-5 picked the one direction they all knew well: east. Home. But they would have to leave behind the horde to reach it.
"How do things look?"
Her officer stood ready, an answer waiting on his lips. "The horde is too noisy. The longer we can't shake it, the more its numbers will grow from roaming Aud in the connecting tunnels. We've gotten unlucky, it seems." Indeed they had. Although they had limited data to work with, every time the Nyx Breaker tunneled away from danger, only outliers like the stubborn blue Aud could keep up, and it only had because it hitched a ride! But this horde squeezed itself through the tunnel left in the Titan's wake like water, filling every iota of space and more.
"Is there a reason for that?"
"I sent engineers to the rear to check that gash we suffered during our first defensive skirmish. They haven't reported in yet, but I suspect the Titan's shell took a heavy blow; down to the interior." Thus, opening the entirety of the Nyx Breaker's insides, full of the scent of humans, to the outside. The Aud had keen noses, which was why WAVs were airtight.
"I see. Do the navigation staff have a path to help us escape?"
"Yes." His smile held assuredness and unsureness in duality. He forwarded a diagram to her, and she could only return his with a bemused one.
There wasn't a body of water in the Gaiss Hollow large enough to drown in. Pa-5 had been right about that. But the greater and lesser tunnels weren't part of the Gaiss Hollow, merely connected. One specific greater tunnel was full of a tremendous rushing current: an underground river.
It fed from the west and traveled east, running under the Gaiss Hollow like a string drawn taut. The First Ray's expeditions prioritized this continuous, flooded tunnel, finding great promise in the presence of moving water. Water had to come from somewhere. But like all expeditions, those failed too. How could moving against the current of a river kilometers wide be anything easy to do?
But that wasn't important to Re-5. What was was that it could save them. They traveled in a giant, scutumsteel-clad snake's worth of engineering. They, protected from the worst the river would offer, wouldn't die from oxygen deprivation, nor would the powerful currents squeeze them to death. But the Aud? They were hardy enough to survive the first few minutes, and the higher tiers in the horde could keep pace with the Nyx Breaker for hours. After that? Her smile went from bemused to giddy.
And the best part? The Aud wouldn't be able to smell them if they traveled underwater. Genius.
"How soon can we reach the river tunnel?"
"Four minutes."
"Make it two."
"Of course, sir."