Ultimately, Re-5 instructed the piloting crews to conduct a trial of the first option. The yellow, as expected, flattened into a paste lining the new tunnel in the Titan's wake. Nothing so much as a bump. With greens, there would be. "I'm satisfied with the first method. We'll resort to the second should we encounter blues, or, in unexpected circumstances, purples."
"Understood, sir. The crew will likely be uneasy with this course of action at first, but the longer we perform well, the more of them will come to accept the risk and return to their optimal operating conditions." Her officer was one of the optimistic ones. "The blues aren't likely to make an appearance, but for later…"
"What is it?"
He smiled, rueful, and scratched at a hairless chin. "Why did the Fifth dedicate resources to subterranean reconnaissance, but not defensive or routing measures? We're nothing more than an emergency response and stopgap measure. Given that the Directory saw fit to install sensor systems that could penetrate deep into the ground in the first place, not to mention those that could see and collect data despite scutumsteel obstruction, they had to suspect there would be some kind of infiltration or subversion attempt from below. And lo and behold."
He gestured at one of the overhead screens displaying the echo-room's findings. More and more Aud were emerging from the stonework. New targets.
"Let's hope the rays of the Directory responsible for that will be better prepared next time around. We'll need whatever bit of competence they're holding in reserve," Re-5 winced at her dry remark.
Though she'd only had an indirect first meeting with the Fifth Headman outside the Chamber of Meet, she didn't have a good first impression. His ideals were dangerously close to the edge of what she would consider those of a craven, or at least self-sabotaging for humanity's war effort. The Nyx Breaker engaged the Aud in earnest, encountering more resistance as the killing rose in intensity.
Aboveground, the battle had reached a higher pitch of intensity. Servicemen along all four stretches of the walls continued their duties, assisting the rotation of WAV pilots participating in the stoning protocol, performing maintenance on the wall-grade emplacements, and moving wounded personnel and overexerted or useless equipment away from the front half of the top of the walls.
They returned to the depots, engineers and those with flexible assignments like Pa-5 leading or bringing them away, before others came back and delivered fresh replacements. The service lifts were working at maximum capacity and speed, sending up a hodgepodge of equipment, materials, and tools, and bringing back down empty storage containers, vials, and cartridges, as well as several other miscellaneous components that had exhausted their purpose.
In the span of space between where the metal forest of wall-grade emplacements began, and the far end of the walls, where the depots sat, lanes elevated above the walkways leading out stood high, so runners could make use of them.
Those leading the defense of the walls on-site discovered the same limitations of the spotlight network that Directory Control had within minutes of the communication dead zone's arrival and formed their own hasty courier network to transport physical copies of data that would otherwise take much longer to reach separate areas along the walls.
Among the most important aspects of information conveyed were when there appeared to be changes in the movement of the Aud masses to enter into another climbing path, or when more intelligent Aud began to develop concerning behavior.
This measure, combined with the support of the techs and engineers maintaining their posts in the wall-inlaid compartments, was robust enough to support the defense crews fast enough to cover for any shortcomings the Aud might've exploited with more time.
The military had adapted fine to the initial surprises the Aud army had unveiled. The intelligence controlling the Aud, whether it be a lone superintelligence, a swarm intelligence, or something else, had forced Directory Control to respect and fear it, treating it as an equal in the invisible game they played, maneuvering their assets across the field of battle.
But the Aud intelligence hadn't finished its own adaptations for the first battle. The roiling masses of Aud climbing between each other and against the thick, scutumsteel walls separating them from their prey hadn't changed course or behavior the entirety of the battle. Barring the individual exceptions for Aud with exceptional intelligence or abnormal behaviors, like those using meat shields, the rest had moved and hounded the servicemen clashing with them as expected.
That status quo broke when a tech within one of the wall-inlaid compartments noticed an irregularity. She'd been dispersing her attention across a dozen feeds, pulled from recording equipment arranged near the top of the walls. She frowned and leaned closer to the screens, when the assistive overlay of her HUD marked out and identified several subtle shifts in the positioning of different Aud tiers that she'd missed.
Winding back the feeds, she found that the phenomenon had been taking place for at least twelve seconds. She studied the changes, compiled a quick explanation, and summoned her supervising officer. The older woman looked over her findings, offered a quick pat on the shoulder as commendation, then transferred the data with her own HUD to several microchips, which she'd ordered distributed to the other stretches of the walls, and at least one run back to Directory Control.
She inputted a request for her own message to receive priority in the already severely backlogged queue for the spotlight network. A different tech, one of hundreds combing through the messages waiting to be sent through the alternative communication method, stumbled across hers and decided it warranted expedited treatment, moving it to the top of the queue.
Directory Control received it not long after, though the alarmed personnel demanding clarification had to wait extra time for the first microchips carrying the vital physical data to reach them.
The Prime Beacon studied the projected diagrams. At a slowed speed, the Aud's movements were displayed with separate-colored markers based on their tiers. The greens, yellows, and oranges had moved to the forefront of the individual Aud armies.
Well, armies were a generous term, considering every part of the walls was fighting back little more than a rowdy conglomeration of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of damning beasts. They lacked formations, consistent leadership, or any kind of combat doctrine beyond the limited physical attack vectors all Aud were capable of. Charging, stabbing with their apparatuses and claws, biting, kicking, ramming, etc.
But they were moving closer to the term that Directory Control had forced upon the Aud attackers to remove any last remnants of sentiment for underestimating the Aud. A lack of formation was the first aspect the Aud intelligence rectified.