The Nyx Breaker's head rammed against the ground, and in no time at all, the drills spun. Topmost rock layers blocked their descent for one second. Any resistance, the drills pulverized. The Titan pressed deeper, pulling one compartment with it at a time.

  Half of the head vanished. Then the parting ground swallowed the neck plates. Once that went, the rest of it followed as quick as the pilots could make it happen. Expediting the process was a futile practice. Most of it amounted to ordering the servicemen to work faster.

  She didn't want to keep at it after a certain point. Everyone involved with piloting the Titan knew what was at stake. It wasn't as if they were intentionally using more time than necessary in their tasks. The most egregious of these moments was when the pilots had to stall the descent to give the emplacements time to retreat into their hatches.

  Another fifty or so turrets quieted with each compartment gone. The pressure on the horde lessened, and their approach sped up. Became inevitable. Turrets attached to the rearmost compartments had to pick up the slack. All the waste heat compounded upon itself as they waited for their turn to escape into the ground.

  Many impacts struck the tail-end compartments as the main body pulled them to safety. Relative safety, at least. Crew in those sections reported banging not long after. No breaches yet, but there was nothing important back there aside from some stores.

  She remained confident in their internal defenses. The deployable countermeasures could kill an orange or a yellow, if they got lucky in more ways than one. They'd never activated anything for the stubborn blue, though. Nothing they had in their arsenal would've worked. Of course, that was no reason that more breaches needed to happen.

  It was good they weren't at the mercy of another blue, or worse, a purple. Re-5 would've thrown up her hands, looked over at Qa-3, and asked if he wanted to go down to the mess hall for a bite. While the Titan came apart around them at that, because they could at least be comfortable when the end came.

  She didn't need to intervene with these low-tiers. The Titan's piloting crew was itching to get back at the Aud in their own little way. While they were diving, the gunnery crew couldn't redeploy any emplacements. They'd get sheared off grating against the sides of their artificial tunnel.

  To become a Titan pilot, servicemen needed to learn a few things. Tricks. Complex maneuvering of massive systems of mechatronics. This let them do things with a Titan confidently that few others would dare to consider. Like now, where they began bashing the tail-end compartments against the sides of their tunnel.

  On a diagram mimicking how the Titan moved, it looked like a rattlesnake. Re-5 felt a small pinch of elation. The only time she'd seen one was an old fossil. One such old lecture back at the Light Institute, or another.

  Despite how the movements looked almost comical, they were saving the Titan's crew. Both their lives, and from many headaches. Aud were strong. Their endurance and their physical strength were their most obvious and bombastic traits. They seemed the most impressive detail to servicemen fighting them. A terrifying one, too.

  But Titans could generate hundreds of thousands of times more force. Their smallest movements could produce the same effect as self-contained natural disasters. The unwelcome Aud trying to get in weren't like the blue. There wasn't a green amongst them.

  Greens would've caused trouble and demanded specialized, costly solutions. But it'd taken a blue to make a breach. None of their current problems had the grip strength and durability to hold on while the tail segments smashed them about. One by one, they surrendered to heat, extreme friction, and drag.

  While they curved down in their tunnel, the space behind them flooded with Aud. The Titan's speed outperformed even the most feverish of their pursuers. That became more true once they leveled out and curved back up.

  Mechanisms contracted and segments shifted between each other like fluid. Each rock layer passed like they broke through water. Crushed, fresh gravel sprayed in their wake. The tunnel they left behind flooded with Aud, but that was only while they curved down.

  They'd navigated so far based on the echo room's general instructions. It took them a few more minutes to compile their results. One of the techs inside was keeping her informed. "Until the intensive scan, we were out of our depth. Picking a random direction and exploring that way would've been as effective as what we were doing."

  "But that's changed."

  "Yes, sir. Circumstances have absolutely changed. The echo room detected a source of motion too large to be one of the local wildlife. It's also too small to be an Aud."

  "Add its approximate location on the map." She'd have the piloting crew change the Titan's heading as soon as the map updated.

  Re-5 and others had compared the greater tunnels to a circulatory system before. Each tunnel twisted and turned in the greater collective. Like veins and arteries, they traveled away from a heart.

  Normal navigation limited to the tunnels would've been hard. The tunnels' layout and their unfriendly occupants didn't make that an attractive option. Good thing the Nyx Breaker was perfect for this by introducing its unique third option.

  By tunneling its own paths, the greater tunnels couldn't constrain it. None of them close by went up in the direction they needed to go. So they went by way of their own.

  Staying outside of the circumference of the tunnel was key for now. Sure to keep dozens of meters behind the walls, they traveled in arcs. The layers of rock couldn't muffle their progress with open space not far from them now. A great scramble followed them on the inside.

  A superhorde had assembled in response. The Aud couldn't know where they were. That was a small comfort. None except for the stupidest Aud would think the commotion wouldn't be because of humans.

  The superhorde climbed the cavern walls, digging and biting with disregard for safety. Amassed fur and violence followed while they were near the tunnel's interior.

  Being this close didn't sit well with anyone, least of all her. "Give us a dozen more meters of buffer space," she told the piloting crew. As their depth decreased, fewer Aud could muscle past their weaker kin and fight gravity at the same time.

  Thousands fell away to hundreds, and the hundreds dwindled. All large sources of movement inside the greater tunnel ceased. The echo room did catch a few high tiers following them still. Even if they could continue pursuing, they wouldn't catch up.

  There existed a quiet celebration in the command compartment. Some exchanged handshakes or quick hugs, but the officers culled that fast.

  Qa-3 doled out warnings. The most recent round of this gauntlet had ended in their favor, but there'd be more to come. More they'd need to blitz through if they hoped to return.

  The pilots kept the course steady, driving them up the walls. Joining rock layers high above them were their destination. That point fell between the arched walls and cavern ceiling. Ten minutes or longer until they arrived. Re-5 had plenty of ways to ensure the break in action wouldn't go to waste.

  "I want all pilots reporting to the garage. Engineering squads, prep every WAV to sortie. Prioritize fittings with sonics and cylinder launchers."

  Compared to the larger Titan-grade electrics, WAV-grade electrics lacked the appropriate kick. More worthwhile weapon systems tended to get installed in the shoulder mounts.

  Sonics and cylinders, even if downsized, were still kinetic and combustive weaponry. Specializing in knocking around Aud did good work in keeping most of the WAV pilots alive. Wrist mounts were less important and fell to the pilot's personal preference.

  She wasn't done sparking movement up and down the Titan after that. "Return modus operandi to green, but we'll raise to blue upon contact. I want variant protocols of purple on top of that. All crewmembers, report back to their compartments."

  Supply lines needed to get back in motion. All the small skirmishes leading up to the big one had depleted their on-hand stores. Munitions, focusing crystals, and cylinders were waiting for runners to shuttle them around.

  Normal activity resumed as all servicemen returned to their assigned compartments. Re-5 and Qa-3 did their best to handle the reports coming in at a lightning-fast pace. Between the two of them, they could sort through most of the concerns without falling too far behind.

  Controlled pandemonium seized the garage. Hidden behind the Titan's jaws, a massive escalator rotated on an axis. Lines and catwalks with polished WAVs in harnesses stretched across to both sides.

  The chamber felt cavernous, far too deep and wide to occupy just the lower head of the Nyx Breaker. Above and below those storage catwalks were more for personnel transit.

  Groups of engineers lugged around large carts of replacement modules and munitions. Most had started in the front and were working their way to the rear. Each cart needed more anti-grav nodes slapped on to support the kilograms of weight. Nobody would be moving them otherwise.

  They clustered around individual suits of armor like ants. Hands and tools pried open complex insides and ripped off equipment tagged for replacement. Some of the sparking sockets had to reset--more time than necessary.

  Autonomous intelligences partnered with the engineers' HUDs to run preset background systems checks. Discarded and torn-off fittings would go in a separate cart managed by a different squad. That marked the end of maintenance for once suit, at which point they continued down the line.

  Techs and assistants came after to help pilots change into proper garb. Piloting skinsuits were custom-made for each wearer and could take a good beating. Relatively speaking, anyway.

  To what? How about an unarmored human taking an Aud barb to the chest? They'd die. Someone wearing a piloting skinsuit would get crippled for life, but they'd survive. Unless the Aud hit twice before moving on.

  The materials sewn into them could better disperse impacts across a wider surface area. They could also tighten and condense around a single point of contact. Suit breaches wouldn't end in immediate death.

  The pilots mounted their gurneys next to get strapped in. Techs conducting the slotting process only needed seconds to prepare the perfect angle. When the clamps released with the gurneys over the WAVs, the metal and pilot slid into place.

  Torso armor plates creaked. All the pilots were ready for the sharp, tinny scent permeating the inside. They got a quick check-in, then the suits got sealed around them.

  Internal layers meshed and molded around the back and neck of the pilot. No easy-to-exploit openings right away. The techs averted their eyes while reinstalling the shield cores. Distortive fields wrapped around the scutumsteel suits.

  Flickers of light kept going off, like someone flipping a switch on a whim. Outer plating came as the final touch. Clamps and magnets secured each piece to the whole. They started with the back of the helmet and worked their way down.

  Every lane on the rotating escalator mechanism had its vacant WAVs filled. The restraining harnesses pulled back as the pilots synced their HUDs into the suits.

  Instructions flowed in faster than the techs were moving. Formation changes. Each lane had a predominant weight class of WAV occupying it. It kept things uniform. Light WAVs needed less space in their docking harnesses than heavies did. The line closest to the opening ramp were lights, and waiting for the call to sortie.

  The lines could've shifted to let one of the ones filled by heavies go out first. Common logic said the largest scutumsteel slabs should tank the opening seconds.

  Common logic also acknowledged heavies were too slow. They were better armored and better armed, perfect for bolstering an already-established defense. But they weren't prepping a defense. Well, they were, but it wasn't meant to be long or lasting. In and out.

  Default WAVs took the position of vanguard instead. The Aud above wouldn't immediately shred them, but they could run faster than the next weight class up.

  The Titan's insides lurched as the last of the light WAVs retreated. Powerful anti-grav generators--as powerful as they could get--fought against physics. Still, something as large as a Titan couldn't escape somewhat conforming when halting.

  Every suited pilot in the garage stiffened. Some whispered prayers for a miracle. Others squeezed their eyes shut. Quite a few anti-stress injections were being administered already. If they were slowing, the order to sortie was only seconds away.

  Re-5 didn't leave them in suspense. The garage ramp uncurled and folded outward to let the cold cavern air in. At the same time, her voice rang throughout the compartment. "Pilots, begin contact with coil protocol."

  The vanguard's emplacements fired off before their HUDs could lock onto waiting targets. They emerged from the Nyx Breaker's jaws in a tight, cohesive group. Burning orbs high on the Titan's head above them strobed beams at the surroundings.

  With everything lighting up, the distraction worked very well. For the Aud with eyes adjusted to the dark, the flashing and strobing blinded them.

  Sonic rounds hit and missed in the opening volley in equal measure. Regardless of their physical contribution, they all ensured the explosive entrance was deafening. Combustion grenades spread inescapable heat that melted past fur and rock.

  More senseless noise. None of it reached the pilots while they devoted the whole of their beings to their work. Not all of what their auditory sensors picked up got through their HUDs' filtering subroutines.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  More steps forward. The vanguard was slow, but they were still leaving behind the Titan. Coordinates marked by the echo room showed their objective was a few more meters in front of them.

  A couple of pilots maching forward near the front stumbled over a large, human-shaped rock. One of the ranks following behind kicked it in annoyance. More went by before one of them stopped to actually look down at the "rock."

  "Now where in a--found them!" By that point, most of the vanguard had gone past the prone light WAV. Three more default WAVs crouched down around it. The rest focused on gunning down any curious Aud gathering in the vicinity.

  "We only need two to get them out." An officer who'd accompanied the pilots shouted through the comms, shrill and sharp. "People, you know what the acting sitesman expects! Trust your fellows to do as you would, and we'll only fall to blues and purples!"

  She pointed at the one who'd discovered the suicide runner's suit, and one of the others. "You two, start dismantling it. I've forwarded a request for dedicated tools. Don't wait around for a runner to bring them."

  Ui-4's helmet nodded. "Yes, sir."

  He and his new partner repositioned the ruined WAV into sitting. Though they were gentle as time permitted, it'd still hurt. That was one unlucky serviceman trapped inside there.

  Tapping on the spots that looked weakest let them hear where the plates beneath hollowed out. Felt damaged or depressed. They could use those to work around the harder-to-remove clamps left. An engineer back on the Nyx Breaker had joined their comms and was supervising their efforts.

  "Under the breastplate, that groove...good. Try twisting the limbs--yes, yes, I'm aware we don't know the suicide runner's condition. But we need to test the sockets, see how easily we could undo them. We can save below the torso for later, if you two'd rather..."

  He didn't know about the other pilot assisting in the work, but he knew he'd rather not. Absolutely. Didn't stop him from planning to work on that area at some point, but for now, he avoided the leaking gore.

  The suicide runner's legs were gone. Chewed off. Pale flesh seeped blood and...other stuff out of the rent scutumsteel and tears. One of the arm sockets looked way too close to where the collarbone should be. When the engineer got a good look through their feeds, he got one of the medics on call.

  The second consultant sighed after a second of observation.

  "It'll either be an intrathoracic or subclavicular dislocation, depending on how deep the shoulder has migrated. It'd be brushing against or have breached the chest cavity. Let's hope for the second. If it's the first, the suicide runner'll have died from internal bleeding already. Treat it as a fragile zone to avoid while you get them free."

  Ui-4 wanted to laugh at that. The medic hadn't seen images of the suicide runner's mangled legs. Or what remained of them. Internal bleeding, he said? So, blood loss. No. Way.

  The runner finally arrived, but didn't stay long. He took off after depositing a portable crate of organized tools. Ui-4 dragged it over and pulled out a massive hydraulic chisel. More like a hammer at that size. It went into his partner's waiting gauntlet, and they got to work on the armor below the breastplate.

  The vanguard hadn't stood around and waited for them to get going. Most of the pilots hadn't paid the extraction process any mind. They continued to ensure none of the Aud closing in got any closer than cylinder range. But even if WAV-grade weaponry was quieter than Titan-grade, echoes still carried far.

  The officer who'd given Ui-4 his orders had moved away. She was up front with the furthest members of the vanguard from the Nyx Breaker's safety. Once they looked back and could cover a quarter of one of the Titan's eyes with a thumb, they stopped.

  Assuming defensive lines was the logical next step. She'd positioned herself next to a boulder jutting out from the side of a small hill. On her other side, one of the default WAV pilots stared at the ground. She followed his gaze.

  Crushed stones of various sizes littered the ground around them. They'd have heard lots of crunching beneath their feet if the HUDs hadn't filtered that out, too.

  Some of these stones tipped on their sides then. A few seconds, then back the other way. Back and forth. Back. Forth.

  She nudged one of the smaller chunks with her boot, and it clattered away with far more force than she'd put into it. She checked the boulder. A light dusting of rock shards were on it as well. Some of them fell off. The rest tipped up, then down.

  'Not tipping,' she realized. 'Bouncing.'

  Every one of the rocks lifted off its surface by a tiny, almost unnoticeable amount. The interval between each disturbance decreased while they shot down more gathering Aud.

  'Vibrations.' The officer looked back up at the pilot beside her. He looked right back at her.

  "They're coming," they said at the same time.

  She called her supervisor in the Nyx Breaker's command compartment. "What's the echo room say? How many?"

  "Close to a superhorde's worth of motion. Fur scanners are finding more popping up at the edges of our range every second. Don't let your servicemen dawdle too long. It will become a superhorde given even a little more time."

  She didn't bother telling Ui-4 to hurry the process up. It wasn't like he or his partner didn't understand how dangerous the tunnels could get. There shouldn't be any blues or purples on the fur scanners yet. Her supervisor would've sounded much more panicked otherwise.

  Nausea bubbled up when her HUD gave its latest announcement. "Warning: Influx of Aud inbound. Estimation: ETA in range of WAV-grade sonics at forty-one seconds. Counting down."

  Two seconds into the countdown, her WAV placed markers on distant blotches of motion. They were already in sight? Her mouth slowly opened until she gaped, as more markers tagged each blotch. The markets initially blanketed the tunnel floor.

  Numbers didn't take long before they stopped feeling overwhelming and became a climbing digit that she knew she should feel bad about.

  But when markers began tracking movement on the walls too...

  She stared upward, the shaking gravel at her feet forgotten. The suit's arms came up of their own volition to aim for the frontmost markers. Aud came from both directions, so she picked one at random. "Vanguard, f-fire."

  Every deployed default WAV released their opening shots at the same time. Speeding bullets found their marks. She was almost certain hers had hit a yellow's eye.

  There wasn't time to feel accomplished or remember what she felt proud about a moment ago. Her arms were already adjusting their aim, and the sonics were firing again.

  The Nyx Breaker's emplacements joined in before the WAVs' sixth salvo. Hatches tiling the Titan's sides and long roof opened. Out of them came the turrets, bending in place and swerving to lock onto the new arrivals. Fresh from practicing on the falling superhorde earlier, the targeting programs tried again.

  They were already achieving higher hit rates. No matter how fast the Aud had reacted to their presence, they--for once--briefly held the upper hand.

  Sonic rounds the size of a serviceman's leg rained down on the locals. Cylinder launchers went with less damaging, but no less effective ammunition. Light bursts even brighter than the Titan's eye beams illuminated the tunnel. Kept the tunnel illuminated. Eardrum-rupturing squeals popped off at shorter intervals.

  Lines of heavy WAVs came after the vanguard shaped like a corkscrew. Most shut down their shielding cores to reserve more energy for their armaments. All lights stayed by the ramp for now. They helped with supplementary fire at the targets coming for the Titan along the walls, but stayed free of the forming frontlines.

  Holding the line ahead of the downed suicide runner became the vanguard's assignment. None of the Aud had reached them yet, so they could afford to make formation changes. Heavies filled the gaps in their ranks.

  Swapping places with the frontmost default WAVs happened after. The light WAVs used that moment as the cue to spread out, filling the bowl formation like water.

  Some rushed around the enormous sides of the Nyx Breaker to act as extra eyes. Yes, the Titan's back was up against one of the greater tunnel's walls. It eliminated a direction they needed to guard against. No, they didn't know whether there were any of the smarter Aud around. They couldn't have one of those sneaking close from a blind spot.

  The rest found positions behind the vanguard. Most of the Aud they'd attracted were too close now. If the Titan-grade emplacements fired at the front of the horde, the vanguard would suffer consequences. The Nyx Breaker had to assume a supporting role.

  That wasn't its specialization, not by a long shot. Even so, there was no complaint to hear of in the command compartment.

  The echo room didn't need to calibrate its next scans anymore. Larger bodies of movement were still closing in. Two superhordes to slash them apart in a pincer. Re-5 paced by the console.

  Qa-3 had to stop her from gnawing on a nail at one point. She flushed thinking about it, and patted her cheeks hard enough to sting. 'The longer this goes on, the more I realize how little training affects cowardice.'

  Twice already, she'd stopped herself from issuing a retreat order. Watching the number of tracking markers increase every second wasn't helping. The urge to gather up who they could and get the heck out wasn't right. It couldn't stop her from wanting to, despite knowing that.

  Ui-4 and his partner got a new tidbit or development fed to their comms every few seconds. It was as if he were back at the Light Institute, and gossip'd become a reasonable strategy again. 'Everyone loves to talk.'

  Almost nothing the techs told them was good. Most of it was a politely-coded way for the techs to yell at them Hurry it up! Ui-4 let temptation cloud his thoughts for a moment. He could order his HUD to block all that unnecessary talking. Distractions, that was all most of those were. The relative silence would be great.

  And it'd also be idiotic, cutting himself off from receiving transmissions from the command compartment. He groaned. His partner didn't stop to ask if anything was wrong. Ui-4 both respected and resented the message that gave off. Yep, a simple, exaggerated exhalation probably wasn't too important.

  But what if he was having a panic attack? What if his HUD had measured one of the drugs it'd injected wrong? No checking in at all? Should he submit a claim? An important question to consider while he lifted the suicide runner's suit.

  Well, that'd only matter if both of them survived past today. 'I'm a charitable man. I should let it go. Humans need to be generous to each other in these trying times.'

  Oh, come off it. Who was he trying to fool? Of course, he'd draft a complaint if he survived, no doubt about it!

  He jerked his fingers away from the hydraulic hammer's wedged tip as the other pilot came too close. Ui-4's partner worked fast and haphazardly.

  Cutting as fast as he dared without sawing through flesh mistaken for more metal wouldn't get him any accolades with the medics. The medics weren't out here risking their butts, though, so Ui-4 didn't care.

  Finally, they broke through the chest plating. As the two prepared to head down south to rip another chink at the hips, he heard a faint cry.

  "...helmet's locking mechanisms are damaged! Rip…"

  They'd changed positions before Ui-4's thoughts could catch up. He held the helmet in a mix of a cradle and a headlock. His partner braced the wedge against the space under the neck. It punched forward to rip through the helmet's chin like teeth through flesh. He wrenched off what remained.

  Ho! The suicide runner was a blood-slick woman! And awake!

  "She's conscious!?"

  "Fantastic! Now rip the rest of it off!"

  "The plates covering her–"

  "Damnit! Work faster!"

  He gripped the suicide runner's head without applying too much pressure. The hydraulic hammer started down the back and parted the plates there with the wedge. When the wedge began to blunt, his partner unloaded the long shaft at the center. It got replaced with another from the delivered crate.

  The suicide runner hadn't been in good condition before they'd started forcing her suit open. Ui-4 winced as she coughed up blood. Impacting her over and over again might kill her before any Aud could break through the vanguard.

  "We're being too rough! She's not–"

  "She can hold out, or she can die! We're rushing this!"

  The suicide runner mumbled nonsense around her tongue, lips dribbling red. He stopped wincing when she didn't stop coughing. After a certain point, he needed to force away whatever sympathy he had for her. Ignore how her head rocked with each impact.

  They weren't going slow, but it wasn't quick enough for the vanguard. Techs still bothered them. Or at least him.

  Didn't they know that each second spent cracking open the armor wasn't free? Didn't they know that the vanguard wasn't weak, but compared to the Aud, their armor might as well be tin cans? Didn't they know that ordnance support from the Titan at their backs could only help so much? He didn't remember when he started grinding his teeth.

  Cylinders popped off, baking Aud flesh. Electrics charred and crisped Aud fur. What they couldn't reach beneath, sonics tenderized. The last buffer of distance whittled away to nothing.

  On one side, stalwart men and women. They wore armor good only for a few direct blows before turning to scrap. On the other, rabid masses of fur, maws, and claws. Instinct to hunt and maul drove them, and only their colors distinguished them.

  Two heavies got swallowed by the forming horde on first melee contact. Four defaults stepped forward to fill the gap. Pairing blades and supersized gauntlets punched into fur upon each collision. Maws, claws, and barbed flesh hooks sank into scutumsteel, and later flesh.

  Both sides created screams. More of the heavies' line surrendered. Aud pushed and pushed with relentless vigor. The overambitious ones got focused down and slaughtered, or they broke through.

  Those that did, at least for now, didn't pass through without a scratch. The ginder took eyes, patches of fur, entire limbs.

  Light WAVs, though not made for cleaning up stragglers, ensured the vanguard wouldn't have to defend their rear. They finished what the defaults and heavies started every time. Darting in and back like pests, they hammered light blows on those that broke free.

  Fresh defaults exchanged with those worn down from plugging the hole. Suits taking a frontline role paid a high cost. Heavies could better contend with their opponents. Stacked armor plating weighed them down, sure, but those with bigger shields fell last.

  Kiting wasn't as useful here, since the WAVs needed to block the Aud here. Blocking. Huh. Humans kited Aud and retreated from them plenty. But blocking? Barring the way? Direct confrontation? Rare.

  Another heavy WAV fell victim to a pile-up. Her comrades couldn't do anything but look away, push out, and make room for the replacements to step in. Another hole opened up, and so they filled it.

  The two pilots on extraction duty finally had a breakthrough! After cutting down the back, they braced themselves, stood on either side, and pulled the WAV open. Fortunate that they wore default WAVs.

  Fine motor control happened not to suffer as much as the supervising engineer'd feared. They pulled her out by the gurney--demolished but still strapped to her. Her arms dragged with the arm plates still latched on.

  The two took one look and came to a unanimous decision.

  "We'll yank the arm plating inside! Go, go, go!"

  Ui-4 wrapped his arms around the gurney and pulled the messy suicide runner close. Her face rested against his breastplate. There was too much blood leaving her orifices. Not enough still inside her. She was too pale. Blood loss, the medic had said?

  He didn't like it at all.

  His partner finally updated the anxious tech. The voice onthe other end stayed professional, but they both heard the tangible relief. Qa-3 got the news seconds later, and he took the liberty to give an order of his own. He puttered against the mic on the sitesman's console to test it.

  "Putt-putt-putt-puttah. Good, it's on." A throat-clearing noise. "Deployed pilots, this is the Acting Sitesman's Aide. Begin an orderly withdrawal. All crewmembers still onboard, prepare to cover the retreat."

  Once upon a time, humanity said, "No matter who starts a fight, you finish it." The logic behind that couldn't be clearer, even in the tunnel's pitch-black. They'd started this skirmish. But now that it'd entered full swing, they couldn't finish it. Anything larger than a small, roaming pack was impossible to kill in one go.

  Starting the skirmish was easy. Mounting a proper defense was harder, though still within acceptable difficulty. But retreat? Re-5 hadn't heard Qa-3 say "retreat." All she got from his order was "route."

  There wasn't a riskier and more complicated course of action they could take. But the formation did need to let the momentum of the Aud push them back to the Titan. The formation had to collapse.

  But they faced the same logistics issue as when they'd first sortied: the heavy WAVs were…too heavy. Slow. The first defensive line in the vanguard was still composed of a majority of heavies. If the entire formation retreated together, the Aud wouldn't push the heavies back. They'd swallow them up and tear them to scraps.

  The heaviest weight class at their disposal couldn't keep up with the lights and defaults. Almost a third of the deployed forces wore heavy WAVs. Suffering so many losses in a single skirmish was unacceptable.

  Someone would need to cover their backs. Light WAVs were good at running and at kiting. Not a standing defense, nor a mobile one. That was why they hadn't left the rear of the coil formation. On top of that, they were the smallest demographic of deployed WAVs.

  Most of the WAVs out there were defaults. They occupied the largest part of the Nyx Breaker's carried WAV forces. Generalist designs gave them greater survivability. But surely that couldn't be enough without the heavies supporting them.

  Re-5 felt hot and bothered. Angry. At herself, for the most part. The Aud were just what they were, and she'd sort of stopped holding such strong resentment for them long ago. She could definitely blame herself for this, though.

  Why had she promised herself she'd bring as many of Ze-4's--no, her crew home as possible? It'd seemed like a great way to motivate herself in the moment. Now, the memory of that made her want to slap some sense into her past self.

  You never expected or hoped for a good outcome whenever Aud got involved. It invited the worst disappointments every single time.

  She gripped Qa-3's shoulder from behind. He didn't question the gesture, and continued working away on his handheld. She wanted to apologize to somebody for failing again. A whisper, or something less than that, came out. "Sorry."

  "Mm-hmm?" He looked over his shoulder and her hand. "Did you say something? Feeling fine?"

  "You don't worry about it." When he turned his back, she walked to the other side of the platform and let out a shaky breath. That hadn't felt like enough. She murmured a second, silent apology before issuing the order.

  No way around it. Someone had to die.