Were this order issued three hundred years ago, the WAV pilots would've succumbed to a route. Chaos would've taken hold. Their formation would've cracked and then broken down the middle. Funny, for something capable of withstanding a dozen charges to become so fragile.

  So fragile, so quick, and only from a single change. The Aud would pass through and double back to attack the vanguard's rear. The human participants'd lose when that happened.

  But this wasn't the past they fought in. Humanity walked along an unbalanced, narrow strip these days. Loss and hopelessness squeezed and poisoned it at every opportunity. The circumstances left them with little to strive for, little to want to achieve. Little to dare for.

  This did do one thing well: it tempered expectations. From those sheltered in the Last Light to those here, behind the front lines. Not one person had lofty ambitions or goals. The Aud had a penchant for sucking that out of every naive optimist who encountered them.

  And the First Ray's mortality rates eclipsed the other rays. Statistics like those were public information, so they all knew what they were in for. It was a potent dose of reality.

  Humanity's everyday experience didn't compare. Fight and die. Die, and let others fight where your corpse once fought. Bones of the ancestors of some of the Nyx Breaker's crew were somewhere in these tunnels. For some of the older ones and Ancients, maybe their parents'.

  The majority of light WAVs returned behind the formation. When they clustered, it signaled the beginning of the retreat. Their mounted emplacements kept firing at Aud coming around the fringes.

  Fired munitions from them did little, and served death to only a few Aud. That didn't stop them from emptying their battery cores and reserves all the same. The Nyx Breaker entered a more active role now.

  Most of the skirmish had seen its turrets confined to interdiction fire. That went to the wayside when retreat became the immediate prospect on every pilot's mind.

  Mounts flexed and rotated to align closer to the defensive lines than before. They resumed suppressive action before the serious part of the retreat took place. The gunnery crews spared nothing.

  All turrets with clear lines of sight delivered the Aud's dues. Techs monitoring their rate of consumption assigned more engineering squads. Fueling and reloading crews formed up to meet increased demand. Full ammo belts, cylinder chambers, and pristine focusing crystals became a regulated constant.

  The heavies took it as their cue. They began withdrawing and were on the proper grounds to do so. Hesitation still gripped the ranks. There was the instinctual side of it--every pilot saw the appeal of saving themselves. The most stoic of them thought of that at least once, no matter the shame pushing back.

  Simple preservation of resources also demanded they pull back. Every heavy WAV was as much an asset as an investment.

  But breaking away from the Aud--from the vanguard--would taste sour regardless. They'd leave their comrades behind. If not to die, then to fight a skewed skirmish that'd grow more skewed before long.

  Yet orders were orders. All the Nine Titans' crew members received their assignments due to personal merit. Some, for their knowledge bases. Others, for their leadership. Adaptive skills. Effective and field-trained out-of-the-container thinkers.

  One thing they all had to have, though, was their ability to stay calm under the worst pressures. That bled into the second thing they all needed: an inability to not follow orders to the letter. Even if one such order were to lop off a serviceman's own leg.

  Try as they might, the WAV pilots wouldn't become the exceptions of such an esteemed roster. Not today. Segments of the vanguard collapsed on themselves. That was the heavies pulling back and deactivating their shield cores. Suit speeds stayed in the slow kilometerage, even if speed itself was of the essence.

  They walked backward and kept their targets in sight to continue contributing. Their firepower was the most potent at the infantry scale, and every second's delay to keep it coming saved lives.

  Where new gaps formed, two defaults took charge to squeeze in and force back the Aud. These men and women fought with renewed frenzy. Not one of them didn't know they'd become sacrificial offerings. But if that was true, they'd carry out this duty just as well as they had every preceding one. They wouldn't fail!

  Soon, the vanguard lost the last of its heavies. They were the most effective "counter" in close combat with infantry. Without any left, casualties began mounting as defaults and lights had to fight twice as hard. Re-5's lips thinned. Those staying behind did everything possible to maintain cohesion, but too many factors played against them.

  What the tacticians had been so scared of finally happened. When the Aud breached the lines, some doubled back to pounce on the vanguard's rear. This began a pincer to surround and cut off lone pockets from its fringes.

  Other Aud continued forward, eyes set on the retreating heavies. Light WAVs regrouped into teams to each harass two to three of those. If one of the heavies got trapped in a fight with an Aud now, they wouldn't get clear in time.

  Lights could kite whatever their targets threw their way. Assuming their pilots didn't drop their guard too soon. None of the harassment teams had to enter into a dedicated engagement. They could trade off different targets and freely maneuver, covering for the heavies.

  Among other, thin, good news, there was still hope for the vanguard. Re-5 hadn't forgotten about them. Hadn't written them off as lost causes. The danger zones from the Titan's ordnance crawled closer. When setting them up, the gunnery crew had pinpointed zones a hundred meters away from the vanguard's front line.

  Now, that distance shrank faster than the vanguard held itself together while retreating. The lines of Titan ordnance arcing over them acted as a curtain to hold back the worst of the horde. When they couldn't do that, they made them bleed.

  She wanted the Titan's ordnance to shadow the vanguard. Lessen the pressure they worked under, give them a chance to stage a mobile defense.

  Lots of techs coordinated with the vanguard to support in their own way. They overrode the pilots' HUDs to draw up retreat paths. Keeping the formation together and letting them watch each other's backs were the prime concerns.

  The heavy WAVs didn't waste the opportunity. Most were back by the garage ramp, still firing their emplacements to limited success.

  Straight-line beams didn't mesh well with shooting through the gaps in the vanguard. Already beset on most sides, the last thing they needed was friendly fire from the rear. All the arcing projectiles, sonics and cylinders, got used first.

  Qa-3'd smacked his forehead several times while giving exasperated orders. "No, which fool told them to focus down the front?! I'm going to have whoever's head--"

  He noticed Re-5 staring at him. "Am I being too loud?"

  She opened her mouth, closed it, and settled for a head shake. "I won't insult you by saying we need to maintain decorum. I'm just managing the stress by chewing my cheek, see?"

  She poked her cheek while chewing, making the skin outside rise and fall around her finger.

  Qa-3 looked aghast. "Stop that!"

  "Am I being too distracting?"

  "No--Not as bad as...that's not the point! Sir, you're going to scar yourself."

  "Probably." She flicked a few switches on the console. Adjusted a dial and studied a diagram. He was still watching her. "Sorry if it's distracting."

  "I told you it wasn't."

  "You haven't looked away." He finally busied himself with his handheld when she brought it up. "What're you going to do about the heavies?"

  "They need to redirect their firepower away from the vanguard."

  "That's going to create more pressure for the defaults."

  "Yes," he agreed, stepping closer to her to show a hasty, hand-drawn diagram, "but that's not all. The vanguard will shoulder more. In exchange, the Aud behind their own version of a vanguard can get whittled down. It won't give them immediate relief, but it'll save them from friendly fire. The HUDs are doing their best, but they can't predict how every member of the vanguard will move."

  A few beams striking the pilots' rears by accident wouldn't compromise anything important. WAVs were sturdier than that. But with how long the skirmish was already dragging on, most pilots had already gotten struck a few times. Not long until they began accumulating excess heat that the suits couldn't manage.

  "No easy way out for them."

  "My grandfather once told me the only sure 'easy way out' for anyone is death, sir." Qa-3's response sounded like he'd thought she'd asked what she'd said.

  "That sounds like something a tired man would say."

  "He was. His own easy way out happened the following year."

  She nodded. Stay in the military long enough, and you'd become surrounded by people who'd lost people. Saying "Sorry for your loss" was almost like bad courtesy. To people like her, anyway. Was he one of those people who wanted her to say she was sorry for him? In the absence of a clear answer, she stayed quiet.

  The vanguard's center continued to destabilize as more Aud crashed through it. When the heavies redirected their aim, some focused on the straggler Aud. Lights had tied up those that got behind the vanguard, but they'd been unable to kill quick. They'd harassed and nipped at those Aud, darting in and out like mosquitoes.

  Heavies contributing at a distance helped clear them up faster. With more lights freed up, a lot of squads volunteered to bolster the vanguard's ranks. Their presence seemed superficial, but their being there filled up empty space. Less vulnerable spots weren't left exposed while the defaults reorganized themselves. They created an outer shell, with the lights filling the center.

  "How many flash cylinders are still in stock?"

  Qa-3 flinched. She didn't often see someone as capable of immersing himself in his duties so deeply. Her sudden inquiry'd startled him.

  What was more impressive was how fast his hands got out his communicator. While he was still giving her a disgruntled, restrained look. He repeated the inquiry into it for someone monitoring inventory to hear.

  "Enough for every cylinder launcher to fire two more times."

  She nodded. Double bursts of blanketing blindness would do the retreat some good. "Have the crews load the first. Don't have them fire the flash cylinders until I signal! They can add whatever cylinders will follow in the loading queue."

  As the ordnance lightened, heavies began retreating inside the garage. It took over a minute to get each back strapped into a lane, but the garage staff expedited the process. Urgent techs collaborating with them'd made it quite clear how much time they had to work with. Once the first lane filled every bay, the conveyor rotated to replace 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 chink in the formation. The decreasing rate of fired cylinders didn't do them any favors.

  Rotating in place, the vanguard's outer layers swapped positions. The breach then faced the Titan while a fresher line of defaults took the brunt of the assault.

  The vanguard's edges stretched only so far before compromising the lines' thickness. On each end, light WAVs poked around the gaps between the defaults. Anything not covered by fur were perfect targets. The Aud leaned into the pain and the WAV formations. Re-5 swallowed while watching on.

  Did they have complete disregard for their bodies or something?

  In another couple of seconds, the Nyx Breaker's crew had completed all preparations. It lowered its giant head and flattened out. The compartments making up its long, undulating body spread. Increased the volume it occupied. This decreased the distance between it and the superhordes.

  Necessary. In return, every launcher gained a clear line of fire. "Now."

  All the launchers released the first collective burst of flash cylinders. The ordnance streaked overhead, carpeting both superhordes from above. Casings broke apart ninety meters above the Aud. Engineers had rigged them to detonate early.

  A grid of light descended from the front of the formation to the rear of the superhordes–if they had launched the furthest cylinders far enough to reach its end. It robbed the command center of visuals, but they didn't need it. Neither did the vanguard.

  Deployed pilots lost their optical and audio feeds before the flash cylinders exploded. The HUDs dropped opaque black filters over their feeds to protect their pilots' eyes. Each HUD continued to collect information from the operating cameras, though. When they became blind, no pilot could've lasted longer than a heartbeat. Pilots in the outer layers should've become definite Aud food.

  The thing was, the Aud had no HUDs to protect their eyes and ears. They suffered the same fate. Thousands of Aud screaming together would impress anyone if they heard it. If only the vanguard could. The carpet bombing eclipsed even that.

  Aud were very good at killing. More broadly, at violence. Too bad for them that having such a cutthroat specialty made it easy for them to become their own worst enemy.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Those pushing forward crushed Aud trapped against the vanguard's now-impenetrable front. Those near the edges of the horde broke away to stumble around in delirium. A huge weight had lifted off the vanguard when the Aud onslaught fell apart. It was free to back away once more and use every extra second to steal back another meter.

  Their HUDs remained as trusty as ever in the absence of the functioning optics. The pilots could still see the projected stepping paths behind themselves. Where to backstep, as well as where not to go.

  Individual HUDs coordinated wth autonomous intelligences, maintaining the formation's shape. Though they were as blind as the Aud, not one WAV so much as touched shoulders with another.

  Re-5 controlled the situation from a top-down view. Coordinating it all happened in tandem with the operations in the command compartment. An officer in the garage got back to her as she finished chewing out someone else from the gunnery crew. "Sir, there's a fourth of the surviving heavy WAVs to go."

  "That's all? You people work fast."

  The officer sounded pleased on the other end. "I'll make sure the engineer and tech squads down here know that, sir."

  "What about the lights we've begun calling back?"

  "Won't take half as long, even if there's more of them left in total than the heavies."

  Caution stayed her hand when she wanted to order that the second burst of flash cylinders get loaded. No, wrapped her in its chilly embrace, more like. The regular ordnance in the loading queues was doing fine enough. Waiting for the Aud to be ready for another bout of induced blindness was counterproductive.

  Harmful, for how sitesmen should strategize. Antithetical, for the philosophy they needed to embody. Don't wait for opportunities. Make them.

  Compressing the formation to avoid flailing Aud, the vanguard hurried its retreat. They could even afford to sacrifice some of the formation's structure. No Aud smashing into the WAVs every second did them wonders.

  The pilots got the personal space they needed to make running convenient. The rear layers led the charge like a drill. Those that came after were firing blind, but they pummeled the closest Aud well. Most were down to electrics. Their munitions storage capacity was more limited than the heavies.

  Every passing meter turned into a greater possibility of escape. None of them dared to assume, but all considered it within reach. Though it might poison their perspective, some began to hope.

  Ui-4 found himself in an awkward position. He was retreating with the heavies, despite not wearing a heavy WAV. He had the reason for that in his arms.

  The suicide runner had pale skin, yet it'd be hard to tell under all the early bruising and blood staining her skin. Her wounds were deceiving. Her legs disappeared a quarter down her thighs. The gnawed stumps they ended in dripped little bits of gore off. Every step of his sent a little shower of red splattering to the ground. Her left hand lacked a finger--he wondered how she lost that. The injury seemed too tame to come from an Aud.

  Should he be making his way up the ramp and breaking the extraction queue right now? Yes, he carried the entire point of this venture in his arms, but shouldn't he pass her off? Get back to supporting the vanguard as one of the defaults?

  If they tried to load his default WAV right now while they were still on the heavies, the entire order would get disrupted. A dozen techs and their autonomous intelligence assistants had made that queue. He called one of them with the intent to ask.

  "I'm not so soon in the queue."

  "Astute observation, pilot. Want a commendation for it?"

  "No, I want to know why I've got orders to come back to the garage sooner. I can pass off the extraction priority to one of the lights that is due for docking sooner."

  "Because you've gotten the orders for it, so you'll comply. Won't you?" Ui-4 caught a huff on the other end. "Also, in this situation, we're not risking anything happening to the extraction target until medical gets their hands on her. A lot can happen in the couple of seconds it'd take to pass her off to someone else. She's in your arms, and she's staying there until she's inside the Nyx Breaker. End of discussion."

  "Do I at least--"

  "You're to wait until all heavies finish docking, then approach. You'll be the first after."

  Qa-3 closed the line with a huff of his own. He didn't think he sounded rude, so what was that tech's problem? His HUD screamed a warning, startling him before he could get too into disliking the idea of the rude tech.

  "Warning: Acting sitesman authorized use of blanket-bombing. Chosen ordnance is flash cylinders. Estimation: Nine seconds to launch, thirteen to detonation. Addendum: Priority outside of Titan or WAV. Eyes and ears especially susceptible. Advisory: Shield priority's eyes and ears as best as possible. Loss of hearing inevitable, loss of sight preventable."

  He wanted to run to the Nyx Breaker and kick one of its plates. No. That'd waste time. Was that their plan? Weren't they accounting for the suicide runner, who was suitless and already injured?

  Discordant thoughts were a misservice to him, and to her right now. He quieted them and focused on the immediate concern. Looking around, he determined that he was probably safe for half a minute. His WAV was ahead of the vanguard, and there were lots of lights milling about.

  They created a semi-secure perimeter around the Nyx Breaker, which he looked to be inside of. He turned away from the vanguard and shifted the suicide runner to one arm. His other wrapped around the back of her head to muffle her ears.

  That wouldn't help her tympanic membranes at all. But his armor's bulk should protect her eyes. Would she suffer temporary blindness, though? The immediate detonations from the flash cylinders weren't anything to scoff at.

  When the HUD marked the twelfth second, his vision went black, and his audio feed went silent. It was unnerving, seeing and hearing one second and cut off from two of his most prominent senses the next. The sound of his haggard breathing filled his helmet. On the thirteenth second, he felt an impact rolling off his suit's frame.

  Wow. Had the soundwaves been strong enough to feel through all the scutumsteel plating? His thoughts went to the suicide runner. He made a pitiful, seconds-long prayer asking for some miracle to spare her.

  Thanks to light haptic feedback, he didn't need to see to adjust his hold on the suicide runner. He waited, expecting his vision and hearing to return soon. Before the anointed time, he needed to reposition himself away from the path up the garage ramp.

  Just because he wasn't listening in on the command compartment didn't mean he was clueless. The vanguard would use the sudden intervention from the carpet bombing to beat a retreat.

  His HUD came to the rescue as if hearing his thoughts. The navigation path lit up on his projection. Neon yellow against the black background made him blink. Weird. He didn't realize how unaccustomed he was to seeing it without a proper background environment to mix into until now.

  He stepped sideways towards the Titan. Not turning his body and exposing his burden became the priority. Residual flashes from the detonations would happen for many more minutes afterward.

  The rude tech called him again to let him know only a fourth of the heavies remained in the queue. That damn man's voice had his teeth grinding six seconds into the conversation.

  The black screen vanished, and the audio sensors fed into his ears again. The tunnel had changed. A still-blinding radiance floated above the skirmish field. He could bear the burn in his eyes so long as he looked at the edges of the brightness. Or avoided it, which was the healthier option.

  But on the bright side--he winced--the tunnel's luminosity increased more than enough. The pilots no longer needed night vision.

  The vanguard would appreciate the change. They'd be eager to reserve more power output for their electrics and hydraulics.

  Was the worst of the carpet bombing already through? He looked down to check the suicide runner. Red coated the sides of her neck, and the fingers of his suit gummed together.

  He nearly dropped her when the sound of grating metal screeched off his suit. Right side! A physical, dragging force yanked him sideways. It ruined what would've been a perfect roll to safety, and he had to turn that into a tumble.

  The suicide runner would've gotten squashed under his suit when it hit the ground. Bringing back the extraction priority on his suit, as opposed to in his arms, wouldn't look too good.

  He grit his teeth and kicked behind him with one of the WAV's feet. A wet thud, and a screech. His heart dropped even as he rolled onto his back to fire sonics at point-blank range. Green. Oh, no, no, no! He wasn't fighting a green while in a default WAV, while carrying an injured priority!

  The Aud didn't care what he wanted and pressed forward. A second well-timed kick stopped one of its barbed legs from stepping on his midsection.

  It jerked its head down to bite. His fist snapped up in retaliation, the other hand hugging the suicide runner closer to his chest. The head knocked off-course, biting into his shoulder pauldron instead of his helmet. Better, but not what he hoped would happen.

  He could only defend himself and the suicide runner from so much. One limb had to ensure he didn't lose the suicide runner. That left three of his, only one that could grab, to fight off six of the Aud's.

  No, five--one was missing from the left side. Plus its mouth, its barbs, and heck, even its bulk. It dropped itself, pinning his right leg.

  It was a moment to be proud of, kicking the green's head over and over with his left leg. Too busy staying alive and protecting the suicide runner to panic. Quite frankly, he was too angry to panic. "Get off1"

  One of the barbs scored off the right shoulder pauldron. There were sonics installed inside those he wasn't using. That got fixed the second after he realized. He fixed other things, too.

  Most of his movements were useless flailing that just made him an easier target. He made a little more effort to actually wriggle his way out from under the green. He wasn't aiming as much as he could for known weak points when punching upward.

  He got onto his knees, decreasing the height disadvantage. Better that he was facing it up front, and worse. It couldn't use most of its limbs in tandem anymore, but he became an attractive target to ram all of a sudden.

  He heard himself go oof as its lowered shoulder smashed into his breastplate. He sprawled, and the cycle repeated itself.

  A miracle his WAV wasn't already breached. Double that, that he hadn't lost hold of the suicide runner. Part of him wanted to make a call for help, then the rational part told the beginning-to-panic part to shut up.

  His HUD would already be making his situation well-known to the command compartment. He'd just waste his breath and split his attention, while he couldn't afford to do that.

  Ui-4's opponent had the courtesy to give him a second to get a strangled breath back into his lungs. Then it was ragdolling him, maw closed around one of his arms. He felt a pinch as the scutumsteel plates contorted around the teeth. His arm was getting crushed.

  Felt like most of him was. He held onto the suicide runner tighter and did his best to land a good kick each time his legs flew close to the head. Scratch that, any part that he could damage was good enough.

  He didn't realize his external speakers were on when he cried, "Die in a borehole!"

  KRRRUUUUUUEEEEEIIIIIII!!!

  "Feeling's mutual!" While they both wanted to put the other into the ground, one had the definite advantage.

  The green wasn't shackled by the need to protect a fragile third participant with its body, either. Ui-4 couldn't even tell if the suicide runner was still breathing. Couldn't tell how much her head was smacking against his armor or the ground when it got too close.

  It felt like he fought for life for an hour. Really, it was less than twenty seconds before help went his way. Three squads of lights attacked the green, biting and stinging in their annoying way. In an instant, the green found more attractive targets and released Ui-4's arm mid-arc. He flew a dozen meters and crashed on his back. Thank the Directory for that.

  He couldn't get enough air into his lungs. Punctured lung? Definitely bruised ribs. But no. His HUD helpfully informed him he was misinterpreting the damage.

  "Addendum: Pain doesn't meet appropriate pain scale level. Lack of high, measured discomfort during pulmonary ventilation. Notice: Abnormally high prevalence of epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol, vasopressin. You're in shock. Injecting counter-treatment."

  His uncrushed arm felt a pinch, then he felt most of the tension slip off of him like a heavy robe. His lungs worked again. Air tasted way too good after deprivation. He propped himself up on the crushed arm's elbow. Not his wisest choice this sortie, but he'd done worse.

  Then again, he'd done better, too. Then again, he hadn't gotten the opportunity to have a go, one-on-one, with an Aud before. Just his luck it'd been higher than orange, eh?

  The Aud in question was too busy chasing after one of the light WAV squads to look his way now. The other squads followed by its flanks and behind, continuing to harass. When it changed focus, the previously chased squad turned around and rejoined.

  One of its eyes was cloudy, and it was missing two limbs now. Third and fourth, if he counted right. Didn't make the green any less of a threat. All that changed was that it stopped being his problem.

  He stumbled to his feet. The suit creaked in ways that made his heart stutter, but it cooperated. He got back to getting to the Nyx Breaker.

  This time, he kept a better eye out for anything approaching in his peripheries too large to be a WAV.

  He clutched the suicide runner to his chest. After being freshly rattled, it felt good to hold something alive in his arms. Or someone he hoped was still alive. He wasn't in a safe enough place to stop and check her condition, so that was all he could do. That, and run like there was another green gunning for him.

  Two heavies came down the ramp after he crossed the halfway point. He considered hailing them to figure out why they were leaving the queue, but they thudded on by. They ignored him, so they weren't his concern. He wasn't theirs either.

  They made straight lines to the occupied green while he made his own to the garage ramp. That was it. Command didn't want to leave a living green uncontested so close to the Titan. He nodded to himself. 'I'm half sure that wasn't my neck muscles giving out.'

  Light WAVs were only suitable for kiting and killing yellow and below. For a green, the pilots needed more. More shield core capacity, more force, more scutumsteel plating.

  Once the two engaged it, only one group of light WAVs stayed to support it. One heavy held attention with slow, powerful impacts to its head. Its pilot aimed for the eyes, maw, and nostrils. Grappling an Aud from the front was dangerous, but there was no choice.

  This one needed to get handled fast. The last lane for the heavies was almost full. One for the light WAVs wouldn't rotate in until all surviving heavies got on it.

  The other heavy attacked the Aud from behind. Her fists and the pairing blades extending past them brutalized its hind legs. Neither bothered to power their electrics. Took too long for the moment.

  The light WAVs contributed too. Circling like piranhas, they did their best to get in a lethal or debilitating wound. Rare as such a thing would be. One of them melted one of the green's eyes with a lucky electric beam.

  It became an easy foe to topple once its sight went. Hind legs got crushed next. The other heavy came around to help with the head. Together, they pounded it so many times its last eye filled up with blood. Murky gray turned to watery crimson.

  They kept at it until all movement ceased, and the skull deformed. Both abandoned the corpse in favor of returning to the ramp faster. That meant no kicking, something Ui-4 had a sore urge to do at least one more time. A minute passed, and then it was the light WAVs' turn.

  Ui-4 gave the corpse his best look of contempt from afar. Bringing his heart back in line after that scare was a struggle and a half.

  The bastard must've been one of the smarter ones the command compartment’d worried about. It might've weathered the carpet bombing to get close. After that, it would've stayed patient, waiting for the right time to move. Even with it dead and him alive in spite of the ambush, it hadn't made a poor choice. If the green's first attack had gone a little deeper, a little more to the left…

  No. 'I've got better things to worry about. Bastard's not coming back for a second go.'

  Looking over his shoulder revealed the vanguard was closing fast. But so were the Aud. The superhordes had recovered from the insane bombardment of light and sound. Neither cloudy vision nor ear ringing could stop them.

  Different patches of colored fur rose over each other in a living tidal wave. It caught up too fast. The defaults turned around to meet it, losing a dozen or so pilots. The vanguard didn't break.

  The last stage of the retreat would be the worst. Ui-4 understood that. To stay strong, the vanguard needed every member it had. Seemed simple.

  But that wasn't an option. The Nyx Breaker couldn't let in all the surviving defaults at once. WAV garages on Titans weren't that big, so why would their entrances be? Moreover, doing that would allow the Aud to hound them all the way up the ramp.

  They could crawl all over the Titan's exterior and do as they pleased. If the breach resolved by Ze-4's intervention was any indication...

  It'd be too much to handle. The lines had to sacrifice strength to let some of the defaults board. Disassemble the rear lines.

  All the frontmost lines were a death sentence. Pilots fighting at the forefront couldn't retreat. They covered the backs of those behind them, but no one would be covering theirs. Rushing the garage before the ramp retracted and the jaws closed would become their one hope.

  Jagged and even, to smooth and uniform. That was how the terrain shifted under his boots. A group of unarmored servicemen met him at the ramp's top. They had a gurney ready. He asked no questions, and they offered no answers during the transfer.

  The suicide runner went on the gurney. It dipped from the excess weight on her arms, but its antigrav nodes pushed back. He wanted to touch her forehead, then. This entire venture confused him. You didn't often see so much effort expended on bringing home a single serviceman.