Trickle In

The concerns his head generals presented were neither unfounded nor implausible. He had long suspected there was more to the Aud than what they could glimpse at first sight. Their worst trait to contend with appeared to be the exotic nature of their fur, how it represented how strong and how difficult it was to kill every Aud.

But in the hands of primitive or, better yet for his servicemen, mindless brutes, such a blatant disregard for the laws of reality wasn't as bending of an advantage against intelligent prey like humanity. He held no illusions of their position; they were prey, and the Aud the predators in their twisted relationship.

The Aud brought their prodigious bodies, and humanity brought their minds, adaptive capabilities, and technologies.

Though not matched or even by any metrics, as proven by their continued lack of progress or successes, what little humanity did hold over the Aud was enough to grant them a reprieve in the form of the bastion outposts and the Last Light; that was all that humanity had erected inside its territories, and yet they had stood for an impressive amount of time. So what changed, beginning at Fort Callipso?

It was the way the Aud attacked. For once, there was no simple charge. There was a flood, a pile of furred bodies and claws and talons and maws that climbed the walls, then spilled over them. A blitz. A rush. Piling.

There were many names for the tactic the Aud had used that day, though none of them were important. What was, was the simple fact that the Aud changed how they attacked a massed group of humans. It was an experiment, he was sure of it. More damning evidence for this came in the ways the other bastion outposts fell.

Clyvis hadn't been overrun at all. The fort's occupants were starved out until they succumbed to hunger or took the faster method to embrace death. Io had been the first fort where three-dimensional warfare received inclusion in the Aud's tactics. There, there was no warning before the assault on the fort.

And at Rhea, not only had the Aud recycled their play with a three-dimensional field, though this time reversed to accommodate them underground, but they introduced a new element too: a smokescreen.

He had many a hypothesis for what the Aud had done to conjure that black light on the fur scanners, but so did every member of the scientific community. And none of them could prove or disprove each other without a repeat performance, so neither could he.

The Aud had repeated some aspects of their attacks on every fort, like the communication dead zones. There was no way in the Prime Beacon's mind to justify their appearances aside from the Aud's influence.

And that influence denoted the existence of further Aud abilities that the First had yet to expose itself to in a knowing manner or the possibility that the Aud possessed technology. He was unsure which idea unnerved him to a greater extent but would've been happier if neither were present in his thoughts to gnaw at him.

But he had to draw a line, for himself if nothing else. "Fine. I won't fight this council on this. But know that if the city's defensive infrastructure fails or suffers any breach, no matter how small, and there is something I can do to assist, I will do so. Understand me?"

"If the Aud got inside the city by breaching the walls and our other safeguards without forewarning, none of us would bar you from acting then," Four reassured him. "Would you like to join us, sir?"

"No, thank you. I'll find In-3 as you suggested." It hadn't escaped his notice that the Fourth Head General had twisted his words from acting in any circumstance where there was risk, to only acting in response to Aud breaching inside the city, though he let it pass without rebuttal. His action would speak for him if it came to it, regardless of how bitter he knew his head generals could fight with their wits and words.

They struck him as far better representatives to attend the meets within the Chamber than him; he enjoyed the thought of not needing to attend a meet every time In-3 wanted to waste his time, or Ch-4 found a new fault to poke further holes into.

Speaking of In-3, he found the man not far, looking over the shoulder of a particularly terrified tech who held an appearance hinting she was two seconds from bursting into tears from the intensity of the headman's presence, and his nearness.

He would rather pass on by in spite of his earlier words, but hesitation in his step had been all the movement in the other man's peripheral to switch his gaze to him. In-3's expression, as mopey as it was, turned a complementary sour.

"If your men insisted on keeping me in reserve, I do wish they'd have sent you up. There'd be no chance of encountering your stubborn hide here if that were true."

"Why don't you walk with me?" Feeling as repulsed as the other man looked, he guided In-3 by the shoulder away from the poor tech and led the way down one of the more vacant aisles. "You were a second away from seeing tears. Can't you reserve your unpleasantness for me solely, if you insist on carrying it at all?"

"I wasn't being unpleasant," In-3 defended. "It hasn't been half an hour since I've come here, and I'm already lacking activity to maintain my interest. Is there something wrong with watching some of the techs work?"

"There should be, with that face you wear." In-3 had the tact to reserve any extra interjections, on his way to realizing that he did indeed look like he was ready to commit a homicide when checking his reflection on a handheld screen.

"Nothing is stopping you from leaving and returning to your duties, you know."

"What do you mean? I've heard from--"

"The Third Headman returned to his duties as his ray's direct representative upon request. Though you do carry the Old Man's Blessing, I imagine that since they're holding you among the reserves for now, you're free to follow in his steps."

In-3 blinked, owlish. "Oh. Excuse my exit then, but to return my blood pressure to an acceptable level in a couple hours, I'll need to remove myself from your presence." He strode past without another word and disappeared behind one of the many support columns acting as the edges of each part of a section of the grid of aisles.

The Prime Beacon found a support column of his own to lean against, watching the hubbub of activity grow denser as more personnel entered and found their way to their stations.

He was skimming through recent reports covering the Fifth's refitting of the walls when an overhead speaker blared, "The walls' defensive crews have achieved visual confirmation of an Aud presence," and a new surveillance feed emerged on one of the overhead screens to corroborate this.