Placing Down Pieces

"Hmm. Oh. That's why the dome is not only above the walls, but has a larger circumference than them too?"

"Right you are." The Prime Beacon could hear the smile in his colleague at his realization. "The wall defenders won't need to watch their heads for incoming impacts. With any luck, a falling yellow or green-fur may even incapacitate one or more white-furs. Now, if we did extend the dome so its base touched the ground, the 'rockslide' I alluded to would be able to leverage their bulk, speed, and the ground as a stabilizer too to attack our only means of defending against the carpet bombers. The shielding generators wouldn't last anywhere as long as we need them to, so we'll be leaving the ground defense to the walls. That reminds me. Do any of the analysts there know whether the ground forces will attempt to tunnel through the walls, or climb their outer faces?"

"They were hopeful the Aud would choose the tunneling option. Your and In-3's rays did work hard to pack the inner layers of the walls with plenty of surprises, after all."

"It wouldn't hurt to ask them. I can wait."

"What? Don't trust my account?"

"On matters like these, I'd prefer to hear that from the mouth of a professional of science, not war. I'm sure you understand."

"No, I do." He moved back to his original spot and tapped Two on the shoulder. The man was staring up at one of the overhead screens and worrying at a loose string on his vest. "Can you determine the analysts' opinion of what the approach of the ground forces will be?"

"Of course, sir." His eyes flicked shut, and he hummed a quiet tune. "Would you like the academic or the condensed answer?"

"Condensed."

"Naturally." What did he say just then? The Prime Beacon had half a mind to dig a finger inside his ear. "The predominant belief, or rather, hope, is that the Aud will do what they always do: sense or feel or whatever it is they do to locate humans beyond an obstacle and attempt to charge through it. But another popular answer, and what I'm favoring, is that the Aud will scale the walls instead. They've shown no issues doing it with the Gaiss Hollow's walls for Io, so a measly construct of less than two hundred meters will not present much of a challenge on its own. Not to mention the Aud are changing how they behave, we know they are. Wouldn't now be the perfect time to shock us full of horror again?"

"Did you get that?" This question was silent, directed at the headman on the other end of their communication still listening in.

"Thank you. I need to go now."

The Prime Beacon uttered a brief farewell and cut the connection himself. His undivided attention returned to the overhead displays in time to see the dome come into its first use. The speakers blared, "Presence of diving Aud, confirmed. First contact with the dome, confirmed. Dome at full integrity."

One of the surveillance feeds took precedence, depicting a flash near the upper limits of where the dome should extend, revealing that part for a moment. The illuminated part began to descend downward, sliding further and further until it vanished off the edge. A second overhead screen showed an enhanced and zoomed playback.

An orange-fur collided, rebounded, landed near its initial impact zone, and scrambled for purchase. It found none, and though it attempted to dig through the dome to find any, that achieved in hastening its fall. Beside him, Four, two, and the seated officer all shared a depleted breath.

The seated officer wasted no time in returning with vigilance to his post. "Sirs, the Nyx Breaker is ready to move to the maintenance gate and is waiting for clearance."

"Tell the operators to have it opened a quarter of the way. That will be enough for the Titan to escape the walls via the ground."

The Nyx Breaker wasn't like any other Titan. For one, it was long. More like a centipedal or vermiform construct than it was bipedal or even quadrupedal, it could coil around upon itself dozens of times and stretched an impressive length for a grounded weapon of war.

But doing so would limit the firing angles of several of its emplacements, which stretched down the entirety of its backside--or topside, he thought, though he didn't care much if he was labeling the mechanized anatomy correct or not.

It would be a waste of the Nyx Breaker's talents to post it on a Titan perch on top of the walls. Since it could rely on subterranean transit to avoid the Aud when in danger, why shouldn't Directory Control deploy it conventionally?

Across the Last Light, a mechatronics complex opened its bay doors, having completed the repairs to its most recent visitor and occupant. One link and one compartment at a time, the Nyx Breaker slid free of its suspension clamps and returned to the open air. It's time under the ministrations of the Fifth had done it much good and given its crew a respite from their duty they had earned through blood, sweat, and a lot of superficial damage to the Titan itself.

Its right eye had lost its fracture, no longer illuminating a trickle of rainbow light from the prismed breaks; now, both eyes released a shrill whir, glaring into the dark with twice as much ferocity as before.

The destroyed or damaged emplacements had received replacement or repair after extraction. Most important of all, the large rend stretching down the top of the Titan had been closed, patched over, and smoothed down, the only evidence it had ever existed small irregularities at the edges.

Not that those would compromise the new plating's redundancy, else they would've brought further treatment. The hole torn in its side by a particularly stubborn blue-fur had received identical treatment, only there were no traces of it existing there. The engineers could afford to skip a step or two with the roof in their hurry to ready the Titan for its return to the conflict. A side? Not a chance.

Inside the plated exterior, servicemen dashed up and down the long hall stretching from head to tail. The restocked storerooms were laden once again with sonics munitions, power cells and focusing agents, and many storage containers of manufactured cylinders.

Despite the similarities to the Titan's last and first field assignment, this time did have its differences. The WAV hanger occupying the internal volume of the head lacked its stand-by pilots and the rows of WAV harnesses were empty. Those pilots and their armored suits had been recalled. This time, if circumstances forced the Nyx Breaker into a stationary defense, there would be no support from ground forces.

The other significant change was in leadership. Last anyone had heard, Ze-4 had only moved out of the initial stages of recovery. His condition was still delicate, though anything more specific remained debated by the crew. That left his earlier replacement, Re-5, to fill in his role. The woman in question was back on the sitesman's floor in the command compartment, glaring at a readout on her console.

"This is Re-5. I want the echo-room operating this instant. Disregard the need for fur scans; Directory Control will supply our techs with the data collected from the walls. Once we clear the first fifty meters from the maintenance gate, we initiate tunneling."