Grind Them Down

While the Aud advance soldiers turned back, the maintenance gate never remained idle. It continued to exert its internal mechanisms to press the kilometers-high doors shut from within. There would be no more threats to those waiting in the shadow of the walls, though it seemed Eighth Headman had chosen to take the path of caution.

She remained informed of all developments while positioned on the western stretch. As such, she must have taken certain liberties involving those under her purview: a group of ten had assembled under the arch of the gate, standing resolute against both the sight of the Aud in the distance, and the earth-shattering screeching and rumbles the base of the maintenance gate generated when moving.

"Did you request the Eighth Headman to redirect some of her staff down there?"

Two nodded, his movement jagged. "Though those…you called them flares, yes? Though they worked marvelously, we don't know if any are immune to or can ignore their effect. Besides that, we don't know if there are Aud that can hide themselves from conventional surveillance or scan methods."

The Prime Beacon's eye twitched at that. He hadn't gone down that avenue once, but there was no reason he shouldn't have. There were humans Blessed in ways enhancing stealth capabilities, but the Aud lacked the Old Man's Blessing. Something so large and heavy and… well, obvious, shouldn't have a single sly bone in their bodies.

Then again, no one predicted the Aud were capable of such impressive feats of physicality like scaling the unmeasurable height of the Gaiss Hollow. Better to err on the path of caution, indeed. And there were Aud that displayed anomalous or unconventional qualities, like those Aud down there, currently racing across the killing field. He didn't doubt there were plenty among them with human-equivalent levels of intelligence anymore.

But the majority of them were likely the same as biological drones, mechanistic systems composed of blood and flesh and bone that responded to familiar inputs. That was why they all began using their fallen as body shields. A clever few had set a standard, and the others employed mimicry. That still scared him. What else had they hidden for so long?

The world didn't pause to grant him time to rearrange his thoughts. With the manual detonations occurring centered around the flares, they, and more important, their internals, didn't survive unscathed either.

The mines were effective enough to cripple green-furs one-on-one, and it seemed blues as well when clustered together to produce a greater, explosive outcry. Once the flares vanished beneath the bodies and the fiery infernos, their effect dimmed, then ceased to exert itself any longer.

The Aud disentangled themselves from their living brethren and kicked and clawed aside their deceased. It wasn't long before those ahead of the encroaching ring resumed their journey.

It was a miraculous sight that they beheld. While not every high-tier Aud crossing the minefield made the mistake of stepping near a mine, most were not as fortunate. Concentrated jets ripped out of the ground to scorch and steal life. Granted, there was more scorching than of the latter, but those within Directory Control didn't reserve much of their mental faculties to make the differentiation.

If a flicker of light appeared on a surveillance screen, there was a muffled call of delight from one of the techs. Each mine claimed the life of at least one Aud, and failing that, crippled them so well their fates were to lay down and die, or become another body shield.

His lips parted a hair's width. 'You strange character. Even now, you're helping us.'

His notice remained that of silence, though he wanted to cry out to humanity with strong abandon to share who made the flares possible at all. The Sixth Headman contacted him not long after when the rest of the ring had caught up with the advance forces and pressed down on the rest of the minefield that remained unarmed or unleashed.

"The flares were good. Too good. But they lack reusability. I doubt we'll be able to recover much once we decimate the first ring or it retreats."

"Are the explosion jets that powerful?" And was retreat even a concept to the intelligent Aud?

"They melted the fur and bones of green-furs. You tell me." That was as good a tell as any. If they recovered any of the flares, the Sixth Headman's words would likely become prophecy: the external shell scorched or melted, and the internals rendered useless from the heat.

"Is there a chance the biological components will survive unscathed?"

"You would know more about that than me, wouldn't you? My researchers didn't have the time to perform temperature stress tests."

To placate his older colleague, the Prime Beacon scrambled together an idea from the mushy side of his head. "Why not modify the next patent for the flares to incorporate a fragmentation effect? We should have the degree of miniaturization technology needed to pull such a feat off. Or you should, that is."

"Hmm. I see. That way, the flares would cast a wider net, we could create a more outsized effect with less material, the Aud would take longer to neutralize the flares, and, even if one landed onto the position of a mine's jet again, the fragmentation effect would ensure that some of the smaller pieces flung off from the main body would survive and continue to exert their influence--fine idea!"

It was so fine the Sixth Headman forgot to end their interaction with a farewell and rushed to cancel the communication. The Prime Beacon sighed and returned his communicator to its resting spot, though he couldn't deny he held a fondness for one of his partners in crime, as it were, especially when he broke his carefully pruned decorum without intention, like the Third Headman.

The idleness of the remaining wall-grade emplacements came to an end. With half of the killing field already traversed, and so many possible places to aim the targeting programs and crews remained spoiled for choice, there was no reason to stay eager triggers any further. One second, there was the hum of electrics as they collected energy, compressed it, and then discharged in impressive volleys.

The next, the sonics' barrels pumped streams of scutumsteel rounds, placing the former to shame with both volume and density of fire. The servicemen stationed on the walls and outside of WAV armor equipped themselves beforehand with noise silencers that fit snug in their ears and were only affected with the sheer strength of the vibrations that caused many to stumble before righting themselves, and two even fell.

Once the firing chambers loosed a sonic round, the air compression in tandem with the supersized auto-coils hidden with the length of the barrels launched them with enough force to not even register as blurs. And the rounds they fired weren't WAV-grade, either.

No, these were large enough to count as barrels if they stood upright next to a serviceman. Their sheer volume crashed into the front ranks of the Aud ring like a wave of death, each bullet tenderizing flesh under furs or making the job of their successors easier. The Prime Beacon frowned. "Why such a high density so soon?"

To the seated officer, he continued, "Call out a decrease in the sonics' RPM. We aren't using curtain protocol yet, and wall-grade sonic rounds take time to move from the stores to the emplacements up top."

"Yes, sir."