With the stronger tiers leading the charge as a disordered, but clear vanguard, the whites, which still composed the majority of the first ring, were under much less pressure as they advanced to and up the walls.
The cylinder launchers, which fired arcing projectiles, were the only emplacement type capable of bypassing the new vanguard to set off explosions, blinding and deafening flashes, and other effects amid the whites, yet they composed a fourth of the wall-grade emplacements. No more than that.
The vanguard took another measure to increase their longevity and redundancy against the massed attacks, grabbing the closest, most injured Aud around them and holding them above them as they advanced, as another wave of meat shield users. The result was that while the greens, yellows, and oranges were being whittled away at an advancing rate that would be cause for success, the defensive crews had lost that same killing efficiency for the white-furs, killing far less per salvo.
From there, it wasn't hard to see what strategy the Aud intelligence was aiming for: allow the limited quality of the first ring to absorb the most strikes and exhaust the defenders' capacity and reserves, delaying the inevitable long enough for the plentiful quantity of the first ring to bridge the gap and begin the skirmishing in earnest on the top of the walls.
A crude, callous, and merciless maneuver that displayed the Aud intelligence's willingness to sacrifice its own to achieve its goal.
The Prime Beacon was considering whether to make a run for his WAV when Four and Two called him over to the officer's console. They were studying a new chart with great interest. Several wavelengths bounced up and down the screen, attempting to reach a stable enough equilibrium for the viewers. He looked to the officer for an explanation.
"Sir, at the time when the Aud changed their advance and engaged in proper formations, one of our techs was monitoring the signals moving between the spotlight network's nodes. He thought that the communication deadzone might develop further in an unexpected direction. Like changing to target the operation of more compartmentalized and isolated communication, such as the data transfer between programs and autonomous intelligences. And, instead of anything he expected, his sensor equipment fixated on this instead." The officer gestured to the waves.
"What are we looking at?" For once, the Prime Beacon wouldn't mind being one of the smarter people at a meet.
"The one marked in yellow is the standard emission our transmission towers release; it's their origin signals. The one in red is what appears to be an overlapping copy that interferes with our own. And this one," he tapped a purple one, "is what appeared when the Aud began using targeted formations."
"Does that mean the red one represents the interference the communication deadzone produces or is a product of? Now that we know what's happening, why haven't the techs calibrating the transmission towers changed their emission frequency to something different?"
"They have, sir." Two leaned over the officer's shoulder and manipulated the display. The yellow wave's crests reduced the space between them, creating a more compact result. At the same time, the red wave copied the same changes, continuing to overlap the yellow wave like a stalking shadow.
"The communication deadzone's effects are either self-regulating or can change on a moment-by-moment basis. It seems no pre-calibration is necessary on the Aud's part."
"I see." The Prime Beacon turned his attention to the purple wave. The new information on how the communication deadzone functioned was an important discovery, but it would need targeted research to find a countermeasure.
He would leave it to the Sixth Headman's people, since the military couldn't do anything else in this battle. "Can we reuse the Aud intelligence's strategy against it? Since our transmission towers are currently useless in their traditional roles, why not have them turned against the signal and try to overlap with it in turn?"
"That was another experiment the Sixth already asked the transmission towers' techs to try. This happens." The display reduced the viewing scale, bringing dozens more waves into view. They all tried to overlap the waves from the communication deadzone, but there were no changes. "Besides that, they also tried this."
The human-controlled waves began randomizing, each transmission tower's origin signal turned different and unique when compared to its brethren. In response, the Aud-controlled wave split, each copy grafting itself to one of the military's waves and copying it without even minute differentiations. "They have either more advanced EWAR capabilities, or rely on esoteric communication disruption. Whichever one it is, our origin signals are inferior, sir."
"That's fine for now. As long as we can communicate over long distances at all through alternate means, we can rely on our other advantages to provide parity for our shortcomings."
With nothing more, he retreated to the center of the platform. He lacked the specialized acumen needed to address the communication deadzone or the Aud intelligence's guidance of its soldiers, but he already had multiple ideas to rectify the first formation the Aud had come to rely upon.
He watched as the improvised models of the battlefield displayed the retreat of the default and light WAV pilots back up the wall. They had already been contending with tough fighting conditions back when the formations were nonexistent on the Aud side, or even before, when there were little more than individual stragglers that had made it up the walls.
Now that the strongest Aud amongst the first ring were leading the charge, they had two choices: stay and die, or engage in fight and flight tactics. The former would achieve nothing more than toss bodies to the Aud, so the leadership on the walls had little debate before they issued the order for the hanging WAV pilots to retreat. The Aud accelerated their progress as well, unwilling to let easy targets escape to safety.
Despite the early warning, not all the pilots reacted to the new surge of violence in time to pull back. Up top, cable feeding mechanisms tensed and snapped as Aud grappled dozens of WAVs or pierced them through with claws.
With the downward force pulling them back and preventing their rise, more Aud bypassing them meant only one thing: painful death. The techs monitoring the short-range communications wanted to tune out the final screams of the unlucky, but they had their assignments.
Jaws clenched. Eyes were shaky. Some whispered under breath. They couldn't risk not hearing anything vital a pilot noticed in their dying moments.