Balistraia was triple-checking each of her unit's conditions, making sure that each tank and drone was fully equipped and ready for deployment; she spent extra time ensuring that the command tanks' shields were operating at total capacity as the commander would be joining her during her first live mission. She refused to allow any harm to him if she could prevent it.
The commander sat in a chair, watching her preparations through the command tank cameras. She would not be making a poor showing during her first operations prep work.
After finishing her 3rd troop inspection, Balistraria requested her older sibling and superior Bulwark to begin opening the factory gates and allowing her troops to sally forth for their first operation. The gates slowly began to slide open, and she readied her scout class tanks; they would lead the charge to ensure that the main force wasn't surprised by any enemy forces before Balistraia reached the hive cluster.
Balistraia watched through the dozens of cameras that were attached to her scout tanks and began plotting the route she would take through the forest; she would need to plot her route around any known bug patrols; she already had practice avoiding bug patrols thanks to the commander assigning her command over the courier drone network with Byzantine, and easily avoided or destroyed all of the bug patrols she had spotted.
She had begun to close in on her destination. She began sending the scout tanks even farther ahead of the rest of her force to flank and surround the targeted hive cluster. She would allow no bugs to escape her first actual battle; as her scouts got into position, Balistraria had the rest of her units get into a formation behind her most heavily armed and armored unit, her bastion and command tank. As her commander's most robust unit, it would have no trouble weathering the bug's most potent attacks, even if it was partly unfinished.
As Balistraia was about to begin her attack, she felt her commander's gaze fall upon the cameras within her command tank, and with her commander watching her, she gave the order for her troops to open fire.
Her scout tanks surrounded the hive cluster with fire hot enough to incinerate the majority of the bugs present at this hive cluster. This burst of heat and light drew the attention of the bugs, and they began to charge from their hives to chase after the tanks; this cluster had not been fighting the factory as often, though, and as such had not been developing resistances to the extent of more violent hive clusters, so this charge straight into the flames invariably lead to death in the bugs that tried, she only lost a few scout tanks to lucky hits from spitter variant bugs from behind the wall of fire, this diversion and encirclement served its job well as the hives were left with only a token force of insects to defend them, practically wide open for her to hit with her main cannon.
And if the bugs were just going to leave their homes wide open, Balistraria would take advantage of their gift. She began to open fire with her main cannon. As each resounding boom shook the earth, an explosion would erupt among the bug hives, destroying multiple hives with each shot.
The bug's attention immediately shifted toward her command tank. They began to charge towards her largest unit, sitting in the open. As the bugs began to close in, she opened fire into them with her main cannon to further provoke them into recklessly charging her command tank; as the bugs passed the halfway point between the command tank and the remaining hives, she sent her shield tanks into the flanks of the horde with her drones as support.
With such a large force attacking them from behind, the bugs had no choice but to charge toward the lone command tank, presumably thinking the central cannon was its only offensive weapon. She was delighted to show the bugs their error in approaching her main body. Once the bugs were far enough into her command tank range to escape, she began to unload with her more miniature cannons and lasers, rapidly bringing the horde numbers down. When the bug's acid variant finally got into range of her command tank, they found that their acid had no effect and soon began to try and retreat towards her smaller units, making the assumption that her other tanks would be easier targets.
She had predicted this, though, and her remaining scout tanks had already cut off the bug's attack lines with a wall of fire, preventing the bugs from even testing their assumption; with their retreat cut off and fire coming in from all sides, it was easy to simply unload into the horde, and soon the bugs were all dead.
With the enemy's attack force dead, she could safely order the scout tanks to burn the bugs' bodies and have the shield tanks destroy the remaining nests before they could produce more bugs.
She felt her commander stand up within the command tank, and he soon began walking towards the exit hatch. She received a message from her commander's mind,
"I'm heading out to build the outpost walls; the construction mind is building the rail here; we just need to hold this spot till they arrive,"
She always found it odd to communicate with the commander; rather than simple words, he sent ideas, thoughts, and emotions. This time, though, he simply sent an agreement, and she understood that just fine. Still, when he sent raw emotion and thought into the communication, she often had trouble processing his communications into coherent words or ideas. Still, she often weathered her commander's thoughts, a mixture of dread, anticipation, and glee, and was getting better at parsing his intentions; with this simple message received, she sent back her own simple confirmation.
While her commander built his outpost, Balistraia sent forth her scout tanks into the surrounding forest to find and harass the incoming enemy hordes, and she began to bring her main cannon into line with the largest of the hordes spotted on her radar systems; she wanted to deal with this group personally, simultaneously controlling each scout tank while aiming her main gun was a simple task for her. She soon began to rain fire, literally and metaphorically, onto the bug hordes.
However, these hordes were better prepared for her strategies; the hives they came from had fought Bulwark before. So they resisted the heat of the flames far better than the previous bugs and began destroying any scout tank that got too close with a rapid acid strike.
She hated losing units. It was disorienting and annoying to have one of her bodies send frantic damage reports before its feed cut off. Still, while the bugs did destroy plenty of scout tanks, she reaped a more incredible tally with plenty of the weaker bugs all falling to the flames, and by the time the hordes came into range of her shield tanks, they were significantly weakened.
The horde she personally targeted with her main gun fared even worse; she aimed for the largest of the bugs and saw them rapidly explode, taking out large chunks of the oncoming force and removing any of the bugs that could actually damage her command tank, which was going to be helpful considering her plan primarily just involved using her command tank as a moving shield for the smaller tanks to shoot from. When this horde reached the enormous battlefield around the growing outpost, Balistraia began to march her command tank towards it, seeking to crush it quickly before turning to the other hordes.
As she did this, she was worried to note that one of the hordes wasn't chasing her as planned but instead was moving to attack her commander; she quickly opened a link to him and
"Fucking called it, knew this was gonna happen."
"Welp, it is not like I haven't prepared for this. I mean, we have the rocket launcher and plenty of ammo."
" We are totally going to die. The walls are not even a third of the way done; we only have 5 turrets up."
"And? so what, we have power armor, and if those fucking fish couldn't get through it, these bugs certainly won't."
In the few milliseconds she had been connected to her commander's mind, she felt dozens of competing thoughts, all planning how to survive his situation; they were not words but rather a mix of intent and emotions, all laced with bitterness, fear, and spite. Only a few thoughts had emotions that could be considered positive if you considered glee or smugness positive. Still, she had to interject her own report into the chaos- she composed her message: "Commander, if you can hold for a few minutes, I can come and evacuate you."
His mind stilled for a moment as his subconscious prepared an order,
"deal with the other 2 hordes. I will manage while you do so. We will not be evacuating, and I will be fine."
While this response was very different, a single thought laced with conviction rather than a chaotic mix of thoughts constantly flowing, it didn't change the fact that she now had her orders and she would follow them; she turned her attention back towards the horde she was currently racing towards and resolved to finish her enemies a quick as she could, increasing her speed in the process.
As Balistraia engaged the horde, she saw her commander do likewise, and they both began unloading death onto their respective hordes. She was making excellent progress through the first of her hordes when it received reinforcement from the horde that had neglected to charge her commander. She had begun losing tanks in earnest, focusing on quickly ending this fight, but it was working well. She was whittling the hordes down faster than they could cut her tanks down, and it was only a matter of time before she could…
Had her commander just jumped from his excellent defensive position straight into the horde of bugs trying to kill him? Thinking that she had faulty optics pointing in his direction, she quickly turned another camera towards her commander, and no, he was definitely running on top of the horde of bugs while dropping grenades behind him. Balistraia began to double down on her offensive towards the bugs. She needed to get to her commander before he got himself killed; she quickly opened a link to her commander to ask for a report and
"Why the hell did you do that?!?! There was a perfectly good chunk of the wall behind us, you idiot!"
" The bugs were melting the damned wall. What did you want from me! If we had stayed up there, those spitters would have turned us into a god damned liquid."
"That's not a good reason to jump into the center of them, we could just kite the damned things!"
"I'm gonna die."
"Probably, or is that a maybe?"
"Why isn't the discharge defense working? Why isn't the discharge defense working?!!?"
"Wait, it is; it's just not doing jack to bugs this big, huh."
"Just rip the damned things in half!"
"Oh, I'm getting a ping from the main factory; the outer walls getting attacked."
"Does that seem important right now!? Focus on the bugs trying to eat us, you dumb bastard."
"I hate myself sometimes, well most times; I mean, I can be getting eaten alive by giant bugs, but a single notification and I immediately go 'ooh shiny and check it.' why? Because I hate me, that's why."
" the shield isn't going down far; I'll probably be fine as long as I stop panicking."
The stream of consciousness came to an abrupt halt as Balitraia saw a bug grab her commander's leg and pull him into the center of the horde before it began at an even more frantic pace than before.
"Say it's gonna be fine, sure, if by fine you mean utterly surrounded by massive cockroaches trying to melt me! This is not fine."
"I don't even know how to use a sword. Why did we choose to make a sword?!?!"
"still totally gonna die."
"I have made many mistakes, but being born on this planet was the greatest."
Balistraria didn't really want to distract her commander from his… important thoughts and decided to focus back on her battle; his shields were holding firm, and her commander would probably be fine till she could save him; she had lost a few tanks while dealing with her commander's influx of thoughts, but it was nothing unsustainable. After around a dozen minutes, she began to finish off the bug hordes surrounding her.
Balistraria was finally free to turn the majority of her attention to her commander, who was currently beating Bugs to death with his shotgun and bashing Bug Carapace in with his broken sword; she checked on his suit shields and saw they still had 1/8th charge and took her time to line up her shots to not hit her commander with enough shrapnel to break his shields, she opened fire after a few milliseconds. She rapidly turned the bugs into bits and pieces with her fury.
Her commander immediately stored his sword and gun and went back to building the wall, and Balistraia felt it was safe to interrupt him with a status report now; she entered his mental network and once again felt the weight of his emotions press down on her, now a mix of calmness and exhaustion with hints of pride and vindication.
"That went well, all things considered. I didn't die, and we got some new resources."
" Yeah, with these, I will finally have enough resources to finish the assault minds army."
"You Are aware we almost died, right?'
"Then we never need to leave the factory or even the bunker again."
"I miss the bunker, all safe and behind a nice safe wall, not this shitty not safe at all wall; this wall sucks."
"I should definitely make a bigger bunker."
With the stream of thoughts now slower, Balistraria found it remarkably more straightforward to compose her message,
"Commander, I have finished purging the attacking bug horde; what are your further orders?"
She once again felt the chaotic mess of her commander's mind speed up, ideas rapidly being sent forth and discarded by his subconscious, ranging from him having her tanks carry him back to his bunker so he could sleep to orders to burn every bug on this "godforsaken hell planet" before his mind stilled as his conscious mind decided on an order and sent it to her "patrol the area around the outpost with your non or least damaged units while the defensive and construction mind build the outpost's defenses" with her orders received she once again pulled back from her commanders mind and set about carrying out her new orders, parking her damaged tanks within the outposts walls and setting her most functional tanks to patrolling a perimeter.
The construction mind soon had the train line run to the outpost, and her commander immediately took the train back to the factory, presumably to take a nap in his bunker if his thoughts were to be believed.
Balistraria soon felt the other minds requesting communications. Communicating with the other minds was far more accessible than communicating with her commander's thoughts. Rather than a mixture of emotions, intents, and random information, the minds communicated with pure, ordered information. She opened a link to the other minds and quickly sent a status report,
"losses to tank forces are significant, mission successful, commander and command tank intact and unharmed, currently patrolling perimeter as ordered with remaining tanks."
Along with the message, she sent the states of her various tanks, intact or destroyed, so that Labyrinthine and Byzantine could begin repairs and scavenging operations.
She sent Bulwark a few reports with relevant video files. Balistraia watched as Bulwark noted slight variations in the bug's behavior and physiology and knew that Bulwark would be adapting the factory's defenses to account for these new changes, insignificant though they were.
These things weren't the real reason for this communication, though; Balistraria knew that she could have sent all of her reports in information packets without direct communication being needed; she had her suspicions, though, as there was only one task all the minds collaborated on, the health of her commander, so she sent a query to confirm or disprove her suspicions, "purpose of direct communications?" Bulwark sent a reply moments later
"to receive a direct assessment of the maker's current mental and physical conditions and the discussion of possible problems and solutions."
It seemed Balisraia was correct. This was about the commander's deteriorating mental health,
"The commander's physical health is nominal, His augmentations remain operational, and he sustained no true damage during the attack; the only current issue is that insufficient nutrient intake is reducing the effects of the muscle enhancement, but while the commander's physical health is stable, the commanders' mental state continues to deteriorate, his mental activity is steadily becoming less stable, and he seems to be approaching a mental breakdown,"
This assessment was met with a few milliseconds of silence before Bulwark posed a question to the other minds,
"possible plans to improve the maker's mental health?"
This question drew a few seconds of silence rather than a few milliseconds, and Balistraria knew why. The other minds had no ideas, and neither did she.
After a few more seconds, Byzantine sent a response,
"The creator often complains about the taste of his sustenance. We could build a new, more advanced food processor to try and improve the taste."
This prompted Labyrinthine to add on to Byzantine's statement,
"The maker seemed to prefer the taste of the aquatic lifeforms to his usual meal."
Bulwark confirmed that Labyrinthine and Byzantine could actually procure the aquatic lifeforms, considering that the river was now dead and poisoned from the maker dumping the factories' waste into it. He got confirmation that the 2 minds had it handled before proposing his own idea.
Bulwark reminded the other minds that humans were social creatures and needed social contact to stay sane. The maker had never even met another human, which would make the stress of constant fighting significantly worse for his mental state. Balistraia listened as Bulwark proposed that the minds should retrofit a few of the courier drones with more advanced processing power and program them to act as the makers' pets, as the files from the medical pod mentioned that a service animal can help with chronic stress and loneliness.
None of the other minds disagreed with this course of action. She didn't find any actual flaws with this plan either. Balistria posed her idea: if they were already producing modified courier drones to interact with the commander, why not build artificial bodies to interact with the commander as a peer? The other minds pondered this idea; it would give the commander more social contact he required as a member of a social species. Still, the idea was discarded in the end; after all, the minds couldn't make realistic human bodies to pilot, nor could they interact with the commander as a human or animal companion would; the benefits to the commander's mental state would be minimal or even negative, with acceptable plans prepared the minds disconnected from the direct call and resumed their tasks, while now working on the plans to aid her commanders to mind wherever possible.
The whole call lasted roughly 4 minutes from start to finish, and her commander wasn't even back to the factory when the discussion ended. With her current tasks managing the patrol patterns of a single understrength army unit, Balistraia was primarily free to think back on her performance in battle; it was adequate. Still, only just, and she knew that she could and would improve for her next battle.
AN-
I am unhappy with this interlude and the next few, but eh.