Bulwark #28 was busy, the outpost they were defending was on the outskirts of the factories "control", so bug attacks were often and frequent, and by frequent the mind meant probing attacks were nearly ceaseless with larger true assaults happening a few times a day.

The mind was currently working with Labyrinthine #47 to coordinate repairs and modifications to the defensive wall, they were an outpost of middling importance and while that meant they had enough materials to repair and upgrade their defense Balistraia would not be coming to lend support if the situation worsened.

The standard defensive lineup, which consisted of a roughly equal spread of all available weaponry, needed to be modified to deal with newer variants that made certain weapon types ineffective. Bulwark had noted a higher percentage of the bugs attacking this outpost were highly resistant to fire, so incendiary rounds would be entirely fazed out and flame throwers would be partially replaced with standard cannon turrets, though loaded with depleted uranium shells.

The minefield also needed to be replanted before the next probing assault began,with manual triggers so the weaker bugs could not detonate them, there were a wide variety of available mines but besides the incendiary ones all of them still showed effectiveness, so Bulwark saw little need to change their current plan. The new laser mines, basically just a lethal flashbang, were showing high effectiveness in both injuring and disorienting the bugs, so Bulwark sent an order for more of them to Byzantine.

The new dry moat was serving well to keep out some of the digging bugs, the bugs who could both fight and dig could do neither of them well and tended to stay relatively close to the surface meaning a simple moat could force them out of the ground, so Bulwark sent a request to Labyrinthine to clear the moat of bug corpse and to reinforce it.

The defense for true subterranean assault had not yet been triggered so the mind did not need to enact any countermeasures for that, meaning they could focus on more immediately pressing matters, like fitting as many repairs and modifications as they could before the estimated time of arrival for the next attack, which was sitting at 23 minutes based on the bugs movement and numbers. more time than usual.

--

Bulwark #35 aimed one of their cannons towards a newly spotted bug variant. New bug variants were nearly always a priority target and determining weaknesses was a good first step, within milliseconds a round launched through the horde towards the new bug variant, knocking it backwards dozens of feet. Even if kinetics couldn't kill some bugs, inertia could still move them.

This batch of bugs seemingly had a variant of bugs for every single weapon type the mind had at its disposal, but none were resistant to all of the available fire power, nor were they immune. Directly controlling the turrets to only fire on targets they were effective against was the least of the mind's worries though, it could do that nearly automatically at this point. No, the true worry was devising countermeasures to a few of the bugs' new tactics, or getting better solutions to the bugs' old ones.

Bulwark turned its attention to the sensors facing the sky, watching a massive swarm of flying bugs get mowed down by the relatively few anti air turrets the outpost possessed, could it be considered a new strategy to do the same thing but more? The predictions about the bugs developing their own greater airforce in response to the factories own expanded air fleet had been proven a few hours ago with a few other assault outposts less prepared for a full aerial assault. Which had given Bulwark and Labyrinthine cause to expand the anti-air capabilities of the various outposts.

The only problem with that was the fact that higher value outposts were given a higher priority, so while Bulwark #35 had been shipped half a dozen anti air turrets they did not actually have full aerial coverage, but Bulwark would make do the best they could.

The ground assault was still winding up, with dozens of claws tearing into the walls before being gunned down, and while any bugs with ranged attacks were being destroyed when they got into range the few volleys they did get off had already damaged a fair few turrets, rendering them useless until Labyrinthine could repair them, and while it would only take a few seconds to fix each turret that was still a significant chunk of time.

Turning the flamethrowers directly down to build a moat of fire around the walls, Bulwark began pushing the bugs back, into the minefield that had yet to be detonated, It was the height of the attack so the mines would take out a significant chunk of attacking bugs, with the flamethrowers no longer forcing the bulk of the horde back the bugs in the rear surged forwards just as the vanguard was push back.

Calculating the optimal time to detonate the mines was not as simple as just activating them when the most bugs were on them, Bulwark needed to correlate each mines location and the known vulnerability of each bug type, if a bruiser type bug was standing on top of a fragmentation mine the mine would essentially be wasted, or it might be better to detonate the mines early while a vulnerable group of bugs passed over it.

Thankfully as a digital intelligence Bulwark was more than capable, and the mind watched microsecond by microsecond for the optimal moment. Right when a carrier bug, a bug with a thick outer shell shaped like a bowl which hid dozens of smaller bugs, passed over a incendiary mine, a 30 foot bruiser bug had only a single leg on a kinetic mine, and a small group of ranged bugs entered into blast range of a fragmentation mine Bulwark detonated the mines.

The carrier bugs shell contained most of the incendiary mine with both its durability and weight, trapping all the heat to roast both the carrier and its charges, the bruiser had one of its legs entirely removed and monetarily had its slightly more vulnerable thorax exposed, letting a depleted uranium shell pierce inside, heavily wounding it, and half of the ranged bugs were wounded by the fragmentation mine, one of them leaking acid which caused its own organs to melt.

Scenes like that played out all across the minefield, and the turrets opened fire as fast as they could to take advantage of the momentary chaos. Dozens of larger bugs were shredded and hundreds of smaller ones outright vanished, or were turned into small chunks of viscera scattered throughout the battlefield.

Bulwark knew that had only bought them a few seconds, new reinforcements were already charging out of tunnels a few hundred meters away, and the artillery support wouldn't be collapsing them for another 10 minutes.

The aerial attack was where the real battle was though, the anti air turrets were each gunning down hundreds of the flying insects, but dozens were still making it through, forcing Bulwark to divert the drones that would usually be helping on the wall to instead patrol just below the anti airs firing fields, the lighter weight bugs had thinner shells sure, but they were significantly more agile, what with the flight and reduced weight. The distractor drones couldn't actually catch them, instead just serving as mobile turrets while the more nimble drones engaged in aerial dog fights.

The drones basic combat programing was decidedly not made with fighting other flying opponents in mind, neccestating Bulwark to take manual control over the majority of their available "air force". The only ones Bulwark didn't need to take control over were the destroyer drones, who made up for their lacking programming with sheer lethality and speed, and the fact that these were some of the more "intelligent" drones. They had adapted to aerial combat within seconds, and had then sent new engagement protocols to all the other destroyer drones.

Bulwark was still losing defender drones though, and while the mind was currently holding off the aerial assault at the current rate of attrition the bugs would win, and with the ongoing ground assault Bulwark couldn't reassign any of the other turrets to anti air. The only option the mind had to thin the group of bugs was the outposts missile system, which was decidedly limited in both range and ammunition.

Even the falling corpses of the dead bugs were causing problems, covering everything in a layer of blood and gore, jamming some of the conveyor belts and doors. Which was probably intentional on the bugs part, even with sufficient anti-air it was unreasonable to assume no bugs would even die above the factory, and if the falling corpse could do damage the bugs would ensure they did the most damage possible.

Labyrinthine was already handling that issue though, using drones to spray every surface down to wash away the blood as it fell, ensuring any halts were temporary.

Still even if the aerial fight was decidedly not in the minds favor they still had plenty of ammunition, and the mind would make sure to use as much as possible before it was overrun. If It was overrun that is.

The missile pods were cleared of any debris and opened, unleashing 12 fragmentation missiles. Calculating the optimal fragmentation coverage possible with both the hordes shape and the missiles payload was trivial and the optimal flight paths were charted for each missile, quickly sending the destroyer drones to ensure no bugs intercepted the missiles was a little more complex, but the drones were fast and more than capable of clearing most of the routes. Only 2 of the missiles were detonated prematurely though the mind did lose 2 of its 12 destroyer drones to a missile detonation.

As tough as the drones were they couldn't handle a dozen shards of shrapnel ripping their components to shreds causing them to fall to the ground. Bulwark pinged Labyrinthine to see if the drones could be repaired in a timely manner.

The explosion had thinned the swarm of bugs greatly, and the remaining destroyer drones had no issues killing the remaining stragglers that made it through the turret's rain of fire. With less overall bugs the anti air was now much more capable of holding the airspace, letting Bulwark divert the distractor drones back to the wall, they would be integral to holding off another chunk of bruisers that were charging the wall.

The cloud of bugs the radar detected flying towards the outpost could be dealt with when they arrived.

With all of the minds single use weaponry detonated, save the nuke, the fights stakes had just gotten higher, now if the bugs began to push the mind back Bulwark would have no cards to play except the mutually assured destruction of both the outpost and the attacking horde, which hurt the factory far more than it hurt the bugs.

There was nothing left to do but reload the turrets, take careful aim and wait for the artillery fire to cut off the bug's line of attack.

AN-

Am I using weaponry wrong? cause auto correct seems to hate the word.

Not exactly thrilled with how I portrayed the fight but I do hope I got the concept of "constant assault and attrition" down well enough.

Portraying Byzantine is gonna be a difficult one, trying to make supply management interesting to read when Byzantine isn't really doing anything exciting will be fun, I think.

Please like and review, questions and critics are appreciated