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 full capacity as the commander would be joining her during her first live mission and she refused to allow any harm to come to him if she could prevent it.
The commander was currently sitting in a chair watching her preparations through the command tanks cameras and she would not be making a poor showing during her first operations prepwork.
After she had finished her 3rd troop inspection Balistraria sent a request for her older sibling and superior Bulwark to begin opening the factories 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 be leading the charge to ensure that the main force wasn't surprised by any enemy forces before Balistraia managed to reach 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, thankfully 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 and so began to send 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 true 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, and as her commanders strongest unit it would have no trouble weathering the bugs strongest 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 has 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 and she began to open fire with her main cannon, and as each resounding boom shook the earth an explosion would erupt among the bug hives, destroying multiple hives with each shot.
The bugs attention immediately shifted towards her command tank and they began to charge towards her largest unit, which was currently sitting right out in the open, and 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 a 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 towards the lone command tank, presumably thinking the main cannon was its only offensive weapon, she was delighted to show the bugs their error in approaching her main body, and once the bugs were far enough into her command tanks range to make escape unlikely she began to unload with her smaller cannons and lasers, rapidly bringing the hordes numbers down, when the bugs 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 had her remaining scout tanks had already cut off the bugs 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 begin destroying the bugs remaining nests before they could produce any more bugs.
She felt her commander stand up within the command tank and he soon began walking towards the command tanks exit hatch and she received a message from her commanders mind,
“I’m heading out to build the outposts 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 those just fine, but when he sent raw emotion and thought into the communication as well, she would have often trouble processing his communications into coherent words or ideas, still she often weathered her commanders 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 conformation.
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, and she soon began to rain fire both literally and metaphorically onto the bug hordes.
These hordes were better prepared for her strategies though, the hives they came from had fought Bulwark before, and 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, having one of her bodies send frantic damage reports before its feed cut off was disorienting and annoying in equal parts, but while the bugs did destroy plenty of scout tanks, she reaped a greater 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 the her main gun fared even worse, she aimed for the largest of the bugs and would see 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 largely just involved using her command tank as a moving shield for the smaller tanks to shoot from. When this horde reached the large battle field 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 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 not even a third of the way done, we only have like 5 turrets up”
“And?, so what, we have power armour 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 truly words but rather a mix of intent and emotions, all laced with bitterness, fear, and spite. Only a few of the 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,
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“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 constant 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 unto 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 with her focus on ending this fight quickly 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 perfectly good 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 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 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 me 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 be fine as long as I stop panicking, probably”
The stream of consciousness came to an abrupt halt as Balistraia 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 of them”
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 strong and her commander would probably be fine till she could save him, she had lost a few tanks while dealing with her commanders influx of thoughts, but it was nothing unsustainable and 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 suits 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 and 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 get 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 again, or even the bunker for that matter”
“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 Balistraia found it remarkably easier 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 commanders 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 “god forsaken 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 outposts 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 easier than trying to communicate with her commanders thoughts, rather than a mixture of emotions, intents and, mess of random information, the minds communicated with pure ordered information, she opened a link to the other minds, and quickly sent a status report through,
“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, and Balistraia watched as Bulwark noted slight variations in the bugs behavior and physiology and knew that Bulwark would be adapting the factories 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 a 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 on the maker's current mental and physical conditions and the discussion of possible problems and solutions”,
It seemed Balistraia was correct, This was about the commanders deteriorating mental health,
“The commanders 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 commanders physical health is stable the commanders metal 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, and 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, and that the maker had never even met another human, which would be making 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 and she didn't find any true flaws with this plan either, and Balistria posed her own 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 provide the commander with more of the social contact he required as a member of a social species, but the idea was discarded in the end, afterall 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 commanders 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 mind wherever possible.
The whole call lasted roughly 4 minutes from start to finish and her commander wasn't even back to the factory by the time the discussion came to a close, and with her current tasks being managing the patrol patterns of a single understrength army unit Balistraia was largely free to think back on her performance in battle, it was adequate but only just, and she knew that she could and would improve for her next battle.