The Vehicle Bay was a three-day birth, a period of grinding industry that consumed the Bastion's focus. Essence was diverted. The Manufactorum paused all but essential ammunition production. The Barracks stood silent. Every erg of power and sliver of material was fed into the growing steel womb in the lower levels.
Isaac spent the time drilling his expanded force. The two new Grenadiers, G-002 and G-003, practiced with G-001 (the re-armed Mule) in coordinated fire patterns. The two Scouts, S-001 and S-002, ran reconnaissance-in-force simulations with the infantry, practicing spotting for the Javelin coilgun, which was now repaired and given a full magazine of three precious darts.
The Bulkhauler finished first, a titan of grey metal and grinding gears. It trundled out of the Engineering Bay on its six thick legs, its rock-crusher maw slowly rotating. Isaac sent it on its maiden voyage not to the dangerous ruins, but to the base of the Bastion's mountain, where scans showed dense deposits of basaltic iron ore. Its purpose: to feed the Anvil Foundry a river of raw material, to build the armor for the thing being born in the Bay.
On the morning of the third day, the deep, resonant hum from below changed pitch, settling into a stable, powerful thrum. The system chimed.
Facility: Vehicle Bay (Level 1) – ONLINE.
New Schematics Available:
· MBT-1 'Legionnaire' Land Ironclad. (Requires: Engineering Bay, 150 Advanced Salvage, 300 Essence, 50 Units Vehicle-Grade Plate.)
· LPV-1 'Ranger' Light Patrol Vehicle. (Requires: 40 Advanced Salvage, 80 Essence.)
· SPG-1 'Catapult' Self-Propelled Gun. (Requires: Vehicle Bay Level 2.)
The Ironclad. Its cost was staggering, more than the Bay itself. But its description was a song of war: Alloy-composite sloped armor, 120mm high-velocity coilgun main armament, coaxial light repeater, heavy tread propulsion. Crew: 2 (Driver/Commander, Gunner). System-linked targeting.
He had the Bay. He had 102 Advanced Salvage left after building the Bulkhauler. He needed 48 more, and 50 slabs of Vehicle-Grade Plate. The Plate was coming, slowly, from the Anvil and the Bulkhauler's first loads. The salvage… he had one more target.
His map had updated with the Vehicle Bay's enhanced sensors. The Tertiary Leyline Nexus prerequisite was now a specific, glaring icon to the north-west: Nexus Omicron-22. Its energy signature was stronger than Gamma-7's had been, and far more corrupted. The Gloom presence around it was dense, a solid wall of red on the scan. But within that scan, the Bay's analytical suites detected something new: Structural Debris - Bastion Origin. Not a graveyard. Something bigger. A wreck.
A fallen Bastion ship? A crashed aerial fortress? The potential salvage yield could be in the thousands. It was also the most defended target he'd ever seen.
He couldn't assault it. Not yet. But the Vehicle Bay needed a test. A shakedown. And he needed to complete the Ironclad's resource tally.
"Sergeant. We're building the Ranger. The Light Patrol Vehicle. We'll use it to probe Omicron-22's outer defenses. Fast in, fast out. Gather tactical data, and if the opportunity presents, secure a small, high-value piece of that wreckage."
The Ranger was a simpler beast. An open-topped, six-wheeled vehicle with a light repeater on a ring mount. It was fast, agile, and fragile. It was a scout car, a raider.
Its construction took a day. When it rolled out of the Bay, it looked like a predatory insect—low-slung, angular, painted in matte grey and black. Isaac designated it V-001 'Ghost'.
He couldn't drive it. The System interface allowed remote operation, but latency at range was a killer. He needed a driver. The Militia had basic vehicle operation subroutines, but this required initiative.
"Sergeant. You have the Command Subroutine. Can you interface directly with the Ghost's systems? Can you pilot it?"
"I possess the necessary protocols. Direct neural link is possible. I will require a dedicated comm-link to the Bastion Core to maintain strategic awareness."
It was decided. The Sergeant would be the driver and commander of the Ghost. For a gunner, he assigned M-002, the veteran spotter, whose precision and calm under fire were proven.
The mission was straightforward: a high-speed run to the edge of the Omicron-22 Gloom zone, perform a sensor sweep of the perimeter and the wreck, identify patrol patterns and weak points, and retreat. Engagement was forbidden unless necessary for survival.
At dawn, the Bastion's secondary vehicle gate—a reinforced ramp leading from the lower levels—groaned open. The Ghost rolled out onto the plain, its electric motors a near-silent whine. It accelerated swiftly, kicking up a plume of black ash, and became a diminishing speck heading north-west.
Isaac watched from the command interface, a holographic tanker's view fed from the Ghost's sensors. The plain gave way to more broken terrain—canyons and mesas of jagged rock. The Gloom energy signature grew oppressive. The first contacts appeared on the edge of the scan: patrols of Stalkers, moving in disciplined grids.
The Ghost, under the Sergeant's control, became a shadow. It slid into a dry riverbed, using the terrain for cover, its speed carefully modulated to avoid dust plumes. It was a ballet of evasion, the Sergeant's processing power calculating paths in real-time.
They reached the visual range of Omicron-22. It was not a fracture in the ground. It was a mountain, its peak sheared off, from which a torrent of corrupted violet energy poured into the sky like an inverted waterfall. Clustered at its base was the wreck.
It was no ship. It was a Bastion Land Carrier, a mobile fortress the size of a city block, now lying on its side, half-buried in the scree of the mountain. Its hull was torn open, but entire sections looked intact. The potential was unimaginable.
But the guardian… surrounding it was not a swarm. It was a forest. A forest of towering, slowly moving forms. Gloom Colossi (Tier-3+). Behemoths were to these as dogs are to elephants. They stood sentinel, their forms conglomerations of rock, metal, and pulsating organic matter. Among them slithered swarms of a new creature: Shredderlings, fast, dog-sized things with bladed limbs.
The Ghost's sensors zoomed, scanning the perimeter. The Sergeant identified a pattern: the Colossi were mostly static, but the Shredderlings patrolled in rotating waves. There was a gap, a blind spot in their coverage, near the carrier's overturned stern, where a landslide had created a rocky alcove.
"There," Isaac said over the comm. "That alcove. Can you reach it?"
"Affirmative. The route is hazardous but clear for sixty-three seconds in the current patrol cycle."
"Go. Get a physical scan of the hull material. Then get out."
The Ghost shot forward, a grey dart. It wove between two stagnant Colossi, their massive heads slowly turning as they sensed the vibration. It hit the scree slope and powered up, tires digging for purchase. It slid into the shadowed alcove, coming to a stop just meters from the carrier's colossal hull.
M-002, the gunner, swiveled the repeater, scanning for threats. The Sergeant extended a manipulator arm from the Ghost's side, touching the carrier's hull. A sensor spike drove into the metal.
Material Analysis: Bastion Legionnaire-Grade Adamantite Alloy. Degradation: 12%. Salvage Value: Extreme.
Extreme. One square meter of this hull was worth fifty of the Gloom-Forged Alloy.
Then, a deep, grinding screech echoed through the canyon. One of the Colossi, the nearest, had fully turned. A fissure in its stone "face" glowed green. It wasn't looking at the alcove. It was looking down at their tracks in the scree.
"Abort! Now!" Isaac commanded.
The Sergeant didn't need the order. The Ghost reversed, spun, and gunned its motors. It shot out of the alcove as the Colossi took a ground-shaking step forward. A Shredderling pack, alerted, swarmed from behind a rock.
M-002 opened fire. The repeater's BRRRT-BRRRT was shockingly loud in the canyon. Shredderlings exploded into ichor and chitin, but there were dozens.
The Ghost weaved, boosting over a boulder, landing hard. A Shredderling landed on its hood, bladed limbs scrabbling at the windshield. M-002 swiveled and fired point-blank, vaporizing it but spider-webbing the glass.
They broke into the open plain, the Colossi's furious bellows echoing behind them. The Shredderlings gave chase for a kilometer before falling back, returning to their posts.
The Ghost returned to the Bastion, its hull scratched and dented, one tire leaking, but intact.
In the Vehicle Bay, Isaac looked at the sensor data, at the analysis of the Adamantite Alloy. He had the final piece of the puzzle. The Bulkhauler couldn't mine that. He needed the Ironclad to even get close.
But now he knew where the vault was. And he had the key half-forged. The Ghost's shakedown was a success. They had seen the guardians of the next tier of power.
The unfinished chassis of the Legionnaire Ironclad sat in its assembly jig, a skeleton of terrifying potential. The Sergeant dismounted from the Ghost, its grey eyes meeting Isaac's.
"The guardian force is beyond current tactical parameters," it stated. "The Legionnaire will be required."
Isaac nodded, placing a hand on the cold, unfinished flank of the war machine. "Then we finish it. We have our target. And we now know the price of entry."
The race was no longer for survival, or even parity. It was for supremacy. And the starter's pistol had just fired.