Andy was in a fantastic mood!
Before long, he carried a heavy anti-static tote box back down into the Eastern District underground.
The box was filled to the brim with Necron components that Hulie had processed.
Speaking of Hulie, though she often felt treated like cheap labor, she was remarkably obedient during work and took no opportunity to commit sabotage.
The reason was simple: Andy promised her that as long as she cooperated, he would hand over the key to the single room in Building A—the one complete with a private bathroom and 24/7 hot water.
For a clean-freak who had soaked in a coffin for thousands of years, bathing and privacy outweighed any racial hatred.
Andy set the box on the ground and opened the lid.
Inside were mostly spinal segments stripped from Canoptek Wraiths, along with over a dozen relatively intact Canoptek Scarabs.
These were low-tier units within the Necron legion—numerous and relatively easy to obtain.
"Let's begin."
Andy casually grabbed a Scarab and tossed it onto the black platform.
Hum.
The analysis station powered on.
This time, there was no rejection reaction. The nanites smoothly decomposed the chitin's material structure.
[Sample analysis complete.]
[Material composition: Nanite Scarab Swarm (Unlocked).]
[Convertible Technology Path 1: Universal Canoptek Construct.]
Andy selected the option with practiced familiarity.
Based on past experience, after making a selection, the analysis station would automatically output a standard-sized plate.
But this time was different.
After Andy pressed confirm, the option didn't vanish. Instead, a new secondary menu expanded to the right.
The menu did not display the Low Gothic Andy was accustomed to; rather, it listed a row of glyphs glowing with a faint green light.
These pictograms had complex structures filled with sharp angles and circular nodes—typical Necron script.
"What is this?"
Andy froze for a moment.
"Since when did this get granular?"
During previous analyses, locked samples forced the station into brute-force decryption. It output whatever came out, offering zero choice.
Now that the sample was clean, access rights seemed to have unlocked with it.
Andy immediately engaged the STC database for real-time translation.
Soon, the meaning behind the glyphs was deciphered.
[9:1]
[8:2]
[7:3]
[5:5]
[3:7]
[2:8] (Greyed out, unavailable)
Andy stared at the numbers for a moment. Combining them with the annotations below, he quickly understood their meaning.
The Necrons' "Universal Canoptek Construct" appeared to be a superposition state of matter sitting between "macro-machinery" and "nanite scarab swarms."
These ratios represented the balance between "physical solidification" and "logical structure."
Andy's finger lingered over the [3:7] option.
According to STC annotations, this was the most widely applied specification among Necron technological products.
"This one."
Andy inputted the command.
The nanofluid on the platform began to restructure.
A few minutes later, the fluid receded.
A black plate roughly the size of a palm and twenty centimeters thick lay quietly in the center of the platform.
Its surface was entirely matte, yet it felt warm and smooth to the touch—less like metal and more like a type of jade.
Andy immediately ran a deep scan on the plate.
The returned data instantly clarified the meaning behind "3:7."
Inside this plate, 30% of the material structure existed in a "deadlocked" state.
The deadlocked portion formed the rigid skeleton of the material, determining its basic physical strength, heat resistance, and corrosion resistance.
No matter how much stress it endured, this 30% structure remained unchanged, guaranteeing the baseline stability required of an industrial material.
The remaining 70% consisted of nanite scarabs in an "active" state.
This portion of matter could be programmed via external electronic signals.
They could flow and reorganize within the gaps of the skeleton, altering the plate's localized shape to form specific functional interfaces.
To put it simply, this was a piece of metal that was "hard, yet malleable."
A [9:1] specification would mean 90% deadlock—essentially an ultra-high-strength armor plate. Extremely hard, but with virtually no deformation capability, typically used for main armor plating.
A [5:5] specification offered a balanced profile, possessing both strength and a degree of deformation, making it suitable for structural connectors.
As for the greyed-out [2:8] specification...
Andy guessed it was likely reserved for highly advanced precision components. An 80% programmable volume meant it could simulate extremely complex internal mechanical structures.
The reason it was greyed out came down to a system prompt:
[Insufficient current sample purity / Resolution limit reached.]
[Estimated conversion loss rate exceeds 10%; flagged as manufacturing failure.]
That was just how the analysis station operated: whenever the loss rate exceeded tolerance, it refused to run to prevent wasting materials.
Yet even at the [3:7] specification, it was already impressive enough for Andy.
He turned the plate over in his hands, inspecting it from every angle.
Under the STC's high-magnification view, the internal layout of the plate exhibited a breathtaking level of integration.
If the Jokaero focused primarily on energy integration, the Necrons focused on technological integration.
In the industrial system of the Imperium of Man, if you wanted to achieve a function—say, "rotation"—you needed a motor, gears, bearings, lubricant, and a casing, all assembled together.
In the Necron tech tree, however, that entire logic was completely abandoned.
Inside this plate, there were no independent components.
Every microscopic unit served simultaneously as structural support, power source, and logic circuit.
Furthermore, Andy noticed a fascinating detail.
Humanity—even during the Golden Age of technology—relied on core photoelectric conversion built upon semiconductor physics: diodes, transistors, field-effect transistors, and the like.
Logic operations and energy conversion were achieved by controlling electron flow through semiconductors.
Though manufacturing techniques reached the atomic level, the core principle never changed.
Yet the Necron Canoptek Construct contained no diodes.
Its photoelectric conversion and signal transmission relied on holographic force fields.
Nanite units did not communicate via electrical currents, but through microscopic, invisible force field beams.
Upon entering the material, photons were directly captured, refracted, and stored by this force field, converting into energy or signals.
This meant it required no complex circuit boards, no microchips, and not even dedicated batteries.
The Canoptek Construct itself was the battery, the microchip, and the motor.
As long as it was charged and fed commands, the plate would actuate, calculate, and emit light on its own.
By comparison, the Imperium's tech—connecting servo-skulls with thick, clumsy cables and driving mechanical arms with pistons—was practically primitive!
Even Andy's T-9000 exoskeleton and Pointman power armor, despite using top-tier materials, were essentially assemblies of distinct individual parts.
The Canoptek Construct solved every issue right at the material level.
Granted, this universal Canoptek Construct couldn't match the performance ceiling of mimicry poly-alloys, which could be customized at will.
Its true strength lay in mass production and stability.
As long as he had enough Necron wreckage—even mere scraps—Andy could continuously produce standard [3:7] universal plates.
He could then use these plates to craft internal components far superior to standard Imperial specifications.
In truth, Andy had never intended to integrate Necron technology into his primary industrial system from the start.
That was an inevitable conclusion.
In Andy's grand blueprint, whether it was the bio-engineering of the Reiss, the Wraithbone of the Aeldari, or the Canoptek Constructs of the Necrons, all were merely "transitional technologies."
They were convenient, yes, but far too dependent on scavenging; output depended entirely on luck.
Unless one could reverse-engineer the underlying principles like the Jokaero or the T'au, finding a Necron tomb today meant nothing if no bones were left to pick tomorrow.
Building the core tech tree of Deep Space Industry on such erratic external supply meant the slightest disruption could crash the whole operation.
Besides, as an Iron Man, Andy possessed a strong inner inclination.
In his subconscious, only the standardized, mass-producible, complex-variable logic-based Golden Age technologies in the STC database were capable of anchoring a galaxy-spanning super-civilization.
As for these alien black technologies, they were best used as emergency plugins—handy for crafting specialized components or solving niche engineering hurdles.
Relying on them to climb the technology tree was impractical; the supply fell far short, and Andy simply lacked the inclination.
Be that as it may—
He might as well enjoy using it for now!
Horisen Fortress, Underground East District.
This place had already turned into a black ocean.
Clang.
The last piece of newly converted black plate was grabbed by a mechanical arm and stacked neatly onto the nearby pallet.
Andy stood on the elevated platform, looking down at the mountain of materials piled below.
Universal Necron structural plates.
All of them were standardized components in the "3-7" specification—universal, jack-of-all-trades models.
The quantity was enormous: a full three hundred tons.
These past few days, Andy had barely given Hulie any rest.
Squeezing her dry.
Crazy squeezing.
The moment the girl even thought about slacking off a little, Andy's voice would ring out right on schedule over the broadcast, reminding her that today's KPI still hadn't been met.
Under this high-intensity exploitation, all the accumulated Necron scarab remains, ghost spine bones, and all sorts of miscellaneous low-grade undead junk had been completely converted into this standardized industrial raw material.
As for those two most precious living metal plates, plus a whole pile of absurdly high-end components—
Andy hadn't touched them.
He had people carefully seal those things away in the core constant-temperature zone and even specially added combination locks.
The reason was simple: the current technical reserves weren't enough.
Materials of this level—until perfect processing techniques were worked out, no one was allowed to touch them even a little!
Andy was a classic hamster-type player.
Good stuff had to be saved for the late game; early on you just made do with the scraps!
"Alright, this batch is done."
Andy glanced at the progress bar and finally showed mercy, issuing the shutdown command.
Beside the circular platform below, Hulie collapsed into a chair, her face even paler than a corpse's.
The light had gone out of those green eyes; her entire being radiated a "I want to die" aura of exhaustion.
Although operating the analysis station didn't require physical strength, it demanded extremely intense mental concentration and computational guidance.
Working nonstop for three days and nights straight, even with the phase neural nodes supporting her, her brain was about to boil over.
"Go rest. I'm giving you half a day off."
Andy said casually, then turned and walked into a temporary laboratory next door.
He hadn't been idle either.
Besides supervising the work these past few days, Andy had poured all his remaining computational power into an extremely dull, profound, and anti-human task.
Studying.
Studying Necron multidimensional geometry.
Although he now had Hulie as a humanoid universal key—just toss something at her and she could probably handle it—
Andy's underlying logic was that of an Iron Man.
Iron Men trusted no one, not even their own kind, let alone a half-human, half-Necron super biological weapon.
Core technology had to be held in his own hands!
Even if it was only a superficial grasp, even if it was only a rough understanding of the principles, it was still better than being completely in the dark.
If Hulie ever ran off one day, Andy had no intention of letting all the equipment in his hands turn into scrap metal!
Andy walked over to the workbench and picked up a black sphere only the size of a fist.
This was the result of his studies over the past two days.
A stitched-together monstrosity cobbled from STC technology and Necron geometry.
[Necron Sonar Probe].
Andy had flipped through the STC database and found a blueprint for something called the "Echo"-type tactical sonar detection unit.
Its principle was to emit high-frequency sound waves and use echolocation to construct a three-dimensional map.
Originally pretty ordinary, but these past few days, as Andy hard-core studied Necron geometry, he had actually managed to spot a bit of a trick.
He discovered that the reason Necron ghosts could phase through walls and turn invisible was because their surfaces were covered by a special phase-shift force field.
This force field could put matter into a superposition state of "both existing and not existing."
So Andy came up with a bold idea.
What if he installed this kind of phase-shift force field generator onto the sonar probe?
Sound waves attenuate when passing through objects, but if wrapped in a phase force field, the sound waves could ignore the obstruction of matter, directly penetrate walls, rock layers, even energy shields, and see the internal structures crystal clear.
A true physics-based wallhack!
In theory it was perfect, but during the actual manufacturing process Andy nearly drove himself into a rage.
Because the underlying logic of these two systems completely conflicted.
One was based on human physics of acoustic vibration; the other was based on Necron technology of dimensional interference.
To fuse them together required extremely complex transcoding and coordination.
Andy had brute-forced it with computational enumeration, trial-and-error tens of thousands of times, before finally managing to produce this one prototype in his hand.
Right now this thing only had a shell and a core generator; it didn't even have a driver program.
Because the real-time computational load it required was too massive. Andy's current processors still had to monitor the entire defense system of Horisen Fortress and simply couldn't spare enough threads to run this damn probe.
"Hulie!"
Andy shouted toward the door.
Hulie, who had just been about to go sleep, stiffened all over and shuffled over slowly: "If you dare make me work overtime again I'll die right in front of you."
"Don't look like that. Good news."
Andy tossed the probe to her.
"Hook it up."
Hulie instinctively caught the probe, glanced at it, then put on an expression as if looking at an idiot.
"You stuffed a human sonar into a phase generator? Who are you trying to blow up?"
"I didn't tell you to blow anything up." Andy pointed at his own head. "I don't have enough computational power. The phase calibration on this thing is too troublesome."
"Hang it on your neural nodes, use your brain as the server, and help me run the driver."
Hulie: "?"
"I am a noble Mechanicus adept! Not your external graphics card!!!"
Andy: "I've been arranging the renovation of a single-occupancy suite lately."
Hulie fell silent for two seconds.
Then quietly pressed the probe against the neural interface on the back of her neck.
Hum.
The probe lit up with a ring of eerie green light and floated into the air.
Hulie's eyes instantly went vacant as a massive data stream began flooding through her neural network.
Although her mouth said no, no, her body was very honest—and her performance was truly powerful.
The complex phase algorithms that gave even Andy a headache were as simple as 1+1 inside her brain.
"Come on, let's go test the effect."
Andy took Hulie to the edge of that enormous aerospace shaft.
"Throw the probe down."
Hulie controlled the floating probe, letting it slowly descend into the bottomless darkness.
Andy immediately connected his visual sensors to the data port Hulie was sharing.
The image unfolded.
It wasn't an ordinary optical image, but a three-dimensional perspective view composed of lines and color blocks.
The black rock walls turned into semi-transparent gray grids in his field of view.
Obstacles that originally blocked the line of sight had all vanished.
The probe continued diving.
It passed through that thick rock partition, passed through the sealed gates.
The scene below was fully displayed before Andy's eyes without reservation.
There was a massive underground nest.
Dense red light dots represented living lifeforms one after another.
"Quantity—so many."
Andy looked at those red dots as the STC automatically counted.
[Target count: 5992.]
Nearly six thousand Lichs!
This number was a bit higher than Andy's previous estimate.
Moreover, interspersed among these red dots were several hundred large light spots of extremely high brightness.
Those were the Lich elite units—combat capabilities that completely crushed the scythe sentinels that had gone back and forth with Kerber that day.
His gaze continued downward.
In the deepest part of the nest, at the core position of the huge mid-level maintenance base 4,500 meters down.
There was an extremely massive red light cluster that occupied half the screen.
It wasn't moving, just quietly lying there, connected to countless thick pipelines around it.
The Lich nest lord.
It was continuously producing new larvae while also directing the operations of the entire swarm.
"Finally found you."
Andy looked at that big red dot, his mood somewhat complicated.
With this probe, the reconnaissance problem that had been giving him a headache was completely solved.
Moreover, this experiment had also verified another thing.
That was Necron communication technology.
In this underground depth full of electromagnetic interference, radio signals should have long been gone.
But Hulie could still clearly control that probe and transmit high-definition data in real time.
Because Necron communications relied on holographic force fields, they ignored terrain, ignored distance, and had no lag!
This meant that the plan Andy had previously thought of—bitterly laying fiber optic cables and setting up relays—could be directly scrapped.
As long as he fully mastered this set of technology, it would be equivalent to possessing an all-terrain, no-blind-spot battlefield communication network.
"Alright, pull it back."
Andy cut the connection.
Hulie's body swayed slightly as the probe shot upward at high speed and flew back into her hand.
She rubbed her temples; her complexion looked even worse. Clearly this high-intensity computational load wasn't easy for her either.
"Go back and rest. This time I'm really giving you time off."
Andy waved his hand, dismissing the tool person.
He stood alone at the edge of the platform, looking into the darkness below.
Now that he had seen the enemy's true strength clearly, it was time to consider how to fight.
Six thousand Lichs, several hundred elite units, plus a nest lord of unknown depth.
This bone was very hard.
If he sent the Storm Squad and the heavy guard team down for a direct assault—
Andy simulated it in his mind.
The terrain was narrow, cover was abundant—that was the Lichs' home ground.
Human soldiers going down, no matter how good their equipment, would get bogged down in a bitter fight.
Casualties were inevitable.
Andy shook his head.
No.
The few soldiers he currently had were all seeds, future officer corps material. Losing even one would pain his heart.
Trading elites for xenos lives—this deal was a loss all the way to grandma's house.
Then send servitors?
That wouldn't work either. Although Type-2 combat servitors weren't afraid of death, their intelligence was too low.
In this kind of complex three-dimensional environment, they would easily be split up and surrounded by the Lichs using the terrain, then picked off one by one.
No matter how many he built, it would just be feeding kills.
Moreover, the servitors' firepower was insufficient; they were still holding high-explosive crossbows and chainswords, lacking suppression power.
He needed a new type of unit.
A heavy unit that was thick-skinned, ferocious in firepower, and could adapt to complex terrain.
It had to be able to stand at the very front, ignore the Lichs' scythes and stealth ambushes, and push forward with absolute firepower and armor.
"Robots."
That word popped into Andy's mind.
Not the kind of servitors that only followed orders, but true heavy combat robots with a certain degree of autonomous combat capability.
Like those few cleaning robots Little Six had.
Moreover, the STC database had ready-made blueprints.
["Fortress"-class assault robot].
Four meters tall, fully enclosed heavy armor, both arms equipped with rotary machine cannons and flamethrowers, plus a missile launcher nest on its back.
If this thing was built and plugged into a passageway, no matter how many Lichs came, they would all die.
"Build it!"
Andy immediately returned to the workshop and pulled up the blueprint.
Materials were ready.
The warehouse was piled full of the universal Necron structural plates that had just been converted.
High strength, and they could even change local shape through programming—perfect for making robots.
Andy eagerly got to work.
He used the idle units of the precision machining center to cut out the robot's skeleton.
Then he stuck the Necron plates on piece by piece to form the armor.
This step went very smoothly.
In less than two hours, a majestic robot shell was standing on the workbench.
Matte black armor, ferocious design—it looked extremely reassuring.
"Next is the core."
Andy took out several high-performance servo motors and a fire-control program chip he had written himself.
He began the internal assembly.
However—
A problem appeared.
Click.
Andy tried to connect the control wires of the servo motors to the energy interfaces of the Necron plates.
No response. Completely no response.
The nano-scarab swarms inside the Necron plates simply didn't recognize electrical signals.
They only recognized holographic force field beams!
"Tsk, this is a bit troublesome."
Andy frowned.
It was like taking a USB plug and forcing it into a high-voltage power line—not only wouldn't it go in, the logic didn't work either.
The STC blueprints were designed based on electronic circuit logic; all the sensors, drivers, and controllers were driven by electric current.
But the materials in his hands were based on Necron phase technology and force field conduction.
These two systems had true "reproductive isolation."
Andy didn't believe in evil. He began trying to hand-craft a transcoder.
He used universal wires as bridges, attempting to convert electrical signals into force field beams.
Failure.
Signal delay as high as 2.33 seconds; when the robot moved it looked like it was having a stroke.
He then tried modifying the underlying logic of the STC, wanting the control chip to adapt to the Necron conduction method.
Failure.
The chip directly overloaded and burned out.
He tossed and turned for a full five hours.
Andy's workbench was piled high with scorched circuit boards and discarded parts.
That robot that looked so mighty was still just an empty shell; it couldn't even move a finger.
Andy sat in the chair, feeling that the temperature of his processor core had already spiked to the red line.
The fans behind his head were whirring.
"This makes no sense—"
"This isn't scientific—"
Andy looked at that pile of scrap metal and fell into deep self-doubt.
He was an Iron Man!
A crystallization of Golden Age technology!
How could he not even be able to cobble together a slightly advanced robot?
If this got out, wouldn't he be mocked as an interstellar joke for ten thousand years?!
But the facts were just like this.
The barriers between technical systems were sometimes thicker than dimensional walls.
He understood human technology and also had a superficial grasp of some xenos technology.
But that didn't mean he could perfectly fuse the two together.
Especially when it involved the most fundamental things like core logic and energy transmission—any slight incompatibility and the entire system would collapse.
"Forget it. Destroy it."
Andy slammed the welding gun onto the table.
He gave up.
Rather than stubbornly grinding away in a field he wasn't good at, it was better to—
Find a professional?
In Andy's mind floated the image of a certain figure who, although looking dejected, had absolute talent when it came to handling Necron technology.
Hulie.
She was a Necron outcast, and her brain still contained advanced Necron control protocols.
This kind of cross-system fusion problem was a heavenly tome to Andy, but to her it might just be instinct.
"Leave professional matters to professionals."
Andy instantly found himself a perfect step down.
This was called knowing people and assigning them well!
This was called management wisdom!
Absolutely not because he sucked!
Andy immediately picked up that rough sketch that he had already drawn into a complete mess, covered in all kinds of correction marks and irritable annotations.
He listed a new set of requirements on it.
[Requirement: Heavy bipedal combat mecha.]
[Height: 4–5 meters.]
[Armor: Fully enclosed Necron plates (make it thick!).]
[Weapons: Left hand twin-linked rotary bolt cannon, right hand high-frequency oscillation greatsword.]
[Power: Back-mounted hybrid power pack.]
[Core requirements: Can move! Can fight! Obeys commands! Tough and durable!]
After writing these.
Andy took this "design drawing" and strode out of the workshop.
Employee dormitory area.
Hulie had just finished showering and was lying on the bed, preparing to enjoy her hard-won vacation.
Bang!
The door was knocked on.
Hulie buried her head in the pillow, pretending not to hear.
"Open up, delivery."
From outside came Andy's completely emotionless electronic voice.
Hulie sighed, climbed up with a look of utter despair, wrapped in a bath towel, and opened the door.
Andy stood in the doorway.
Without a word, he directly shoved that rough sketch into Hulie's face.
"Vacation canceled."
Andy pointed at the stick-figure-like mecha doodle on the sketch.
And said with complete confidence: "You, go make me a Gundam!"
Hulie: ???
No point in beating around the bush.
Without guessing, Andy knew exactly what expression the girl had on her face at this very moment.
Most likely, an expression that said she wanted to bite someone.
Andy admitted that his move this time was pretty ruthless.
There was no defending it: barging in to assign tasks just as the girl finished her bath and was ready to enjoy her day off was definitely not nice!
However, Andy also felt he was a reasonable, albeit ruthless, boss.
He hadn't set a hard deadline for Hulie this time.
If Hulie wanted to slack off, sleep, or draw a turtle on that blueprint to curse him out, Andy didn't care in the slightest.
As long as the machine was built in the end, it was fine.
Most importantly, Suite 1001 on the tenth floor of Building A in the residential area had already been cleaned up by his orders.
It was fitted with a complete, independent bathroom system, with the hot water pipe directly connected to the heat exchanger to guarantee twenty-four-hour hot water.
This was the carrot Andy had prepared for Hulie.
The moment that mecha started running, the room key would be hers.
On this wasteland planet, living conditions like these were far more effective than any empty promises.
Back in the workshop.
The holographic screen lit up, displaying an airspace map of the area surrounding Fort Horizon.
Thirty-eight green dots were moving slowly along set orbits.
"Sky Canopy-1" low-orbit base stations.
Speaking of which, the production line for the small balloons had actually been paused for a while.
After manufacturing the first batch of twenty back then, Andy had ordered the line shut down.
At the time, Reagan and his thousand-plus skilled workers hadn't arrived yet.
With only a few hundred people in the entire base, who also had to maintain the production of ammunition and firearms, they simply couldn't spare the hands to craft small balloons.
Insufficient capacity required compromises.
Later, however, the situation changed.
Reagan arrived, creating a surplus of labor. Furthermore, after Andy launched the balloons for the first time, he realized that the visual coverage provided by these things far exceeded his expectations.
So, two weeks ago, Andy made a grand gesture and restarted the production line.
After working overtime during this period, the number of balloons floating in the sky had reached thirty-eight.
This quantity was already enough to keep every detail around Fort Horizon crystal clear.
On the screen, green scanning grids covered 95% of the ruins city.
In reality, however, this was just an abstract figure.
The area currently controlled and developed by Deep Space Industry only amounted to the southern portion, covering roughly 20% of the total ruins.
The remaining vast area remained pitch black.
Especially to the north.
Andy dragged the map northward.
The northern border of Fort Horizon was a nearly vertical cliff face, beyond which lay a plateau region.
Andy had specifically sent several drones over to inspect it last week.
The terrain was extremely treacherous, filled with scattered rocks and chasms, and the ecological environment was incredibly bizarre.
All sorts of strangely mutated plants ran rampant there; some vines could even drag drones right out of the sky.
Aside from a few scattered, abandoned ore veins visible on the cliffs, that side held almost no development value—at least, so it seemed for now.
Moreover, those mutated plants looked highly aggressive. Recklessly poking around over there would yield no returns and instead risk bringing a world of trouble upon themselves.
In any case, Andy felt that since there was no profit to be made, it was best left alone for now.
Thus, after watching the footage sent back by the drones, Andy directly instructed Little Six to adjust the surveillance strategy.
The originally circular surveillance perimeter was compressed, turning into an ellipse centered around Fort Horizon.
The focus shifted to monitoring the southern half, as well as the wilderness extending fifty kilometers to the south.
After all, both threats and business came from the south.
Those plants in the north weren't going to grow legs and march over to siege the city.
Speaking of which, the curve representing the output power of the geothermal power station had been a bit shaky recently.
Hmm—
A slight power shortage.
This was actually within expectations.
The factory was expanding and equipment was being added; in particular, the current precision machining center and the reconstructor were massive power hogs.
Although Andy had added several more sets of heat exchangers, the production capacity of the geothermal wells ultimately had its limit.
Still, the situation wasn't critical yet.
It was just the occasional voltage instability, alongside a few non-core areas needing power rationing for a few hours.
They were still a long way off from the kind of total blackout energy crisis!
Andy made a note in his log.
This issue had to be resolved after the mecha project, most likely requiring the reactor to be brought online or finding new high-energy fuel.
Back on the map.
Andy focused the display on the southern gate entrance of Fort Horizon.
Recently, a massive undertaking called the " Gate Project" was underway to the south—a project Andy had devised to solve the base's defense issues.
Progress was going fairly smoothly.
Although it had dragged on for nearly a month, they hadn't encountered much resistance along the way, nor did it consume too much production capacity.
Though Fort Horizon had city walls, it was previously an open city with too many entrances that were far too wide.
If someone drove a landship and charged in recklessly, it would be easy to break through.
Therefore, at the main southern entrance, Andy utilized the elevation differences in the terrain along with a large number of abandoned high-rises to construct a massive, pass-like structure.
Six giant concrete plinths had already been poured, lined up on both sides of the road.
In the middle was a heavy elevating portcullis currently being installed.
This portcullis was pieced together from armor plates salvaged from landship wrecks, exceeding a meter in thickness and weighing several hundred tons.
Combined with the surrounding automated turrets and anti-ship trenches, once installed, it would form an insurmountable barrier.
Preliminary results were already visible.
Now, it was virtually impossible for small and medium landships to enter within ten kilometers of Fort Horizon.
Blocking the road was a minor issue; it was primarily the anti-ship trenches doing the work.
Most scavengers and small merchant caravans were sensible enough to take a detour upon seeing the Gate.
Those who had trade dealings with Fort Horizon usually stopped outside to wait for Sisyphron to send someone to make contact.
However.
There were always some ill-mannered individuals.
Andy looked at the surveillance screen.
A medium-sized landship painted with red stripes was moving along the edge of the frame.
It showed no intention of detouring, ignoring the flashing red warning lights beside the road, and drove straight over a patch of ruins by the roadside.
Its tracks kicked up towering clouds of dust as it forced its way through an under-construction open lot beside the Gate.
The newly laid foundations were crushed to pieces, forcing several working engineering servitors to shut down and dodge out of the way.
The ship strutted right under the nose of Deep Space Industry, doing so simply to take a shortcut to the eastern mining area.
Watching this scene, Andy felt a strange surge of annoyance.
This wasn't the first time.
Lately, such incidents occurred frequently.
Particularly those larger landships—relying on their thick armor, they paid no heed to Deep Space Industry's warnings.
They viewed this as ownerless wasteland; in the past, before you moved in, anyone could come by and do as they pleased.
Now that you're here, I'll still pass through whenever I want—what can you possibly do to me?
Some ships even blew their horns mockingly as they passed, or threw trash onto the city walls.
Though they didn't launch a direct attack, it was immensely irritating.
Mainly, it gave no peace of mind!
It was like having a newly paved road right outside your doorstep, only for heavy trucks to drive over it daily, breaking the road and leaving everything covered in dust!
"Sisyphron," Andy dialed into the comms. "What's wrong with these people? Can't they read road signs?"
On the other end of the line, Sisyphron's voice sounded somewhat helpless.
"Andy, this matter... is a bit complicated."
"How is it complicated?"
"It's a matter of standing," Sisyphron explained.
"Although Captain Huck registered us over at Anchor Port last week and gave us a wave of publicity..."
"However, locally in Zais, within the official records of the Korenbic Trade Zone, 'Deep Space Industry' does not exist as a registered entity."
"In the eyes of those local warlords, we're just a bunch of unregistered pop-ups."
"For now, they only recognize the name Sisyphron, knowing there's a medicine seller here."
"But they don't acknowledge this territory as ours."
"In their unwritten rules, only factions formally registered in the Trade Zone that have paid a security deposit have the right to designate restricted zones."
"Otherwise, this is a public area, and anyone can pass through."
Andy let out a chuckle.
"So this place has turned into a public restroom?"
"More or less," Sisyphron sighed. "And lately I've heard rumors that many landship captains are very dissatisfied with our Gate Project."
"They claim we are setting up checkpoints on public roads to target them, which shows a lack of trust."
"Some people are swearing on public channels, saying they'll team up to tear down our Gate."
Andy gained a general understanding.
Targeting them?
A lack of trust?
When these bandits and marauders usually killed and robbed, why didn't they talk about trust?
Now that I build a gate, these people suddenly start talking about trust?
"Let them curse," Andy said calmly. "The mouths are on their bodies; I can't control them."
"However, the Gate must be built."
As for registering?
He couldn't be bothered to handle any registration.
On this wasteland, firepower was the supreme rule.
As long as he had enough cannons and thick enough walls, this was a restricted zone.
Whether you acknowledged it or not.
As for those voices of dissatisfaction...
Hilarious. If you're dissatisfied, am I supposed to just stop?
He could hardly wait for these people to come try and tear it down!
It just so happened that there was a surplus of munitions recently. If they could send a few more landships over to serve as mining nodes, Andy would welcome them with open arms.