Two Dense Alloy Plates. Ten units of salvage. A pittance against the mountain of need, but they gleamed in the Core Chamber's light like holy relics. They represented a new vector—internal exploitation. But as Isaac watched the second plate materialize from the salvaged material of the Scrapjack's own prison, a cold realization settled over him. The cost was too high.
He had sent three units down. They had returned with two plates, having triggered an ambush and barely escaped a collapsing ceiling. To extract the remaining eighteen plates, and the crystals, he would need to fight that Scrapjack, and likely others, in that unstable, spore-filled tomb. The risk-to-reward ratio was unacceptable with his current strength. He needed a dedicated solution for underground combat.
He turned his attention back to the golden thread on his map. SD-001, the salvage drone, had reached Nexus Gamma-7. Its status indicator blinked steadily. [Harvesting: Volatile Crystal Fragments… 0.1… 0.1…] The increments were tiny, agonizingly slow. It would be days before it filled its hopper and began the return trip. The trickle was real, but it was a drip in a desert.
He was caught between two painfully slow resource streams. He needed to accelerate one. The internal stream was richer but blocked by a tactical problem. The external stream was open but pitifully thin.
The answer, as always, was scaling. More drones. More soldiers. The Barracks Level 1 upgrade was the gateway. It dangled before him, its prerequisite now satisfied by the humming link to the Nexus. He had the Essence (110). He had the Crystals (2, but the ten refined crystals below were worth 30 units). He was short 40 units of salvage.
He looked at the two alloy plates. Ten units. He needed thirty more. He could…
His eyes went to the walls of the Core Chamber itself. The ancient, immovable stone. The System's analysis scrolled as he focused on a section of undecorated wall. [Material: Fortress-Grade Basalt. Structural Integrity: High. Salvage Value: 0.05 per cubic foot.]
Dismantling his own fortress for parts. It was the act of a starving man chewing his own flesh for sustenance. A profound desperation. Yet, was it any different from harvesting the dead storage below? This entire place was a corpse. He was a scavenger on a galactic scale.
"No," he said aloud, the word flat in the quiet chamber. He would not cannibalize the structural integrity of his only stronghold. There had to be another way.
The Manufactorum. The Basic Resource Processor. It increased yield by 25%. If he could process the low-grade stone and metal he already had, maybe he could stretch it to meet the upgrade cost. But the processor itself cost salvage he didn't have.
A closed loop. A maddening circle.
He needed a third vector. A windfall.
His gaze drifted to the southern edge of his map, to the faint, intermittent ping: Ancient Signal – Bastion Origin. Four kilometers away. At the very edge of the scan range. Another piece of the dead civilization. A wrecked vehicle? A fallen satellite? A smaller outpost?
It was a risk. A major one. Four kilometers across the open Blasted Plain was a journey through a shooting gallery for Stalkers. He'd need to take his entire garrison, leaving the Nexus and the Bastion itself vulnerable. But the potential reward… a intact piece of Bastion tech could provide salvage, schematics, maybe even a partial power source.
Or it could be a tomb, picked clean and swarming with Gloom.
He couldn't decide based on a ghost signal. He needed eyes. He needed a scout that wasn't a precious, slow-to-replace Militia unit.
The Barracks Level 0 production menu offered no scouts. But the design interface… he had created a mortar from a grenade. Could he create a scout from… something else?
He had the drone schematic. The Salvage Drone was slow, unarmed, with basic sensors. What if he stripped it down? Made it faster, more sensor-focused, even more expendable?
He called up the design interface, loading the Salvage Drone schematic. "Create variant. Objective: High-speed reconnaissance. Remove material collection apparatus and hopper. Reduce armor. Prioritize leg articulation for rough terrain and speed. Enhance optical and sensor suite range. Designate: Scout Drone – 'Skitter' class."
The system processed. The holographic drone shed its bulky hopper and grippers. Its legs became longer, more slender. Its sensor cluster expanded.
Design: Scout Drone ('Skitter'). Cost: 18 Essence, 8 Salvage (S/M), 1 Crystal.
Capabilities: High speed, extended sensor range (1km), low-profile, minimal combat ability.
It was cheaper than a Militia (2 Essence, 1 Salvage) but far more fragile. However, it could cover ground a Militia couldn't, and if it died, he wasn't losing a soldier with hundreds of hours of potential service.
He had 0.3 salvage. He needed 8. He looked again at the two alloy plates. The processor would increase their yield from 10 to 12.5. Not enough.
Then a brutal, simple calculation presented itself. He didn't need the plates for salvage. He needed them for mass. For a distraction.
"M-001," he said, turning to his original unit. "You are to take one Dense Alloy Plate back to the Sub-Level 1 storage chamber entrance. Do not descend. You are to make noise at the hatch. Draw the Scrapjack's attention to that location. Then, you will retreat at maximum speed back here. Do not engage. Your only goal is to make it follow you to the hatch."
He then turned to the Barracks console. "Manufacture one Militia unit. Designate it M-000. No standard weapon." A sacrificial unit, built for one purpose.
While M-001 hauled a plate back to the Depot and the new unit built, Isaac went to the Manufactorum. He had 2 Crystals left. He allocated Essence and his last meager 0.3 salvage, plus one Crystal, to produce a single item from a greyed-out schematic he'd seen earlier—a schematic that required crystals he never had until now.
Fabricating: Demolition Charge (Light). Cost: 5 Essence, 0.3 Salvage (S/M), 1 Crystal. ETA: 8 minutes.
Eight minutes later, M-000, a silent, unarmed Militia, stood before him. Isaac handed it the Demolition Charge—a brick of dull grey composite with a simple pressure trigger.
"M-000. You will follow M-001's path. When M-001 retreats and the Scrapjack is at the hatch, pursuing, you will place this charge on the hatch mechanism, activate it, and retreat. Your objective is to seal the hatch with the creature on the other side. Do you understand?"
"Understood. Bait, seal, retreat."
It was a cold, ugly plan. Use a plate as bait, a unit as a lure, and a blank as a bomber, to trap a monster and hopefully collapse the access tunnel. It would sacrifice the underground cache for now, but it would also neutralize an immediate internal threat and buy him time. And the plate used as bait would likely be lost.
But he was trading a potential future resource (the cache) for an immediate resource (the safety to build a scout) to find a possible greater resource (the southern signal).
It was a chain of gambles. The arithmetic of desperation.
He gave the order.
He watched on the internal sensors as M-001 reached the depot hatch, slammed the heavy alloy plate against it rhythmically, creating a tremendous CLANG-CLANG-CLANG that echoed down the shaft. Then, as per orders, M-001 dropped the plate, turned, and ran.
The Scrapjack's screech of rage was audible even in the Core Chamber. The seismic sensor showed it moving, fast, up the tunnel toward the noise.
M-000 moved in. The feed from its optical sensor showed the hatch from above. The Scrapjack's metallic limbs were just beginning to claw up into view, drawn by the sound of the abandoned plate.
M-000 placed the charge on the hatch wheel, pressed the trigger, and turned to run.
Five seconds.
The Scrapjack's main body shoved into the hatchway, its glowing mold-core pulsing with fury.
KABOOM!
The Demolition Charge wasn't for fragmentation. It was shaped, concussive. The blast blew the heavy hatch assembly inward, down the shaft, directly onto the emerging creature. Simultaneously, it triggered a collapse in the tunnel roof just below the depot level. A roar of falling rock swallowed the Scrapjack's final screech. The seismic sensor went wild, then still.
Internal Threat Neutralized: Scrapjack (Tier-1).
Sub-Level 1 Access: Sealed/Collapsed.
He had closed a door. Maybe permanently. He'd lost a cache and an access point. He'd spent Essence, his last crystal, and created a unit for a suicide mission.
M-000 returned, unscathed. The plan had worked with sterile precision.
And now, he had one Dense Alloy Plate left. 5 units of salvage. And a clear, if temporarily blocked, internal frontier.
He allocated the last plate to the Manufactorum. "Begin production of the Scout Drone – Skitter variant. Use all remaining applicable salvage."
The drone began to build. In twenty minutes, it was done. SD-002 (Skitter) was faster, sleeker, its legs a blur of motion as it tested them. It looked like a mechanical spider designed by a paranoid engineer.
"Scout Drone SD-002. Primary Directive: Proceed to coordinates of the Ancient Signal, south-south-west. Maximum stealth. Map terrain, identify threats, and perform a close-range scan of the signal source. Do not engage. Return immediately if detected. Go."
The Skitter chirped, turned, and scuttled out the postern gate and into the Blasted Plain. On the map, its blue dot began moving south at a pace that made the salvage drone look stationary.
Isaac sat on the cold floor, his back against the Core, watching the two drones on his map: one a slow, steady pulse at the Nexus, harvesting fragments of power. The other a swift, darting arrow shooting into the unknown, seeking a legacy.
He had quieted the dead below by burying them. Now he sent a new kind of quiet into the world, a silent observer to find what other dead things might help him live.
The economy of survival wasn't just about income. It was about investment, and sacrifice, and the relentless pursuit of the next asset, no matter how distant or how buried.