Over the alkaline flats north of Fort Horson, massive air currents were kicking up swirls of sand and dust.
Captain Hark's cruiser, the *Bull*, had finished all its resupply and trading work. With its engines emitting a low, rumbling roar, the vessel slowly ascended into the sky.
The old rogue trader was in a terrible hurry to leave.
After all, he was currently sitting on a shipment of high-end weaponry he had just bought from Andy, along with a mountain of refurbished second-hand equipment—stuff that had originally been total junk but was now looking prime and slick for sale.
For Rogue Traders, time was money. He needed to catch the tail end of the current market trend to offload his cargo and convert it into even more resources.
Down on the ground plaza, Cicefron's convoy rumbled into view.
Although the procurement trip had been a bit turbulent—and had even involved a brief use of force halfway through—the end result was fantastic.
The beds of several dozen heavy trucks were packed to the brim with all sorts of refrigeration units and shockproof crates.
"Careful, everyone! Handle with care!"
Standing on the command platform with a megaphone in hand, Cicefron yelled at the top of his lungs: "Even if you break your own legs, don't you dare drop those crates!"
"What's inside here is our production capacity for the entire next quarter!"
The burly men of the Fifth Engineering Department were stripped to the waist, chanting in unison as they hauled the heavy crates toward the entrance of the underground core constant-temperature zone.
It was a scene of bustling activity.
Reagan didn't join in the commotion.
Clutching the black-oil-stained data slate tightly in his hands like a thief, he slipped out from the side of the convoy.
Trotting all the way, he entered the black high-rise tower standing in the center of the base.
The Science Tower.
Namely, this tower served as Deep Space Industries' administrative center and supreme research facility.
In reality, however, the place was eerily quiet.
After Andy took over, he hadn't fully renovated the tower. He had merely connected the water and power supply, fixed the elevator, and slightly refurbished his living quarters on the third floor.
Reagan stepped into the main hall.
Beneath his feet was a thick, soft gray carpet, and above him was the soft, bright glow of LED light strips.
It was undeniably comfortable, but there really was no one around.
The vast hall was empty, without even a front-desk receptionist.
Honestly, this was pretty ridiculous.
In normal circumstances, any warlord or leader of a major faction—even a gang boss with a mere few hundred men—would post a dozen burly thugs on guard duty at the front entrance.
A sentry every three steps, a guard every five, practically craving to advertise "I'm a Big Deal" right on their faces.
Andy, however, didn't bother with any of that.
Inside the Science Tower, forget bodyguards, there wasn't even a proper automated defense turret installed. Only a few scattered surveillance cameras were mounted at corners, and one of them didn't even seem to be plugged in.
As a soul from the M2 era, while Andy enjoyed a comfortable office environment, he was utterly too lazy to bother with defensive setups like these.
Besides, Andy was an Iron Man himself, packing absurd single-unit combat capabilities. If an assassin actually managed to sneak in, they would be in for an absolute nightmare.
Furthermore, the core members of Deep Space Industries—whether Roger, Bauer, or Cicefron—were all tied to the same boat as Andy. None of them had any reason to orchestrate an assassination out of nowhere.
Thus, rather than a corporate headquarters, this place was more like Andy's private penthouse apartment.
Reagan rode the elevator up smoothly, pressing the button for the third floor.
*Ding.*
The elevator doors slid open.
The hallway was quiet, with light streaming out only from a slit beneath the door at the far end.
Andy's private workshop.
Taking a deep breath to settle his pounding heart, Reagan hurried over and gave the door a light knock.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
"Come in."
Andy's voice came from inside, sounding somewhat indifferent.
Reagan pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The workshop was a mess, littered everywhere with components and blueprints.
Andy sat before a wide workbench holding a pair of laser tweezers, performing delicate micro-manipulations on a circuit board no larger than a fingernail.
Behind him, the six black hovering units slowly rotated around him, seemingly assisting with computations.
"Boss," Reagan called out.
Andy didn't even look up; his hands holding the tweezers remained as steady as if welded to the air.
"You're back? Did you get the goods?"
"Got 'em. Cicefron is moving them into storage right now."
"Good."
Andy remained focused on the task in his hands.
"Uh... Boss, what are you busy with?"
Curious, Reagan leaned in closer to take a look.
On the desk lay a jumble of coils and crystals; it looked like he was assembling some sort of communication device.
"A modem," Andy replied casually. "Commonly known as an optical network unit."
"I want to explore further down that launch shaft, but at that depth underground, radio signal shielding is way too severe. The latency makes it completely unusable."
"So, I plan to run a fiber-optic cable down there."
"The photoelectric conversion protocols nowadays are a complete mess, though. Imperial standard interfaces aren't compatible at all, so I figured I'd hand-craft a transcoder myself for fun."
It was indeed technical work.
In this era, communication mostly relied on cryptic messages and radio waves.
If one wanted to achieve zero-latency high-definition video transmission and remote control thousands of meters underground, they genuinely had to rely on fiber optics.
Fiber optics—the undisputed GOAT.
Reagan nodded as if he understood, though his mind wasn't on optical modems at all right now.
Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out the data slate.
"Boss, I've got something to show you."
Reagan placed the data slate on the corner of the desk and carefully pushed it forward.
"We picked this up at a street stall in Kolenbic."
"The stall owner claimed it was a relic left behind by an explorer who brought it back from the Great Western Wasteland."
Andy's hands didn't pause. He merely glanced at the dirty slate out of the corner of his eye.
"Oh, just leave it there."
Andy's tone was thoroughly nonchalant.
"Later, have Six scan it to scrub for viruses, and check if there are any valuable coordinates or logs inside."
"It's most likely just a bunch of useless nonsense anyway, or the gibberish of some lunatic."
Andy's reaction was entirely normal.
Having scavenged plenty of junk across the wasteland, nine out of ten so-called "explorer relics" were fake.
Even if the remaining one was real, it usually held nothing more than useless junk data.
Right now, he was busy soldering critical nodes and genuinely didn't have time for such minor matters.
"No, Boss," Reagan stayed put, taking a step closer as his tone grew urgent. "You really need to look at this *now*. This stuff is... pretty insane."
"I've already looked at it, and the decoded content is extremely wrong."
The tweezers in Andy's hand abruptly froze.
He slowly straightened his back, flipped up the magnifying visor on his head, and turned to look at Reagan.
If anyone else had said this, Andy might have brushed it off with a few dismissive words.
However, he knew Reagan well. Although the guy was a native, he possessed a solid technical foundation and a steady personality—he wouldn't make a fuss over trivial matters.
More importantly...
Andy suddenly recalled the incident with Jayton last time.
Because he was illiterate and didn't know the tech, Jayton had casually referred to a priceless launch shaft as a common vertical shaft, causing Andy to almost miss out on a massive fortune.
That incident had left Andy with a deep psychological shadow.
Now, Reagan was making such a big deal out of it and even used the word "insane."
Andy's heart skipped a beat.
Could it be another launch shaft? Or perhaps an undiscovered STC fragment?!
If that were the case, it was definitely worth pausing his current work.
"Alright, then."
Andy let out a sigh and put down his tweezers and chip.
"Since you put it that way, I'll take a quick look."
"If what's saved in here turns out to be some wasteland smut novel, I'm hanging you up at the top of the tower to air-dry."
Andy grabbed the data slate and plugged it into the universal interface on his workbench.
"Six, read the data and project it directly."
"Understood."
The holographic projection device hummed to life, casting a green light screen across the workbench.
The first thing to pop up was that mess of explorer log entries.
Andy quickly scanned the text.
"Great Western Wasteland... Space-time misalignment... Black obelisk... Green aura..."
As he read, Andy's brow furrowed tightly.
*Why does this description look so familiar?*
This artistic style, this color scheme, and this whole eerie, mystical vibe...
Immediately after, the log entry ended, and the waveform chart decoded by Reagan bounced into view.
Andy's electronic eyes locked onto the waveform in an instant as his STC database automatically began cross-referencing it in the background.
It took merely 0.01 seconds.
Comparison complete.
A line of bold, glowing green text slapped itself directly into the center of Andy's field of vision:
**[WARNING: Gravitational Wave Beacon Detected.]**
**[Signal Origin: Necrons.]**
**[Status: Standby.]**
"..."
"..."
A dead silence settled over the workshop.
Andy sat frozen in his chair, as if a petrification spell had been cast on him, entirely motionless.
In that fraction of a second, his processor felt as though it had ceased operating altogether.
*Damn it, another old acquaintance unlocked...*
*Last time it was Genestealers, and this time it's the Necrons?!*
In the dark grimness of the 41st Millennium, many things were terrifying.
The Orks were terrifying because their numbers were endless.
The Tyranids were terrifying because they could devour everything in sight.
The Chaos Demons were terrifying because they could corrupt the soul.
But the Necrons...
Those old clunkers were terrifying on a completely different dimension!
They were the former overlords of the galaxy, survivors of the War in Heaven, absolute badasses who had shattered the C'tan into fragments and crammed them into batteries!
Their technological level was capable of literally rubbing the laws of physics into the dirt!
Causal weapons, time reversal, singularity generators—those were all standard operations in their hands!
If an awakened Necron Dynasty was involved, even an Imperial Crusade Fleet would have to steer clear!
And right now, right here on Zais, right in the Great Western Wasteland...
Right on Andy's doorstep...
There was actually such a massive boss lounging around?!
"What in the world did you guys scavenge back?!"
Andy shot up from his chair in a flash, his vocal module outputting a wildly distorted electronic screech: "Are you trying to scare your boss to death?!"
Reagan: "..."