Taking a quick inventory of the current drones defending the home base and the mining outpost. In total I am left with one and a half patrol group of two ants and their escort of four total spider drones protecting the path to the mining outpost from the factory, a small home garrison of hornets, and the group of woodpecker lancers and the three fire beetles that I sent to the outpost. In addition in both the outpost and the main base house a repair team of spider drones that technically could count as combatants but I would rather not have to resort to that.
That certainly is not much to work with. At least compared to the attack party that is currently away from base. To combat the lack of drones currently on standby, I use another decent chunk of the stockpile to produce a batch of ten ants in the pair of medium drone works. Along with that I have the twin small drone works start producing two of the fire beetles and sixteen of the lancer drones.
As their fabrication progress meter ticks by, I have the spiders at the base, with the help of some enlisted hornets, start to create a makeshift barricade in the cleared out area around the factory. Hopefully it will make it slightly harder for ground based drones to attack the base and also make them easy targets for my hornet snipers while doing so. Watching them scurry about grabbing the larger, rectangular, and sturdier chunks of concrete from the pile.
Slowly but surely the C shaped wall of rubble grows tall enough that the patrol ants begin to have trouble climbing over. Of course the hornet and spider drones have no problem moving over the defenses seeing as one can literally fly and the other is meant for this kind of construction work. The pile of leftover rubble has shrunk from the size of a large ship container to around the volume of a decently sized bus.
As the finishing touches were made by the spiders filling the smaller gaps with some of the smaller chunks, the hornets went back to work. I order the spiders to start trying to make a gate of some sort with whatever they could find from the farther off buildings that haven't been stripped yet.
Getting a notification that the drones in production have finished, I gather up all of the new drones and have them line up at the front of the factory. For eight of the ants I split them up into four groups of two and have them be accompanied by two woodpeckers for each ant and I send three of the groups to set up positions on the newly created barricade and the fourth I send to reinforce the path patrol groups slightly diminished numbers. With the last two ants I have something special for them in the form of their own personal fire beetle.
As the said fire beetles crawl onto the ant drones I can see the nervous looks that they are giving me, obviously scared of their new companions on account of the latest incident that ended with one less ant.
"Don't worry guys, they are just to keep anything off your backs. And in the worst case scenario you guys just drop them off at a chokepoint and clear out what is left after they are done." This seems to ease the concerns of my ants as they stop looking back to the armed explosives that are now going to be with them for the perceivable future. As for the beetles reaction to the insinuation that they would be left behind, they seemed to not be bothered by this in the slightest. Maybe it is because of their suicidal nature or they just think they can take whatever is thrown at them but what ever it is along as they do not take down any friendlies with them they are allowed to think whatever they want to.
I have the pair of ants and their new fiery friends set up inside the factory as a last resort and because I am pretty sure that fire is not exactly long ranged. And with that I can confidently say that they will not take out my core without a fight. Although, looking at my current material stockpile, it has cost a decent chunk of my current finances. Sighing to myself, knowing that it means I have to start sending my drones out to strip the buildings again.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Although I do have these new miner drones and I do have a mineshaft over at the outpost. Adding that to the list of things to do, I check on the attack party to see if the repairs are finished yet and I find that they were done a while ago but I was to focused on the spiders dragging a particularly large chunk of rubble at the time and I just ignored it.
Hopping back into my vessel drone, I get back to moving through the unfinished buildings with my drones scuttling in tow.
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As the sun rises high into the sky after another nine hours of marching, my drones and I are only a half dozen minutes away from the enemy outpost. I order the rat scouts to move in and check for any hostile drones before creeping forward with the rest of my forces after the scouts give the all clear.
As I crest the hill, on which my drones and I have been advancing on, I spot the set of four warehouses which were positioned into a 2x2 grid. Wonder why out of all the buildings around in this district, why would the warehouses be the only buildings constructed. Actually never mind they were probably storing all the building materials there, at least before whatever happened to all the people.
Pressing those thoughts to the back of my mind, I focus on the few drones moving around the outpost. From what my scouts could see from their positions, the garrison seems to only consist of a few hornets, a small team of 3 moles, and a bunch of spider drones because of course they would find construction drones at a construction site.
The spiders looked to be moving in and out of the various warehouses ferrying around materials. The hornets and moles seem to be on standby and have taken up patrolling the area to pass the time.
I send in my hornet team to take on their MAI counterparts while I help position my scorpions and hounds to get ready to fight off the moles. I hear the "thunk" sound of the hornets firing off their salvo and it seems that the moles heard it too as they begin to tunnel downwards. As they do this my scorpions start taking pop shots on the moles and on some of the spiders that started moving towards my position.
Unfortunately the moles were able to get underground and I could feel the rumbling already as they started to drill their way towards me. Spreading my drones out we wait for the enemies to approach. And approach they did as two of the moles burst out of the ground and managed to hit one of my hounds in the side and graze one of my scorpions in the legs.
My hounds and scorpions move in to engage in melee and do so quite effectively due to their obvious number advantage. While they do that I look around for the third mole and find none, but I could still feel the rumbling of the drill which meant it was not far. Wondering what could have made it not burst out of the ground immediately, my eyes landed on my repair team sitting on my moose.
Realizing what was about to happen, I break into a sprint and rush back over to them. But it is too late as the mole strikes the moose in the side as it flies out from the earth. I made it there shortly after but the mole had already done significant damage to my drones and had destroyed two of my spiders before I got there. Grabbing one of the arms of the mole drone I fling it back, away from my vulnerable drones.
The mole hits the ground and skits to halt by using one of its shield bearing arms to dig into the dirt and thus slows itself in the process. Attempting to leave the drone with no time to recover I rush forward once again and try to grab onto the drone's rather smooth body. The mole rather predictably resists and swipes at me a few times earning a few shallow gashes on my arms and chest.
I grab onto the nose drill to gain some kind of purchase on the body of the mole and quickly realize my mistake as the mole activates its drill and shreds my hand. Releasing my grip, I stumble back from the pain of the gashes. Thankfully the mole does not press its advantage but instead decides to back up as well, recovering its strength.
One of my hornets seems to have noticed me struggling against the mole and decides to help by firing a spike into the stomach of the mole. I move forward and grab onto the spike and begin to hold the mole in place while slamming my fist into the top of its head over and over again. Soon not long after the moles head has more in common with a crater than a functional cranial structure.
Dropping the corpse and looking behind me I find that my drones have finished off their targets with minimal damage taken. Looking over my still healthy units I grab up some of the hounds and hornets that are undamaged and start moving down the now mostly empty paths of the warehouses.