Advancing with my remaining fully functioning forces, I stop at the first of the four warehouses doors. They were large, about twice my height and three times as wide, and completely made out of some rather dulled plates of steel. I position my two scorpions to face the doors and have the rest of the group form up behind and on the sides of them. Once they are all set up I push the doors open with a heave and quickly rush to the side, giving my scorpions better sight lines.

It is a good thing I did too as they proceeded to fire their beam tails into the poorly lit interior of the warehouse. While the light from the beam faded swiftly, it was long enough for me to see a glimpse of what was inside of the room for a moment. I managed to spot a total of around 10 drones, four of which were scorpions and the rest were a scattered group of spiders. From the looks of it one of the beams managed to hit one of the enemy's scorpions but the rest of them began to give off the familiar humm that my scorpions released just a few moments ago. Realizing what they were about to do I ordered for my drones to break formation and scatter but it unfortunately was too late as 3 beams struck out from the scorpions in the dark, hitting two of my hounds and one of my scorpions.

My four hornets that I brought with me fired off their spikes into the unlit warehouse and from the sudden halt of two of the silhouettes of dark red light coming off from the drones, marking them as MAI's, I would presume that at least a couple of the spikes had found their mark. My hounds were next to act as they all at once rushed into the structure in search of the drones that dared fire upon them and their drones in arms. I ran forward with them, but due to my much greater mass, I only catched up to them after they had begun ravaging a spider drone that was caught out in the open.

The lighting in the warehouse was poor, with only some side windows high on each side of the structure. Thankfully it was enough to see the general contents of the room which was full of crates of various sizes. Seeing a faint glow in one of the said crates I walk up to it and pop the lid open and I find a spider shivering in fear. Looking at it I feel slightly bad for it as it was obviously scared shirtless and was fighting for the wrong person, not that I could do anything about it. Or can I?

I was able to convert that one small drone works to my side so why should it not work on drones too? As I begin reaching down to gently pick up the spider I hear a loud crash followed by the barking of a few of my hounds. I guess it will have to wait. I put the lid of the container on and locked it before rushing over towards the sounds of combat further into the warehouse.

As I pass another pile of containers I find one of my drones stunned against the right wall. Turning to my left I see three of my hounds all teaming up on two of the scorpions. As I start to wonder where the third scorpion is, I dive into the cover of some nearby crates as a beam of energy pierces through the air and hits where I was just a moment ago.

Thankfully more of my drones, in the form of another hound and a hornet, rush forward and reinforce the ongoing brawl. The hornet fires off their spike in the general direction of the one unengaged enemy scorpion but, from the look of it, the scorpion in question managed to duck in time. I really need to find or make a dedicated weapon instead of just picking up whatever it is around at the time.

Sighing as I scoop up a few rebar poles, I take a step back before hurling the pole. Although I am not the greatest javelineer in the universe, through a stroke of divine intervention I managed to impale the scorpion that fired upon me straight in-between their eyes. With that, the engagement has swung into my favor considerably. And just to add salt to the wound, some of the drones the scorpions hit with their stun beam began to regain their control and joined the fight.

Stolen novel; please report.

Not long after that, the last of the scorpions fell to my hoard of drones and all that was left were the scattered spider drones all across the building. Ordering my drones to capture instead of kill if possible I get a message pop up notifying me that I have defeated the garrison of this outpost. I guess there was nothing else hiding in any of these other warehouses. I wonder what's in them.

I guess this is the perfect time for now, I order a few un-damaged hounds to guard the captured spiders and I send everyone else to get tended by the repair team. With that settled I walk over to the second warehouse and pop open the door revealing much of the same compared to the previous warehouse. Moving over to the third I open up the doors and am greeted with a collection of drone and resource producing equipment. There was a small drone works along with a medium as well and in the corner of the building was a refinery.

If my memory serves me right, the medium drone works need an external power source to function for any extended periods of time. Which means there is something that can generate electricity somewhere. Looking through the doors of the building and to the final warehouse, I could guess where it might be located.

Opening the final door I reveal a generator along with a few small mountains of barrels. Taking a look into the barrels I find a faintly yellow substance residing inside them. Inspecting the generator a description pops up in front of it stating that it was a chemfuel powered generator. I guess that's what is in the barrels. Taking a look at the piles of said barrels, I see that I have a decent supplement of chemfuel which will probably last me for quite a while.

Deciding that I did not need to start up production anytime soon, I left the generator be for now. Walking out of the warehouse, my eyes land on the batch of six spiders. Wait,weren't there seven before? Then I spot the mangled corpses of a spider around a half dozen feet away from the rest of the bunch. Well that explains it.

Stepping towards the imprisoned drones, that were still being dutifully guarded by a couple of hounds, many scuttle as far away as they could before their captors began to growl causing them all to freeze. "Hey guys, I'm not here to hurt you, I'm going to cut you all a deal," A few relax a smidge when they hear me say that I wouldn't hurt them but most still huddled together and looked back with a fair amount of skepticism. "I guess that's fair, I did shut down your scorpion cousins. But that aside, I offer that you can join us or I will let you free on the condition that you give up your ties to my enemy."

I draw a line in the middle of the group, "If you wish to join me then step on the left side, if you wish to be let out into the wilds than move to the right." A pair of drones begin to hesitantly step to the left but are then attacked by 3 their seemingly more zealous brothers and or sisters. I quickly grab the three aggressor and place them away from the group and have my hornets quickly end them.

Once I finish with that I see the remaining spider drones have decided on their fate. The two spiders that decided joining me were better or the threeish options have stepped on the left side and their glowing joints have turned blue that matched the rest of my drones. The last drone had stepped to the left without me noticing and their joints had turned into a neutral gray.

Keeping my word I pick up the gray spider and release them into the wild. Hey, maybe they'll start their own spider colony I jokingly think to myself. I have the turncoat spiders join the others and as they begin to mingle I notice that the turncoat drones are made of a slightly darker metal.

Then a notification pops up stating that I gained a new skill. Expanding the pop up, I see what it was referring to.

"New skill gained: Minor Drone Conversion. Have a 25% chance to successfully convert a captured small drone."