A good place to settle huh, "Any sort of requirements?" I ask back before calling for the rat team which was scheduled here for a few days of RnR. While I am doing this, R5-7G answers that they are looking for an open area with plenty of buildings nearby for scavenging purposes. Looking over to my scout rat, they seem to be racking through their data banks searching for a suitable location.

Eventually they perk up and type out that there is a spot about half an hour south-east from the factory. Nodding to the drone, I relay this information to the nomads and they all begin to get excited. Calling over a few hounds from the garrison, I order them to escort the scout rat leader who will guide them to their new home.

Before they leave, I decide to give them a welcome gift in the form of a couple metal ingots which they graciously accept. Bidding them farewell, I quickly check up the factory to see if anything else needs my attention before slipping back out of my vessel and over to my mining outpost. The outpost was looking much better now that the guard force has been fully deployed.

While the mines are not back to pre-ambush levels of productivity, it was pumping out metals which were flowing out of the mine shafts. And once the mole colony begins sending their tribute, I will have more resources than I would know what to do with. Or I would blow it all on new drones. Yeah probably that.

Anyways, checking on those captured drones who were on their way to the mining outpost, I see that it will be another couple hours before they arrive. Speaking of prisoners, I still need to ship off that captured crab to the mining outpost as well. Checking how many drones are healthy enough for an escort mission, I see that if I were to send away any of my drones it would be a couple of days before they are able to return to me.

With this in mind, I decide to go with the cheaper and consequently the much more cruel method. Slipping into my vessel drone, I walked over to the small drone works and ordered up three fire beetles. Once they finish fabricating, I order them to climb atop the crab prisoner and lock

onto their chassis and prim themselves for detonation. While this is probably not the most ethically sound method for keeping them in line, it is the one I have.

While there is the slight concern of the crab trying to pry off my fiery death beetles it is highly mitigated as even if they can somehow kill two of the beetles outright with their two claws, the last one will detonate leaving the crab severely damaged and thus easy pickings for any ferals in the area. And so when I ordered the crab to begin the approximately two day march back to the mining outpost, the crab had no choice but to obey.

And now that the crab is out of the way, I can now begin focusing on the rest of my drones who were still in the process of replenishing themselves. While most of my drones have been repaired to functionality, there are still some who have external damages which were temporarily overlooked so the critically injured could get treated.

Along with this, much of the drones which are being replenished are still in queue due to there only being one medium drone works which was and still is what makes up the bulk of my force and as much as I would like to, my spiders are still preoccupied with the wounded. With all of these factors combined, I am hesitant to begin the siege of MAI's main base even though it will allow them to rally even more drones.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Sighing to myself, I begin searching for things to do while I wait for my attack force to fully restore itself back to a reasonable number. After a few minutes of hopping between outposts to see if anything was going on, I eventually decided to see how the nomads were doing. Slipping into one of the hounds who were escorting the scout rat, I see that they have just recently arrived and are already beginning to set up camp.

Asking my hound to look around, I saw that my scout rat had chosen a large open area with a concrete base which was situated in a small school. With the school and the many buildings close to it, I could see why this area was chosen for colonization considering the sheer amount of possible salvage opportunities.

Focusing back on the nomads, I can see that their camp was now made up of about a dozen pop up tents which had been pulled from some of the many large packs which the nomads had been carrying around. Leaving them to their devices, I order my drones to head back to the factory before slipping out of them and making my way down to the mole colony.

Popping into one of the repair spiders who were fixing up the second to last support beam, I could see that they still were only halfway done with that support beam. However, with the first two finished, the mole population has begun going back to their usual mining habits now that the cavern is not at risk of suddenly collapsing. While I personally would not risk walking the line of accidentally triggering a cave in, I was not about to complain about getting more resources sooner.

Anyways, the repairs will not be finished anytime soon so I quickly run through my mental checklist of potential things I might need to do. Finding nothing of note, I begin aimlessly watching my drones work

———

A few hours later, I get the message that the last of the replacement drones have finished being fabricated. Floating over to the water treatment outpost and slipped back into my vessel drone. While it probably is a bit overkill to have this many drones attack the MAI base now that their main force has been eliminated, however, I am not going to be caught taking chances which might cost me dearly.

An additional reassurance for my precaution comes in the form of my scout rats reporting that the MAI base still has a decently sized garrison defending it. Rallying the attack group, I set off in a march towards the, hopefully, last patch of MAI controlled space.

The march was about as eventful as they can get without spiraling into an ambush due to the abnormally dense feral presence. Thankfully, my hornets were more than enough to fend off the small raiding parties who were crazy enough to attack my entourage. But before long we arrived a few blocks away from the compound.

Ordering my hornets to get onto some of the higher buildings so they can give accurate fire support, I have the rest of my drones fall in and begin to advance. We began to move in a repeating pattern of my infantry drones and I would move up to my hornets maximum effective range before they would fly up to where we were and then we would repeat.

While it was not the quickest or stealthy at all, it was likely the most safe of my options and that is all I really cared about for now. Once we started getting close to the first of the MAI guards, they all began pulling back further into the compound. This struck me as odd since fighting around a tight corner in the dense buildings around the base would have been much easier for them since it would practically eliminate the threat my hornets pose, at least until they can catch up.

Moving further up, much the same happens, we advance and they fall back further and further into the compound and I begin to feel confident that my force could easily take down the meger garrison as seen so far. But before long I was finally standing outside of a rather dark looking tunnel at the center of the base. It seems that every one of the garrison's drones had shoved themselves into one of the half dozen mine shafts and my drones and I would have to pry them out one hole at a time.

Sigh. Why did I have to jinx it?