The next few weeks passed quickly, forces of androids and my drones rapidly cleared out all the machines in and around the city, and I heard talk of the better weapons leading to resistance camps starting to push the machines back across the globe.
It wasn't long before the entire city had been cleared of machines not from Pascals village or the carnival, and that the city began to serve as the hub from which Balistraia started to purge the desert, forest, and countryside of any hostile machines. It would only be a few months before Japan was cleared and then I would be able to build a navy and send out my forces to clear out the rest of the planet.
Outposts were already springing up everywhere the minds could put one, producing the forces and weapons I would need to fight off the machines.
At best only a few years before the machines were a non-threat with only small stragglers and groups remaining to be hunted down.
That's why I had been expecting an attack on my base by the machines, I just didn't know how it would happen. They couldn't leave the playing field as is, or they would lose. They had to make some overt push to try and cripple me, before I built up enough momentum.
-----------------
The attack happened so suddenly that I didn't have time to react. I had been talking with Pascal, one of the peaceful machine forms Balistraia had found when all the sudden I had doubled over in agony. It felt like something was tearing out chunks of my mind, my minds.
With my connection to the bases cameras I saw all the YoRHa androids fall to the ground screaming, I saw 13B clawing at her own eyes, I felt as the minds sprung to action, firewalls forming as turrets spun to life, I felt something claw its way into my mind and then I watched through the cameras as the portal between Nauvis and earth slammed shut.
I curled into the fetal position as the pain overtook me, Pascal began fretting over my fallen form and I watched, barely comprehending, as the turrets started mowing down wave after wave of machine, massive metal forms were rapidly drawing closer, and I knew they were engels.
I felt something crawling around in the factory's network, skillfully weaving its way past all of the mind's defenses and I watched each instance of the minds get snuffed out one by one, with every mind that fell I swore chunks of my own mind were getting torn out with them.
Without the minds to man the turrets they fell back on automatic programing, still stemming the tides but the machines began to rapidly close the distance, and none of the truly autonomous creations, like the spidertrons or Panther were capable of doing anything, the presence had silenced them too.
The Resistance androids and Pascal acted quickly, YoRHa androids were restrained so they couldn't hurt themselves and I was fussed over by dozens of different hands, I felt weak counter attacks originating from dozens of different sources, the resistance androids trying to help in anyway they could.
It wasn't enough, the thing was everywhere in the network, it had to have a direct link, and the minds were too inexperienced to fight off a direct invasion of an artificial intelligence greater than them. and the last instance, one of Bulwark's, died. The automatic subroutines the mind had crafted for the turrets started to be torn apart and the defensive drones started to fall from the sky.
The resistance androids rapidly took up their weapons and I watched them take the fight to the machines through the few cameras I had left. The hostile presence started turning off power to the base's shields and turned off all but what few turrets could function without a network connection. The last things to shut down were the nuclear reactors, leaving only the emergency lights with their own internal power stores.
The factory itself was silent, the only noises came from the fights between the resistance and the machines, and the YoRHa androids maddened screams as they thrashed in their restraints, my own screams were silent. The same silence engulfed my mind.
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Nauvis had removed the programming preventing the engineer from growing, not the programming that would cause him to grow. Dormant genetics spun to life, and enhanced by Nauvis's blessing the engineer adapted, and grew.
There was a threat, one that his long dormant programming recognized.
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Hostile artificial intelligence detected, engaging countermeasures.
And with that the mental pain ceased, it still felt as though parts of me were missing and replaced with burning rods stabbed into the rest of me, but I didn't care. Pain was just a warning alarm that you were being damaged, it could be ignored as long as the damage wasn't catastrophic, and with my healing it would be difficult to reach that point.
My mind reached out into the silence that had once been my factory, something was there, rooting around in the digital corpses of my minds, pilfering them for any data and codes they had. A brief flash of rage was quickly suppressed by something, but I ignored that. There was something in the factory's systems, and it was a threat to me. It needed to be dealt with.
That intelligence had made one mistake though, it was within the factory, within my factory and connected directly to me. I wouldn't let it live long enough to realize what a mistake it had made.
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An ordinary engineer does not have minds, every single role they filled was one the engineer was meant to fill by itself, the factories started small, using the computers on the shuttle until the engineer forms mind was capable of handling the strain on its own, but this time he didn't have the time to grow into it and he had no shuttle to help him, so he had made his own crutches.
And with the minds, the crutches, gone? Well the engineer's mind began to take its first unsteady steps, which quickly grew into a run. His mind rapidly grew and expanded as unused pathways burst into new light.
He was fulfilling the role he was designed for. Managing and making a factory, all on his own on a hostile alien world.
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I sat up from the floor, the once peaceful recreation room was now filled with oil and the sounds of mad and wounded androids screaming, the few entrances were barricaded and managed by resistance androids, dozens of voices asked me hundreds of questions.
Irrelevant, engage hostile artificial intelligence and eliminate.
They didn't matter, the questions were unimportant and I had other things to do, my mind spun to action, the turrets springing back to life, working on what limited power they had in their internal batteries, I would need to resupply power within two minutes, the drones had larger batteries, and I took control of those too, draining a portion of their power into nearby turrets and then sending the drones off to fight and stall the machines. They most likely wouldn't last long enough to drain what power they had left anyway. Too many machines attacking for that.
I started walking.
I routed around within the systems, trying to sneak my way back into the power control systems while the invader was distracted pillaging my data stores. If I reached one of the spidertrons I could bypass that by just hooking their internal reactors up to the turrets directly, or one of the couriers could serve as a generator. I sent a few of the drones towards the defensive wall with a few construction drones to splice them in.
It didn't work and the artificial intelligence noticed my presence and lashed out, malware and viruses crashed against me, I shifted and adapted, the attack washed over me like a wave and my mind was unharmed. I shifted my attention from running my factory, It could sit silent for a few more moments.
What happened? Where did the minds go? What am I doing?
Irrelevant, engage hostile artificial intelligence and eliminate.
Now with a firm picture of where the attack had come from I lashed out, starting my work of cutting this chunk of the intelligence off from the rest of it. The attack had come from a few dozen sources, tiny metal insects that had managed to get inside of various machines, carrying uplinks, and allowing a direct attack on myself.
Another vector had been the YoRHa androids themselves, I peered within a few of the screaming androids codes, some embedding coding that allowed them to be controlled by the machine network, and more to propagate the logic virus across their entire network. A counter virus would stop that, and once it had propagated through the network It would disable the network.
A quick flex of my will disabled their motor control to give the counter virus time to work, the androids can't hurt themselves if they can't move.
Alerts from my other bunkers and outposts blared out, they were getting overrun with machines. Any thoughts of how they could have gotten so many machines here unnoticed were ignored or shelved for later. The friendly machines from the villages had also been attacked with the logic virus, what few were still sane had hidden in my bunkers.
How did they manage to close the portal anyway? Had they opened it in the first place? Well that didn't really matter, I fried all but one of the small insects with a burst of electricity from the surrounding machines, even without the reactor I still had quite a few accumulators for the machines that couldn't withstand power flickers. That one bug would be just enough to allow the intelligence to flee, but slow enough that I could track it.
And if it was arrogant enough to attack me it wouldn't think I, a lone human, could track it….. And there it went, a quick reference to some maps and I had a location. My suit of armor left the corner and it flowed onto me. A few more voices called out, but they weren't my enemy so I ignored them.
I thought about grabbing a few drones or spidertrons, but I didn't need them. Better to have them stay here and defend the factory. Instead I started moving at a quick jog, the wall melting in front of me. A few of the machines and androids followed me, they weren't threats so I ignored them.
The minds? it's so quiet, where is the rest of the factory? The minds? I can't feel it. I can't feel them.
Irrelevant, they have been eliminated, access to greater factory has been cut off. Eliminate hostile artificial intelligence.
A jolt of rage pierces the haze of indifference and my face twitches with a snarl. The hostile machines attacking my base turned their attention from futile assaults on my wall and turrets, and instead turned their attention towards the new entrance, and the seemingly vulnerable human standing in it.
They don't realize that they are made of matter, and that they are in my way. A cloud of released metallic dust reinforced with my shields serves as chaff to protect me from the hundreds of attacks sent my way, and with a flex of my will the machines in my way begin to fall apart.
Gone! Irrelevant! Gone! It took them! You say that's Irrelevant!
Adrenaline and combat stims begin to flood my body and my jog changes into a loping sprint, obstacles are ignored, anything in my way melts. The turrets work to clear a path ahead of me and a group of androids and non-hostile machines follow in the wake of my sprint.
Yes irrelevant, hostile artificial intelligence must be eliminated.
How many androids died in the seconds before we acted! Dozens! All the minds are gone! And I can't even go home!
I am not just going to kill it! I WILL MAKE IT SUFFER, IT WON'T GET TO DIE!
One of the engels spots my approach and moves to attack me, I watch its lethargic movements through the thousands of turrets and drones and I watch as one of its legs fails to support its weight at my glare. Softening armor and structural supports had plenty of use in direct combat.
With the AI out of my factories system I turned all the defenses back on, the reactor hadn't even had time to cool off yet, so power rapidly flowed back through the factory.
I could have had the artillery clear my path, but the artillery cannons were all busy holding off the engles, even with my defenses back online that many engels could rip through the shield in seconds, so I had to ensure the bulk of them never reached my outpost. The nuclear shells started flying.
In my haste I soon left behind my factory and the battle raging around it, I ran straight through several machine hotspots, dozens charging towards me. They are irrelevant, they approach and turn to sludge, I run past. Behind me I can see the androids and machines with me stare at the piles of metal for a few moments before running after me.
A portion of my mind remains at my factory, managing the machinery and turrets and finally bringing the power systems back online, that machine had been through its software sabotage. Most of my automated systems were still offline, and I had to control everything mentally. My mind started to heat up under the strain.
The engles finally came into range of my turrets and missile bays and I opened fire, pelting the machines with literal tons of explosives and bullets. They wouldn't last long, and now that the outposts' shields were coming back online they would struggle to breach the walls.
The smaller machines are still a problem, most of the drones have been destroyed and the resistance androids are barely keeping the machines out of the factory, a few of the blast doors had been broken before the shields had come back online. My internal defenses were only meant to handle a few machines or rogue androids, not a seemingly never ending horde of them.
My cameras noticed a few of the YoRHa androids eyes revert to their normal coloration and I stretched myself out further to take a look at their coding, the logic virus had been if not removed, then countered. I undid their restraints and sent a message informing them of the situation.
They grabbed some nearby weapons and joined in the fighting. That would take some pressure off of my turrets and the resistance androids. I was just happy these androids were so quick on the uptake and so willing to fight after something so traumatizing, but they were well used to the realities of war, fight or be killed.
Irrational, hostile artificial intelligence must be purged. Protocol will be followed.
My mouth stretches into a smile as I finally stop running, my chest shaking with silent laughter. I stare at the ground, It's down there, it's down there and I am coming for it. And I am going to make it hurt. That simple thought warms me and my smile grows even wider. I notice some of the engels at the factory begin to turn around and walk back in my direction, they will arrive too slow and wouldn't be able to help even if they were fast enough. Nothing this machine did would stop me.
My followers catch up, their shouts and calls are ignored. One tries to place their hand on my shoulder, my shields make it so they can't get a hold.
I take a step and the ground parts before me, blood starts to drip from my nose and coats my teeth and smile. I can feel my neurons burning out and tearing themselves apart, my ability isn't meant to move this much material, and it definitely isn't supposed to be hostile. A few dozen feet away a group of small machines charged me, nothing like the hordes of larger machines I had cut my way through to get here.
But those machines were a hope for that intelligence, and so I ripped that hope away. Even dozens of feet away once my attention fell on them they ceased being machines. My awareness extended in a range around my body and armor, I didn't need to rely on sight, which was good as I had gone blind, Another cluster of neurons gone with the effort, that didn't matter though, my augmentations would fix it.
Back with my outposts the last of the secondary outposts have been destroyed, and the bunkers are more than halfway depleted with their shields. I rally what few courier drones were outside the outposts and send them to try and help the bunkers. The androids defending my now sole remaining outpost are starting to take damage and casualties, and it's only a matter of time before one of them is killed. I weave my mind through their coding, and start keeping up to date backups of each of the fighting androids on the minds old servers, with the minds gone there is plenty of room. The added strain fries even more of my neurons and I feel my brain start to slow down by unacceptable levels.
With a thought of the nanites activated and set to work upgrading my brain, I had experienced a 74 percent decrease in brain functionality and I needed to fix that, the turrets at the base had started moving slower because of it, and that was unacceptable. Parts of my brain were replaced with metal equivalents, neurons were reinforced and I turned my gaze back down.
I strode down the tunnel as it formed before me, with the constant repairs and improvements I could stress my mind more, and I started walking quicker. The followers kept following, but I didn't allow them near me, a bubble of hardened air kept them behind me.
The earth was shaking, both from the steps of the dozens of engel and from the resounding boom of nukes and artillery strikes, tunneling down to the machine's bunker would be risky. It was the equivalent of mining in an earthquake.
Metal flowed from my boots and reinforced the walls and ceiling by intertwining with the stone around it, it wouldn't do for the tunnel to fall on me. I still had things to do. My brain functionality reached back to baseline levels and kept crawling higher, so I activated and controlled my assembly machines. Some of the ammunition stockpiles were starting to run low.
My sensors detected multiple entities approaching the tunnel, some form of tunnelers. I turned them and the stone around them to liquid and then scrambled it. Turning the approaching machines into scrap metal and stone, I pulled that metal towards me to refill my stores and reinforce my tunnel even more. My cranial cavity began to overheat, and the nanites started constructing cooling systems.
Finally my awareness touched upon a bunker, made of some form of unknown metal and resistant to most of my sensors, but not my passive awareness of everything around me. I started prying open a tunnel toward the buried base and soon reached the metal of the walls. It was durable and had resisted my changes at a distance, but now that I could touch it directly? It fell apart and I walked out into something that could only be a control room.
Dozens of pods lined the raised center of the room, filled with dead aliens, and a pair of white haired androids stood against some glass backdrop. I ignored both of these things, if they weren't a threat I didn't need to care about them, and the signal I had tracked was coming from this ship, and there was a console just in the center of the room.
The androids and machines following me down the tunnel entered, so I set a few turrets to cover the entrance and the rest of the room, just a few machine gun turrets in case something happened, then I blocked the hole of with a retracting gate and started walking towards the console, ignoring the fact that I was using my shield to walk on air.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The pair of androids that had been in the room started talking to me, but without one of the minds to translate it the spoken words were gibberish and I didn't care to decipher it. They were irrelevant until or unless they attacked me.
I finally reached the console, it didn't appear to have any data uplinks, at least non I was familiar with but that didn't slow me down, the side casing was removed and I took a few wires and hooked them up to my cybernetics and then to the consoles data tethers. I prepared myself for the flood of digital attacks but only a few came. Nothing compared to the barrage I had faced at my outpost and the attacks were nowhere near the same level of strength.
I finally pushed past the firewalls, it had taken me a few moments but the effort of doing that while working on all my other equally important tasks was still putting my mind under strain, at least the nanites had patched the issue of blood leaking out of my nose, which had been getting annoying. Inside the console's data centers I see the AI, but its only a small fraction of what had fled, and that in itself couldn't have been a majority of the whole AI. But I had tracked the bulk of the AI back here? Did they have some other data transfer methods I was unable to track? If they did, why lead me here?
My question answered itself as the foot of one of the white haired androids slammed into my air shield while the other slammed into the opposite side of it, I noted my shields drop by ten percent, with the added deficiencies by hardening air that meant I could take around a hundred and fifty hits on my armor proper before my shields failed. This armor could tank three nukes, that was a worrying level of force.
Ahhh I remember now, these were the androids 2B and 9S had found in the desert, a quick glance showed 2B was clearing out a section of my base while 9S tried to get the spidertron mark twos back online, they had made a friendship with the spidertrons so I wished him luck, but the machine mind had thoroughly wrecked their programming.
Back at my body I grew a thick layer of concrete over and around the bunker and covered the bubble in shields and turrets. It would only have a few minutes of power before the batteries I had in storage were all used up, but that would give me more than enough time to dissect the AI, the turrets on the bubble and the ones I already had in the room opened fire on the machine droids. They lept back and away from the explosive ammunition, even teleporting past a few shells.
Why couldn't my androids teleport? I guess I would give them the capability once I dissected these things. I reached out with my mind and tried to break the hostile androids apart with my mind, with their level of combat efficiency I couldn't leave them be while I hacked the AI.
My ability scrapped against something covering their form but failed to do anything, I pushed harder and the backlash began to damage my brain faster than the nanites could fix it, so I let off. The feeling reminded me of something though, and I turned my attention to a shielded portion of wall and tried to exercise my power on it, it failed as usual and the feeling felt the same as the androids.
I remembered the AI scrounging through my data stores, it must have found files on my experiments and powers, and realized my weakness to my own shields. That it had already installed them on its would be assassins was impressive, my internal clock showed it had only been sixteen minutes since the attack had started.
My couriers had started to reach the bunkers and I set them to tearing the limbs of the unarmed machines of Pascal's village, the ones at the carnival I was waiting on until pascals village was safe, then those couriers could reinforce the ones at the carnival. But I did still set them to picking off the straggler machines who weren't yet at the bunker.
The fighting around my main bunker was finally dying down, it was mostly some larger machines and the engels left. I activated a few more of my courier drones. They wouldn't be able to help with the larger machines but they could help at the bunkers, detaching the ones I had turned into ramshackle generators and sending them off. The few androids that had fallen were the ones that hadn't managed to don armor and weren't the supernaturally skilled 2B but that was still fifteen android brains stored on my servers.
My attack on the AI fragment began while I simultaneously dealt with all my other tasks, including disintegrating the floor under the hostile androids. They immediately started walking on the air, they had already seen how I did it. It felt odd to be fighting something that thought as fast as I did, and I was at a disadvantage from being spread so thin.
No matter, I will adapt. Dropping a rocket control unit at the console to serve as the uplink to my mind I hooked it up in place of my cybernetics, then I left my concrete bunker. The bullets though high explosive and armor piercing simple weren't hitting the hostile androids constantly enough. The androids who had followed me were distracting the pair, Adam and Eve I believe they were called? Pretentious. Eve wasn't even a female model.
Laser and flame turrets began to flow from me along with my internal stockpile of drones, I grew walls for the non hostile androids and machines to hide behind and my suit of armor began to open up with missiles and lasers. As fast as these droids were, they were not faster than light. My artillery shells and nukes continued to thunder into the engels off in the distance, I must have destroyed twenty by now.
I waved my hand and my logistics drones grabbed the androids fighting the droids and pulled them into cover, it was the redheaded pair of twins. They had some ranged combat capacity and would fight well behind the walls. Pascal was already in cover, having never left their position behind the turrets.
Attacks from the droids began to slam into my forces but each of my drones had shields, the attacks did nothing but stagger my forces. My interceptors wove around the room destroying the slow moving ranged attacks the machines were so fond of while my destroyer engaged the droids in close combat. I could finally see them start to take damage and assumed their shields had come offline, so I reached out only for the shields to flick back on.
They were solely using them to contest my ability, not to stop any damage. Wearing them down wasn't an option. That significantly complicated this fight. The droids teleported behind me, correctly deducing that if I went down so would all of my defenses, my melee weapons corrected the assumption that it would be easy. My plasma cutters lashed out on their tentacle mounts and whipped into the droids, cutting deep into one while the other managed to block with the sword. Still it had succeeded in flinging them far away from me, even as I watched the damage I had dealt slowly patch over.
They could self heal. This fight was leaving too much strain on my brain, too many rapid attacks and counter attacks, thankfully I had my destroyer drones. Even if the bulk of the network had been destroyed my personal drones had been in my storage, I networked them up and gave them control of the rest of my personal drones and turrets. Immediately the strain on my mind lessened, the drones didn't have enough processing power to control all my defenses so my suit and outposts were still under my direct control. And without the destroyer drone central server they would be slower at controlling my other drones and turrets, and that would get worse with each destroyer destroyed.
The drones knew that though and would work around that weakness, and now I could turn more of my attention towards this AI fragment, even if this had been a trap it still had worthwhile bait.
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I didn't have very long before the drones all fell, the androids were decidedly superior to anything except my armor, and even then on a volume basis I had nothing that small that could be so strong or destructive. I took a moment to note looking into that, at this point I had the resources to spare to splurge on some truly expensive drones for personal defense.
At best I had forty seconds before the last of my drones were destroyed, and only seconds longer before they tore through my walls and turrets. That short frame of time would have to be enough.
Keeping my suit in range of the fight was a poor idea, it'd just burden the drones with protecting me as well as fighting off a superior foe. I rapidly sank into the metal flooring instead, it was more durable than my walls anyway. at this point the effort to actually affect matter was growing, the soft limit was noted and accounted for. if more effort was required more effort would be given.
Now that I was marginally safe I was free to do some…. Experiments. The AI had been fruitlessly attempting to fight me off, or at least to damage me in some way, before I destroyed it. Except I had no plans to kill this fragment, the original AI was still out there and I could learn how to hurt it by studying this tiny piece of it. I hadn't seen the need to test thing that could hurt my minds on them, and so hadn't developed them. an oversight I was now noting.
if I had crafted and tested methods to attack artificial intelligences the minds may have survived. either VIA being better armed or having built better defenses against lethal malware. Hurting them would have let the minds adapt, it would have made them stronger, they could have survived.
I brushed aside its attacks and started to carve its digital presence from the ship's network, pulling it apart bit by bit and storing the pieces on a small digital storage unit. It actually started to fight harder once it realized what I was doing, even communicating threats and warnings. I wasn't paying attention though, everything felt light and distant, none of the details of anything even reached my mind. Why would I care if it screamed? It had payed mine no mind.
Even if I had wanted to listen to its meaningless drivel I couldn't, even worrying about this state of mind was beyond me. I just made note of it and then continued, pulling the last of the AI from the system just as the last few of my destroyer drones were getting destroyed. This apathy would not be productive for ambitious designs or innovations.
With my mission here accomplished I didn't really need to stay, but something about those androids made me want to fight them, even though I knew it was a poor decision. So instead of taking the smart choice and tunneling through the metal until I reached my tunnel and then collapsing it behind me I instead pulled myself up through the metal flooring.
With a wave of my hand I pushed the friendly androids and machines into the escape tunnel, and with another wave of my hand I collapsed it. No need for them to interfere in my fight, they'd only get in my way anyways. The weapons and 'magic' they wielded were not capable of killing something in this league, even I did not possess much weaponry capable of truly destroying the androids. it was good then that I did not aim to destroy them.
With the distractions out of the way I was free to focus myself on the annoyances who were immune to my ability, maybe that's why I wanted them dead, they were a threat and needed to be dealt with. That made some sense. Any further consideration was put aside, my thoughts growing ever more distant.
Once again the two androids postured at me, their tone registered as mocking and conciliatory, they were probably gloating over how they defeated my drones. If they had accessed my records and files like I think they did, they knew my drone armament was the bulk of the firepower my armor could bring to bear, and they'd know I wasn't exactly skilled at combat myself.
They must have thought their victory certain, the smile that had never left my face grew wider at that, the skin on my lips tearing at the strain of stretching so far. I pulled the blood back under my skin, no need to waste it.
Bugs couldn't get arrogant, they never let down their guard and you couldn't surprise them. If I had been fighting bugs and not androids and I was in this situation? I'd have already been dead. Instead they were talking, sure their wounds were healing while they spoke but so were mine, and I wasn't stopping at just healing myself.
Muscles and bones were strengthened and hooked up to my armor, grafting myself onto it and allowing the nanites access. Then the waves of improvements spread to it as well, everything was optimized for speed and power. The armor would tear itself apart sure, but now that my nanite filled blood was coursing through the suit the damage could be fixed. I didn't need to make sure the parts could handle the strain I was putting them through if the parts could just be fixed or replaced.
my bodies nerves began to scream at me, but it was not true damage. I was improving myself, the warnings were ignored.
The nanites kept up their work as I leapt into motion, right while one of the androids was in the middle of a word, the second silent android leapt at me with speed I couldn't hope to match, but they were deflected down a slide of solid air. The first android noticed this and went to leap out of the way or teleport but my lasers struck his eyes with pinpoint precision, dozens of overcharged beams lanced out and burnt through them. The laser emitters were fried but already they were being repaired.
The blindness and pain staggered the android long enough for me to grab him, once my hands were on him the fight was over, with a pop I overloaded whatever shield unit he was using to protect himself from my powers and he disappeared into my internal storage, then I leapt out of the way of his brothers attack. The blood vessels this action burst were repaired and improved.
Apparently the fool had thought I had a blind spot, and since he used melee weapons he also came within arms reach, without my lasers I couldn't stun him but that didn't matter I only needed a few instants, my shields wrapped around him and held him in place for a fraction of a second, and I used this opening to grab him, just like his brother he vanished. The strain this caused on my mind and body was repaired with materials pulled from my storage.
It was the work of only a few more moments to pull the scrap heaps my drones had turned into back into my inventory, I'd use the material to build the next batch.
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My walk from the destroyed ship was almost peaceful, but I did not pay it much attention. A veritable swarm of resistance and YoRHa androids surrounded me and every machine within a few hundred yards was practically atomized. This left me free to prod at the AI kept in the small box I was holding, this little thing had taken everything from me, and now it was time to figure out how to take everything from it.
I started with sending a few of the viruses it sent at me back at it, with only slight modifications made to their nature. And then I watched as the AI fragment frantically tore it apart, absently I noted that the behavior was indicative of fear or self preservation instincts before turning to the viruses and patching the holes in the armor it had exposed.
Fear would be a weakness, self preservation would be a strength. Testing was required to determine which it was.
Then without breaking my stride or pass I sent the improved viruses back, it wouldn't take long before I deciphered the principles behind it, and then I'd be able to make my own improved versions. With the computers at my base I'd be able to run enough simulations to craft a digital super virus, immune to anything the AI could throw at it.
After that I'd just need to track down any part of the AI still connected to the whole, or maybe use the fragment I had as a key to get to it, and then infect it with my own little logic virus.
While I watched the AI deal with this new attack I turned my attention towards repairing the programing on my factory, without the minds there it'd take me a few days to get everything fixed and running without my direct control, at least it would if I couldn't find an intact storage bank of all the programming they used to run everything. Starting now would then mean I had everything running sooner.
I thought about that for a few moments, it'd be a good idea for later. A safe storage device not connected to the network and only accessed manually, either by me or a drone using a flashdrive of some sort. If I'd had that I might have a few intact copies of the minds, if a few days outdated.
Hindsight is 20/20 though, but it was a weakness I now had patched, once I figured out an efficient way to implement it anyway.
Most of my assemblers were making repair supplies at my behest, both wounded androids, drones, and machines were in dire need of repair. The few that weren't were crafting new android bodies for the few that had fallen defending my base, it'd free up storage space to get them new bodies.
I re-automated the simple things first, belt splitters and inserter arms were made to function on their own, then the assembler's blueprints were rebuilt from my memory and they were left to run on their own.
I speak like it went quickly, it had taken me nearly half a day to get all of it running again, but soon enough the core of my factory was online again, the reactors were running, the shields were on, what could be repaired had been, and the androids had new bodies.
A few of them occasionally tried to talk to me, but I ignored them. The construction drones were brought back online next, they were close enough to the assemblers that I could reuse the code, they both used the same methods to build stuff. Then with that I didn't have to manually go to each machine to modify it, and I began remodeling the factory to operate without the minds.
Everytime I had a free moment to spare I'd test a new virus I had drawn up against my captive, and I started work on a set of containment cells for the androids I had captured, they weren't disabled or destroyed. I didn't want to risk damaging the advanced components that made them.
Instead I began devising a way to pull them apart without breaking them, that way if something got damaged their automatic repair systems would fix it, depending on how efficient it was I could just take whole limbs to study and let the androids grow new ones back.
A week passed before I had enough of a production base to restart sending supplies, and I soon had spidertrons and drone swarms patrolling, each spidertron managing the drone swarms. It was less efficient then the minds would have been but it worked well enough.
I even started the preliminary work on a simple 'factory mind' that would think like a spidertron but would run a section of factory rather than fight swarms of machines. Nothing like the minds, not capable of learning or adapting, but enough to free up more of my time.
I thought about heading to the medical bay to get a few scans done, but the sensors wouldn't even be able to penetrate my armor and it wasn't like I could remove it anymore
And the nanites would repair anything broken anyways.