If Austin could smile, he would be. His second assembly bay finally came online. The damage Bay had been printing the components for this one for a while now. Once he had a third one online, he’d begin the process of disassembling the damaged one for its components. While He could have easily repaired it, but with how inconveniently it was currently placed, it was better just to take the thing apart and build a new one elsewhere. And with a li-little luck when he disassembles the other old bays as well, they would contain enough components to build more.

He began constructing his third bay with the second bay printing more components. Austin was now prioritizing his own construction capabilities. While the fabrication bays were useful they couldn't produce everything he would need. He would have to begin producing more advanced construction and fabrication facilities.

One of the first things he was going to be producing was a nano forge. Nano forges were made-up of several component machines, and it would take him some time to get all of them ready. However, he was hoping to get a simple nanobot assembly unit online sooner rather than later. Nanobots were useful tools capable of extremely precise and miniaturized construction for hyper advanced components.

Unfortunately, outside of specialized containment units where they would have access to resources, extremely clean environments and so on they weren't two particularly good at actually doing things. Well not without a huge number of them working together and even then, the construction capabilities were still limited. It would honestly be easier just to assemble the thing by hand or in his case by bot. Then it would be to try and use the insanely large swarm of nanobots, but Austin had found another use for them, maintenance. While the small bots were basically just really slow 3D printers, they could break apart just about any material and fuse it together again making them particularly good at dealing with weathering rust corrosion or just general cleaning. They could then use whatever they collected in their cleaning to make repairs though the process was rather slow even if he provided them with the resources they needed.

Though if he was going to be running in atmosphere with a large amount of organic material in the environment especially metal with the regolith from the soil, he doubted he would have to provide much for them once they got going. Unfortunately, it's extremely hard to set up anything for nanobots without nanobots. For fortunately for him he still had several intact containers of blank nanites. Nanites were essentially designed to be a generalized template. They were hard enough to produce without customizing we're making specialized units. Instead, they were each equipped with a mount for a singular tool. Sometimes the actual tool would take hundreds if not thousands of nanites equipped with a specialized piece to perform the actual task. Regardless Austin had cracked open one of the containers and though they lacked tools they could perform one function regardless of having tools or equipment. Basic cleaning and while that task was in itself limited as well. It could at least begin gathering the resources it would later need for maintenance and repairs. With the nanobots released and cleaning. The ants organizing and gathering scrap resources and the first mass produced beetle underway, Austins makeshift facility was really starting to take shape.

However, it was just as he thought that something went terribly wrong a large boulder suddenly shifted slamming into the opposite wall of his mining tunnel. Well, he wasn't actually mining just digging a tunnel downwards to try and intercept the caverns below. He was annoyed to find his tunnel suddenly blocked more so when water started to rush up the tunnel. He quickly shut the tractor beam off, but the wat-water kept coming. The shielding unit he had set up was more meant to keep creatures out than water but he had to hope they’d hold. As he scrambled not to be flooded, thankfully the water pressure wasn't too particularly high and that he still had his connection to the other shield generators in the Ant tunnels. He quickly switched them off and water flooded into the Ant tunnels. He was almost pleased to see the water drain only for a new type of flood to emerge ants a lot of them. The radon field helped for a little while, but it wasn't long before they started using the bodies of their dead comrades as battering Rams and Shields to push forward. Austin pow- powered down the force field his own tractor beam ants flooding into the room to quickly clear out the dead ants. He couldn't risk the radon shield becoming damaged. Unlike with their previous raids where they would never commit a large number of ants to a kill box. This time they seem to have decided that he was a threat too dangerous to be left alone and more and more ants were thrown into the radon field. The ants threw rocks, corpses and even themselves at the emitters. Despite Austin's best efforts it looked like the ants were going to get through. That was till the turret he had his own ants move into the room powered on. Prioritizing the throwing biological ants instead of the suicidal ones to take the load off of the radon shield it then began to fire at anything that entered the tunnel. But the ants weren't going to go down without a fight, it wasn't long till they started using the corpses as shields to try and get close enough to continue the onslaught. They're dead comrades were only good for a shot or two at most but still every killed Ant was fuel for the enemy war machines. The turrets laser emitter was beginning to overheat so it switch to ballistic rounds. As Austins own guard ants poured into the room but didn't advance just yet. His tractor beam ants needing all the room they could to try and clear the tunnel as the radon field flickered and then fried. Austin swore and reactivated the force field the ants threw themselves at the shield with unending fury. The guardians fired back. After a few shots Austin decided to lower the beams intensity and increase its wavelength. It was no longer a contained bolt of light but a beam of heat cooking the ants in their shells. But that wasn't the only purpose all the biological ants he had seen so far had metal shells. And though he had only seen copper so far in this batch. He could easily melt copper. Before long the first bodies began to pop as the internal gas is vaporized busting through the joints. The flesh cooked before it began to burn as their armored shells began melting creating a wall of hot fire and molten metal as it leaked down the corridor. Austin kept this up until until he had the second and third laser turrets set up. He then pulled his guard ants back. letting his tractor beam ants begin clean up. He turned the larger tractor beam on a very low setting it wasn't enough to grab up a full ant, but small bits of debris and molten balls of copper floated into the air and towards his forcefield. His tractor beam ants nabbed the molten copper dumping them into quickly fabricated pots to let them cool. They weren't as convenient as resource blanks but they were easily recyclable. This continued for some time the ants would pour into the corridor their shells quickly heating up from the lasers before dropping dead just short of the force field. Where they would collapse rapidly starting to fill the tunnel until one of the Ant corpses exploded releasing scalding steam and literally boiling blood that Austin pulled towards the force field continuing to cook it. What his tractor beam ants didn't grab was quickly forming into a fairly disgusting but effective plug. More and more ants died popped and charged but just before the plug would seal the corridor the biological ants began to attack it. At this point Austin was just starting to get annoyed with these stupid things. He reactivated the force fields in the tunnel hoping it would seal them off apparently though the ants weren't stupid enough to leave them alone and three of twenty six didn't respond. Austins tractor beam ants pulled back, and the guard ants took their place they're lasers firing down the tunnels carving up the corpses and the living alike. Austin turned the tractor beam off as the tunnel flooded.

A short time later a group of waterproofed tractor beam ants rolled into the flooded tunnels.

Austin had been systematically turning off and on the force field emitters to drain the water as he fabricated the needed resources for a pump and hose system. He'd reroute the water into the caverns below if this didn't work. The small tractor beam ants worked their way underwater and while they weren't swimmers they were still capable of getting around. They planted several explosives on the large boulder blocking the mine judging by their estimates and previous data about the tunnel. The boulder at one point in time had been partially sticking out of the tunnel and between the pulling of the tractor beam and the pushing of the water pressure had weakened its foundation. It finally had given out and slid into the tunnel a simple explosive detonation should be enough to break the large rock apart and widen the opening into the aquifer beyond. Austin quickly placed several aquatic drones at the opening of the tunnel just in front of the force field before he detonated the explosive, and it wasn't long only a few minutes really before the tunnel had already refilled. Austin, having guessed by how quickly the tunnel was filling there was a lot more water on the other side of that rock and it was just acting as a plug, meaning there was plenty more to drain into the ant’s tunnels. While he hoped to retrieve the queen of the Ant colony, she was quickly proving itself an annoyance. As Austin had already had to seal a whopping thirty two new attempted breaches into his facilities. Austin highly doubted she would be the last of this species he’d encounter.

Stolen novel; please report.

So when the pressure against his shields continued to rise he began to open up more tunnels. The pressure began to drop assumingly from whatever the ants had used to plug their holes with giving out. He opened his remaining force field emitters and allowed the entire aquifer to drain into their tunnels or as much of it as he could. Knowing he wouldn't be continuing his mining operations anytime soon he fabricated a small collection of aquatic drones which he would begin using to clear the tunnel as well as the first of an aquatic construction drone. While they were nowhere near as advanced as his specialty units, they were still useful and while not optimal they'd help him find the weaknesses in the design for his new standardized construction drone before he started mass producing them for facility construction. Which is probably a good thing considering he just got his third fabrication bay online and with the current inventory of the disassembled bays he’d have another eight before too long.

While Austin was busy with this Sofia had returned to explore more of the tunnels. Austin had been concerned about leaving the village unprotected. So he had quickly fabricated several dragonfly like scout drones to take the beetles place.

He he had found these in a data file when he was looking through blueprints to base his own drones off of. Apparently several fictional series had robotic dragonflies in them and several mechanically inclined enthusiasts had actually managed to bring those creations to life. Most were marketed for children's toys, just a neat little robot that kids could fly around to take pictures with and took very little to modify to his needs.

He quickly launched a dozen of them while he didn’t have enough for full coverage, he could at least patrol the area around the village. He’d need to set up stationary cameras as well as larger patrol units in the future. He really missed having satellite coverage. But that was still a ways off. He was running some vague calculations on how he'd get back into space his best bet was a sim-simple space elevator not something complex like what would be used in a space Port, but the marines and army of his time had quick deployment elevators that could be set up anywhere. Where larger elevators could only be set up on the poles or at the equator. It would extremely limit his industrial capacity in the short term but once he was in space he could establish an orbital. With its own industrial capacity and small drone ships to self propagate and expand until such time as he could set up a proper elevator for a more large scale movement. And that's something he definitely have to do if he was going to get humanity back up to a space faring civilization anytime soon.

He'd like to limit his planetary industrial complexes to as minimum a footprint as possible the planet had a self sustainable and breathable atmosphere as well as stable land masses. So, if any terraforming or geological engineering was required it would be minimalistic compared to any other world. So, turning the planet into a mass habitation center was top priority meaning population centers and agriculture would be the priority. Plus, large scale mining and industrialization was a lot easier to do when you didn't have to worry about polluting or damaging the local biosphere. The orbital or better yet an industrial world if there were a planet in system with usable resources in high amounts would be more convenient.

But for the time being he didn't have the luxury of being too concerned about the local biosphere. He would do his best to preserve it, if possible, but he wasn't going to batten eye if a few local predators when extinct.

Austin was pulled from his musing when Sophia approached the door into his internal facility. He he quickly ran a scan to make sure nothing too dangerous was running or left about before opening up letting her in. The small child was shocked by how different it looked inside. The entryway had been cleared out. The nanobots had worked wonders there wasn’t a speck of dirt or dust other than what was falling off of Sofia’s boots. The damaged panels had been replaced with still intact salvaged material.

Sofia looked around in surprise at the clean metal corridors around her. The rocks and debris she had seen last time were gone and the doors weren't awkwardly placed anymore and there were more bugs? She wasn't exactly sure they were kind of like her companion. They had the weird rolly legs though not the same type of rolly legs as the Beatle they were also smaller each had a weird Stinger that did… something as they worked.

She stopped to watch as they puttered on by many hauling things back and forth, they almost reminded her of the Ant creatures she had seen wandering the forest from time to time. It was known the creatures’ held grudges so the villager’s policy on them was to keep your distance. If one came close to the village, they would seal the walls until it wandered off. If they tried to climb the walls they would try and push it off with a stick to not hurt, it. She thought that she saw one of the weird smaller things carrying several of the corpses of the ant monsters as they scurried on by. That was probably not a good thing, but she wasn't sure maybe they could handle the ants, the Beatle was so strong, and it was clear there was more of them down here whatever they were. Sofia began to look around several of the doors slammed shut in front of her she wasn't sure how they controlled them, but it seemed that the beetle and ants didn't want her to go into certain rooms. One of the rooms she was allowed to go into was this large open space with a bunch of broken metal tables and chairs. There was a lot of useless junk in it she guessed it was something like a trash room. Another room the Beatle only let her take a few steps in was a creepy room filled with little flashing lights and a big glowy orb. It felt like she was being watched from the moment she took a step in that room, and it felt… Sad? Like whatever was watching her was hurt… She wasn't sure how to describe it. Catherine had done her best to explain the basics of what she could possibly develop as her magic to her. But she wasn't sure she fully understood she had tried practicing on a few of the town’s livestock and they didn't sink. She just got a vague sensation of hunger and sleepiness from them the moth on the other hand was a clear and happy little Moat that followed her wherever she went. And one of her friend’s pet Bunny’s was just afraid. It wasn't scared per say but more like everything was dangerous and it knew it. That one confused her because it never did anything other than sleep and eat. The last room she visited was a large room with creatures unlike anything she'd ever seen. They had so many moving parts that she couldn’t make sense of it. The most confusing part was it kept spitting out thangs. Inside of one there was another beetle but she couldn't tell if it was hurt or what, but it seemed to be missing bits. But the weird creatures weren't taking them away, it was putting new bits on them. She watched for a little while longer before deciding to leave before she overstayed her welcome. Plus, she still had to gather herbs for the village.

Austin had tried to make sure Sophia hadn't gone anywhere she shouldn't have but he had become distracted partway through and she had nearly walked into his core room before he stopped her. The distraction had come in the form of is aquatic exploration drones being attacked by some form of aquatic predator. He had recalled the waterproof ants and more annoyingly pulled back the aquatic construction unit that had just arrived at its destination. They'd all require an electrical field generator for self-defense. While humanity had come up with some aquatic based weaponry and he was looking into designing a unit with that in mind. For the time being the simplest option was just to create an electrical field around them like the old electric eels from earth and hope that would persuade them to leave his machines alone. He'd like to just plug the hole in the wall and be done with it. But as there was a current in the water, he wasn't sure if the ants had been drowned out or just washed out of their tunnels. He needed to explore the tunnels fully and make sure they were properly cleared out before he could drain the tunnel. Austin wanted to sigh in annoyance. All he wanted to do was explore the cavern below. From what little he'd seen it was an optimal place to expand his production into and while he could expand in any direction just by digging it out. He'd like to start mapping the local area more thoroughly. With his limited aerial drones, he was already beginning to map the surface he could probably launch one or two of them into the tunnels below. He already had one available opening but till then he still had more work to do.