Chapter 26: Uninvited Guests
The desert night was cold and silent, save for the eternal wind, which howled like a dirge through the twisted metal and fractured concrete of this forgotten place.
But inside the sanctum, time had passed in focused, sacred work. The manufactorum was transformed. The once-empty space had been efficiently reconfigured, every square meter assigned a clear, orderly function.
Most striking was the nascent power core at the workshop's center. It was no longer a crude battery-array but a composite structure, a primary fusion reactor coupled with multiple magnetic containment rings. Its exposed energy conduits and unshielded reaction-chamber gave it a raw, industrial form, but the steady, low-frequency hum from within, and the climbing readouts on the control terminal, signaled a potential for near-limitless power.
The entire manufactorum was running in overdrive. The lumen-strips were bright and constant, the torque on his tools was at its peak, and the air-purification units were at full capacity, scrubbing the atmosphere clean of all micro-particulates and fumes.
Against one wall, the four Combat Servitors stood inert, their initialization-rites complete. Their reinforced alloy carapaces gleamed coldly, their optical sensors dark and dormant. All weapon systems had passed their final calibration, their power cells were fully charged, and their ammunition-feeds were locked. They were ready to be activated—as silent guardians, efficient tactical units, or the unthinking extensions of their master's will.
Joric stood in the center of his creation, surveying the work. On his bench, tools were arranged with millimeter precision. Newly forged components shimmered. On the terminal, data-streams flowed like a stable, endless waterfall. His "Old Friend," the primary servo-skull, hovered by the reactor core, its blue oculars pulsing with a steady rhythm as it monitored the output.
A deep, profound satisfaction flowed through him, the satisfaction that came from perfect integration, from absolute control, from the holy hum of optimal function.
His gaze finally settled on the wall, where a high-precision regional map, woven from the real-time data of his servo-skull network, was projected. Terrain data, resource coordinates, and mutant-lair locations were all marked. But now, new trajectories, radiating from the southeast, were crawling across the map in highlighted, red vector lines.
Just then, an encrypted data-burst arrived from one of the outrider replica-skulls.
++[WARNING: Large-scale vehicular movement detected. Bearing: Southeast. Distance: 22km. Units: Seven (7). Profile: Heavily modified, armed pickups and one (1) suspected Armored Personnel Carrier. Thermal/Iconography Match: 87% probability 'Slashers'. Behavior: Low-speed patrol, intermittent halts, wide-area scans. Inferred Intent: Search for previously lost unit, followed by retaliatory armed-reconnaissance.]++
Joric's optical lenses focused, zooming in on the red vectors. His logic-engine spun, cross-referencing the data.
"A larger scale. Upgraded wargear. This is not merely reprisal; it is an attempt to eradicate a perceived threat and restore their... honor." He analyzed the situation aloud, his synthesized voice flat, betraying no emotion in the humming sanctum. "Their tactics remain inefficient, but the objective threat-level has been significantly elevated."
He felt no fear. Only the cold, logical acknowledgment that an expected problem had finally arrived. And with it, a faint, clinical anticipation—an opportunity to test his new systems.
His mind calculated the variables: engagement protocols, resource expenditure, potential risks.
Notify Maine's crew? The thought was generated and immediately discarded. His relationship with Maine was one of contract and mutual interest, but on a technical level, Joric was the master. To expend their assets on such a matter was unnecessary, inefficient. This was his sanctum, his problem. It was a matter of principle.
"I will handle this."
He spoke the words to himself and to his Old Friend. His voice was calm, backed by the absolute confidence of superior power.
Thanks to the trade channel established with Maine's crew, he had acquired more than just alloys. Through Maine's covert contacts, he had paid a significant, but worthwhile, price for a small cache of high-purity, stabilized, secondary-grade fusion rods. That was the key that had allowed his nascent reactor core to be properly sanctified and brought to life.
Yesterday, he had performed the ritual of refueling. His mechadendrites, moving with surgical precision, had drawn the old, inefficient power units and slotted the new, glowing blue rods into the core. The reactor's song had deepened, the power-output curve leaping by several orders of magnitude.
That glorious, surging power now flowed through every conduit in the sanctum, and through every circuit in his own augmented body.
A long-forgotten, long-missed sensation had returned: the feeling of full power.
His Martian-born wargear—the Rad-pistol hidden in his sleeve, the integrated Lascutter, the grim Annihilator Pistol at his hip, and the Phosphor Weapon capable of melting a Leman Russ Tank to slag—were no longer "starving."
They were sated, their internal capacitors full, radiating a faint, dangerous heat that only he could sense. They were slumbering beasts, waiting for a single synaptic command to awaken and unleash the destructive, holy fire of a darker universe.
He was but a simple Tech-Priest, no Magos, but here, in this world, his full combat strength had finally been restored.
++[All external augur-units: Elevate to maximum vigilance. Maintain continuous track on hostile force. Calculate probable approach-vectors, time-to-contact, and simulate optimal ambush-points.]++
++[Old Friend: Pre-load 'Protocol: Bulwark' into all defensive units. Stand by for activation-command.]++
The directives flowed from him, his voice still flat, but now carrying a sharpened edge.
++[Affirmative. Protocol: Bulwark is sanctified and ready. All systems respond to the highest directive.]++ The servo-skull's jaw clicked as the data-flow on its projected screen accelerated.
Joric walked to the four silent Combat Servitors. He placed a hand on the cold alloy chassis of one, his metal fingers brushing the rocket launcher mounted on its shoulder, feeling the faint, ready-state vibration within.
"Initialization: 100%. It is time for a live-fire performance-test."
His tone was as calm as if scheduling a routine diagnostic, but the destructive intent was unmistakable.
++[Activation on my mark. Deployment schema: Multi-layered ambush utilizing sanctum-ruin topography. Prioritize annihilation of hostile vehicles and heavy-weapon emplacements. Divide and purge.]++
He returned to the workbench, running a final, rapid soft-check on the servitors' fire-control litanies, fine-tuning their target-priority and engagement-protocols. His movements were flawless, precise to the millisecond, as if preparing for a technical demonstration, not a slaughter.
The manufactorum remained a place of focused, humming order. The power core thrummed with its deep, reassuring song. The servitors stood like steel-clad warriors in their tombs. On the monitor, the red icons of the approaching threat crawled steadily closer.
Joric stood among his creations, his mechanical body humming with power beneath his dark red robes.
Outside, the setting sun was painting the desert in strokes of jaundice and blood, and the eternal wind seemed to carry a new sound—the distant, metallic growl of engines.
The storm was gathering, but he had raised his fortress of technology, he had sharpened his blades of steel, and he had awakened his long-slumbering fire.
This was the calm before that storm—a calm built on absolute technical confidence, full resource-stockpiles, and the newly restored, tank-killing power of a true priest of Mars.
He simply waited for the uninvited "guests" to foolishly step into the ultimate testing ground he had prepared for them.