“Well, shit.”

  Austin sighed then in less than a millisecond he cut his connection to everything reducing all system processing power to as little as possible before overclocking his system and ….…. Well, he had to admit it was underwhelming. At-At best he could reach was a one point five times speed. Not even twice as fast as standard perception. He really, really, needed to work on repairing himself. The first thing he did was take direct control over the turrets and order every bot he had to enter automated combat mode and work its way toward the village. He didn't have the time nor processing power to micromanage them like he would prefer he’d have a hard enough time controlling all his drones. With the boost in processor power, it wasn’t long before anything that crossed within range of his weapon systems was immediately cut down. Though even with every weapon throwing everything it had at the oncoming swarm it still poured over the village.

  The village guards didn't stand much of a chance on the village walls, so they retreated back to the center of town towards the bunker Austin had built.

  Frederick grunted as he buried his axe into the shell of a scrap shell beetle. Before planting his boot and yanking the axe free. He had a sword on his hip, heck every guard had a sword, but right now he needed something with a bit more heft to it. And the heavy war axe he had grabbed was better against the scrap shells armored bodies.

  Thankfully most of the citizens had had the bright idea of getting underground before all this mess started or things would have been a blood bath. It made him really wonder just how much that whatever it was Sophia was in contact with knew about what was going on. Did it really have that much foresight or was it just trying to make the place as secure as possible? Regardless of that, all the guards were in some form of fighting retreat or in the case for a few unfortunate guards being devoured by the monsters. And there were a lot of the bastard’s, thankfully those stinger things Sophia's companion had set up had been good about helping anyone who was in trouble. Though even they were starting to get overwhelmed.

  Frederick swore as he dropped to the ground and watched a bright beam of light slice its way through several of the scrap shell beetles overhead. He quickly planted the end of his axe into the ground using it to help himself back to his feet before continuing his Sprint towards the center of town. Normally the walls would be the most defensible position but with so many Flyers overhead they were about worthless. Though they’d hopefully keep the rest of the dungeon’s monstrosities out long enough for aid to come. They had sent a messenger weeks ago. Problem was they should have been back by now. Catherine thankfully had forethought enough to have any supplies that weren't absolutely needed on the wall stored in the bunker. A task he admits he had all but swore at her for at the time for the amount of extra work he had to suffer through. Right now, though, he was grateful for it because at least they had some supplies.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He slowed down as he approached the magical barrier Catherine had set up, he managed to kill another six beetles before passing through the barrier to catch his breath.

  His captain was already barking orders to organize a group to try and return to the walls and grab as many supplies as possible. Honestly, he would have thought the man was mad if it wasn't for the massive increase in the stinger’s fighting capability. Where mere minutes ago they had been about to be overrun they had seemingly caught a second wind and now dozens of scrap shell beetles were raining from the sky.

  Meanwhile, Austin was relieved to finally be receiving some good news.

  Austin had always seen Nanobots as finicky but extremely useful things. He only really needed to do the heavy lifting when it came to repairs and leave the rest to the little bots.

  As compared to when Sophia first stepped into the flipped over crumbling remnants of a spaceship. His base now looked almost pristine.

  The hallways had been restored to their former glory, the nanites were easily able to pull the required material from the soil or from any destroyed material left around so Austin didn't even need to waste time fabricating new wall panels or doors. He could just cut out the old doors, flip them over, and rework the wiring, and the bots cleaned up the rest.

  So, imagine his surprise when the entire thruster section of his ship came back online. He knew where the section was, of course, he’d found it early on and had wired a-an connection to it. But he hadn't paid it much mind beyond looting it for anything of immediate value but the nanobots had basically been told to rework and repair what was left of the ship. While Austin had been distracted with the ongoing war. They had apparently spread into the abandoned sections of the ship and began reprocessing it into usable facilities. It wasn't much at first, that’s why it had gone unnoticed for so long just a few subsystems blinking back online in those sections. That was until the old engineering computers came back online. That was the most pleasant surprise he had in a while as beyond his AI core engineering had the most processing power in the ship. Freeing up much needed processing power and it couldn't have come at a better time

  Austin was rerouting everything he had to the village's defenses meaning production had all but come to a grinding halt. As he sent everything, he had from the tractor beam ants to the remaining repair bots and everything in between the only thing he kept behind was just barely enough to keep a special project running. But annoyingly distance wasn't on his side and with only a singular exit point it would take time for them to reach the village but with the desperately needed boost in processing power came improved accuracy with his turrets. Buying much needed time but it didn’t help with the much needed battery power.

  Austin had a cord ready for the underground tunnel once it was completed and connected to the bunker but it was not long enough. He was quickly fabricating an extension and had several tractor beam Ants burying it just below the topsoil. Hoping it would at least keep it out of the scrap shell beetles' notice for long enough for him to hook it up. How he'd actually get it into the village was not a priority right now. The defense system desperately needed additional power. It was at this moment though something truly peculiar happened He received an unknown communication request.