A week went by…
It was nighttime, and the cold air of winter was blowing hard. Brighthaven City would usually get covered in ice this time of year, but its severity was something no one was prepared for.
With the first snowfall, the need for heat fuel would double, and those who weren't fast enough to scavenge wood for fire would die from the cold of winter.
A grim thought, but a needless worry. Adam had largely solved the power problem by the construction of the second Solar Plant, not far from the first, just two days after the Krant invasion.
He thought back to that day while sitting on the roof of the Command Center, watching the endless stars in the sky, a sight that captivated him every night without fail; only the warmth of his lover beside him anchored him, preventing his mind from drifting to another reality.
He held the blanket over his shoulder and leaned in closer, cheek-to-cheek, remembering what they all had been through. He smiled, his fingers twitched, as he started thinking of something.
"Pick a better moment, please."
Lazily, Megan spoke, as if aware of the mechanization of his brain, causing him to fluster.
"I wasn't… doing anything in particular." he said, attempting to sound composed.
"Mhm!" Megan smirked, not opening her eyes, as she pressed closer against him, "You had me carry that ring around for half a year, think of it as…"
Yet just as she was about to give him the hint, the two were interrupted.
"Commander, sir." The roof hatch was pushed open, a head peeking through, surveying the area like a turning radar, "Oh, here you are. Hello there, Ms. Magpie."
"Hey, Buzz."
Megan greeted the Wartopian radio operator, who perked up, before speaking:
"We've received a communication signal from the Factory Shelter. Their leader wishes to speak." Buzz said.
Adam and Megan both straightened up, understanding that the call was from Professor Hendrick. The two stood up immediately and picked up their blanket and hot drinks, before following Buzz down the roof hatch.
On their way down, they had to pass through the second story of the Command Center, now a spacious place that served as a workplace for Biscuits and Patch, a well-equipped infirmary, and a clean surgery room.
This was the Field Hospital, the add-on Adam chose for his Command Center despite the differing opinions he faced. A field hospital in what used to be the living quarters of the Tanaka Household was the least bit of respect he could offer to Kave's parents, whose shrine was erected in the backyard of the Command Center.
Other options included a Propaganda Room, a Base Cannon, and a defensive Hexdome Generator, none of which was the right option in Adam's opinion. While the Propaganda Room would boost recruitment speed from adjacent settlements (at least according to the game), the other two options were more situational and would consume a ton of resources each.
Still, the existence of the Field Hospital boosted the morale of both the Wartopians and the Recruits, an effect that was definitely overlooked in the game, yet it added to Adam's image in the camp.
As Adam and Megan descended into the Command Center, they arrived at the scene of a confrontation between two of the current core personnel of the base: Elena, Adam's second-in-command, and Flint, the newest drill instructor who had boosted drill efficiency to unbelievable success.
"Listen here, Corporal. Kave is my skinward. I don't care what you want from him. What is mine is mine." Elena said, almost throwing a tantrum at Flint.
"But Brother Recruit Kave has the most potential to be a Grenadier. You can't deny a man his destiny, which was ordained by Sol's Divine Light." Flint the Fanatic replied, an expressionless mask hiding what seemed to be a well-placed smirk.
"I didn't say anything about him becoming a Grenadier or a Fanatic. If it is his choice, I'll never stand in his way." Elena said, taking an overbearing step towards Flint in the middle of the command room, "As long as I am his mommy, you won't be his daddy."
"Oh! I see we aren't beating around the bush anymore." Flint exclaimed, taken aback by the direct confrontation, "We'll see about that, Venuxian."
"Hmph!" Elena snorted as she watched him walking away, "Typical Urdman. Even their Fanatics think they are better than everyone else. Sol Imperius was born on Venus, not Urd."
"Technically born on the Sun, but delivered to Venus by the Spirit of…" Adam corrected her, looking like a total nerd, but he only got cold stares from the two ladies around him.
Megan shook her head and pointed to the earlier situation:
"I see it took the apocalypse for Kave to be this popular among the ladies and…" She cast a sidelong glance towards the door and shrugged, then added: "The gentlemen."
"Hey!" Adam turned to Megan with a frown, "You should be the last person to speak of Kave like that."
"Like what?" Elena asked, seeing a hint of panic rising on Megan's face.
"Like… nothing at all!" Megan's eyes widened as she looked at Adam, signaling to him to stop talking with a threatening gesture.
Adam, on the other hand, showed a cunning smirk, continuing:
"You're the one who gate-blocked him. The boy couldn't get any girl because of you, and now you're saying it took the apocalypse for him to get attention. He was a premium-quality femboy before, a rare catch by all standards." Adam said, showing loyalty to his bro.
"What are you talking about, Commander?" Elena asked, sparks flying from her fierce gaze.
"Well…" Adam's smile couldn't help but widen, "We all know that Megan is the girl who always has a Plan B…"
"You know what! As your girlfriend, I am VERY offended. How could you even…" Megan immediately cut Adam off, sidelong glancing with fear at Elena, who took a step towards her, before immediately addressing Elena, "Listen, Sergeant, I can explain! I just like cute boys! Like… even Adam was counted as a femboy at some point… I didn't…"
"Shut it!" Elena said, raising her index finger with a fierce gaze, "I am not sure whether to thank you or lash it all on you, but since you kept Kave's purity for me to take, it looks like we'll have to spend a girls' night at Boot Camp along with Biscuits and Fish."
"Oh, come on." Megan slumped her shoulders, broken in spirit as she was led to the training building.
"Return her in one piece." Adam laughed at Elena as he and Megan exchanged a look that sent sparks flying.
He watched them leave, and the smile on his face faded slowly. Of course, it was all a joke. The reason why Megan gate-blocked Kave was far wilder than him being a Plan B or anything of the sort. Adam was in on it, too.
Some traumas are simply older than the apocalypse, but that's not a story he should be thinking about now. He shook his head and walked across the command room, standing before the Tactical Holo Table.
"Establish communication with Professor Hendrick." Adam ordered Buzz.
"Two minutes for secure protocol, sir." Buzz replied, as the radio communication would need to be ported to a secure channel, ensuring that no one else was listening while the leaders of the two camps conversed.
Adam's eyes didn't leave the Holo Table, choosing to fiddle with it until the connection was secured.
He opened the Base Tactical View, and a prideful look appeared in his eyes.
Many buildings were added in the past week alone. Most of the training hours were allocated to construction since the day they faced the Krants.
Once he landed with the Earth Golem in the center of the Krant swarm, he killed almost four Krant Soldiers, the ones previously referred to as Lobsters.
The sight of twenty-something humans who charged, following the Earth Golem, made the remaining Krant workers dissolve like salt in water. Some of them ran, fighting at random, still alive to that day, but leaderless and unable to survive without a higher chain of command.
Adam and Megan were rescued from the rubble of the Earth Golem with minimal bruises, while there were no losses on the human side.
After the desperate defense, Adam made a series of decisions that altered the shape of his base. A Solar Plant was added, followed by an open Boot Camp building that contained three separate buildings made of metal beams, silicate bricks, and a metal roof. The Boot Camp was composed of a gym, a training center that would house more Iron Maidens, and an indoor gun range.
But these were all things that the team constructed in the first three days, and despite the incompletion of the Iron Maidens within the Boot Camp, the Sacred Code still unlocked more building recipes, and finally, the Omni-Turrets were available to build.
The situation with the turrets was a difficult one, since they needed one building to be unlocked (the Boot Camp), and another to function; that other building was a vital one that Adam would need to build hundreds of in the future: the Scanner Beacon.
In most classic RTS games introduced in the early 2000s, there is a mechanic called the Fog of War; basically, you can't see areas you don't have eyes on. So you either need troops or a building to gain visual on a wider section of the map. In Wartopia's RTS, one of the buildings was designed for that very purpose alone, and that's what the Scanner Beacon was.
Any Solarium base needed one Scanner Beacon at the very least in order to unlock the map function, and reveal the map on the Tactical Holo Table inside the base with an isometric interface similar to that of an RTS game.
The Scanner Beacon had a very intelligent system, capable of distinguishing between friendly, allied, enemy, and neutral entities. It made all registered combatants appear in blue, the recruits in yellow, and the hostiles in red. Adam alone had his own color, as gold, which was a nice nod from the Sacred Code of the base to him.
The Beacon had even more functions. It boosted the communication range and quality, but more importantly, it started giving an alert every time a hostile entity entered the range of detection. This happened a lot with all the stray Krants going around the place, and of course, it was the function the Omni-Turrets needed to operate.
The Omni-Turret was a highly versatile base defense that could be outfitted with a wide range of light to heavy weapon systems like Rotary Blazers, Automatic Sluggers, Plasma Blasters, and so on. As it was an armored shooting platform, operated by a powerful robotic arm, it offered 360-degree firing capability. It could be operated remotely with manual control from the Command Center, or mass-operated to target enemies automatically, based on command alertness states.
Since there was a weaponry shortage in the base, Adam began selecting weapons from miniature kits, painstakingly painting each to a lifelike quality before summoning them individually. His puppeteer rune still strangely continued to perceive them as puppets, even though Adam's power was specifically for puppeteering, causing Adam to ponder over the situation.
It seemed to him like a matter of conceptuality at the end of the day, and Adam decided not to question it further now, since he'd learn more with time and experience anyway.
But that wasn't all; Adam's Solarium Base wasn't some standard RTS system to the letter. Actually, there were Survival Crafting mechanics going hand in hand with the Real-Time Strategy.
Since day one, Adam built the Workbench along with Elena, and Workbenches weren't something one would build in any RTS. Rather, they mostly appear in crafting games. After that, there was a Base Computer (Command Terminal), a Tech Shrine, a Grub Processor, and an Apothecary Lab.
These structures weren't based on anything from an RTS; they all made an appearance in Wartopia's open-world survival craft game, the kind of thing Adam was more excited about than Kave.
That's why Adam had something being constructed at that moment, something that would cut down on work time and help create wonders in the shortest amount of time: the Fabricator.
A Fabricator was an advanced, high-speed 3D-Printing system, seamlessly integrated with an array of multi-axis robotic arms and high-precision sensory feedback systems, and executed optimized, hyper-efficient kinematic trajectories. This sophisticated platform enabled the fabrication of a diverse spectrum of materials, leveraging feedstocks such as mineral powder, silicate dust, carbon compounds, biopaste, and water, thereby providing the capability to produce virtually any complex geometry or functional component.
This was the real 3D printer Adam was looking forward to. Considered the most cutting-edge, it was a very powerful tool that his newest summon, Corporal Wrench, was working hard to construct in one of the empty corners of the Command Center's garage.
The applications of this manufacturing machine would be endless, and Adam was looking forward to every bit of it. But while it was cutting-edge in every conceivable way, it didn't make his Workbench obsolete either, as the Fabricator was good at making singular parts or simple composites, whereas assembling things with precision would either need human hands on a Workbench, or an array of conveyor belts and robotic arms all interconnected in a single hyper-efficient industry complex. [A/n: Think Satisfactory meets No Man's Sky!]
But there were more plans for building more production machines: Blazer weaponry production still required the Optics Lab for precisely cut crystals. Army uniforms, specifically heavy winter clothes, necessitated the Textile Printer. On top of all that, Elena worked on the frame for the SolTech-powered Crawler vehicle for building and resource gathering efforts.
The incoming projects were unending, and Adam needed to work on more organization for his camp to achieve maximum efficiency with logistics now that the base defenses were more optimized to face another attack.
"Sir, the line is secure."
But just as Adam was about to do more micromanaging of his base through the terminal, he was called over by Buzz for his call with Professor Hendrick. Adam approached the communication terminal and sat in front of the mic.
"Professor Hendrick, this is Officer Adam Clay speaking. Over!" Adam said, trying to sound professional and set titles straight.
"Adam, dear boy. I'm glad to hear your voice… Over!" Yet with his overfriendliness, Professor Anthony Hendrick ignored the titles.
"I'm glad to hear your voice as well, Professor. Is the grub processor doing well, or do you need me to send a mechanic over?… Over!" Adam said and paused for a while before adding.
"Oh, it's all too well. Working wonderfully, I may say. But the taste… I never knew there were such levels of blandness." The Professor said with a broken spirit.
"I understand. It is like the taste was designed to crush one's soul." Adam agreed inwardly.
He didn't tell the Professor that he was avoiding eating the food bars produced by the machine, as, for the past few days, he was eating processed Krant Soldier meat along with the rest of his people, something that surely would crush the Professor's soul even more.
"Either way, we've had news from our Alfari friends. They are visiting tomorrow with samples of their spices. I was hoping to test if they were compatible with the machine." The Professor asked, seemingly inviting Adam to the trade.
"I wouldn't advise it, honestly." Adam replied, continuing: "The machine breaks any material into nutritious slurry. The spices would lose their worth if they enter. Best use them after you distill the food bars into gruel with water and add the spices as a taste enhancer."
"That would mean distribution of such a small amount. I was hoping for an efficient alternative, but I guess that would do." The Professor said, but he didn't stop there, as he shifted to another topic, "Ms. Kahori also provided me with something incredible, and I want you to be there tomorrow if you may. An important Alfari individual will come along to teach us more about the Runes and their Magic. They can even manipulate them to do miracles."
Adam listened and remained silent, processing the information.
The Alfari are now fully cooperating with the Professor, but it seemed that the Professor was no fool and wanted Adam by his side in order to bolster his own standing while negotiating with the aliens.
"That's an interesting event, Professor. I don't think I should miss it." Adam said, giving a positive assessment of the situation.
"Right?" The Professor's voice seemed cheerful on the other side, "Tomorrow, an hour before noon, is when they will come. If you can think of something to strengthen our trading position with the Alfari, it would be extremely beneficial to all sides." The Professor said.
"I'll think about it, sir." Adam replied.
After a few pleasantries and niceties with his old teacher, Adam closed the communication line and thought heavily about the situation, thinking of how to benefit from such an important trade deal.
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