Production at Base 100 was proceeding at a frantic pace.
Toiling at their posts were not only three hundred thousand Cross Spider engineering robots, but also nearly three thousand workers and engineers.
They were practically the finest industrial talents in the entire Alliance.
Some hailed from distant Ideal City, others from Evernight Port in the southern hemisphere, from shelters in the Great Desert, or wastelanders who had studied advanced disciplines at Camp 101.
Faced with the impending threat of doomsday, the Daybreak City Industrial Center, which drew upon the strengths of countless disciplines, once again demonstrated its awe-inspiring, terrifying production capacity to the major survivor factions across the wasteland.
The moment a Cross Spider stepped off the assembly line in the southern industrial park, a battery was hooked onto it, and it was immediately loaded onto a truck and delivered straight into the Foundry Well of Base 100.
From the heavy engineering machinery welding structural steel down to the tiniest screws in the Foundry Well, every single unit operating along the production lines—man or machine alike—was running at maximum throttle.
That staggering industrial throughput had even briefly strained the transport resources of Luoye City, the railway transit hub.
Such a bottleneck, where transport capacity lagged behind sheer productivity, had never occurred even during the fiercest fighting against the Southern Legion.
Inside the Administrator's office in the Alliance Building, Minister of Industry Song Xuelin was reporting the latest progress to Chu Guang.
"...Currently, all production units in our Vertical Foundry Well 100 are operational. The first near-orbit defense platform is in production. The estimated construction time is three months, and if all goes smoothly, delivery could be completed by early June!"
The near-orbit defense platform was a defensive countermeasure jointly conceived during conferences by specialists from the Alliance, the Academy, and the Enterprise, provisionally designated the "Trench" Project.
Specifically, it entailed deploying defense platforms equipped with railguns and high-power laser weapons into several near-Earth orbits.
These defense platforms were regarded as functional replacements for orbital debris.
Like sampans floating along the outer perimeter of a harbor, they could intercept strategic weapon strikes from medium to long ranges using electromagnetically accelerated mass drivers.
Although Chu Guang was well aware that this production speed was already astounding, the urgency of the current situation still made him unconsciously furrow his brow.
"One every three months?"
Song Xuelin offered a wry smile.
"It's a colossal, systemic undertaking. Being able to build one every three months is already thanks to assistance from the Academy and the Enterprise... This pace is actually exceptionally fast."
Pausing for a beat, he quickly added, "The relevant supply chains are still going through their break-in period, and the technicians on the production line are not yet fully proficient. The first vessel will inevitably take longer, but once the first is completed, things should pick up significantly."
Chu Guang nodded, letting the matter rest.
The more urgent certain matters were, the less they could be rushed.
Especially when dealing with strategic assets.
He knew full well that whatever pressure he exerted would cascade downward through each tier of management, magnifying at every step.
If the personnel below truly cut corners to rush the schedule under his pressure, the end result would very likely be compromised quality.
That was something he was even less willing to see.
Seeing that Chu Guang was not going to press further on the construction timeline, Song Xuelin let out a quiet breath of relief and flipped through the documents in his hands to continue his briefing.
"In addition, there is the logistics issue... The railway network in the central part of River Valley Province is currently operating in an overloaded state. Although we possess numerous mines and steel mills in our controlled areas outside the province, the regional transport capacity of Daybreak City is already stretched thin."
"Transport capacity is falling short?" Chu Guang looked at him in surprise, straightening up from his office chair with slight astonishment. "Didn't we still have an excess margin of over thirty percent previously?"
Railways were the lifeblood of the Alliance's industry. Since the Bone Chewer Turmoil, he had prioritized expanding the Alliance's rail network, even specifically planning Luoye City as a hub for freight traffic spanning north, south, east, and west, all to guarantee smooth logistics.
It was precisely because of that initiative back then that the Alliance later possessed the potential to project its influence into Sunset Province, Jinchuan Province, and even the distant Haiya Province.
After all, no matter how far the players marched on foot, if the Alliance's equipment and logistics could not reach them, it was completely pointless.
If that happened, a massive amount of time would be squandered merely waiting to respawn.
Chu Guang had even considered that Daybreak City's controlled fusion reactors might become overtaxed, but he had never imagined that the dense web of railway lines would suffer a transport shortfall.
Manufactured goods couldn't be hauled in fast enough?
Was this really a scenario that could happen on the wasteland?
Looking at Chu Guang's bewildered expression, Song Xuelin broke into a light sweat.
"This... was indeed an oversight on our part. We originally estimated that the growth of productivity would keep pace with the expansion of our railway network. However, the actual capacity demonstrated by Foundry Well 100 exceeded our expectations. Its industrial throughput is nearly equal to that of the entire Daybreak City industrial zone, and its strain on transport capacity is correspondingly severe..."
*The rear feet can't keep up with the front feet, can they?*
Hearing the Minister of Industry's reply, Chu Guang felt torn between laughter and exasperation, unsure whether to be delighted or to sigh.
Yet Song Xuelin was right about one thing: failing to anticipate this was undeniably a lapse by the industrial ministry.
"Matters like this must be anticipated and prepared for in advance. We cannot wait for problems to materialize before scrambling for solutions. File the self-criticism as required, but for now, focus on how to resolve the bottleneck."
Song Xuelin nodded profusely, sweat beading on his forehead. "Yes, sir..."
Rather than making things difficult for him over an existing mistake, Chu Guang tapped his index finger gently on the armrest of his office chair, pondering for a moment before speaking.
"Foundry Well 100 cannot be moved, so we must seek alternatives elsewhere... What do you think about relocating a portion of our capacity to the Death Coast in Haiya Province? I've been considering this for some time."
Song Xuelin answered cautiously, "I had the same thought. However, considering that the settlements there are still in their early development stages, I'm worried the local infrastructure cannot absorb such a massive industrial influx..."
"No need to worry about that," Chu Guang said with a faint smile, noting his hesitation. "Daybreak City was also built under emergency orders from an empty wilderness. While the situation today is severe, it's far better than it was in those early years!"
"Furthermore, I visited the Death Coast in person! Although the survivors there come from all corners of the world, they are by no means inferior to the survivors of Dawn City or Daybreak City. In fact, they are even more worldly and full of vitality. I believe they have both the capability and the confidence to shoulder the mission entrusted to them by this era."
"Since you hold them in such high regard, Administrator, I have nothing further to add," Song Xuelin smiled. "I will convene an industrial council as soon as possible and strive to produce a concrete plan at the earliest date."
Chu Guang smiled and nodded. "Go ahead."
For the Alliance, shifting industry southward was an inevitable strategic move, one for which preparations had been underway for a long time.
Container shipping inherently possessed advantages over rail transport, and an industry like aerospace was naturally better off situated closer to the space elevator.
Shelter 100's primary function was to serve as an incubation base for the Alliance's aerospace industry, much like the Seed Factory in the northern suburbs of Qingquan City.
Chu Guang's aspirations for it went far beyond merely churning out a few near-orbit defense platforms.
It possessed the potential to nurture an entire forest.
***
Deep in the Great Desert, at the heart of the Old World.
Rolling sand dunes had swallowed an endless expanse of urban sprawl, leaving behind only omnipresent ruins and crumbling facades to bear witness to past prosperity.
Beneath a rust-encrusted megastructure of steel, a battle-scarred off-road vehicle sped across the dunes.
Weaving past several fragments of a collapsed space elevator, the vehicle finally pulled to a stop before the entrance of an abandoned high-rise.
The moment the off-road vehicle came to a halt, roughly twenty soldiers clad in exoframes emerged from the shadows of the nearby ruins, encircling the vehicle.
The vehicle door swung open, and a damaged suit of power armor stepped out. The figure raised both hands to signal no hostile intent, then released the helmet's faceplate, revealing the face of Malik, captain of the Desert Scorpions.
"Relax, I'm one of you."
Upon seeing Malik's face, the lead soldier did not let his guard down; instead, he raised a clenched fist with sharp vigilance.
Rifles snapped up in an instant, trained squarely on "Malik" beside the off-road vehicle, ready to riddle him with holes at a single order.
Lying in the trunk, Medical Miracle peered through a crack and took in the scene outside, unable to keep from whispering a soft "holy crap."
*Did the cover get blown already?!*
Facing that cluster of dark, gaping barrels, "Malik" showed no reaction, both hands raised as he stared unblinkingly at the lead soldier.
"I need an explanation."
The soldier sneered, his rifle leveled directly at the bridge of Malik's nose.
"An explanation? You're the one who needs to explain yourself, Lieutenant Malik. You had better account for your whereabouts over the past week."
Hearing those words, Zhuang Lan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, though her expression remained completely stoic as she continued.
"I was ambushed by the Alliance while carrying out a mission in the southern desert. I've spent the past week evading their pursuit. Naturally, I will report the full details to the Army Operations Section... I just never expected that after barely escaping with my life, I'd return only to face the guns of my own comrades."
Those words seemed to carry some weight. The surrounding soldiers exchanged glances, and while their rifles remained raised, their killing intent subsided noticeably.
The same went for the lead soldier.
He scrutinized Malik with a mix of suspicion and belief, gradually lowering his rifle barrel.
"You didn't defect?"
"Have you ever seen a defector come back on his own initiative?" Malik met his gaze, his tone grim. "I botched the mission, yes, but that wasn't entirely my fault. Who could have guessed that when we reached the destination, we wouldn't find some Watcher rats, but a contingent of heavily armed regulars?"
"We were caught completely unprepared. Valen was killed on the spot, along with several of my squads. Even I barely made it out alive! Dammit... I'm starting to suspect that transmission was a trap dug by the Alliance from the start. The intelligence apparatus should shoulder at least half the blame!"
That righteous indignation did not seem feigned in the slightest, looking precisely like an officer who had been thoroughly shafted by his own command.
Watching the show unfold from his hiding spot in the trunk, Medical Miracle couldn't help admiring her performance. Even though it wasn't his turn to take the stage yet, he was already getting into character... genuinely feeling as though he were a captured prisoner.
The lead soldier stared intently into Malik's eyes, and in the end, trust tipped the balance over suspicion.
He gestured with his hand, and two exoframe-clad soldiers stepped forward to inspect the off-road vehicle. They pulled open the trunk, revealing the figure tied up like a stuffed dumpling, wriggling energetically.
"Who's this?"
"One of the Alliance's dogs," Malik said, a cold, savage grin curling on his otherwise deadpan face. "I snagged this unlucky bastard during my escape. Unfortunately, the pursuit was too tight, so I didn't get the chance to pry anything out of him."
By this point, the soldier on duty was largely convinced.
Waving to the soldiers standing near the vehicle, he signaled them to take the captive away, then turned back to Malik.
"I contacted Internal Affairs just now. They expressed considerable surprise that you made it back alive, and I imagine a mountain of questions is waiting for you."
Malik let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
"Sounds like in their eyes, I was already dead."
"Don't think of it that way, brother," the soldier said, casting him a sympathetic look before glancing at his raised hands. "Put your hands down. Welcome home."
Malik lowered his hands and took the soldier's outstretched right hand, giving it a shake.
As their hands parted, the soldier suddenly drew a gun-shaped scanner and swept it across both of his eyes.
Someone unfamiliar with the Enlightenment Society might have mistaken it for a handgun and reacted excessively, thereby blowing their cover.
Yet Malik was intimately familiar with these procedures. Such an amateur probe was not only useless against her, but almost comical.
"Believe me now?" "Malik" mocked, looking at the soldier stowing the retinal scanner.
"Don't take it personally, just routine procedure." The soldier smiled, putting the retinal scanner away. "Please follow me, Lieutenant Malik."
Malik glanced toward the captive being hauled off and asked casually, "What about the prisoner?"
The soldier smiled. "You don't need to trouble yourself over him. Just leave him to us."
Malik offered a word of caution. "Be sure to interrogate him thoroughly."
The soldier grinned savagely. "Rest assured, we won't make things easy for him."
Seeing that vicious grin, Zhuang Lan's heart tightened slightly, but she made no move to plead for the prisoner.
Any words right now would be superfluous. Not only would they fail to help her Alliance friend, but they could also bring total ruin upon the entire operation.
Right now, she was Lieutenant Malik, a disciple of the Enlightenment Society, an active-duty officer of the New Human Alliance authorities, and the captain of the Desert Scorpions.
Without another word, she secured Malik's faceplate back into place and strode forward behind the guide with head held high, like a warrior returning with honor despite defeat, marching toward the entrance of the legendary Shelter 13.
***
Meanwhile, in deep space thirty-six thousand kilometers above Earth, a silver-gray research vessel was slowly navigating through an asteroid belt formed from space station wreckage.
Shattered alloy structures stood like uncarved tombstones, silently upright in this graveyard of absolute stillness.
Compared to those magnificent megastructures, the Academy's research vessel looked like a child's toy.
Sitting in the pilot's seat, Jiang Xuezhou wore a look of subtle tension.
Although deflector shields could deflect space debris, they were powerless against debris larger than the research vessel itself.
Their luck was rather poor; just as they were nearing their destination, they had run straight into this "debris belt" drifting through geosynchronous orbit.
Yet they no longer had time to wait for the debris to drift past. They could only bite the bullet and press on.
Unlike Jiang Xuezhou, who was gingerly piloting along the fringes of the massive structures with her heart in her throat, Ye Shi, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, looked like a tourist on sightseeing leave, his mouth hanging agape at the majestic space junk outside the cockpit canopy.
Everything unfolding before his eyes completely shattered his preconceived notions of space debris.
He had imagined space junk to be the size of soda cans, but the reality before him was megastructures the size of small moons looming right in his face.
That was hyperbole, of course.
The space station wreckage here wasn't truly the size of the Moon.
Even so, chunks the size of one or two aircraft carriers were everywhere.
The most advanced spacecraft on Earth looked like mere specks of dandruff on a giant's head when set against this backdrop, while the so-called "Eye of Humanity" wouldn't even measure up to one of the larger fragments.
A wonder of the world!
Confronted with such a scene, that was the only phrase Ye Shi could summon to mind.
"Holy crap..."
Jiang Xuezhou glanced at him from the pilot's seat, the corner of her lips curving into a faint smile.
What she appreciated most was the wide-eyed, country-bumpkin expression plastered across his face.
"Dream City."
Ye Shi turned to look at her, bewildered. "Huh?"
"Dream City, one of the architectural marvels of the Era of Prosperity," Jiang Xuezhou explained slowly while maneuvering the vessel. "Supposedly, it was a permanent space station featuring artificial gravity and an artificial day-night cycle... at least according to the promotional advertisements."
Ye Shi scratched his helmet. "Why does that name sound awfully close to Ideal City?"
Jiang Xuezhou offered a faint smile. "Is it possible that they simply lifted the name 'Ideal City' from the history of the Era of Prosperity and slapped it onto themselves?"
Similar cases were hardly uncommon.
Take Avent City, for example.
In Wilante history, the settlement was named after a soldier who had conquered it, but that failed to explain why Avent City had already been called Avent City before the Legion conquered it.
According to historical investigations by the Academy, the settlement had actually taken its name from a pre-war residential district. The local survivors had simply kept the old name for convenience, and all the so-called special connotations were later additions by the Wilante.
As one of the dominant survivor factions on the wasteland, Wilante culture did in fact exert an ongoing influence on the Human Alliance language.
Ye Shi stared at Jiang Xuezhou, dumbfounded.
"...There's really a story like that?"
"It's merely a hypothesis. Take it with a grain of salt," Jiang Xuezhou said, shrugging. "I've heard that many people aboard the *Zhiyuan* were investors who had purchased presale units in Dream City... because according to Dream City's business prospectus, that space megastructure was intended to cruise regularly between Earth and Planet Zhiyuan."
Ye Shi couldn't help marveling, "...That's bloody insane."
Jiang Xuezhou nodded in deep agreement, her gaze returning to the deep void beyond the cockpit.
"It is. But considering the background of that era, graviton technology had achieved major breakthroughs, warp drives were delivering ever-greater mass, and spacecraft cruising ranges were expanding exponentially, so it wasn't strange for people to think that way. People of the Old Era once dreamed of colonizing Mars using chemical-fueled rockets, and they nearly pulled it off. There's nothing ridiculous about it."
"Haha..." Ye Shi let out a dry laugh, feeling somehow caught in the crosshairs out of nowhere.
Jiang Xuezhou didn't notice his odd expression. Taking a deep breath, she spoke in a composed tone.
"Tell your teammates to get ready..."
"We're almost there."
Chapter 986