Echoes Of Industry

The silence on the platform was absolute—no wind, no ambient hum of machinery, only the dull hiss of Carl's suit as he moved through the dormant halls of Extraction Nexus XG-443. It was eerie, yet majestic.

He found the primary mining console in what resembled a command cathedral—arched metallic ribs framed the ceiling, and luminescent lines flickered faintly along the floor. The interface floated in midair, slowly cycling alien glyphs.

"AI, interpret the glyph structure. Prioritize operational subroutines related to drilling, ore transport, and core extraction."

"Understood. Initiating language pattern recognition… 42% matched. Partial control achieved."

Carl keyed in commands manually, isolating one of the deep-bore shafts—a dormant vertical tunnel that descended thousands of meters into the platform's crust. Attached were magnetic elevators and segmented drilling arms—massive, segmented tools that hadn't moved in what might have been centuries.

"Power rerouted. Shaft 4 primed. Spooling drill systems…"

A groan echoed through the shaft.

Then a whine.

Lights flickered on one by one along the drill spine. Ancient motors surged to life, their mechanisms coated in dust but intact. A dull rumble followed—stone cracking. Metal teeth chewing into the depths below.

Carl grinned. "It's alive."

For three hours, he monitored the feed as the drill descended, carving into mineral-rich layers beneath the platform. The data readout was impressive—xenocrystalline silica, volatile plasma nodes, even dense metallic alloys unlike anything he'd seen back in Sol.

But there was a problem.

The system wasn't optimized for storage or refinement. Containers were cracked. Conveyor systems buckled under the pressure. Worse yet, several mining veins were buried beneath hardened tectonic plates the drills couldn't pierce.

Carl scratched his chin. "We're using alien systems… with alien logic. Time to adapt."

In the ship's engineering bay, he brought up his personal fabrication suite. Using repurposed Terran mining modules and scrap from the Valkyrie, he designed hybrid relay systems—fusion-core stabilizers spliced with alien mineral processors.

He spent two full days modifying:

Magnetic tethers using human alloy composites bonded to alien rail lines.

Terran plasma cutters mounted onto dormant Kethris tunneling drones.

Interface converters to allow his AI to communicate natively with alien subnets.

Each upgrade brought the systems closer to cohesion. The AI grew more fluent with the alien operating language, and soon the old infrastructure no longer stuttered with its commands—it responded.

On the third day, he watched a full cycle:

Drills tore through the bedrock. Transport rails activated in rhythmic pulses, sending loads of raw material up through the shaft. At the terminal hub, Carl's custom refiner separated ores and condensed them into dense metallic ingots.

The yield?

"Processing complete. Output: 14,203kg xenocrystal ore. 9,481kg plasma-touched alloy. 32kg unclassified volatile core."

Carl stood with arms crossed, helmet off, sweat-drenched and smiling like a madman.

"You know what this means, right?" he muttered to the AI.

"Profit margins will exceed 14,000%. Efficiency increasing with each cycle. This site is optimal for long-term habitation and trade infrastructure."

"No… It means we're building an empire."

In the following days, Carl started mapping future expansion:

Outpost hubs along the old cargo rails.

A communications array powered by plasma vents—ideal for long-range trade calls.

Storage domes and hangar zones—in case the alien traders returned, or others found him first.

With his AI now fully integrated into the alien systems, and both human and extraterrestrial tech working in tandem, Carl stood at the edge of the platform, staring into the swirling clouds of Norex-II.

He activated his neural relay, not to call Zeta-9 this time, but to record a log:

"Day 12. Core network secure. Mining underway. First storage bay complete. Hybrid tech holding at 98% efficiency."

"This isn't just recovery anymore. It's restoration."

He paused.

"No— colonization."**