Kael Virek dodged instinctively, his heart pounding.
Fortunately, his multi-layered space suit held up—the laser blast hadn't fully penetrated.
He scrambled back into the cabin, adrenaline surging, and barked an order at Elara.
"Capture the direction that beam came from. Maybe... maybe it's a survivor."
Moments ago, panic gripped him. Now? A flicker of hope. Excitement even.
Elara rotated the external camera and began analyzing the exact point where Kael had been struck.
"Kael," she said calmly, "the source of the laser has been identified."
"It originated from the direction of Sagittarius, beyond the solar system. The beam was extraordinarily powerful—far beyond anything Earth could have produced."
"Analysis indicates a 100% probability the signal originated from an extraterrestrial civilization. Based on trajectory and energy signature, there's a 97.28% chance it came from within five light-years."
A chill passed through Kael like a void wind.
An alien civilization.
It made sense now. They had likely detected the burst of gamma rays that struck Earth. As a follow-up, they fired a laser probe—traveling at light speed—arriving 100 days after the gamma signal.
That meant they'd noticed.
And they were watching.
"So the laser was a scan," Kael murmured. "Can they use it to detect the ship? To see me?"
Elara didn't need to run the numbers.
"Yes," she said simply.
"Their technological level far exceeds that of humanity. Based on current knowledge, it's highly probable they now have data on your location."
A deep sense of dread settled in.
If they were scanning, they'd likely send a ship next. An actual encounter might be inevitable.
"And it's only been a few years since Earth fell... We're already on an alien radar."
"Maybe life is everywhere," he whispered. "And maybe humanity made it this far without being seen purely by chance."
But now wasn't the time for philosophy.
He needed progress.
Kael powered up the first robot. It blinked to life, claws twitching and the drill arm flexing with mechanical grace.
It leapt from the hatch, adjusted its trajectory with tiny burst ports, and landed softly on the asteroid's surface.
The bot didn't carry a camera—everything it saw and did was streamed directly through Elara.
The drill activated and bored into the soil.
Most of these asteroid fragments were remnants of planetary collisions. Their exteriors had been scorched clean by cosmic radiation, leaving pure metallic cores inside.
The ForgeMaster 3000 3D printer could handle this. It wasn't just a printer—it was a micro-factory, capable of melting and purifying metals to near-perfect refinement.
Kael smiled slightly. The first real step had been taken.
One Month Later
Four new robots had joined the first.
Kael now focused on the next bottleneck—production speed. One printer wasn't enough.
"Elara, calculate how many ForgeMaster 3000 units we'll need to meet our long-term objectives without wasting time or resources."
She responded almost instantly.
"To maintain optimal development, we require 4,349 units—not only for producing mining drones, but also for manufacturing support infrastructure."
"First priority: photovoltaic panels for sustained power."
"Then we'll need furnaces to melt alloys, high-precision lathes to build complex machinery, and—"
"Stop, stop, stop!" Kael waved her off.
He had expected a scalable operation—not an interstellar megafactory.
"I get it. You're a fully mature AI. Just save the master plan and execute in sequence. I don't need the entire blueprint dumped on me at once."
He sighed and added, "Also, move up the cryogenic chamber. We need one built as early as possible—one that can keep me in stasis until we're truly ready."
Elara adjusted her timelines silently.
With full optimization, even the fastest implementation took six months.
But by the end of that window, Kael had over 100 robots in operation. Twenty ForgeMaster 3000 units were running in parallel, focused entirely on producing photovoltaic panels.
Once a 5,000-square-meter solar array was online, the first asteroid-based factory was officially operational.
These upgraded panels could generate 1,300 kilowatts in orbit, more efficient than Earth-based equivalents due to zero atmospheric loss.
The array generated 28,800 kWh per day, running around the clock in space.
It was more than enough.
Kael had always known this wouldn't be quick. But finally, he could see progress.
100 robots became 1,000 in four months.
20 printers became 300.
The smelters ran night and day. Soon, manually operated lathes—crafted by robots—began producing the parts needed for precision machine tools.
A Year and a Half Later
Once the number of precision machines surpassed ten, Elara initiated construction of the cryogenic stasis chamber.
It wasn't simple.
They needed to achieve and sustain ultra-low temperatures. Then came the liquid nitrogen systems. Most importantly, an advanced anticoagulant had to be synthesized—something that would prevent ice crystal formation within Kael's body.
Earth hadn't completed this technology. But Elara wasn't bound by Earth's limitations.
She designed it from scratch.
Kael, a software engineer, could only watch and support where he could. He wasn't building the tech tree—Elara was.
Two and a Half Years Later
The asteroid factory had become a full-scale industrial park.
It was astonishing how fast it grew.
Even by Earth's standards, constructing a high-capacity industrial park in space in just four years was a miracle.
But for Kael?
It felt like a lifetime.
He had watched stars pass, time crawl, and machines replicate endlessly. Alone.
But finally—finally—it was time.
The year was 2044, nearly seven years after Earth's destruction.
Elara's voice broke the silence.
"Kael," she said softly, "your cryogenic hibernation chamber is complete..."