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// Chapter 2: Titanite 
// Story: Mystic Machinery: Industry is Magic 
// by Conglomerate 
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First things first, I needed a plan.

Since that oh so gracious Discord fellow took away my leisure of time, I needed to think of something, and quickly. My goals at the moment are still the same as before, they just needed to be done quicker. Really all I had to do was assemble and launch an entire planetary defense system within a certain amount of time by creating a factory powerful enough to do so using only the resources from a singular planet that I had managed to make an enemy out of, partly.

Something easier said than done.

Yes things are sure looking up for me aren’t they? However there is no use crying over spilt Oleite is there, right now I needed to act.

In order to do all the things I need to do, I would need to upgrade my production, a lot. A single fabricator is usually enough for a single prospector going about their day, not an entire production line. I would need to expand, which brought me to my next problem.

Resources, if I needed a large output, I would need a large input as well, and simply traveling to and from resource locations to pick up what I need was nowhere near enough to satisfy my plans. I would need locomotion, and while I had planned for that with trains, another problem got in the way.

How I would go about doing this. There was no doubt that the ponies wanted to destroy me now, the most recent addition to that club, and even though it was only the Princesses that wanted me gone, they were still a powerful enemy, and they most likely had a lot of influence over what those underneath them did. That meant I would have to keep my encounters with the ponies to a minimum, and to make sure I’m well enough equipped to deal with any altercations.

But that also brought on another problem, the more I encounter ponies, the more they learn about me. That makes them dangerous, and just to make it clear I certainly don’t intend to kill anybody, unless I absolutely need to of course, but that makes it harder for me. Woe is me for actually caring about life.

That meant I was technically dealing with two time constraints, either until the first prospectors arrived here, which by my calculations would take several months, or until the ponies figured out how to effectively deal with me. I would need to be fast, but careful in all of my actions from now on.

Moving on to my actual plan, which was still in its infancy, but should work nonetheless. The design and assembly of the planetary defense system was easy enough. Just a simple array of interceptor satellites that would shoot down anything I told them to. The real difficulty came from procuring the resources and actually launching the satellites.

Both would be incredibly visible, as repeated rocket launches and mining operations tend to be, so I would have to work around that. The first problem was easy enough to fix, simply stockpile resources until I could complete the whole system in one go, I’d rather launch a hundred rockets at once than over the course of months, and once that was done I wouldn’t have to worry much about the ponies finding me anyway, considering I would then have control over the entire planet.

However the second problem wasn’t as easy. Clandestine mining itself was hard, but not impossible, but the actual transportation of the resources was another matter. Since the ponies appeared to control the land, air, and the seas as well I suppose, it would be incredibly hard for me to move things around. Even if my trains were blink and you’ll miss it fast, and my planes flew higher than any living creature could, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be stopped or followed. If I wanted to transport my goods safely and efficiently, I would need to obscure them from view, and what better way to do that, than underground.

Underground railroads would most certainly be the safest way to transport resources, but they came at a cost. Digging tunnels and constructing proper rails took time, a lot of time, time I didn’t have, but perhaps there was something I could do to alleviate that.

I had already bridged the gap between GSO and one company, so why not another?

The Tough Titanic Titanite intensive Techs of Geocorp were experts in all forms of mining and digging, which is something I desperately needed right now, and now that I had access to Titanite, I could afford to branch into the company, provided I could actually obtain said Titanite. 

With the moon base and collection satellite already set up, all I needed to do now was build the receiver I had already designed, preferably not right next to my base, for several reasons actually. I knew for a fact it wouldn’t be one hundred percent accurate, meaning chunks of Titanite travelling at terminal velocity could deviate into the surrounding area, not something I wanted nearby. There was also the fact that something falling from orbit was pretty visible, especially at night, which would only bring attention to it, and right now I was trying to lie low.

The best thing I could think to do would be to put the receiver somewhere decently far from everything, so nothing would either notice or get hit. I would then be able to send as much Titanite down as needed, and then go retrieve it. Of course that would mean it would need a transit system as well, but that would take time, and I needed the Titanite now.

For now I’ll just simply fly back and forth, and eventually I will set up a proper transport. First though, I needed to find a place to actually set up the receiver. I wanted it decently far, but not far enough to make it too long of a trip. Then there was the direction, having it be as far away from the pony's capital and subsequently the majority of their military would be nice, but if I were to do that my main base would lay directly in between them, which was not a good idea. I would have to offset the receiver so that should the ponies discover it, they won’t immediately find my main base as well.

That left me with two general directions, North or South of my base. To the North was a more temperate area, while the South led to a much more arid environment that eventually gave way to a desert. An interesting choice, and one that was not easy to make.

The Northern option would be ideal because it was closer to some other resource locations I had scouted out earlier, which gave me the opportunity to create a more efficient transport route sooner. However, given how the ponies lived, at least from what I’ve seen, there would be more settlements in that area, and while I was confident that I could find a decently empty place, the entire area would be more traveled, which meant a greater chance of discovery long term.

The Southern option wasn’t much better, there were still settlements, but I knew there were less overall. It was also close to another resource, Ignite, but that also meant it was closer to the insectoids, an incredibly hostile faction, not to mention the desert sands would make it harder to actually set up an underground railway.

So I could either compile two rare resources into a securer line, with the possibility of incurring the wrath of insectoids, or I could combine the transport lines for several common resources, and risk an early discovery from what was most likely a much more powerful hostile nation.

With it all laid out the choice was clear to me.

Dealing with an infestation was much easier than total war, though the issue with the sand still persisted. I would have to figure out how to effectively tunnel through it, but that was a problem for another time. Right now I need some Titanite.

Unfortunately, the materials required to build the receiver were too much for my current plane to handle, meaning I would have to make multiple trips. That wasn’t too much of a problem, but I would’ve preferred to keep my exposure to a minimum now. Nonetheless, I loaded up what I could, and began the longish first trip to the desert, making sure to fly high and fast.

Almost immediately into my flight, something strange happened, the sun zipped down to the horizon and disappeared, with the moon soon rising up on the other side. However any sense of an accelerated cycle was soon lost as the sun rose once more, equaling the moon in the sky before it dipped back down again, with the moon soon following again.

The display made me nervous, I knew who controlled the sun and moon in this system, and these strange movements were entirely unlike them, which meant something was happening. My first thought was that they were searching for me, however that might work, but their movements didn’t seem to fit any search pattern, they were too fast and…

…Chaotic…

I am now extremely thankful that my encounter with Discord went as well as it did. If he truly was the one causing the rapid movements of the celestial bodies right now, then there was no telling what might have happened if that deal went truly bad.

I was tempted to ground my flight until further notice, but decided otherwise, the rather eye-catching display acted as an excellent distraction, and while I wasn’t sure on how much longer it would last, to not take advantage of it would be foolish. So while the sun and moon continued to move in rapid and random movements, I continued flying towards my destination.

Besides the obvious, the rest of the flight was uneventful, and eventually I made it to the Ignite desert, sadly there was none visible in the immediate area. I spent a few moments looking around for an acceptable landing zone, as well as a zone for the Titanite receiver. Preferably someplace lower, so it would be obscured a bit by the dunes. 

After I found a decent enough place, I then searched the surrounding area for any immediate signs of civilization, or signs of the insectoids, thankfully there wasn’t, which meant I could start building. Using what little materials I could bring with my plane, I constructed the base of the receiver, making sure that the anchor blocks penetrated deep enough in the sand. It was far from completion, but the beginnings of it were there, I would have to make several more flights to finish it completely. That was also not much of a problem, and with another quick take off, I was back in the air headed back for more. 

The next few flights were just as uneventful as the first, though as I was taking off for what was probably my last flight of the day, the sun and moon stopped, and slowly returned to their natural order, which made me realize just how much time I had spent flying. It was nearly midnight, as opposed to it being about midday when I started. I suppose you can really get desensitized to the passage of time when you don't have an accurate reference, I should really get a clock. Still, I was already in the air with the last of the materials for the receiver, so I may as well finish it in the cover of darkness.

Over the course of the day, the receiver went from a low base nestled in between some dunes, to a decently tall tower that just barely peaked over its natural cover, you would have to stand at the very top of the nearby dunes just to get a glimpse of it, so I was pretty happy with how it turned out. 

I still had to test it however, and while I would’ve preferred to do this during the daytime, I needed to make sure it actually worked before I started using it more. For now I would just do a simple test, just one piece of Titanite since I was still trying to lay low, I would send more in the morning, when it would be less visible.

To start, I switched to the tech all the way on the moon base, and loaded a chunk of Titanite into the delivery system. I watched as the motors carefully aligned the cannon with the horizon of the planet, and a few seconds later it fired, the chunk of Titanite skirting off into orbit, towards the collection satellite. Switching to that, I waited for a few moments until the chunk came within detection range. The automated system moved to intercept it, and the chunk was caught in the satellite’s collector.

Its small conveyor system then moved the Titanite chunk to its own cannon, and then its motors aimed it towards the planet below, specifically the desert, and more specifically the receiver platform. I gave it the greenlight, and a moment later the chunk was sent hurtling to the ground, lighting up as it entered the atmosphere.

I then switched back to my plane in the desert and quickly vacated the area. I knew what happened when a tech was struck from orbit, it’s happened to me more times than I care to admit.

When I was a safe enough distance away, I sat and waited,

and waited,

and waited,

Until a light appeared in the sky above. It streaked downwards, directly towards the platform. I watched as the internal array of receivers powered up, and their containment beams shot up just in time to catch the chunk of Titanite. They shined brightly as they slowed down the meteorite, stopping it just above the ground before depositing it into the small storage area.

It worked, a little power intensive, but it worked.

I picked up the first piece of Titanite that I had mined myself since arriving on this planet, and set it in the plane’s collectors. I would definitely be back for more in the daytime, but right now there were a few more things I had to take care of in the meantime.

Starting the plane’s engines, I took off once more in the direction of my base.

To Be Continued…