With the order coming from Altair, Vigil immediately sent out electrical pulses throughout the neural links across the neural body of the Ironside, detecting and piecing each and every valuable data that he could harness so that he could summarize it for Altair.

  Along with that, Altair sat comfortably in his chair as he experienced a bliss of stable emotions as the pain and cracking of his bones with each movement gradually disappeared as time passed by. Not only that, he made sure to take into account the smell that was being given off in the entire room.

  He had been into numerous battlefields, smelled a lot of various things, and honestly, he could take up this smell and ignore it for the rest of his life. However, right now he was in an enclosed space, and without freedom of air movements, and with the oxygen being repeatedly recycled over and over again by the Ironside, then that would mean he was bound to get sick, which was highly unlikely with the advanced Terran medicine schematics and the fact that he could mass-produce Synthcells.

  By the time the war against the Precursors had progressed to the point of humanity being pushed back to their homeworld of Terra, each and every soldier was already a walking hall of the history and technological library of humanity.

  This was done in accordance with the Precursors having shut off and blockaded all routes. From time to time Terra would send colonial blockade runners in a bid to save the entire species from extermination; alas, every single one lost contact just before entering the hyperlane.

  Not only that, humanity even attempted to scout new safe hyperlanes using pathfinder ships that could connect Terra to the outside world. Unfortunately, as if fate were playing a cruel choir of tenors against humanity, none of them survived, not even a single one. They were absolutely obliterated by the superior technological marvels of the Precursors.

  Thinking about these things made Altair fall into deeper thoughts, even though the loud whirring sounds of Vigil continued in the background, now regarded within his mind as simple white noise to help him relax.

  He couldn't help it, yes indeed, he could not. He realized that no matter what he did, it had always been futile even with his ability to return by death. After all, humanity was already on the brink of extinction, blockaded from all sides, and systematically purged from all sectors where humanity were present.

  The feeble races of various galactic races that humanity had helped all turned a blind eye. Not that they could do anything about it, after all humanity was already far too ahead of everybody else. Thus, one could wonder just what did happen for the Precursors to have such enmity that they would dedicate themselves to the destruction of humanity?

  He didn't know; in fact, nobody knew. All they knew was that they were obsessed with assimilation, which was something that he and everyone else didn't really understand in the slightest. Not only that, nobody knew where the Precursors actually came from; they just suddenly popped out of nowhere across various sectors in the galaxy and started a hail of crusade against humanity.

  Whether the feeble races of the galactic community were able to coexist or they were simply next on the menu for the Precursors is simply something Altair would never know.

  "It's been hundreds of years since the war against the Precursors started." Altair lamented as he shifted his eyes around the room that seemed to gather a noticeable amount of dust, from who knows where. "It's useless to think about it." He grumpily said, "As long as there is no confirmation, I will be considering myself the last human and the representative of the United Earth and all of Humanity." He took an oath in his heart.

  He knew, he knew full well, that he was just consoling himself, but no matter how sad or tragic his situation was, he needed to keep moving forward.

  With that in mind and a firm resolve within his heart, he moved his eyes across the console and the plethora of screens. Along the way he noticed that Vigil was nearing the end of his search, so he also started to move his body. It was a little broken still, yes, but he could move, and taking action was now more important than ever. Moreover, the various apparatuses behind him could stretch and move, so there was no problem with that; he just needed to keep within range.

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  Thus he straightened his posture and waited for Vigil to be finished.

  With a sudden stop of the loud whirring sound that permeated the surroundings, various pieces of information appeared on the computer console, as a plethora of cameras were activated once again.

  "Lieutenant. Concurrently, we are hovering at one thousand five hundred twelve energy units, roughly fifteen percent of our maximum energy storage." Vigil communicated in a matter-of-fact tone. "Moreover, if we were to convert the energy units into usable materials…" Vigil hesitated for a second.

  "Hmm?" Altair took notice of this and asked Vigil about it. "What's the matter, Vigil, is there something wrong?" Altair asked with concern.

  "Uh… I believe with ninety-nine percent certainty that we don't have enough energy units to completely repair the Ironside, not even enough for it to be able to repair itself to be able to move." Vigil continued. "Considering that once the Ironside fully activates, we consume five energy units per hour and passively gain ten units of energy at the same time with a profit of five energy units. Even if we drastically lower the energy consumption to somewhere between two and three units to have the Ironside in a functional state, it would still take a dozen days or more." Vigil stressed over the precarious situation they were in.

  Altair, upon fully hearing the entire situation, had a face full of shock, but he never let it completely shadow over his expression. Instead, he switched into a calculating mode to pull themselves out of the situation they currently were in.

  "Hmm, this is bad, really bad." Altair expressed in a neutral tone. "If I remember correctly, the fact that we could turn this atmospheric energy into energy units, or convert it into usable materials, wouldn't that also mean we could theoretically improve the absorption rate of the Ironside of these atmospheric particles?" Altair asked, as he was lost in deep thought, trying to excavate any material he could remember from their earlier conversations in the past.

  Upon hearing Altair's suggestions, Vigil went silent for a moment as he pondered the implications of this suggestion.

  "That's right, Lieutenant, though it is still theoretical at this point." Vigil thought about it more. "However, based on my estimates, it might take a lot of energy units for us to be able to improve the current absorption rate, and it would need a lot of time to research, as any mistakes could ruin compatibility throughout the Ironside's modular structure." He suggested.

  "Hmm, you're right." Altair conceded his stance.

  "Moreover, Lieutenant. If we were to make any heavy modifications to the structure of the Ironside, we would be functioning with only the bare minimum. Which I don't recommend in this scenario that we are in." Vigil paused as if a sudden idea had struck him.

  "Rather than that, I have another idea, Lieutenant," Vigil said with a gleeful tone.

  Altair, seemingly amused by Vigil's antics, smiled. "Alright, what plan do you propose that we should do at this moment?"

  A soft whirring noise came throughout the system as power output was diverted into the consciousness and processing power of Vigil.

  "I believe we could repurpose our current stockpile of repair drones and hunt some Stygians as the natives call them." Vigil hummed as he laid out his suggestion, "From every single Stygian that we kill, we get a profit of fifteen energy units. With that, we could remotely control the drones and lower the Ironside's use of power to minimal at around one to two energy units of consumption per hour, netting us nine to eight passively gained units of energy, which would be a double victory for us."

  Altair relaxed back into his chair as he pondered about the situation for a few moments. "Hm, but each single round of our auto-cannons costs us two units of energy, and what about the energy consumption of drones, as well as the cost of repurposing the drones and making new ones." He paused for a moment to let the words linger longer, "Wouldn't that mean that there's too much risk to it? If we miss a shot, that's two units of energy, and along with other potential things to happen in the battlefield, we could even gain a negative profit from this." Altair slumped against his chair.

  Vigil was shocked and surprised at the holes within his plan, but nevertheless Altair had a point, however he too had a counter and a potential fix for this.

  "Hmm, what about, what if instead of using auto-cannon shells, we arm the drones with machine guns that use a fifty-caliber round for penetration?" Vigil said as he started to calculate the expenses. "I believe that we could produce an entire belt of machine gun ammunition for zero point five energy units." Vigil said as his tone grew more and more lively.

  Upon hearing the suggestion, Altair merely smiled. "Smart, I must have been too used to Terra's heavy weapons that I completely forgot about machine guns and other infantry weapons." He pondered, as he knew that infantry fighting was long over in Terra, all because of the Precursors' long-range and armoured columns.

  "Alright, since we now have a plan of action, let us proceed with the testing phase before we fully commit to this plan, shall we, Vigil?" Altair said in a vibrant tone.

  "Affirmative, Lieutenant!"