Aston awoke abruptly to the insistent beeping of the AI alarm. His eyes snapped open, heart hammering, and his hands instinctively gripped the sides of the captain's chair. For a split second, panic surged through him, images of an ambush, a sudden collision, or a space monster flashed through his mind. Every warning system on Dark Star was alert, every sensor primed for danger. He bolted upright, ready to take evasive action, only to realize that the alarm was not signaling an attack. It was a simpler, far more mundane notification—but one that filled him with a rush of excitement.
The storage was full.!
All fatigue, all lingering drowsiness from the seven hours he had slept, evaporated instantly. Aston's eyes darted toward the monitors, scanning the storage status panel. Iron, copper, and even some of the rarer materials he had been collecting were now maxed out. His pulse quickened as he absorbed the scope of what he had gathered while he slept. He had truly put his ship to work, and the results were beyond even his expectations.
Before tallying the totals, he moved toward the lifestyle room. The small space, compact as it was, contained the blueprints he had built for sustaining himself: the water dispenser, the food synthesizer, and the waste recycling system. With a few simple commands, he activated the recycler to freshen himself up. The system hummed quietly, circulating water and regenerating hygiene without fuss. It was efficient, understated, but essential. With the immediate needs taken care of, he returned to the captain's cabin, where the monitors awaited, reflecting the fruits of his automated diligence.
According to the ship's terminal, he had slept for nearly eight hours. In that time, Dark Star had drifted through a relatively calm sector of space, its resource scanners constantly active. Unlike most newly-awakened captains, whose ships lacked the energy reserves to maintain mining operations while drifting, Aston had been able to issue a persistent command for the AI to handle small asteroid mining autonomously. Mining consumed nearly half of the energy output of a conventional hydrogen-powered ship. Most captains had no choice but to ration their efforts, mining only when absolutely necessary and spending most of their energy merely navigating between sectors. Dark Star, powered by the Infinite Energy Blueprint, had no such constraints.
Aston leaned back in the captain's chair and called up the inventory panel. The numbers made him sit straighter. Iron, fully maxed at 50,000 units. Copper, also at 50,000. The consistency of the haul impressed him, but the rarity of one resource was immediately noticeable. Silicon, critical for several higher-tier blueprints, lagged far behind at only 14,000 units. It seemed that even in the small asteroid belts, silicon was far less common than the base metals. The scarcity made sense—he had seen other captains in the regional chat complaining about the difficulty of sourcing it.
Then his eyes widened. His attention shifted to a resource he had not fully accounted for during his initial assessments. Bionic metal. The inventory panel displayed 50,000 units. Aston felt a surge of excitement he had not experienced since first activating Dark Star. Bionic metal was exceedingly hard to find but cheap to mine, a critical component for synthesizing food in the energy-dependent Food Synthesizer blueprint. Without it, the synthesizer was inert, a useless mechanism despite his endless energy. Now, with the full capacity in his storage, he could finally produce food at will, independent of the trade markets or unreliable iron chests.
The realization struck him fully. While other captains were constrained by hydrogen consumption, limited storage, or the lack of rare materials, he now possessed a combination of resources and energy that was unmatched. Iron and copper, essential for structural upgrades and basic mining operations, were maxed out. Silicon, though scarcer, was sufficient for incremental improvements. Bionic metal, perhaps the rarest commodity he had encountered in the early galaxy, was now at full capacity. With energy no longer a limiting factor, he could feed himself, maintain the ship, and allocate resources toward upgrading the ship.
Aston's mind raced with possibilities. He could automate the basic functions, focus on high-priority upgrades, or begin looking for rare blueprints that required both energy and exotic materials. The potential of the Food Synthesizer alone meant that survival was no longer the pressing concern it had been. His attention could shift to exploration, mining efficiency, and strategic planning for the dangers that lurked beyond the small asteroid belts he had scavenged.
For the first time in the long hours of drifting, mining, and alertness, Aston allowed a small smile to tug at his lips. Dark Star was more than a ship; it was a fully integrated survival system, and he now had the raw materials, energy, and foresight to turn it into something far greater. The first tangible step toward establishing a stronghold in this hostile galaxy had been accomplished.
...
After some thought he decided to go all in with upgrades. He decided to start with all white tier Blueprints which had little consumption. With that though he acted Immediately. After some minutes, ;
Aston leaned back, letting the hum of Dark Star vibrate gently beneath him as he reviewed the results of his massive upgrades. Most of the upgrades were incremental; white-tier blueprints had an absolute ceiling at level three, and for many, the changes were barely perceptible. But a few were significant enough to alter how Dark Star could operate in the field.
The laser mining blueprints, for example, now operated across a drastically extended range. From an initial reach of 200m, the upgraded lasers could now extract metal ores up to 1000m away; However they were still confined to mining rank one ores. Any material above rank one remained impervious. Aston made a mental note that acquiring green-tier mining blueprints would be the next logical step if he wanted to venture into richer asteroid fields.
The resource scanner had also improved. Its operational width had doubled from 500m to 1000 meters, and its depth had expanded from 1000 to 3000 meters. Aston imagined the sensor's sweeping beams piercing through the void, revealing hidden mineral veins previously inaccessible to a smaller, unenhanced unit. It meant that even while drifting slowly, Dark Star could now map asteroid fragments in a wider arc and anticipate concentrations of rare materials before physically approaching them.
The lifestyle blueprints had received practical upgrades as well. The water dispenser now condensed 100 bottles per day, a tenfold increase from the initial ten. The efficiency of condensation, filtration, and storage had improved, making the lifestyle systems more self-sustaining. Aston allowed himself a brief smirk. With this, he could maintain longer mining sessions without having to rely on external supplies for water, and food synthesis, once he gathered bionic metal consistently, would complement this perfectly.
The magnetic stabilizer blueprint, which had initially seemed like an accessory of minor utility, now had a tangible operational effect. The localized magnetic field around the ship extended from 500 meters to 1500 meters. Aston imagined the field pushing away small debris, stabilizing mineral fragments in microgravity, and subtly increasing the effectiveness of the dual mining lasers by keeping stray ores from drifting beyond reach. It would also add a defensive advantage; small projectiles or ferrous fragments would be deflected by the field, a passive layer of protection for a ship otherwise lightly armored.
The X-Ray Ion Laser, mounted as the main weapon in place of the semi-automatic machine gun, had seen a marked improvement. Originally, the white-tier weapon could only project a continuous energy beam over 1000 meters, effective primarily against single targets and almost useless against anything beyond level one entities. After the upgrade, its range expanded to 3000 meters, and it now had a faint ability to damage level two entities. Aston understood the limitations—while still a white-tier weapon, it could now serve as a deterrent against small threats and provide a layer of early offense while exploring lightly defended zones. It remained energy-intensive, but with Dark Star's infinite energy supply, consumption was no longer a concern.
As he cycled through each blueprint on the status panel, Aston noted how these upgrades collectively improved operational efficiency without fundamentally changing the core systems of the ship. The mining lasers could sweep larger areas, scanners could detect more distant resources, the magnetic stabilizer offered both collection and passive defense, the X-Ray Ion Laser gave him a viable combat tool, and the lifestyle systems ensured that survival demands no longer constrained him. Each blueprint's enhancement was a small step toward autonomy, self-sufficiency, and a level of readiness that most newly awakened captains could only dream of achieving.