“Contact!” one of the scouts from Vehicle Four announced.

Maya pivoted the railgun in their direction and turned on the active scanners.Her HUD lit up with dozens of rogue AIs moving in their direction.She cursed.They weren’t a rampaging mob, instead they moved in an orderly fashion.

She supposed it was to be expected. A fast adapting intelligence who was at war with an organized opponent would eventually have to begin organizing itself too, right? Rogue AIs helping one another, hand in hand, killing Fleshies.

Maya opened up fire as the other scout vehicles did the same. Slugs pounded the rogue AIs, tearing through their weak shields and shredding the ground around them. The vehicle she was on jerked and spun, dodging incoming fire. The driver was cackling hysterically as they drove.

With her high stats and the bonuses she gained from using a railgun, Maya punched through the dozens of rogue AIs with relative ease.Her aim was steady even as the vehicle veered and moved erratically.Each shot taking out a rogue AI and smashing through their paper thin defenses.

The vehicles slowed and fell into a defensive posture.Orcs and crows immediately jumped out of their vehicles, half of them beginning to strip the dead rogue AIs of black goo or weapons.Everything could be recycled.

“Damn it,” Chu said as he approached her. “That’s the third partol so far.This just isn’t rogue AI territory, its organized rogue AI territory.” He pulled up the map and displayed it for them to look over. “This is definitely a pass, but a pass deeper into their territory.”

“These appear to be destroyed settlements,” Maya said, noting the scarred holes that dotted the areas around the mouth of the pass. “Fortifications that were overrun?”

“Yeah, looks that way.If we try pushing into that pass, we’re gonna get chopped to shit.The flesh army is going to bottle our exit and the rogue AIs are going to make mince meat of us.”

One of the orcs trotted up, carrying a sack of rogue AI cores.Maya automatically began stripping the core and cracking its program.Chu watched and shook his head at the ease of her actions.

Within minutes she had broken the rogue AI’s encryption and downloaded its files.She updated the map she and Chu were sharing.

The Trash Mountains unfolded before them and the lands beyond.Maya sighed as she looked at what were obvious rogue AI settlements. She didn’t even know they could create settlements.

“Welcome to Rogue AI Utopia,” Chu said bitterly. “They’ve got this whole pass boarded up and if this tin can’s memories are right, they’re currently pushing an army through it.”

Maya scanned the map and couldn’t see any escape route.They were meeting heavier resistance as they were heading toward the pass and the rogue AIs maps showed there were more units south of the pass.They would be tangled up in fighting the rogue AIs as a larger rogue AI force came up their backside and wasted them.

If they headed eastward or north, they were in the same situation; except it was Tarvana looking to waste their backsides.

“What’s this?” Maya asked, noting a small dot. She pulled in on the object and the map unfolded to reveal a valley within the Trash Mountains. At the end of the snaking valley was a structure labeled: Automated Harvesting Facility HVN-5452A.

She selected the structure, but no additional information came up.Maya zoomed in on the area and saw the remnants of what looked like a Fleshy settlement.She could see the now desiccated mushroom houses. Maya zoomed out and scanned the entire region.She creased her brow and nudged Chu.

“Hey, is this right?It says this valley is surrounded by six one kilometer peaks.”

Chu shrugged.“It’s your rogue AI map,” he said.

“It looks like this spot’s changed hands a few times over the years,” Maya said, pulling back in on the rogue AI harvesting facility.

“Must be a resource rich area,” Chu muttered, focusing on his map.

“The valley narrows in these areas. They create natural choke points,” Maya said and Chu only grunted. “We can’t be flanked if they try to move through here, the land is pretty rough and if things come to it, we can burrow into the trash. The rogue AIs have been using it to harvest resources, that puts it within a day’s travel of the pass. Which means that if the Fleshies want to lay siege to us, they’re going to have to deal with rogue AIs on their flanks.”

“Nice,” Chu replied not glancing up.

“Since they don’t have any fortresses or bases within several days travel, they’ll be forced to fall back.Which will mean the rogue AIs will try to take us out, but they’ll have their backs to a large Fleshy force ready for a fight.”

Chu finally looked up at Maya. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Forget the pass and heading south, we’re going to take this valley and fortify it,” Maya said.

“Take the valley?” Chu pulled up the map she was looking at and studied it.“It’s a nice place, but once we go in we’ll never be able to come out.”

“We just need time,” Maya said. “If this is a resource rich area, then that’ll mean we can begin building more stuff to bring the fight to the Fleshies or Rogue AIs.”

“I thought the whole point of us moving was to get back to the Hangy and out this fuckhole place?” Chu demanded. “Now you’re saying we bunker down and what? Wait out an entire civilization?Outlast a bunch of robots?”

“We need to build our strength until we’re able to punch our way out of here,” Maya said.

“How long is that going to take?” Chu demanded. “Years? Decades?” Chu punched the vehicle in front of him, leaving a dent in the frame. “This is bullshit.We need to get out of this hellhole and back to Earth.Instead of doing that we’ve just brought a shit load of forces down on our heads and we’re trapped between all of them.Now we’re going to box ourselves into a trash valley and try to defend it?”

Chu closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “Fuck,” he said after a long bit of silence. “You’re right.We can’t fight any of these forces as we are now.It’s been a week of running and everyone’s exhausted.We need to stop and we need to rebuild.”

Maya was silent for a long moment, as were the orcs and crows who were dismantling the rogue AIs.

“I know this sucks,” Maya said. “But its the only options left to us.If we could defeat one of these armies, we would be able to scramble the board and perhaps get into a better position. As it is now, we’re stuck in that rock and hard place.”

“Fucking Emilia,” Chu said as if it were her fault.

“The Fleshies are pushing us into the rogue AIs and the rogue AIs are happy to take us out.That doesn’t mean they’re working together.Perhaps if we take this valley, they’ll be stuck fighting one another and we can escape?If not, we have a place of rich resources and can spend the time to build up what we need.”

Chu nodded.“So be it,” he said.

Maya looked at him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“None of us are okay,” he responded and headed back to his vehicle.“Everyone mount up.Flathead, your crew is going to stay behind and keep an eye on that pass.We need to know if there’s any movement from the rogue AIs.Don’t fight, if you’re attacked, just get the hell out of here and back to the miner.”

The orc gave a wave of acknowledgement.

“He dented my vehicle,” Shadow, Maya’s driver, said. The crow raised a rude gesture at Chu and started up the scouter.

“We’ll build you a new one,” Maya said as she pulled herself into the gunner’s position.

“Make it silver. I like shiny.”

Maya relayed the course change and the map of the area to Sostanio and Emilia.They had questions, but Maya noted they didn’t argue or complain at the new instructions.Each gave a firm affirmative and disconnected.

As soon as the miner began to change course, Maya began doubting herself.Was this the right move?Would they all die trapped in that trash valley?She crushed those doubts down and steeled her resolve.They were dead any other way, why not this route? She laughed bitterly as the scouters bounded across the plains and headed towards the mountains.

A road of compressed metals and materials snaked its way through solid looking trash piles.Maya hadn’t seen this type of trash piles before, it appeared to be melding together, forming a thick rock like crust over the trash beneath it.The sheer weight of the trash piles mashed everything together, creating walls that were kilometers thick.

It boggled the mind to think that all that surrounded them was once items and materials that existed in the Multiverse at Large.That one day, dimensional instabilities occurred and pulled them into this plane.Everything around them had been created by people, SIL, over thousands if not millions of years.

Twenty-five kilometers into the valley they came across the automated harvesting structure. It was a large building about five hundred feet across and three hundred deep. A dull metallic shell covered everything and there were no doors.

A few minutes cutting into the metallic shell and they were in.There didn’t appear to be any defenses, but Maya and the scouts quickly found the main processing core and managed to hack it before it could do anything surprising.

Great thundering machines came to a halt and long conveyor belts shuddered to stillness.The great building became eerily quiet as they explored it.

“This is a good haul,” Maya said, using a scanner to see what was inside of massive ten meter square crates.“Raw minerals, components, and machinery.Much of its marked for retrieval in two days.”

“Why just keep it unmanned and undefended?” Chu asked.

“Its rated low priority,” Maya said. “I guess it’s worth extracting resources, but not building up defenses to hold it.”

“Which we’re trying to do,” Chu said.“Do the AIs know something we don’t?”

“It’s on the Fleshy’s side of the border,” Maya said.She pulled up a map and zoomed in on their area. “It looks like the settlements the Fleshies made here were destroyed and the place has been fought over.But they are small settlement and fortifications, nothing major.”

“Good place for resources, but no one wants to put in the effort to completely hold it,” Chu pondered. “I guess this could work.I’ll have the scouts begin dismounting the railguns and set up some defenses at the chokepoints we passed.”

“Shadow and I will return to the miner,” Maya said.

“Can’t we just send a scout.We might need your rogue AI whispering abilities if that thing wakes back up,” Chu said.

“It’s disabled.There doesn’t seem to be much defenses besides an alert saying that its been attacked,” Maya said.

“Well, that in itself a worrisome.”

“Again, this place was considered low priority, according to the instructions left within it.I don’t think anyone will care that it’s been destroyed.”

“Well, if we’re all dead when you come back, it’s your fault,” Chu said.

“I can live with that,” Maya replied.

Chu raised his middle finger to her and began shouting for all the scouts to get their shit together.Maya grinned as he jumped back into his scouter.After a moment he smiled back.

“Back to the miner?” Shadow asked.

“Let’s get going,” Maya said.

***

The scouter bounced along the plain, dislodging the occasional shattered rogue AI or pile of Tarvana bones.Maya spotted all the signs she hadn’t seen before of fighting and battles.There was wreckage half buried, with skeletal structures reaching out of the dirt.Occasionally, literally.

How long had the Tarvana and rogue AIs been fighting in this area?Perhaps long enough for a giant wall of trash to build up to separate them.Every trash pile they had seen weren’t anywhere near the size of the Trash Mountains.

A few hours later they arrived back to the main convoy.The miner was still running along at a decent clip.Maya exchanged her spot with another crow gunner and leapt onto the miner.She scrambled up the sides of a miner leg and into the cargo area.

Emilia, Sostanio, Anisa, the Sow, Whitestripe, and Ironbeak were all waiting for her when she arrived.

“We’re moving here,” Maya said, pulling up the map.“We’re going to hunker down and rebuild.”

Maya could almost feel the disagreement churning in the air. “Any questions?”

“No,” Emilia said.She folded her arms and stared at the map.

“The Fleshies are Triple Stepping it,” Sostanio said.She pulled up her map and had a time table estimate of when they would reach them. Five hours.“Once we readjusted our heading, they immediately began to give chase.”

“They know where we’re going,” Anisa said. “A spy?”

“They just know the area,” Maya said, sighing. “Besides the pass, the valley is the only other place we can take shelter. We can’t go any other direction.”

“That’s not the only problem,” Sostanio said.She displayed a scouter recording.“We just got this in a few minutes ago.”

It showed Flathead’s scouter and crew as they scanned the pass.Maya watched as rogue AIs began to spill out of it, multi legged and heavily armored.That wasn’t what caught her attention though, in the midst of the entire thing was a massive orb that hovered several hundred feet off the ground.

“What the hell,” Maya muttered. “It looks like the hiveship.”

She pulled the data from the scanners and double checked it.Half a kilometer in diameter, nothing like the hiveship then.It was still massive and it was flying.She used her Evaluate skill on it and was rewarded with the structure’s information.

Rogue AI Overlord GIN-1145NC

Low grade, Tier 2

Command and control intelligence. Mobile defense and offensive platform.

“Well, shit,” Maya muttered. “I think this is the rogue AI’s general.”

“We’re going to be crushed between everything,” Anisa said. “The mountains and the armies.”

Maya felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “I think this might be a good thing,” she said.

The others looked at her in confusion.

“Just because they don’t like us doesn’t mean they like each other,” Maya said. “The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.”

Emilia nodded in understanding. “They’ll fight each other as soon as fight us,” she said.

“Yeah.They’re at war with one another.And there’s two armies heading roughly for a pass that’s been fought over for god only knows how many times.What do you think will happen?”

“They will fight,” the Sow intoned.

“We just have to make sure that cooler heads do not prevail,” Maya said.

“What does that mean?” Sostanio asked.

“It means I have to poke the hornets nest and y’all are going to have to pick up the pace.” The data displayed showed it would take four hours to reach the valley entrance.One hour too late.

Maya looked around.“Tender, I’m going to need the big railgun you’ve been working on and a tesseract pack.”

“On it, boss,” Tender responded.

“That railgun was supposed to be the main gun of the miner platform,” Emilia said.

“You’ve still got the disruptor.That’ll do fine against any rogue AI.”

“But not Fleshies,” Sostanio replied.

“You’ve got seven turrets, that’ll work fine against Fleshies.”

“Hania is not going to be pleased to be losing her tesseract pack,” Anisa said. “She’s been following Emila’s lead and opening her channels up with it.”

“Well, needs must. I’m sure all the mages can huddle around Emilia’s pack.It’s only going to be a few hours anyway.”

“Unless you die,” the Sow stated.

“Unless I die,” Maya agreed.

Tender’s drones arrived hefting the big railgun.It was fifteen feet long and two feet wide; it had been completed, but had yet to be installed.Maya hummed as she looked over the machine and doubled checked it before Inventorying the entire thing.

“How are you going to use it?” Emilia asked, shaking her head.

“I’m strong,” Maya replied.

Before Emila could say anymore, Hania arrived looking peeved she had to give up the tesseract pack.Maya shrugged on the pack and glanced back at the gathered people.

“Make for the Valley, if I do die… well, survive somehow,” she said and dimensional skipped out of the cargo hold.

“If she dies, the rogue AIs will get their hands on that tesseract and we’ll all be screwed anyways,” Hania said, folding her arms.

Maya appeared beside Shadow’s vehicle. The crow had already gotten the message and was ready in their seat. the extra crow moved out of the gunner’s position and took the passenger seat, Maya recognized them as Lost Talon.She greeted him and he gave back a half hearted chirp.

“I get big gun, Maya?” Shadow asked as Maya took her gunner’s spot.

“No, I get big gun,” she responded.

“I want big gun,” Shadow complained.

“We all want big guns, Shadow,” Maya said as the scouter started up.

Shadow laughed at that and they roared away from the convoy.