11 - Maya Goes to War

Nerves rattled Maya as she sat in her command chair. She knew what she was about to commence was a just action, there was no doubt. The satellites in orbit had finally arrived to their positions and Samanco’s controlled area had been scanned. The first images of the towns and under his rule had brought a profound silence to the Cage as they witnessed the atrocities that were being committed by the man.

The death sentenced had been handed down, Maya had been the first to cast her vote. Samanco was like Shen, an evil waste of breath. He needed to be destroyed. But he wasn’t the only one. Shen had his zombies, but they had been forced into their actions. The men following Samanco choose to commit their crimes. They gleefully took part in the murders and horrors inflicted on the survivors.

They need to die, all of his men. Their faces had been scanned, downloaded, and labeled. There would be no escape for them, Maya vowed to hunt them down if they tried running.

Anger and rage were at war with the mounting horror she felt. She simultaneously wanted to lash out and begin sobbing. She had been so focused on the monsters that Integration brought, she hadn’t thought much on the monsters that would rise up after Integration. The multiverse was filled with them, SIL who craved power and did what they could to obtain it.

How was Earth any different?

Human history was filled with god awful monsters who killed and massacred. This was the firs time she had seen the evidence, the bodies, and the still fresh blood on the streets. It wasn’t stilted though media or television, it wasn’t happening in some far off place, it was happening in real time in a town across the Chimbote bay.

Ramon’s troops were ready. Two weeks they had stayed within the Cage, fourteen standard days, only a twenty eight hours on Earth They had leveled, they had gained more abilities and skills, Ramon had the chance to begin hammering them into a force.

Seventeen days after Integration, the Chimbote military forces exited the Cage. A thousand men and women, armed with low-grade armor and weapons. They were transported on trucks converted to use mana motors and ever person knew that this was a fight for survival, a fight to defeat an evil that thad grown in their lands, and free the people it had enslaved.

Maya watched them, as she sat in her command chair. The screens showed scores of images, real time camera footage from Ramon’s troops, satellite images of Samanco’s forces, and the wireframe images from there scanners and sensors of the Cage.

The room was quiet, Tender, Bell, Roci, Yosi, and all the others were there. The Astronauts and some of the council members from Chimbote. They knew it would be a long wait, they knew that time was slower for them and it might be hours or days before the real fight began. But they watched as their soldiers left their town upon the Pan-American Highway and toward Samanco.

“It will be an hour before they’re spotted, possibly a bit more when the fight begins,” Maya said. “That’s in about twelve hours.”

The gathered men and women nodded, the tension in the room did not dissipate. They all continued watched the various screens. Maya got out of her chair, feeling exhausted.

Roci walked up to her.

“I want to do this,” she said to Maya.

“No.”

“Tender is going to do it. I can do it.”

“Tender is Tender, he’s not you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Roci said.

“I can’t let you to do this,” Maya said.

“Then I demand to do it.”

“No.”

“I’m not a child,” Roci exclaimed.

Maya looked at the young woman. A few months before she had been a roach rogue AI that had tried killing her. She had been changed by the System when Maya hd made her announcement as a joke, but here she was. A living sentient being, a SIL, even if her body was metallic and her insides were machinery. She was alive and real as anybody out there, as real as those people Samanco was killing.

Roci was leveling quickly, she was smarter than most people in the Cage, but she was still a child. She had intelligence, but emotions were different. Maya would not let her be haunted by nightmares and horrors.

“I can do this. Let me do this,” Roci said.

“No,,” Maya said once more. “You’re my heir and you’re a child. You’re not doing this.” Roci tensed and prepared to shout or cry, but Maya hugged her. “I can’t let you do this,” she said. “I can’t let you carry this burden. These are SIL, not mana mutations, not rogue AIs, but people. Yes, they are monsters, but they’re still people. It’s not easy to take a life, Roci. It’s not easy to kill. What you’re asking for is to commit a massacre. I can’t let you do that.”

“They don’t deserve any mercy,” Roci said. ‘I’ll lose no thoughts over their deaths.”

“Maybe you won’t, but I’m not about to find out,” Maya replied. “Once you lose your innocence, there’s no getting it back.’

Roci scoffed.

“This will be over quick,” Maya said. “I made this decision and I will carry it out.”

Roci didn’t say anything else. Maya smiled faintly and walked away.

***

Maya didn’t have the time or the heart to tell George and Yuri that she wasn’t going to build the mass driver they wanted. They had been skeptical at the beginning, but once they saw what she could do, they had been all on board with the mass driver. It was a doable concept, she had the parts, she had the knowledge (now that all the Engineering cubes had downloaded), but as with everything in her life. Stuff came up.

She made plans and the multiverse seemed to laugh at them and then toss her a curveball. She wanted to help mankind, but ran out of power for the Cage. She wanted to build stuff, but rogue AIs would attack. She wanted to set up settlements, but some mass murdering asshole popped his head up.

In her old life she had a set routine, nothing much changed. She went to school, she studied, on the summers she would return home from university and work for her parents for pocket money. The world was simple and easy, there were no crises popping up in her daily life.

Everyday after Integration was a day constantly trying to keep the balls she was juggling in the air. They wanted to fall and they were getting heavier and heavier. More balls were added, some were taken away, and then a chainsaw would be tossed into the mix for laughs. Her high Mental stats kept her from a nervous breakdown, her high Physical stats prevented her from being riddled with ulcers, and her high Soul stats kept her plodding forward in hopes things would get better.

Occasionally her plans had to be set aside, not due to attacks or forgetfulness, for there were better ways of doing something. The hiveship was a gold mine of technology, both system tech and rogue tech. The hive mind had collected everything they could, one part pack rat the other part not knowing when they would need an extra component.

Although everyone claimed that system tech and rouge tech could not function together, as with everything there were plenty of gray areas between the two technologies. The hive mind made use of plenty of system tech components, items that it could not manufacture or reverse engineer, machinery that it needed and co-opted.

Tender and Maya walked through the hiveship, their steps echoing in the metallic railway tunnels. Behind them a small army of forty ant drones followed, their clicking footsteps only adding an eerie quality to the dead hiveship.

“We’re going to have to move Junior into the Cage,” Maya said as she shivered in her ship suit. The temperature of the RSH had been dropping steadily since she had defeated the hiveship. There was not correlation between the two events as the System continued maintenance upon the RSH. “This cold can’t be good for him.”

“I have been overseeing his continued growth, with notes from Bell,” Tender replied. “Although with his new Liaison position and harvesting landsharks and training the Chimbote military, he appears to be very busy.”

“Aren’t we all,” Maya smiled, patting Tender on the shoulder. “I’m grateful for all you’ve been doing, buddy. Literally couldn’t have done this without you.”

“We are partners, are we not? This is what we do,” Tender replied

They left the railway tunnel and entered a massive room that was empty except for a nightmarish looking pillar of technology standing within the center of the room.

“Well, functionality before aesthetics,” Maya said as she approached the device. “Why all the empty space?”

“There are ‘arms’ that unfold when powered, there is a massive surge of power that will destroy anything within five meters of the arms,” Tender said.

“Dang, I thought it was a tool, not a weapon.”

“Such devices are highly regulated and are subject to restrictions and limits, the hiveship seems to have removed those restrictions and limits. This,” Tender gestured at the device, “would be confiscated immediately and deemed exceptionally dangerous.”

“But it’ll work, right?”

“Yes. The rogue AIs have heavily modified it for their uses, we will have to undo some of those modifications and repair a lot of stripped out pieces. It is lucky that we still have managed to extract the original scans of the device before the rogue AIs dismantled it.”

“Salvage. We can refurbish it,” Maya grinned as she summoned a token into her hand.

“Recycler’s Token?” Tender asked.

“Yup. Got it a long time ago from the System. But the gist is that it will fully repair a salvaged device if it is going to be used by SIL. The caveats are the that it has to be system tech and salvage. I’ve been waiting to use it on something. I was thinking the shuttles or such, but now that we know this is system tech, all the better.”

Maya patted the nonfictional teleporter. “I got big plans for you, pal.”

***

Samanco and his men, five hundred currently gathered upon the Pan-American Highway, prepared themselves for the Chimbote attack. They knew they were coming, they knew they were armed with new weapons, and they knew that the Chimbote people had a benefactor on their side.

But they had Samanco, level thirty and massively large at eight feet tall. An ogre of a man who carried a solid length of steel because any other weapon would break in his hands. He inspired both terror and awe within his men, and they were all men. Women weren’t allowed to fight along side or level with them.

It was an odd army, made of makeshift weapons and the occasional firearm. Many didn’t even wear armor or protection, instead carrying crudely made weapons as they leveled, the normal prefabricated weapons had broken in their hands.

Maya saw men carrying spears of solid iron, crude machetes ground down from steel stock, and most were bare chested or in some cases naked. She didn’t know the reason behind that part, but it probably had to do with some kind of manly boasting. They arrayed themselves across the road, like some ancient battle line, pouding the asphalt to dust with their weapons or yelling themselves hoarse as they saw the approaching vehicles.

“Purely Physical build,” Bell said, watching the images of Samanco being displayed. “Heavy into strength and possibly channeling.”

“That a common set up?” Maya asked.

“You see it in [Soldiers] or some specific combat abilities. Although you tend to gain higher grade Skills if you spread your points out more, but there are some pretty good mid-grade Skills that can come from his build.”

Samanco - Level 30

Titles: Slayer of Humans, Warlord, Death’s Right Hand, Drenched in Blood

Achievements: Decimator, No Mercy, Might is Right

“Well,” Maya muttered as she Evaluated the man. She showed Bell the information.

“Slayer titles only occur when you kill at least two thousand of one species,” Bell said. “Warlord is obvious, Death’s Right Hand is given to people with a mass murdering bent, and Drenched is self explanatory.”

“I’m gonna have to file a complaint with the System. They can’t reward this kind of behavior,’ Maya said.

“‘All actions are Seen and Noted by the System’,” Bell said, as if reciting something. “‘He is neither Law nor Judge’.”

“Yeah, they told me the same thing too,” Maya sighed. She opened another window and it showed Tender, sitting hooked to a new modified processing node/drone controller. “You ready, Tender?”

“I am.”

“Then, let’s kick some ass.”

***

Samanco’s army turned to face the incoming Chimbote forces. They were all ready, psyching themselves up for the battle. They had fought everyone and everything and they had won. They feared nothing, they were the powerful now, they were in control. They did not see the threshold opening behind their lines.

An ugly tower rose from a hole in the ground. It was bent, crooked, and electricity seemed to arc between bits of metal and crawl along its metallic frame. It rose one meter, then five, and then ten. It towered over the men readying themselves for a fight.

No one noticed for long while. Until it was too late.

Forty modified combat drones appeared within their midst. One moment the men were jostling one another to be the first to kill and the next moment a six foot ant, heavily armored and carrying what appeared to be a rifle appeared among them.

There was a shocked silence as the men stared at the creature, then it raised its weapon and fired. A cone of light appeared, covering half a dozen men, they flinched and covered their eyes. Then they vanished. Leaving an empty space where they had once stood.

More shocked silence and then chaos.

They would have stood their ground and fought back if the creatures had hacked and killed their brethren. They would have fought if they saw their friends die, but as they vanished without leaving any trace behind. The men spooked and pushed away from the creatures.

Maya watched the ants at work. An issue that they hadn’t solved was that the transporter wasn’t able to lock onto a SIL without a signature lock. It was how Bell had been teleported, the ant who grabbed him had slapped a lock on him and he was taken. The men in Samanco’s army had to be ‘painted’ with a signature lock before the teleporter could zap them away.

Samanco saw what was going on and with speed that seemed impossible, smashed two ants. He slammed his steel club to the ground and Maya watched as he glowed for a moment.

Errors began squawking from the teleporter. The locks had been stripped away, not only that, but the dimensional space around Samanco had been ‘solid’.

“An area of effect Skill,” Bell said. “Probably ‘Hold My Ground’. It’s a high-grade skill that provides a defense bonus and also prevents dimensional teleportation in and out of an area. I’m surprised he has it.”

“Great,” Maya muttered.

The ants were drones and low leveled ones at that. They had been modified for combat, but they were weak to begin with. Maya watched as Samanco’s men, protected by his Skill, began tearing into the machines.

“Plan B. Release the Kraken!” Maya cried out.

“Ow, my ears,” Bell complained.

“Sorry. I had to do that.”

There was a rumble and creaking of metal as the threshold expanded and another cargo room opened up. A creature of armor, weapons, and misshapen due to the rush job on it, stalked out. It threw itself out of the threshold and at the army.

More chaos.

The Kraken was not a drone nor was it a rogue AI, instead it was a mecha, piloted by Tender. The misshapened robotic creature began slashing and firing upon the gathered men. They had for a brief moment regained their resolve, but now as they faced a twenty meter towering creature of armor, railguns, and slashing tentacles they began running once more.

The mecha wasn’t an entirely original build. Tender had come across Zono’s old mining barge body. The system tech AI still wasn’t talking to anyone and since the hiveship had basically dismantled the body, Maya took it and reused it. Together with Roci and Veskari, they had cobbled together a Ffrankenstienian robotic monstrosity that could only be piloted by someone, as creating the AI core and programming would be weeks of work.

Samanco was either insane or insanely brave, as he turned to face the incoming mecha. He screamed at it, slapping his bare chest, and then rushed to fight Tender. His steel club flashing and then taking out one of the mecha’s legs.

Maya grimaced. He was a lot stronger than he appeared. Railgun slugs slammed down around him, but he was underneath the frame. Tender couldn’t depress the guns enough. Maya sighed, noting the design failure.

Tender ignored him and did as much damage as he could against there remaining army. He moved the mech constantly, but Samanco was already tearing apart another leg, making the Kraken list to one side.

“I thought it was a good idea,” Bell said.

“It sounded cooler on paper,” Maya replied.

The slashing tentacles were caught by the man, barely even cutting him where it had sliced through entire people a moment before. He yanked it and then ripped it from the mech frame. Maya sighed as he began using the tentacle against Tender, slashing at the underside of the mech and using the cutting blade to tear off the armored plates.

“A lot more difficult than I thought,” Maya said.

The mech lost a third leg and then it collapsed to the ground in an explosion of dust and asphalt. Samanco launched himself atop of the frame and began screaming, waving the tentacle over his head.

Forty more combat drones appeared and began hosing down the remaining troops. Samanco yelled and tried using his Skill again, but it was on cool down.

He bega slashing down at the mech frame, tearing off armor plates and then exposing Tender underneath it.

“How did he know?” Maya asked. Tender was still hooked to the processing node/controller and had to leave it behind as Samanco screamed at him. The thirty remaining drones collapsed as their connection vanished.

Tender pulled himself out of the mech, summoning a sword from his dimensional bag.

Madness burned in Samanco’s eyes and spittle flew from his mouth. He charged Tender, even with the slower time on Earth, he moved incredibly fast. But Tender was no slouch, he parried with his sword, cutting deeply into the steel, but Samanco was faster, twisting and landing a punch to the side of Tender’s head. The rogue AI crumpled and fell, but caught himself. He had dropped his sword and Samanco snatched it up, rushing him.

“I can’t get a signature lock on him,” Maya said, nervously prodding the teleporter to snatch him up.

“What about Tender?” Bell asked.

“Maybe.”

Tender summoned another weapon and attacked. Samanco wasn’t as skilled with the blade as Tender was, using brute force as his main weapon. Slashes began appearing upon Samanco, deep cuts into his flesh that sprayed red everywhere. Yet the man didn’t seem to slow down. Maya watched as Samanco’s wounds began to heal.

“This is unfair,” Maya muttered. “No one has self healing powers.”

Samanco’s blade went flying, along with his hand. Maya winced, it sucked losing a hand. He began screaming, a look of shock and horror twisting his face, as he stared at his missing hand. He barely had enough time to turn before Tender’s blade came down upon him.

A stunned silence filled the battlefield as the army watched as their leader was defeated. They stared at the black clad creature with four arms standing before them. Tender summoned another sword and a pair of pistols.

Then the Chimbote army struck.

***

Maya watched as the battle wrapped up. Tender had returned, setting up another processing node/controller and then sent the drone ants into Samanco’s bases. It was a fast and brutal fight, as the remaining men tried running. But between the satellites and the teleporter, no one escaped.

The Chimbote liberation forces rushed ahead, securing the camps that Samanco had built to hold victims and slaves. Tender moved the ants forward, using the signature guns to teleport away the guards and soldiers remaining. Resistance collapsed after that.

It was done, hundreds were dead, and hundreds more had been captured. Samanco was dead. Thousands were freed from his camps, mostly women and children.

Maya looked at a screen, seven hundred and twenty five men had been teleported into the Cage. Half were from Samanco’s army, the other half were guards and other people who were ‘assisting’ in the management of the camps. Not everyone was a soldier, there were a lot of others who sided with Samanco and reaped the spoils of their position.

She had to decide what to do with them.