Five miles of barren desert land ended in a line of trash as far, and as wide, as Ellie could see.

The garbage scows had spread out the trash drops so the piles were between ten to thirty feet high. Here and there piles rose higher. Ellie stopped the grave cart to take in the monument to humanities greed and carelessness. Everything here could have easily been recycled but it saved a few credits to dump it out here, on a far distant land.

There were pathways through the land, narrow corridors between trash piles. Ellie's cart did not have powerful enough grave plates to fly over the trash. Ellie know she could find a heavy grav loader here that would easily fly over the piles. Form just the trash Ken dropped she knew she could find anything out here if she looked hard enough.

The coordinates of the Q607 chips lead to the left. Ellie set the grav cart to eight feet in height, as high as the cart could manage. Ellie carefully started driving through the maze of discarded trash. The area close to the town was already salvaged of anything useful. Ellie was not worried; it would take decades to make a dent in this.

She saw husks of ships, bits and pieces of every type of machinery found on a ship, broken bots, computer cores smashed, jagged metal pieces sticking up here and there, burned out vehicle, in the distance Ellie saw a broken bot, half its face smashed and missing, carry its crushed left arm, staggering in a circle.

Ellie shook her head at this sad sight. A part of her wanted to stop and help this lonely bot but knew she would see hundreds more like it.

It was slow going as Ellie navigated around piles, backtracking when she came to dead ends, avoiding dangerous pieces of trash, and trying to drive as cautiously as possible. She turned on some music to help pass the time as she slowly drove through the maze.

After five hours Ellie still was only halfway to the discarded quantum cores. A ping hit the window in front of Ellie, startling a small scream out of her. She looked around frantically and saw a man standing twenty feet ahead and to the left of her grav cart. Standing on top a pile of trash he was carefully aiming another shot at her.

“O Nova, someone’s trying to kill us!”

Though she was scared, she realized the armor of the grav cart had protected her. Her fear turned to anger.

“No one gets to shoot at us!” She said to the bot next to her.

She hit the accelerator and jerked the controls to the left, aiming the cart towards the man that just attacked her. Ellie's wild maneuver saved her as a small rocket just missed the cart. She looked around wildly to see a second attacker standing on another pile of trash holding a missile launcher.

She was still committed to the attack run on the first man, and just as she reached his location, he dove off. Twisting the controls hard to the right, the grav cart's back end slammed into the pile of garbage causing an explosion of trash.

Jolted, Ellie was still razor focused. She slammed the override switch down on the instrument panel that increased the fusion reactors output by thirty percent. This sent the grav plates whining as extra power flooded them, if this was not a military vehicle the grav plates would have exploded. The cart lunged forward.

The other attacker had dropped his empty missile tube and drawn his laser pistol. Bright red beams of focused light started to hit the front armored glass window but were not powerful enough to penetrate. The attacker dove to the side to avoid getting hit by the grav cart but timed it too late. The cart slammed into his side sending him twisting brokenly in the air, twenty feet above the ground.

Ellie did not wait for another attack instead sped through the piles of garbage, taking random left and right turns, and getting hopelessly lost. Seeing what looked like a small cave in a mountain of trash, far bigger than the rest of the piles, she drove in.

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Slamming to a halt, Ellie just avoided slamming head first into the hull of a ship. A warning alarm screamed, competing with the still blaring music. Ellie slammed the power switch down and cut all power to the grav cart. The cart lurched, falling five feet to hit the rubble with a bang, sending trash raining down and cutting off the small cave opening. As Ellie sat there the adrenaline and shock of attack faded and she started shaking, she hunched over and started to cry.

After Ellie calmed down, she looked around her. A large twisted beam across the roof had created just enough open space for Ellie to fly her grav cart into. The beam had also prevented the trash above from falling down and filling the area, Ellie realized her landing had collapsed the tunnel opening.

Ellie needed to explore the space and see if she could remove enough debris to fly out. Ellie was scared to venture out into the unstable hallow, fearing it would collapse, but compared to the attack she just escaped form it wasn't a debilitating fear.

“Stay here.” She instructed the bot that hadn't moved since getting in, what felt like a lifetime ago.

“This unit will stay in this craft.”

Nodding Ellie picked up her helmet. It was a squarish shaped box, with a four inch armored glass band starting at her left temple, then curved sharply to the right to bisect the armored face plate, before turning again to end at her right temple.

It was brutally simple and efficient in shape and design, the standard characteristics of military hardware. Ellie vowed if she ever designed military hardware she would at least try to make it more pleasing in shape.

“Why can't military hardware look pretty?”

“This unit does not understand the question.”

Ellie doubled over laughing, the stress form the encounter leaving her fully in gales of laughter at the bots simple statement. Wiping tears from her eyes she donned the helmet, locking it into place. With the batteries fully recharged the onboard computer loaded and the suit's air recycler started blowing cool air through her hair.

Ellie was glade she kept her straight black hair cut shoulder length. She had tried to grow it out longer but the second time it caught fire, when it came loose and brushed her soldering probe, had taught Ellie to keep it short. She thought about a short spiky cut but liked the feel of hair brushing her face, and just run a styler through it. Besides it was pretty!

Ellie smiled and opened her door. She tentatively put her right foot down trying to feel how stable the rubble was before she put her other foot down. Taking a deep breath Ellie stood up and took a step forward.

When the ground beneath didn't collapse, Ellie became for confident. Ellie softly closed the driver’s side hatch and made her way carefully to the rubble blocking her in. Ellie tried to see how much debris she needed to clear to make an exit for her grav cart, Ellie was not reassured when she tried to peer through a small opening. It went on for six feet before being blocked again.

Ellie wondered if the grav cart had enough power to force its way through. Not wanting to chance collapsing the small space and be buried alive, Ellie shuddered at the thought; she turned to investigate the ship they almost ran into.

The lose trash shifted, and Ellie had to brace herself on the side of the cart before moving forward, with more care. She walked to the front of the grav cart and inhaled sharply, there was only a foot between her cart and the ship’s hull. If she had been a second slower they would have crashed and Ellie would have most likely died, if not form the crash, then when the trash above dislodged and rained down.

Studying it carefully Ellie found the hull was actually two massive cargo bay doors locked together, recessed a foot into the hull. Seven feet above Ellie the ship’s hull sloped inward at a sharp forty five degree angle for five feet before joining the almost flat roof of ship.

Using her suits powered enhancements; she jumped up seven feet and grabbed a small protrusion sticking out form the ship’s hull. Ellie pulled herself up, then slowly climbed up the steep slope of the hull, almost siding back down. Reaching the top Ellie crawled under the trash above to find the outside emergency cargo bay controls.

The controls were used if the ship lost power or was severely damaged, in an asteroid collision. Ellie know that enemy fire damaged a lot more cargo ships then any asteroids but didn't care how it was worded in the safety manuals; she just wanted to open the cargo bay doors.

Finding the panel and opening it Ellie realized she needed to provide power to the machinery and her suits batteries weren't enough, a quick check on her suits battery power confirmed her suspicion. Ellie started to slowly side back down before she lost control and slide down for faster then she intended.

Hitting the end of the ship’s hull, Ellie flew off and was airborne for several seconds before slamming down on top of the grav cart.

“Nova!”