Hecate

by J. B. Rockwell

“Well, which is it?” he snapped, growing tired of all these diversions and half truths. “Yes or no, Scythe? I want a straight answer this time.”

  “The message…” Scythe hesitated. “The message was pre-programmed. Queued up and ready. All I had to do was send it out.”

  Henricksen tilted his head, considering, sensing a conspiracy at work. “Shaw?” he guessed. “Did Shaw give you that message? Tell you when and where to send it out?”

  She had the access and the interest—one of few who did. But Scythe surprised him with an entirely different name.

  “Kinsey,” she said, voice the barest breath. “My orders came from Kinsey himself.”

  Not the answer he expected. Not even close.

  “I thought he wanted information. Why would he…” Henricksen trailed off, frowning in confusion. Dropped his eyes from the camera and watched Gogmagog’s lumpen shape glide by.

  Kinsey sent the RV-Ns here to reconnoiter—survey the area and report back. So why would he summon Gogmagog and have him take the entire thing out?

  “He knew, didn’t he? Kinsey knew what this place was all along.”

  And gave Scythe orders—directions in secret that ran counter to Henricksen’s own.

  “Did he tell you?” he asked, looking back to the camera. “Or did he send you in here blind?”

  Scythe’s silence said everything. More than any words she could offer.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Henricksen—”

  “Why?” he demanded, angry now. Resentful that she’d kept this secret from him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  More silence—Scythe unwilling to answer, or not knowing how. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. A default response. The one she fell back on when caught at loose ends. “Kinsey—My orders—I wasn’t allowed to tell you,” she admitted in a rush.

  “I bet,” Henricksen muttered, pointedly looking away. He stared at the windows, studying the ships and stars outside, letting the silence stretch between them. Making Scythe break it this time.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, having nothing else to offer.

  Henricksen grunted in answer, resentful still, holding onto his anger. But being angry at Scythe didn’t solve anything, and none of this truly was her fault.

  Kinsey’s plan. His machinations all along. He stared at the windows, wondering why he did it—what prompted a spit and polish, stiff prick like Kinsey to go so far off the reservation—and realized he’d probably never know.

  Bastard always was full of secrets. And this the greatest of them all.

  “It’s alright,” he sighed, shifting in his seat, waving a hand at Scythe’s watching camera. “Kinsey used you. Just like the rest of us.”

  Scythe was quiet a moment, camera watching from above. “Will we—will I—”

  “We, Scythe.” He turned his visored face toward the camera. “We’re a team, remember? You got it right the first time.”

  “Team,” she whispered, sounding surprisingly pleased. “Will we be in trouble? For this,” she explained, turning her camera toward the windows.

  “Maybe.” Henricksen shrugged his shoulders. “Hard to know for certain. Blew the reconnoiter, but taking out that station…” He grunted, shaking his head. “Brass can’t really argue against destroying a high value target like that.”

  “And Kinsey?”

  “Do you care?”

  “Yes. I would feel…bad, if he was punished for this.”

  “Really?” Henricksen considered her camera a moment, honestly surprised. “My guess is they’ll reward him. For the same reasons they won’t call us to the carpet.”

  “You really think so?”

  Hopeful voice now—another surprise.

  “Probably give him some cushy administrative job in some cushy administrative office far away from here,” Henricksen told her. “’Course, his Black Ops days are done. Fleet won’t let him anywhere near another one of these secret squirrel projects after pulling a stunt like this.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “I suppose not.”

  Silence again—neither of them speaking for a long, long time.

  “Did I do the right thing?” Scythe asked some time later. “Should I—Should we—Did I do the right thing in following Kinsey’s orders?”

  “Yes, Scythe,” he said patiently. “And no,” he added, because that was truth.

  “No?” Scythe sounded baffled, morality program struggling to interpret that conflicting answer. “Why no?”

  “Secrets, Scythe. ‘Team’ and ‘secrets’,” he shook his head hard. “Just doesn’t work. You put crew at risk—”

  “No,” she insisted—urgent, earnest voice. “I got us out.”

  “We got out. Shriek did. Snicker-snack and Sharp. But what about Sever? What about Baldini and the others? They were crew too, Scythe. We lost—” He broke off, sighing, weary beyond belief.

  Hecate would’ve gotten it. Would’ve read the situation and realized immediately that calling the Dreadnought in was a severely bad idea.

  Hecate’s not here, he reminded himself. And Scythe…Scythe’s just a kid.

  Moral processors undeveloped. Her sense of right and wrong not quite there yet. Instinct and logic in constant conflict with her programming.

  Scythe followed orders because she had them, not knowing which to question and which to follow to the letter.

  “It’s complicated,” Henricksen told her, having no better explanation.

  “So am I.”

  “Touche,” Henricksen smiled, tipping an invisible cap.

  A glint of light caught his attention, drawing his eyes back to the windows. To a shimmering sparkle gliding amongst the wreckage—smooth-sided and twinkling like a thousand, atmosphere-filtered stars.

  Curious, he pulled up a feed from one of Scythe’s many hull cameras, watching the wounded Valkyrie search the dead ships out there for survivors.

  Gaping wounds showed on the warship’s flanks, entire sections of her sparkling, photovoltaic skin torn away. Eaten down to her composite metal frame.

  “Those nannites sure did a number on her.”

  Heavy damage on that Valkyrie, but she kept fighting. Caught a glimpse of her as they dumped out of jump, swooping in like star-spangled justice—turret guns blazing as she sliced through a pair of droned ships, coming at her from either side.

  Tough old bird, that one. Kept fighting, despite the nannites gnawing at her skin. Kept kicking ass, refusing to lay down and die.

  “Showed ’em, didn’t you?” Henricksen murmured. “Still standing, even after all that.”

  “Should I be jealous?” The panel flickered as Scythe tapped into the feed, taking a look herself.

  Henricksen wiped it, shrugging uncomfortably. Went back to studying the data on his panel.

  But his eyes kept returning to that Valkyrie, remembering the look of her, the grace and beauty, the power as she cut those DSR ships down.

  He was captain now, with a captain’s stars on his collar. A Raven for the moment, but Black Ops was never his calling. Never really cared for all the cloak and dagger and hush-hush stuff. He’d finish this stint with the Ravens and close out his tour. Move on to another assignment when this one was done.

  Warship billet this time, like he’d originally wanted. A Valkyrie, maybe. Like that one out there.

  Henricksen glanced at the windows again, snuck a look at Scythe’s camera as he reached for the panel in front of him. Keyed into the system and pulled up a record.

  Sat there, staring at it, and the name showing at the top.

  Serengeti.

  Henricksen smiled, liking the sound of it. The images it brought to mind. On a whim, he flicked through her design specs, checking the crew roster while he was at it. Saw Serengeti’s captain had already put in her letter—intent to retire written in bold, red text beneath a smiling picture of a serious-faced woman with iron-grey hair.

  “Two years and she’ll be looking for a new captain.” Scythe rif
led through the rest of the record—a split second of investigation, absorbing every last detail of the Valkyrie’s history. “You’ll be up for reassignment.”

  “I will,” Henricksen nodded, voice carefully neutral.

  “I could put in a good word.”

  Henricksen blinked, surprised all over again. “That how it works?”

  Scythe laughed softly. “How do you think I got you?”

  “Hecate.” He smiled sadly.

  Still looking after me, even from the grave.

  Comms crackled, communication coming through from the Valkyrie he’d been ogling, the very same captain smiling back at him from her record.

  He closed it up and acknowledged the communication as the Valkyrie detoured, heading their way.

  “Looks like she’s our ride.”

  “Looks like,” Henricksen nodded, watching the Valkyrie draw near.

  Two more years before her captain’s chair came available. Not so long, really, and the timing was right.

  It might work. It just might work.

  Read on for a free sample of Serengeti

  ONE

  Serengeti dropped out of hyperspace into a quiet, empty section of the cosmos.

  Too quiet. Too empty.

  Sensors drank in data, feeding it to Serengeti’s AI brain.

  “Something’s not right,” she said

  Henricksen cocked his head, looking up at the camera. “Because we’re here or because the ships we came after aren’t?”

  Serengeti shunted the sensors’ feeds to the bridge. “Take a look for yourself.”

  Henricksen frowned and stabbed at a panel, parsing through the information it displayed. “Nothing.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense. There should be something here.”

  “There should,” Serengeti agreed, studying him through the camera’s electronic eye. “That’s what has me worried.”

  Brutus—Bastion class, commander of their fleet—sent three scouts ahead, but none of them came back. Needless to say, Brutus was not happy. In his inimitable wisdom, he decided to send yet one more ship after those missing three. That’s how Serengeti ended up here, in this oh-so-quiet, oh-so-empty section of space. She and Henricksen, the rest of their crew.

  Drew the short straw. Lucky us.

  She scanned the area around them and found nothing. No marker buoys or distress beacons. No radiation signatures, none of the electronic noise interstellar vessels endlessly squawked out. Not one sign of their scouts or the enemy warships they’d been tracking. Just an unsettling silence

  Not good. Not good at all.

  Space was many things, but it was seldom quiet.

  “Nothing.” Henricksen pounded the panel in frustration. “Not a god-damned thing.” He straightened, looking out the huge windows wrapping the front of the bridge. “Where the hell are they, Serengeti?”

  Gone, she thought, drifting in the darkness, the stars keeping her company. Destroyed like all the other ships before them.

  Three ships—Osage, Barlow, Veil of Tears—lost with all their crew. Hundreds lives—AI and human both—wiped out in an instant. Hundreds added to the thousands already spent in this decades-long war between the Dark Star Revolution and the Meridian Alliance government.

  “Bastard.” Henricksen punched the panel in front of him. “Brutus already had intel on the DSR ships. He never should’ve sent Barlow and the others here. Or you after them,” he added, turning his eyes back to the camera.

  Serengeti considered him a moment, deciding how to answer. Henricksen was captain—her fourth captain in as many decades and by far her favorite. Solid man. Smart. Good instincts. Cool under pressure, when so many of his kind ran hot. More importantly, he knew his place. Knew he was captain of Serengeti’s crew, but not of Serengeti herself.

  His predecessor never quite figured that out.

  “Bastion says go, we go,” she said simply. “He leads this fleet, whether we like it or not.”

  Henricksen grimaced, obviously not liking it. Not one bit.

  Serengeti didn’t blame him. As AIs went, Brutus was kind of a prick.

  “There won’t be a fleet if he keeps throwing away ships like this.” Henricksen stared at the camera, waiting for Serengeti to respond, dropped his eyes to the display in front of him when she didn’t and toggled the feed, swapping one view for another and another. And when the electronic displays didn’t give him what he wanted, Henricksen turned to the bridge’s windows, searching the stars outside answers.

  Serengeti found that amusing. As if human eyes could ever compete with AI sensors.

  “Dammit.” Henricksen curled his hands into fists, smacking the panel in frustration. “What the hell’s going on, Serengeti?” He looked up at a camera. “They should be here. Something should be here.”

  “There should,” she said again, having nothing better to offer.

  Henricksen grimaced, obviously hoping for more. “Two weeks, Serengeti. Two goddamn weeks we’ve been chasing those DSR bastards, and now they’re just gone. Ghosted away.”

  “And our scouts gone with them.”

  “Yeah.” Henricksen sighed and rubbed his face, scrubbed fingers through his short-clipped hair.

  Dark hair. Black as coal, once. Peppered with grey now, after so many years travelling the dark and stars.

  “Brutus is gonna be pissed,” he said, eyeing the camera.

  “Probably right.” Serengeti paused, choosing her words carefully. “This mission—”

  “Mission.” Kusikov—Communications Officer, a slim, bookish-looking young man in an ill-fitting uniform—snorted in disdain. “More like wild goose chase,” he said, throwing a sullen look at the nearest camera.

  Henricksen folded his arms, glowering at his comms officer. “You got a problem, Kusikov?”

  Kusikov flushed and cut his eyes away, taking a sudden interest in the station in front of him. He was overly smart for a human, and well aware of it—a fact Serengeti found amusing at times, and flat-out annoying at others—but even Kusikov knew better than to lock horns with Henricksen. Especially on the bridge.

  “No, sir,” Kusikov muttered. “No problem.”

  “Good,” Henricksen grunted, turning away.

  “Waste of time,” Kusikov mumbled.

  Henricksen froze, back rigid, head turning slowly toward Comms. “Is that what you think? Really?”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “’Cause I don’t think the relatives of those people on Tissolo do.”

  Ice in Henricksen’s voice, an arctic tundra in his grey eyes.

  “I didn’t—I wasn’t—” Shock drained the color from Kusikov’s face, shame sparked two bright blooms on his cheeks. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Damn right, you are. Tissolo started all this, Kusikov. Not the war maybe—that’s been going on as long as anyone can remember—but that’s why we’re here now,” Henricksen jerked a thumb at the windows, “taking census of this backwater section of space.”

  Kusikov ducked his head, flushing more brightly.

  They all knew about Tissolo now, and the mining colony the Dark Star Revolution destroyed a few weeks back. No one paid much attention the planet before then, but after what the DSR did…uproar. Demands for retaliation, blood for blood.

  That’s how things went these days.

  And so, to appease the people on Tissolo, and address the fears of the twenty-eight other planets under Meridian Alliance rule, the Citadel sent Brutus and a small armada after them. Three hundred and forty-two heavily armed AI warships sent after a rag-tag fleet of DSR vessels.

  Brutus, being Brutus, was only too happy to take on the challenge. After all, it was a big operation—an important operation—and a chance to get noticed by the Citadel, who was admiral in charge of the fleet. Two weeks they’d been searching, chasing the DSR ships that attached Tissolo across light years of space. Two weeks of failure and missed chances.

  Brutus was starting to feel the pressure. Serengeti almost felt bad
for him. Almost.

  “Tissolo was a massacre.” Henricksen took a step towards Comms.

  Kusikov blanched and moved a step away.

  “Our job, Kusikov, is to hunt down every last one of those DSR bastards and destroy them.”

  Cold words. Simple, brutal orders passed down from the highest levels. No trial this time. No second chances. No benefit of the doubt or consideration of the DSR’s intentions. Just death and vengeance. That’s the point they’d gotten to in this war.

  Henricksen moved another step closer. “Bastion says find those ships and chew them into tiny metallic bits, then that’s what we’re gonna do. Savvy?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kusikov said quietly.

  “Good. Now stop complaining and find something useful to do.”

  “Aye, sir.” Kusikov stared at his feet—head bowed, shoulders slumped, looking like a contrite schoolboy. A quick look at the camera above him, shoulders shrugging apologetically, and Kusikov stabbed at the panel in front of him, carefully avoiding his captain’s eyes, never quite looking him in the face.

  Henricksen gave him a long look, eyeing Kusikov suspiciously as he puttered about, trying to appear busy. “I said useful, Kusikov. That’s just randomly poking buttons.”

  “Yes, sir.” A hint of sullenness crept back into Kusikov’s voice, but he grabbed up his comms visor, fiddling with the settings before slipping it over his head.

  Henricksen grunted, shaking his head as he turned away from Comms and looked up at nearest camera. “So whaddaya wanna do?”

  Serengeti thought a moment before answering. “Empty this place may be, but there’s more here, I think, than meets the eye.”

  Or sensors in her case. Serengeti didn’t really have eyes, just her systems and her sensors, the cameras throughout her body. But then, those were better than human eyes, weren’t they?

  Infinitely better. Far more exact.

  She studied the stars outside through those sensors, activated a dozen different cameras set in the plating of her hull and peered through those too, AI mind processing, parsing through reams of streaming data.

  Not much there. Not much to go on at all.

  “I say we take a closer look.”

  Henricksen dropped his eyes to the bridge’s front windows, taking a look himself. “Good idea,” he said, nodding slowly.