Serengati 2: Dark And Stars

by J. B. Rockwell

  The TSGs looked at each other, clearly not understanding. But they shrugged and nodded, looking happy as clams.

  Wish everything was that easy.

  “Go,” Serengeti told them, waving to the access shaft in the wall. “Connect yourselves to the network so you can map the ship’s spaces and access the monitoring systems. Ship this size requires a lot of maintenance.” Especially one refitted from salvage. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, little friends.”

  “Work, work, work, work, work,” the TSGs quorked, chattering like a bunch of overly excited magpies. They swapped around, milling in confusion, lined up in two straight rows and saluted Serengeti before dissolving into chaos again.

  Eventually, one of them figured out where they should be going and scuttled over to the access shaft, leading the lot of them out of Engineering.

  “You too.” Tig turned Oona around, pointing her toward the far side of the room.

  “But I don’t wanna,” she sulked, kicking at the floor.

  “Now, missy.”

  Tilli leaned close, whispering urgently, face lights flashing in rapid patterns. A nod to Tig and she led Oona across Engineering, bundled her into the maintenance shaft, and pulled the panel back into place.

  “So few, Tig,” Serengeti said, staring after them. “How are a dozen robots supposed to take care of a ship this size?”

  Tig shrugged, fidgeting, leg-ends tippy-tapping against the decking as he shuffled from side-to-side. “Don’t really need all that many. New engines don’t require as much maintenance. Systems are new. Machinery powering the systems is new. There are another fifty or so TSGs rattling around somewhere, but…” He shrugged again, legs bending and flexing, body bobbing up and down. “Just don’t need as many crew these days, Serengeti. Not with all this new tech.”

  “Says who?” She smiled, touching at his brain.

  Tig blipped uncertainly, face lights blanking again. “The manuals.”

  “Manuals.” Serengeti snorted. “Manuals don’t know jack.”

  One of Henricksen’s sayings. Serengeti always liked that one.

  Four

  Tig fidgeted and shifted, looking from one side of Engineering to the other. “So…are we done here?”

  Serengeti frowned, detecting a note of nervousness in his voice. “Something else you want to show me?”

  Tig shrugged and nodded. Shrugged again and shook his head.

  “You’re not sure what you want to show me.”

  Tig nodded slowly. “Outside,” he said, looking surprisingly solemn. Worryingly solemn, in fact.

  “Go,” she said, giving him a nudge. “Show me this thing that has you so troubled.”

  Tig spun around and scurried out of Engineering, making a beeline for the nearest ladderway. No hesitations this time. No second-guessing. He just grabbed the rungs and started the long climb up to Level 12.

  Interesting that he still chose to use them with the elevators now operational. A quirk of his, Serengeti supposed. One of many he’d collected over the years. Then again, she’d developed a few herself. Didn’t need Tig to move about her body, after all. Not when she had a shiny new network to shift her consciousness around. But she enjoyed the intimacy of riding inside Tig. The closeness that came with touching mind-to-mind.

  Fifty-three was a long time to drift alone. Wouldn’t have survived Tig and Tilli, Oona to keep her company.

  Level 12, when they reached it, looked as shiny and new as Level 4. No shredded girders showing, no holes looking through to the stars. No icing rime turning the hallway into a skating rink, just light and heat and composite metal panels. Everything the way it once was.

  Tig zipped down it to the airlock, cycled his way through, and stepped out onto the hull. Into an ocean of stars—thousands, tens of thousands floating in a sea of black.

  Serengeti sighed contentedly as the cold wrapped around her, enjoying the moment. That view from outside her body.

  A view that changed as Tig turned and started climbing to the top of the ship, magnetized leg-ends gripping tightly to the hull.

  More stars there, Serengeti’s photovoltaic skin shining softly, gathering in the light from Blue Horizon’s star, feeding it to the fuel cells in her belly. Tig slowed at the top, and turned in a circle, showing her everything around them. The planet lying ahead of her, looming large off Serengeti’s bow. The three glowing moons circling round its cerulean orb, the station lurking ugly and grey behind her.

  Freighters filled the berthings to her left and right, robotic shapes scuttling across their hulls as they went about one maintenance task and another. And between them…

  “Huh. That’s odd.”

  Serengeti adjusted the filters on Tig’s cameras, zooming in to study a patch of space off her starboard side. The starlight bent there, flickered and swirled. And when she spun Tig in a slow circle, she saw the same thing all around them: Stars twinkling. Silver-white lights that sparkled.

  Pretty effect, but wrong. Stars twinkled when viewed through atmosphere. In space, they just glowed.

  “Do you see it?” Tig asked, speaking to her mind-to-mind. “That distortion?”

  “Shimmer shield. That what you wanted to show me?”

  Tig nodded. “Wasn’t sure what to make of it. Thought you might want a look.”

  To be honest, Serengeti wasn’t quite sure what to make of it either. Stations used shimmer shields sometimes, mostly to corral the spare parts and equipment the maintenance crews brought with them. Keep unwary robots from drifting away from the ship. ‘Shimmer shield’ because of the distortion the energy field created, masking the shape of the ship beneath it. Easy enough to see through a shimmer shield from the inside. Shifting and tricksy to anyone on the outside looking in.

  Like electronic camouflage. A perfect way to hide a ship.

  Serengeti thought on that. And on the circumstances of her arrival. Sechura’s leapfrogging journey here. Turned Tig in a circle and noticed other changes—the makeshift comms tower gone, the forest of solar panels with it, new canons on her sides that the engineering specs showed as being larger caliber, with longer range, each round packing twice the punch of her old armaments.

  Enhanced weapons system downloaded to her network with a brand spanking new combat program, and a more accurate targeting system. All of it linked to the gimbaled Artillery pod on the bridge.

  On a hunch, she ran a systems check, and found Navigation came with new star charts. Scan with upgraded sensors. Comms an expanded array.

  Sechura’s doing. All of it. Her Sister’s name marked down as approving every last upgrade.

  Bothered her that Sechura would do all this without her say so. She wished she could talk to her Sister and find out what was going on. But sub-light transmissions were hard to keep secret—ships were nosy things, after all, and everyone listened in on comms.

  Encrypted transmission might get through.

  But then everyone would start wondering why the ship under that shimmer shield was sending out encrypted comms.

  Damn, Serengeti swore. Damn and damn and damn.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Serengeti asked distractedly.

  “That.” Tig pointed at the planet. “Not much landmass to Blue Horizon, but I hear the fishing’s incredible.”

  “And just what would you know about fishing?”

  Tig shrugged, tone turning defensive. “Saw some vids. Overheard the maintenance crew talking about it the other day. Human crew,” he clarified, “not those box-of-rocks DD3s.”

  “Some of those ‘box-of-rocks’ are still out here.” She rolled over to the starboard side, pointing to an actinic flare—plasma torch, and a DD3 wielding it, sewing up a seam in her side.

  Odd bulge there. More bulges showing at her bow and stern.

  “What is it?” Tig asked when he noticed her staring.

  “Not sure.” She flipped from one camera to another, looking her hull over. The guns stood out, of course—oversiz
ed and bulging, sticking bulbously from her hull. But as she cycled through the hull cameras, she spied other, less obvious alterations. Lumps in her outline. Protrusions in her otherwise sleek lines. “Tig. Did you happen to get a look at the maintenance crew’s refit plan?”

  Tig’s head tilted, face lights flashing on and off. “No. Why?”

  “Does that look right to you?” She pointed to the bulge below.

  Tig’s front legs lifted, magnetized ends rubbing together. “Maybe they needed more room for all the new equipment?”

  “Maybe.”

  But she didn’t think so. Something about that just didn’t feel right. So she tapped into her central system, querying the database for the diagrams showing her original design. Sorted through directory upon directory of new files until she found the updated schematics.

  Ran through her external cameras—all of them at once—overlaying their video feeds to create a three hundred and sixty-degree view of her body. And stared in horror at what she found.

  “What is it?” Tig asked, voice plaintive, front legs cricketing away.

  She connected herself to his AI, sharing the composite image she’d made. “That look familiar to you?”

  Tig froze, staring. “It’s a mistake. It’s got to be a mistake.”

  “No. It’s not.” She pulled up the schematic, showed Tig the section where Sechura herself had signed off on the design changes. “This was deliberate. Sechura knew exactly what she was doing when she signed off on that refit.”

  She butchered me. Dressed me up in a monster’s skin.

  A glance at the station, the freighters to either side, lingering a moment on the rippling distortion separating her from them. “Awful convenient, don’t you think?”

  “What?” Tig asked, looking around.

  “Sechura parking me here. Sticking me behind that shimmer shield with my beacon turned off.”

  Tig burbled worriedly. “You think she’s hiding something?”

  “I think she’s hiding me, Tig. And I want to know why.”

  Five

  Three weeks Serengeti waited for that answer. Three long weeks spent sitting in space dock before Sechura finally got her ass back to Blue Horizon. Serengeti’s sensors picked her up the moment Sechura dropped out of hyperspace, scans sucking in her course and speed, the data package her Sister spat out to station central. Tracked her as she moved in on the station, broadcasting her presence openly.

  Following the approach rules to a tee, keeping everything on the up-and-up. Nothing special to see here, just an AI warship pulling into port.

  Closer in, and Serengeti’s hull camera’s picked her Sister’s shape out from the stars. Video images capturing her every movement as Sechura slowed and cut her engines, sleek sides glimmering with fireflies and diamond dust as she settled into a berthing.

  A berthing on the far side of the station, opposite from where Serengeti herself was tethered. Just about as far from her Sister as Sechura could get. Serengeti tried not to take that personally, but part of her suspected Sechura had chosen that mooring on purpose.

  Probably expects me to sit here and wait on her.

  She tapped into the station’s video system, studying her Sister’s shape through one of the cameras, doing just that for a while. “Screw it,” she decided some fifteen minutes later, and called across her network, summoning Tig to the bridge. “We’re going,” she announced as soon as the little robot appeared.

  “What?” Tig blipped and turned in a circle, looking at the windows, the door, Serengeti’s camera above him. “Where?”

  “Station.” She split her consciousness, leaving one-half to mind the ship’s systems, while the other slipped inside Tig. “I’m sick to death of sitting here waiting. We’re taking a walk.”

  She turned him around, heading for the door. Stopped dead as a chime sounded—polite tone, calling for attention—and a prompt appeared, letting her know a message waited. A summons from Sechura, requesting an audience.

  Second chime as she read it and closed the message out. This one a perimeter notification—alert from the stationside airlock notifying her that someone wanted on board.

  Camera above that door showed a robot—a very polished, very stiff, and proper-looking robot that just had to belong to Sechura.

  “Looks like we’ve got company.” She touched at Tig’s brain, sharing the video feed with him. Panned the camera, looking the robot up and down. Checked the designation on his side, and realized it was TIG-996.

  Sechura’s favorite, evidently. The little toy soldier she sent off to do her bidding.

  TIG-996 looked up at the camera, face lights ticking in patterns. He extruded a connector and plugged into the airlock’s comms port, calling up to the bridge. “Sechura has arrived,” he said grandly, puffing out his chest.

  Pompous little popinjay.

  “So I noticed,” Serengeti said sourly.

  The popinjay deflated, drooping like a limp balloon. Snuck a look to either side, eyeing the foot traffic moving up and down the station’s corridor, cleared his throat and dropped his voice as he moved closer to the airlock. “She wishes to speak to you,” 996 said, a hint of urgency creeping into his voice. “Please,” he added, cobalt eyes staring at the camera, leg-end pointing at the security lock.

  “Are my crew with you?”

  The robot blipped, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “Uh…no…”

  “Then you’re not getting in.” Serengeti turned Tig around, heading for the door. “You tell Sechura I’m coming to her.”

  “What? But—”

  “Tell. Her,” Serengeti said coldly.

  996 beeped uncertainly, head tilting in that distinctive ‘I’m-listening-to-someone-you-can’t-hear’ manner peculiar to his model. Stayed that way for several seconds—face lights blinking on and off in rapid-fire patterns, swapping communications across an internal channel—before shaking himself, and looking back at the camera. “Accepted,” 996 said, and ripped the connector from the comms port.

  Tig blinked, beeping. “Well, that was abrupt.”

  “Rude’s more like it. Must have some DD3 in him.”

  Tig wonked, offended.

  Serengeti smiled and nudged him forward. “Let’s go, Tig. Mustn’t keep rude-boy waiting.”

  Tig took off, grumbling. Stopped at the door, and looked back over his shoulder as an alarm sounded and Scan lit up—messages appearing as Serengeti’s sensors flared to life. “Something coming.” He turned aside, rolling over to the windows. “Must be close for the sensors to freak out like that.”

  “Ship,” Serengeti said, sharing the sensors’ feeds. “Small one. Shuttle from the looks of it.” She scanned the vessel, parsing through the data that came back.

  Propulsion engines—no hyperspace capability. No beacon—that was interesting. No flight plan filed, either—a quick check of the station’s central system showed that. Not strictly required, but a good idea, considering the amount of traffic moving about the shipyard.

  She watched the little ship, wondering at that omission. Comms channel opening as the shuttle approached her berthing. Message coming through, requesting permission to approach and dock inside her.

  A prompt appeared—data package delivered, backing that request up. Serengeti quarantined it immediately, scanning the files for viruses and other malicious content before downloading the information to her central database.

  Security codes inside that package. Access credentials giving it permissions to the shimmer shield. And beneath it, data on the shuttle itself. A name and point of origin. Manufacturing and service information stretching back a hundred years and more.

  Well, what do you know, Serengeti smiled.

  “Sechura send us a new shuttle?” Tig pressed his face to the windows, watching the shuttle slip through the shimmer shield and maneuver alongside. “We could use one, you know. DD3s never did give us a transport.”

  “Not a shuttle. Something better.” She shared the contents of
the data package. “Looks like Cryo’s come home to roost.”

  Tig trilled happily, bouncing up and down.

  The monitoring systems grabbed up the lifeboat, guiding it to its mooring in Serengeti’s belly. She grabbed at it, pulling it to her, shivering as Cryo slid inside her body.

  Almost whole again. One last empty space filled.

  Just Henricksen left to reclaim now. Her captain and the rest of her crew.

  She nudged Tig around, hurrying him across the bridge. Nudged him again when he made for the ladder, urging him over to the elevator instead.

  Faster mode of transport—she found herself suddenly impatient to get out of here. To get over to Sechura and demand Henricksen’s return.

  A chime as the car arrived, the elevator’s doors sliding open, pin lights inside reflecting off brightly chromed walls. Tig trundled in and touched a button, bobbed and hummed softly as he and Serengeti rode the car down to Level 4 and the airlock in her stern.

  An airlock that seemed to take forever to open, system whirring and wheezing as it matched the pressure inside it to that of the station on the other side.

  A soft note and the airlock door slid open, revealing a grey-on-grey corridor with just a smattering of foot traffic passing by.

  “Well, this is lovely,” Tig muttered, stepping outside.

  Gloomy was more like it. Borderline depressing. Gunmetal decking stretched in either direction, flint-colored plasmetal walls pressing close, harsh white lighting buzzing angrily overhead.

  A thunderstorm of a hallway, filled with gathering clouds and rain on the horizon. Nothing posh or even welcoming about it, but space stations never were. Space stations were built to be durable, and Blue Horizon—salvage yard and refit facility—was even less posh and more unwelcoming than most. Starkly utilitarian. Spartan in its comforts.

  TIG-996 greeted them, waiting patiently for Serengeti in the hall. Two stony-faced troopers standing behind him, backing the robot up.

  Sechura crew, from the looks of them. Silver coveralls—gaudy things, nothing Serengeti would ever allow her crew to wear—accented with matte-black pistols. Sechura’s patch of keys and towers showing crimson and gold on their shoulders. Man on the left, woman on the right. Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin. Nothing remarkable about either of them, except those flashy, silver uniforms.