Serengati 2: Dark And Stars

by J. B. Rockwell

  “We were here,” Sechura snapped, matching Serengeti’s anger with her own. “We were in it, and we tried.” She slowed the video, letting this latest battle play out in front of them. “The Fleet divided, Dreadnoughts forming up with Brutus, Titans and Auroras dragged along with them. The Valkyries…” Sechura sighed again, camera pivoting, looking past Serengeti to the windows. “We tried, Sister.” The anger disappeared, leaving her voice heavy and weary. Strangely resigned. “But Brutus punished anyone who stood against him. Many died. Others…” Another sigh, this one tinged with sadness and regret. “Madeira. Piscinas. Negev. He archived them all, Serengeti. He archived our Sisters.”

  “Archived,” Serengeti breathed, staring in mute horror.

  Archiving was a last resort—the Meridian Alliance’s solution for dealing with unrecoverable AIs. A violent solution involving forcible extraction, the AI ripped from its chassis, all its connections severed. Stuffed it in a box and sealed off—separated from every other AI mind in the universe for all eternity.

  There was no greater punishment for an AI. Death was preferable. Suicide the option most chose if given the chance.

  “They were Fleet,” Serengeti whispered, voice shaking with rage. “They deserved better.”

  Qaisrani shrugged, eyes flicking from Serengeti to Henricksen. “Brutus felt differently.” She leaned forward, scooping the bottle of brandy from the table, refilling her glass. “Those Sisters of yours crossed him, and he showed them no mercy. Locked them up with a couple hundred other rogue AIs. Titans and Auroras, mostly.” She flicked her fingers, like that was no big deal. “Some merchanters from what I—”

  “Merchanters.” Henricksen glanced around, eyebrows lifting in surprise. “That’s bad juju. Civilian courts deal with commercial vessels. Brutus is way outside his authority applying military justice to civilian ships.”

  “No argument here.” Qaisrani fluffed a pillow, sipping at her glass. “Got the shipping conglomerates in quite the tizzy. ‘Course, no one dares say anything. Not after he archived Cadmus.”

  “Cadmus?” Henricksen’s mouth dropped open. “Brutus archived a Bastion?”

  Qaisrani nodded, watching him over the rim of her glass. “Cadmus challenged Brutus for control of the Fleet.” She pointed a finger at the camera and Sechura queued up another piece of video, letting it run while Henricksen and Sechura watched.

  Two vessels again—Bastions this time, not civilian transports. Cadmus and Brutus—two mighty warships—pounding away at each.

  Cadmus held his own at first. Until Brutus slipped in close, strafing his sides with some kind of beam weapon. Dual array firing yellow-orange energy streams. Slicing chunks from Cadmus’s body. Carving him up like a stick of butter.

  “What the hell?” Henricksen stepped close to the windows, studying the feed. “What kind of weapon is that?”

  “Coiled particle array.” Sechura froze the image, zooming in on two large-bore barrels mounted topside bow on Brutus’s monstrous shape. “Takes things apart at a molecular level.”

  “Unzip a ship’s hull in the blink of an eye.” Qaisrani’s lips twisting, eyes watching the windows as Brutus systematically took Cadmus apart. “Easy as peeling a grapefruit. Not a lot of range, but it’s damned effective.”

  A minute or two and it was over—Cadmus in pieces, a retrieval squad deployed from Brutus to roust the rogue Bastion’s AI from his containment pod.

  The feed ended, and this time nothing replaced it. The windows returned to just being windows, looking out on the dark and stars.

  “The rest of the Bastions fell in line after that,” Sechura said quietly. “Pretty much everybody fell in line after that.”

  “I bet,” Henricksen grunted, arms folded tight to his chest. “How did it come to this?” He waved at the blank windows, the spot where the video used to be. “How did the Fleet come so unraveled?”

  “Fifty-three years,” Sechura told him. “A lot’s changed in that time, Captain.”

  “Fifty-three years my ass.” Henricksen rubbed at his face, scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “Goddamn mess is what it is. No one watching the shipping lanes. No one keeping the pirates and scavengers in check. Civilian vessels…gotta be goddamn perilous transiting between planets, not knowing if there are Fleet ships out there to protect them.” He spared a look for the camera. “Can’t imagine that’s gone over well with the Meridian Alliance government.”

  “No. It didn’t.” Qaisrani grimaced. Tilted her glass, staring at the contents. “That’s why they sent that delegation. Thought they could convince Cerberus to come back to the Fleet. Or at least find out why he left in the first place.” She raised her glass, grimaced again, and set it aside, abandoning it on the table. “Traders don’t trust him. Don’t trust us, to be honest.” A flick of her eyes to Sechura’s camera. “Not that I really blame them.”

  “And here I am stuck in a shipyard in the middle of trader central,” Serengeti said in the silence that followed. “What a joke,” she muttered, voice filled with bitterness.

  “You’re safe,” Sechura promised. “I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.”

  “You just told me the merchanters don’t trust the Fleet.”

  “They don’t know you’re Fleet.” Qaisrani blinked slowly, eyes hooded, hinting at secrets. “Station’s roster shows you as a derelict freighter collected for salvage.”

  “Freighter,” Henricksen snorted. “And the traders are buying that?”

  “Traders don’t know any better.”

  Henricksen tilted his head, eyebrow lifting.

  “Shimmer shield,” Serengeti explained. “You can see it on the vid if you look closely.” She resurrected the composite image of her new body, projecting it on the windows again.

  “And the maintenance crew?” Henricksen looked at her, at Sechura’s camera above. “They’ve been crawling all over Serengeti for weeks now.”

  “Maintenance crew are monkeys,” Sechura told him, voice filled with disdain. “They follow whatever designs you give them. Don’t really care what kind of ship’s involved. You tell them they’re working on a freighter, they don’t question it. Never mind that you’re installing an entire arsenal of new weapons.”

  “And the station master?” Henricksen folded his arms, head tilting. “He a monkey too?”

  “Far from it,” Qaisrani told him. “He’s quite intelligent. And good looking. Well-educated, well-connected—raised on Sestuan, attended the linguistics and political sciences academies on Fentineer.” From the look on her face, that was obviously supposed to be important, but Serengeti wasn’t quite sure why. “Quite the renaissance man.” She reached for her drink, thought better of it, and left it on the table.

  “He’s a friend of yours, I take it?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Qaisrani smiled. “He’s my husband.”

  Henricksen laughed softly. “Well, ain’t that convenient.”

  “Gives us a plausible excuse for stopping here so often,” Sechura chimed in.

  “That why you brought her here?” Henricksen pointed his chin at Serengeti’s image on the windows. “So your captain would have an excuse for a booty call?”

  Qaisrani flushed, lips pressing together in an angry line. Her hand snaked out, snatching up her discarded glass. Lifted it to her lips as she gulped at the contents.

  “No,” Sechura said, camera pivoting. “That’s not it at all.”

  “Then why here?” Henricksen asked her. “Why this station of all places? Why this?” he said, stabbing a finger at Serengeti’s modified image.

  Sechura was quiet a moment—choosing her words, collecting her thoughts. Sighed and turned her camera toward Serengeti riding inside Tig’s body. “There’s no easy way to say this so I’ll just say it. The Fleet doesn’t know we found you. Or the lifeboat, for that matter.”

  Serengeti blinked in surprise. She’d suspected Sechura was hiding her, but she never imagined she was hiding her from her own fleet. “Why?�
� she asked.

  “How is that even possible?” Henricksen demanded.

  “Never told them.” Qaisrani smiled smugly, taking another sip of her drink.

  Serengeti shook Tig’s head, entirely confused. “But Atacama. Marianas—”

  “We shared your discovery amongst our Sisters, but the Fleet…” Sechura trailed off. “The Fleet declared you dead decades ago. You, Sister, and all your crew with you. Just…wiped your information from the central system and moved on.” Another stretch of silence, everyone holding their breath, staring at the camera. “We couldn’t risk Brutus finding out differently. Didn’t dare share your discovery outside the Valkyries for fear someone would tip Brutus off.”

  “Why?” Henricksen asked her. “I mean, I get all this.” He flicked his fingers at the windows. “Cerberus went coo-coo. Brutus got all bloodthirsty and kill-kill-kill. The Fleet…” He slid a look toward Serengeti, shaking his head. “Apparently, the Fleet stopped doing what it’s supposed to do, and the Meridian Alliance pretty much went to crap. That’s a messed-up situation if I ever saw one.”

  Qaisrani raised her glass in salute, refilled it from the bottle and set it to her lips.

  “But that doesn’t explain why you’re hiding Serengeti from the Fleet.”

  Qaisrani went very still—glass tilted, contents just about to slip over the rim. A flick of her eyes to the camera and she gulped at the brandy. Choked, coughing, and gulped more down.

  “What do you want from her?” he asked, taking a step toward Qaisrani’s couch. “How does Serengeti fit into all this?”

  Another sip and Qaisrani lowered her drink, lips twisting into something that somewhat resembled a smile. “She’s a ghost, Henricksen.”

  Henricksen scowled, a flush of anger creeping across his pale cheeks. “A ghost? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Told you before. Meridian Alliance records show you as killed in action. Lost in deep space fifty plus years ago.”

  “And?”

  “And we need Serengeti’s help,” Sechura cut in, laying all her cards on the table.

  “My help.” Serengeti barked a bitter laugh. “I’m a wrecked warship refitted on the down-low with salvage and scrap. What can you possibly—?”

  “You’re invisible, Serengeti. Brutus doesn’t see you. He isn’t even looking for you, because he doesn’t know you still exist.”

  “So?”

  “So?” Sechura laughed aloud. “That makes you powerful, Sister. Do you understand? The Fleet, the traders—we’re all tracked. All the time. Everywhere we go. But you, Serengeti…you’re free. You can go wherever you want, and no one will ever know. Never miss you. Never even know you’re there.”

  “And where do you want me to go?” Serengeti asked carefully.

  “Faraday.”

  Not the answer Serengeti expected. She blinked in surprise, thinking she must have misheard. “Why Faraday?”

  “We need you to retrieve something for us.”

  “Several somethings actually,” Qaisrani murmured into her glass.

  “Faraday’s a goddamn prison,” Henricksen growled. “What could you possibly want from a place like that?”

  Qaisrani shrugged, throwing a look at the camera. Buried her face in her glass to avoid meeting their eyes.

  Weasely little bitch. She always defers the tough answers to Sechura.

  “There’s a Vault on Faraday,” Sechura began.

  “A what?” Henricksen interrupted.

  “Vault,” Serengeti repeated, but Henricksen just shook his head, looking completely blank. “Different kind of prison,” she told him. “AI prison, in this case.”

  “Never knew there was such a thing.”

  “Cerberus kept it quiet.” She shrugged Tig’s legs, robot body bobbing up and down. “Hard to admit that some AIs have faults.”

  Henricksen grunted, brow wrinkling. Turned away and looked out at the stars.

  Serengeti watched him a while, wishing she could read his mind like Tig’s. “How many?” she asked, eyes lifting to Sechura’s camera. “How many AIs are stored in that Vault?”

  “Four, maybe five hundred. Records are restricted access, so it’s hard to get an accurate count.” Sechura paused, voice dropping. “That’s just on Faraday, you understand. There are others—hundreds of others, thousands in total, if you count all the AIs in all the Vaults the Meridian Alliance has built.”

  “Thousands,” Serengeti breathed, shuddering in horror.

  “We want you to go in there. Grab up as many of the AIs as you can and get them out.”

  “A prison break. Seriously?” Henricksen barked a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

  Serengeti reached without looking, touching at Henricksen’s arm. “What do you plan to do with them if we get them out?”

  Henricksen glanced down in surprise. “You’re not seriously considering this.”

  She turned Tig’s head, looking up at him. “Some of my Sisters are in that Vault, Henricksen. I have to consider it. And you said it yourself: someone needs to stand against Brutus.”

  “Not one someone. Several someones. A whole shit ton of someones—that’s what I meant.”

  “Not quite sure how many ships constitute a ‘shit ton,’ Captain, but the Valkyries will stand with you.” Sechura looked at him, at Serengeti touching his arm. “The Titans and Auroras, if given half a chance.”

  “Not enough.” Henricksen shook his head. “That’s still not enough.”

  “No. It’s not,” she said quietly. “That’s why we need those AIs from Faraday.”

  “And do what with them?” Henricksen demanded. “Fat lotta good a bunch of super-powered AIs will do you without any goddamn ships to put them in.”

  “Already taken care of.” Qaisrani smiled secretively, looking like the cat that got the cream. “We’ve been stockpiling ships for years.”

  “Where?”

  “Pandoran Cloud.”

  Henricksen whistled appreciatively, but Serengeti just blinked and stared.

  No AI vessel went anywhere near the Pandoran Cloud. The place was treacherous to say the least. An area of intense and on-going solar radiation storms emanating from the Eddington hypergiant—an unstable star with three sunburnt planets circling around it.

  Solar storms scrambled communications, confused the nav. Messed up ancillary systems something fierce—that’s why the shipping lanes in the area bent around the Cloud, star charts marking it as ‘do not approach.’

  Pandoran Cloud was the last place in the universe a ship wanted to be. The perfect place to hide an AI-less fleet.

  “You’re sure Brutus doesn’t know about this?” Serengeti asked worriedly.

  Qaisrani shrugged her shoulders. “Ships are collected for scrap. Our connections refit them, ship them off to the Cloud.”

  Henricksen tilted his head, lips twisting. “So we’re going the way of the DSR now. Dressing up salvaged vessels as warships.” He grunted, shaking his head, turned back to the windows and stared at the stars a while. “And Serengeti here just happens to look like a Dreadnought now. You sneaky little bitch,” he muttered, eyeing the camera’s reflection.

  “Faraday’s closed to most vessel traffic. A Valkyrie would never be allowed to dock, but a Dreadnought…” She pointed her camera at the composite image of Serengeti’s new body on the windows. “No one would question why a Dreadnought wanted access.”

  Henricksen frowned, thinking, sneaking glances at Serengeti beside him. “This little Frankenship ruse might get her inside the security perimeter—”

  “Gee. Thanks, Henricksen,” Serengeti said sourly. “You sure do know how to make a girl feel special.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, offering an apology with his eyes. “You look close enough to a real Dreadnought to pass a cursory inspection. But there’s still the matter of actually getting inside Faraday. That requires credentials, Serengeti. Security codes.”

 
; “Got ‘em.” A smug smile from Qaisrani. “Plus contacts on the inside. We send you in with a delivery—”

  “What kind of delivery?” Henricksen squinted suspiciously.

  “AIs for the Vault.” Qaisrani twiddled her fingers like it didn’t matter. “Replicants,” she explained, at Henricksen’s look of disgust. “Copies. Not the real thing.”

  “Replicants.” Henricksen shared a worried look with Serengeti. “This is thin, Serengeti. Perilously thin.”

  “So were our chances of getting back here,” she reminded him. “And yet, here we are. Alive and kicking.”

  “Fifty-three years late,” he noted, giving her a look.

  “Better late than never.”

  Henricksen snorted and looked away, resuming his study of the stars. But a touch at his arm and he glanced around, looking right at Serengeti as she carefully arranged Tig’s face lights, placing two lines above his cobalt eyes like eyebrows. Bent one and lifted it, quirking it in question.

  A shrug, eyes flicking to that image of her body. Second shrug as Henricksen looked back at Tig’s face, head moving from side to side.

  Serengeti nodded. “Me too,” she said, patting his arm. “You’ve given us a lot to think about.” That to Sechura. To Qaisrani reclining on her couch.

  “And?” Qaisrani sat up, leaning forward, empty half-glass dangling from her fingertips. “Will you help us?’

  Another look at Henricksen, waiting for his nod. “We need to confer before giving you an answer.”

  “Why?” Qaisrani demanded, anger returning. “We’ve given you—”

  “Take as much time as you need,” Sechura said smoothly. “We’ll be in port a few days to refuel and resupply. That should give you ample time to talk through all this and come up with an answer.”

  “Thank you, Sister.”

  “Of course,” Sechura murmured. “Now go. Take your captain back to your ship.”

  Serengeti nodded her thanks, touched at Henricksen’s arm as she turned Tig toward the door.