Serengati 2: Dark And Stars

by J. B. Rockwell

  “Arrangements? What arrangements?” Henricksen’s eyes flicked to Serengeti’s camera. “What was in that message anyway?”

  “Atacama’s laying a trap,” Serengeti said quietly. “For Brutus. One I helped her come up with.”

  Henricksen blinked slowly, head moving from side to side. “I don’t understand.”

  “You said it yourself: taking the Fleet head-on is suicidal. But Brutus on his own, with just a few ships to protect him…” She trailed off, letting Henricksen do the math himself.

  “Separate him from the rest of the Fleet.” Henricksen cupped his chin, nodding slowly. “Draw him out somewhere where he’s vulnerable—”

  “And we have the advantage of numbers.”

  “So how do you draw him out?” he asked, eyebrows lifting.

  “Honey pot.” Atacama smiled secretly, face lights curving in a sly smile. “Put something sweet out there that Brutus can’t resist—”

  “And he comes running.” Henricksen grunted, grudgingly impressed. “And the bait?”

  “A ship.” Atacama’s smile widened, turning crafty and proud. “Serengeti’s idea,” she said, nodding to the camera.

  “What kind of ship? Not one of those clunkers from Sechura’s collection, I hope.”

  “No,” Atacama laughed. “Not a clunker. Just the opposite.” She snuck a look at Serengeti’s camera. “This is a very…special ship.”

  “Special how?” Serengeti asked, as Henricksen squinted, giving the robot a narrow look. “I told you to find a ship, but I never specified what kind of ship.”

  Atacama bounced on her tip-toes, looking quite pleased with herself.

  Serengeti watched her, wondering at that oh-so-smug expression, a sneaking suspicion stealing over her. “Special how, Sister?” she asked faintly. “What did you—?”

  A blast of static and Shriek interrupted. “Sorry, folks. Outta time.”

  A sharp click and the channel cut off, severing the connection to Atacama.

  The TSG—so bright and lively—sagged sadly, face lights going dark.

  “Dammit,” Henricksen growled, punching the wall.

  The robot twitched and shook itself, coming back to life. A rapid fire flashing of face lights—cobalt eyes blinking on-off, on-off, on-off—and the TSG turned in circles, blipping in confusion, looking completely lost.

  Spotted Henricksen and crouched down, burbling softly as it huddled close to the floor. “This isn’t Atacama,” the ‘bot said, voice filled with worry. “This isn’t my ship.”

  “’Fraid not,” Henricksen told it, sharing a look with Serengeti’s camera.

  The TSG turned another circle, surveying the hallway, cobalt eyes locking onto Serengeti’s camera. Sensing the AI watching. “Where?” he asked plaintively.

  “Far out,” she told him. “Far from home.”

  The robot sagged, hooting mournfully, reminding her suddenly of Tig.

  “I’m Serengeti.” She reached for the robot, touching at its AI mind. “Who are you, little one?”

  The TSG raised its head enough to look at her, lifted a leg, and pointed at its designation—TSG-9942, printed in bold, black letters on its side. A sigh and it went back to being a doorstop, burbling softly as it huddled on the floor.

  Sad little thing. Serengeti felt bad for it, being sent all the way out here on its own. “I’m sorry, 9942, but I can’t take you back to Atacama just yet. Not until our business here is done.”

  “I can’t go home?” The TSG blinked its sad puppy dog eyes, looking even more miserable somehow.

  “No,” Serengeti said gently. “Not now, anyway.”

  “So what do I do?” it asked her.

  “You stay with me,” Serengeti said gently. She glanced at Henricksen, saw him shrug, and nod. “Go here,” she told it, touching at the TSG’s brain. She passed it a schematic of the ship, directions to Engineering. “There are other robots there.”

  The robot perked up. “Others like me?”

  “Yes. Like you.” Serengeti smiled. “They’ll find a place for you. Something for you to do.”

  TSG-9942 smiled widely, instantly happy. Such an interesting mindset in these robots. Not quite as much character as her little TIGs, but interesting still. Very focused on being useful. On having something to do.

  “Go now,” Serengeti said, shooing the robot away. “Go-go-go.”

  The TSG waved at her and spun around. Took off down the hallway, ducking into the first ladderway it came across.

  Henricksen stared after it, waiting until the robot disappeared. “This mystery ship.” A flick of his eyes to the camera. “Any idea what is it?”

  Serengeti hesitated before answering. She had her suspicions, but she didn’t actually know for sure. Didn’t think she wanted to know, honestly. Not when a good fifty percent of her body had been rebuilt from salvage of dubious origins. “Doesn’t matter,” she told him.

  Henricksen’s face darkened, mouth opening to object.

  “Let’s just focus on getting those archived AIs from Faraday,” Serengeti said quickly, before he could press her on the matter. “Leave the rest of it Atacama to deal with.”

  Henricksen closed his mouth, clearly unhappy. Turned and studied the monitor on the wall. “It’s not just Faraday,” he told her. “There’s the Cloud, remember? AIs aren’t much good to us without ships to pilot.”

  “That too,” Serengeti acknowledged. “But the rest of it…”

  Henricksen snorted. “Yeah. Atacama gets the easy part.” He was quiet a while chewing his lip, staring at the video feed showing Shriek and the stars. “So Atacama springs her trap, we show up with a bunch of ships piloted by AI prisoners, and just like that, the Meridian Alliance is saved.” He grunted, shaking his head. “It’s a nice fairy tale, Serengeti, but somehow, I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”

  “Me either,” she admitted. “I honestly don’t think any of this will be easy. But with Cerberus out of the picture…”

  “There isn’t really a better plan.” Henricksen sighed, nodding, rubbing at his face. “They betrayed you, Serengeti. You do know that?” He looked at her, blinking slowly. “Five years your Sisters left you out there. Five years. Us frozen, you rotting, and all she can say is ‘I’m sorry, it’s not what I wanted’? That’s crap, Serengeti. You deserve better. Especially from a Sister.” He turned around—all the way around—staring in challenge at the camera. “What makes you think we can trust her? After what she did, all the lies, what makes you think we can trust her now?”

  This again. She was tired of fighting him on this.

  “She’s Valkyrie, Henricksen. A Sister. Despite everything, that still means something. Even after fifty-three years.”

  Henricksen stared a moment longer, nodded once, and looked away. “Still have to get into that Vault. Rest of it won’t really matter if we fuck things up on Faraday.”

  Serengeti watched him in silence. Watched him watching the stars showing on the monitor. The stealth ship floating among them.

  “I’m going with you this time.” Henricksen turned his head, showing her one grey eye. “No arguments, Serengeti. You’re not leaving me behind this time.”

  No reason to, really. Faraday would expect the Dreadnought’s captain to deliver the AI payload himself. Henricksen could send someone in his place, of course—captain’s privilege, an advantage of rank—but he wouldn’t. Serengeti knew that without asking. Didn’t even bother suggesting the idea.

  But she still didn’t like it. Thought of about a million ways this could all go wrong.

  “You’ll need an entourage,” she told him. “No self-respecting captain goes on station alone. Or unarmed, for that matter.”

  Henricksen nodded slowly. “I’ll take Houseman and Beaulieu with me. They’re the only ones without crew assignments.”

  “What about Finlay?”

  “What about her?” Henricksen frowned.

  “Why not bring her along?” Finlay and Henricksen—they belonged together
. It felt right somehow.

  “Finlay runs Scan, remember? She’s already got a job.”

  “Uh-huh. I also remember you promised her the big guns.”

  “I didn’t promise Finlay anything.”

  “But you made her believe she’d get a chance at Artillery, only to slip Bosch in there instead.”

  “Bosch is trained—”

  “You owe her, Henricksen. Let Finlay strut around and feel like a badass for a while. What can it hurt?”

  Henricksen folded his arms, looking less than thrilled with the idea. “And if things go bad over there? What then?”

  “She’s steady, Henricksen. And one of the best you’ve got.”

  “That’s not what I asked.” He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders, looking stubborn all over again.

  “She can handle herself.”

  Henricksen kept staring, defiant still. “Still not what I’m asking.”

  Serengeti sighed. “You’ll need her if this plan goes sideways. You’ll need someone you can trust. Houseman and Beaulieu may do fine, but they’re not crew. Not our crew, anyway. Just a couple of borrowed heavies that got cut off from their ship.”

  “Heavies, eh?” Henricksen’s face softened, lips curling at the corners. “Better not let Beaulieu here that.” He considered a moment, lips pursed as he looked up at the camera. “Fine. Finlay, too. Because you asked.” He dipped his head, eyes never leaving the camera. Twitched his shoulders and turned around, heading back to the bridge.

  Twenty-Five

  The salvage ships dropped out of jump, towing the bones of a wrecked vessel between them. Flotsam, one ship’s beacon read, and Jetsam the other. Twins birthed in the same lab, mated to identical chassis. A matched pair working in tandem since they first took off for the stars.

  Ugly things, those salvage ships. Slab-sided and wallowing. Pincers for grasping, cranes for lifting, hooks and grapnels and shearing towers stuck everywhere they could fit.

  Ugly, but functional. When it came to tearing vessels apart, nothing beat them. And they ran cheap, carrying minimal crew.

  Not many hands needed for this type of work. AIs did the heavy lifting in wrestling the wrecked vessels around and cutting them up into manageable chunks. Crew only came into play when fine motor skills were needed. Systems to be hacked or rewired, depending on a customer’s needs.

  No systems left on the vessel the salvage ships towed today. Not much of anything left to it, really, making it hard to tell just exactly what type of ship it was. Or used to be.

  Big, that was for sure. Probably pretty impressive before someone ripped off all the hull plating and scooped its insides out. But now…barely anything left now. Just metal bones and damaged fittings. The remains of a ship. The plasma burns and ion scoring indicators of a bloody, violent end.

  Not that Flotsam cared. Or Jetsam, for that matter. Ships died all over the galaxy, and their job was to clean them up. Tow their carcasses back to the chop-shops and shipyards that knew how to make something useful out of their carcasses. Earn themselves a little cash along the way.

  Shared that too, those two salvage ships. Shared everything. Profits split evenly, no secrets between them. Ignorance provided free of charge.

  Usually, that ignorance was for their customer’s benefit—couldn’t get tagged for illegal parts if you didn’t know where they came from in the first place, after all. But this job, it was their turn.

  No idea where their contact found this ship they towed. Couldn’t even get a straight answer on why their contact wanted it dropped out here, where there were no shipyards to claim it. No scrapyards to grind it into parts.

  “Ranadene asteroid field,” Flotsam sent to Jetsam beside him. “Pretty far out.”

  “Fringes of the fringes,” Jetsam agreed. “If there is such a thing.”

  Fifty years from now, Ranadene might see some traffic, but right now they were the only two vessels for light years around. Terraformers had started in on the planet that gave the asteroid field its name—parked a dozen or so of those big-ass atmosphere generation factories down there before bugging out. Hadn’t even bothered establishing the infrastructure for a permanent colony. Just slapped a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the star charts warning people away from the surface under penalty of Meridian Alliance law and left.

  Couldn’t be bothered to stick around and watch the paint dry for the next fifty years. Planet engineers had more important things to do than babysit a terraforming planet, but they didn’t want anyone popping in to visit. Messing with their experiments when no one was around. And the Meridian Alliance…

  Government took a very dim view of anyone stupid enough to try to set up an illegal colony on a half-baked planet. Some still tried, though. Idiots everywhere in the galaxy. No changing that.

  “So, we’re just supposed to leave it here?” Jetsam asked.

  “Apparently,” Flotsam told him.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Jetsam muttered.

  Not their usual job, towing things away from port. Salvage ships were mostly about towing vessels to port so the shipyards could fix them up and sell them off again. Made a tidy little profit that way. Selling off the wrecks they found. Seemed a shame to leave a perfectly good scrap heap all the way out here. Especially when there were still a few useable piece-parts left on it.

  Jetsam told his partner as much. Went so far as to suggest they might want to just…divert it somewhere. Claim they’d made the delivery so they could get their payment. Come back later and pick the wrecked vessel up.

  “Nah,” Flotsam told him. “Not a good idea. Contact promised we could have the wreck once this shindig’s over.”

  That and anything else they found when they came back. Contact wouldn’t tell them much, tight-lipped bastard that he was, but the rumor mill always had good information. And the word on the street said something big was coming. Showdown between the Meridian Alliance fleet and the last remnants of the DSR. Likely the rebels’ last hurrah, there being just a few pockets of them left out there these days.

  Too bad really. War was so very, very good for business. Then again, if the rumors were true—or even close to true—there should be several ships out here for Flotsam and Jetsam to choose from in a few days’ time.

  “Have to sell them on the black market, of course.” A burst of cobalt fire lit up Flotsam’s tail as he and Jetsam moved closer to the asteroid field. “Dump a ship out here, you don’t want anyone to find it. Also means none of the shipyards will touch it.”

  “Fine by me.” Jetsam feathered his jets before cutting them off, drifting now, with Flotsam beside him. The wrecked ship gliding between them. “Better prices on the black market anyway.” He flashed a message at Flotsam. “You ready?”

  “Yup. This is probably close enough. Three. Two. One.”

  The two salvage ships disengaged their grappling hooks in tandem, releasing their hold on the wrecked vessel. Kicked in their thrusters to slow themselves down while the wreck floated along on momentum.

  Another kick and the twin ships shuddered to a halt. Fired their maneuvering jets in synchronized blasts, burning them in a rhythm—on-off, on-off, on-off—as they muscled their huge bodies around.

  The wreck kept going without them, gliding serenely into the asteroid field. A rock hit it and the ship rebounded, slammed into another one and careened to the side, ping-ponging for several minutes before eventually settling in.

  Drifted after that. The wrecked ship. The asteroids around it.

  Jetsam sighed regretfully as he and Flotsam left it behind. “We’ll have a bitch of a time getting it back out of there again.”

  “Worth it though,” Flotsam told him. “Picked pretty clean, but the frame’s worth salvaging. Containment pod looks to be repairable.”

  “Any idea who was in there?” Jetsam asked him.

  “Nah. Data’s all messed up. Snuck a peak at the package they gave us. Looked like Hercules or Humungous or some such.”

  “Humungo
us,” Jetsam snorted. “What kind of stupid-ass name is that?” He pulled up a feed from a rearward-facing camera, taking a last look. “Not so humungous now, is he?”

  “Nope.” Flotsam fired up his hyperspace engines, watched the jump clock tick down. “Just another floating piece of scrap.”

  The jump clock hit zero, and the two salvage ships slipped away, leaving the wrecked vessel floating in the Ranadene asteroid field, waiting patiently for someone to claim it.

  Twenty-Six

  Henricksen walked onto the bridge and everyone stopped and stared, trying not to laugh.

  Well, except Delacroix. He never quite seemed to leave the netherspace of Comms these days. Never noticed much of anything except the virtual world behind his visor.

  “What?” Henricksen asked, looking down at himself. “Never seen a grown man play dress-up before?”

  The snickers increased, Finlay just about falling out of her seat at Scan.

  “Alright. That’s enough.” He flicked his fingers, staring the crew down. Rolled his eyes as they finally turned back to their stations and walked over to the Command Post to log in. A glance at Serengeti’s camera as he scanned the data from all four stations, checked the status of the newly installed shimmer shield before closing everything down. “So?” Another look at the camera, arms spreading wide. “How do I look?” He turned in a circle, letting Serengeti admire the goods.

  He’d swapped her black-on-black uniform for a dark blue affair—gold piping at the cuffs and collar, gold buttons and badges to set it off.

  Gaudy looking get-up. Almost as tacky as Sechura’s silver coveralls.

  “Very pompous,” Serengeti told him, smile in her voice. “Every bit the dashing Dreadnought captain.”

  “Thanks. I think.” Henricksen grimaced, flicking a fluff from his sleeve. Adjusted his belt to settle his service pistol more comfortably on his hip.

  “Where did you find that uniform, anyway?” Serengeti asked curiously.

  Close to two weeks they’d been sitting out here—powered down, beacons off, minimal communications to avoid drawing attention. Two weeks of hiding out while Shriek and his stealth ship buddies traveled back and forth to Blue Horizon, carrying messages for Atacama and Serengeti.