Serengeti

by J. B. Rockwell

  The glare blinded Serengeti’s cameras. She waited an eternity, internal chronometer counting each endless second until the light finally faded, leaving a monster behind—a hulking, grey-skinned shape hovering right where the void had been.

  The Number Five probe went offline—run over by the lumpen vessel that unexpectedly parked itself right on top of it. Five’s feed cut off, AI sub-mind dead in an instant—another minor casualty of this decades-long war.

  Careless, Serengeti thought, eyeing Brutus’s hulking, malformed shape across the kilometers of space separating them.

  More flashes, a coordinated series of silver-white flares as Brutus’s entourage appeared—twenty grey-skinned Dreadnoughts arrayed in a protective ring around the monstrous Bastion at their center.

  Brutus was impressive, in a monstrous, misshapen sort of way, the Bastion’s design born of drunken nightmares, or so the old joke went. And the Dreadnoughts…the Dreadnoughts were ugly but daunting, newer than the Valkyries—the latest and greatest in interstellar warships, dwarfed only by the Bastion that led them—and yet built on the same chassis. A chassis the designers lengthened and bulked up, adding more weapons and more armor, turning the Valkyries’ smooth, sleek, torpedo shape into a warped and twisted horror. A warrior’s design, sacrificing aesthetics for armor, beauty for sheer firepower.

  Not that Serengeti was a slouch, mind you. The Valkyrie design included plasma cannons and missile batteries at bow and stern, and ranks of high-powered turret guns up and down either side. But the Dreadnoughts had guns everywhere, packed into every last quadrant of their bodies. In their quest to create the perfect machine of war, the engineers had even sacrificed comms arrays to make more room for still more weapons—as many as they could cram into the Dreadnoughts body. But what truly set the Dreadnoughts apart was their skin. Serengeti’s twinkled into the darkness, her composite metal hull laced with photovoltaic cells that gathered up moonbeams and starlight, drawing their energy inside her as she drifted close and feeding it in to the power cells in her belly. An ingenious design, if she did say so herself, and one that allowed the Valkyries to recharge while travelling. One that gave her enough internal power to run her basic systems, if not her engines. Those were anti-matter—fueled by swirling chaos.

  The engineers dropped the photovoltaic skin from the Dreadnought specs for some reason and added reinforced nanofiber panels instead—a complex binding of carbon weave, titanium and heat-dispersing glass forming a thin skin over the Dreadnoughts’ four-tiered hull. They kept the drive system, outfitting the Dreadnoughts with the same quasi-stable, antimatter power solution that Serengeti and her sisters used, but the loss photovoltaic skin turned the Dreadnoughts dark and dull, ominous-looking as they stalked between the stars. Still, the engineers claimed they were superior. Pointed to the design specs to prove it, proudly proclaiming to anyone who’d listen that the ship they’d created and the AI inside it were the epitome of what a warship should aspire to be.

  That was a human opinion. Ask Serengeti and the other Valkyries—ask any of the AIs travelling in this fleet that weren’t Dreadnought or Bastion—and you’d get a different view on the matter. They’d tell you the Dreadnoughts were thugs. Brutish, unthinking, heavily armed hooligans serving the Bastion without question.

  The Bastion, not the fleet. Not the Meridian Alliance. Certainly not humanity. That too was key.

  Brutus and his brethren wanted soldiers that fell in line, and Serengeti and her sisters asked just a few too many questions. Challenged their leadership a bit too much. So when it came time to design the Dreadnoughts—eleventh generation AI, more advanced, in theory, than the Valkyries—the Bastions subtly influenced the programming of their crystal-matrix AI brains. Encouraged the engineers to tinker a bit. Think outside the box.

  Good idea, poor execution. The engineers tinkered with the Dreadnoughts’ design just a little too much, in Serengeti’s opinion. The Dreadnoughts were larger than the Valkyries, and more powerful, but they lost something along the way. Something important. A sense of community, of being that was essential to an AI’s mind.

  Brutus loves them, Serengeti thought, watching Homunculus and Gorgon—the last two Dreadnoughts—slide into position. He loves the Dreadnoughts for their loyalty, their durability, their unflinching devotion. But the Dreadnoughts are cold, hard, almost indifferent to the other ships. They don’t seem to care about anything, even their own crews. To the Dreadnoughts, everyone but Brutus is expendable. The Bastion and the mission—that’s all that matters to them.

  The Dreadnoughts tightened up their formation, circling Brutus close about. And as they did, the rest of the armada began to appear—dozens upon dozens of hyperspace breaches forming and then dissipating in bright flares of silver-white brilliance, leaving trails of radiation behind.

  No Dreadnoughts here, nor Valkyries either. The bulk of the fleet were grey-skinned Titans with bodies like four-pointed spearheads, and disc-shaped Auroras, rounded bridge pods bulging bulbously at their middle, engines arranged in double rows at their hind ends. They were smaller ships—half the size of the Dreadnoughts that preceded them, tiny compared to Brutus at their center, far less powerful than any of them, including Serengeti and her sisters—but they formed the heart of the armada. The Auroras were sixth generation AI, the Titans eighth, both mind sets known for being quirky, cheeky, often argumentative. Not their fault, really—that was part of their programming, the result of building more and more human characteristics into an AI mind. They’d dialed it back a bit when they designed the Valkyries, and even more so with the Dreadnoughts. And with the Bastions like Brutus they dialed it back even more. Too far back, some would say, though that was a topic of endless debate.

  Serengeti watched the smaller vessels appear one-by one, drinking in ships’ names, sifting through the data their beacons squawked out. But her eyes kept returning to the Bastion. To the hulking ship at the armada’s center.

  Brutus looked nothing like Serengeti, nor the Dreadnoughts either. Nothing like any of the ships it commanded. The Valkyries were smooth and sleek, warships built to kick ass and look pretty while doing it. The Dreadnoughts…well, even they had a certain flare about them, ominous as they might be. But Brutus…Brutus was massive. Monstrous. More fortress than warship, a blocky and brutal-looking, bristling with armaments, comms towers, and sensor arrays that stuck out at every angle.

  If Frankenstein ever designed a warship, its name would be Brutus.

  “God that thing’s ugly.” Kusikov grimaced, studying the Bastion outside. “Ya know, they say the engineers were drunk when they came up with the Bastion design.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Henricksen swore, punching the panel in front of him.

  Kusikov jumped, instantly looked repentant. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Not you, Kusikov. Him. That AI piece-a shit out there.” Henricksen mashed at a comms panel with his hand. “Dammit, Brutus, thought we told you to stay put.”

  Not exactly the best way to talk to the flagship, but Henricksen was a Valkyrie captain, and the Valkyrie captains were allowed a few more liberties than the Titans and Auroras. And they were known for being a bit bolder than the captains the Dreadnoughts chose.

  “I’ve had enough of waiting, Captain.”

  “Brutus,” Kusikov breathed, staring in horror at his captain. “That was Brutus himself, not Comms.”

  Or the Captain. Surprising that the Bastion would answer himself, and probably not good, but Henricksen didn’t seem to care who did the talking. He just looked ticked off at the entire situation. He opened his mouth, ready to volley something equally pithy back. Serengeti decided it was time for her to intervene.

  “May I?”

  She didn’t need Henricksen’s permission, but she respected him. And when his blood was up, the captain could be somewhat…unpredictable.

  Henricksen frowned in annoyance and then glanced outside, considering Brutus’s far-off bulk. “Have at it,” he said, waving his hand angrily.
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  “Brutus, this is Serengeti. Request you hold position while we finish our sweep of the area.”

  Silence. Absolutely silence for a full five seconds. Brutus’s way of showing his displeasure.

  “Acknowledged,” he sent back. And after a short pause, “Hurry up about it.”

  Annoying.

  “That’s the plan,” Serengeti said brightly and then closed the comms, all but cutting the Bastion off.

  Seychelles sent a message—private channel, one Valkyrie saying hello to another, trading messages faster than a human blinked an eye.

  Sorry for the intrusion, her message read. Our fearless leader was in a hurry.

  Smiley face appended to the end. Serengeti couldn’t help but laugh.

  He’s grumpier than usual, Serengeti sent back.

  Yeah. Well. Cerberus called while you were away.

  The Citadel himself. Wow. That can’t be good.

  Nope. Seems the masses aren’t very happy that this is taking so long. Cerberus is thinking of replacing him, Seychelles confided.

  Really.

  Uh-huh.

  This was a private message I assume. Ship-to-ship, not meant for other ears?

  Mm-hmm.

  And how, pray-tell, did you come by this message?

  Seychelles sent a winky smiley face. Refit crew owed me a favor.

  You bugged him. You bugged Brutus’s comms system during an upgrade. Unbelievable!

  You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first. Another smiley face, then, Ciao, sister. Stay out of trouble.

  Serengeti wiped the messages—best not to keep that kind of thing around—and returned her attention to the bridge.

  “Hurry up he says.” Henricksen snorted in derision. “What’s he think we’ve been doing? Sitting here with our thumbs up our asses?”

  “Brutus is under pressure,” Serengeti told him. “We’ve been chasing those DSR ships for almost three weeks now and Cerberus wants this over and done with so he can call the rest of us back to the fleet.”

  Cerberus, Citadel class—the one and only, the AI Admiral in charge of the entire Meridian Alliance fleet. Brutus was one of five Bastions, Serengeti one of four hundred and ninety-eight Valkyries, the twenty Dreadnoughts out there a small subset of a nearly seven hundred ship contingent, and the Titans and Auroras numbered almost eight thousand. All those ships, and just one Cerberus. Just one Citadel in all the galaxy, because that’s all the Meridian Alliance could afford to build. Serengeti wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

  “Cerberus will take his command if he fails,” Serengeti noted.

  “Yeah? Well, boo-hoo. We’re all sick of chasing those bastards around the galaxy.” Henricksen folded his arms over his chest, grey eyes glaring out the windows. “Shouldn’t be here,” he growled. “Armada’s got no goddamn business being here until we’ve swept the area and called them through.”

  “Brutus leads the fleet,” Serengeti reminded him.

  “Not all of it,” he told her, eyes shifting, staring angrily at a camera. “Just this piece. Last I checked, it was Cerberus who called the shots.”

  “Cerberus is the flagship of the fleet,” Serengeti agreed, “and it was Cerberus that put Brutus in charge of this armada.”

  “And it was Brutus that sent you on this scouting mission,” Henricksen thundered. “You tell him to wait, that arrogant AI prick needs to wait!”

  Serengeti’s laughter caught Henricksen off-guard. He flushed darkly, thinking she laughed at him, but truth was, she found his righteous anger amusing. And she had to admit, she was the tiniest bit pleased that Henricksen—proud, protective Henricksen—was angry on her behalf.

  “I’ll relay your message,” Serengeti said.

  Henricksen froze, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. “Wait. What?”

  “You’re right. We were sent ahead for a reason. It was stupid and careless of Brutus to come barreling through without knowing what was waiting on the other side. I’ll let him know.”

  “Umm…alright…” Henricksen glanced over at Sikuuku, but the gunner just shrugged.

  Serengeti tapped into comms, bypassing the normal ship-to-ship channel to send a message directly to Brutus. And then she copied the message, sending it via an encoded channel to the Valkyries in the armada, trusting them to relay it to the rest of their small fleet.

  “Brutus has been notified.”

  “Notified? Notified of what?” Henricksen asked suspiciously. “What the hell did you say to him, Serengeti?”

  “I told the arrogant AI prick he needs to wait next time.” That wasn’t quite what she’d said, but it was close enough. And the look on Henricksen’s face was priceless.

  “You told him…” Henricksen blinked and stared, eyes wide with disbelief. He turned his head, looking to where the hulking monstrosity that was Brutus floated outside, and started laughing.

  “Finlay,” Serengeti called. “Please proceed with the sample capture. Have Six and Ten siphon up as much of the debris as they can and bring it back here for the robots to go over.”

  The robots were her other crew—three hundred and sixteen configurable electronic minions charged with maintenance and repairs, among other things. If there were ship parts inside that debris cloud, they’d know it. And if those parts belonged to a Meridian Alliance ship, the robots would know that too. They were clever little things, and every bit as loyal as Henricksen and the others.

  A message came back from Brutus. Serengeti didn’t bother opening it. She was pretty sure she knew what it said. “And Finlay. Tell them to hurry up about it,” she said, letting a hint of amusement creep into her voice.

  “Yes, ma’am. I mean, ship. Valkyrie,” Finlay corrected quickly, cheeks flushing furiously as she stumbled over the honorifics.

  The etiquette for addressing AI warships was a bit…vague to say the least but they were used to taking orders from the captain, and he from Serengeti, not having to address her themselves.

  Serengeti slipped into Finlay’s console, flashing a smiling kitty face on her screen. “Serengeti,” she said. “Serengeti will do just fine, Finlay.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” A shy glance at the camera as Finlay tapped at her station, sending a little cartoon owl back.

  “Serengeti,” she corrected with a laugh.

  “Serengeti,” Finlay repeated, flushing even brighter. She ducked her head, smiling happily as she relayed Serengeti’s instructions to the probes. “Six and Ten heading in. Grid mapping…thirty-two percent complete. Nothing yet.”

  “Thank you, Finlay.”

  Silence after that brief exchange, all of them waiting, studying the feeds Ten and Six sent back as they worked their way through the debris field, sucking up the drifting space junk and storing it in the compartments at their middles. Lot of debris out there, no way they could get it all—the probes were small, after all, and the cloud of debris diffuse and massive—but they only needed enough for the robots to analyze.

  Serengeti tracked the probes’ progress as they passed through the mass of floating bits, ran some calculations—measuring the width of the debris field, the density of the pieces—and made a disturbing discovery.

  Not just big, she thought. Huge. Large enough to be a ship.

  She looked to Henricksen, wondering if he saw what she did. But Henricksen seemed distracted. He watched the probes’ operation for a while, but his eyes kept returning to Brutus and the other ships.

  “They’re keeping their distance,” he noted, looking to the camera, quirking an eyebrow in question. “Your doing I assume?”

  “I advised the Bastion that it would be best if the armada stayed put until the probes complete their scans and we’ve had a chance to analyze the debris.”

  “And he listened?”

  “He may be an arrogant AI prick but he knows sense when he hears it,” Serengeti said dryly. That got another laugh from Henricksen.

  “Collection complete, Captain,” Finlay announced.

  “A
lright then, Finlay. Bring the boys back. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Finlay nodded and ordered Six and Ten back to the ship.

  Serengeti checked the Chron and found the entire operation—from the launching of the probes to the order to return—had taken just a little under twenty minutes. Not bad, considering they had a human running the operation.

  “Finlay. How much longer do the rest of the probes need to complete the grid sweep?”

  “Pattern is…sixty-eight percent complete, Captain. Chron estimates ten minutes, twenty-eight seconds. Give or take.”

  “You suppose that’ll be quick enough for him?” Henricksen nodded to the video feed showing Brutus lurking behind them.

  Serengeti was about to answer when a message arrived. A message sent directly to her, bypassing the comms station entirely. She opened it, read quickly and then flashed the message to Henricksen’s Command Post.

  “Apparently not,” she said, and then deleted the message in a fit of pique.

  FOUR

  Six and Ten were back on board in a little under five minutes. Serengeti flipped her attention to the cargo hold, watching the huge outer doors slide open and the two collection probes slip inside. The hold was a huge space, empty and echoing, but the probes—silly, mischievous things that they were—seemed not to know it. They skittered around like frightened moths, making wandering loops of the hold’s frigid confines before dropping down to the floor.

  The outer doors slid closed as the probes settled. Atmosphere systems kicked in, repressurizing the cargo bay, banishing the worst of the vacuum’s chill before an inner hatch opened, letting six little robots into the cargo area. The robots were cute little things and walked on long, spidery legs, oval bodies gleaming dully, round, chromed faces lit with brilliant cobalt eyes. They stepped into the hold and squatted down, dropping onto triangular tank treads set in their bellies, trundling across the open space with their jointed legs tucked tight against their bodies, blue eyes glowing brightly in moon-shaped faces, pin lights flashing in pre-programmed patterns across their cheeks and foreheads as they communicated in their shared robot language—a strange combination of beeps and borps and other electronic noises that filtered through Serengeti’s microphone pick-ups.