Henricksen paused a second, head tilting, and then flipped a hand at the room around them. “Why here? Why hold the interviews on station rather than on your bridge?”
“Ship is for crew,” she told him. “Which you aren’t.”
“Yet.”
Serengeti couldn’t help but laugh. Shumitsu would’ve appreciated that answer.
Henricksen’s lips quirked in a small smile of victory. “Why the TIG?” he asked her, nodding at the robot body Serengeti inhabited.
“You’d prefer something else? Something more…human, perhaps?”
Henricksen shrugged. “Don’t really care to be honest. Just curious. Last AI I served…” Henricksen trailed off, face softening, eyes drifting to one side.
“You don’t wear a patch,” Serengeti noted.
“No.”
One word, softly spoken. He caught her eyes—well, the TIG’s eyes with Serengeti inside, looking through them—and then slid his gaze away, nodding meaningfully at the camera on the wall.
“No one but the Valkyries watching. Trust me on that.”
Henricksen thought a moment, head cocked to one side.
“Tell me,” Serengeti said softly—as softly as Henricksen had before.
He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s in my rec—”
Serengeti shook the TIG’s head. “Records are just that: full of truths that are just as often false. Tell me, Henricksen. In your own words, not that company speak some officer put down.”
A last look at the camera. “Alright. What the hell. Black Ops.” He brushed his fingertips across the blank material on his shoulder. “No patch because no ship. At least in theory.”
“Black Ops. You’re a Raven.” Not the answer Serengeti expected. Not the type of Captain she expected the board to send her. “And before that?”
“Two Titans and an Aurora.”
“Which—”
“Gone,” he said, cutting her off. “Dead. Crew—” Henricksen grimaced and touched his fingers to the scar on his face. “It’s a terrible thing to lose crew,” he told her. “But far more terrible to lose an AI.”
Yet another unexpected answer. Humanity had mixed feelings about the AI they’d created—AI that now created themselves, using human-based specifications as the building blocks. Serengeti marked another tick in the good column.
“Black Ops, then.”
Henricksen nodded tightly. “After the Aurora. Thought to make a go at a Valkyrie command but…” He shrugged. “Black Ops were the badasses, right? And I figured I had a better chance at a Valkyrie with the added time under my belt.”
Smart. So many surprises in this one. So many layers Serengeti never would have expected. But she had to be sure. Had to be absolutely certain he was the one to sit her chair.
“So why did you leave?”
Shrug of Henricksen’s shoulders. “Got tired of not being in it.”
“What do you mean?”
Henricksen rubbed his chin, thinking a moment. “Well, it’s like this. We run recon, right? Slip in, sniff around the edges, send info back to the fleet, but then we just sit back and watch while everyone dies. Not why I got in it,” he said, anger creasing his brow. “Got tired of it. Tired of being witness to all the dying.” He drew a breath, touching that scar on his face. Unconscious gesture. Likely didn’t even realize he was doing it. “’Sides. Citadel started moving away from human crews for the Ravens. All drones, all the way—wave of the future, or some such.” Henricksen laughed bitterly. “They wanted me to leave and I wanted out. Everyone wins.” He spread his hands, smiling ruefully, but the anger lingered, lurking deep within his hawkish grey eyes.
“So you chose the Valkyries, knowing we’re out there, fighting on the front lines.”
Henricksen shook his head. “I didn’t choose the Valkyries.” He folded his arms, moving a step closer to the TIG. “I chose you, Serengeti.”
“The AI chooses her captain,” Serengeti said coldly. “Not the other way ‘round.”
“Aye,” he said, dipping his head in acknowledgement. “And I came here hoping you’d have me, shoddy record and all.” The smile twisted, becoming a colder, angrier version of that cocky grin he’d shown her before.
“Why?” she demanded. “Why me above my Sisters?”
He flicked his eyes to the camera, choosing his words carefully. “Saw you at Terinassis.”
“Terinassis? Terinassis was a disaster. I lost nearly a third of my crew there.”
“And you saved the rest,” Henricksen said quietly. “Blew holy hell outta your chassis, gaping wounds up and down your sides, but you got your crew out, Serengeti.” Henricksen paused, nodding slowly. “That’s when I knew for certain. That’s when I set my eyes on your captain’s chair.”
Serengeti stared in amazement, honestly not knowing what to say. “And what if I won’t have you?” she finally asked.
“What are you doing?” Seychelles whispered urgently.
Serengeti felt her friend stirring, pushing to the fore, but she shoved her away and focused on Henricksen. “What if I deem you unworthy and choose another to sit my captain’s chair?”
“Honestly hadn’t thought about it,” Henricksen admitted. “Try for another Valkyrie I suppose.”
“Another,” Serengeti repeated, surprisingly hurt. “When you told me not a minute ago that I was the one for you.”
Henricksen shrugged again. Amazing how expressive such a simple gesture could be. “I’m a soldier,” he told her. “And a captain. I’ve got no other skills. No desire to be anywhere but where the ship and the stars take me.”
Out of words again. Serengeti stared in silence and then reached inside her, tapping into Valkyrie comms. “Are there others?” she asked Seychelles. “Does another Sister desire this human as captain?”
“Two,” Seychelles told her. “Their captains grow old and will soon to retire.” Seychelles laughed softly. “I’d take him off your hands myself if I didn’t think Kassis would scuttle me.”
Serengeti trusted Seychelles’s council, but she hesitated still. “He’s nothing like Shumitsu. Not at all like the captain I envisioned.”
“Perhaps that’s a good thing, Sister. Times change, and so must we.”
“Indeed,” Serengeti murmured. “Thank you, Sister.” She reached for Seychelles across the channel, touching mind-to-mind—an intimacy only AI knew—before addressing Henricksen once more. “The crew’s young,” she warned. “A few veterans but most of them have just a ship or two under their belts.”
She’d lost the rest at Sosholo, with Shumitsu and the broken-backed chassis they towed in for scrap.
“Think I may be able to help with that.” Henricksen flashed a smile filled with mischief. “Just so happens I know a veteran or two that’re lookin’ for a Valkyrie to take them in.”
Serengeti smiled despite herself. “Just so happens, eh?”
“Yup. Convenient that.” He hooked his thumbs through his belt and rocked back on his heels, smiling smugly.
“We leave tomorrow—”
“Done,” he said promptly. “Sikuuku and I—”
“Sikuuku?”
“Gunner’s mate. You’ll love him,” Henricksen winked. “We’ll ship our personal effects over tonight. Anything else?”
Plenty, Serengeti thought. But that will come in time.
“No,” she told him. “The ship’s docked at—”
“Berthing 12, Space 42.” Another smug smile. “Already checked it out.”
Cheeky. Very cheeky indeed.
“Then I’ll see you in the morning. Captain.”
“Aye-Aye, Serengeti.” Henricksen braced up and threw an honest-to-God, no-messing-around salute. And then he spun on his heel and marched back out the door.
“What have I done?” Serengeti wondered, staring after him.
“You, Sister, have found yourself a first rate captain. Sechura will be furious,” she said gleefully.
“Great. Just what I ne
eded.” Serengeti sighed. “Home, TIG. I’ve had enough of this floating tin can for one day.”
Serengeti spun the little robot around and sent him on his way, watching through the TIG’s eyes as he threaded his way back to the docks where her shiny new ship’s body waited.
TWENTY-FIVE
Serengeti opened her eyes to darkness and for a moment she was lost. Lost and confused—no idea where she was or how she’d come to be there.
“The docks. Where are the docks?” She reached for systems, querying for information and found nothing but shredded scraps of a broken network, and dead end, after dead end, after dead end.
Memory returned—harsh, unforgiving—as a soft voice called to her from the darkness.
“Serengeti.”
A shadow moved below her, shimmering with softly glowing light. Metal glittered dully marked here and there by sparkling, swirling patterns of brightest blue that formed and shredded—scattering like lightning bugs before her eyes.
Shapes and colors—blue and silver, cobalt eyes looking up at her from a rounded metal face.
“Tig,” she breathed, reaching for him, touching at his brain.
“Welcome back.” A curving smile appeared in the shadows—a grin of pure happiness painted in brightest blue.
“How long, Tig? How long this time?”
Tig shuffled his feet. “Long,” he said cryptically.
“That’s not—” Movement behind Tig, Tilli shifting in the shadows. “Tilli? Why are you hiding? Come here where I can see you.”
Tilli hesitated, face lights flashing in anxious pulses. Tig waved to her, whistling insistently, and she crept forward, taking her usual place at his side.
“Hello, Tilli,” Serengeti smiled.
“Hello.” One word, so softly spoken that Serengeti almost didn’t hear her. Till snuck a look at the camera, blue eyes wide and worried-looking, and then ducked down, scuffing a leg end across the floor.
Odd.
“Why so shy, little one?”
Shrug of Tilli’s legs, a quick glance at Tig as if looking for reassurance.
“Tilli.” Serengeti reached for her, touching at Tilli’s brain.
Sadness there. Fear. A complex mixture of upset and worry for which Serengeti could find no context.
“What’s wrong, Tilli?”
“Thought you were gone,” Tilli said, voice quivering, on the edge of robot tears. “Thought you were gone forever.”
“Gone? Why would you think that, silly?”
“Because we couldn’t wake you,” Tilli said miserably.
“Couldn’t—How long have I been asleep?”
Tig and Tilli looked at one another. Flash of communication—Tig’s face lights swirling in creeping patterns, Tilli replying in clipped pulses, a far more intimate exchange than simply using words. Tig reached over, twining his leg around Tilli’s, pulling her close. “Three years,” he said when all that flashing was done.
“Three years isn’t so bad,” Serengeti said lightly. “Certainly not worth all this upsettedness.”
Another pause, Tig’s eyes flicking from Tilli to the camera. “We’ve been trying to wake you for two of those years.”
Tig’s words chilled Serengeti’s heart. The sobbing made sense now. The anxiousness and worry.
Henricksen. Yet another memory dredged from her AI mind. A more pleasant one this time than that dark dream of her hallways, but a memory still. Yet another dream. Closer this, she thought. That other dream was just some sort of Purgatory—a waiting place between life and death. But this one…this one was closer.
As close as she’d ever come to death.
Serengeti shivered and pushed that thought away as she touched at Tilli’s face, stroking electric fingers across her cheek. “I’m here now, little one. Just as I’ve always been.”
Tilli’s eyes slitted as she leaned into that touch. She cooed softly, sounding sad and happy at once, like a crying child sobbing away the last of it tears.
“Shh. It’s alright, Tilli.” Serengeti slipped inside Tig and moved him close to Tilli, resting his cheek on hers. A current of energy passed between them, arcing from one metal face to another. “I was lost for a while,” she told them, “but I’m here now. And I want to hear about everything you’ve been up to.”
That finally got a smile from Tilli. And seeing she was happy, Tig smiled too.
“Show me,” Serengeti ordered, just as she always did when she returned from the dark. She reached for Tig’s controls, turning him around. “Go,” she said, pointing him toward the door.
“Roger-dodger.”
Tig scooted across the bridge and into the corridor, following the now-familiar route of corridors and ladderways that brought them to the very top tier of Serengeti’s body, and that long, long hallway that ran the length of her. But he detoured there, surprising by turning away from the hole in her side that led outside, turning left instead and heading down a side corridor, taking two more lefts before the corridor ended.
Abruptly. No intersection, no choice of turnings, just that carbon and metal composite corridor one second, and a yawning chasm the next, revealing the dark and stars outside. Tig rolled to a stop just at the edge, tank treads teetering precariously as he panned his head from side to side, letting Serengeti take a good, long look.
An entire section of her body missing, corridors carved out, leaving a ragged tube of metal behind. “What happened?” Serengeti asked. “What happened to me, Tig?”
“The ship—the bomb…” Tig paused, seeming to search for words. “It was bad, Serengeti. And close. So close.”
“Bad,” Serengeti grunted. “I’d say ‘bad’ is a bit of an understatement.” But she knew the risks, didn’t she? Knew her plan was chancy when she launched her improvised bomb toward the scavenger ship. The explosion took those vultures out, protected her from being boarded, but from the looks of things, it almost killed her.
So close, Serengeti thought. So close to total destruction.
“Show me,” she said faintly. “All of it.”
Tig slid his eyes to Tilli, who shrugged and shook her head. “Alright.” A sigh and Tig reached forward, feeling with the magnetized ends of his legs, finding footholds on broken girders and shattered sections of hallway—spots of stability that allowed him to tiptoe through the wreckage. Tilli followed just as carefully, watching where Tig placed each of his legs, matching her movements exactly to his as the two robots moved outside, giving Serengeti a full view of the damage.
The scope of the destruction surprised her—more rents and tears, a huge, gaping crater showing like a monstrous bite mark in Serengeti’s port side hull. She turned Tig left and saw a shredded wall of internal structures, bits of hull plating still clinging to the outside. Right was much the same, though further down, and farther away. And in between, a raw-edged chasm, a massive, gaping wound where the scavenger ship’s explosion had torn away huge chunks of her body.
“Bomb did its job, but it certainly didn’t do my hull any favors.”
Tig’s face lights flashed in agreement as he panned his head from left to right.
Pieces of the Proteus’ shuttle showed here and there, mixed in with the remains of Serengeti’s tattered carcass—chunks of metal with fragmented hull markings sketched in scratched black paint, a crumpled pod that used to be the cockpit, a space-suited body sandwiched in the buckled remains. And when she looked out—far in the distance—Serengeti saw a twinkling cloud of debris floating around two amorphous lumps. That’s it. That’s all that was left of the scavenger ship—a dead mess of metal and composite components circling in synchronous orbit around Tsu’s star.
She tried to feel sorry for them, searched inside her for some small shred of guilt for the dozens of lives she’d ended with that ship. For the Proteus itself, first generation AI idiot that it was. But when she looked inside her, Serengeti found neither. Nothing but a simmering anger and a sense of satisfaction knowing the scavenger ship was dead.
“Serves you right, you bastards.” She turned away from the glittering cloud, dismissing the scavenger ship entirely from her mind. One more enemy down, now it was time to see to herself. “Topside, Tig,” she ordered.
Topside took a bit of doing. Tig actually had to wend his way downward until he found an intact bit of hull, and then take a long meandering route leading generally toward the bow before finding a safe enough path to lead him up. Slow going, that route, but from the way he moved from section to section—never hesitating, not once having to backtrack and find another way through—Serengeti knew Tig had travelled this path before. Many times, it seemed. But then, he’d have to, wouldn’t he? He and Tilli both, to perform maintenance on the solar panels on the roof. To clear the stardust from the starboard hull and keep the energy flowing in.
They crested the top of her body together, Tig with Serengeti riding inside him, Tilli close by his side, the forest of solar panels rising in even rows before them with the star’s light shining full upon them, casting shadows on the hull. Brighter here—so much brighter after the dark, pitted mess of Serengeti’s port side. Tig clambered down the first row of panels and curved around the end, to where it was brighter still.
“Oh my,” Serengeti whispered, staring in wonder.
The blast had shoved her inward, closer to the star. Nearly a thousand kilometers closer based on some rough calculations of the Proteus’ location in relation to Serengeti’s own. Didn’t sound like much—not out here, in the limitless lengths of space—but a thousand kilometers made the star that much clearer, its light that much brighter, stronger, bathing her hull in silver-white radiance until it shined. Not just sparkled—shined.
Like a star unto itself, Serengeti thought, smiling to herself, enjoying that image. Like a tiny star circling its mother, basking in her glory.
So many years, so much time in those empty spaces, so long since she’d come close enough to one of these celestial bodies for it to make her sides glow. The stars were beautiful from a distance, even more so from where they circled before. And now…
Serengeti Page 24
