Serengati 2: Dark And Stars

by J. B. Rockwell

  “With respect, sir.” Samara hesitated, frown creasing her face. “Why waste the fuel?” A touch at her panel sent the star chart to the front windows. “It’s quiet enough where we’re going. Star charts don’t show anything more sinister than an asteroid field and a dwarf star anywhere near those coordinates.” Another touch at her panel, adding two location markers, a proposed navigation path between them. “It’s a straight shot through hyperspace from here to there. Thirty seconds in the trough, tops.”

  Henricksen nodded, arms folded, grey eyes turning Nav’s way. “Well aware of that, Samara. But in case you hadn’t noticed, we left Blue Horizon in kind of a hurry. Not sure anyone can track us here,” a quick look at the camera, “but there’s no sense leaving a big red arrow to mark where we’re going.”

  “Sir?” Samara—so confident before—seemed completely at a loss.

  “Leapfrog, Samara.” Henricksen pulled the star chart onto one of his panels, wiped Samara’s course, and plotted six short hyperspace jumps—a zigzagging and entirely inefficient path to their final destination.

  “We’ll burn a lot of energy getting there this way,” Samara warned.

  “Not really worried about that right now,” Henricksen told her. “More worried about getting there quietly.”

  “Sir?”

  “We’re not broadcasting,” Serengeti told her. Major security infraction there. AI could get herself Vaulted or worse for jumping without an active beacon, but Serengeti figured it wasn’t really the time to mention all that. “If we’re quiet, there’s nothing but the displacement from the jump drives to give our location away.”

  Henricksen pushed his zigzagging path to the front windows, letting the crew take a good, long look. “Hop around enough and you confuse the trail. Not saying someone won’t still be able to track us if they wanted to, but a path like that,” he pointed to the windows, “pretty damned hard to follow.”

  Silence on the bridge, everyone looking at each other, at Henricksen standing at the Command Post. Aoki caught Finlay’s eye, typed out a quick message, sending it her way.

  Finlay read it and wiped it. “Captain knows what he’s doing,” she whispered, sneaking a look over her shoulder as Bosch’s bass rumble cut across the bridge.

  “So, we’re running, sir?”

  Heads swiveled, everyone holding their breath.

  “No, Bosch. We’re not running.” Henricksen looked at him, and at the rest of the crew on the bridge. Nodded to the camera, waiting as Serengeti opened ship-wide comms. “Listen up, everybody. That was bad business back on Blue Horizon, and there’s worse going on in the Fleet. Most of you know this by now.” A long look at the bridge crew, Henricksen’s eyes flicking from one face to another. “Valkyries have a plan that they think might end this. Get the Fleet back to doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Turn the Meridian Alliance back around. Might work, might not,” he admitted, eyes flickering to Serengeti’s camera. “But that shit storm back on Blue Horizon threw a wrench in the works, and it’ll take a while for things to sort themselves out. Now, Serengeti here knows how much you guys hate being bored,” he flashed his teeth as Finlay snickered at Scan, “so rather than just sitting out here, getting fat and lazy, waiting for something to happen, she came up with a little adventure, to help pass the time.”

  “Adventure.” Bosch sounded pleased. “That’s more like it.”

  “What’s out there?” Samara asked, nodding to the zigzagging course on the windows. The red dot marking their final destination.

  “Cerberus,” Serengeti said quietly, serene voice filling the bridge, the entirety of the ship’s spaces. “We’re going to find Cerberus.”

  “Cerberus is gone,” Delacroix said dreamily, flexing his hands, staring at his palms. “He abandoned the Fleet a long time ago.”

  “And I want to know why,” Serengeti told him, a touch of anger creeping into her voice. “Cerberus is the admiral of this Fleet, and it’s high time someone reminded him of his obligations. So we’re going to find him, and do just that.” She panned the camera across the bridge, letting that sink in. “Admirals serve. They lead by example. And Cerberus—our admiral—doesn’t get to abdicate his throne just because things got a little hard.”

  “Damn straight.” Finlay raised a fist, bumped it against a bemused Aoki’s hand.

  “Any objections?” Henricksen scanned the bridge and saw Samara shrugged her shoulders, Finlay nod decisively, Aoki less certainly so. “Bosch?”

  The gunner’s arm appeared, thick thumb pointing upward.

  “Lower levels,” he called, glancing at his panel, watching a score of acknowledgements come back. “Right. That’s a quorum. All crew to their stations. We’re jumping in ten.” Henricksen cut the comms, turning to Samara at Engineering. “Plot that course. Five minutes at each stop.” A flick of his eyes to the camera. “Should give us enough time to spool the jump drives back up and take a good look around.”

  “Make sure no one’s following us. Plot a new course if they are.” Samara nodded slowly, running calculations, locking in each stop along the way. “Course is set, Captain.” She straightened, looking Henricksen’s way. “Jump coordinates are queued up and ready to go.”

  “Good. Aoki! Fire up those engines and get us the hell outta here.”

  “Aye, sir.” Aoki snuck a look at Finlay, licked her lips nervously, and shut the diagnostics windows down as she accessed the jump drive controls. “Three minutes,” she said, pushing the jump clock to the front windows as a darkness appeared—the first glimmerings of the buckle forming outside.

  “Finlay. I want a full spread of scans as soon as we exit jump.”

  “Aye, sir!” Finlay called, prepping the system, lining everything up.

  “Bosch. Guns primed and ready. Picked some out of the way places to stop, but you never know what you’re going to find in deep space.”

  Bosch rumbled an acknowledgement, slipping the targeting visor over his eyes as Henricksen turned to Delacroix at Comms.

  “I need Comms quiet, Delacroix. Listening mode only. We don’t send anything out.” He raised a finger, pointing it Delacroix’s way. “Not one word, you hear me?”

  “Aye, sir,” Delacroix said faintly, smile quirking his lips. “We’ll be quiet as ghosts.”

  Henricksen stiffened, glancing sharply at Comms, but Delacroix didn’t even notice, because Delacroix was gone. Mind detached, floating free in the netherspace of Comms.

  “We need him,” Serengeti reminded him at Henricksen’s worried look.

  Henricksen grunted, eyeing the crewman at Comms. “Never thought I’d say this, but I miss Kusikov.”

  Mouthy crewman, arrogant as all get-out. But he was a damned fine Comms officer. Damned fine, indeed.

  “He was something,” Serengeti said quietly. “That’s for sure.”

  “Two minutes,” Aoki called as the clock on the front windows ticked down.

  “Tig,” Serengeti called, switching to the robot comms channel. “Pull the DD3s inside.”

  “Uh…they’re not quite done. Still a bunch of equipment out there they need to collect.”

  “Well tell them to hurry up about it. We’re leaving.”

  “Minute thirty!” Aoki warned.

  “But—But the equipment! The spare panels and solar collectors!” Tig sounded panicked.

  Serengeti sighed in irritation. “Tell them to grab as much of it as they can and get their shiny metal asses inside.”

  “Uh…okay.”

  From the sound of his voice, it obviously was not okay, but Tig did as she asked, sending a communication across the robot channel, directing the DD3s back inside.

  The DD3s objected, of course—for all their AI capabilities, robots could be so single-threaded and predictable sometimes—but a sharp word from Serengeti sent them scrambling, gathering up everything they could get their jointed metal legs around, dragging it with them as they scurried inside.

  “Put them in Cargo Bay 4 for now,” Serengeti
ordered. “Tell them to strap in for jump.”

  “Jump!” More panic from Tig. She switched to a camera in Engineering and saw him hopping up and down, legs waving wildly. “But—But—”

  “One minute!” Aoki announced.

  “You heard her, Tig. Find a hidey-hole and hang on.” Serengeti cut the comms as the ship shuddered, Aoki pulsing the engines to get Serengeti moving toward the rapidly expanding hyperspace buckle.

  “Thirty seconds!” Aoki checked and rechecked the readings on the jump drives, making sure everything was perfect.

  The clock ticked down to zero and darkness wrapped around Serengeti’s body, sucking her into the trough.

  Fourteen

  The first three jumps went smoothly—Serengeti’s new engines taking the strain in stride, barely needing the cool-down time in between. Scans showing clean. Comms a wasteland of endless silence.

  Three clean jumps in, with nothing at all out of the ordinary. Nobody but themselves and the stars anywhere around.

  But Finlay stiffened as Serengeti exited the trough on their fourth hop. Leaned forward, staring hard at Scan. “Sir!” she called, voice urgent. “I’ve got something!”

  “What, Finlay? Goddammit, what?” Henricksen snapped, when Finlay just shook her head.

  “Not sure,” she told him, face bathed in the panel’s light. “Something odd, sir. That’s all I can tell.”

  “Odd don’t help much, Finlay.”

  She looked around, face apologetic, went back to trying to figure out Scan.

  Serengeti snuck into her station, parsing through the sensor data—everything before their last jump right up to the moment they dropped out. Pushed the consolidated data package to Finlay’s panel. Threw the same data set and a raw feed onto the front windows, let it run a few seconds, pausing it as a distortion appeared, warping the stars.

  “Son of a bitch,” Henricksen murmured, staring at the glass. “We’re being followed.”

  Sneaky about it, too. Nothing but that story giving their mystery tail away.

  “Almost missed them,” Serengeti admitted. “Whoever they are, they’re good.”

  Henricksen grunted, nodding, studying that distortion outside. “Think we should we hail ‘em? Call their bluff?”

  “Not quite yet, I think.” They knew about that shadow out there now, but the shadow still thought itself invisible. Best to let it keep thinking that for now. Let it follow for a while than risk scaring it away. “Let’s jump to the next location and come about. See what happens.”

  “See what happens? That’s your plan?”

  “I’ve seen you come up with worse.”

  Henricksen opened his mouth and then closed it, grimaced and simply shrugged. “You’re the boss,” he said, taking another look at that distortion. “Take us through, Aoki. Bosch, bring the forward batteries online. Fire up that big cannon while you’re at it. Might as well test out the new toys.” A wink for the camera and he folded his arms, spreading his legs wide, bracing himself there as they commenced the next jump.

  Fifteen seconds in the trough and Serengeti slid back out again, appearing a thousand light years from where she’d started. Aoki fired the maneuvering jets as they slipped into real space, slewing the ship around, bridge crew clinging white-knuckled to their panels as Serengeti completed her turn.

  Silence after, everybody watching the windows, the data feed showing on the glass. Thirty seconds and a blip appeared on Scan. Thirty more seconds and the blip solidified as the distortion reappeared.

  “Bosch!” Henricksen barked.

  “Forward batteries ready. Main gun primed.” Bosch flexed his huge hands around the Artillery pod’s firing mechanisms. “Give the word, Captain, and I’ll blow that bastard back to hell.”

  “Oh, I like him.” Henricksen flashed a grin at the camera, arms unfolding as he turned toward Scan. “You got him, Finlay?”

  “Aye, sir. Isolated the distortion as soon as he exited jump.” She marked a spot on the front window, passing the coordinates over to Bosch so he could lock them into the Artillery pod’s targeting system.

  “Comms!”

  Delacroix flicked his wrist, opening a channel—ship-to-ship, tight band, difficult to pick up unless another ship lurked close by.

  Still more noise than Serengeti wanted to make, though. She detailed a sub-mind to keep an eye on the sensor data flowing into Scan. Set another to monitoring long-range comms and make sure no one snuck up on them and caught them unaware.

  “Identify yourself!” Henricksen ordered, staring at the distortion through the windows.

  Nothing came back. But that distortion remained, sitting out there in the darkness. Watching while being watched, pretending it hadn’t received their hail.

  “Alright. If that’s how you wanna play it.” Henricksen smiled coldly, nodding to Artillery. “Lay a shot across their bow.”

  No bow in sight, but Bosch got the idea. He fired a stuttering line of rail gun rounds at their shadow, giving them a warning.

  The distortion moved, slipping to one side, letting the railgun fire slide harmlessly by.

  “Listen, you bastard.” Henricksen leaned forward, hands gripping the edges of the panel in front of him. “We know you’re out there, so there’s no need to play coy. Either you identify yourself, or I fill your hull full of holes and leave you here for the scavenger ships to pick apart.”

  “Subtle,” Serengeti said, muting the outgoing comms channel.

  “You know me. Subtle’s my middle—”

  “Sir!” Finlay looked around. “Jump signature detected.”

  “Pansy-ass coward.” Henricksen thumbed the comms open. “Listen, asshole. I got a big-ass cannon on board this ship and right now it’s trained on your engines. You run and my gunner here’ll turn you into a teeny-tiny sun.”

  Silence from that ship out there, stubbornly refusing to respond.

  “Bosch—”

  “Jump drives powering down, sir.”

  Finlay looked relieved. All the crew did, even Henricksen at his Command Post. Serengeti herself.

  No one wanted a fight if they could avoid it. Not even a badass warship with really big guns.

  “Communication coming through.” Delacroix paused, frowning, fingers moving as he analyzed something only he could see.

  Serengeti dipped in beside him, tapped into the incoming data package, and opened it up. “Wonky encryption.”

  “Lemme see.” Henricksen nodded to the panel in front of him.

  Serengeti pushed the communication to the Command Post, executed a decryption routine, and let him read through the message.

  “Son of a bitch.” Henricksen raised his head, staring out the windows. “That’s a Raven out there.”

  “Sir. Two more distortions.” Finlay marked the new ships on the window, added three more just a few seconds later.

  Six ships out there in total, their points of entry setting them in a ring around Serengeti.

  “So that’s your game, is it?” Henricksen smiled coldly, keeping the comms channel open to that ship out there. “Well, listen up, asshole. I know what you are and what weapons you have. You’ve got us surrounded and outnumbered but believe me, you will not win this.” He leaned forward, voice soft, urgent, dangerously so. “Drop the shielding and identify yourselves. You have ten seconds to comply.” He cut the comms and waited, lips moving as he made a slow count to ten.

  The first ship appeared with just two seconds to spare, sending a tiny pulse of data to mark its location as it shimmered to life. The rest followed soon after, revealing themselves on that first ship’s orders.

  “Approach. Slowly,” Henricksen ordered, wary even now.

  “They’re tiny,” Finlay said, examining the data from the sensors as the ship’s moved close.

  “Ravens are scout ships. Black Ops,” Serengeti explained at Finlay’s look. “Used mostly for intelligence purposes.” A pause, camera turning toward the Command Post. “Henricksen here was Raven crew, once
upon a time. Before he left all the skulk and dagger behind for the glamour of being a Valkyrie captain.”

  “Glamour. Right.” Henricksen snorted. “Fifty-three-year cold nap ain’t exactly what I’d call glamorous.”

  The crew turned, looking at him, questions in their eyes.

  “Not much in the way of weapons on a Raven.” Henricksen cleared his throat uncomfortably, nodding to the ships outside. “Shielding system’s top-notch, though. Like that shimmer shield but inverted. Cloaks by reflection rather than distortion.”

  Serengeti checked her database, curious about how that worked. Ran into a security block that read Black Ops-Restricted.

  “If their shielding’s so great, why don’t all the ships have it?” Samara asked him.

  Henricksen shrugged. “Black Ops. You know how it is.”

  Samara frowned, clearly not knowing how it was. None of the crew did, really. Of them all, only Henricksen had ever dabbled in the Black Ops world.

  “Secret Squirrel stuff,” he explained. “Black Ops…well, intel guys don’t really like to share. System doesn’t scale anyway,” he said, nodding to the ships outside. “Huge draw on the fuel cells to run it. Energy requirements increase with the size of the vessel the tech’s trying to cover. Ship the size of Serengeti…” He pursed his lips, shaking his head. “Probably never get full coverage, no matter what you do. Blow the fuel cells in about five minutes. End up shutting the whole damn system down. Works on those Ravens, though. I know—I’ve used it. Freaking amazing how well it hides ‘em.”

  “Sir?” Finlay twisted, pointing to the windows. “Should we…?”

  Henricksen nodded, reaching for comms. “Alright,” he said, calling outside. “That’s close enough.”

  The Ravens pulsed their reverse thrusters, drifting to a halt a thousand kilometers out.

  Serengeti pulled up the feed from her hull cameras, zooming in, taking a good, long look at one of the approaching ships. Found a sharp-sided outline black as the emptiness around it. Wings like a bird with rail guns poking from their front edges. Cannons dangling like taloned feet from a narrow, flat belly.