Serengati 2: Dark And Stars

by J. B. Rockwell

  Twenty minutes ticked by that way—Tig and Tilly scurrying silently, Oona hippity-hopping, making a soft plop each time she landed. Twenty minutes, and the ship eerily quiet around them. The only sounds breaking the stillness those of their own footsteps ticking against the maintenance shaft’s metal panels.

  And then screams erupted, shattering the silence. Human screams and the sharp sounds of gunfire echoing through the ship’s corridors.

  Tig froze, front legs gripping his rifle tightly. Tilli pulled Oona to her and ratcheted a round into her gun. They huddled together—eyes wide, face lights quiescent—listening as the sounds of battle drew closer, and closer, before thankfully passing them by.

  The robots relaxed, sighing gustily, Tig managing a shaking laugh. Oona laughed too—happy as always, along for the ride and enjoying the adventure. Blissfully oblivious to the violent goings-on in the halls outside.

  Serengeti got them moving again, sending the robots left and right and left again, making real progress for a while, tracking closer and closer to the ship’s center, until Tig rounded a corner and came to a screeching halt.

  The maintenance shaft ended abruptly, the schematic showing a plus-shaped intersection—four square, metal tubes coming together from four different directions—that no longer existed.

  A crater lay there, where those four shafts should have a joined. The intersection itself gone now—destroyed by an explosion, based on the scorched and ragged metal—leaving a gaping hole in its place.

  Serengeti looked across—the way ahead tantalizingly close and yet impossibly far away. Ten meters of emptiness separating her from the path she wanted, the two identical metal shafts sitting to her left and right.

  A chasm yawned at her feet, threatening to pull the robots in. Tig crept to the edge and looked up, then down, eyeing the spiraling shaft in either direction—a precipitous drop stretching into darkness one way, an interminable climb leading to god-only-knew where in the other.

  “We could climb down, I suppose.” Tig eyed the shaft uncertainly. Shattered metal everywhere. Not much purchase for the robots’ magnetized leg-ends. “Or up…”

  “No telling what’s down there,” Serengeti noted. “Probably not a good idea.”

  Tig sighed. “Looks like we’re backtracking again.”

  “Looks like it.” Serengeti consulted the design diagram, looking for another route. “We’ll need to run along this corridor for a while.” She projected the map on the floor, marking their current location, where they needed to go to get back on course.

  A long stretch of corridor lay in between those two points. Wide hallway, main route through this particular level. A few twists and turns along the way. Another one of those plus-shaped intersections in the middle of it that they’d have to cross.

  Tig studied the route for several seconds, metal legs rattling anxiously against the decking. “You sure this is a good idea?”

  Inside voice, speaking just to Serengeti, not wanting to worry Tilli.

  “We’ve had to backtrack so many times I’m not really sure of anything anymore. But we came here to talk to Cerberus, and right now, this is our best route to his minds.”

  Tig nodded, beeping softly. Turned around, letting Tilli take the lead for a while. “Containment pod’s the most secure place on the ship,” he said quietly, still using that inside channel. “You really sure we can get in there?”

  “No.” Serengeti kept her voice light, letting a smile come through in her voice. “But I’m hoping Oona can use her little knock-knock trick to bypass the security system.”

  “Oona. Right.” Tig eyed the little robot doubtfully. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Tsk. You worry too much, Tig. Left here, Tilli,” Serengeti said, pointing to an access panel ahead.

  Tilli cracked the panel open and poked her head out, taking a quick look around. “All clear,” she whispered, reaching for Oona’s leg as she scuttled into the hall.

  Tig followed after more slowly—rifle raised and primed to fire. Pointed it one way down the hall before spinning around and aiming it in the opposite direction, getting the lay of the land.

  Debris everywhere—broken robots and twisted panels, shredded metal lying in unrecognizable lumps—but no sign of the RPDs anywhere. Or Smithers and his soldiers, for that matter. No signs of anything moving around that stretch of hall.

  Tig caught Tilli’s eye and nodded to his left, clutched his rifle tight to his chest as he crept down the hall with Tilli, Oona sandwiched protectively between them. “Looks like a war zone,” he muttered, nodding at the walls.

  “Whole ship’s a war zone, Tig.” Serengeti flipped to the camera in his thorax, keeping an eye on the hallway behind them while Tig and Tilli scouted the way ahead.

  She hated being so dependent on them, but she didn’t trust the cameras lining the walls. Cerberus’s cameras, those, and attached to his network. Didn’t dare try to access them, so she stuck to Tig. Dealt with feeling half-blind.

  Tig rounded a corner, approaching another one of those plus-shaped intersections, this one intact but barricaded. They way ahead blocked by towering metal partitions reaching from wall to wall, stretching ten feet toward the ceiling above.

  “Uhh…” Tig knocked on one of the panels and waited a few seconds. Gave it shove when nothing knocked back.

  The panel barely moved. Heavy thing, apparently, and snugged in tight.

  Tilli moved up beside Tig and the two of them leaned against the panel together, pushing and shoving, the panel screeching alarmingly as it slid across the metal decking, opening a gap just wide enough for Tilli to slip through.

  A few seconds of silence and Tilli poked her head back out, pointed at Tig, and then beckoned for him and Oona to join her.

  A dozen chromed faces greeted them, cobalt eyes wide and terrified, arachnid-shaped bodies crammed up against the barriers on the far side of the intersection. TSGs—all of them. Trapped here, or hiding. The barriers around the intersection obviously erected to keep the RPDs out.

  The robots twittered in alarm as Tig and Tilli stepped in, climbing on top of one another, forming a quivering, jittering pile, seeming surprisingly terrified of their own kin.

  “It’s alright,” Serengeti called in her softest, most soothing voice. A step closer, Tig’s face lights swirling in calming patterns as the TSGs shivered and hooted, pawing desperately at the walls. “We’re not going to hurt you,” Serengeti told them, but the TSGs didn’t seem to believe here. Twittered even more loudly.

  “I don’t get it,” Tig said, scratching at his head. “What’s wrong—?”

  “Gun,” Tilli whispered, pointing at Tig’s rifle.

  “This?” Tig held his weapon up, muzzle pointed at the ceiling. “No need to worry about—”

  “Tig.” Serengeti turned his head, pointing his eyes at a flashing light on the wall. Camera watching them. Cerberus’s camera, keeping tabs on them from above. “Lower the gun, Tig. Slowly.”

  “What?” Tig flicked his eyes from the camera to the gun. “Just learned how to use it,” he said, waving the weapon at the camera, smiling his friendliest smile. “It’s not even—”

  Klaxons screamed, filling the corridor with noise. Tig jumped straight in the air as the emergency lighting kicked in, the buzzing white brightness fading to a muted, red glow.

  A tremor shook the corridor, making the barricades shake and sway. A bass-toned rumble echoed along the hallway, coming from behind the barrier on their left-hand side.

  Tig shared a look with Tilli—both of them equally alarmed. “This can’t be good,” he murmured, and jumped again as the barrier moved.

  A thump and screech, metal panel swinging, screaming shrilly as it scraped across the floor. Third thump and the towering panel crumpled as half a dozen RPDs attacked it, knocking it over, pouring in after with their weapons hot and their blood-red eyes blazing. Mandibles clack-clack-clacking fit to wake every last demon in hell.

  “Crap-crap-crap!
” Tig pointed his rifle at the Roly-Polys and started blasting away.

  Tilli swung her own rifle around and joined him, tucking Oona behind her as she pulled the trigger and spat out a chattering string of rounds.

  Plasma fire lit up the intersection, shots scoring the floor, the ceiling, the barriers to either side. Pinging off the RPDs’ heavily armored carapaces as they backed up in surprise.

  A flash of lights—red and hellish, flickering from one droid’s face to another—and the RPDs rallied. Cocked their weapons—click-click-click, clank-clank-clank—and returned fire.

  “Incoming!” Tig yelled, diving out of the way.

  Tilli squeezed off another couple shots, grabbed Oona’s leg, and went with him, the two of them shucking and jiving, dodging the RPDs’ fire.

  Cracking off rounds when they could, giving back as good as they got.

  Well, Tilli did anyway, sniping at the RPDs like a pro. Rifle didn’t really seem hurt them all that much—woefully underpowered, those weapons, hardly a match for the tank-like combat droids—but doing a fair job of pissing them off.

  As for Tig…well, Tig just sort of ran around in a panic randomly pulling the trigger. Robot couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.

  Hit the barricades a few times, though. He and the RPDs both. Knocked one of them askew, peeled the paneling off the walls nearby, even managed to knock a hole in the ceiling, raining debris down on everyone below.

  The TSGs suffered through all of it, cowering in their corner, chromed faces reflecting the plasma fire zipping through the air. A stray shot hit one and it exploded in dramatic fashion—ovoid body shredding, legs spraying in every direction, rounded head bouncing across the intersection before fetching up against the barricade on the far side.

  The other robots froze, watching their fellow’s chromed head bounce away. Looked at each other when it ricocheted, bouncing one last time before slipping through the gap in the barricades, finding freedom outside. Stared after it for almost two complete seconds before the lot of them scattered, flocking like frightened chickens, running straight into the line of fire.

  Two more robots exploded, a couple lost legs, one lost half its head. The rest kept going, tumbling over Tig, Tilli, and Oona in their panicked rush.

  Hit the gap in the barricades together and bunched up tight, pushing and shoving, squabbling with each other as they all tried to squeeze through that narrow space at once.

  “One at a time!” Tig yelled, backing up to help them.

  The TSGs ignored him. Kept trying to climb on top of each other, too terrified to realize the lot of them fleeing en masse prevented any of them from actually getting out.

  “Idiots,” Tig muttered, ducking down, sliding a step to his left.

  Tilli backed up against him, pushing Oona between them, but their shots just kept bouncing off the RPDs’ armor—denting the metal, scoring the paint, but still not really doing any real damage.

  “This isn’t working.” Tig shot an RPD in the face, forcing it back a step. “These things are built like tanks. We need bigger guns!”

  “Back,” Serengeti ordered. “Get out of here, Tig!”

  Tig wonked in confusion. “But—But you said—”

  “I know what I said, Tig, but these big uglies sort of change the plan now, don’t they? Back the way we came.” Serengeti waved at the gap in the barricade. “We’ll find another way.”

  “No arguments here.” Tig emptied his clip and made a run for it, using the stacked-up TSGs as a ladder as he launched himself at the gap.

  Almost made it, too. Sailed quite gracefully through the air, well on his way to freedom, when an errant blast hit the metal panel and slewed it around, closing off the gap off.

  Tig slammed into the barricade, bounced off and landed in a heap.

  “Up, up, up!” Tilli cried, grabbing Tig’s leg, hauling him to his feet. “Move, move, move!” She dragged him to one side, herding Oona along with him, plasma fire dogging their heels as they ran.

  Serengeti flipped through the three robots’ eyes, searching for another way out. The barricades to the north and south stood firm—metal panels welded together, pressed in tight between the walls. No escape there. The TSGs pounded at the third barrier, trying to open it back up, but the RPD’s blast seemed to have fused the metal, blocking that way out as well.

  Only one way left then, and that one filled with RPDs. Six of them squatting where the barricade once stood, six more just arriving, cramming in behind the other combat droids, itching to get in on the action.

  Walls of metal, everywhere Serengeti looked.

  We’re trapped here. Trapped like rats. We’re going to die.

  Unless she did something drastic. And potentially suicidal.

  Time to pull a Henricksen.

  “Plan B, Tig!”

  “There’s a Plan B?” Tig skipped to one side, beeping in a panic as plasma fire sheared off a leg. “Ow-ow-ow-ow!” He hopped up and down, butt wiggling, the stump of his leg glowing white-hot.

  That was two he’d lost now, and both of them on his hind end. Tig did not look happy. “What the hell is Plan B and how do I get one?” he yelled.

  “This is Plan B.” Serengeti trained Tig’s rifle on the nearest RPD’s mandibled face, aiming for its clustered red eyes. Squeezed the trigger and blasted away, advancing on the blinded combat droid as it glonked in surprise and backed up.

  Tig glonked too, making it clear he thought she was insane. “Don’t think I like Plan B, Serengeti!”

  “No guts, no glory, Tig!” Serengeti pushed forward, ignoring Tig’s screaming protestations. Slipped in close and jumped onto the blinded Roly-Polys head, jamming Tig’s leg-end into one of its eyes.

  The RPD bucked beneath her, trying to throw Tig off. Serengeti held on tight, using Tig’s magnetized legs to keep her in place as she extruded a connector and jacked directly into the combat droid’s brain.

  A bit of fiddling, working her way around the firewalls the RPD threw up to protect itself, and Serengeti charted a path, started working her way toward the center of the droid’s network. More firewalls there—three password-protected layers that Serengeti shredded like paper before barging her way in. Bypassing the RPD’s internal defenses like they weren’t even there, surgically cutting every last connection tying the combat droid to Cerberus’s network before wrapping herself around the droid’s central system and smothering the AI inside.

  The RPD twitched and shivered before finally going still. Serengeti bathed the droid in anti-viral routines, stripped its internal network, and rebuilt it on the fly. Ran an abbreviated test cycle before reaching for the RPD’s weapons systems and wheeling it around.

  “Tig! Drop!” Serengeti screamed.

  “Plan B?”

  “Yes, Plan B, now drop, Tig! Drop!”

  Tig flattened himself in an instant, grabbed at Tilli, and pulled her and Oona down beside him.

  Serengeti opened fire, flinging a barrage of plasma rounds at the hijacked RPD’s buddies, turning its guns on the other Roly-Polys.

  An RPD in front of her dropped like a stone—head sheared off, holes punched through its carapace. Serengeti fired on the two behind it, clipping the legs off of one, splitting another in half, shots pinging off her stolen droid’s carapace, denting its sides, scoring across its back.

  Tilli leaned out from behind her and shot a line of rifle fire at an RPD to her right, skimming plasma rounds across its face. Serengeti turned on it and shot it through the head. Shot it a second and third time to make sure it was one hundred percent dead.

  Another slid in behind it, clipping Serengeti’s RPD, tearing panels from its sides, shearing off a couple of legs. The combat droid stumbled and recovered, shifting its weight to the left to compensate for having fewer stabilizers on its right.

  “What now?” Tig yelled, popping from cover, peppering the RPDs with fire.

  Serengeti ratcheted an ion grenade into the RPD’s launcher and lobbed it over the front rank of a
ttacking combat droids. “Plan C, Tig.”

  Tig’s eyes rolled wildly. “There’s a Plan C now? What the heck is Plan C?!”

  Serengeti smiled as the ion grenade detonated, tossing RPDs like ragdolls. Lowered her stolen robot’s head and charged at the nearest combat droid, grabbing it by the neck and pulling it close. “This is Plan C.”

  She slammed the RPD’s mandibles together, biting down on the captive Roly-Poly’s head. Squeezed until they touched the droid’s brain and sent a burst of code across its network.

  The RPD shuddered, mind fried in an instant. Serengeti’s code jumped from it to the others, worming its way through their internal defenses, subsuming their AI brains one at a time.

  She split her conscious in two, then four, each piece taking control of two of the droids at the same time—minimal operations, propulsion and munitions, everything else shut down, severed from Cerberus’s network.

  Ugly way to treat a robot, but Serengeti really didn’t have much choice. It was kill or be killed, and she meant to get out of here alive. “Stay behind me, Tig!” she yelled, turning her army of droned ‘bots on the last two RPDs. “Alright, boys. You’ve got two choices here. You can either run away now or—oh come on!”

  A hulking shape rounded the corner at the end of the hall, massive legs pounding against the deck plates as it stalked toward Serengeti and her purloined reinforcements.

  RPD, from the look of it, but not like the ones Serengeti controlled. This one was bigger and bulkier—nearly twice the size of the others, wide body filling the corridor—with eyes that glowed a sickly green, not blood-red like the combat droids she’d stolen.

  The hallway quaked and shuddered, panels falling off the walls as the monstrous RPD advanced.

  “What. The hell. Is that?” Tig asked, staring in horror.

  “Bad news,” Serengeti told him. “Stay behind me, Tig. Tilli? You and Oona still back there?”

  “Right here, Serengeti.”

  “Good. Go help those TSGs. See if you can’t get that barricade open again.”

  “On it!” Tilli scuttled away, taking Oona with her, yelling orders at the TSGs as she tried to get them organized.