Serengati 2: Dark And Stars

by J. B. Rockwell

  “Fix-fix,” the Scientist whispered, flashing the pedestal’s lights, increasing the glow surrounding Cerberus’s three brains. “Fix-fix here. Finish what you started.”

  An order, that, stopping just short of a request. The Scientist’s voice groaning, pleading, demanding Oona give him what he wanted.

  Oona hooted softly, looking from Tig to Tilli to the camera above her. “More sparkles?” she asked, blinking owlishly.

  Serengeti eyed the RPDs around her, the guns pointing at her, the blasters aimed at Tig and Tilli. “Think he wants more than just sparkles, Oona.”

  “Go,” the Scientist droned in his cold, cold voice. An RPD turned, blaster pointing at Serengeti’s combat droid’s face. “You may take the other two robots with you, but Oona stays here. With me.”

  “No,” Serengeti said, just as coldly. “You can’t have her.”

  “Why’s everybody so angry?” Oona’s head swiveled, trying to look at everyone at once. “What’s going on?” she whined. “Where’s the tea party?”

  “There’s no tea, Oona. That was a lie.” Serengeti stared the nearest RPD down, but it just stared unblinkingly back. “He wants to keep you, Oona. Forever. He wants me to leave you behind. I won’t have it,” she said softly. “I won’t leave you here.”

  Oona burbled in confusion, face lights blinking on and off. “But I can fix-fix!”

  “I know you can, Oona. That’s not the point.”

  “But—But—” Oona blinked, looking even more confused now. “But you said you need him.”

  She looked so earnest it was heartbreaking. Such a brilliant mind inside Oona, and yet in some ways, she was still a child. Still didn’t understand what staying here meant.

  Serengeti sighed, RPD drooping. “We do, Oona. The Fleet needs their admiral, just…” She gestured helplessly at the crystal matrix minds on the pedestal, “not this way.”

  “Then how?” she asked her, blinking owlishly.

  “How?” the Scientist whispered. The RPDs in the hall copying him, droning voices echoing off the containment pod’s walls.

  Serengeti looked at them—at all of them—wishing she had an answer as simple as that question. “I can’t leave you, Oona,” she said—the best response she could give.

  “Then stay-stay,” Oona told her, smiling brightly.

  “No,” the Scientist shouted, deafening voice echoing in the hall. “Go!” he repeated, plasma blasters whining, RPDs closing in. “Go now!” he thundered as Tig and Tilli cowered, clutching Oona between them.

  “Don’t,” Serengeti said carefully, nodding to her three little robots, so vulnerable and scared. “Don’t touch them.”

  “I won’t. But you have to leave.”

  “And if I don’t?” Serengeti twitched her RPD’s blaster, pointing toward the pedestal at the containment pod’s center. “I could destroy you in an instant.”

  The ring of robots tightened, blasters digging into Serengeti’s RPD’s sides, red targeting lights sparkling off Tig and Tilli, skittering across their metal bodies. “You fire, the droids fire. Everyone dies.”

  Including Smithers and his comrades. Without the Cerberus, the Citadel would shut down, killing everyone left inside.

  “Go-go, Serengeti.” Oona moved a step forward, ignoring all those guns. Tilted her head and looked right at Serengeti—cheeks swirling with light, face surprisingly solemn, incredibly wise. “You go,” she said, reaching for Tig, stretching a leg toward Tilli. “We stay. I fix-fix.”

  “Fix-fix,” the Scientist droned as the RPDs shivered and sighed.

  “No,” Serengeti told her. “No, I won’t leave you. There’s got to be another way.”

  The RPDs around her said differently, but she couldn’t just abandon the robots. Not after everything they’d been through.

  Tilli touched at Tig’s side, sharing a rapid-fire exchange of face light communication.

  Tig hesitated, thinking, sent something back. “She’s right,” he said, reaching for Tilli, twining his leg around hers. “Henricksen’s waiting. You should get back.”

  “She’s right.” Serengeti blinked, staring in disbelief. “She’s a child, Tig.”

  “And smarter than any of us. Well, smarter than us, anyway,” he amended, pointing at Tilli and himself. “You can’t win this,” he said, brushing ineffectually at a red light on his side. “He’ll take Oona one way or the other. At least this way…” Tig trailed off, face flushing.

  “None of us ends up dead.”

  Tig nodded slowly, eyes locked on the floor. “We’ll be fine, Serengeti.” A flick of his eyes to her face and he dropped his gaze back to the floor. “Just—Just get back to the ship before the big guy does something stupid like try to come get us.”

  Tilli nodded beside him, making shooing gestures with her legs.

  “So, you’re staying.” Serengeti lowered her RPD’s guns, letting the muzzles droop toward the floor. “You’re all staying.”

  Tig shrugged his legs, hugging Tilli to his side. “Someone needs to fix, Cerberus. That’s why we came here, after all.”

  It wasn’t, exactly, but Serengeti let him have his moment.

  “You’re sure?” she asked, hating herself for doing this. For even thinking of doing this. “I can stay—”

  “No. You can’t.” Tig nodded to the RPDs around her, the blasters pointing his way. “He doesn’t want you.”

  “Not sure he really wants you either,” Serengeti noted.

  “Yeah. Well.” Tig shrugged uncomfortably, looking at Tilli beside him. “Crew doesn’t need us either,” he mumbled, staring at the floor. “Probably won’t even notice we’re gone.”

  “I need you,” Serengeti said softly. She wished she could reach him. Touch at Tig’s brilliant little mind one last time. “I’ll always need you,” she whispered, staring from the hall. “Are you sure?” she repeated, heart breaking, mind wracked with guilt.

  Tig and Tilli blipped and burbled, chromed heads nodding in time. Oona just looked at her, cobalt eyes swirling with wisdom. “Go,” she said solemnly. “Fly-fly away. Little mouse will stay here and make Mr. Cerberberberus all fix-fix.”

  “And after that?”

  Oona shrugged her legs, eyes rolling around the room.

  A nudge at her side and the Scientist’s RPDs pressed in, forcing Serengeti away from the door.

  “Bye-bye, Serengeti!” Oona’s piping voice called, leg-end waving cheerily as the containment pod’s door slid shut, locking Serengeti out.

  “Bye-bye, Oona,” she had time to say, and then the RPDs crowded around her, forcing Serengeti down the hall.

  She shook them off halfway to the elevator shaft, continuing the rest of the way on her own. Turned around as she stepped in and looked back over her shoulder, hating herself for leaving. For abandoning her three robots to Cerberus.

  How long? she wondered. How long will it be before I see them again?

  The Scientist’s RPDs muttered a warning, targeting lights painting Serengeti’s stolen body in pinpricks of red. Reminding her she was severely outgunned.

  She turned away before she did something stupid, like try to blast her way through all those RPDs and force her way into the containment pod. Consulted the Citadel’s design diagram, charting a path back to the airlock before setting off. Heading for the landing bay and home.

  Twenty-Two

  The trip back to the landing bay went much smoother than the trip in. Faster too. Mostly because Serengeti allowed herself the luxury of using the ship’s corridors rather than winding through the maintenance system like some kind of skulking metal rat.

  Couldn’t have gone that way if she’d wanted—RPD was just too damned big—and she didn’t really need to. Not with the RPD’s armored carapace to protect her. Its kick-ass guns blowing obstructions to hell.

  No Tig and Tilli to protect this time, either. No Oona sticking her curious little nose into every shiny thing she came across.

  Far less complicated, only having herself to
look out for. Lonely, though. Even in the dark years of drifting, she’d always had the robots to keep her company.

  Serengeti slowed, looking behind her. Missing them already. Feeling empty, incomplete,somehow.

  She shivered, and felt the RPD shiver with her. Creepy sensation. Made Serengeti’s skin crawl.

  Couldn’t wait to shed the damn thing and crawl back into her ship’s body.

  A last look at the hallway behind her and Serengeti got going, navigating the Citadel’s halls.

  Warnings popped up as she rounded a corner, messages filtering across the RPD’s comms channel from the Scientist’s roving patrols: trouble ahead—a hot spot at the next crossing—that she might want to avoid.

  Serengeti slowed again, consulting the ship’s schematic, looking for an alternate route. Plenty to choose from—corridors branched off everywhere, crisscrossing the Citadel’s body—but a detour would take longer. Add an hour or more to a trip that had already taken far too long.

  “Hell with it.” Serengeti shoved the schematic aside and kept going, blitzing through the single RPD at the next crossing, picking the legs off the half-dozen TSGs with it.

  The RPD crashed to the floor, dead in an instant. The TSGs—legless, helpless—stared at Serengeti as RPD scuttled past. Face lights swirling in panicked, pleading patterns as they lay there on the floor.

  Broke her heart, seeing them like that. The RPDs were built for combat—no other purpose than destruction and death. But the TSGs were just maintenance droids. Their combat systems an add-on, not their primary function.

  Not their fault, getting dragged into this mess.

  She stopped in the middle of the intersection, considering the disabled robots scattered around her feet. “Can’t just leave them here,” she murmured, thinking of the Soldier and the Statesman. Their random roving patrols. “Then again, I can’t have you boys coming after me either.”

  She hesitated, RPD fidgeting, started to move on. Stopped again and bent down, touching at the nearest TSG. A quick look and she squirted one of Oona’s data bombs inside it, grabbed up two of the robot’s legs and bolted them into place.

  “Rest is up to you, little guy.”

  She patted the robot on the head and got her RPD moving, hurrying away. Looked back as she turned the next corner and saw the robot crawling around the intersection, gathering up more legs. Fixing itself first before bussing up parts to help the others.

  “Good boy,” Serengeti murmured, slipping away.

  More corridors after that. More intersections. A minefield of robots and booby-traps the RPD’s sensors helped her navigate. A few more twists and turns, and she finally reached that burnt-out corridor with the landing bay airlock sitting silently at the end.

  She buzzed through, cycling the lock open using a copy of Oona’s clever little knock-knock program. Stuffed the RPD’s bulky body inside—no mean feat, given the Roly-Poly’s dung beetle shape—and waited while the pressure inside adjusted, bleeding away the environmentals to match the icy cold weightlessness of the landing bay on the other side.

  She poked the RPD’s head out when the lock finally opened and found Mosquitoes everywhere, filling the landing bay chock-a-block full.

  Powered down now. Waiting for Cerberus’s defense systems to wake them from sleep. Shriek hiding among them somewhere—cloak turning him invisible. Impossible to see.

  Unless he’s abandoned me.

  She flipped the RPD’s sensors to full, tuning them in a broad-spectrum array, searching for the stealth ship’s shape.

  Nothing. Not one sign of the Raven.

  Little bastard. You better not have abandoned me.

  “Shriek. Where are you?” Serengeti called, opening a channel to the stealth ship.

  “Here.”

  A shimmer appeared somewhere ahead and to her left. Serengeti sighed in relief, scuttling that way.

  “Hurry,” Shriek said, a hint of worry creeping into his voice.

  “Yeah-yeah. Keep your shirt on,” she muttered, tip-toeing her way through the sleeping Mosquitoes.

  A flash of light and one woke right in front of her, stopping her dead. She locked up tight, RPD gone still as a statue—one leg lifted, dangling in mid-air—as the Mosquito hummed and buzzed, vibrations ticking the micro-sensors in the RPD’s leg. A thrum of engines and it woke others—lights flashing in the darkness as dozens of droned ships cycled through their start-up routines.

  Serengeti considered her options—all two of them—and started running, yelling to Shriek along the way. “Open up! Open the goddamn airlock!”

  “On it, on it, on it!” he called back.

  Serengeti pelted across the decking, dodging Mosquitoes, leaping across any that got in her way. Pounded on the stealth ship’s door when she reached it, slapping at the lock’s panel until it popped open and let her inside.

  “Looks like we’re gonna have to fight our way out,” Shriek noted, sounding ridiculously, stupidly excited.

  “Not sure that’s such a good idea,” she told him, pounding at the airlock walls, willing it to hurry up. “Can’t you just—?”

  “No-no-no,” Oona scolded, piping voice intruding. Drifting across comms. “No ‘squitos. Bad ‘squitos. Little ship-ships go sleep-sleep.”

  “What the—get off my network, pipsqueak,” Shriek growled.

  “Shut it,” Serengeti snapped. “Oona’s helping. She can do anything she damn well pleases.” A touch at the wall and she keyed into a monitor, using one of Shriek’s hull cameras to look outside.

  Droned ships flashed messages at each other, landing bay filled with a confusion of light. A chaos of illumination that settled eventually, flashes becoming waves that ebbed and flowed—serene, peaceful as the Mosquitoes, en masse, quietly powered down.

  Serengeti sighed in relief and cut the monitor off.

  The lock’s panel turned green—finally—and let her inside the ship.

  “Uhh…what just happened?” Shriek asked her, voicing filling the hallway outside.

  “Long story,” Serengeti told him. “I’ll explain it to you later.”

  A camera swiveled, looking the RPD up and down. “I see you got your hair done.”

  “You know me. Always like to look my best.”

  Shriek snorted, examining the airlock behind her. “What happened to the other guy? The TIG. And that other TIG. And that tiny thing with all the critters drawn on her body?”

  “Another long story. I’ll—”

  “Yeah-yeah. You’ll explain it to me later.” Shriek sighed in frustration. “Alright, Sister. Strap that monstrosity of yours down somewhere. It’s time we beat feet out of here and went someplace a little less crowded.”

  Shriek cloaked himself, releasing the magnetic locks securing his body to the decking. Fired his docking jets to shove his nose around, lining himself up with the landing bay doors.

  Closed doors now. The stars behind them hidden.

  Serengeti cursed. “Sorry. Forgot about that. Hang on a sec, Shriek.” She opened a channel, reaching for Oona across comms. “Oona. Knock-knock.”

  “Who’s there?” Oona giggled, reaching back, establishing a connection to Serengeti’s droid.

  A data package appeared—encrypted and secured, smiley face wrapped around it. Serengeti opened it up and extracted the code inside, keyed it into the landing bay’s system, activating the mechanism on the outer doors.

  The Mosquitoes started to wake again—evidently there was some kind of default programming that activated them when the landing bay doors opened—but Oona sang a lullaby that sent the drones back to sleep.

  “Go-go,” Oona whispered. “All safe now.”

  Shriek tapped his thrusters, getting himself moving.

  “Wait,” Serengeti called, stopping him again. Reaching for Oona across comms. “Can you keep just a few of the drones awake?”

  “Are you crazy, lady?” Shriek yelled.

  Serengeti shushed him, waiting on Oona. Heard her giggle as a Mosquito p
owered up, flashing its lights. “Good. I need about fifty of them, Oona. Can you do that?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Shriek demanded.

  “Making sure Cerberus’s defenses see us going out.”

  “Listen, whack-job. You may have a death wish—”

  “Would you just shut up for a minute and trust me on this, Shriek?”

  “Well,” Shriek huffed. “If you’re gonna be all pissy about it.” He closed the channel down, sulking in silence.

  “Big baby,” Serengeti muttered.

  Comms clicked open. “Am not,” Shriek said, and then closed the channel again.

  Serengeti sighed, rolling her eyes. “Oona. I want you to send fifty Mosquitoes outside and hold them there, right outside the landing bay doors. Can you do that for me?”

  “Rodger-dodger!” Oona sent back.

  A mass of Mosquitoes lifted from the decking, glided over to the landing bay’s exit, and drifted to a halt, clustering in a tightly packed ball.

  “Perfect.” Serengeti sent a smiley kitty face across the channel.

  Oona giggled and sent an oinky-pig back.

  “Shriek. You slide over there and get in the middle of those drones,” Serengeti ordered.

  “Why would I—oh I see.” Shriek laughed softly. “Pretty sneaky, Sister.” He feathered his jets, giving himself a shove, glided across the sea of sleeping Mosquitoes, hiding his shape inside the swarm.

  “We’re going bye-bye now, Oona. Can you keep the Mosquitoes with us until Shriek jumps away?”

  “Aye-firmative!”

  “Good girl. Let’s go, Shriek.”

  “’Bout damn time.”

  Shriek slipped free of the Citadel’s landing bay with that ball of drone camouflage clustered close about him, Serengeti flipped through the video feeds from his hull cameras, praying her little ruse would actually work. A kilometer out and things looked good—Cerberus’s defense system remained silent, no alerts coming through on comms. Ten kilometers and Serengeti started to relax, thinking they actually might get away with this.