“Homunculus.” She locked the Dreadnought’s damaged mind back up, storing him safely away. “The parts they used to fix me came from Homunculus. And before I left her, Sechura gave me what’s left of his mind.”
Henricksen’s face went blank, eyes watchful. “You’re carrying another AI around inside you. A Dreadnought AI. Should I be worried about that?”
“He’s damaged,” Serengeti told him. “Separated from his crystal matrix. Walled off from my network by a good ten layers of firewall. He’s not going anywhere, Henricksen. Not without my say-so.”
“Guess I’ll just have to trust you on that,” he said carefully, giving the camera a knowing look. He flicked his fingers, looking away again. “So you look the part, and thanks to that AI inside you, you’ll sound the part. Know just the right words to get us past security. There’s just one thing missing.” He flicked his eyes to the camera’s reflection, looking right into the lens.
“The ships,” Serengeti said quietly and saw Henricksen nod.
“This…ghost fleet Sechura mentioned. And a plan for how we get the archived AIs to that fleet. Assuming, we manage to pull this whole thing off, of course. Which frankly sounds completely ridiculous now that I’ve actually said it. Hell,” he sighed, scrubbing at his face. “This whole damned idea’s insane.”
“Not denying that,” she told him. “Just don’t have a better one right now.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at her. “Me either.” He paused, grimacing. “Then again, I might feel better about this whole deal if it were someone else’s insane plan.”
“You don’t trust her.”
“Why should I, after everything that’s happened? Why should I trust any of the Valkyries after the way they treated us?”
“They found us,” she reminded him.
“And kept me frozen for five goddamn years. Left you out there—”
“I know. I know,” Serengeti repeated, when Henricksen settled. “You don’t need to remind me. But Sechura, Atacama, they did find us. Brought us back here. Fixed us up as best they could.”
Henricksen touched the scar on his face, glowering still.
“What if we changed it up a bit?”
“In what way?” Henricksen asked her.
“Made it less Sechura’s plan and more ours?”
He shook his head, clearly not understanding.
“You said it yourself: head to head, we don’t stand a chance against Brutus and his fleet. Even with a bunch of rogue AIs backing us. So we try something different. Something…sneaky.”
Henricksen looked baffled. “What are you getting on about?”
Tempting to tell him—despite all the teasing, she hated keeping secrets from Henricksen—but Serengeti wasn’t quite certain Atacama could pull this off. She was strong, but she wasn’t Sechura. And this wasn’t her plan.
Then again, maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that gave them just the opportunity they needed.
“Shriek,” she called. “Need a favor.”
“Go away,” Shriek grumbled. “Told you—I’m done playing taxi.”
“I’m not asking you for a ride this time. I need you to deliver something to Atacama.”
Shriek snorted. “Promoted from taxi cab to delivery boy. Thanks, but no thanks, Serengeti.”
“I’ll make it worth your while.” She waited, listening in on the comms channel, but Shriek didn’t rise to the bait. So she created a message, sealed it and encoded it before sending it across the comms channel. “Read it,” she told him. “You want in, you have to deliver that message.”
“How am I supposed to even find her?” Shriek demanded.
“Start at Blue Horizon. Stationmaster’s sympathetic. He’ll help you track her down.”
“Well, what if I—?”
“Just read the damn message,” Serengeti sighed.
“Maybe I don’t wanna read it,” Shriek grumbled. But he went quiet a while, obviously doing just that.
Henricksen turned his head, giving her a look.
“Later,” she promised, muting the channel. “I’ll explain everything—”
“Alright. I’m in,” Shriek announced.
Just like that. No more arguments. No more complaining. Frankly, Serengeti was surprised.
“Good. Then go,” she said, before Shriek could change his mind.
“Now? But—”
“No time like the present!” she said brightly. “Oh, and use an indirect route, if you please. Don’t want anyone tracking you back here.”
“Indirect! But that—that could take days!”
“Might,” she said sweetly. “Last I checked, you and Brutus didn’t exactly part on good terms, though. Do you really want to run the risk that he’ll follow you back here?”
“No,” he said sulkily. “Fine.” Shriek huffed loudly, sounding completely put out. “But you owe me for this. And that other thing on the Citadel. A few more things before that.”
“Yeah-yeah. You can collect when this is all over.”
Shriek muttered something about ‘bossy-pants AIs and their bossy-pants bosses’ before cutting the channel and spooling up his engines.
Main propulsion only for now. Indirect route meant no hyperspace travel until Shriek reached the shipping lanes and could blend in with the other vessel traffic. Slow way to go, but safer than leaving a big old jump distortion behind to attract attention.
Henricksen stared out the windows, watching the stealth ship move away. “You’re not going to tell me what was in that message, are you?” He turned his head, looking at the camera. Heaved a long-suffering sigh when Serengeti stayed silent and went back to studying the stars. “Figured that’d be your answer. Welp. Shriek won’t be back for a couple of days, and we’ve got those DD3s on board, so we might as well take advantage of the downtime and fix the damage from Cerberus’s cannons. No holes this time, but he bashed the hell outta the photovoltaic collectors in your hull.” He turned around, arms folding as he leaned against the windows. “Hate for you to not look your best when we show up at Faraday.”
Serengeti snorted. “Then by all means, go ahead. In fact…” She queried her systems, checking on the status of the TSGs’ little side project. “Have the DD3s install that modified shimmer shield while you’re at it.”
Henricksen laughed softly. “So that’s what you had the little guys doing.”
“Downloaded the software before we left Blue Horizon. Figured it might come in handy. And I’m not hoarding,” she insisted. “I just like to keep a few toys around. You know, in case.”
“Sure.” Henricksen smiled. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Twenty-Four
Shriek returned a few days later—Serengeti’s message safely delivered, thanks to a little detective work from Qaisrani’s husband. Brought a present back with him, too. At least, that’s what he called it.
“Present? What kind of present?” Serengeti asked, instantly suspicious.
“Surprise,” he told her, smile in his voice. “Open up, and I’ll drop it in your cargo bay so you can take a look.”
Serengeti eyed the stealth ship as he slid in beside her, tempted to refuse. Ravens weren’t really the gift-giving type, and frankly, she’d had her fill of surprises for a while. But Shriek kept hanging out there, pestering her in that obnoxious, poke-poke-poke way of his, and eventually—out of sheer exhaustion—she relented.
“Fine,” she sighed, completely annoyed. “Just be quick about.” She sent an order to the main cargo bay, opening the doors wide. Watched Shriek slip in, jets firing in tiny bursts as he maneuvered himself around. “I’ll send a robot to retrieve the package once you’re settled.”
“No need,” he told her in that cryptic way of his. “It’ll come to you.”
“Huh-uh. Not happening,” Henricksen told him, beating Serengeti to the punch. “No way I’m letting this little ‘surprise’ of yours wander around on my ship.” A nod to her camera and he stepped down from the Command Post, heading fo
r the door. “You just stick that little present of yours in the airlock. We’ll take it from there.”
“Spoil sport.” Shriek closed the channel, dropping comms into silence.
“Finlay!” Henricksen called, palming the bridge door open. “You’re in charge ‘til I get back.”
Finlay’s head popped up. “Me?” she squeaked, twisting around.
“Yes, you, Finlay. You’re senior bridge crew now. Remember?”
Finlay bit her lip, glancing worriedly around the bridge.
It was Tsu before—always Tsu that Henricksen left in charge. But Tsu was gone now. Tsu and Kusikov. Sikuuku and Evans.
Henricksen glanced behind him, face softening as looked at her. Opened his mouth and then closed it, lips pressed in a thin line. “Won’t be long, Finlay. Promise.”
“Yes, sir,” she said faintly, eyes dropping to the floor.
Henricksen stepped through the door, hesitated, and looked back. “We get boarded by pirates, you give me a buzz now, ya hear?”
Finlay’s head snapped up, bright spots of color blooming on her cheeks. Spun around and started stabbing at her panel, muttering angrily under her breath. “One time. You mention pirates one time and they never let you live it down.”
Henricksen tipped a wink at the camera, smiling as he left the bridge.
Serengeti left him as he ducked into a ladderway, flickering along her pathways to the camera outside the main cargo bay, arriving just as Shriek left.
That was quick.
She cycled through the cargo bay’s cameras, searching for the stealth ship’s present. Wasn’t quite sure what to look for—a box, maybe; a crate or something like that—but she panned the lenses around anyway, passing the time until Henricksen arrived. Checked the airlock while she was at, but found nothing anywhere. Just a couple of robots scurrying around the hold, going about this maintenance chore and that.
Where’d you put it, you bastard? she wondered, making another round of the cameras.
“What’d he bring us?” Henricksen asked, stepping from the ladderway, toggling the monitor beside the airlock.
“No idea. All I see are a couple of ‘bots.”
Henricksen frowned. Reached over and slapped at a comms unit opening a secure line to the stealth ship. “Alright, Shriek. You’ve had your fun. Where the hell is this package of yours?”
“It’s coming. Geez!”
Henricksen glowered. “You gettin’ pissy with me, sunshine?”
“No. I’m just askin’ you to be a little—”
“Bosch,” he barked, calling up to the bridge. Left the private channel open while he was it, making sure Shriek heard him. “See that little speck off the starboard side?”
“Okay! Okay! No need to get nasty! Just gimme a minute.” Shriek was quiet a moment, checking on something while Henricksen and Serengeti waited on the line. “There. It should be right—”
The airlock buzzed and whirred, pumping in atmosphere, running through its pressurization routine. A beep and it popped open, releasing a shining metal robot into the corridor.
“—there,” Shriek finished, sounding incredibly smug. “So. Whaddaya think?”
“A robot.” Another robot. TSG from the look of it and, once again, not one of hers. “Guess I should’ve expected that.”
Henricksen frowned, giving her a puzzled look.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just—tell Bosch to stand down.”
Henricksen frowned a moment longer, shrugged his shoulders, and called back up to the bridge. “Sorry, Bosch. Target practice will have to wait for another time.”
“Roger.” Bosch cut the channel as Henricksen turned back to the camera.
“So, little friend.” Henricksen folded his arms, staring down his nose. “What’s your story?”
The TSG looked up at him, face lights ticking anxiously, leg-ends drumming against the deck plates.
“Not talkin’, eh?” Henricksen glanced at Serengeti’s camera, punched at the buttons on the side of the monitor, cycling through the hull camera feeds until he found one that gave him a view of the stealth ship outside. “Serengeti’s already got fifty of these guys, Shriek. What makes you think she’d want or need another?”
“Oh! Right. Hang on a sec.” Shriek closed the channel, going quiet for a while.
“No! Wait!” Henricksen sighed in frustration as the line clicked closed. Leaned against the wall and just stared at the robot while Shriek finished whatever the hell he was doing.
Took a while—a surprisingly long time, actually—but comms clicked open a minute or so later as Shriek returned. “There ya go. Should be all set.”
The TSG stiffened, head lifting, face lights flashing as it beeped and blipped, leg-ends rattling fit to wake the dead. A few seconds of that and it stiffened again, going very still, every last light in its face winking out. A blip and it relaxed, rigid pose giving way. The robot blinked a few times, head turning, cobalt eyes examining the hall around it, Henricksen and the camera high on the wall. “Hello, Serengeti,” it greeted her.
Calm voice, from the robot. Smoothand serene. AI, but not TSG. Not a robot at all.
My Sisters and their robot messengers…
“Good to see you, Atacama.”
Henricksen straightened, throwing a sharp look at the camera. “What’s she doing here? If Brutus picks up on that transmission—”
“Ahem,” Shriek interrupted. “Stealth ship, remember? Channel’s filtered and encrypted.”
Henricksen frowned at the monitor, the stealth ship outside. “Yeah. But for how long?”
“I don’t know. Fifteen minutes, maybe?”
“Is that a guess, or do we have fifteen minutes?”
“Yes,” Shriek said confidently.
Henricksen’s frown deepened. “Yes, you’re guessing, or yes, we have fifteen minutes?”
“You’re good to go, buddy.”
“You didn’t answer my damn ques—”
“Hurry up. Times a-wastin’.”
Henricksen scowled, eyes lifting to Serengeti’s camera. “Fifteen minutes ain’t a whole lotta time. And it’s awfully risky, jumping those comms from Blue Horizon to here. You ask me, we should shut it down.” A nod to the TSG standing in the hallway. “Send the robot back for good measure.”
“He’s right, you know.” Serengeti turned the camera toward Atacama. “It’s dangerous, sending your robot here. For you and us.”
“Don’t forget about me,” Shriek chimed in. “I’m the one boosting the signal.”
“And you’ll be the first one to abandon us if Brutus does decrypt the channel,” Henricksen said sourly. “Now shut up.”
“Well, that’s not very nice,” Shriek muttered.
“It’s worth the risk,” Atacama cut in. The TSG moved, head swiveling as it looked from Henricksen to Serengeti. “It’s all been worth—”
“Is that right?” Henricksen pushed away from the wall, looming over the little robot. “Was it worth the risk of leaving Serengeti out there all those years?”
Atacama blinked, face lights flashing in question. “I don’t know—”
“Yeah, you do,” Henricksen said coldly. “We checked Cryo’s data. You found Serengeti five damn years ago, but you just left her drifting. Couldn’t be bothered to go get her until a few months ago.”
“Henricksen,” Serengeti said sternly. “This isn’t the time.”
“Why not?” he snapped. Angry, unreasoning.
Not like him. Not like him at all.
“It’s alright.” The robot’s head lifted, offering a small smile to the camera. Turned toward Henricksen, looking solemn and serious—regretful, in a robotish sort of way. “That decision was…unfortunate,” Atacama said carefully. “I wanted to come as soon as we found you.” A nod to Serengeti’s camera. “Sechura and I. Marianas.” She bowed the robot’s head, heaving a heavy sigh. “We weren’t ready, though. We didn’t—We didn’t have a plan. If Brutus found out…” She shrugged the TSG’s legs, voi
ce trailing off. Stood there in silence while Henricksen glared and Serengeti watched from above.
“He’d what?” Henricksen asked—angry still, incredibly bitter. “Bring us back into the Fleet? Take away your ghost?”
“Henricksen—”
“No.” He chopped his hand, cutting Serengeti off. Moved closer to Atacama, forcing her a step back. “Brutus is an asshole—I get it. But you betrayed your own. In my book, that doesn’t make you all that much better.”
Atacama looked up at him, cobalt eyes scanning his face. “I didn’t want to leave her there. None of us did.”
“Bullshit. You left her there because you didn’t want to risk your own skins. Because you were too damn scared—”
“Enough, Henricksen!” Serengeti shouted. “She didn’t have any other choice.”
He looked up at her—face stubborn, chin set. “There’s always a choice.”
“Leave it, Henricksen. What’s done is done.” No going back. No turning back time. “I’m done with arguing. We need to move on.”
Henricksen stared at Serengeti’s camera, stubborn still. Nodded tightly and turned around, putting his back to Atacama’s robot.
Rude gesture, but Serengeti let it go. Made a note to speak to him about that later, focusing on Atacama for now. “Sechura,” she began, and then stumbled to a halt, not quite sure how to ask this most delicate of questions. “Her AI. Was it…?”
Atacama nodded slowly, cobalt lights swirling across her robot’s face. “Unrecoverable.”
Serengeti sighed, abandoning the hallway for the hull cameras looking outside. Stayed there for almost a minute, sharing her sorrow with the stars.
“The message I sent you,” she said, slipping back inside.
“Everything’s arranged,” Atacama assured her. “We just need a little time—”
“How much time?” Henricksen asked, looking around. “How long do we have to sit here, hiding out like rats?”
“A week.” Atacama shrugged the TSG’s leg, making it clear she was guessing. “Two at most. The arrangements have all been made. We’re just waiting on delivery before everything’s in place.”
Serengati 2: Dark And Stars Page 25
