Serengeti Page 7

  SIX

  Chaos erupted, plasma bolts and fractal laser cannons lighting up the darkness outside. Rail guns sputtered and spat, obsidian fire streaking in dark lines interrupted at regular intervals by the tracer rounds the gunners loaded to help them aim. Serengeti cruised along just a few kilometers off Brutus’ starboard side, and fired with the others, adding the full power of her forward guns to the attack.

  Death poured from a thousand different guns ranged across the Meridian Alliance fleet, all of them aimed at Trinidad and the thirty or so small ships unlucky enough to be positioned around him.

  Shots landed on both sides of the confrontation, scoring across the metal skins of the Meridian Alliance vessels, tearing at the hulls of the DSR ships. A Sunstorm named Daedalus exploded spectacularly, sides blowing outward, smashing into the DSR ships on either side. But the cheers on Serengeti’s bridge turned to angry swearing when Trinidad’s chemical cannon zeroed in on an Aurora named Bliss—Sorrow’s sister ship. Bliss was one of the advance ships, positioned near the tip of the spearhead with twenty or so Auroras and Titans. Trinidad’s gun pounded away at her, chemical rounds coating Bliss’s bow, chewing mercilessly through her composite metal shell. She held on for a while, and kept going, kept firing away, but the liquid laser was insatiable. It ate through Bliss’s skin and tore through her bulkheads, dissolving girders beneath until Bliss’s front end buckled and finally gave way.

  There was no explosion this time—not like Sorrow. Just a puff of metal and fast cooling air as the atmosphere inside Bliss vented. The Aurora shuddered and slewed to one side, drifting aimlessly. Ships veered around her, banking hard to avoid a collision, and then moved on, leaving Bliss behind.

  Henricksen pounded the panel in front of him. “God damn that thing! Sikuuku. Target Trinidad’s main gun and take it out.”

  “Trying!” Sikuuku’s pod pivoted, lights flashing furiously across his face as he searched the Heliotrope’s prickle-faced surface. “C-mon, c-mon, c-mon. Ha! There it is. Got you, you bastard.” Sikuuku squeezed both triggers, lobbing glowing orbs of plasma across the stars. Some hit, some missed, Trinidad kept coming regardless. He was a tough old thing—his body wrapped in endless layers of plasmetal, his main gun heavily shielded—and took the hits without slowing, seeming completely unfazed. “Goddammit, just die!” Sikuuku shouted, venting his frustration.

  Serengeti thought about taking over and subsuming all of her primary systems now that the battle had begun, but Sikuuku was a first class gunner and seemed to have things under control. Serengeti left him to it and settled for just Nav and Engineering, tracking everything around her—every ship, every gun, every round and missile flying in either direction—working her way through the worst of the chaff, taking hits now and then when they simply couldn’t be avoided.

  And all the while Sikuuku kept firing, crosshairs trained on Trinidad’s puffer fish shape, landing shot after shot on the area around that big gun. Damage appeared—comms towers destroyed, turret guns crippled, chunks of hull plating ripped away—but Trinidad’s gun kept right on firing.

  “I could use some help here!” Sikuuku called.

  Serengeti sent a message to Atacama and Marianas behind her asking them to divert a few of their turret guns to help Sikuuku out.

  Tracer fire reoriented, pounding away at the Heliotrope’s liquid laser gun.

  “Finlay,” Henricksen barked. “Status report on the Aphelion.”

  “Still charging.” Finlay cycled the data on her screen, moving the window showing the ship in question to the center of her panel. “Hard to tell, though, with those smaller ships in the way.”

  Serengeti switched to the feed from the Number Four probe, saw a silver-blue orb eject itself from the metal rod at the end of the Aphelion’s nose. Tendrils of electricity reached backward, clinging to the ship for a second or two, and then the orb broke contact and shot toward the fleet.

  “Parallax firing!” Finlay yelled, fingers flying across the screen.

  Serengeti threw the feed from the Number Four probe onto the windows at the front of the bridge for everyone to see. A check of the Chron showed the time from inception to firing for that round to be three minutes, forty-three seconds. She started the counter and set it on the front screen next to Number Four’s feed as Parallax reloaded, waiting only for the electric payload from the last round to dissipate before spawning another if those tiny, cobalt blue spheres. It crackled against the Aphelion’s hull and then surged forward, tracking slowly along the forking metal rod’s length.

  The crew worked away at their stations, marking the counter, watching it slowly count down. Hands froze as the next silver-blue sphere wobbled away from Parallax’s nose. It carved its way through the DSR fleet, forcing the enemy ships to haul over to clear a path for the orb to follow. Some failed to move quickly enough and got side-swiped, or hit directly. Two Sunstorms accidentally blocked in a Scimitar named Runabout, shoving him directly into the forced ion orb’s path. The orb slammed into him, entering port side aft and exiting Runabout’s starboard side bow, coring the vessel neatly, leaving him a shredded hulk. Two more DSR ships took glancing blows that peeled hull panels away, exposing the metal composite frameworks beneath. Two more had guns sheered away, comms towers melted, and then the energy orb pushed through and shot out into the open space between the DSR fleet and the Meridian Alliance.

  “Look at it,” Kusikov breathed, staring wide-eyed at Number Four’s feed. The orb picked up speed, continuing to expand as it streaked toward the Meridian Alliance ships. “It’s huge.”

  And growing by the second, tendrils of cobalt fire sparking wildly as the globe reached a size nearly as wide as Parallax itself. All that mass, all that forced ion energy headed straight for the fleet, and Brutus looming at its center, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

  Serengeti sent a warning to Brutus—wonder of wonders, he actually acknowledged her this time and passed a sub-space transmission to the other AIs—but the fleet kept going, not a single ship slowing or straying off line. She added the orb’s path to her schematic, running a projection of when and where it would intercept the fleet before calculating probable damages.

  It was going to be bad. Very bad.

  She sent the calculations to Brutus and waited an eternity for his answer.

  Acceptable, he sent back—cold, chilling answer, and so very, very AI.

  Serengeti saw nothing at all acceptable in a dozen ships lost simply because their pig-headed leader simply refused to move. Break formation, she sent, but Brutus ignored her this time. She repeated the message with no better result.

  Damn you, Brutus.

  She reached out to the Valkyries directly, bypassing the Bastion to relay her message to the smaller ships, sending her schematic with it, and the estimate of damages. Serengeti’s calculations showed a dozen ships lost, but Atacama ran the same scenario and doubled that figure. Then again, Atacama always had been a pessimist…

  We should get out here, Seychelles sent back. Jump away and regroup to put ourselves in a better tactical position.

  Serengeti whole-heartedly agreed. This was all going wrong—very, very wrong—but Brutus wouldn’t retreat. She knew that without asking. Brutus wouldn’t even break formation much less jump away.

  Messages flew back and forth as the fleet advanced, ships querying Brutus, questioning his orders. Querying Serengeti when Brutus wouldn’t answer, wanting her to speak for them.

  I tried, she told them. I tried and failed. Brutus isn’t listening.

  “Shit.” Henricksen balled up his fist and pounded the panel in front of him. “Shit. Shit. Shit. He doesn’t see it. Bastard honestly doesn’t see it.” He studied the schematic in front of him, eyes flicking across the data screens on the front windows. “We can’t do this,” he said, raising his eyes, looking directly at the camera. “I can’t let this happen.”

  “Henricksen. You can’t—”

  “Watch me.” Henricksen turned away from
the camera and shouted at Comms. “Kusikov! Contact Brutus and tell him—”

  “Brutus is aware,” Serengeti cut in. “He’s notified the fleet.”

  “Notified,” Henricksen repeated. “Fat lotta good that’s gonna do ‘em. That sphere out there is gonna carve a trench through the forward vessels but they won’t goddamn move unless he orders them to break formation and get the hell outta the way!”

  She tried again—for Henricksen’s sake—knowing it a waste of time. Brutus was as obstinate as ever and refused to respond until the other Valkyries added their voices. Then and only then did he deem it worth his while to make concessions.

  “Brutus advises we maintain course and adjust speed to match his. He’s ordered the ships in the orb’s path to take evasive maneuvers.”

  “Well halle-fucking-lujah.”

  For someone who didn’t swear much, Henricksen certainly was having a field day with the curses lately.

  The fleet’s schematic changed as the ships at the front of the spearhead shifted about. The wedge shape cracked in half, vessels shucking to either side, and Brutus himself slowed a bit to accommodate their maneuvers.

  Serengeti adjusted her calculations, re-plotting the orb’s projected path, which now showed it skimming just in front of Brutus and tracking closer to where Serengeti cruised on the armada’s starboard side.

  Not the best result, but she thought they’d all make it. That is, until the orb unexpectedly accelerated, blowing all her calculations to hell.

  Henricksen leaned forward, frowning at the schematic on the front window. “Shit. What’s it doing?”

  “Accelerating. Speed’s jumping at random.”

  Serengeti ran more calculations, adjusting her projections again and again, and soon realized Gorgon and the twenty or so small ships protecting Brutus’s port aft side would never survive its impact. She messaged Brutus, relaying the same message to the ships in peril without asking his permission.

  The little Titans and Auroras jogged desperately about as Gorgon’s Dreadnought bulk began a slow turn. But Serengeti’s schematic kept changing, the orb’s path shifting faster than the ship’s themselves could move, and she quickly realized it was all too late. Much, much too late.

  “Brace! Brace! Brace!” she sent, fleet-wide comms thrown wide.

  Seychelles hauled over, sides crackling with electricity as the Aphelion’s orb slipped by. Antigone slowed behind her while Sechura put on a burst of speed. That put the three port-side Valkyries safely out of harm’s way. The Aphelion’s orb glided serenely past them and wobbled through the first couple of layers of smaller ships before slamming into Libertine—a Titan three rows in.

  Libertine disintegrated, composite metal shredded, bits and pieces spraying everywhere, peppering the vessels around him with high-velocity debris. The orb kept going and took out Gorgon, sheering the Dreadnought in half. He held on for a few seconds, innards showing grotesquely, flash-fires as his two halves drifted apart, and then the explosions began, rippling up and down his hull.

  Gorgon died slowly, ripped apart from the inside out, and still the Aphelion’s orb kept going, kept killing, punching its way through ten more ships before the sphere’s energy finally dissipated and it fizzled and winked out.

  Twelve ships, Serengeti thought dully, watching a last bright spot of cobalt fire flicker and die. My calculations were right.

  “Fuck-fuck-fuck!” Henricksen slammed both hands against the panel in front of him, screaming in pure rage. “Brutus,” he yelled, opening ship-to-ship comms. “What the hell—”

  “Proximity alert.” Serengeti flashed a warning as she reached for Finlay’s station, toggling the display to the expanse of empty space behind them.

  “Captain!” Finlay called. “Buckle forming!”

  “Where, goddammit? Where?”

  “Aft. Two hundred kilometers.”

  “Two hundred kilometers. That’s within firing range.” Henricksen swore softly. “How many?” he asked, staring at the back of Finlay’s head.

  “Just the one, sir. I think,” she added.

  “Think? I need a whole lot better than that, Finlay. Is it one or not?”

  “It’s—I’m not—Serengeti?” Finlay raised her head and stared pleadingly into the camera in front of her, gesturing helplessly at Scan’s display.

  Unfortunately, Serengeti didn’t have an answer for her. The data her scans collected was…odd, to say the least. Anomalous. Confusing. Nothing at all like the jump signatures she was used to seeing. “There’s a single buckle forming, but it’s…unstable,” Serengeti said.

  Not quite the right word, but the best she could come up with to describe her scans readings. Breaches varied depending on the size of the ship transiting through—the larger the ship, the larger the breach, and the more energy that passed through with it. That breach out there…well, based on the readings Serengeti was getting, a small moon was about to come through that buckle.

  Can’t be, she thought, combing through the data, trying to make sense of it. Nothing’s that large. Not even Cerberus.

  A sub-mind sent a warning as tracer fire tracked through space, intercepting Serengeti’s path. Her body shook violently, rail gun fire rattling along one side as bright red flashes appeared ahead of them—Trinidad’s big gun firing, pounding away at the armada’s leading edge. The two fleets were just a hundred kilometers apart now, and pounding away at each other, filling the dark vacuum of space with broken hulls and clouds of composite metal particles. The Heliotrope took out three more ships in as many seconds, hulls dissolving beneath the Trinidad’s chemical fire. Brutus fired back, lobbing plasma rounds into the DSR fleet that tore ships apart, igniting the oxygen and ammunitions stores inside them, creating explosions that flared like short-lived fireworks before the DSR ships died.

  Serengeti focused the bulk of her consciousness on the conflict ahead of her, using the electronic eyes built into her hull and the four small cameras mounted on the Number Four probe to view the battle from multiple angles. But she kept one eye trained on the emptiness behind her, detailing a sub-mind to watch the buckle, and analyze the data coming through as the breach slowly formed. That sub-mind pinged, wanting her attention, but another anomaly appeared—a single DSR ship, that blocky, ancient Golem drifting away from the rest of the fleet—and she waved the sub-mind off while she took a moment to investigate.

  The Golem drifted further off line, completely detaching itself from the DSR’s main force to follow a wide, arcing course that brought it into a flanking position off the Meridian Alliance’s starboard side.

  What’s it doing? Serengeti wondered, not liking this change. Not liking anything about this pitched battle Brutus had drawn them into.

  She calculated the trajectory of the Golem’s new path and realized it would take it straight to Marianas. Worrisome, unsettling enough that she sent a warning to her sister ship, and yet, strangely, the Golem’s guns were silent—had been since the entire time, not a shot fired since the ship first appeared. Were it not for the repeating strings of data, and the energy signature of its engines, she’d have thought the Golem derelict—dead and drifting on momentum alone.

  Probably malfunctioned, Serengeti thought.

  But somehow that didn’t feel right. She poured through the Golem’s broken data stream looking for something to validate the disquiet she felt, but there was nothing. Nothing incriminating anyway. No smoking gun. Just that silent, cruising Golem making its wayward course.

  I still don’t like it.

  She almost said something to Henricksen, but he had enough to deal with right now. Serengeti considered a moment and then set a sub-mind to watching the Golem, and sent a message to Marianas asking her to do the same so they could keep tabs on the ancient vessel together.

  Two Valkyries with powerful AI minds—surely that was enough.

  Serengeti pondered the Golem and the buckle forming behind them, flicked her main consciousness back to the battle raging ahead of her,
and just as quickly turned her eyes aft as yet more bad news arrived.

  A new buckle appeared, sucking inward, condensed darkness swirling at its center, and then boiling outward as the jump breach finally formed.

  “Multiple contacts. Aft. Two hundred meters.” Serengeti added a second schematic to the front windows. The diagram lit up like a Christmas tree—dozens of ships’ signatures appearing as the DSR’s missing vessels poured through.

  SEVEN

  Klaxons blared all over the ship. Henricksen opened ship-wide comms, warning the crew of the new arrivals, ordering aft batteries to commence firing as the vessels around them did the same. Plasma fire lit up the stars outside, the Meridian Alliance fleet splitting its firing, pouring out rounds at the DSR ships ahead, and the reinforcements moving in behind them.

  “Finlay! Where the hell did those bastards come from?” Henricksen demanded. “Why didn’t our scans pick them up?”

  Finlay was busy trying to make sense of all the new ships’ signatures and didn’t hear him, so Serengeti stepped in to help her out. “Mass jump,” she offered.

  Had to be. Only explanation she could think of that made any sense.

  “Those crazy-ass bastards,” Kusikov breathed.

  “Tricky maneuver.” Henricksen looking grudgingly impressed.

  Mass jump required a group of vessels to cluster together, tight enough that the spheres from their jump drives overlapped, creating an oversized singularity that sucked all the ships through at once. As a military tactic, it was brilliant: The ships on the far side of the buckle had no way of knowing what size force was coming until the breach resolved and the vessels transited through.

  It was also incredibly stupid—less than a fifty-fifty chance the maneuver would work at all, and when mass jump went bad, it went very, very bad. As in entire fleets wiped out. Nothing but twisted metal bits coming out the other side. A rough ride, to say the least, and not the way Serengeti would choose to travel. Not the way any sane AI would choose to transit hyperspace.