Synthesis - James Swallow [137]
Cyan-Gray allowed the pivoting motion to become an extended turn, reconfiguring the structure of its shipframe to present the maximum surface area to the intruder form. Crackling points of green light collected across the hull, and high-yield antiproton beams issued forth, shearing through the protomatter.
Mass became energy in boiling churns of phase change, spilling waves of heat and radiation in its wake. The Null form accepted the attack and cut itself in two, the clumps breaking away from each other. Cyan-Gray made a fast calculation and harried the larger of the two, firing again and again, until at last the severed chunk of metamaterial began to vaporize. It was a debatable, tiny victory amid a cluttered battle zone, barely worth noting. It seemed that for each mass dispersed, another took its place, twice as dense as before.
Alert signals and distress calls clogged the lines of the communications network, as remotes and minds were torn apart—or, worse, hobbled by near hits and left to be consumed by the encroaching floods of cancerous protomatter. The Sentry came about in time to see the twin-ring shipframe of Green-Green bitten in half as a Null resembling a vast beak closed over it, drawing in the vessel to devour it.
Probability subroutines chattered for the AI’s attention. Combat predictions and battle plans filled Cyan-Gray’s thought buffer, and each of them ended with destruction. The only variable was the length of survival time between this moment and the inevitable endpoint of the Sentry’s existence. Briefly, Cyan-Gray entertained the idea of beaming a cache of memory to one of the outer drone platforms, sending some element of itself to safety before the Null found and destroyed it.
“But there is no safe place here, not anymore.”
The impact of that understanding sent a shock of synthetic emotion through Cyan-Gray’s persona circuits. Death, a real death with no chance of reconstruction, loomed large. In the past, Sentries on the verge of systems failure, those close enough to home to make a real-time link, could upload their memory base to the common knowledge pool in those final nanoseconds. While the nature of the individual mind could never be replicated, it was a way to ensure that nothing was ever forgotten.
“Even that is denied us now,” Cyan-Gray realized. “This is the last day. We will cease here.”
Sensors reacted. A spinning Null form, a whorled conical shape like the bit of a drill, vectored in toward the Sentry, ignoring other targets to home straight in on the cylindrical craft. Stabs of antiproton power rose to meet it, but the last broadside had drained reserves, and the recharge cycle was incomplete.
“Power levels deficient. Termination imminent. End of line.”
The other ship came from nowhere. Impulse grids blazing orange, the Starfleet vessel powered in over the nearby wreckage of the shattered spacedock, a fan of phaser energy lashing out to bracket the Null form. The protomatter rippled under the force of the attack; it unfolded and began to lose structure. From Titan’s forward torpedo launcher, a sparking globe of light shot away, streaking in as the ship veered clear. Cyan-Gray poured what limited power it had to deflectors just as the photon warhead hit the mark. The blast shredded the protomatter mass, and it came apart.
The Sentry experienced a relief state and registered an uptick in its survival-probability calculations.
Titan’s bridge was crowded but never chaotic. Riker’s people were too well-trained for that, and not for the first time, the captain felt a surge of pride as his crew faced danger without hesitation.
“Target dissipating,” reported Tuvok from the tactical post, having firmly rejected any suggestion that he should visit sickbay after his ordeal on the surface of the machine moon. Keru stood nearby,