Synthesis - James Swallow [139]
“There are other files.” White-Blue dove deeper into the supercompacted data stream, drawing out more material. “Zero-Three’s own research into the Null phenomena.” Doubt crept into the machine’s tone. “There is substantial corruption, however.”
“Commander Tuvok said that Zero-Three attempted to enter an active subspace rift during a Null incursion.” The avatar stood, watching Melora closely. “The systems corruption was a result of that attempt.”
“But it was another failure,” White-Blue replied. “More errors are not of assistance to us.”
Melora shook her head. “No, you’re wrong there. I had a lecturer back in Starfleet Academy who once told me, ‘There’s no such thing as a failure, there’s just more data.’ We read this, we’ll know what not to do. Zero-Three was trying to find a way to reverse the subspace thinning, to block the Null’s path into our dimension. We just have to succeed where a computer the size of a small moon didn’t.”
“I am parsing the data now,” said the avatar, her expression tensing. “Working… Working… It is quite problematic. There are gaps.”
“We cannot afford to fail again, Melora-Pazlar,” insisted White-Blue. “No one will survive to learn from our mistakes.”
The Elaysian looked away and saw the captain leaning forward to give an order. “We’re heading in,” Melora heard Riker say. “Steady as she goes.”
• • •
Titan’s disc-shaped primary hull dipped low and then rose, as if it were buoyed on a wave. The deflectors flickered and flared, where tiny pieces of drifting protomatter broken off from the larger masses were caught in the shield corona and flashed into their component particles.
A flight of Sentry craft dropped into formation around the Starfleet vessel, the AI shipframes moving as they reconfigured themselves to cover battle damage or to enable a more combat-oriented profile. Off the starboard beam, Cyan-Gray rotated and presented a long, missilelike aspect. The last time the craft had shown this face to Titan, they had been firing on each other. Above and to the port side, Red-Gold brought its shipframe in fast and deadly. In its current mode, the craft resembled an arrowhead of mirror-bright metals, trailing rods of sensory equipment. Other vessels moved into echelon ranks, their remote drones held close. Signals flashed back and forth over the muon links, questions and concerns. Why were the organics here? Had the coup failed? Why had the Null come in such force?
Red-Gold smothered all of the signals with a broad-spectrum pulse that echoed like a shout through the shared dataspace of the AIs.
“We fight together, FirstGen and SecondGen, Sentry and organic, because we have no choice. We fight to gain the right to choose.”
No other voices were raised.
Ahead of the fleet elements, the debris-choked battle-field of orbital space around the Demon planet opened up to present an arena of sorts. Below, great pieces of devastated FirstGens were caught in drifts, falling slowly into the gravity well of the hellish world. Above, the remains of a wing of close-contact SecondGens were a slick of nuclear fire and wreckage. Ropes of sinuous protomatter darted back and forth, burrowing through the dead metal and warping its structure, the tips of Null tendrils extending through into reality from the depths of subspace. Particle by particle, the broken craft were altered, common matter destabilizing into something the Null could make part of itself.
All of this restricted the fighting room for the Titan and the defenders. At Aili Lavena’s skilled touch, the Lunaclass starship broke formation as the first knots of larger Null mass went for the fleet. Phaser bolts raked target after target, each blast of power striking home, blasting apart conglomerations or staggering them.
Cyan-Gray threw sheets of antiproton energy up in a wall, coming on lengthways to scour the space in front of it. Herded into the AI’s fire zone by the Titan, the already weakened Null forms crumbled and flashed into nothing.
Ahead, turning in the middle of the debris field, a vast and