Synthesis - James Swallow [141]
“There it is,” breathed Keru, staring at the screen. “Damn, what a monster.”
And it was. Open like a vast, malignant eye, the mass at the heart of the Null agglomeration resembled a clenched fist of diseased flesh and rusted metals, an oblate form radiating lethality as much as it did hot streaks of energetic discharge. Towering spines that shifted from smoke to glass and back again emerged from every meter of the surface, while other trembling feelers, as thick as Titan was broad, dipped into the wounds of spatial rifts, drawing power from subspace. It was a vast parasite, feeding on the flesh of a universe it had infected.
“Range!” shouted Lavena.
Riker gave the command immediately. “Fire.”
Tuvok tapped at a control, and Vale could swear she felt the ship rock slightly as the lethal tricobalt-tipped torpedoes rocketed from the starship. In seconds, the firing carousels had been emptied, and the warheads spiraled in, seeking the densest part of the protomatter mass.
“All weapons away and running,” Vale reported. “Safe range exceeded. Impact imminent.”
“All power to impulse drives and shields.” The captain called out his orders. “Get us clear.”
Titan turned sharply, gravity pulling at Vale’s legs as the deck inclined again, but Lieutenant Rager held the main screen’s angle of view squarely on the target.
She watched as a club-ended tendril extended in a violent burst of motion, whipping around to bat at one of the racing warheads. The weapon spun off-course and tumbled away, falling toward the planet far below them. The other torpedoes closed in, and from the writhing surface of the mass came a sudden tide of ejecta. Pods of protomatter rose to meet the weapons, globes of shimmering mass ballooning, opening to shroud the devices before they could reach their point of impact.
“No.” The word slipped from Vale in a tight snarl.
In a series of searing-bright flashes, the tricobalt weapons were crushed and detonated, instantly becoming tiny suns. Lines of spatial scission webbed the void around them, and new microrifts crackled into life where each had discharged.
The first officer felt the failure like a fist in the gut. She shot a look at Tuvok, and the Vulcan gave a dispassionate report.
“One weapon lost, all other detonations confirmed. Target effect… negligible.”
“Why didn’t it work this time?” snapped Keru. “How did that thing brush it off like a slap on the cheek?”
“We suspected that the Null is quasi-intelligent,” offered Ra-Havreii. “Perhaps it’s smart enough not to fall for the same trick twice.”
Melora was shaking her head. “I was afraid of this. It’s the density factor. The last Null mass we attacked couldn’t replenish itself fast enough to resist the force of the tricobalt blasts. This one…” She gestured toward the screen. “It’s bringing more protomatter through those spatial rifts. We could bombard it for hours, and it would keep regenerating itself.”
“Because it’s not all here,” said Troi. “It doesn’t exist fully in our space.”
White-Blue’s sensor head bobbed. “Affirmative. The other Null incursions were small parts of a greater whole. They were only connected to their home dimension by the most tenuous of links. This hyperincursion has enough mass to hold open the rifts. It’s drawing on the power of an entire subspace domain.”
“Helm, back us off.” The captain got to his feet, riding out the tremors as more Null forms lashed after the Titan, trying to snare it. “Melora? Xin? Now’s the time to dazzle me with some of that genius of yours, because the only way I know how to make a bigger boom is to throw this starship down that thing’s throat.”
Melora inhaled deeply, and it felt as if the life drained out of her. The heavy material of the g-suit around her body suddenly seemed more restrictive than it had ever been before, stiffening and tightening until she could hardly breathe. The tension of the