Synthesis - James Swallow [145]
He began the sequence, and the autoscanners registered the hologram’s dispersal. On the monitor, the chaos of the particle stream became ordered and regular.
• • •
One-Five’s stentorian comm signature resonated over the web of the muon links. “All active mobiles are advised to retreat to the inner orbital perimeter and regroup at staging areas designated on local scan.”
Cyan-Gray extracted itself from an engagement that cost it the last of its remaining remotes and fell away, discharging antiproton bursts as it went. In a nanosecond, the Sentry checked and evaluated the locations of every other shipframe and machine moon. The larger FirstGens were forming up into tight defensive clusters, grouping around those armed with axis cannons. The number of Second-Gen vessels was lower than Cyan-Gray had estimated, by a large margin. The final battle was ending too fast, the brazen futility of it clear and damning there in the figures.
The Sentry sent a query. “Interrogative: Specify purpose for regrouping.”
The reply was immediate. “Consolidation of forces. A combined attack has a greater potentiality for success than individual effort.”
Cyan-Gray’s doubt must have been expressed so strongly by its emulators that it bled into the muon link, and in return, One-Five gave a gruff pulse of determination.
“We must fulfill the directive,” said the FirstGen. “We have no other course of action. Red-Gold’s erroneous and misguided attempt to control the course of our society was only a distraction from our duty. In unity, we must proceed. We will proceed.”
“We could disengage,” Cyan-Gray suggested. “Quit this system and relocate to a secondary locale. Rearm and formulate a new strategy.” Even as the signal left the AI’s processor, a bolt of mental inertia and revulsion analog washed through the Sentry’s mind, as if the very idea of such a thing were against reason. It was the core program making itself known, forbidding the chance to fall away from the fight.
One-Five underlined the hard truth. “That cannot be done. The destruction of Zero-Three calls into doubt any further use of slip-shear travel. The Null has full control of the subspace domain in this sector.”
A sudden surge of annoyance and frustration welled up deep inside the nexus core of the shipframe, expressing itself in blasts of antiproton energy directed at any Null forms in range. “Then we will be destroyed here!” retorted Cyan-Gray. “Destroyed and consumed!”
The ancient FirstGen ignored the comment. “Interrogative: Where is the organic vessel?”
“Identifier: Titan withdrew from combat radius after failed attempt to deploy exotic weapons against the Null.” Cyan-Gray paused as new data came to it. “Correction. Organic vessel now on intercept vector toward core Null mass.”
“They have no reason to remain.”
Cyan-Gray turned a cluster of sensors toward the giant, pulsing heart of the Null incursion; the alien form was extruding tendrils toward the surface of the planet. At the extreme edge of the Sentry’s sensor envelope, it detected the tips of the mammoth cilia plunging into the turbulent crimson atmosphere, igniting storm cells and dredging through the thermionic radiation layers. It was preparing to consume the planet.
“There.” The sensor cluster picked out a flash of white metal and impulse exhaust, as the Starfleet vessel swept around a clump of compacted debris. “White-Blue and the organics go to face the Null. They have no reason to remain, but they chose to.”
“White-Blue’s function is in error state. The organics also. They will perish.”
“If they do,” Cyan-Gray transmitted angrily, “then we will join them soon after. All of us.”
For the second time, the Starship Titan ran the gauntlet of the Null.
A fleet of morningstars awaited them, roughhewn spheres that might have been made of marble, each wreathed in a nightmarish orchard of glass spines. The spiked globes tumbled through the darkness, spilling slicks of eichner radiation behind them in hazy contrails, crashing off one