Synthesis - James Swallow [146]
An invader breaching the castle walls, the Titan punched through the hole it had made in the outer line of defense and came in at maximum impulse, every weapon blazing, plunging straight at the core.
Serpent forms attacked and were beaten away, beam fire converging and slamming the protomatter constructs away, disintegrating them into free particles. They would regroup and coalesce but not soon enough to catch the racing starship. More torpedoes—conventional photon loads—dropped unpowered from the rear launcher bay, before suddenly jetting away in random directions, smart seeker software in their warheads locking onto the nearest target mass and assailing it. Hastily reprogrammed probes, usually configured for deep-space reconnaissance, were ejected and took up flight paths that veered wildly away; they began to scream out across every transmission band, projecting the illusion of another Lunaclass starship. Blind, hungry Null swarmed after them, fooled by their energy scent.
Titan crossed the inner bulwarks of the core, threading through the swift and deadly cords reaching out from the main mass. By now, it was the size of a large planetoid, the subspace shadow it generated causing tidal shocks across the nearby Demon-class world. The core sat amid an aurora of spatial distortions; it was a dark, ugly jewel set into a rip through space-time.
A wall of coruscating protomatter filled the viewscreen, and from it poured a rage of radiation and more of the interceptor pods that had swallowed the tricobalt weapons with such ease.
“Where’s the strongest locus of subspace bleed-through?” Riker said carefully.
Deanna watched him, strength and confidence in every word he said. But inside he’s furious. Angry at what he is being forced to allow.
“Scanning…” Melora leaned over a secondary station and stifled a cough from a wisp of smoke still present after the science-console blowout. She was in pain, her g-suit malfunctioning, but the Elaysian was forcing it away, her focus on the job at hand. “Got it. Azimuth Nine, Vector Two.”
“Helm, put the bow on that heading.”
Aili Lavena nodded. “Aye, sir, coming to Vector Two.” The ship rumbled as it bounced through a zone of ionic turbulence, but the Pacifican rode it as if she were skimming wave tops in a speeder.
A chime turned Deanna’s head to her seat-arm console. Torvig. “Ensign, this is the bridge. Report.”
The Choblik’s head was visible only to her, his face appearing on the small screen as his voice issued from the intercom speakers. “Bridge, this is engineering. The main deflector is… that is to say…” He blinked quickly, and the counselor felt a pang of sympathetic emotion for the young officer. Torvig stiffened, putting a brave face on it. “The encoding is complete. She’s ready.”
“Null forms are approaching at high velocity from the aft port quarter,” Tuvok reported. “It would appear the decoys have reached the end of their usefulness.”
White-Blue bobbed in the gesture that seemed to approximate a nod. “Expected. If this is to be done, it must be now, William-Riker.”
Will didn’t appear to hear the Sentry. “Conn, distance to rift?”
“Nine hundred fifty kilometers and falling.” Rager didn’t look back, her gaze fixed on the main screen.
“Captain…” Xin Ra-Havreii had become muted after his impassioned outburst only moments before. The Efrosian threw a look at Deanna, then at Christine Vale.
Will looked down at the deck and nodded to himself. “Transmit.”
The pulse grew from the pale blue glow of the starship’s deflector oval, gathering there for a brief instant in a collection of lightning and flickering mists. Then the dart of energy threw itself forward from the Titan, surging away on a column of light into the halo of the spatial rift. One of many dozens scattered around the orbital zone like random