Synthesis - James Swallow [89]
At both points of impact, the protomatter sheath there had not been rigidized, and the missiles penetrated for several meters before a reflex reaction turned the mass around them into something resembling iron. In response, the weapons detonated.
The tricobalt reaction was immediate and devastating. Twin pockets of unstable spatial energy expanded, eating into the core of the Null. As a form already existing on the tenuous edge of dimensional interphase, the blasts were enough to unravel the threads holding it in place.
With a discharge of luminosity that burned across the sky of the ice world, turning night into brief day, the Null came apart and collapsed in on itself. Structures never meant to exist outside subspace realms were torn and flung screaming back into the dimensional void that had birthed them.
All that remained were the ashes and the destruction.
TEN
Deanna felt the surge of emotion wash across the bridge crew like a chill tide, and in the wake, she had to pause for a moment to bolster her empathic barriers to avoid being distracted by it. She had felt the same ebb and flow of contradictory emotions many times, having faced danger alongside her comrades on several occasions. Each time, when the threat was gone, when the enemy had been defeated, there was the rise of elation, the pure thrill of being alive, of surviving, and then, almost in the same instant, the shocking, giddy fear, the realization of how close they had come to death.
On the main viewscreen, the cloud of sparkling luminosity left behind by the Null’s obliteration faded away into nothing, weak binary starlight catching the drifts of wreckage cast all around the ice world’s orbital space.
“D-did we destroy it?” Peya Fell’s soft voice ended the moment of silence on the Titan’s bridge. “Is it gone?”
“I’m not certain,” said Melora. “There’s no extant mass out there, just particle traces from subspace interaction events. No… remains.”
“Our cognitive-process groups theorize that the Null cannot be destroyed in any literal sense,” announced White-Blue, shifting in place. “It can only be dispatched by overloading its phase state with energy discharges, thereby forcing it to return to its point of origin.”
Deanna’s husband shot the machine a hard look. “Which would be where?”
“Unknown,” replied the AI. “Conjecture: a deep realm of subspace beyond the quantum range of our dimensional membrane.”
For a moment, Deanna found herself thinking of the Betazoid myths she had heard as a child, of great monsters that could never be defeated, only banished back into the darkness that had spawned them. She frowned at the thought, as Christine Vale leaned forward in her chair.
“Tasanee,” she said, brushing hair from her eyes, “what’s our status?”
The engineer looked up from her console. “Damage to the outer hull in sections forty-two and eighteen. It looks like we popped some of the new welds in the nacelles, but no significant damage registered.” Ensign Panyarachun blew out a breath. “The shields and fields held, Commander.”
Standing nearby, her oddly angelic clothing draped limply about her, the avatar nodded to herself. “I was able to modify the deflector flux in real time to resist the final bloom of radiation from the dispersal of the Null mass.” The hologram spoke quietly, and she did not meet the eyes of anyone on the bridge. No one responded to her words.
“Good shooting, Ranul,” said Will. “Have the torpedo crew modify the remainder of the tricobalt warheads with uprated weapon platforms. We might need to deploy them again in a hurry.”
“Way ahead of you, Captain,” said the Trill.
“Can we fabricate more?” said Vale.
Keru’s lips curled. “Normally, I’d say yes, but with all the repairs under way—”
“We may not have the material to spare,” concluded the first officer.
Deanna sensed the tension in her husband as he crossed the bridge toward the conn and ops stations.