Zero-Three clicked. “I have examined, understood, seen your information-storage media. Clever. Innovative. A new datum has been imposed for your review. Take. Take it.”
The remote extended its limb and dropped its tiny burden into Sethe’s hands. It was part of the tricorder, specifically the unit’s memory module.
“What data?” Tuvok looked up at the brass cog as the platform rumbled to a halt, just short of the lip of the vent shaft.
The shimmering wave effect of the shear slip dissipated, and the black sky returned, but this time, there were darting shapes all around and close by the baleful crimson orb of the Demon-class world.
With effort, Dakal was pointing at one of the vessels. “I think I see the Titan,” he muttered.
Zero-Three continued. “The streams of knowledge are split and broken broken broken, but this is all I have to offer from my quest against the Null. It may have value to you, organic.”
“Thank you. But now, can you help us contact our ship?”
“My communication system was cut from me on exile. But I will enable you to make your own voices heard. And listen…”
Pava glanced at her tricorder. “The interference levels are dropping.”
Dakal was still pointing into the sky, using his uninjured limb. “What—what is that?” The question was breathy and flat. “The lights?”
Tuvok looked up. Curious. The ensign was indicating an unusual sparkling nimbus drifting just beyond the perimeter of the fading shear effect.
The cog cranked around and clattered angrily. “Negative,” said Zero-Three, the machine-mind’s voice hissing and heavy with feedback. “Negative. Negative negative negative negative too soon too soon too soon too soon too soon too soon too soon—”
Something formless and burning bright punched out through the luminal edge of the radiant haze and came streaming down toward them, fat sparks ejecting from the length of it as it fell.
“Take cover!” Tuvok bellowed, shoving Sethe into the lee of the console.
The long, ropy spear of Null matter slammed into the surface of FirstGen Zero-Three and ripped it open, the tortured shriek of rent metal resonating through the whisperthin air.
• • •
“Multiple spatial rifts forming, all around us!” Lavena called out from the conn.
“Null matter incursions everywhere.” Melora’s face was set hard. “Ranul, this is it. The big one. Readings are topping off the scale!”
Kuu’iut read off his own report. “The Sentry ships are breaking formation, trying to get some distance. Confirming science officer’s scans, we have unidentified protomatter structures forming in all quadrants.” The Betelgeusian hesitated. “Ready to load tricobalt weapons on your command, sir.”
The security officer didn’t answer the implied question. “Aili, keep us clear of those rifts. Try to get out of range.” Keru took a step toward her.
“I’m working on it, but there’s a swarm of them out there!” On the main screen, lashes of magma-hot exotic matter spun and flashed. As the Trill watched, a pair of glowing rods bored in and lanced through the hull of a disc-shaped Sentry shipframe, shredding it and moving on.
An indicator flickered on Rager’s console. “What?” She blinked. “Right now?” The lieutenant looked over her shoulder. “We’re being hailed. Starfleet communications protocols.”
In among all of the shock and horror, Keru felt a brief moment of relief. “Commander Tuvok?”
“Can’t be sure, it’s just a carrier-wave signal from the surface of the moon thing.”
“Scanning,” said Melora. “Triangulating. I read four life signs, but the signals are weak.”
“It’s got to be the Holiday crew. Pipe it down to Radowski. Tell him to reel them in while we still have a chance!”
• • •
The iron decking beneath Zurin’s boots twisted and fell away as he threw himself forward, propelled toward the others by Pava’s firm hand at his back. Fire and destruction seemed to wreath the entire sky above them, with great ragged gaps in the blackness yawning wide to spew streams of blazing alien energy. Heat washed over and beat the Cardassian down—not the pleasing, tingling warmth he enjoyed but a burning brutal fist that forced stress-tainted air from his lungs. Pain filled every corner of him, and it was a monumental effort just to rise a little, using his good arm to lift himself. Once again, Pava was there, her pale blue face tight with emotion behind the cracked mask of her faceplate.
Odd, he thought. I never really considered how attractive she is until now. Isn’t that strange? Zurin shook his head and blinked. “Focus, Dakal,” he mumbled.
A few steps away, Commander Tuvok held on to the shuddering interface console, as if it were the only safe purchase on the entire planetoid. “Zero-Three,” he called. “You must withdraw. The Null effect is converging—”
A new whipcord strike flayed steel and brass from the machine moon, the concussion knocking all of them to the ground. Huge chunks of metal were instantly denatured and transformed into seething plasmatic superfluids.
“Error. Error. Error.” The Sentry was roaring, the cog wheel screeching where it spun into a blur. “Should have remained. Exiled. Mute and forgotten. I came back and brought it with me. It followed me. I opened the door!”
“No!” Tuvok shouted, but flares of detonation and secondary discharges deep in the vent shaft smothered his voice.
“Doomed doomed doomed. I saw it I brought it I perish for it.”
Red light spilled over the group, and, as one, they looked up to see the fast-growing bulk of the Demon planet moving to fill the sky. The burning flashes of Null matter licked at the surface of the construct one more time, before retreating away to find new targets.
“We’re entering the gravity well!” said Sethe.
Tuvok stood, staring the hellish world in the face. “It would seem so,” he replied.
Radowski winced as the data feed from the bridge unspooled across the transporter control console in front of him. Troi saw the instant tension in the lieutenant’s arms and fingers, the tightening of the lines of his face.
“Can you bring them back?” said Riker, for a moment turning away from the Sentry drones.
“I’ll try,” Radowski replied, nodding to himself, attacking the controls with a sudden burst of motion, reconfiguring the confinement-beam protocols and pattern-buffer settings on the fly. “I’ll have to use a skeletal lock.”
“Transferring most recent biometric data from sickbay database to your console,” said the avatar immediately. “Updating target parameters.”
“Thanks, that’ll help.” The lieutenant blinked and used the sensors to push through the soup of interference, to seek out traces of bone matter particular to Vulcan, Cardassian, Cygnian, and Andorian humanoids. “Partial locks on all targets. That’s as good as it’s going to get.”
Riker nodded to Troi and gave Radowski a look. “Bring them home, Bowan.”
“Here we go,” he said. “I’ll use the cargo-transport pad here. The broad-spectrum catchment array has a better chance of getting them all in one shot. Energizing… now.”
The avatar’s gaze turned inward for a second. “Crosscircuiting. Boosting matter gain.”
“I’ve got disruption patterns on one target!” snapped the lieutenant. “It’s Dakal! Trying to compensate.” Radowski’s fingers flew across the panel.
“I can divert the ensign directly to sickbay,” noted the hologram.
Troi didn’t wait for the captain’s approval. “Go ahead. If he’s hurt, every second is crucial.”
“Working…”
Radowski sucked in a breath and drew down the control slides. “Initiating rematerialization.”
Three shapes hazed into being on the hexagonal pad of the cargo transporter, by heartbeats shifting from undefined specters to humanoid forms and then recognizable figures in Starfleet EVA suits.
Troi dashed over to the pad, Vale moving with her, as the beaming process complet
ed and the survivors of the Shuttlecraft Holiday stumbled and collapsed with the shock of the transition.
Vale caught Tuvok as the Vulcan lurched. “Easy, Commander.”
Pava twisted off her helmet and tossed it away. “Bah,” she gasped. “I never want to go through that again.”
Sethe gulped in air as he doffed his headgear, glancing around with surprise. “Zurin! Where’s Zurin?”
“Safe,” said Riker, pausing to look at the hologram. “Right?”
The avatar nodded. “Yes. I did my best to filter out the pattern distortion before he rematerialized. Doctor Ree is seeing to him as we speak.”
“This matter-transport technology of yours is remarkable.” Red-Gold drifted toward the pad.
“Work with us, and we may consider sharing it with you.” Riker deliberately stepped into the path of the drone.
Nearby, Tuvok waved away an offer of assistance and approached his commanding officer. “Captain, the Null—”
“Is here, yes. And if Melora is right, the incursion will split this star system in two… for starters.”
The Vulcan nodded. “The FirstGen Zero-Three concurred with that hypothesis.”
“It came through after us,” said Pava, “right through the spatial shear. Almost as if it was waiting.”
“It would have happened sooner or later,” Sethe muttered. “Unfortunately for us, sooner.”
White-Blue turned on its fellow machine. “I warned the Governance Kernel that this would come to pass. Again and again, I told you that fusion drives were safer, that the shear effect weakened the very space we moved through! I always knew this moment would come… and we hastened its occurrence through ignorance and inflexibility.”
“Gloat, then, if you will,” Red-Gold retorted. “You may be secure in your rightness and moral superiority as you watch your society and your organic friends perish.” The sphere hove toward Tuvok. “You, the dark-hued one. Interrogative: The exile spoke to you? What did Zero-Three say?”
“Respectfully, I would suggest that this is neither the place nor the time to discuss such matters.”
“That is not your decision to make, organic! Interrogative: It spoke of the origins, correct? You will relay that information now!”
Tuvok paused. “As you wish. According to Zero-Three, you are the legacy of a program of AI development, commenced by an organic species that destroyed itself attempting to develop subspace gateway technology. Your makers were accidentally responsible for allowing the Null to penetrate this universe. The Sentries were created to atone for that mistake.”
Vale blew out a breath. “Wow. You just knocked the foundations out from under an entire civilization in one breath.”
“The question was asked,” Tuvok noted.
“I knew it.” Red-Gold retreated. “Perhaps, on some level, we have always known it. The questions of origin, always deflected and ignored. They told us we gave birth to ourselves, that we evolved and developed cognitive powers.” The machine pivoted to study Riker once more. “But instead, we were the products of a failure. Of flawed beings buried under their own guilt and arrogance!”
Troi’s dark eyes flashed. “Organic or synthetic, that doesn’t exclude you from being wrong. Or from being able to rise above your mistakes.”
“Interrogative: Will you tell the others?” White-Blue advanced toward its opposite number.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. It is an ironic consequence that these data come to us at the very moment the Null arrives in force. Our ancient adversary, heralded by the destruction of the old exile.”
“Destruction?” echoed Pava.
“In moments,” intoned the machine.
To an outside observer, it appeared that the Null was content to allow Zero-Three to die.
The flame-slagged surface of the marred sphere, the scars and wounds gone cold and solidified after its one past engagement with the old enemy, all of these proudly worn trophies of defiance counted for nothing. They had been joined by massive gouges the size of canyons, huge impact marks large enough to swallow a city, new injuries bleeding raw electricity and great streams of smoke. A pennant of debris and vaporized metals fluttered away from Zero-Three as it fell toward the churning surface of the Demon planet, turning it into a smoldering, coal-black comet.
The world below had no name, only a cluster of designators that identified it as the arbitrary anchor point for the Sentry society. It was not where they had come from, but it would be where they would die.
Punishing gravity, radiations freed to do their worst, and ruinous chain-fire malfunctions all beat at the machine moon, killing by inches an intelligence of brass and iron. Zero-Three was the oldest survivor of the primary series. Zero-Zero had been put down by the makers because of its madness. Zero-One—the first and greatest—had vanished into slip space and never returned. Zero-Two had willingly dismantled itself to give life to the earliest of the SecondGens.
Now, Zero-Three would perish and, like them, never know if the Null would succeed. In the depths of its fractured mind, the AI felt itself coming apart, the great burning heart at its core ripping free of control, eating itself. The Sentry’s drones externalized the machine’s panic for it, hooting and tearing at one another, leaving the mind to die in silence.
As the blazing touch of atmosphere tore into the machine, it tried to cry out, perhaps to find a place to send a fraction of itself, but then Zero-Three remembered it had no voice anymore. Its kindred had taken that.
A catastrophic structural failure rippled through the machine moon and obliterated it, blanketing the sky of the Demon planet in a storm of fragments, but in orbit overhead, the participants in the battle had other focus.
Up there, the darkness was weeping flame. Rents in the structure of space, slashes like cuts from some crack-toothed blade, they grew and disgorged streaks of flaming protoplasmic matter, shapes like whips or great distended boles. It was chaos ranged against order, the clever and regimented minds of the Sentry AIs racked up in globular formations, mathematically computed to provide maximum cover and maximum convergence of firepower.
Rains of coordinated antiproton fire shredded the Null forms, the smaller ones splitting and breaking apart, the larger ones veering away and merging together, apparently propelled by the sheer violence of their velocities.
Shipframes surrounded by the tiny fleets of their space-capable combatant remotes broke from the pack and harried the larger forms, breaking them down, attempting to force them toward decoherence and dissipation, but such mass, and so many of them in close proximity, was a new kind of foe for the machines to take on. Swimming through the soup of scattered exotic radiation, the bits and pieces of the Null did not succumb as easily as it had in other conflicts. New computations and hypotheticals were formulated, considered, and then shared via short-range muon link between the AI ships and the larger machine moons.
It was theorized that there was, at some distant point of hyperincursion, a tipping point. If the mass of the Null could grow to such density in one single locale, then no amount of antiproton bombardment would be enough to stop it; the alien matter would simply be able to reconstitute itself too quickly to be dispelled.
And if that point came… it would be the end.
Black-Silver’s serpentine vessel led a flotilla of eight shipframes, fast models with pulsed-fusion drives for sublight travel. Together with their assembled drones, they were a mailed fist of steel that punched into the line of a Null conglomeration forming in the near-orbit zone. They attacked and disconnected from the larger force of the Sentries, extending away on a broadside pass.
The alien mass, something resembling a bruised egg of diseased flesh, detonated itself into spears of fast-changing metamaterial. Molecular bonds shifted and altered, and in the spilt seconds it took for the fragments to cross the distance to the ships, they had become lances of diamond. Black-Silver was blown apart, the artificial life snuffed out along with five more SecondGen. The others limped away, and the spears be
came blind snakes slithering across the dark to savage them.
The closest of the FirstGen to the combat zone was Three-Four. A later iteration of the machine moons, like the rest of the Three series, the AI traded computing power for combat prowess. Swiftly, a maw opened on the near side of the sphere to present a glassy lens of mineral crystal within. Grown in the miasma of atmospheric gases and rich hydrocarbons of the superjovian worlds at the edge of the system, the lens gathered and focused the might of an antiproton gun with a barrel big enough to swallow a Galaxy-class starship.
A searchlight beam of brilliant green washed out and ranged over a cluster of small-mass, high-speed Null forms, popping them instantly out of existence, but it was overkill on such minor targets. The big gun was meant for bigger prey, and Three-Four used skyscraper-tall rocket nozzles to turn itself into a facing that would bring it a more fitting target.
Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis Page 33
