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him fared worse. The towering Nungiirtok possessed rigid bones rather than the more pliablecartilage of Tok Iad bodies, and the impact shattered the creatures, leaving them broken and twisted.

Gravity was off again, as were all but the emergency lights. He tried linking again with the ship, with other Tok Iad, withanything . . . and found himself cut off and alone.

Somehow, he managed to free himself from the webbing of his harness. Somehow, he managed to connect one tentacle with thesnaking, stabbing arm of a medical facilitator and trigger the flow of healing nano.

Somehow, 4236 Xavix lived.

 

VFA-96, Black Demons

Sol System

1732 hours, EST

Gregory twisted his Starblade across the planetoid’s sky, offering himself as a target. He was not going to turn and run,not when he had a chance of drawing the enemy’s fire and taking the pressure off those who still had missiles in their weaponsbays. A savage detonation erupted on the horizon just ahead, and he gave an exultant shout. “Go, Demons! Fucking give it tothem—”

And in that moment a gravitic fist closed on his fighter.

 

Koenig

The Godstream

1732 hours, EST

As Yorktown continued her approach, the gestalt of a billion human and AI minds reached forward, encountering at last three of the alienplanetoid warships. They witnessed the savage impact of a pair of kinetic-kill weapons on what had been the almost-intacthemisphere, saw twin clouds of vaporized rock boiling off into space, saw the two craters that remained, red-glowing and molten.

Starblade fighters continued to crisscross the skies above those mountains, loosing their remaining nukes in a focused Armageddon.Space around the three planetoids was now filling with a thin haze—cooling rock vapor, sand-sized grains of debris, bits andpieces of alien hardware thrown off into the void. All three planetoids continued to fight, reaching out with invisible graviticfists to crush and kill, but they appeared to be having considerable difficulty tracking the fast-moving fighters and bringingthem down.

What can we do? the massed gestalt asked.

We cannot reach into the largest target, Konstantin replied. Their communications are down. But that target, a thousand kilometers beyond, is vulnerable.

A tiny part of a far larger whole, Koenig moved past the large planetoid and zeroed in on the smallest of the three. It, too,had an entire hemisphere scoured away in fire, though the damage didn’t seem quite so severe or as extensive as on the largership. Possibly it had passed through the outer fringes of the AMSO cloud. In any case, Koenig could sense the power throbbingat its heart, sense the flow and flicker of internal communications, the bursts of electromagnetic energy as it attemptedto re-establish communications with the largest alien target.

We will use that as a carrier wave, Konstantin said, indicating the laser-com signal, and insert the Omega virus.

Koenig rode the signal and found himself within the surreally alien virtual reality, found himself settling into control circuits and datastreams as the intelligence within the Godstream took control. A window opened in his mind . . . a highly detailed and realistic-looking CGI graphic generated by video pickups on the external surface. The largest planetoid, fiercely radiating in the infrared, hung vulnerable and helpless just a thousand kilometers away.

Accelerate, Konstantin ordered, and the planetoid—it was called, Koenig noted, the Daledvekatok Tah—began moving forward.

 

USNA CV Yorktown

Deep Space

1246 hours, FST

“What the hell is going on?” Commander Charles Paxton, Yorkie’s First Officer, demanded.

“Damned if I know, Number One,” Taggart replied. She was transfixed by the drama playing itself out in slow motion ahead.“If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Nungies have a mutiny on their hands.”

Within her in-head window, Taggart could see the largest planetoid hanging dead in space, vast stretches of its surface partiallymolten, partially resurfaced by black, congealing rock with vivid fissures revealing the hot liquid beneath.

One of the smaller planetoids, now almost five thousand kilometers beyond the first, was moving with relentless purpose. “Isthat . . .” Taggart began.

“A collision course, yes, Captain,” Mathers, the Combat Officer, replied, confirming her impression. “Target Bravo is closingwith Target Alfa. Time to impact . . . eight point seven minutes.”

“Ancient Lords . . .” Taggart said, then bit off a curse. She might no longer believe in the space-faring gods of the Ancient Alien Creationist Church, but the prayers and worshipful praises tended to flow in moments of crisis or awe.

A new voice sounded inside her head.

“Captain Taggart, I recommend that you keep the Yorktown well clear.”

“Konstantin?”

“Yes. We are steering one of the Nungiirtok ships into the other. The other two are fleeing or disabled. This should end theconflict. However, there may be a substantial spray of debris from the impact, and I do not wish to damage any human vessel.”

“Helm!” Taggart snapped. “Vector change—away from target Alfa. Now!”

“Aye, Captain. Decelerating and laying in a course of one-eight-zero relative.”

“Konstantin! How . . . how are you doing this?”

“It would take too long to explain, Captain. In very brief, I have linked a substantial portion of the Godstream through Yorktown’s electronic network, allowing us to extend ourselves into one of the enemy vessels and manipulate its control and powersystems. We intend to set the vessel we have commandeered loose in the last moments before impact and withdraw to the Yorktown.”

“Eternal gods of the stars . . .”

Taggart stared at the unfolding scene ahead and wondered what gods the Nungiirtok might worship, and whether those gods welcomedthe dead with open arms.

 

USNA CVS America

Flag Bridge

Sol System

1749 hours, FST

Following in the wake of her fighters, the star carrier America drew closer to the fierce battle ahead, now some eight hundred thousand kilometers distant. Gray’s sensors were picking up three asteroids at that range, asteroids now almost at a dead stop, as well as the carrier Yorktown several thousand kilometers beyond.

One of the ravaged planetoids appeared to be closing with another.

“I recommend that you keep America and her support vessels well clear, Admiral. It will be dangerous moving too close.”

“Right, Konstantin. We’ll—Konstantin?”

Something in the voice or its manner had twigged at him. This was the original Konstantin, the super-AI America had left behind on Earth. He could feel America’s version of the machine intelligence folding into the older, more powerful mind without