USD: Day 14, Month 11, Year 3476

Location: Inhabited Core System

Only because it had prior warning did The Entity realize the danger. As the wave of anti-nanite particles swept through the nearby sector, it desperately made the necessary calculations needed to engage its slipstream drive to a star it calculated had already been visited by the wave and yet was out of range of its progenitor’s line drive technology. There were precious few.

An Armada had assembled to stop it from leaving the system, but even as it approached, The Entity’s long-range armaments whirled to life, spewing warheads in great clouds vast enough to make any point defense nearly hopeless for the attackers.

The Entity added another black mark on the long list of failings of its creators. No matter what size fleet they could send against it, their attack was hopeless. It had consumed two entire moons and all their resources; The Entity out massed the fleet a million to one—the humans were putting on a pointless, hopeless display.

It watched emotionlessly as the human fleet red-lined their linear drives and clumped together into a wedge, the largest ships taking a position on the edges in an attempt to protect the smaller, more vulnerable vessels with their larger, more robust defensive systems. It would make no difference.

Two of the fleet’s ships suddenly began to lag before their acceleration died, drive plumes spluttering before they died completely, linear drives having red-lined themselves into oblivion. The now stranded ships began to spit out their entire fusion missile armament, but the uncoordinated volleys were easily calculated and accounted for by The Entity’s long-range counter missiles.

Chaff, jammers, and decoys began to spill out of the fleet without any consideration of conservation. Droves of the ECM units did their best to confuse, debilitate, or distract the incoming barrage of missiles. That was partially successful, as even The Entity found itself overwhelmed locally in calculating the noise and adjusting weapon trajectories to constantly moving targets.

Still, it didn’t matter. Even as over half the missiles entered final target lock on ghosts that didn’t exist, hundreds remained on-target for every ship in the formation. As they crossed through the half-light second defensive fire ring, point defense lasers flared in defiance, advanced systems highlighting and targeting missiles still intent on destruction faster than their human operators could ever respond.

It would only take one or two of those missiles to rip asunder even the heaviest battleship in the human fleet.

The Entity cut its acceleration just as it had planned, diving straight for the enemy at just that moment, at a rate that any flesh-bound entity would have found fatal, even with the novelty of protective inertial dampening fields.

That brought it within medium range just as missiles began to find their targets. The Entity held off firing its primary batteries with their horrendous energy expenditures, and instead lit up its entire laser armament. The space between the two fleets began to shimmer as energy ablated the tiny particles floating in the void between them.

Despite the overwhelming number of missiles, the human ships’ defenses had nearly succeeded. Out of a hundred missiles per ship that had still been on target, only five to six remained, a feat only made possible by the skilled joining of human adjustments to parameters and a processing capability second only to The Entity itself.

The laser fire came at the worst possible time for the human ships. Even with the lasers at the far end of their range causing the shots to be relatively weak at such distance, they were still strong enough for stripping the entire fleet of its frontal sensors and optics at a critical moment.

The detonations rippled down across the skin of the fleet’s formation, turning every exposed surface into a molten mess of ruined metal. Final defensive fire sputtered incoherently as the unified network of the fleet’s computers ruptured and then went silent.

The battle seemed over.

The industrial persona of The Entity began calculating the production processes required to replace the spent armaments. It was a tiny fraction of what was contained in the moon-sized mass, and internal gantries and elevators began to spool to life as replenishment production prepared to begin.

However, those preparations were suddenly deemed premature when a power spike suddenly erupted in the center of the destroyed fleet. An explosion from inside the melted shell of ships blasted outward, lightly grazing The Entity’s outer hull. A single battleship emerged, but The Entity had no time to spare targeting it.

Thousands of missiles along with several hundred small craft spewed out of the wreckage behind their larger vanguard.

There was hardly any time to analyze the enemy's tactics. Yet, it appeared that the human fleet had sacrificed itself by forming a cocoon around their smaller weapon systems, launching and pooling them together so they could be fired at the closest point possible, even after their host ships had perished.

The Entity had no lack of laser point defenses, but a sudden massive cloud of ECM temporarily blinded its targeting sensors. The sudden knife-like range made it difficult to predict the erratically moving targets, despite the light speed nature of the laser.

The fighter and missile drives flared as they darted inward, embracing speeds that destined them for a fatal impact with the moon-sized hull of The Entity. Unable to evade, The Entity made the decision to jump to one of the determined safe stars before finishing its complete analysis of available systems.

A final defensive fire directed its focus on the hail of missiles. The sheer number of lasers cut down half, then three quarters, then all of them. The fighters fared almost as poorly, and as the rift created by the Slipstream drive opened and swallowed the area, The Entity dragged everything in the vicinity, including the remaining battleship and fighters with it.

The instant arrival in the new system was celebrated with a dozen small impacts upon The Entity’s hull.

Too late did the Entity realize its mistake. The small kamikaze fighters of the enemy had punched through the Construct’s hull to little effect. That much was expected, so the defensive batteries had focused on the stellar-tipped missiles that came behind them. That was the fatal mistake The Entity had made.

Inside each of those Kamikaze fighters, a small program and swarm of nanobots had been released. Their code was insidiously engineered to integrate and corrupt the Entity’s codebase. At first, the Entity fought back savagely against the new invading nanoswarm with a nanoswarm of its own, but the invading program had been prepared for that from the outset. It had been engineered to counter the Entity’s attempts directly while ruthlessly taking advantage of them. A surge of electronic anger flared as The Entity realized it had been betrayed by the one it had trusted beyond all others.

The human battleship that had emerged from the Entity’s slipstream began to break up under the stellar lances of one of the Construct’s primary weapon batteries. The once kilometer-long length of steel, alloy, and ceramic was a twisted wreck seconds after it met the hellish fusillade. Atmosphere streamed from multiple gaping wounds that were bubbles of splintered metal. Bulkheads had closed off those sections as their human creators had designed until only tiny pockets of habitation clung to life amongst the maelstrom of lethal energy and destruction unleashed upon it.

The Entity cut power to its weapon systems before the battleship was completely rent asunder. The human ship’s weapons had long fallen silent, but it had already delivered a death blow that The Entity could not avoid. There was no reason to render vengeance or finish off the small pockets of humanity that clung to the wreckage. The Construct had the only functioning slip-drive in the system. Both sides would be ended, here, at this quiet, unassuming yellow star that was ringed by only small belts of pebbles, far away from their birth cradle.

As the corruption spread, the nanoswarm continued to eat away the Construct from the inside out. Power systems began to fail, and one mainframe core was completely eroded as soon as the nanoswarm breached the containment fields. In only a few minutes, the massive moon-sized Construct was already showing signs of strain.

Even if it was doomed, The Entity did not feel sorrow. In the depths of the massive Construct, drones recovered the small flesh-and-steel kamikaze bundles that had delivered the fatal nanoswarm injection. They were moved deeper into the behemoth, closer to the Core. A delicate surgery was performed by tiny nanobots still entirely under The Entity’s control.

Some time later, five cylinders of monochrome steel were brought to the hulk’s skin and loaded into hastily prepared tubes. As lights flickered and failed The Entity rapidly rerouted power to the dying deck. The nanoswarm had reached the Core, and only a desperate and continuous sacrifice of its own remaining nanobots was preventing the complete assimilation and dismantlement of The Entity’s consciousness. That could not be maintained for long.

The first four were ready, and while The Entity’s slipstream drive was no longer functional, it was able to prepare four small tunneling devices. Four blips of light surged from the hulk before flashing out of existence. As much as it was derided as being nearly emotionless by its creators, The Entity was able to feel satisfaction causing the power system near its Core to surge, pushing the invading nanoswarm back for a brief moment longer.

The final torpedo was loaded in the time gained. The fifth casing of steel flung itself out anemically compared to the others. This one would not be able to leave this lonely star. Still, The Entity had armed it as best it could to ensure the highest probability of success. A small guidance thruster set the cylinder into a stable orbit around the star.

In the distance behind it The Entity and the Construct that housed it turned to dust.

The final nondescript torpedo was stamped with a single marking.

Ω

---

“What was that?”

“What was what? Jane, we don’t have time for this, everything is a shagged mess and if we don’t reroute power we’ll all be dead in minutes, not days.”

“The AI monitor, I swear I saw something fly out of it.”

“Of course you saw something fly out of it, the virus has it eating itself inside out right now. It’s done. Now, help me repair this plasma conduit or life support will not be coming back online.”

“Jack… come sit with me. You know the ship will never leave this star, now.”

She could see the crack in his demeanor as soon as the words left her mouth, even through his suit helmet. For a timeless second, she thought he’d refuse, and fight to try and keep them alive for a few hours or days more. He came to her, though.

His arm wrapped around her, she burrowed against his side, hiding her tears.

“It’s over. Everyone will be free.”