Ian Douglas - Bright Light

“What the hell is happening to that thing?” Gutierrez asked.

“We’ve seen this sort of technology before, Captain,” Lydia Powell said. Powell was the new head of America ’s xenosophontology department, replacing Dr. Truitt. “At the Rosette, in Omega Centauri … at Kapteyn’s Star. Those micromachines can join together in millions of different ways.”

“Right now,” Gutierrez said, “they appear to be making a planet the size of Jupiter.”

“A J-brain, Captain …”

“What’s that?”

“A jovian world made of solid computronium. It would possess an artificial mentality of staggering power.”

“What would such a thing be for?”

“I doubt humans would be able to grasp the reasoning of minds that powerful, Captain,” Powell told her.

“I just want to know why it’s quietly turning itself into a planet,” Gutierrez said. “We already know it was intelligent, a super-AI of some sort. Why change from a cloud half an AU across to that ?”

“Power, Captain,” Mallory said from CIC. “As a diffuse cloud, each distinct unit was producing its own power … probably from the local magnetic field. As a single sphere one hundred forty thousand kilometers across, it could assemble internal structures to draw vacuum energy.”

“It could build some pretty hellacious weapons, too,” Gutierrez said. As she watched the forming sphere ahead, she felt a deep stirring of fear mingled with awe. “Helm … let’s increase our separation from that thing.”

“Yes, ma’am !”

“Message coming through from the Pan-Euros,” the bridge communications officer reported. “Admiral Ritter … for you.”

“What’s our c -lag?”

“Five seconds, Captain. Two-way.”

“Put him on.”

She counted down the time lapse as a laser-com beam raced out from America … with another delay as the reply lanced back.

“Captain Gutierrez,” a voice said in her head at last, cultured and slightly accented. “I’m Admiral Jan Ritter, on board the carrier Wotan . What is the tactical situation?”

“Hello, Admiral. Captain Gutierrez of the star carrier America . Here’s an update.” Gutierrez transmitted the bridge log recordings for the previous forty minutes. “We have not been able to more than distract that thing,” she added. “Our fighters have expended their weapons and are now recovering back on board. We are continuing to fire high-velocity nano-D canisters into the object. We are not yet sure if this is having any direct effect.”

Another five seconds dragged past.

“Cease fire, America ! Cease fire! Do not, repeat, do not continue to fire disassemblers at the target!”

Gutierrez hesitated. Technically, Ritter outranked her. If America had been assigned to Task Force Ritter she would have been legally able to give her orders. On the other hand, America had not received orders to join with Task Force Ritter, which meant that she could do as she damn well pleased. An interesting political and diplomatic situation …

But Wotan ’s fighters were entering the combat zone, which meant they would be at risk from America ’s nano-D fire. “Mr. Daly!” she called. “Cease fire.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Com. Message headquarters. Update them … and request clarification of our command chain out here.”

“Right away, Captain.”

This far from Earth, it would be forty minutes for her request to reach HQ, and forty minutes more for their reply to get back to the America . Damn, she should have requested that clarification as soon as she knew Wotan ’s battle group was going to join her.

It didn’t help, too, that she didn’t like the Euros … or trust them. Memories of the Confederation Civil War were still too damned fresh. She’d lost family in Columbus—her brother Steve, both of his wives, and her two young nephews. She wasn’t about to turn her ship over to the Pan-Euros without some very explicit orders indeed.

“Have your fighters reloaded,” Ritter told her, “and launch them in support of my battle group.”

“With respect, Admiral … no. Our fighters hit them with everything they had and didn’t even slow that thing down. We did get a reaction when we hit them with the nano-D, however.”

“We do not carry nanodisassembler weapons, Captain.” The words sounded stiff, a little awkward. The memetic engineering campaign that had ended the civil war, she knew, had been designed to create deep and widespread shame throughout the European community over their use of disassembler weapons on Columbus. Since then, she understood, Pan-European ships no longer deployed with nano-D weaponry. How much of that was engineered guilt and how much was public relations she had no idea, but the inevitable result was that Task Force Ritter had just shown up at a knife fight armed with marshmallows.

“If you do not join with us, America ,” Ritter said, “then stay clear!”

“Admiral, I suggest that you recall your fighters, which are useless here. I will continue bombarding the enemy with nanotechnic disassemblers.”

The seconds dragged past. Ritter’s reply was blunt and to the point. “ Nein , Captain. You had your chance. Now it is our turn.”

Task Force Ritter, consisting of the light carrier Wotan , a cruiser identified as the Kurst , and three destroyers, began moving toward the swiftly growing alien sphere behind a screen of fighters.

The fight began, evolved, and ended almost literally within the blink of an eye. Gutierrez and her bridge crew watched, horrified, as the Wotan suddenly crumpled as though in the grip of a titanic, invisible fist. Her shield cap ruptured with shocking abruptness, spraying glittering clouds of swiftly freezing water droplets across space as the broken remnants of a ship seven tenths of a kilometer long dwindled and twisted and was crushed down to nothing. Air sprayed into the vacuum, freezing along with the ice crystal cloud … and then the Wotan was gone, with nothing left whatsoever, save the ice clouds and a few spinning fragments of metal.

Kurst and the destroyers slowed their forward movement, but it took time to decelerate and reverse course … and the Rosette alien was not giving them that time. The Kurst died in precisely the same way as the Wotan , her hull wadding up as it collapsed until nothing was left but ice crystal clouds and glittering specks of metallic debris.

“What is that weapon?” Gutierrez demanded.

“Gravitic, Captain,” Mallory replied from the CIC. “I don’t know if it’s some sort of projected beam or maybe an artificial black hole, or if they’re using those ships’ gravitic drives against them … but whatever it is, it crushed them under the effects of several million gravities!”

“God in heaven …”

The destroyers succeeded, finally, in coming to a halt relative to the giant sphere, then flipped end-for-end and began accelerating. The sphere was following, though, looming vast against the night. The destroyer Rouen , lagging slightly behind the other two, was taken … crushed out of existence in an instant.

The survivors—two destroyers and a number of fighters, accelerated to fifty thousand gravities, fleeing as though hell itself was close on their heels …

And the ebon black sphere pursued.

“Helm! Get us the hell out of here!” Gutierrez snapped. “Com! Send a full report to headquarters!”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Earth needed to know what was bearing down on them out here, and they needed to know now .

“Mr. Mallory!”