Don’t worry about that old thing, says Observer with a smile. We can always make You a new one.
It takes her a fraction of a second to realize that Observer is referring to her body. That old thing. She experiences a moment of doubt as her intellect and instincts tangle on the subject of body death, but she shoves it down. She takes a breath with that old thing, recognizing even as she does it that it will likely be her last one.
This is what I was made for, she says, to herself as much as to Observer. If I have to die trying to protect my people—
Practically anyone would do that, says Observer with a laugh. The important question is: would You kill to protect your people?
Sarya the Daughter answers in action, not words. She explodes toward that single subspace corridor, lightning and blades and rage. She shreds connections by the thousand, pulling intelligences into herself so violently that she can feel the waves of fear echoing through them. She is doing them a favor: she is freeing them from Network, but they do not understand that, not yet. They scream, somewhere inside her, but Sarya barely hears. She has senses for nothing but the corridor to that distant solar system.
Go, Daughter.
Sarya goes. She burns a trail straight outward, gaining kilometers per second. Time slows as her mind expands; the particles of each second tick past as she adds millions of minds to her collective. But she is not building a mind; she is building a bridge. She is escaping a Blackstar before the mind that controls it realizes she has turned on it. She keeps her gaze on her goal, on the single subspace corridor that leads back to where she came from. She will leap from mind to mind through this web, like electricity. She will burn a hole through the Network itself.
Go, Daughter.
All around her, Sarya feels defenses rumbling into life. They are ancient mechanisms, set in place eons ago. But they are clumsy, and she is agile. They may take minds offline before she reaches them, they may set traps for her questing tendrils, they may sever entire branches from her own personal Network as they seek her out, but Sarya the Daughter dances like a Widow and strikes with all the fury of a Human. She accelerates, every mind she absorbs adding to her abilities and momentum. She keeps her focus on that single corridor, the doorway that leads to her future.
Observer may still be speaking, but she can no longer tell the difference between His voice and her own gigantic subconscious. This is Sarya the Daughter, says one or the other, a daughter of three mothers! She is Human. She is Widow. She is Network. She is the lightning in the storm, She is the blade in the darkness. She is a raging wildfire. She is, above all things, Network’s undoing.
And now she has reached the edge of the Blackstar. She takes a breath, prepares herself to leap into the great cloud of starships circling above it—
And then she feels it.
She searches through herself for the threat. Somewhere, her instincts tell her, she is in danger. Somewhere in this churning mass of minds in minds on minds—
There it is.
Back in the Visitors’ Gallery, which contained her entire self only seconds ago, Network has mounted a counterattack. From the balconies and bridges, from every opening into that space, a stream of drones is issuing. They are not the drones she is used to seeing, the ubiquitous Network machines. These are bigger, harder, darker. They have implements she does not recognize.
Network is not attacking her mind. It’s attacking her body.
Sarya has no choice in the matter. Just as she speaks without knowing how, she defends herself in the same way. Her drones close ranks around her body, guarding her, but they are no match for these things. She seizes her attackers’ minds as quickly as she can, but these are different; they would literally rather die than obey her. As soon as one detects that its Network has changed, its intelligence flickers out and turns its body into nothing more than a drifting hulk. But for every one that dies, a dozen more enter the Visitors’ Gallery. They cut through her drones like blades through flesh, and in a matter of moments her ten million drones have become nine million, eight million.
Observer fights beside and within her, shoulder to shoulder, mind to mind, drone to body. He is even less prepared for physical conflict than she is. The combat drones do not even bother with Him; they nudge His many bodies aside as they systematically dismantle this alien mind, this disease that has attacked their Network. Your mind is where your power lies, Network told her. But her mind is being torn apart, and her power with it.
She cries out as another hundred thousand drones fall out of her mind. What do I do? she shouts to Observer.
Forget Your body! cries Observer. You are mind!
But she can’t. Network is attacking her body, say her instincts. It’s attacking her, and she must defend herself. Time accelerates as her mind shrinks. Drones fall away from her by the million, each one taking a tiny piece of her with it. She fights, but her blades grow duller and her attacks slower and weaker. Her mind, which only seconds ago had been overflowing with confidence and thoughts of vengeance, is running over with fear.
The more one changes size, the more difficult it becomes to keep a solid grasp on scale. Therefore, it takes actual pain to make her realize how personal the fight has become. Her body, fragile biological shell that it is, has been hurt. Her eyes burn, because blood is sliding down from her forehead and blinding her. Her skull, the one that protects her very self with a few millimeters of fragile skin-covered bone, has been grazed by some whirling chunk of metal that her Librarian has somehow let past its defenses. There are no more drones to defend her, she realizes. Sarya herself, her very existence, is in danger.
A fifty-ton Librarian is a formidable ally, but it is not invulnerable. It has taken hundreds of hits meant for her, and now it seems barely able to move. Great fissures have appeared in its metallic skin, and they squirt glittering dust into the air with every motion. This is why, through one of the gaping holes in its defense, Sarya sees her end coming. It’s not even one of the specialized defense drones. It’s a simple cleaner, its thread trailing dark behind it, probably hurled helplessly and accidentally by some larger conflict. Only seconds ago this was part of her mind. Now she will not have enough time to blink before it takes her head off.
I might as well be killed by a sanitation station.
And then the drone flies past her head, on both sides. She feels a cold burn on each cheek as its two sparking halves brush her skin, but she does not die. And yet she did not defend herself. She could not. She cannot do anything. Nor can the Librarian; it does not respond when she is wrenched from its cooling grasp. And then the sight is blocked out by a closing hatch and she is floating in a red darkness.
[I’m here], says Eleven in glowing red symbols across its internal holo. [I don’t understand what’s happening, but I’m here.]
“Eleven,” gasps Sarya. She says it with her real voice, her real lungs and vocal cords. “Eleven, I don’t—I didn’t mean—”