But she knew that if another attack on the satellites came she would not have to rely on his sullied vote. No one would believe that this could happen twice by accident, and once the satellites were allowed to defend themselves, the humans’ pathetic arsenal would be crushed. Either way, she would win in the end. And when the Armada arrived she would upload this copy of her personality via the chain of relays they were laying in their path to the real Princess Lamati back on Mobilius. Then she would find and fucking eradicate the traitorous bastard John Hunt: his real self, his family, his name, and anything he had ever held dear.

She smiled at the other Agent’s avatar and John shuddered at the site. Oh, go ahead and plot away, you bitch, make your plans. You’ll get yours soon enough, he thought.

When the two converging groups of missiles were half a mile and a quarter of a second apart, the Russian interceptors decided with computer precision that the time was at hand, and thirty-two kinetic warheads simultaneously detonated, firing an unholy storm of tiny titanium needles forward into the path of the Pakistani missiles. Like grenades lobbed by a god, the massive munitions exploded and created a hurricane of destruction designed to consume and eradicate the oncoming missiles … and anything else unfortunate enough to get in their way.

The satellite’s systems registered the blast, documented every impact in the thousandth of a second before its shielding started to fragment, noted as it was flayed, nano-second by nano-second, its huge internal systems disintegrating and vanishing as the kinetic cyclone eviscerated it, until its very core was penetrated and the giant subspace hammer, magnificent even as it was delicate, sublimed in the combustive tempest.

* * *

From Earth’s surface, the explosion could clearly be seen as a wall of white fire in the sky that spread quickly south into the path of the six missiles. Under orders from US STRATCOM, the nuclear submarine USS Achilles had broken protocol and surfaced while on station in the Black Sea, pointing its phenomenally acute SLBM guidance systems skyward to watch the explosion.

While the captain of the ship believed he was there to make sure that all six HATF missiles were destroyed, he was actually there to capture proof of something vastly more clandestine. As the admiral and his coconspirators had predicted, the images of the kinetic storm showed an object amidst the destruction. Something very big and very black that was clearly caught in the cross fire. An object that had not shown on any radar before that moment.

As the object was consumed by the furious cloud, along with the six HATF-VI missiles, the USS Achilles sent the series of images, per their orders, directly to the Pentagon, without comment.