This then was Erebus. All of this was Erebus. And it wanted King to meld with it. Over the years of its existence the attack ship AI had grown contemptuous of humanity, and felt the need to find something better, faster, grander, and entirely AI. It had been prepared to create something like this . . . consensus. But to join one, to be absorbed into one? In that moment King discovered how much it valued its own individuality, and understood itself to be more like its makers than like this thing. Picking up informational flows, logic structures, and purpose beyond its comprehension, King recognized only madness.

‘I need time.’

‘You have none.’

U-space signatures again. Its course reversed, King jumped again, only to find itself labouring through a U-space storm. Independently, Erebus must have developed its own USERs. Perpetually rebalancing engines, King flew through the storm, but then even more USER interference slammed into it and the King of Hearts found itself falling down some spacial slope, as if entering realspace too close to a gravity well. It materialized right into a high-powered maser, instantly burning into its hull. Anti-munitions release, and King returned fire on multiple targets: ships and missiles. King jumped again, slamming in and out of an underspace continuum with no give in it. Another 100,000 miles, but enough to take it away from the main sleet of missiles. Planetary system now. The swarm still pursuing, King engaged fusion drive at maximum. At least the attackers could no more enter U-space than could King, and could not jump ahead. However, their weapons were faster.

Masers scored across King’s hull, peeling up armour like a screwdriver scoring through paint, then tracked away to follow an anti-munitions package the attack ship released. They pierced what was merely a holographic image of the attack ship, then swept back. Warheads detonated on other similar packages. King onlined a rail-gun and filled space behind it with near-c projectiles, swinging the fusillade across to cover its fall towards the hot but living planet below. It kept firing interceptor missiles until its armoury emptied of those; then followed with high yield CTDs, imploders, and straight atomics. A vast storm of explosions trailed the attack ship down. EM blasts made its scanning a mostly intermittent affair. More ships behind now, or just falling wreckage?