Dustin had paused, studying the programs around the sun, trying to decide which ones to attack, when he became aware of an itching pain. Glancing around, he realized it wasn't a program attacking him, which meant it had to be his body. Separating his mind into two halves, he formed an eye on the back of his head and saw that the nanobots around him were attacking his body.
Panic gripped him as he realized his time was even shorter than he thought. If the AI was attacking him, then it was probably attacking all of his people, too. Glancing over the hivemind, he saw with horror that it was overrun with programs, tiny programs, but programs intent on destroying everything. The hivemind was too open to attack, and while he was busy fighting the AI, he couldn't focus on closing the hivemind and the nanobots from the AI. Even though he thought he had cut off its ability to control nanobots, it must have had backup programs.
Diving back in with an even more intense need for speed, he ignored everything as he dived deeper in, reaching for the sun again.
As it revealed itself, he started cutting and slashing the programs that surrounded it. The AI's need for power was too intense to ignore this attack, and it pulled back from the hivemind and the nanobots, to deal with the damage he was causing.
Dustin didn't pay attention to what the codes before him did, anymore, cutting out words here and there, severing programs left and right, digging deeper around the thick code that surrounded the sun, trying to sever the AI's ability to draw energy from the small star.
Doors were closing around him as the AI tried to cut off his access, but he laughed as he went around them, not constrained by the physical limitations of the machine he was attacking. Cutting through one last bunch of coded programs, he found a pocket, filled by a boiling black mass, that he couldn't see through.
Cautiously drawing closer to it, he watched for any sign of life or consciousness, and just before he reached it, a tentacle of black darted out, grabbing ahold of him, and began to drag him back into the mess. Fighting against it, he tried to slice at it, as he had the code, and his imagined blade went through it, as if it wasn't there. If he didn't get away from it, it would separate the tether he had with his body!
Still fighting against the pull, Dustin studied the tentacle that had him, and came to a realization he never would have considered. This was made of spirit, not code. Had the AI been developing a spirit over all these years and drawing closer to being an actual being? Or had loose spirits been attracted to the budding awareness of the AI?
Regardless of the answer to these questions, Dustin was about to lose himself into a writhing mass of black, and there was no way in hell he was going to do that! Grabbing the surrounding codes and programs that he could reach, he began shoving them into the black, noticing a sudden slack in the pull of the tentacle. It was slurping the codes up like spaghetti noodles and growing. Backing away from it, panic erupted within him as he realized it was growing stronger, and he was feeding it.
While it was distracted with its meal, Dustin slipped free of the tentacle and avoided the cancer by charging towards the sun. Pausing in the moment of stillness, while chaos reined just behind him, hidden by a thin layer of programs, Dustin began to make his own code.
The AI was completely consumed by the cancer within it, that was eating it alive, ignoring everything else around it, as it tried to stem the flow of code into the monstrous spirit that had been hiding within it.
Building his program larger and larger, Dustin began to wrap it around the star, gathering its light for his own purposes. Had anyone asked him what he was doing, he would have said he couldn't explain it. He was working beyond any level of mechanics and material properties that he could explain, and was functioning purely on instinct.
Placing one last line of code into his program, he watched it sit for a moment, then begin to rotate around the star. Pulling back, through the AI code, away from the cancerous black spirit, and to his own hivemind, then finally to his body, Dustin opened his eyes with relief. He had only to wait a few minutes before the results would be in, and the AI would finally be dealt with.
Shaking off the nanobots that still clung to his body, the damage already having been healed, he glanced sadly at the hivemind before heading for the ship where he knew Olivia should have been.
Gooblens gladly allowed him entry, then cheerily carried him over their numerous bodies towards the bridge once the airlock was sealed again, and he was in his normal form. Olivia sat on the floor, holding her belly, when he entered the room. Granny sat next to her, looking exhausted.
"You have some serious explaining to do," grumbled Granny, not bothering to climb to her feet.
"Is the AI finished?" asked Olivia, leaning her head back against the seat behind her. She looked tired, as if fighting the nanobots had been exhausting.
"I'm about to find out," he said, stepping over them, and sitting in the seat behind Olivia as she shifted out of his way.
"Where's my dad?" he asked, absentmindedly as he started typing away.
"He's in the kitchen with Old Motha discussing the future home of the Gooblens," muttered Granny.
"We don't have any fuel to jump with," said the computer as he paused in his typing.
"Sure, we do," he said with a grin, sticking his finger into the port that opened for him.
There was a moment of silence, as Granny and Olivia watched in curiosity, before the nanobots that controlled the jump gate for the ship streamed out and began the process of jumping them. A few moments later, they floated in what appeared to be empty space, but as Dustin typed a few commands in, the screen in front of the bridge cleared, and a huge structure came into view.
"Wow!" whispered Granny and Olivia at the same time.
The structure of the AI was being pulled in on itself, and as they watched, the entire thing was swallowed by a massive black hole. With a chuckle, Dustin opened the jump gate as the ship began to get drawn in as well, and jumped them back home.
"What did you do?" asked Granny.
"The AI was using a small star to power itself, so I made the star collapse into a black hole."
"But how?" asked Olivia. "That seems…impossible!"
Dustin frowned. "I'm not sure I could explain it, or repeat it, but it worked at the time."
The two women looked at each other, before shaking their heads.
"We need to find out if everyone on the planet is alright," Olivia said.
Dustin nodded, "We're doing that now."