The Shattered Sphere

Twenty Blood in the Sky

Slowly, slowly, the big ship moved in toward Moonpoint.

Dianne Steiger sucked on her bulb of coffee and considered just how much she hated zero gee. Not for herself, mind. After an adult lifetime spent in spacecraft of one sort or another, a shift from this gravity to that meant little to her. The medical problems caused by zero gee were no great challenge, either, if people paid attention and took care of themselves—and she made quite certain that everybody on a ship of hers took care of themselves. Zero-gee debilitation was to spaceflight as scurvy had been to sea travel five or six hundred years before—completely preventable, and fatal all the same, for anyone fool enough not to take precautions.

It was the headaches that zero gee caused in managing the ship. Terra Nova had been designed for operation either in zero gee or in roll mode, rotating along her long axis to produce artificial gravity via the centrifugal effect. The TN could function either way, but roll mode was preferred for almost everything on board, from drinking coffee to flushing the toilets, from pumping coolant to controlling the ship’s thermal load. There were ways to do everything in no-grav, but most of them were awkward and inconvenient, work-arounds rather than straightforward procedures.

To make it harder, they were trying to operate at minimal power.

Every use of electric power, by definition, generated electromagnetic radiation of one sort or another, including radio emissions—not good around things like COREs, designed and built to detect radio frequencies.

So no hot food, no hot showers. Large areas of the ship were in darkness, while sections in active use were using half their normal lighting. It was getting damned depressing.

Nor did she greatly enjoy standing four-eight-four-eight watches, but she didn’t see much choice in that matter, either. There just weren’t enough command and ops personnel available to keep the ship running on alert status any other way. Four hours of general supervision where needed in the ship, eight hours on bridge duty, then four hours of dealing with whatever low-priority matters and office work had cropped up during the day. Then—in theory—eight hours to eat at least one decent meal, wash, and grab some kind of sleep before starting it all over again. Not that she had gotten eight hours of downtime since they had started the approach to Earth.

Something always came up. Last night, for example, she had spent half the time she was supposed to be sleeping sweating out the closest approach of CORE 219.

Terra Nova‘s course had taken her within six thousand kilometers of the CORE at one point. But the CORE had done nothing, and Terra Nova had drifted past it in the darkness of space.

All in all, a lot of trouble just to get the two surviving MRI specialists—assuming they did survive—and Terra Nova‘s share of the supplies sent from Earth.

Ah, well. Back to business. Dianne started checking the repeater displays, in effect looking over the shoulder of her crew.

“Oh, hell.” Dianne spotted something on her small repeater screens. “Tracking officer! What the hell is going on with CORE 219? I show a shift in aspect ratio.”

“Wha—huh? What’s the… just, just a moment, ma’am.” Dianne looked over at the young officer. Who was it? Hamato. Dead flat tired, like everyone else. Exhaustion was getting to be at least as great a danger as the COREs. At least he was coming awake once she gave him a poke. “Ah, ma’am,” he said. “Confirming aspect ratio shift. I read CORE 219 coming about, presenting itself broadside to us—”

An alarm sounded, and Hamato, now very much awake and alert, slapped at the cut-off button. “CORE 219 redirecting its radar, tight beam on Terra Nova.”

“Battle stations!” Dianne shouted. “Stand by for evasive action.”

“Trajectory change for CORE 219—219 coming out of previous patrol orbit. Turning toward Terra Nova.”

“God damn it! Defense Officer Reed, stand by for authority. I’ll need to stay sharp.” Defense Officer! How strange an idea, in this day and age. It sounded as anachronistic as a rigging master. “Tracking, give me a tactical display and verbal report. What is range to 219?”

“Current range 15,434 kilometers.”

“Why are they moving on us now?” Dianne demanded. “We had closest approach hours ago.”

“Unknown, ma’am. CORE 219 now accelerating toward us, acceleration rate climbing from twenty-five gravities. Thirty. Forty gravities acceleration. Holding at forty gees on a direct bearing for Terra Nova.”

“Very well,” Dianne said. “Let the datalog show that I am declaring an attack as of this time. Defense Officer, I authorize release of all weapons and defense systems. Stand by for chaff canister launch.” It was the same tactic Sakalov’s cargo craft had tried—blind the attacker, deploy decoys, and make a run for it. Dianne Steiger, however, had seen to it that the Terra Nova had a few more teeth than a cargo ship.

“CORE 219 has ceased acceleration,” Hamato announced. “CORE 219 now on an intercept course for a broadside impact with Terra Nova in eighteen minutes, five seconds. Closing velocity thirteen kilometers per second.”

It was tempting, damned tempting to try evasive action now, but there was no point to it. Not when the Terra Nova could just about manage three gees with the wind behind her and the CORE was barely clearing its throat at forty gees. No. No. They would not survive here by running away. Sakalov had proved that much.

They were going to have to kill this thing.

Dianne licked her lips nervously and tried to concentrate on her display screens as the bridge erupted into action, staff rushing to their battle stations, voices shouting out orders and questions. Check the screens. Range to the CORE was dropping rapidly, at terrifying speed. But because the CORE had allowed the TN to fly past the point of closest approach, the CORE was coming in on a long stern chase, rather than head on. It was coming in from the rear and below and to starboard, on a direct heading, rather than circling around, getting into position, lined up nose to nose with the target, then barreling straight down for a head-on impact.

Was that good or bad? What did it mean, if it meant anything at all? Think! Think as the seconds ticked away. The Terra Nova had the means to fight back, but she was not going to get any second chances.

And if the Terra Nova had learned from the attack on Sakalov’s ship, so too had the Charonians. The CORE that attacked his ship had no doubt sent a description of the event to every other CORE around Earth.

All right, you know that they know. But do they know that you know that they know? There were still endless arguments as to the nature of Charonian intelligence. No one knew for sure if Charonians were self-aware, or if so, if they knew they were self-aware. From there it descended into philosophical horseradish, but one thing Dianne knew for sure, at a gut level: the Charonians weren’t much good at dealing with change. Nor had the Charonians shown any sign as yet of being aware of human intelligence.

Right. Good. But the clock is moving. What does that tell you? That the CORE coming up behind them was doing so on the expectation that the Terra Nova would behave exactly as Sakalov’s ship had done.

Dianne jabbed at the touch panels, brought up the data beamed up from Earth. She ran the attack on Sakalov backwards and forwards from every angle she could find, one eye on the tactical display on the main screen, ticking down the dying minutes and seconds until impact.

She watched as Cargo Craft 43 fired its chaff bombs, dispersed its decoys, and the ship and the decoys commenced maneuvering violently, hidden by the chaff. She saw CORE 326 burst through the sheltering chaff, smash one decoy, and then, it seemed, learn to tell the difference and barrel straight for Cargo 43. Run it again, from the top—

Wait. There. That was it. Good. Okay. The only way out is through. If they lived that long. She turned to Lieutenant Reed, sitting at the Defense Ops.

“Defense Officer Reed. Do not, repeat do not, use preprogrammed or optimized spread on chaff dispersal. I want your initial chaff dispersal to be identical to what Cargo 43 did. Same number of chaff cans, fired in the same pattern when this CORE is at the same distance. And don’t tell me Cargo 43 did it all wrong: I know that. You do it the same way and stand by for further orders.”

“What’s the plan?” Gerald asked, materializing at her elbow. How long had he been there?

Dianne realized she didn’t know the answer consciously. She forced herself to put it into words, and found she was explaining it to herself as much as to Gerald. “The CORE is optimizing its attack,” she said, “but it’s basing that optimization on Cargo 43’s behavior.” Her hands worked the tactical display controls as she spoke, overlaying the current tactical situation with the death of Cargo 43. “When the CORE came through the chaff, the real ship, the target, was well to the rear of the formation. This CORE didn’t make its move until it was lined up for a perfect shot at exactly the same position.”

She looked to Gerald, trying to tell if it made sense to him, if he saw what she saw. Not that it mattered. She was still in command— and there was no time to change the plan anyway. But still, to see that understanding would help just now. God, it would help.

He nodded, and allowed the slightest of smiles to crease his lips. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s what they’re assuming. They think we’ll behave exactly the same way the cargo ship did.”

Dianne grinned back, a hunter’s smile. “That’s what I figured. I thought we might want to encourage that idea.”

“Defense Officer! Reconfigure decoy units to match the deployment from Cargo 43—but load an additional decoy and program it to duplicate Cargo 43‘s own movements. Helm, prepare to come about to a course parallel to the CORE, two kilometers off its port beam and traveling in the opposite direction at maximum acceleration. Do not, repeat, do not bring ship to boost attitude until ordered to do so. Defense, be ready to load and fire additional decoys and chaff. All sections, stand by and prepare to execute.”

There. That was that. A guess, a hurried plan, and a flurry of orders. Already it was too late to turn back.

Dianne watched her bridge crew scrambling to obey her orders, watched the clock count down the moments until projected impact, watched another clock display with less time on it tick down the time left until action, until Terra Nova would begin the same dance that Cargo 43 had performed—although, God willing, this time with a different end.

Cargo 43 had deployed its chaff at six minutes six seconds before projected impact. Every attack simulation Dianne had run told her that was far too late, and that the cargo craft had used the chaff badly, running in precisely the wrong direction.

What they had to do now was convince this CORE they were going to do the same.

“Coming up on one minute to chaff bomb launch,” the Defense Officer announced.

“How long after launch will the bomb blow and spread the chaff?” Gerald asked.

“Optimal time would be two minutes, fifteen seconds after launch,” the Defense Officer said. “However, we are matching the Cargo 43 time of one minute twelve.”

“Defense, the moment that first chaff bomb has the CORE blinded, fire a second one programmed for optimal chaff release time. And put countdown clocks for everything on the tactical view,” Dianne said. “Helm, stand by for minimum-time throttle-up to maximum thrust on main engines,” Dianne said.

“Stand by,” the Defense Officer said. “Second chaff bomb programmed for optimized dispersal pattern. Countdown clocks for launch and dispersal of both loads now on tactical.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Reed,” Dianne said. This was it, she told herself. First blood, first attack. This was the first time the crew of the Terra Nova, indeed the first time any humans on Earth or in the Multisystem would fight back. Hijacker had tried to fight, but she had failed. Now they would avenge her. Cargo 43 had merely tried—and failed—to do what humans had been forced to do against the Charonians every single time—retreat, run away, surrender in hopes of surviving.

But running wouldn’t work anymore. Cargo 43 had told her that much. Terra Nova had been little more than a passive observer for the last five years. That time was over. No more watching from a distance.

Now it was fight or die. Dianne had come to that decision in the last few days, half without knowing she had done so. The disastrous Hijacker mission had served to fix the idea of death in the minds of all aboard. Someone had scrawled No one gets off this ship alive in the wardroom head. Dianne had ordered it removed at once, of course, but she could not erase the sentiment—or the fact that it was probably true. Better to die fast and clean, fighting to live, battling their tormentors, rather than rotting in the dark.

“Helm, stand by to perform minimum-time attitude correction on my mark. We’re doing this one by feel.”

“First chaff launch in thirty seconds,” the weapons officer announced.

“Very well,” Dianne said, her eyes on the tactical monitor, working the time-advance display, juggling all the predicted moves in her head. But which direction would it move, and how fast, once it spotted the decoys? Where would the TN be by then? Could they get safely inside the chaff cloud by then? Would the two chaff clouds be enough? Should she order a third chaff can? No, too late.

“Twenty seconds.”

Damn it, had she guessed right? What if the CORE decided to switch to thermal sensing and spotted them in the chaff cloud? There was no way to mask a fusion exhaust flame, after all. The fusion flame. Now there was a weapon. Was there any way to rake it across the CORE during the flyby? No, too late to set that up. Play it as it lies.

“Fifteen seconds to chaff launch.”

Of course, the chaff wouldn’t just hide the TN from the CORE. It would hide the CORE from the TN, at least on radar. No way around that, of course, and it wouldn’t have any practical difference on the outcome, but even so it was a nuisance. “Tracking—can you give me a confidence level on visual tracking of the CORE once we’re in the chaff?”

“No problem there, ma’am,” Hamato replied. “We should be able to see it just fine on visual and infrared.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t think to look for us in something besides radar, then.”

“No sign they ever have, ma’am,” Hamato said.

“Your optimism is most comforting, Mr. Hamato.”

“Ten seconds.”

The tension built. Not that the chaff launch meant anything. Just a small canister cast free into space and lighting its engines. But it had to work. It had to. The countdown clock reached zero and winked off the screen. Dianne somehow was disappointed not to be able to feel or hear the launch directly, though of course she knew better.

“Chaff bomb away,” Reed announced. “Good ejection, good engine light and attitude. Chaff bomb on proper course and heading.”

“Here we go,” Gerald announced. He slid into his station chair, strapped himself in, and pulled on his headset. “All stations, all hands. We will be experiencing high acceleration and rapid maneuvering. All hands secure for boost and maneuvering. Do not, repeat, do not leave boost stations after first burn. We may be doing repeated burns on short notice. Remain at boost stations until further notice. That is all.”

“Chaff bomb engine shutdown on time. Chaff dispersal charge to fire in forty seconds at my mark. Mark, forty seconds to dispersal charge.”

“Defense, prepare for manual launch of decoys and second chaff can on my order.”

“Ready for second launch. First can dispersal in thirty seconds.”

Dianne worked her displays, and brought up the forward radar image. There it was, dead ahead, glowing big and bright in its own radar emissions. And there was the chaff can, a bright and tiny dot illuminated by the CORE’s radar. Almost into the same not-quite-optimum position that Cargo 43‘s had been in. Almost ready to blow.

Of course, it would take time for the chaff to spread after the can blew. The artificers said it ought to expand out to a cloud of ten or twenty kilometers’ diameter in something like a minute. Dianne did not like dealing with numbers that vague, but she had not wanted to risk testing the system, for fear of a chaff cloud attracting some CORE’s attention. There was no way to know for certain how big the cloud would get, or how fast—and no way to know just how opaque it would be to the CORE’s radar sense. Suppose this CORE was smart enough to have cobbled together a sensory system that could see through the chaff?

Suppose they all ended up dead in the next ten minutes? The bridges were burning behind them now. No way back.

“Second chaff canister ready for launch.”

“Very well,” Dianne said. “Decoy status?”

“Decoy programmed as per your orders.”

“Very well. Will we be able to control the decoys from inside the chaff cloud?”

“No, ma’am. Our radio links will be jammed by the chaff.”

“How are we going to order them to switch over to homing mode?” Gerald asked. “We don’t know exactly when we’re going to be shielded by the chaff. If they start moving in before we’re out of sight, the CORE might figure it out and come after the one signal that’s still running.”

“Yes sir. We’ve thought of that. We’ve programmed them to switch to homing mode twenty seconds after losing contact with us.”

“Excellent, Reed. Remind me to double your pay if we ever get to someplace where they use money.”

“I’ll do that, sir. First chaff can detonating—now. Good detonation. Um, ah, cloud expansion looks somewhat rapid.”

Dianne watched on the radar screen. More than somewhat rapid. It was too damn fast. The faster the cloud expanded, the faster it would blind the CORE—but the faster it would dissipate as well, leaving the Terra Nova exposed. This was going to be a close run thing, that was for sure. But at least the CORE would be blinded fast. Any second now, the cloud would spread out, hiding the CORE from the TN‘s sight—and vice versa. Any second, any second. Anticipate just a bit.

“Defense, reset that second chaff can. Set it for minimum lateral boost only, straight off the port beam. No forward boost. We’re going blow its chaff right where we are now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Dianne glanced at the countdown clock in the upper-left-hand counter, showing time to impact with the CORE. A bare five minutes left, three hundred seconds to live if the CORE had its way. How many of those seconds would they need? When would the CORE be utterly blinded, and how soon until it could see again?

No way to figure, not even time to set up the problem. Never mind. Do it by feel, by gut, by the heat of the sweat in your armpits— “Dump second chaff can now,” Dianne shouted. “Now, now, now! Helm, use attitude jets, translate hard to starboard, five-second burn. Give us some clearance. Give me a call-out at safe distance for main engines.”

The Terra Nova shuddered and slapped herself sideways, lumbering away from the chaff can.

“Safe distance—mark!” the helm officer called. “Helm, correct attitude and bring us to CORE-parallel-negative course—NOW!”

The ship lurched harder, twisting end-over-end to come about, and Dianne could feel the vibration of the att jets. The jets cut, and then came another slap from the opposite side as the helm officer killed the rotation. “On attitude,” he called. “Stand by for main-engine throttle-up.”

The acceleration caught at Dianne, shoving her down into her command chair. Caught at her, and did not let go. A dull roar seemed to come up from nowhere as the engines’ shuddering vibration began to fill the ship.

“Point five gees,” the helm officer said, shouting to be heard over the increasing roar of the engines. “One gee. One point five. Two gees. Two point five. Three. Three point one. Safety limit at three point two gravities.”

“Give us some leeway,” Dianne shouted into her headset, watching the numbers on the tactical screen. “Throttle back to three point zero.”

“Throttling back, three-zero.”

“Intercept on chaff cloud in fifteen seconds,” Gerald called. “We’re going to take some impacts.”

That was an understatement. The ship was going to plow into any number of the tiny, insubstantial bits of chaff, moving at thousands of kilometers an hour relative to the ship. The Terra Nova’s micrometeoroid shielding had been designed to protect the craft for a hundred-year trip between the stars. It would be able to take the strikes, but it was going to be a rough ride for all of that.

“Decoys running, armed and active!” the Defense Officer called out. “Second chaff can showing good telemetry and ready to blow as programmed.”

There was a sudden new vibration and the ship seemed to lurch just a bit, as if had run into something—as indeed it had. They were in the chaff, and taking strikes on the hull.

“All stop on engines,” Dianne called. The noise of the engines vanished, and the great weight lifted—the first moment she was even aware that it had been pressing down on her. Now they could hear the clittering patter of the chaff impacts on the hull, echoing through the ship’s interior.

Dianne checked her radar display screen, now a perfect fog of murky white, the chaff particles reflecting and backscattering the CORE’s radar pulses in all directions. The CORE had entered the chaff cloud itself by now, was passing through it on a course opposite to the Terra Nova’s and just a few kilometers away. But you could not tell that from the screen. It was impossible to get a radar fix on anything in that bright cloud.

And if they could not see the CORE, then the CORE could not see them. They were safe for the moment, barring accidental collision. For the moment. Never mind that. They had a fight to fight. “Tracking Officer, what have you got on visual and IR?”

“It’s a little murky, ma’am, but clear enough for our purposes.”

Dianne pulled up the visual image and was presented with a cloud of murk, filled with shimmering bits of blur, the millions of bits of chaff shining by reflected light as they tumbled through space, the camera shuddering and bouncing as its shielded housing took repeated hits from the chaff. In short, the imagery was a mess. Good thing the Tracking Officer could make sense of it, because she couldn’t.

“The CORE just went right past us,” the Tracking Officer said. “No sign that it spotted us at all.”

“Second chaff should be blowing now,” the Defense Officer called out.

“Good. That will keep the damned thing blinded longer. Just a few seconds longer,” Dianne said. Of course, she was damned near close to blind herself at the moment. She struggled to make sense of the visual display.

“Hamato, can you clean this imagery up a little? I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“What? Oh, ah, ma’am, you must have punched up the raw data image. Pull up the NVIRTH screen.”

“NVIRTH being what?” Gerald asked.

“Noiseless Visual-Infra-Red Tactical Hybrid,” Hamato said. “It subtracts the noise elements out of the visual and IR, pulls in the course projections from tactical and corrects—”

“Shut up, Hamato,” Dianne said. Some of these kids got too involved with the tricks the hardware could do. Results were what mattered. She punched up the NVIRTH channel and was rewarded with a crystal-clear display, the CORE and the decoys neatly labeled. The CORE was moving at terrifying speed, the decoys rushing about the sky in all directions, just the way they had for Cargo 43.

Dianne leaned in and stared at the screen, holding her breath, knowing it was bare seconds now. Either it would work, and they would live, or it would fail, and the CORE skymountain, the CORE hunter-killer asteroid, would kill them.

“Decoys switching from evasive to homing mode,” Reed called out, but Dianne could see that, too. They were turning, coming about, moving in on the CORE instead of running away.

The CORE had to go for the decoys. If it understood in time, it could escape, get away, turn and search for the Terra Nova just as the ship came out the other side of the chaff cloud. And then they were all dead.

The CORE came out of the first chaff cloud and moved straight on, deep into the second cloud. Maybe it was moving so fast it had no chance to react to the brief moment of clear skies. Damnation, that thing was moving fast! It was already out of the second cloud now. At best, two or three seconds to traverse it. Would that be enough? Would it confuse the CORE just enough that it would not think to look back the way it had come?

“CORE maneuvering! Diving down, negative y axis,” Hamato called out, but Dianne could see it too. Turning, down hard about, almost at right angles, aiming toward the rearmost decoy, the one where Cargo 43 had been.

Yes. Yes. They had won! Unless the blast was not powerful enough. Unless a CORE could take even that much punishment—

“CORE closing on Decoy Seven. Collision imminent—”

And the screen vanished in a flare of brightness, a dazzling glare. The proximity bomb in Decoy Seven detonated at the programmed ten meters from its target, and CORE 219 flew straight into a fusion explosion, a blare of stellar power tearing a hole in the middle of the darkness.

The CORE was lost to sight, stopped almost dead in its tracks by the force of the blast, but still moving slowly forward, into the heart of the explosion, into the furnace.

The other decoys moved in, accelerating toward the explosion, diving for the CORE.

“We are approaching edge of chaff cloud,” Hamato said.

With the suddenness of someone snapping on a light, the Terra Nova came out of the chaff cloud, rushing away, quickly moving far enough off to get a clear line of sight on the death of the CORE.

For death it was. Now there could be no doubt.

Someone slapped a switch, and threw the imagery from the hi-res cameras onto the main screen, zoomed in on the fast-receding end of the battle. Another explosion, and another, and another, flared in the sky, blinding the screen. Then, out of the glare, tumbling end over end, lumbering through the darkness, the CORE emerged from the fireball.

Another decoy homed it, slammed into its target, and the darkness blazed again. The CORE cracked open, splitting along its long axis. A huge chunk of material sheared off, and a something squirmed free, a great grey oblong shape, surrounded by a cloud of lesser shapes— all of them, the big one and the small ones, shuddering, twitching, spasming in their death throes.

A cheer went up, the bridge suddenly full of people clapping each other on the back, shouting, laughing, yelling. Dianne did not join in. Instead she sat there, stock still, staring straight ahead, letting the celebration go on without her. One of them. They had got one of them.

First blood, she told herself. The first tiny victory, the first time anyone in the Multisystem had managed to so much as muss the enemy’s hair.

Now all they had to do was do it about another hundred thousand times, and they’d all be safe.

The last of the decoy bombs homed in, and exploded, and the thing from inside the CORE vaporized. She turned and looked toward her second-in-command as he watched the death—not of an enemy, but of a complex and ancient life-form. She could see that in his eyes. All the Charonians were trying to do was stay alive, just like anyone else. That’s what he’d tell her. Maybe there was something wrong about celebrating a death—any death, even a CORE’s.

“Gerald,” she said.

“Hmmm? What?” He blinked, turned toward her, his face pale and quiet. He knew how close it had been, too. He knew it could have been the ship that died, probably would be the next time. “Yes, I’m sorry. What it is, ma’am?”

“Secure the ship from battle stations,” Dianne said. “Prepare to return to previous course.” She punched up the shipwide intercom circuit. “All stations,” she said in a tired quiet voice. “Now hear this.”

How to say it? What was it they needed to hear?

“Now hear this,” she said at last. “We are still alive. Repeat, we are still alive. That is all.”