“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.”