ring mounted on a rotation cuff a quarter of the way back from the bow. When she was in free fall, her plasma drives silent, as now, the ring’s stately rotation provided spin gravity. During acceleration, the ring section’s decks, with nanotechnic tiles that reshaped themselves beneath the crew’s and passengers’ feet, adjusted the deck’s angle to compensate for the change in acceleration vector.
As a research ship, Gauss would have been comfortable enough, if a bit spartan. With the addition of the Phantoms, however, space was at an absolute premium. The Phantoms’ striderjacks were not the only guests aboard. The company had brought with it eighty-five other officers and enlisted personnel, ranging from mechanics and weapons technicians to General Vic Hagan himself, and his tactical staff.
Her father, Kara knew, had not really chosen Gauss as his temporary headquarters just because Kara and the Phantoms had been transferred aboard. Gauss, at the moment, was the center of all research into the Web, and he’d wanted to stay on top of the data Kara and her people were bringing in, as it arrived and was digested.
The conference room was on Deck One in the Gauss’s ring section, with gravity provided by the ring’s slow spin. The broad, curved viewall screen showed no sign of that rotation, however, since the image was being piped through from a camera mounted in Gauss’s stationary prow.
The room had been empty when Kara was ushered in by a Confed marine guard in full dress. The viewall showed the Nova Aquila Stargate, needle-slender at this distance, its silvery length reflecting the light of the two white dwarf stars that circled one another at a distance of some 800,000 kilometers, the Stargate balanced at their center of gravity. Each star emitted a stream of scarlet flame that spiraled around half an orbit to vanish into the ends of the Gate like silken streamers at the end of a twirled baton. The scientists and technicians studying the Web and associated phenomena believed they were channeling star stuff into the Gate and across the Galaxy to some other site… but where that site might be, and why they were mining the stars of plasma stripped from their atmospheres, was still unknown.
Several other ships of the Unified Fleet were visible onscreen as well. Shinryu, the big ryu-class flagship of the Imperial Navy contingent. Constitution and Reliant, a pair of cruisers with the Confed squadron. Karyu was the Confederation flag, by far the largest vessel of the entire Confederation fleet. Originally an Imperial ryu carrier, she’d been captured twenty-seven years before at the Second Battle of Herakles. Kara’s father had often joked that he’d named his daughter after the huge battle prize.
Also visible were a half dozen of the big, rough-surfaced starfish shapes that were living DalRiss cityships, each kilometers across, vaster by far than even the largest of the human-built ships.
The Unified Fleet had been parked here, orbiting the double star-Stargate trio at the hopefully safe remove of nearly one astronomical unit, where they could keep a watchful eye on the enigmatic Stargate. The fleet’s actual eyes were much closer in, of course—robot flyers teleoperated by pilots maintaining I2C links from both the Karyu and the Shinryu. If Web machines emerged through the Gate’s invisible portals, the fleet would know about it instantly, rather than in the seven to eight minutes it would take for news of the arrival to crawl out from the Gate by more conventional means.
The door hissed open at her back. “Kara!” a familiar voice said. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting!”
She turned, smiling. Her father, General Victor Hagan, advanced toward her with outstretched arms. He, too, was in full dress uniform, the two-toned grays of the Confederation Navy. Normally, he would have been stationed aboard Karyu with the Unified Fleet’s Confederation Military Command Staff, but he’d been crowded in
As a research ship, Gauss would have been comfortable enough, if a bit spartan. With the addition of the Phantoms, however, space was at an absolute premium. The Phantoms’ striderjacks were not the only guests aboard. The company had brought with it eighty-five other officers and enlisted personnel, ranging from mechanics and weapons technicians to General Vic Hagan himself, and his tactical staff.
Her father, Kara knew, had not really chosen Gauss as his temporary headquarters just because Kara and the Phantoms had been transferred aboard. Gauss, at the moment, was the center of all research into the Web, and he’d wanted to stay on top of the data Kara and her people were bringing in, as it arrived and was digested.
The conference room was on Deck One in the Gauss’s ring section, with gravity provided by the ring’s slow spin. The broad, curved viewall screen showed no sign of that rotation, however, since the image was being piped through from a camera mounted in Gauss’s stationary prow.
The room had been empty when Kara was ushered in by a Confed marine guard in full dress. The viewall showed the Nova Aquila Stargate, needle-slender at this distance, its silvery length reflecting the light of the two white dwarf stars that circled one another at a distance of some 800,000 kilometers, the Stargate balanced at their center of gravity. Each star emitted a stream of scarlet flame that spiraled around half an orbit to vanish into the ends of the Gate like silken streamers at the end of a twirled baton. The scientists and technicians studying the Web and associated phenomena believed they were channeling star stuff into the Gate and across the Galaxy to some other site… but where that site might be, and why they were mining the stars of plasma stripped from their atmospheres, was still unknown.
Several other ships of the Unified Fleet were visible onscreen as well. Shinryu, the big ryu-class flagship of the Imperial Navy contingent. Constitution and Reliant, a pair of cruisers with the Confed squadron. Karyu was the Confederation flag, by far the largest vessel of the entire Confederation fleet. Originally an Imperial ryu carrier, she’d been captured twenty-seven years before at the Second Battle of Herakles. Kara’s father had often joked that he’d named his daughter after the huge battle prize.
Also visible were a half dozen of the big, rough-surfaced starfish shapes that were living DalRiss cityships, each kilometers across, vaster by far than even the largest of the human-built ships.
The Unified Fleet had been parked here, orbiting the double star-Stargate trio at the hopefully safe remove of nearly one astronomical unit, where they could keep a watchful eye on the enigmatic Stargate. The fleet’s actual eyes were much closer in, of course—robot flyers teleoperated by pilots maintaining I2C links from both the Karyu and the Shinryu. If Web machines emerged through the Gate’s invisible portals, the fleet would know about it instantly, rather than in the seven to eight minutes it would take for news of the arrival to crawl out from the Gate by more conventional means.
The door hissed open at her back. “Kara!” a familiar voice said. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting!”
She turned, smiling. Her father, General Victor Hagan, advanced toward her with outstretched arms. He, too, was in full dress uniform, the two-toned grays of the Confederation Navy. Normally, he would have been stationed aboard Karyu with the Unified Fleet’s Confederation Military Command Staff, but he’d been crowded in
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