worry, he’ll be working as hard as the rest of us. Hugo, meet Rachel, Amy, John and our other new man, Will.’
Hugo introduced himself with earnest vigour.
‘Amy, it’s a pleasure.’
‘John! The cryptographer! I read your work on counter-shells. Brilliant.’
He lingered for a moment on Rachel’s hand. ‘Rachel. Lovely to meet you. Are you the same Rachel who cracked the four-buffer problem? You are! I’m honoured.’
He turned at last to Will. ‘Hello, Will! I heard about your clever trick out there at Memburi. Well done.’ He slapped Will on the shoulder.
Will smiled back wordlessly. He knew nothing about Hugo. He framed a memory request to the station so that he could respond in kind, but by the time it fired, Ira was talking again.
‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re all here now and I’m afraid time is of the essence. So if you’ll just follow me, we’ll get started.’
The captain led them over to the airlock on the far side of the room. Will tagged along behind the others, his stomach fluttering nervously. He was really going to board the Ariel . He was heading into space with these people. It had all happened so fast that it felt vaguely unreal. He’d barely had time to tell his family and friends.
It felt strange, too, boarding a ship without knowing where it was going. But that was how it worked in soft combat. The missions were top secret. The briefings happened on board.
The airlock opened to reveal a docking pod – a chamber shaped like an octagonal box laid on its side. It was lined with plush Fleet-green carpet. Foam handles stuck out from the floor, walls and ceiling, and little oval screens were set in each surface like pretend windows. In actual fact, the pod was lined with several metres of radiation shielding.
‘Everybody grab a handle, please,’ said Ira as Will stepped in.
The door closed and the pod began to slowly lift towards the middle of the station, shedding gravity as it went.
Will clutched his handle and floated. The rest of the crew chatted as if nothing were happening while the pod lost its spin and accelerated out along the docking spar.
Through the nearest screen, Will watched the ships pass. Without exception, they were huge. Even the Ariel , the smallest of the lot, was over a kilometre long. Most, like the Phoenix , were many times larger. They resembled petite grey worlds covered with forests of spikes. These were the collapsed field inducers, or ‘brollies’ as the engineers called them. During warp, they unfurled to envelop the ships in swathes of gravity. The hulls themselves were littered with scars and pocks the size of trench apartments – souvenirs of battle.
The pod turned off the main docking spar and followed the rail that led out towards the Ariel . It slid along the track between the mighty trunks of the inducers and down past the hull’s grey metal horizon to the interior below.
Stripped of an outside view to show, the screens provided a diagrammatic impression of their position within the starship instead. The crew descended through the exo- and mesohulls, with their networks of tunnels where the robots lived and worked. They passed the outer Casimir-buffers and entered the narrow aperture in the lead shell of the endohull that led to the tiny command kernel at the centre of the ship. Finally the pod docked softly against the airlock. After a brief pause while the safety mechanisms disengaged, the door hissed open. The Ariel ’s main cabin lay beyond.
Like all Galatean starships, the interior was decorated with cream-coloured crash padding and smelled as if someone had just mown their lawn nearby. Will had expected that. What he hadn’t expected, not even with Doug’s memories to help him, was the size. The cabin was about three metres wide and five high. Three vertically stacked bunks stood on either side of the entrance, filling most of the space except for a narrow channel down the centre. A coffin-shaped tank stuck out of the
Hugo introduced himself with earnest vigour.
‘Amy, it’s a pleasure.’
‘John! The cryptographer! I read your work on counter-shells. Brilliant.’
He lingered for a moment on Rachel’s hand. ‘Rachel. Lovely to meet you. Are you the same Rachel who cracked the four-buffer problem? You are! I’m honoured.’
He turned at last to Will. ‘Hello, Will! I heard about your clever trick out there at Memburi. Well done.’ He slapped Will on the shoulder.
Will smiled back wordlessly. He knew nothing about Hugo. He framed a memory request to the station so that he could respond in kind, but by the time it fired, Ira was talking again.
‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re all here now and I’m afraid time is of the essence. So if you’ll just follow me, we’ll get started.’
The captain led them over to the airlock on the far side of the room. Will tagged along behind the others, his stomach fluttering nervously. He was really going to board the Ariel . He was heading into space with these people. It had all happened so fast that it felt vaguely unreal. He’d barely had time to tell his family and friends.
It felt strange, too, boarding a ship without knowing where it was going. But that was how it worked in soft combat. The missions were top secret. The briefings happened on board.
The airlock opened to reveal a docking pod – a chamber shaped like an octagonal box laid on its side. It was lined with plush Fleet-green carpet. Foam handles stuck out from the floor, walls and ceiling, and little oval screens were set in each surface like pretend windows. In actual fact, the pod was lined with several metres of radiation shielding.
‘Everybody grab a handle, please,’ said Ira as Will stepped in.
The door closed and the pod began to slowly lift towards the middle of the station, shedding gravity as it went.
Will clutched his handle and floated. The rest of the crew chatted as if nothing were happening while the pod lost its spin and accelerated out along the docking spar.
Through the nearest screen, Will watched the ships pass. Without exception, they were huge. Even the Ariel , the smallest of the lot, was over a kilometre long. Most, like the Phoenix , were many times larger. They resembled petite grey worlds covered with forests of spikes. These were the collapsed field inducers, or ‘brollies’ as the engineers called them. During warp, they unfurled to envelop the ships in swathes of gravity. The hulls themselves were littered with scars and pocks the size of trench apartments – souvenirs of battle.
The pod turned off the main docking spar and followed the rail that led out towards the Ariel . It slid along the track between the mighty trunks of the inducers and down past the hull’s grey metal horizon to the interior below.
Stripped of an outside view to show, the screens provided a diagrammatic impression of their position within the starship instead. The crew descended through the exo- and mesohulls, with their networks of tunnels where the robots lived and worked. They passed the outer Casimir-buffers and entered the narrow aperture in the lead shell of the endohull that led to the tiny command kernel at the centre of the ship. Finally the pod docked softly against the airlock. After a brief pause while the safety mechanisms disengaged, the door hissed open. The Ariel ’s main cabin lay beyond.
Like all Galatean starships, the interior was decorated with cream-coloured crash padding and smelled as if someone had just mown their lawn nearby. Will had expected that. What he hadn’t expected, not even with Doug’s memories to help him, was the size. The cabin was about three metres wide and five high. Three vertically stacked bunks stood on either side of the entrance, filling most of the space except for a narrow channel down the centre. A coffin-shaped tank stuck out of the
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