She was also worried about what that would mean for her bridge crew, specifically Navigation and Helm control. If a course was plotted with the assumption the RDS was available, and the helm was flying that course, what would happen if the drive dropped out without notice? The MPD main engines were kept primed and ready as standard operating procedure, but their performance envelope was completely unlike what the reactionless drive was capable of.

“Proceed with your least favorite option, Commander Graham,” Celesta said after a moment of thought. “Go right to the point that you actually tap the interface into the MUX. Worst case scenario is that your people get some invaluable training and familiarity with the new hardware while fabricating the necessary parts.”

“That’s not the worst case scenario, with all due respect, Captain,” Graham said with a slow shake of his head. “But I will get my crews to work immediately on the interface. I will alert you as soon as we’re ready to implement it, of course.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Celesta nodded. “Carry on.” Her trip back to the command deck was filled with doubts about the orders she’d just given. Was she as enamored with the idea of a gravity engine as the CENTCOM brass was? Maybe she should have told Commander Graham to pull and stow all the cables leading to the RDS pod and leave it as useless ballast until they returned to New Sierra. As the lift doors opened she pushed thoughts of Tsuyo’s engineering debacle out of her head and began to gather her thoughts about the upcoming push back into Xi’an. Not only did she not know what she would find there, she also had to consider that her taskforce’s very presence would be seen as a hostile act by the Asianic Union should she be spotted.

Chapter 4

“Let’s be quick about this, everyone,” Celesta said to the wall-sized monitor that was split seven ways so she could simultaneously talk to each starship captain and the CIS agent. “I want to be transitioning out of this system within the next forty-eight hours. For the sake of clarity allow me to state that my orders give me operational control over this mission, but as of now I’m just as much in the dark as any of you. Agent Uba, would you please rectify that?”

“Of course, Captain,” the agent said, seeming unsurprised at the abrupt introduction and handoff. “Captains, before I begin let me say that this is classified Top Secret, Special Instruction Level Six. Even though there may not technically be a Confederacy at the moment, CENTCOM will still come down on all of us like a hammer should word of this get out.”

“We know what classified means, Agent Uba,” Captain Kolsh of the heavy cruiser Leighton said testily. “Please get on with it.”