“There’s only one reason why Admiral T’San would be saying
what she is saying,” Astrid said aloud.  And the message
continued...

    Admiral T’San continued to speak:

    “...First, no more are we to be a part of the Union of Planetary
Republics, nor are we to accept or be subject to any resolution put
to us by the Union...”

    “I can’t believe it,” Astrid said.  “They’re actually going to do
it!”  Admiral T’San paused, then spoke more:

    “...Second, that all people who do not wish to join our new
sovreign State must be allowed to leave as soon as possible, and...”

    “There is not way they could survive alone, apart from the
Union,” Lothair said.  “They just blew up what would have been a
six month supply of anti-K ammunition.  And the Belts are
moving even faster into their sectors than into ours.”

    Admiral T’San continued:

    “...Third, that they leave all Union materials and equipment
behind, save for the ships which they use, on penalty of charges of
piracy and espionage which both are punishable by death.  Finally,
those materials shall be assumed by NeoTerra as a part of her
dominion by rightful claim of salvage.  All attempts to relieve the
State of her rightful possessions shall be considered as acts of war. 
This National Congress hereby absolves itself of all prior contracts
and commitments which were made by the former government of
NeoTerra for the sake of the Union or for any other world.”

    “It’s about time we got moving,” Astrid said.  “If we don’t
hurry, those patrols of the border might get reinforcements.”

    “What about Terra?” MacHaley asked.

    “Terra can do whatever they like with that,” Astrid said, “They
were at least cooperating with the Union.  If NeoTerra’s secession
was somehow a reason for them to secede, then let them do it.”

    “That’s not taking their needs into consideration.”

    “It’s not taking their secession into consideration.  What they
need right now is what only the Union can offer.  We will
continue, with all our efforts, to serve them and to follow the
Spacer Creed: ‘to protect those who are in trouble on the high
spaces, and render assistance to those in need.’  They may not
want the services, but we will render them anyway.”

    “Now they’re really not going to let us take the Hedefrium
cluster from them,” MacHaley said.

    “I hope that they will at least listen to attempts to negotiate,”
Astrid said.  “Because I’d rather take the Hedefrium cluster
knowing that they gave it to us, rather than knowing that we just
committed an act of war by their standards.”

    “Captain,” Kairago reported, “We’ve got a signal from Earth’s
End.  They are clearing the Dragonfly shuttle for departure.”

    “We weren’t supposed to leave this soon,” Astrid said.

    “They are clearing the Dragonfly for immediate departure, sir,”
Kairago said, “Because if the shuttle isn’t away soon, the station
commanders fear that the Terrans might shoot her down.”

    “Call the Marine Deck and tell Mister West to have his brigade
ready as soon as possible.  Lura’aknul, MacHaley, you two are
with me.”

    “Captain,” Hiram Lothair said, “Are you certain of this course
of action?”

    “To get the Hedefrium cluster?” Astrid paused for a nod from
Lothair.  “Yes.  It’s my ship that needs the ansible and the ansible
observatory.  So I negotiate the deal.”

    “God speed, Captain,” Lothair said.

    “You have command of the ship.  Your orders are to follow
after my party as soon as Engineer Leis gets the engines fully
operational.  If you feel it is necessary to shake the ship down, feel
free to do so; but make it quick.”

    “Aye, sir.”

    Astrid and her two officers departed from the Bridge.
 

    They met the Marines in the corridor just outside the Shuttle
Bay.  Each Marine was wearing, or was carrying, the components
of her or his armor and making final adjustments.

    “Marine Commander LeRoy West reporting,” West said, “with
a brigade of four Marines.”

    “Let’s go aboard the shuttle, then,” Astrid said.  The door to the
Shuttle Bay folded away, and Astrid led the way.

    “The Dragonfly is over there,” MacHaley said, pointing to a tall
launching pylon that was in position to launch the shuttle.  The
troupe of officers and Marines headed toward the shuttle across
the flight deck, which was a giant and empty expanse of starmac. 
Somewhere under the starmac was a system of anti gravity cables
that canceled out the effect of the ship’s artificial gravity system. 
It would make the shuttles as light as feathers, enabling them to
clear the flight deck with low power jets of air, rather than the hot
blasts of ion engines.  It would also levitate incoming shuttles so
they would not crash into the deck.  At the back of the bay was the
controlled crash gravity web, which would brake the motion of an
uncontrolled shuttle long before it reached the webbing.

    They reached the Dragonfly.  She was some twenty meters long,
and five meters wide, with two decks of space inside.  Astrid
wondered, for a moment, where the hyperdrive modules were on
the shuttle, until MacHaley spoke up.

    “I’ve done a bit of research on this shuttle, while I was in
Engineering.  It’s built with a twin-ram configured hyperdrive, full
body morphos like the ship, and stringwarp capacity.  Plus it has
standard shields, interferometric, and neutronium plating.”

    Astrid paused, before climbing the ladder to the shuttle airlock. 
MacHaley kept talking as he climbed.

    “The ship also has a space flight mode that does not need the
ion engines.”

    “That will be interesting to see,” Astrid said.  The two airlock
doors swung open, and the people boarded the shuttle.  The
Marines who hadn’t yet gotten all of their armor on had managed
to completely suit up between the time they entered the Shuttle
Bay and now, because Astrid saw all of them in their armor.

    Astrid, Lura’aknul, and MacHaley climbed the ladder to the
shuttle cockpit, and seated themselves at the controls, the tactical
station, and the copilots controls, respectively.  Commander West
stayed below, where he continued to brief the Marines.

    “This is MacHaley to Bridge,” MacHaley said.  “We’re ready
for departure.”

    “This Micheta, I read you.  I’m opening the Shuttle Bay doors
now.”

    The Shuttle Bay doors folded open, revealing the back end of
the docking bay, approximately one hundred meters away from the
tail of the ship.  A force field kept the air inside the bay.  The
docking pylons had been attached to airlocks in the rear of the
ship, to allow for easy loading of shuttles.  Coincidentally, it also
meant that Astrid could fly out.

    After conducting preflight checks, Astrid turned on the engine. 
Through the hull, she could hear a buzzing sound, which she
hoped was the engine.  The shuttle seemed to bob up and down for
a moment, and then MacHaley released the docking clamps that
held the Dragonfly down.  The shuttle rose slowly, and Astrid
carefully moved the controls.

    The Dragonfly inched forward.  Astrid applied a bit more
pressure, and the shuttle picked up speed.  Then it cleared the
Shuttle Bay force field, and flitted off into space.  Astrid brought
the shuttle around, while MacHaley told Kairago that they were
safe.  Then, they were transferred to the spaceport’s traffic control.
 

    “Shuttle Bay doors sealing,” Kairago reported to Lothair.

    “Let’s hope this doesn’t put salt in anybody’s wounds,” Lothair
said.

    “We need the ansible.”

    T’San’s message continued to come in through the ansible at
Earth’s End, from which it was being relayed to KB by radio. 
Even if the ship could take off without the ansible, she was
constrained to communication by hyperband radio, which still
carried a delay of several minutes before a reply came through.  Or
they could use the light radio, but then a message from NeoTerra
would take years to get to the Union.

    The Belts precluded use of light radio or hyperband radio. 
Which meant that if KB were to perform her primary duty of
exploration in the Belts, she had to have an ansible.

    The Dragonfly buzzed past the view window of the Bridge,
where Lothair and Kairago could see the long dragonfly-like
“wings” of the shuttle.  They flapped up and down in a blur, and
Lothair knew no metal structure could hold up under the stress of
flapping that fast.
 

    “The shuttle’s wings are force fields.  Out in the vacuum of the
spaceport, flapping wings have no air to beat against so they can’t
fly,” MacHaley said.  “They must generate an effect like a repulsor
beam, or a levitator.”

    “It’s the strangest sensation,” Lura’aknul said.  It feels like
we’re not moving at all.”

    “Just wait,” Astrid said.  “Whatever it is that the wings do, they
must be able to take us up to hyperdrive speeds, because we don’t
have an ion drive.”

    Astrid flew the shuttle past a line of halted ships, which were
waiting for departure.  They had been delayed because of the
Dragonfly.  Astrid passed another line of ships, then headed down
a spiral tunnel which would lead out of the spaceport.  The shuttle
followed the curve of the spiral perfectly, until it opened out into a
ten kilometer wide space.  This was the atrium of the spaceport,
with a five kilometer height.  It too was bisected by the central
shaft of the spaceport.  Only shuttles and small ships flew in and
out through the atrium, entering through any of the four open
tunnel gates, then taking any of the spiral tunnels up into the
spaceport proper.  Astrid sped the shuttle up to exit speed and the
Dragonfly flew out of the spaceport.

    From outside, the spaceport was a massive elliptical shape
attached to the floating city of New Earth’s End.  The entire city
was a gigantic cylindrical extension from what would be the
bottom of the ellipse, the end which was kept pointed at Terra. 
That end of the spaceport was laden with antennae and receivers
that once communicated between Terra and the spaceport.  Some
of the antennae once had been used to beam energy down to Terra
for use in the cities and residences on the surface.  The spaceport
also had wheel-shaped residential sections, three in all.  There
were eight smaller wheel shaped-sections which circled the central
shaft of the spaceport.  They were for docking outside the base,
specifically for ships which were not going to be there for long. 
The entire spaceport was at least a hundred kilometers from the
antenna cluster at one end to the giant ellipse at the other.

    The spaceport was surrounded by a ring of solar panels that
began about fifty kilometers away from the base and extended for
several hundred kilometers.  A Captain had once likened the ring
of solar panels to the iris of a giant’s eye.  The Dragonfly flitted
past the individual panels some ten kilometers away.  If Astrid had
looked, she might have seen the reflections of starships in the
panels.  But she concentrated on plotting a course for NeoTerra,
and getting the Dragonfly into hyperspace.
 

    Stars drifted past while Astrid and the others discussed what
they would do next.  Astrid had locked the shuttle into autopilot
while the discussion was carried out.  As long as they had a plan
before they reached NeoTerra, Astrid felt that they would be
successful.

    “I don’t want things to get out of hand,” Astrid said, “We will
most likely see a few ships, if not a whole battalion of them, and
they’ll all want to know why we are there.”

    “It depends strongly on how they patrol their space,” West said. 
“If they don’t have enough ships, they might stay out of open
space and only patrol near inhabited places on planets or
spaceports.”

    “They had more than enough ships to blow up an entire
convoy,” MacHaley said.  “Even if they are as West suggests, we
have to realize that there are going to be a few ships on the prowl
out there.”

    “It’s just a matter of getting past them all undetected,”
Lura’aknul said.  “While in principle it seems easy, it is very hard
to get past an enemy whose strategy you do not know.”

    “We don’t have enough time to carry out a reconnaissance
mission through their system,” Astrid said.

    “I could send a couple Marines to scout ahead.  Our armor units
are spaceworthy and come with their own flight systems.”

    “How far can they go in open space,” Lura’aknul asked West.

    “They can make a round trip of sixteen hundred kilometers.”

    “Most ships can see that far with their sensors,” Astrid said. 
“What makes you think they won’t find your Marines?”

    “Armor suits are built for stealth.  Unless they are actively
searching the area for us, they won’t find us.”

    “It still sounds risky.  How about listening in on their radios and
using their own information to avoid them?” MacHaley suggested.

    “That’s a good idea,” Astrid said.

    “If we used Marines to run a short range recon,” Lura’aknul
said, “Then they could use the radios in their armor suits to
intercept transmissions for us.”

    “We could do that,” West said.  “One benefit that gives us is the
ability to power down.  Marine armor has its own life support
system, and we’re trained to operate it on just bare bones if
necessary.  So we could listen in on the transmissions.”

    “We would want to keep you monitored,” Astrid said, “Because
I don’t want you risking life and limb over an ansible when there
are other ways to handle the problem.”

    “You could also power down most of the systems of the shuttle,
but keep ready to power up at a moment’s notice,” West said. 
“Then we can get as much information as possible while you stay
and hide somewhere.”

    “I want to negotiate if I can.  Perhaps we can settle the
differences in opinion between Terra and NeoTerra and the
Union,” Astrid said.

    “Terra will probably side with us,” MacHaley said, “since
NeoTerra blew up the Union convoy that carried their cargo to
NeoTerra.”

    “Let’s not play anybody against the others,” Astrid said, “Or
we’ll have three wars going on at once.”  At that moment, a beep
sounded, and everybody went to work.  The shuttle was rapidly
approaching NeoTerran space.
 

    Five minutes later, they were in NeoTerran space.  Astrid
watched the Marines don their space helmets and check each
other’s armor.

    “Be careful out there,” Astrid said, “And remember: I’m
watching your backs.  If you have to, pull out.”

    “We’ll get the information,” West said.  “Just make sure you
stay in this hiding spot.”

    “This doesn’t count for much by way of being hidden,”
MacHaley said.  “Sitting near an asteroid with most of everything
turned off and floating in the shadow.”

    “We’ll be landing on the asteroid and powering down in five
more minutes,” Lura’aknul called from the cockpit, where she had
assumed control of the shuttle.  She pressed a few buttons, and the
lights turned from white to red.  The soft hum of heating systems
shut down, and the blue emergency lights switched on.

    “Good luck,” Astrid said.

    “We make our luck,” West said.  Then he and the four Marines
marched into the airlock.  MacHaley pressed a control surface next
to the inner airlock door, and it swung shut.  Through the porthole
in the door, they could see the Marines locking their helmet visors
down and going through the last minute preparations for their
mission.  Thumbs up signs were exchanged between Marines, and
then they cycled the airlock down to zero pressure.  The outer door
slid open, and they stepped out into space and floated away.

    Astrid and MacHaley returned to the cockpit, where Lura’aknul
was working.

    “Let’s get the rest of life support cut down to bare bones,”
Astrid said.  Through the cockpit viewport, everyone watched the
Marines jet away from the shuttle.  The Union officers finished
getting life support lowered in all the rest of the ship, except here. 
Then they sealed off the room.  As they approached the asteroid,
Lura’aknul eased the shuttle down into a crevasse that cut across
the rim of a crater.  As they passed into the shadows, she cut off
the safety lights.  Using the sensors, she completed the landing. 
The landing pylons touched down, and Lura’aknul shut off the rest
of the unnecessary systems.  Almost every console was dark, with
no telltale lights shimmering on them and no hologram displays to
speak of.  They waited at the communications console, listening to
the Marines as they got farther and farther away from safety.

    Astrid hoped they would come back safely.  Or those brave
souls would be the first non-simulated people she sent to die
carrying out the orders she gave.