The observation hall was in orbit, twenty thousand kilometers from Novaya Rodina, giving a wonderful view of the planet below. A white and turquoise marble shining against the black, surrounded by a glittering cloud as ships and satellites moved in and out of its shadow. The hall itself gave the impression of a flattened sphere with an observation band from floor to ceiling all the way around. It wasn't any kind of window but rather a holo screen that gave the illusion of an immense wall of glass.
The shipyards were much closer than the planet but not visible behind the opaque screens around the back three-quarters of the room. The swivel chairs were empty, tilted to the right or left, bereft of human direction, except for one where Li Han sat quietly in her dress uniform, with all the braid and medals, so the delegation from the PSUN would understand which of her roles was more important as far as she was concerned, soldier or diplomat. Her heels were together, one hand loose in her lap while the other rested on the table to her right. Though she faced the magnificent view, her eyes were closed and her breathing slow and measured as she waited in a light Zen state. Magda Windrider set a bone-china mug next to her hand on the table and a hint of steam pooled just above it before drifting lazily upward in the lighter gravity of the hall.
"You have about ten minutes before the delegation shows up," Magda said as she sat down comfortably next to her. Another, deeper breath brought her eyes open, full of calm as she looked out over what would be their opening display. She picked up the cup and nodded her thanks. "And you are planning something," Windrider said.
"Would I do such a thing?" Li Han said blandly and was answered with a snort.
"In a heartbeat."
The door chimed and slid open to reveal a tall, elegant woman whose face was a blend of Northern European and Indian from Old Terra, a pale Brahmin's face. Some would have called it severe and harsh, but it was the kind of face on which age rested well and transformed mere severity into an immense dignity. Her dark hair was threaded through with gray and fell in smooth wings from a center part.
Admiral Sonja Desai, TFN/PSUN, retired, smiled briefly, and nodded at the seated women. "Hello, Ms. Windrider, First Space Lord."
Li Han rose to face Desai, her mind flickering back to a much younger image of this woman on a ship screen, her vac suit spattered with blood. For a moment it was as though eighty years had vanished.
"I've enjoyed our letters, Admiral," she said quietly. In the peace that they had initiated at Zapata, they had been able to correspond over the years. Each would have been surprised that what they thought of each other was so similar, if someone had mentioned it: Impressive woman. Stubborn, too.
"Sonja, please. We've gotten to know each other well enough, don't you think?"
For a moment, Li hesitated as though wondering if it would be quite proper to be so informal. Windrider could almost see the mental shrug as she conceded that it would be. "Sonja, please call me Han."
"I thought I'd come a bit early and have a chat before the rest of the mob shows up," Dr. Desai continued. Li shook her hand and they all sat down again.
"Mob?" Windrider asked. "Do you feel as though younger people sometimes have more energy than is easy to bear? I know I do and then get concerned that I'm acting the old biddy."
Desai smiled slightly. "I do find that most younger people have far too much energy for inconsequential things. They 'vibrate' even when they sit still." The staff began filtering in carrying briefcases, setting out water, and clattering around the coffee station with what seemed to be a lot more noise than necessary, breaking up the natural hush of the hall. The three women exchanged looks at this unintentional proof of her statement.
"Ah," Magda said. "Yes. It's been nice to meet you in person, Dr. Desai."
"You're welcome. I've quite enjoyed the whole experience, myself, even though Daniel would prefer to keep everything as formal as possible. Since it will annoy him, please call me Sonja."
"Then you'll have to be familiar and call me Magda."
"Of course." Desai leaned back slightly and smiled. "Well, I hope that your asking to have me along with this delegation hasn't disarranged anything for either of you. I'm curious as to why you requested me particularly." She regarded Li Han with a look of pleasant inquiry on her face, but a hint of command steel in her voice. "I am hardly indispensable in this delegation. I've been letting the younger ones do all the tours. I'm a theorist, not a technician."
Li was impervious to the voice. "I have my reasons, Sonja. But I do promise you'll find out today, on that you have my word."
"I will be very content with that—as before. A few more minutes won't make me explode." She looked around at her staff and that of the rest of delegation's support. "The rest of the youngsters—" She waved her hand to encompass anyone under a hundred. "—are inclined to look sideways at me, thinking I'm going to start spouting physics like some theoretical oracle."
The three women were very aware of the reactions of the so-called youngsters, even the fancy executive secretaries who supposedly thought themselves above things like hero worship. Even now as Li Han's staff finished prepping the room and the support staff for the delegation started arriving, there were furtive and speculative glances at them.
Li laughed and shook her head. "No, but your lofty status holding down a physics chair does make some people light-headed."
Windrider threw up her hands. "A physics chair she says; the Einstein Chair at the University of Athena no less. The woman even has to downplay her peers' accomplishments as well as her own." Li loftily ignored this aside, as hard as that was for someone as short as she was, and rose again as the rest of the PSUN delegation, headed up by Daniel Bortollotti entered.
He came up to shake all their hands as his delegates got themselves sorted out. "First Space Lord Li, Director Windrider. Dr. Desai, you're here early." His tailor was good, but no tailor in the galaxy could ever make him look tidy. He looked as though his suit should have a pocket protector in it rather than a decorative pocket square, everything about him just slightly rumpled and askew.
One corner of Desai's mouth twitched narrow lips into something like a half smile. "Daniel, you know that I am a law unto myself." She nodded at Li Han's china cup being whisked away. "And surely you don't read anything into having a cup of tea with friends."
His look was ironic for he saw deep meanings in everything, trying to be the politician he thought he should be instead of an engineer with grafted-on people skills. Of course he was young to be heading up the technical delegation—only fifty-eight. "Ladies." He nodded and offered his arm to Dr. Desai. "Don't let us hold up your presentation, First Space Lord, Director." Sonja tapped his arm lightly but didn't take it.
"I'm not so decrepit that I need support, Mr. Bortollotti." He colored but changed his gesture to a sweeping one, letting her proceed. As they settled into their chairs, Li turned and brought up the holographic screen for her notes, not saying what they were thinking. Who does he think he's politicking, here? Windrider took her seat and leaned back. She knew that Li Han was up to something but hadn't confided in her. But she knew her friend well enough to enjoy whatever was coming down.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the First Space Lord said quietly and waited the half beat until everyone settled. "We've introduced you to our new ship type, the devastator." At the touch of her finger the last of the opaque screening faded and revealed Taconic, all two million tonnes of her. She'd been brought up to close magnification, so it looked as though she were in orbit right outside the hall. Sparkling beyond her were visible a hundred miniatures of her, toys that shone silver against the dark velvet of space. Everyone turned toward the ship almost unconsciously drawn to her graceful lines.
With no perspective to give an indication of her size she was light and elegant, giving the impression of splendid motion, even at rest. "You've seen the specs, you've watched her performance, now I understand that you have some reservations, especially about how many of these ships we are intending to build."
Dr. Emil Roberts, an R&D engineer from Galloway, was the first to speak up. He stood. "First Space Lord Li, Director Windrider, you have an enormously powerful ship here." He paused to let his eye linger on that beautiful piece of engineering, before coming to his first concern. "She's so big that she cannot maneuver very quickly."
"Like trying to park a swimming pool," someone muttered. Dr. Roberts shot a quelling look at his miscreant before accepting the description.
"Let us just say, slow to turn. But I find it astonishing that you would commit this amount of effort to a ship that has so little use in the normal warp network."
One of his staff chimed in with "It could be that twenty percent of all warp points couldn't allow passage to this vessel."
"Ah," one of the others commented—Nora Ishisu, that was her name—in weapons design. "But how big a punch she can throw."
"But if you can't get the punch to where you need it, or someone gets into your blind spot it isn't worth spit—"
Bortollotti cut them off. "I'm sure you all would love to continue arguing the pros and cons of this ship's size, but I would like to ask the First Space Lord why the Republic intends to build so many of this class? Given the drawbacks?"
Over the decades Li Han had finally made her most inscrutable face, the china doll, the mask she'd wanted it to be. To everyone but her close friends, though. Windrider raised her chin as if to get a better view. Here it comes. She's got too much of an air of canary-fed cat about her.
Li Han tilted her head to one side and smiled. "I'm glad that your coterie does not include Orions or Ophiuchi, or I'd be hearing variations on 'How many fighters would that hull hold?' " She got the laugh she wanted and before it died down turned to Desai.
"In answer to your question . . . if I could ask Dr. Desai to brief the staff by explaining the Kasugawa Effect?"
Sonja sat silent, completely stunned by the request. How in hell did their ONI find out about it? The others around the room gazed at her expectantly, or curiously since no one in this room but her had known about it. At least that was what she'd thought a half second ago. A rather large mistake. "Ah." She closed her lips, opened them again. "Well. I wouldn't want to get too technical—" She looked over at Li Han, sitting, watching. I could smack you silly for springing this on me, woman! "It's . . ." She threw up her hands. If I were old and decrepit enough to even consider a cane, I'd hit you with it.
"Dr. Desai, perhaps I can help you," Li Han said. "Since I don't have the technical expertise, I should be able to put it in layman's terms." She had her chair tipped back with her fingers laced together over her middle. Desai just looked at her, still gathering her thoughts. Everyone's eyes were on the two of them, aware that something momentous was happening but not sure exactly what. Sonja Desai's lips thinned, as Li went on.
"The Kasugawa generator is an offshoot technology of the Desai Prime, actually, which is one reason I specifically asked her to be here." Sonja's eye narrowed as she listened. "It creates a massive gravitational disturbance in the space-time continuum . . . in effect a very short-lived black hole. One of my analysts has a sense of humor and tells me that if one could find an enemy stupid enough to come close to the generator it would make a dandy weapon, but since gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, I don't think we're going to try anything that suicidal." She startled a laugh out of the engineers and even Sonja smiled. "That's as technical as I care to get at the moment, but one real effect as I understand it, is to 'dredge' existing warp points and make them large enough for our new 'baby' out there."
Another long moment of silence before a confusion of babble broke out. "—unprecedented—" "—but the power consumpt—" "—ink of the poten—"
Li Han let it go on for a moment before she placed one finger precisely on the attention button on the arm of her chair and held it there. The insistent peal finally silenced them all. "And," she continued, "if one pairs two generators, a warp line is created between them."
Bortollotti quietly signed himself. "Santa Maria," he said quietly. "Dios."
Li Han nodded. "Of course it means that one has to actually, physically get a Kasugawa generator on either end of where one wants a warp line, but I think we can live with that," she said.
Desai sat rigid, heels together, hands clamped in her lap, her entire body snapped shut as Li Han finished. "There are other effects, I'm sure, but that is the layman's gist of it." She made a small "over to you" gesture to Desai who was still glaring at her.
"Sonja," Li said gently, a faint twinkle in her eyes. "You remember the last time you and I creatively interpreted our orders." There was an almost subliminal sigh in the room as people remembered. Eighty years ago, at the Battle of Zapata, these two women had changed history.
Sonja Desai, the highest ranking unwounded commander of the Terran Federation and Li Han of the Terran Republic, had been locked in a bloody, Pyrrhic battle. Li on one side had just lost her third flagship and her friend Admiral Tsing Chang, while on the other Sonja Desai had just whipped a piece of cable around Joaquin Sandoval's severed leg, to save his life.
Desai had signaled Li to parley and in the furious, bloody, ruinous, godawful mess they had made the first moves to peace.
I had Ian Trevayne, dead or dying in sickbay. The only person who'd ever managed to defeat and capture Li, Desai thought, remembering. She hadn't been able to make herself contact the resurrected Ian even though he'd contacted her. He'd meant so much to her that she didn't think she could bear dealing with being the "old lady."
In that war we couldn't win. Nobody could, she thought. And now they were doing it again, only this time they were on the same side. I don't even want to think of how she reacted when the man who handed her her worst humiliation came back from the dead.
Desai maintained her silence a moment longer before she relaxed and shook her head, not in denial but with ironic respect. "I suppose I should know by now that secrets aren't." She took a deep breath. "Yes, Han, you are essentially correct. We will be able to move that enormous ship through any warp point we need to." She actually smiled at Li then. "That's why you're building so many."
Li was upright now and nodded at her old enemy and friend. "We're going to need every one. But now we'll have them."