Gram for gram,
复件 (83) air max1, crypto materials were about the most valuable thing shipped between the stars -- and once compromised, about the most valueless. Somewhere in Out of Band's cargo files there was an SjK one-time communications pad. Part of a pad. "Worthless? Maybe not. Even one third would provide us with secure communications." Blueshell dithered. "I must not mislead you. No competent customer would accept such. Certainly, it provides secure communication, but the other side has no verification that you are who you claim." Pham's glance slid sideways, toward Ravna. There was that smile again. "If they'll listen, I think we can convince them.... The hard part is,
复件 (84) air max1, I only want one of them to hear us." Pham explained what he had in mind. The Riders' rustled faintly behind Pham's words. After all their time together, Ravna could almost get some sense of their talk -- or maybe she just understood their personalities. As usual,
复件 (85) air max2, Blueshell was worrying about how impossible the idea was, and Greenstalk was urging him to listen. But when Pham finished, the large rider did not launch into objections. "Across seventy light-years, ultrawave comm between ships is practical,
复件 (47) air max2, even without our antenna swarm; we could even have live video. But you are right, the beam spread would include all the ships in the central cluster of fleets. If we could reliably identify an outlying vessel as belonging to Sjandra Kei, then what you are asking might be done; that ship could use internal fleet codes to relay to the others. But in honesty I must warn you," continued Blueshell, brushing back Greenstalk's gentle remonstrance, "professional communications folk would not honor your request for talk -- would probably not even recognize it as such." "Silly." Greenstalk finally spoke, her voder-voice gentle but clear. "You always say things like that -- except when we are talking to paying customers." "Brap. Yes. Desperate times, desperate measures. I want to try it, but I fear.... I want there to be no accusations of Rider treachery, Sir Pham. I want you to handle this." Pham Nuwen smiled back. "My thought exactly." "The Aniara Fleet." That's what some of the crews of Commercial Security were calling themselves. Aniara was the ship of an old human myth, older than Nyjora, perhaps going back to the Tuvo-Norsk cooperatives in the asteroids of Earth's solar system. In the story, Aniara was a large ship launched into interstellar depths just before the death of its parent civilization. The crew watched the death agonies of the home system, and then over the following years -- as their ship fell out and out into the endless dark -- died themselves, their life-support systems slowly failing. The image was a haunting one, which was probably the reason it was known across millennia. With the destruction of Sjandra Kei and the escape of Commercial Security, the story seemed suddenly come true. But we will not play it to the end. Group Captain Kjet Svensndot stared into the tracking display. This time the death of civilization had been a murder, and the murderers were almost within vengeance's reach. For days,
mbt amali, fleet HQ had been maneuvering them to close with the Alliance. The display showed that success was very, very near. The majority of Alliance and Sjandra Kei ships were bound in a glowing ball of drive traces -- which also included the third, silent fleet. From that display you might think that battle was already possible. In fact,
复件 (56) air max, opposing ships were passing through almost the same space -- sometimes less than a billion kilometers apart -- but still separated by milliseconds of time.