ONE The demanding beep-a-beep warning pulsed in synchro- nous rhythm with the throbbing, red alert panels on three traffic control consoles. Simultaneously, three controllers aboard the Tripartite Confederation Monitoring Station Sadr homed sensors on the planet Opat 4. On slanted screens above their three lifted heads, imag- ing artificially enchanced the visual of the ringed world. Optical sensors zoomect inward to blur and refocus on a spacecraft that shot fror~ the surface of the fourth planet in the Opat System. A slender, silvery needle, the vessel slid silently across a mottled~ tapestry spun by the planet s blues, greens, browns, and fleecy cloud whites. \"Trajectory projection?\" the first of the controllers ver- bally requested of the console. Dark eyes locked to the screen above her head, her fingers deftly tapped at a keyboard to repeat the query. The manual input was an exercise in bureaucratic redun- dancy, a log of the controller s activities. The Sadr s ComNet responded to her inquiry at tachyon-boosted speed. Sensors probed the small craft s onboard logic units, found no passworded barriers to inhibit its delving, and read the vessel s flight program. The controller s fingertips just touched the third key when the ComNet superimposed the ship s course in red atop Opat 4 s image on all three control screens. One orbit of the ringed world, two burst transitions into tachyon
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