Galactic Corps by Ian Douglas

Author:Ian Douglas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 2010-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

14

0415 .1102

Company Office, Bravo Company

UCS Hermes

Cluster Space

0910 hrs, GMT

“What the hell is a Dyson sphere?” Garroway wanted to know. Even as he asked the question, he was already opening a channel to Hermes’ computer net and beginning to download the data.

“Named after the pre- space physicist who first thought of it,” Captain Maria Loren told him. “Freeman Dyson. The idea was that an advanced civilization, one trying to create a lot of living space for itself, or one that wanted to utilize every erg of energy from its sun, might do so by disassembling its planets and building a hollow shell around the local star.”

“Got it,” Garroway said as he followed the downloaded information streaming through his awareness, scanning rapidly through reams of data. “The shell would capture most of the heat, light, and other radiation from the star for industrial purposes. People could live on the inside of the shell if they had a means of generating artificial gravity. Or instead of a solid shell, it might be a Dyson cloud, with trillions and trillions of separate habitats and industrial complexes enveloping the star.”

“I wouldn’t want to be the AI that had to keep track of that many separate hab orbits,” Lieutenant Ramsey put in.

The meeting was taking place in Captain Loren’s office on board the Hermes. Two entire bulkheads plus the overhead had been set to display a view of outside. The local star continued to dominate the sky, an intensely hot, arc- brilliant pinpoint encased in shells of rapidly expanding nebula. The Galaxy hung in the far distance, the subtle tones and shadings of its spiral arms nearly lost in the glare from the nova. In a different direction, outward, a nearby globular cluster hung against Night Absolute, a frozen swarm of red-hued suns. More remote galaxies were lost in the novalight, but the nearest stargate spanned a quarter of heaven.

Present were Captain Black and his command constellation, including Garroway and a dozen other Marines, volunteers for a secret op, a sneak-and-peek, that had been dubbed Operation Heartfire. The N-2 contingent, Ramsey and six other men and women from 1MIEF’s intelligence division, including Captain Pollard, had joined them, as had Captain Loren and several members of General Alexander’s command group.

Maria Loren was a naval officer with fifteen years’ experience, a member of 1MIEF’s se nior command constellation, and the officer in charge of the expeditionary force’s Tactical Operations Division. She’d summoned the others to her office just abaft Hermes’ combat center to brief them on Heartfire.

Also present were the artificial intelligences Smedley, Cara, Thoth, and Athena, though these last were necessarily invisible, and spoke to the humans present within their minds. A large viewall at the far end of the chamber displayed an image of the Galactic Center, a swarm of teeming suns, a spiral of gas and dust, and the enigmatic, vaguely spherical structure at the precise center of the Galaxy’s heart.

“The Dyson sphere or cloud at GalCenter,” Athena pointed out, “cannot be enclosing a star.

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