Sublime

flight of fifteen hours, the charter plane was resting on the ground. Shi Qiang had Luo Ji wait in the office and went out himself. He brought back a man with a European face who was tall and immaculately dressed, and who seemed like a high-level official. “Is this Dr. Luo?” the official ventured as he looked at him. Noticing Shi Qiang’s difficulty

“Do you think that the Qing admirals Deng Shichang and Liu Buchan20 would really be unable to command your destroyers? They were educated, and their English was good. They would have learned. Today, captaining a space warship doesn’t involve technical details. Captains issue general commands, but the warship is a black box to them.

After his father’s funeral, Zhang Beihai went with Wu Yue one more time to the carrier dry dock, where construction on Tang had been suspended entirely.

Before leaving Base 1, Zhang Beihai had dropped his space suit’s positioning unit in his own cabin so the surveillance system would not be aware that he had left the base and there would be no record of his movements. Using the thrusters on his suit, he flew eighty kilometers through space to the position he had selected. Then he waited.

The captain, who watched her with his glass, said that she was armed, and full of men, and showed no colors.