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firing.”
    We pulled on our suits without bothering to adjust them. We left the flaps open, knowing the nanite-chains impregnated in our reactive suits would figure out we weren’t closing them ourselves and seal the flaps after a while. Sometimes it was annoying when they insisted on rearranging your outfit, but they usually guessed right.
    Still carrying our boots, we rushed out through the bulkhead of our shared quarters into the narrow hallway. We moved quickly to the other end of the command brick and joined Sarin at the big screen. Gorski came in a few minutes later. His eyes were wide. Everyone looked nervous, and everyone knew we were nowhere near ready for this.
    “Sandra, connect me with Macro Command,” I said.
    Sandra had spent the last few days familiarizing herself with the bigger, more complex com-board in the command brick. She’s picked it up quickly, as it was essentially the same system as the private unit I had in my office. In the old days, however, she’d only handled my personal and political communications. Now, she was responsible for relaying commands to people who might die if she screwed up. I could see she was taking the job seriously. She had that fixed, focused expression on her face I’d come to recognize in my crew.
    The connection was up in seconds. I didn’t bother to praise her now, however. This was strictly business.
    “Macro Command,” I said. “This is Kyle Riggs. I require an update on our mission status.”
    “Mission is active.”
    “Give me the estimated timing for contact with the enemy.”
    “Four hours, fifty-eight minutes.”
    “Give me the estimated timing for our assault operation.”
    “Assault operation will commence in four hours, fifty-eight minutes.”
    I nodded and pursed my lips. Not much information there. Either we did not quite understand each other, or our assault was to begin immediately when we got into range with the enemy. Either way, we had less than five hours before things became serious.
    “Sir,” Major Sarin said, gesturing toward the screen.
    I eyed it. The donut-shaped ring loomed close. We’d been parked in orbit nearby for a day or two, but now the ships were nosing into the ring. Once we passed through it, we would be transported to another star system. As far as we’d been able to determine, such transportation was instantaneous.
    “Everyone brace for impact,” I said. “Remember the mines we hit the last time we entered a system, people. We don’t know what we are walking into.”
    Sandra hesitated a second, staring at the screen. I glowered at her until she remembered her job and relayed the order to everyone. Almost immediately, nanite arms reached down from the ceiling and grabbed each of us by the hooks that ringed our belts. More arms looped down and attached loosely to our wrists and ankles. All over the base, anyone who was not strapped and clamped to something solid made sure they were.
    The two Macro ships slid up close to the giant ring on the screen. The cruiser slipped through first and vanished. My guts clenched into a ball, and our invasion ship followed the cruiser.
    There was a shudder as we went through. I knew the feeling well by now. We had been transported to…somewhere else. To another star system. I once again wondered who had built these rings, these gateways that linked the stars. I knew the Macros hadn’t built them, even if they seemed adept at their use. Some other race had to have built much of the technology everyone seemed to be using: the rings, the factories that duplicated anything, the Nanos and the Macros themselves. I suspected there was a race which I called the Blues who were at the bottom of some of these mysteries, but I no longer believed they were responsible for all of them.
    I watched the screen as the sensor data came in. All of us watched, hardly breathing. We’d embedded a sensor array in the outer hull of the invasion ship some weeks ago and were able to gather a considerable