Drummer and Brad stepped from the command deck to a small balcony overlooking a shallow pit covered by a pale, translucent screen. A network of lines, representing tunnels and galleries, formed on the screen, each incorporating a tiny, yellow moving and blinking light to indicate a warship under Drummer's command. As each light reached launch position, it halted and changed from yellow to green. Drummer and Brad watched the last of the yellows convert. All green, ready to launch.
Drummer picked up a microphone, Brad beside him.
"This is Drummer," he said. "Operation authenticator Tornado Six. Execute. First wave. Launch."
Five green lights flashed to red and disappeared, on their way to predesignated stations outside Fandango: one off each blunt end of the Depot cylinder and the remainder at the entry to the gateway force field.
Ten seconds later Drummer repeated his codes and launched the second wave. The corresponding lights on the screen flashed red and out. New green lights appeared in their place, this time moving in arcs converging on the cylinder centered in a sphere: the depot in its force field cocoon.
The converging lines massed, reformed, and spread into a pattern resembling the spoke tips of an open umbrella, with the Gateway, the crowded transports and the depot centered at what would be the umbrella's handgrip.
##
Drummer turned his head and looked at Brad.
"Went off rather well," he said.
"Seems so. That was the easy part. I don't envy you the next."