His only regret, Captain Carl Stewart thought as he stood on the bridge of America's first starship, was that there was no bottle of champagne available to smash against the U.S.S. Aurora's side.

The ceremony would have been impractical, of course, even if the State Department had cleared it. In the airless cold of space, the bottle would have required special preparation to keep it from either freezing solid or exploding prematurely, and that kind of reinforcement might easily have kept it from breaking properly and on cue. With the launching ceremony being beamed live to the entire planet—and the 2016 elections barely ten months away—no one wanted to risk that kind of fiasco. Still, the sea and its traditions ran four generations deep in Stewart's blood, and it seemed wrong somehow to leave home without a proper christening.

The drone from the TV monitor stopped. Stewart brought his attention back to the screen in time to see President Allerton lay a hand on the switch by his podium.

"Stand ready," he ordered, watching the image. An unnecessary command; the Aurora's crew had been ready for hours.

"… and with all of our hopes, prayers, and dreams riding with you, we send you forth to search out the new frontier; to find new worlds, new opportunities, new solutions; to reinvigorate and challenge the human race again to greatness.

Godspeed, Aurora." With a final flourish heavenward, Allerton threw the switch—

And five thousand kilometers above him, the spotlights attached to the workframe scaffolding blazed with light, providing the TV cameras with their first clear view of the Aurora.

Stewart gave the dramatic moment a count of five, and then nodded to his helmsman. "Ease her out, Mr. Bailey," he ordered. "Mind you don't wing the Pathfinder on the way."

Bailey grinned. "Aye, sir," he said. Slowly, moving on its cold-nitrogen docking jets, the Aurora left the workframe's snug confines. It passed well clear of the Pathfinder's work-frame—Stewart noticed peripherally their nearly completed sister ship flashing its running lights in salute—and drifted off toward the barely visible horizon of the dark world rolling beneath them. "Lot of lights showing down there," Reger, the navigator, commented.