Robinson closed his eyes and dozed fitfully. He was awakened, sometime later, by the same technician who had come to install the new view screen. "We're done, Your Excellency. Also, your aide, Baron Fiske, said to tell you the shuttle is ready to take you to Atlantis Base whenever you're ready."

The shuttle itself was the same silvery color as the Peace Fleet ships. As the shuttle door split, it also split the blue and white symbol of United Earth. This was a map of the Earth, from the northern hemisphere with the southern hemisphere distorted out of scale, on which had been superimposed marks for longitude and latitude, the whole being almost surrounded by a laurel wreath. There was symbolism in that, with the poor south exaggerated in apparent importance but the white and European north still in the commanding center.

The doors closed behind Robinson with a whoosh. He walked the few carpeted steps to his chair and buckled himself in. Even more than the ships, the shuttles needed replacing. Roughly a third were unfit for flight for lack of parts. Moreover, though the skins were the best product of Earth at the height of its technological achievements, the composite of which they were constructed was no longer produced. Terra Nova, specifically the FSC, produced something similar (in fact, the nose cones of the missiles it had aimed at the Peace Fleet were made of it), but that was unacceptable for any number of reasons.

It was becoming a logistic burden as well. The shuttles that were still working had to be used overtime. This cut into their maintenance and led to even more failures. Moreover, though logistic effort had been saved with the skeletonization of the crews of the two cannibalized ships, and more by reducing the crews of others by a variable percentage, this put in danger the entire fleet.

And I haven't a clue as to what to do about it, Robinson fumed. One problem's solution just creates another problem. If I'd known then what I know now, I doubt I'd ever have accepted this assignment.