Citadel: Prologue

    CITADEL

    BY

    JOHN RINGO

    DEDICATION:

    For Jane Mary Morris Ringo

    Born: December 15, 1920 Brooklyn, NY

    Died: December 13, 2009 Sautee-Nacoochee, GA

    World traveler, writer, bon vivant and mother extraordinaire.

    Under a wide and starry sky

    Dig a grave and let me lie.

    Glad did I live and more glady die

    And I laid me down with a will.

    Here be the verse you grave for me:

    “Here she lies where she longed to be.

    Home is the sailor, home from the sea.

    And the hunter, home from the hill.”

    And

    As always:

    For Captain Tamara Long, USAF

    Born: May 12, 1979

    Died: 23 March 2003, Afghanistan

    You fly with the angels now.

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    I am NOT a physicist. Nor an astronomer nor a mathematician nor, indeed, much of a biologist. Assuredly not a rocket scientist. I’m one of those people that uses the word ‘integral’ only and always to mean ‘central to some subject.’ You can get me to cringe by saying the word polynomial.

    I took physics, I took calculus, I took astronomy. (And, yes, passed all three.) That’s not the same thing. Like Barack Obama on the subject of economics (which I can talk about much better than physics) the information was stored just long enough to pass the course and then forgotten.

    Obviously, this has been something of a trial while writing this series. In the Vorpal Blade series I have the luxury of simply tossing that on my coauthor, Dr. Travis Taylor. Alas, Travis got a real job and he’s been busy. So I had to find other people to help.

    As with Live Free or Die, I’d like to thank Bullet and Belinda (Gibby) Gibson for their assistance not only with the math but also with general proof reading. However, the task being somewhat more complex this time others got involved. I’d like to thank Stephanie Osborn, who is an astronomer, as well as ‘The Croatian Mafia’, Ivan Knezevic and Robert Bosnjak. Between the three of them they’ve gotten me back to the point I could get C- in college level Newtonian physics.

    In addition, when it got really complicated, I’d like to thank Doctor Les Johnson, Deputy Manager NASA Advanced Concepts Office, Dr. Larry Kos, also of NASA and Dr. Charles L. John, ditto. I often poke fun at NASA but the reality is that the recent decisions of the Administration in that area have me fuming.

    Thank you all for your help and support.

    My eyes are closed I feel you're faraway

    Far beyond that shining star

    I know you'll find what you've been fighting for

    Far beyond that shining star

    Glory to the Brave

    Hammerfall