Excerpt: Alpha Centauri

The American starship USS Robert A. Heinlein cruised on its plasma drive toward a point roughly a million miles above Earth's south pole, "below" the plane of the ecliptic, that hypothetical surface on which the familiar planets orbit around the Sun. It's sister ship, the USS Laurence V. C. Niven, followed at about 2000 miles off its five o'clock position. The Chinese ship Mingxing Hua was already at the rendezvous point, as was the Indian-built Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. The Russian Kreschet had just departed its low Earth parking orbit and would rendezvous a half day later.

The starships bore no resemblance at all to the legendary ships of popular media. These were not sleek, streamlined behemoths. The whole five-ship fleet would fit easily within the hangar bay of the original TV series starship Enterprise, and more than anything else they resembled modules left over from the old International Space Station.