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Anyone who has visited a major spaceport will have seen the distinctive and elegant shape of the world's most advanced spaceliner poised for its next journey into deep space. The Interstellar Queen is the most recent of the Queen Line ships and the only one designed to operate between the stars. It was introduced in 2046 to meet the growing demand for access to Alpha Centauri, following the Trade Agreement signed with the inhabitants of the double star system in 2039. Though highly regarded by both crew and passengers it was soon apparent that its carrying capacity was too limited for the ship to be commercially successful, and work then started on the development of a far larger sister ship.

Before this project had passed beyond the initial design stages, fate intervened to postpone further progress until 2063. In late 2047 the Pathfinder IX survey ship operating near the red dwarf of Proxima Centauri was attacked and destroyed by a military patrol from that system.

A few weeks later, an Interstellar Queen emerged from warp to start the run into one of the Alpha Centauri worlds, only to be completely obliterated in a further, unprovoked nuclear attack. The war which was to involve three solar systems for fifteen years had begun.