Free The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton

months. And you’re quite big enough already.
    Yes, Syrinx, the starship said, so meekly that she had to smile.
    Come on, remember I was apprehensive with Hazat. That turned out to be fantastic.
    I hardly think you can compare sex with spaceflight. And I wouldn’t call that apprehension, more like impatience. There was a tone of pique in the mental voice.
    Syrinx put her hands on her hips. Get on with it.
    Oenone
had been steadily absorbing electricity from the nutrient-production globe for the last month; with its growth phase finally
     complete the demand on the induction pick-off cables by the globe’s organs had fallen off sharply, allowing the starship to
     begin the long powering-up process of its patterning cells. Now the energy levels were high enough to initiate a distortion
     field, which would enable it to suck power directly out of space. If it didn’t get the distortion field right the cells would
     power down, and a rescue mission would have to be launched. In the past such missions hadn’t always been a hundred per cent
     successful.
    With Syrinx’s pride and encouragement bolstering its mind,
Oenone
started to separate from the nutrient-producing globe. Fibrous tubes tore along their stress lines. Warm fluids squirted
     into space, acting like crude rocket engines, adding to the pressure on the remaining tubes. Organic conductors snapped and
     sealed, their ends whipping back and forth in the expanding cloud of vaporized fluid. The final tube broke, and the globe
     lurched away like a punctured balloon.
    See? Easy, Syrinx said. The two of them were remembering together, reviewing the miragelike memories of a voidhawk called
Iasius
. To generate a distortion field you just had to trigger the initial energy flash through the patterning cells like
so
. Energy began to flow inside the labyrinthine honeycomb of patterning cells, compressing, the density building towards infinity
     in mere nanoseconds.
    The distortion field flared outwards, billowing wildly.
    Steady, Syrinx instructed gently. The field’s fluctuations began to damp down. It changed shape, becoming more stable, twisting the
     radiation of local space into a viable stream. The patterning cells began to absorb it. There was a heavenly sensation of
     satisfaction gusting out to the stars.
    Yes! We did it. They embraced mentally. Congratulations were flung at them from Edenists and voidhawks alike. Syrinx searched round to see
     that all her siblings and their craft had generated stable distortion fields. As if Athene’s children would fail!
    Together
Oenone
and Syrinx began to experiment, changing the shape of the field, altering its strength. The voidhawk began to move, rising
     up out of the rings, into clear space, seeing the stars unencumbered for the first time. Syrinx thought she could feel the
     wind blowing in her face, ruffling her hair. She was some ancient mariner standing on the wooden deck of her sailing ship,
     speeding across an endless ocean.
    Three hours later
Oenone
slipped into the gap between Romulus’s northern endcap and the counter-rotating dock. It began to curve round, racing after
     the ledge.
    Syrinx saw it expand from nowhere out of the spinning starfield. I can see you! It had been so long.
    And I you,
Oenone
replied lovingly.
    She jumped for joy, legs sending her flying three metres above the ledge.
    Careful,
Oenone
said.
    Syrinx just laughed.
    It slid in over the edge, and hovered above the pedestal closest to her. When it settled she began to glide-run towards it,
     whooping exuberantly, arms windmilling for balance.
Oenone
’s smooth midnight-blue hull was marbled by a fine purple web.

4
    The Ruin Ring formed a slim dense halo three kilometres thick, seventy kilometres broad, orbiting five hundred and eighty
     thousand kilometres above the gas giant Mirchusko. Its albedo was dismayingly low; most of the constituent particles were
     a dowdy grey. A haze of small particles could be found up to a hundred