A first starship launch still needs crew, supplies, and testing

Call to Arms stages a televised launch for an expedition to Proxima Centauri using propulsion adapted from alien technology. The first twelve people are only part of an eventual forty-eight-person crew, and further rocket flights must finish crewing and provisioning the starship. Planned tests and checks also separate the launch ceremony from the actual interstellar departure, which remains two months away. The fictional corporation advertises a fifteen-month mission, while trying unsuccessfully to make its own name for the drive replace the public's familiar term warp drive. The spectacle compresses a much longer sequence of transport and preparation into one apparently decisive event.