“Go on out, guys,” Titus said to the others. “Lieutenant Corso’s waiting. He’ll take you to a briefing before getting you settled in. Dismissed.” Tiller and Wilson headed out quickly. “Commander Labeau. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Captain Titus Barnes and I thought I’d come down here to personally welcome you.”
They shook hands. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. I look forward to getting to know the Triton.”
“You served on a battleship before when you were a lieutenant commander, is that right?”
“Yes, sir. A year as an operations officer. I headed up security and ground teams.”
Titus smiled. “You’re in for a bit of a surprise here.” He motioned and they began to walk. “The Triton has… undergone some changes in the last couple months. Monumental ones that I didn’t think would even be possible. But we’ll get to that in a moment. Be honest with me, how irritated are you about the secrecy?”
“Uh… I’m just a naturally curious person, sir. I wouldn’t say I was particularly…”
“It would’ve driven me nuts,” Titus interrupted. “But when I tell you what’s going on, I think you’ll understand. I’m sure that at least one of your guesses has been that you’ve been assigned to a prototype ship and that we’re testing key systems. That is partially true, only we’re going to be in the thick of some real action.”
“I don’t understand, sir.” Rhys shrugged. “What’s that mean? Who are we fighting?”
“We’re not quite there in our conversation yet. Do you know what happened to the Triton a couple months back?”
Rhys shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Scuttlebutt suggested some kind of major overhaul at an unknown dry dock.”
“Accurate. But prior to that happening, we encountered an enemy threat that nearly destroyed the vessel. They did take out two of our destroyers. They did it with only two ships and we couldn’t touch them.”
“That’s…”
“Hold back the impossible word, we’ve got a long way to go.” Rhys clapped him on the shoulder, pausing before the door. “This room hasn’t undergone too radical of a change. New panels, different controls… an upgraded computer system. Which reminds me, you’ll need to turn yours in. You’ll be assigned a new one.”
“Alright…” Rhys frowned. “Sir, what’s going on? What’s the big surprise?”
“Tell me, who do you think has the ability to take out two destroyers and a battleship?”
“I… don’t know. A pirate fleet certainly.”
“Don’t forget that I said two ships.”
“That’s why I was about to call it impossible. No one has the firepower for that.”
“We do now,” Titus said. “And the defenses to go along with it. And then… there are our allies. I was going to introduce you to them right away but something’s come up. We’re going to have to depart immediately.”
“To get into a skirmish?” Rhys asked. “I don’t know the ship’s systems yet. Haven’t even had a tour.”
“You’ll have a couple hours to get acquainted with key parts. Mostly, I need you running ground crews and security again. At least until you’re caught up to speed.”
“I should’ve been involved from the beginning.”
“I don’t disagree with that. Unfortunately, the first couple weeks involved a lot of admin. Arguing with high command. Intelligence had their opinions too, as you can imagine. I didn’t receive my promotion until four weeks ago though I’d been in command of the project as if I’d already taken it.
“Now, we’re ninety-five percent operational. The assignment we’ve been tasked with should be easy enough, giving us a chance to shake off some bugs while in transit and during the mission. We’ve got a lot of new people aboard, Commander. We lost fifty personnel including the captain.”
Fifty! Rhys cleared his throat, struggling to swallow past a dry throat. That’s twenty-five percent of the crew. Jesus…
“I can tell by your expression you understand the gravity of what happened.”
“Who are these allies?” Rhys asked. “Are they why command had such a debate?”
“Partially. They’re called the Prytins. And we’ve learned about some other cultures as well.”
“Cultures?”
“They’re aliens. We’ve discovered other sentient life. Not only them, but the ships we fought belong to a different species. They’re the Kahls and from all the data we’ve collected, they are the greatest threat the galaxy’s known in a long time. We stumbled on them testing our defenses, checking the lines.”
“Why would they declare war on us?” Rhys shrugged. “What did we do? Infringe on their space?”
“The Kahl race believes they are superior to all others. They are on a crusade to effectively conquer the universe through slaughter. The Prytins are the only other faction with serious war experience. Them… and us. Which is why they’ve granted us access to their technology. You’re about to find out exactly what that means.”
“So let me get this straight. We’re at war with aliens, good ones are helping us, and we’re about to rush out on an assignment using untested foreign equipment?”
“Some of it they built, yes,” Titus said, “but we did the rest. Believe me, without their technology this would’ve taken a year or more. Even their builders are faster. They make extensive use of nanotechnology and…”
“Begging your pardon,” Rhys interrupted, “but does anyone think this is a good idea? We’re putting a lot of lives on the line here.”
“All of humanity,” Titus replied. “The schematics are with the Engineering Corps. They’ll be implementing the weapons and defenses throughout the fleet after this first assignment.”
“Forgetting all the other questions for a second…” Rhys rubbed his eyes. “What is our assignment?”
“We’re heading out to a planet called Cordal Three. Have you heard of
