Blood coursing ever more quickly through his arteries and veins, Admiral Ratliff sifted through the scattered reports trickling into his office at fleet headquarters. He’d read them before. He would read them again.

The Pillar was out of commission. The Hammer investigated, wound up initiating a Prince Protocol. Any other captain, and he would have thought it was yet another over-reaction to space junk. Now they’d jumped away, casualities or missing crew and some wild initial reports.

The admiral’s heart pounded away sending the blood on its merry way. The beat was the resounding call to the warrior, the drum of war. After so long of being ready, considering options, the time was now. Aggression was coming to be met by aggression, the age old way of things among men, and now, apparently, out there in the great expanse as well.

The odds did not look good. The enemy was strange, unknown with mysterious tactics. But Admiral Ratliff was ready. He was ready for war. He was born for war.