Prologue

By Threes

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“Carry on.” Rear Admiral Richard Neerson snapped to the room at large, the command to stand at attention for his entrance still ringing in his ears. He stood there, surveying the men and women moving smartly from a rigid position of attention to a straight back seated posture. Other instructors might have added an arbitrary order to hurry up, hustle, shift yourself, or other such pointless stressors that these recruits just didn’t need on their first day in the Receiving Adjustment Processing and Indoctrination Detachment Station. That nonsense was left up to their Crew Instructors, those brown uniformed individuals even now prowling the back of the classroom looking for the last few to find their seats.

The unfortunate individual was a young man seated in nearly the dead middle of the room, whose only crime was that he pumped his chair slightly enough to warrant a correction, lest he look slightly different than all the others.

Three CIs pounced at once, their berating words nearly incoherent in their snarls and bellows. Inwardly, Neerson winced. He remembered his first day in the RAPIDS, and the silent fight that he, the tough-as-steel eldest brother of six, had gone through to make sure that unshed tears remained locked firmly within. Neerson even remembered his own two years on the trail as a CI officer, screaming his own false indignation and carefully crafted vitriolic fury at wide-eyed recruits who thought they had known that they were getting into when they joined the Uniformed Military Personnel.

But you didn’t know what the Trident was until you were folded into it.

There were times even now after a year of being the RAPIDS Commander that he wanted to tell the CIs to lock it up here, on the recruit’s first day. But he’d done that once, and now he knew better. These future members of the Trident needed what the CIs did. They needed it as much as they needed to see a steel eyed bastion of military perfection staring back at them when the storm had passed. They needed to see what was on the other side of their own personal struggles here in the RAPIDS.

The CIs withdrew to the back of the room like sharks after a kill that hadn’t had their fill. They waited for the first sign of a head bobbing, or sideways glance. Some of these recruits hadn’t pieced together more than a hundred minutes of sleep in the last seventy-two hours, and it showed in their eyes.

So, after allowing his gaze to sweep twice more over the room, he straightened. “Recruits of the Uniformed Military Personnel, welcome to the Receiving Adjustment Processing and Indoctrination Detachment Station. Your time here will not be pleasant. It will not be easy. And it will not fully prepare you for what lies beyond it.” He waited. Though they knew most of what he was about to say from recruiters or prior-entry informants this was a piece of information that usually caused one or two pairs of eyes to widen, or at least show a flicker or surprise. “I’ve seen many come through here, both as commander, and not. Too many incorrectly assume that your time here in the RAPIDS will be where your naval training is initiated and completed. This is a fallacy that has existed as long as the Trident has, and despite all our efforts, simply will not die.” Neerson paced to the left. “Your time here in the RAPIDS will be, to use an outdated expression, the tip of your very own and very personal iceberg of military training. Your time here is carefully curated to do two things,” Neerson held up the first two fingers of his left hand. “The first is to turn you from civilians, whatever your background is, whatever station you come from, whatever your lineage, or former status, into military personnel.” Turning, he paced to the right. “Second is to determine which tip of the Trident you will be assigned to.” Stopping, he held up his right hand, his first finger extended. “Crewmembers of the Republic Navy’s Fleet,” he held up his second finger. “Army ground forces and boarding personnel,” he held up his third finger. “or members of the Research, Advancement, and Expansionary Corps.”

At this he paused, his hand still upraised with three fingers extended. “Make no mistake, recruits, that there is no one tip of this spear that can do its job without the other. Each branch of our Trident is supported by the other, each has a crucial role to play in the mission that is set before us, and when one fails, the entirety of our mission as a military fighting and exploration force, is compromised. And when our mission is compromised, people die.” He let his arm drop and faced the recruits head on. “I will say that again. Every time our mission is compromised, people die. Every time. You there,” Neerson snapped, and pointed to a young man sitting in the front row.

Immediately the young man snapped to his feet and to the position of attention, his eyes forward, his hands held at his side.

“What’s your name, recruit?”

“Recruit Ziggenbor, Sir!”

“And what is the mission of the Uniformed Military Personnel of the Central Republic?”

“To bring a light to where there is void, aid where there is need, and to bring stability to where there is unrest, Sir!”

“Did you read that from above my head, recruit?”

For the briefest of moments, Recruit Ziggenbor faltered, but regained himself in a heartbeat. “No Sir!”

Neerson let a smile wink in and out of existence. “Take your seat, Recruit Ziggenbor.” The recruit did, and Neerson moved on. “It is important to me that all recruits get the smallest of peeks behind the curtain of what is to come, some small breadcrumb that will keep you motivated to keep going through these next six months you are about to endure. Something I have found, however, is that most often recruits think they have an understanding of what is to come after their graduation from the RAPIDS. You there, what do you think comes after RAPIDS?”

The recruit snapped to attention. “Sir! After we complete our training here we will go on to a six week aptitude course where we will be assessed and assigned to the role of commissioned, or non commissioned officer for down the line in our military career.”

“Be seated.” Neerson said. “A fine enough answer, but one that I have come to expect. Recruits, you need to understand that nearly everything done in the Trident is done by threes, so naturally in the Leadership Aptitude Course you would be tested for, in addition to the aforementioned roles, a third.” Neerson smiled. “And if there are recruits who know the answer to my first two questions, there are rarely those who know the answer to my third.” eyeing the class again, Neerson’s gaze fell on the young man who had been the last to be seated. The two of them, the recruit and the admiral, locked eyes.

Neerson pointed.

The third recruit did as the first two had done.

“Recruit.” Neerson said. “Can you tell me what the third role is that is assessed at the LAC?”

“No sir.” The recruit said, almost at once.

If it had been silent before, it was as though the entire crew seated there were holding their breath, as though the recruit had done something horrible. But Neerson nodded. “About four or five times out of six that I ask that question the recruit guesses some random role, usually one that he grew up around on his home station. But I like this answer better.” Neerson crossed his arms. “Guessing in a military engagement or a boarding exercise, or experimenting with theoretical technology will compromise our mission. Having the mental fortitude to admit when you do not have the knowledge and surrounding yourself with the people who can help fix that problem, does not. What’s your name, recruit?”

“Ziggenbor, sir.”

Neerson’s head snapped back to the first recruit he had spoken to. The young man was staring as hard as he could at the wall in front of him. They both had dusty light brown hair and thick brows, and…

His eyes found the second recruit. “You there.” The recruit snapped up. “Your name?”

The corner, the furthest edge of the young man’s mouth twitched up. He pulled his thick eyebrows together, trying to deepen the scowl that so many recruits thought passed for a military bearing. “Ziggenbor, sir.”

Neerson looked between the three brothers one more time, and with a wave of his hand, they were seated. Returning to his podium, Neerson used all the knowledge of fifteen years of service to know when it was time to ease the tension. “Like I say, recruits.” His tone was dry. “Nearly everything done in the Trident is done by threes.”

There was a ripple of laughter, a sound so alien to the recruits at this time that it took enough of their limited brain capacity and focus that they missed the admiral’s sharp look at the CIs, a silent instruction to allow the disruption to pass without repercussion.

Within a moment, the moment was gone, and Neerson nodded. “I could talk for hours more, or days even, but that’s not my job right now. I just wanted you to hear a few things from the top, so that when those in front of you say them, you know it doesn’t stop there. And we’ll speak again before your graduation.” Neerson’s eyes hardened as he turned to go. “You can count on that.”

The senior Crew Instructor called the room to attention, and every recruit there snapped to their feet, ramrod straight and eyes forward. Rear Admiral Richard Neerson didn’t look over his shoulder as he snapped, “Carry on.”