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.” He turned to Lieutenant Finn.“How did you know about it?” he asked.“That file was encrypted.Even the name would have been encrypted.”“Oh!.umm.yes, it was,” replied Lieutenant Finn in a small voice, still looking at the shuttle’s deck.“So, you broke one of our highest military grade codes?” asked Lieutenant Rrower.“Well, yeah, sort of,” said Lieutenant Finn.“When I first saw the encrypted file, I thought it would be fun to try to decrypt the name of the blueprint.I didn’t know what the file was, or I wouldn’t have touched it.I was much happier not knowing that a weapon of this type existed.”“Well, regardless, that file’s on the Terra, so we don’t have to worry about it,” said Captain Sheppard.“Umm.well.not exactly,” said Lieutenant Finn.Captain Sheppard looked angry.“And why is that?” he asked.“Well.umm.I sort of brought a copy of the database along with me, in case we needed to use any of the things in it,” he said, looking miserable.“The Mrowry database had a lot of cool things that neither the Vella Gulf nor the Ssselipsssiss replicator had.I thought we might need them.I never thought we’d need Armageddon.”“I really wish you hadn’t said that,” said Lieutenant Rrower.“Even admitting to its existence is a death penalty offense on my planet.It would be best if everyone that just heard that forgot they did.That way, no one will be forced to kill you.”“Got it,” said Captain Sheppard.“No one heard what Lieutenant Finn said.That’s an order.”Everyone nodded their heads.They all understood the gravity of the situation.Lieutenant Rrower tilted his head, looking at Captain Sheppard.“Now that you know it exists, what do you intend to do?”“I don’t know,” replied Captain Sheppard.“I intend to do my absolute best not to ever use such a weapon; however, I guess we’ll just have to burn that bridge when we come to it.”* * * * *Chapter FifteenPresident’s Conference Room, Terran Government Headquarters, Lake Pedam, Nigeria, February 8, 2021“Attention on deck!” the aide called.Over two thousand people stood and snapped to attention as one.All conversation immediately died.“Everyone please be seated,” ordered Admiral James Wright, the head of Terran Fleet Command, as he walked into the room.He had been given permission to use the president’s conference room for the afternoon, and he didn’t want to waste a single moment.They had too much to do.The room was full, with the most junior officers, enlisted and civilians either standing in the back or sitting in the aisles.The fire marshal would have had a fit at how badly the room was overloaded if he had seen it.Admiral Wright didn’t give a shit.He surveyed the room as he walked to his seat.He saw the groups from the Terra, the Pacific and the Septar at the other end of the conference table, along with a contingent from Alice Springs.The Atlantic was conspicuous in its absence, but there was no time to dwell on its loss.On the left side of the table sat his senior staff officers and the head of Replicator Command; all of the senior extraterrestrials sat on the right.Senior officers from all of the Terran states filled the auditorium, as well as a few Mrowry and Domans.The Mrowry and kuji sat together in a section that had chairs modified for their tails.Although most of the former Terran nations had converted to the standard Terran Fleet uniforms, some of the poorer nations still wore their legacy uniforms, making the auditorium look untidy to his military eye.He put that thought aside, too, as he sat down and nodded to his intelligence officer, Vice Admiral Sir James Lockery.“Why don’t you give everyone a quick recap so that we all have the same baseline?”Lockery nodded.“Yes, sir,” he said.He could have gone to the podium, but everyone in the room had implants and could hear him as well as if he were sitting next to them.The admiral had said not to waste a minute, and he wasn’t going to.“As everyone is aware, we have lost the Ross 154 system and the TSS Atlantic.Although we were forced to withdraw, we destroyed several of the Drakuls’ ships and gave them something to think about.The Drakuls know that when they come through the stargate into the Solar System, we will fight them with everything we have.I expect that seeing the Terra gave them pause, which is why they didn’t immediately follow us back here
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