The Confederation Space Ship Quinctius Flaminius, that was. As she was now called.

Standing next to him, his executive officer grinned. “You mean you feel like the guy who shows up at a formal ball wearing a clown suit? Thought he’d been invited to a costume party?”

Trumbull grunted. Again, he stared at the CSS Quinctius Flaminius. As she was now called.

The USS Missouri, in her former life.

“I can’t believe I’m trying to intimidate a Guild vessel with these antiques.”

Commander Stephen Tambo shrugged. “So what if it’s a World War Two craft dragged out of mothballs?” He pointed at the ancient battleship on the viewscreen. “Those aren’t sixteen-inch guns anymore, Commodore. They’re lasers. Eight times as powerful as any the Guild uses, according to the transport’s computer. And the Quinctius’ force-screens carry the same magnitude of superiority.”

“I know that!” snapped the commodore. “I still feel like an idiot.”

The executive officer, eyeing his superior with a sideways glance, decided against any further attempt at humor. The North American seemed bound and determined to wallow in self-pity.

Commander Tambo shared none of that mortification. True, the Confederation’s newly created naval force was-from the standpoint of appearance-the most absurd-looking fleet imaginable. It had only been a few years, after all, since the arrival of the Romans had alerted humanity to the fact that it was a very big and very dangerous galaxy. Proper military spacecraft were only just starting to be constructed. In the meantime, the Earth had needed protection. Now.

So The Romans had brought the technology. Their captured troop transport’s computer had carried full theoretical and design criteria in its data banks. The quickest and simplest way to create an instant fleet had been to refit the Earth’s old warships.