No Titan Stands Alone

[Alric Kuhn]

A man sat in a brightly lit white room, his hands were tied behind his back and his legs were lashed to the metallic chair upon which he sat. His upper body was shifted forward, his hair was shaggy and filled with sweat, blood dripping from his mouth and onto his lap.

Cuts and lacerations lined his upper body, scorch marks and more than a few chunks had been torn out of his side. The man looked like he had been put through hell and a half, beaten, savaged, broken. He sat alone in that perfectly white room, each of the four walls around him tiled in perfect blankness. The floor around him was covered in his own blood, some of which had splattered on the wall in front of him, the only thing that was different in the entire room.

There, directly to where he would be looking had he raised his head was a mirror.

It stretched the whole length of the wall, and behind it stood a group of men. Three wore strange armor, their heads obscured by odd masks which projected bright blue skulls upon their faces, somehow expressive of disdain for the man behind the glass. The fourth wore no such thing and instead held himself tall and sure in an expensive looking suit.

The fourth man looked to one of the other three, a man with a black mark on in shoulder.

“I am guessing this one did not make it?” He spoke with authority, command, as if the other three men were at his every whim.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“No.”

Was the succinct answer that Alric Kuhn received from the man, that skeletal looking image shifting slightly as the helmet turned towards him. Oddly, the look on the skeleton face changed slightly, becoming less hard and more flexible, showing a certain hint of emotion, though what it was would have been impossible to say.

“This one did not pass the test. Nor did the other nine that we tested today.”

Alric raised an eyebrow.

He knew that the pass rate was low, but none out of ten? That was drastic even for the training he had put in place. Were they purposefully failing people? No, that wouldn't make any sense. They knew that they were all payed equally regardless, and more men simply meant less work for the others. They were simply doing their jobs.

Still, none out of ten.

Alric let out a sigh, shifting slightly and looking away from the beaten and broken man.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Alric pondered for a few minutes, looking towards the three men his face changed slightly, his hand came up to his face and he tapped his chin once or twice.

“How many have failed?” Alric asked quietly, gaze falling once again to the commander. It was a question that warranted an answer, given that apparently zero out of ten regularly failed to pass this particular test. There were other tests he was sure, other facets of training for The Sons of Titan. He had only designed a few of the tests himself and had left the rest to his commanders.

Yet the failure rate was apparently extraordinarily high.

“Three Thousand One hundred and seventy two.”

The mans exact number made him raise an eyebrow, but then again all of the Sons were exact. They were trained to be. That particular number however seemed high, and Alric turned towards the man with a look of slight confusion. “Three thousand? How many passed?”

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“So Far?”

The man asked with a slight hint of amusement in his tone. Alric looked at him with a stern gaze, then nodded.

“One hundred and twenty nine.”

Alric stared at the man for a few moments. He did the math in his head quickly and realized that the pass rate of these tests was about one in three hundred. Alrics eyebrows lifted up, and he looked at each of the three men in turn, his stare turning into flat annoyance.

“Well...” Alric said quietly. “At least I know you're vetting them well.”

There was something to say about that. If he was going to have an elite unit, it might as well have the best training. Anyone who ended up in the Sons would at least be loyal, or willing to go through hell and back to try and compromise Titan Industries.

Frowning, Alric turned to the Commander. “The equipment?”

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The men looked at one another. It could have been amusingly said that they were checking one another out, or rather, they were checking out the armor that each of them wore. It was top grade for what it was, armorweave overlain on top of armorplast and all wrapped up in a tight bodysuit that kept vacuum from touching the wearer.

The helmets of course were the most unique feature.

The odd holographic display that was placed over the helmet projected a hard skull over the “face” of the mask. This skull was emotive, expressive in a way, and was designed entirely for the fear element that it introduced to those who faced the Sons of Titan in combat. It was comical really when three of the men were standing so relaxed, but Alric could imagine facing them in combat.

The idea sent a slight shiver down his spine.

“The armor is...suitable for us, Sir.”

There was a smile in the mans tone, Alric could hear it.

“We've yet to test it out in combat, but so far it has proven more than adequate in training.”

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Alric smiled.

That was something at least. The armor had been designed with a flare for the dramatic, he was glad that they liked it. Most soldiers wanted little more than something that functioned well and protected them. Some however, also enjoyed the look of their own armor, the symbolism behind it, the appearance that it gave them.

With the Sons of Titan this was two fold.

They all looked the same, but they were also given a public image, one that was a strike of fear, one that fit their training and purpose.

That was what the armor was designed for, and apparently it suited them more than he had earlier guessed. For some strange reason, Alric enjoyed that fact. It was an odd feeling, like a father watching his sons grow up.

An apt comparison really, given that most of the Sons were in their early twenties and he in his thirties.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The idea amused Alric, giving him a slight smile. He had never really thought about their name until now. “The Sons of Titan”, Was he that Titain? His smile widened, and he tapped his chin again, shaking his head slightly and dispelling the thought.

He wasn't quite ready for that yet.

Though, perhaps there was a certain someone who wouldn't give him much of a choice. That thought made him shake.

“What about the rest of it?” Alric asked finally. “The weapons? Ships? Are they suitable as well?”

Alric began to walk as he spoke, moving quickly out of the room and into the greater area of the facility. This place was entirely devoted to the Training of the Sons, located within The Works on Coruscant, buried deep beneath an old Industrial building. It was here that the Sons did their vigorous training, being taught by Sith and experts.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“Most of the equipment has been tested Sir. The Blas-Tech weaponry is of course the most effective so far, what Titan Industries has gifted to us has also been found to be useful. The AT-AW's and the AT-HK's have proven to be effective. However...”

The man stalled for a few seconds as Alric stopped on a catwalk.

Below them were the hundred or so Sons of Titan that had passed the tests so far. They were paired off in groups of two, each group sparring and fighting with one another. The combat was brutally effective, the crack of bone and quiet yells could be heard from above, the smacking of flesh and hard punches seemed to ring out more than was actually possible.

His eyebrow raised as he saw a man thrown against the ground without any remorse, his collarbone snapping like a twig.

“The ships have yet to be tested and finished.”

The commander spoke again, addressing one of the few issues that the Sons had so far encountered. Alric turned away from the gruesome sight, and looked a the Commander.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“Perfection takes time Commander. Research has to be done and systems have to be checked.” He was far more calm on the outside than he actually felt.

The ships the Commander was talking about were supposed to have been finished weeks ago, yet his research and development department was stalling. He assumed it was because the vessels had some design flaw, something that made them...broken. It was an annoyance, one that rather stalled the effect The Sons were supposed to have.

An elite military unit was rather useless when it couldn't go anywhere.

“You'll have your ships.” Alric told the man. “Though it will hardly matter if you never number more than a hundred.”

The commander chuckled at that, the skull mask on his face shifting slightly, his chest rising. He grinned at Alric, and then motioned towards the pit below them, the one filled with the Sons of Titan fighting one another.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“The training is hard.”

The commander said with the amusement still ringing in his tone.

“But worth it.”

Alric looked down at the pit once more, studying his soldiers. The Sons of Titan were meant to be one of the most elite units in the galaxy. No cybernetic enhancements, no Yuuzhan Vong augmentations, no genetic modifications. Nothing. They were humans, aliens, and near-humans, all of them a credit to their species, all of them with their own strength and weaknesses, yet all of them better trained than any soldier could ever hope to be.

That was the lot of the Sons of Titan, to be the elite of the elite.

Yet why not improve them? Why not make them better through modifications? For Alric it was a simple question of loyalty. Sure he could change and alter them, sure he could modify them and make them ''better'', but this way their psychology remained intact. They would see their own strength and feel their own abilities.

They would know that whatever they did would come from them, not some change or shift. “Get it done.”