Free Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) by S J MacDonald

is one other matter. I am unable to tell you the nature of the operations we’ll be undertaking, even if I wanted to, as I do not know them myself. I can, however, tell you that they are likely to be a long-haul mission. There is no guarantee that we will be able to get you off the ship at the end of your placement, so you’ll be taking a chance, in that, of being with us for the duration. Even if we can drop you at a port or swing you aboard a liner, it’s probable that you would not get back to Chartsey in time for graduation.’
    That would be a big issue for most cadets – families would come from all over the League for the graduation ceremony, which was every bit as grand as two thousand years of tradition could engender. There would be bands, a dress parade, a glory of VIPS, speeches. As Top Cadet, Tina Lucas herself would be expected to give the valedictorian address. It was supposed to be the proudest moment of a young officer’s life.
    Tina smiled – briefly, and she got it under swift control, but not before Alex had seen and understood the mischievous hope that she would be out in deep space with them, avoiding that.
    ‘I’m not concerned about missing the ceremony, sir,’ she assured him. ‘Gaining a commission is a means to an end, not an end in itself.’
    He wondered if she was quoting deliberately from his own valedictorian speech of ten years ago, and looking at her innocent expression, decided that she probably was. Though it was, indeed, the kind of clichéd remark that got trotted out at every graduation. He never had been any kind of hand at public speaking.
    ‘All right,’ he said again, and this time, nodded. ‘I’ll be heading back to the base in a few minutes – you can wait outside and come with me.’
    A flush of pleasure flooded her cheeks and she put snappy delight into her salute.
    ‘ Thank you, sir!’
    Jen chuckled, once the door had closed behind her, walking over to stand at the window with Alex and looking down, too.
    ‘Weird how quickly you get used to that,’ she observed. ‘I do remember a time when mobs of screaming activists didn’t thunder out of nowhere at us, but it’s just become normal now; routine.’
    Alex nodded. The trick to coping with it, he’d discovered, was not to take it personally, to recognise that there really was nothing he could do or say that would change what those people believed and accept, philosophically, that this was just the way things were. Even so, Alex would be glad to get back into space, back in the environment that he considered home. Two months on any planet, he felt, was more than enough. And, as he sent orders to security to have Cadet Officer Lucas given clearance as a serving member of the Fourth, he smiled in anticipation. She might or might not turn out to be more use than nuisance, professionally. But one thing he was sure of; having her aboard was going to be fun.
     
     

    Four
    ‘Alex – good to see you, dear boy!’
    It was hardly a conventional greeting from a Fleet officer to his skipper, but then, Buzz Burroughs never had been conventional. He was, at seventy, the oldest officer still on shipboard service. He was only middle aged in groundside terms, but the Fleet had generally faded officers into groundside roles by then, regarding space duties as best carried out by the young.
    Alex grinned back at him, accepting a fatherly pat on the shoulder.
    ‘You too,’ he replied, and asked, ‘Good leave?’
    ‘Lovely,’ Buzz assured him. Many of the Fourth had family scattered across the League. Knowing that they’d have this long leave once they got back from Novamas, many of them had sent travel warrants so that their families could come to Therik for a visit. More than twenty of Buzz’s own family had blitzed in from Flancer, renting a house of their own to get Buzz right away from the base.
    Alex hadn’t minded that, even though he knew that they were doing their best to persuade Buzz that it was time for him