Free Mission Zero (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) by S J MacDonald

did not want to go ahead with standing sponsor to his baby, if it was ‘too soon’, which was an obvious reference to the death of my own child.  I said thank you but that I would be proud to stand sponsor to his son.  
    ‘There was, obviously, a certain amount of emotional charge to that conversation.  He did, you know, well up a bit, have to wipe his eyes.  But that was it, he just said ‘Thanks, Skipper’ and went off, and that was the most personal conversation we had.  The way Lt Simons told it, though, he was practically sobbing in my arms.  She said that my ‘protectiveness’ of him in trying to prevent her from exercising normal Fleet discipline over him had given her serious cause for concern as to my professionalism in that relationship.  She backed that up with entries from her personal log and for Admiral Michaels that was good enough. 
    ‘He had the gall to tell me that he was sealing all the evidence in that case in order to protect me , in sympathy with the fact, he said, that my recent loss had clearly impaired my professional judgement in becoming over-protective and indulgent to a young crewman who was becoming a father himself.  He cracked down on Higgs, obviously, with the longest sentence it was in his power to impose, saying he had taken advantage of my personal grief to play me emotionally, which he held to be an exacerbating circumstance.  So he sent him down for two years and refused my application for continuance of service.  Those are normally granted routinely when a skipper is standing by a member of their crew, but Admiral Michaels said he did not consider my judgement in that to be sound and ruled for dishonourable discharge.  We did get that overturned at appeal, but the most we could get on the sentence was that he would be considered for early release on parole.  Appeals, of course, are heard by Third Lord Jennar personally.’
    ‘Ah,’ the inspector said again, with a look of enlightenment as he understood just how embarrassing to the Fleet the politics would be, if this went public.
    He was already aware that there was something of a history between Alex von Strada and Lord Admiral Jennar. 
    Seven years before, Alex had given testimony to a Senate Sub-Committee enquiry which was looking into the practice of corporate consultancies within the Fleet.  At the time, senior officers had been allowed to hold posts as consultants to business corporations whilst they were still in service.  It had paid very well for merely advising the corporations occasionally on space affairs.  There’d been all kinds of lifestyle benefits too, like membership of corporate country clubs and use of corporate yachts.  With the previous First Lord having been obliged to resign, the Senate Sub-Committee overseeing the Fleet had invited the two candidates for the office to present their views on the issue of corporate consultancies to a board of enquiry.  The traditional Old School Fleet view that it was beneficial to the Fleet to have close links with the business community had been championed by Admiral Jennar.  The modernising Progressive view had been championed by Admiral Harangay.  A representative group of other officers of all ranks had also been summoned to express their views as part of the Sub-Committee taking soundings of Fleet opinion. 
    Other officers had hedged their bets in giving their testimony to the enquiry, playing it cautious just in case the other side won.  Lt Alex von Strada, however, had stood up fearlessly and supported Dix Harangay’s position that such consultancies compromised the integrity of the Fleet.  Asked what his own opinion was of corporate consultancies, he had spoken seven words Admiral Jennar would never forgive.
    ‘I believe they are tantamount to corruption.’
    It was unlikely, in fact, that Alex’s statement had carried any tremendous weight with the panel.  Even so, the panel had appointed Dix Harangay and corporate consultancies had