The ceremony itself, inherited from a dozen military academies in the human tradition, and borrowing bits from all of them and the nonhumans as well, lasted far too long. The planetary governor welcomed everyone, the senior FSP official responded. Ambassadors from all the worlds and races that sent cadets to the Academy had each his or her or its speech to make. Each time the band had the appropriate anthem to play, and the Honor Guard had the appropriate flag to raise, with due care, on the pole beside the FSP banner. Sassinak did not fidget, but without moving a muscle could see that the civilians and guests did exactly that, and more than once. A child wailed, briefly, and was removed. Sunlight glinted suddenly from one of the Marine honor guard’s decorations: he’d taken a deep breath of disgust at something a politician said. Sass watched a cloud shadow cross the Yard and splay across Gunnery Hall. Awards: Distinguished teaching award, distinguished research into Fleet history, distinguished (she thought) balderdash. Academic departments had awards, athletic departments had theirs.
Then the diplomas, given one by one, and then - at last - the commissioning, when they all gave their oaths together. And then the cheers, and the hats flying high, and the roar from the watching crowd.
“So - you’re going to be on a cruiser, are you?” Abe held up a card, and a waiter came quickly to serve them.
“That’s what it said.” Sass wished she could be three people: one here with Abe, one out celebrating with her friends, and one already sneaking aboard the cruiser, to find out all about it. Everyone wanted to start on a cruiser, not some tinpot little escort vessel or clumsy Fleet supply ship. Sure, you had to serve on almost everything at least once, but starting on a cruiser meant being, in however junior a way, real Fleet. Cruisers were where the action was, real action.
They were having dinner in an expensive place, and Abe had already insisted she order the best. Sass could not imagine what the colorful swirls on her plate had been originally, but the meal was as tasty as it was expensive. The thin slice of jelly to one side she did know: crel, the fruiting body of a fungus that grew only on Regg, the world’s single most important export… besides Fleet officers. She raised a glass of wine to Abe, and winked at him.
He had aged, in the four years she’d been a cadet. He was almost bald now, and she hadn’t missed the wince as when he folded himself into the chair across from her. His knuckles had swollen a little, his wrinkles deepened, but the wicked sparkle in his eye was the same.
“Ah, girl, you do make my heart proud. Not ‘girl,’ now: you’re a woman grown, and a lady at that. Elegant. I knew you were bright, and gutsy, but I didn’t know you’d shape into elegant.”
“Elegant?” Sass raised an eyebrow, a trick she’d been practicing in front of her mirror, and he copied her.
“Elegant. Don’t fight it; it suits you. Smart, sexy, and elegant besides. By the way, how’s the nightlife this last term?”
Sass grimaced and shook her head. “Not much, with all we had to do.” Her affair with Harmon hadn’t lasted past midyear exams, but she looked forward to better on commissioning leave. And surely on a cruiser she’d find more than one likely partner. “You told me the Academy would be tough, but I thought the worst would be over after the first year. I don’t see how being a real officer can be harder than being a cadet commander.”
“You will.” Abe drained his wine, and picked up a roll. “You never had to send those kids out to die.”
“Commander Kerif said that’s old-fashioned: you don’t send people out to die, you send them out to win.”
Abe set the roll back on his plate with a little thump. “He does, does he? What kind of ‘win’ is it when your ship loses a pod in the grid, and you have to send out a repair party? You listen to me, Sass: you don’t want to be one of those wet-eared young pups the troops never trust. It’s not a game any more, any more than being hauled off by slavers was a game. You’re back in the real world now. Real weapons, real wounds, real death. I’m damned proud of you, and that won’t change: it’s not every girl that could make it like you have. But if you think the Academy was tough, you think back to Sedon-VI and the slave barracks. I daresay you haven’t really forgotten, whatever polish they’ve put on your manners.”
“No. I haven’t forgotten.” Sass stuffed a roll in her mouth before she said too much. He didn’t need to know about the Paraden whelp, and all that mess. A shiver ran across her shoulder blades. He must know she hadn’t changed that much… but he sure seemed nervous about something. As soon as they’d finished eating, he was ready to go, and she knew something more was coming. Outside, in the moist fragrant early-summer night, Sass wished again she could be two or three people. She’d had her invitation, to the graduation frolic up in the parked hills behind the Academy square. It was just the night for it, too… soft grass, sweet breeze. Mosquito bites where you can’t scratch, she reminded herself, and wondered why the geniuses who’d managed to leave the cockroaches back on Old Terra hadn’t managed the same thing with mosquitoes.
Abe led her across town, to one of his favorite bars. Sass sighed inwardly. She knew why he came here: senior Fleet NCOs liked the place, and he wanted to show her off to his friends. But it was noisy, and crowded, and smelled, after the cool open air, like the cheap fat they fried their snacks in. She saw a few other graduates, and waved. Donnet: his uncle was a retired mech from a heavy cruiser. Issi, her family’s pride: the first officer in seven generations of a huge Fleet family, all noisily telling her how wonderful it was. She shook hands with those Abe introduced: mostly the older ones, tough men and women with the deft precise movements of those used to working in a confined space.
It took them awhile to find a table, in that crowd. Civilian spacers liked the place, too, and Academy graduation brought everyone out to raise a glass for the graduates. Even the hoods, Sass noted, spotting the garish matching jackets of a street gang huddled near the back door. She was surprised they came here, to a Fleet and spacer bar, but a second, smaller gang followed the first in.
“Go get our drinks, Sass,” said Abe, once he was down. “I’ll just have a word with the Giustins.” Issi’s family… Sass grinned at him. He knew everyone. She took the credit chip he held out and found her way to the bar.
She was halfway back to him with the drinks when it happened. She missed the beginning, never knew who threw the first blow, but suddenly a row of tables erupted into violence. Fists, chains, the flash of blades. Sass dropped the tray and leaped forward, already yelling Abe’s name. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything but a tangled mass of Fleet cadet uniforms, gang jackets, and spacer gray. Her shout brought order to the cadets, or seemed to. At her command they coalesced, becoming a unit; with her they started to clear that end of the room, in a flurry of feints and blows and sudden clutches. From the corner of one eye, as she ducked under someone’s knife and then disarmed him with a kick, she saw a move she recognized from one of their opponents. For an instant, she almost recognized that combination of size, shape, and motion. She had no time to analyse it; there were too many drunken spacers who reacted to any brawl with enthusiasm, too many green-jacketed, masked hoodlums. The fight involved the whole place now, an incredible crashing screaming mass of struggling bodies. She rolled under a table, came up to strike precise blows at a green-jacket about to knife a spacer, ducked the spacer’s wild punch, kicked out at someone who clutched her leg. Something raked her arm; the lights went out, then came on in a dazzle of flickering blue. Sirens, whistles, the overloud blare of a bullhorn. Sass managed a glance back toward the entrance, and saw masked Fleet MPs with riot canisters.