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Port Admiral, during the course of which von Strada had been relieved of his command and held in a cell for some hours before other senior Fleet officers relieved the Admiral himself of command and returned von Strada to his ship. The Port Admiral had since resigned from the Fleet, and von Strada had been promoted to Captain. The media had used every synonym for ‘outrage’ in the thesaurus in their coverage of that.
    The Fourth was currently on stand-down at their home base on Therik, officers and crew enjoying the long leave they were entitled to after extended operations. That had not stopped either the campaign groups or the media, however. It was rare for there to be so much as three days without some new allegation about them appearing in the media. To be fair, though, not all the scandal about the Fourth was generated by campaign groups. For the Old School Fleet, von Strada was anathema, rarely mentioned without the words ‘disgrace to the uniform’ following shortly after. For the Progressive element, though, he had become their leading light, standing against all the old die-hard attitudes that held the Fleet back from modernising.
    Tina and the commandant gazed at each other across the desk, a vast gulf between them.
    ‘I just can’t let you do this,’ the commandant said. ‘I have a responsibility, a duty of care… it isn’t just your career on the line, here. Fourth’s operations are dangerous , Cadet. And you are still a cadet, you’re my responsibility. I can’t allow you to do this to yourself. You must withdraw your appeal at once – do that, and no more will be said about it.’
    She saw how Tina’s jaw set a little more firmly, and leaned forward, her manner becoming urgent. ‘Look, you may have heard things… I know how these rumours get about, and I do understand, I do , that there could be a spurious kind of glamour that might appeal to adventurous young people like yourself. That’s why we do our best to protect you from that, to keep you focussed on the reality of your future with the Fleet, the real Fleet, not the antics of the Fourth! If it’s the exodiplomacy, believe me, you stand no chance of going on any kind of exodiplomatic mission with them. After the excruciatingly undignified way they’ve handled recent exodiplomatic operations, the Diplomatic Corps is highly unlikely to allow them anywhere near exo-encounters ever again!’
    Tina’s jaw did not relax, nor did her steady gaze waver. The fact that the Fourth’s operations at Novamas had been a cover for their taking part in a first contact mission was officially a secret, though common knowledge within the Fleet and indeed within the wider spacer community. It was also well known that they had a non-human officer serving with them, said to have come from the semi-mythical Pirrell, also known as the Veiled World. As Tina was also aware, the Diplomatic Corps was far from wanting to stop the Fourth being involved in exodiplomacy. Though admittedly rather unnerved by the methods von Strada employed, they could only be delighted by the results he achieved. They had, indeed, made a number of attempts at Senate level to sequester the Fourth into their own service, and failing that, were continuing to put exodiplomatic mission requests on the table and fight for them as a matter of absolute priority. What could be more important, after all, than to make contact and build relationships with the vast, powerful civilisations beyond the Firewall? Humanity had been contained behind that quarantine barrier for ten thousand years, and it was only now that they were starting to make contact with the worlds beyond. Nobody knew for sure what the Fourth’s next mission was going to be, but the buzz in the Fleet was that it was likely to be Quarus, the only alien world human ships had visited so far.
    Wherever they were going, though, and whatever they were doing, Tina wanted in. The commandant could see that, and knew that she was just