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government falls for it, all our butts will be in the wringer."
    "I best get back to my ship," Jason said quietly and he stood up, putting his glass down on the side table.
    "Jason?"
    "Sir?"
    "What do you plan to do about my violation of orders?"
    "If I'm asked about it, sir, I plan to tell the truth." He hesitated. "I have to tell the truth, that you launched an attack after knowing that the initial cease fire had been agreed to. To do anything else would be dishonorable."
    Tolwyn smiled.
    "You're a good officer, son. I've always been proud of you; I know I always will be."
    He extended his hand and Jason took it.
    "Let's hope I'm wrong about this armistice, but I know I'm not."

CHAPTER TWO
    Jason Bondarevsky winced from the glare of the lights. Damn, how he hated the press. He had endured "the treatment" before when he had brought Tarawa back to Earth for refitting after the raid to Kilrah. The press swarmed over the ship, poking cameras in his face, asking the same asinine questions over and over again, probing far too deeply into parts of the raid he simply wanted to forget. When one had finally hit him with a question about the death of Svetlana, asking how he felt while watching his girlfriend die, he had to be restrained from punching the reporter's lights out, a fleet PR officer, all smoothness and charm, separating the two.
    The press madness flared up again when Jason was presented with the Medal of Honor and yet again when the absolutely ridiculous holo movie about his raid, First to Kilrah, came out. The film was a humiliating embarrassment, especially since the plot had little to do with the actual raid, spending most of its time focused on his doomed affair with Svetlana, with half a dozen steamy scenes padded in. It still made him boil that the holo spent precious little time on the hundreds of others who had fought, sacrificed, and died with him. He wanted to take the damn money the producer had given him and jam it down the lying scum's throat after seeing the film, which he had been promised would be shot as a straight forward documentary honoring those who had served. The only satisfaction he got out of the whole fiasco was in donating every dollar he earned from the film to a scholarship fund set up for children of the Marines and naval personnel lost in the raid.
    And now he was stuck under the lights again, all because he had taken a wrong turn while looking for a bathroom. The same lousy reporter who was far too curious about Svetlana had seen him first and rushed over, the others moving like a herd of cattle when the word spread that "the guy they made the movie about," was present as a staff officer for the armistice conference.
    "So whatya think of the war ending? It's Bondevsky, isn't it?" one of them shouted, aiming his holo recorder at Jason's face.
    "That's Bondarevsky," Jason said quietly, remembering how his old captain O'Brian had always mispronounced the name.
    "Yeah, sorry. So tell us what you think?"
    "First of all, negotiations for an armistice do not mean that the war has ended. There's a big difference between an armistice and formal peace, he tried to explain patiently. "Other than that, no comment," and he tried to shoulder his way through the crush.
    "Still hate the Kilrathi, is that it? Seems like you fleet officers don't want peace," a sweating beefy faced reporter shouted.
    Jason looked back at the fat-faced reporter.
    "I'm a captain in the fleet. I'm a professional, I try to do my job and leave the hating to others."
    "Even though they killed your lover, that Marine, Susan wasn't it?"
    He hesitated, wanting to turn and belt the reporter in the face, or better yet strap him into a tail gunner's seat and take him out for a mission to see what it was really like. Though he hated to do so, he turned away and continued down the corridor, shouldering his way through the crush.
    "Military's gonna be out of work, that's what's got them pissed off," he heard a reporter sneering.
    He