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rank, she was even more worried. A new start, somewhere else, with strangers . . . she knew, without asking for details, that none of her family were left.

    "Don't worry," he echoed the other man's comment. "You're not going to be lost in the system somewhere. You're my girl, and I'm Fleet, and it's going to be fine."

Chapter Three

    By the time Sassinak arrived at Regg with Abe, she was as ready as he to praise the Fleet, and glad to think of herself as almost a Fleet dependent. The only thing better than that was to be Fleet herself. Which, she soon found, was exactly what Abe planned for her.

    "You've got the brains," he said soberly, "to make the Academy list and be a Fleet officer. And more than the brains, the guts. You weren't the first I tried to help, Sass, but you were one of only three who didn't fall apart when the time came to leave. And both of those were killed."

    "But how?" Sass wanted nothing more than to enter the gleaming white arches of the Academy gates . . . but that required recommendations from FSP representatives. How would an orphan from a plundered colony convince someone to recommend her?

    "First there's the Fleet prep school. If I formally adopt you, then you're eligible, as the daughter of a Fleet veteran—and no, it doesn't matter that I'm not an officer. Fleet's Fleet."

    "But you're—" Sass reddened. Abe had been retired, over his protests; his gimpy arm was past treatment, and wouldn't pass the Medical Board. He had argued, pled, and finally come back to their assigned quarters glum as she'd never seen him before.

    "Retired, but still Fleet. Oh, Cousins take it, I knew they'd do it. I knew when the arm didn't heal straight—after six months or so, it's too late. But I thought maybe I could Kipling them into it."

    "Kipling?"

    "Kipling. Wrote half the songs the Fleet sings, and probably most of the rest. Service slang is, if you're sweet-talking someone into something, 'specially if it's sort of sentimental, that's Kipling. Where you came from, they probably said 'Irish them into it,' and I'll bet you don't know where that came from. But don't worry—I can't be active duty, but disabled vets—" His expression made it clear that he refused to think of himself as disabled. "—we old crips can usually get work in one of the bureaus." Sass asked again about the prep school.

    "Three or four years there, 'til you pass the exams—and I don't doubt you will. Don't worry about the letters you need. You impressed the captain more than a little, and he's related to half the FSP reps in this sector."

    From there, things went smoothly: the adoption, the entry into the prep school. Although the other students were her age, none had her experience, and they were still young enough to show their awe. Sass found herself ahead of schedule in her math classes, thanks to the slave tech training, while Abe's lessons in physical discipline and concentration helped her regain lost ground in the social sciences. She felt out of place at first in the social life of school—she could not regain the carefree camaraderie of younger years—but she looked forward to the Academy with such singleminded ambition that everyone soon considered her another Academy-bound grind.

    Abe's apartment, in a large block of such buildings, was unlike any place Sass had ever lived. Her parents' apartment on Myriad had been a standard prefab, the same floor plan as every other apartment in the colony. Large families had had two or three, as needed, with doors knocked through adjoining walls. None of the living quarters were more than one story high, and few of the other buildings. At the slaver depot, all the buildings were even cheaper prefabs, big ugly buildings designed to hold the maximum cubage. There she had slept in a windowless barracks, in a rack of bunks.

    Abe had a second-floor corner apartment, with a bedroom for each of them, a living room, study, and small kitchen. From her room, Sass looked into a