Diary Entry, February 15th 2519

Soon as I hit sixteen, I was pretty much expected to attend balls on Ariel: my father made it very clear that turning down invitations from the nobility and the high ranking officers was not an option he'd let me consider. Which would have been fine, except that when you're sixteen, red-haired, slim and at least starting to fill out in the right places, propositions come right, left and centre from anyone and everyone. Especially when you're the Vice-Admiral's daughter, and a status symbol, both for him and for anyone who sees you as a potential conquest.

Dad made it equally clear that I could dance with (within reason) anyone, but anything more wasn't going to happen unless he approved it, as it was His Reputation At Stake, and his daughter, being a Vice-Admiral's daughter, wasn't going to date just anyone. I guess.... I dunno now. I guess that there was probably a smidgeon of caring about what happened to me, as well, but it was kind of hard to tell.

And then there was this Academy graduate - just made Lt. JG, when I was in my second year: Elliot James - handsome, witty, not exactly well-spoken or from a high-class family. I'd be... eighteen by then? Must have been. There was a spark. He... unknown to me... came round one evening, early, when I was at home, to ask me out. And dad sent him away without me even knowing he'd called, telling him I didn't want to see him. I never saw him again - he got transferred the following week, which was a good month ahead of schedule.

I do believe that was the first time I ever lost my temper with my father. For which, needless to say, I was very thoroughly verbally slapped down by.... for want of any better way to put it, my superior officer - the Vice-Admiral. It was made very clear that Vice-Admiral's daughters, as far as he was concerned, married for convenience and station, not love. I later learned that mother had tried to calm him down and put my side of it, to no avail.

And yet - I looked up to my father in so many other ways. Since he bought me my first book on man's race into space, I'd always wanted to follow in his footsteps, and take command of a ship. My earliest memories of him are in full dress uniform, and Mum being proud.

The rest of my Academy social career was spent being politely uninterested in a succession of eager, rich, well-favoured young men ranging from complete drips to complete bastards. I wonder if there is where I learned the beginnings of diplomacy - by the old definition of 'telling someone to go to hell in such a manner they look forward to the trip'. It almost became a knee jerk reaction - I didn't want a relationship because either Dad wouldn't approve or it'd be someone he picked for me.

Anyway - things came to head with a ball about six months after I graduated - Rear-Admiral Clarkson's son was my date, and it was being made very clear that he was The One, and it would a politically good thing for us to hit it off. Or Else. Who knows. We might have. I'll never know. The Unification War, for all intents and purposes, began that night...

I got assigned to the Tsinghai within the week. And there I met Danny Ellis. All gentle wit and Irish charm, quite content to be nothing more than a friend for ... God. It must have been two and a half years. Talk about a long courtship. Everyone else, now I look back, must have spotted it ages before I did. It took me that long to realise I was falling for him. And to pluck up the courage to do something about it.

I remember him leaving me at my cabin door, with a kiss, and a smile, and a promise. "Waited this long. Another day won't matter."

The independent kamikaze shuttle that took out our bridge killed him before he could make good on that promise, the same way it killed everyone on that bridge: the hard vacuum of space is cold and unforgiving. And I still, sometimes, wonder what fate had me halfway to engineering rather than sitting in the navigator's seat where I belonged.

I still miss him. It's his watch I'm wearing.