Chapter 1

The vertically and weight challenged figure marched out of the gates of Sandhurst College, The Royal Mountserrat Naval Academy, returning the salute of the Marine sentry whilst steadying the cavalry saber at his side.

'Oooh, who's that, Mum?" came a young girl's voice through the quiet dusk of the evening.

"Shush, Erin, you'll get me into trouble" was the hissed reply.

The man's eyes had turned to the mother and daughter as the slender figure of Leading Seawoman Writer Sally McGraw straightened and snapped a salute that would have made any DI nod a quiet approval.

A bit less briskly than that to the sentry, the Ensign returned the salute and using the same hand lightly waved away the mother's apology.

"I am Ensign HMS McCock of the Grenoble System Defence Force" he said looking at the bright eyed schoolgirl standing apart behind her mother holding on to her left hand. As he stopped so did his locker. The girl eyed the riding boots with their inserts secured alongside a rather high hat box on the top and turned her gaze onto his unusual dress.

"Why are you wearing that fancy dress?" she asked.

The Leading Seawoman blushed in embarrassment as she reprovingly gently shook her daughter's hand muttering a sharp "Erin" under her breath.

"No mind", McCock said to the mother as he realized that he did indeed make a strange sight dressed as he was in tan short riding boots, buttoned grey double breasted frock coat and jodhpurs with the yellow sash about his waist beneath the heavy sword belt with the long straps to the sword sheath and the flat brimmed slouch hat with its single ridge fore and aft on its crown.

Erin watched him turn to her again with a little apprehension evident as she shyly leant back into her mother's side.

"I graduated this morning from the Academy and have been granted a commission in my nation's military. This is my ceremonial undress officer's uniform or what we call 'walking out' dress. While I am on leave over the next four weeks I will be wearing civilian clothing before reporting for duty".

The mother quickly avoided the next question by bracing and briskly saluting:

"Thank you, Sir, if you will excuse us?"

"Certainly, carry on please", returning her salute.

As he gazed at the almost scurrying figures, he found that he could barely remember a time when he didn't wear a uniform.

His parents were officials in the Grenoble Government-in-exile (but factually were refugees) having been part of the last ditch defense of their planet against the Harbourian invasion. They were naval officers who finally met on Mountserrat at a commercial gathering whilst in the process of sorting out their families' shipping resources, most of which had been based here on Mountserrat because of the importance of the confluence of wormhole junctions (the "Junction") to shipping in the local galaxy.

He had been sent as a boarder to the Royal Mountserrat Agricultural and Military College as a Cadet in Grenoble's service and subsequently as an Officer Cadet upon entry to the Academy. He had never been on Grenoble let alone met either set of grandparents having been born the only child quite some decades after his parents' marriage on Mountserrat, almost as an after thought but never an accident his parents had protested.

When news of his grandparents' deaths filtered through – suspected to be a result of attempts to recover and transfer the families' assets back to Grenoble under Harbourian management – the Government-in-exile had certified the deaths and the wills, copies of which had been kept with the families' Settlement solicitors, were probated leaving the young McCock extremely wealthy in his own right because of his grandparents' taking a very long term view indeed with the punitive Grenoble inheritance taxes squarely in their sights. Those taxes never applied because the Government–in-exile could not tax its nationals whilst both were on Mountserrat. The Mountserrat government could and did tax but they did not have an inheritance tax; their House of Lords would have had a collective heart attack.

McCock was out of ear shot when Erin, who had been suspiciously quiet as they had quickly hustled away, looked up at her mother and said;

"Isn't HMS McCock a nice young man" and then went on in determined tones, "I think I will marry him when I grow up!"