I may have already mentioned how great the parties were when I saved Al Briers life. Well, it’s worth mentioning again because I partied for three days straight. Briers and I had a few days off, because of the injuries we got in the crash, and we made the most of them by hitting every bar in the region.

But even that couldn’t compare to Graduation Day!!!

I remember formalities of the actual graduation, but not much after that. We all stepped up on the podium one by one, receiving a diploma from Sector Admiral Compton. I felt so proud, especially considering that I had been pushed forward in my training so I would pass the flight training a year early.

Then the drinks came, and things went wrong from there. Slowly everything became blurry and twisted, and I can’t remember a damn thing after that. Apparently photos were taken of what I was doing on that night, to be used if I ever became a high-ranking officer, but I still don’t know what I was doing on them.

What I do have memories of is the pain of the massive hangover I had when the festivities were over. I think I got to sleep around late morning…around the time when everyone had already been awake for a few hours and were well into their day. That made me wake up just in time for the next night of drinking, and that pattern stayed the same for a few days.

The last day was a little different though, as my orders came through of my first post. I awoke at around the late afternoon, earlier than usual, to look forward to the night ahead. Usually there were three other people in my room, all of which were still in training for another year. The platform command never got around to moving me to a final year barracks when I was moved up a year. I didn’t mind though, as I was like a god to the cadets in the year below…especially after I saved Al Briers life in that training exercise.

I tried to get up of my bunk, only to have to grab a hold of a desk in order to keep myself from falling. The damn hangover was giving me a head rush whenever I moved. Once I was standing, I walked over to the wardrobe to get my uniform. I opened the doors, and there was nothing in it. I stood there for a couple of minutes before I realised that I was still wearing my uniform from the night before, so I walked back to my bed for a rest.

I lay down on the bed and stared up at the bunk bed above my own. My mind tried to remember what I had done the night before, but I eventually gave up and pondered on finding something to do before I had the power to leave the room. I reach over for the desk next to my bed for my datapad.

I switched it on and selected “mails.” The datapad lit up with loads of writing and it took me a second for my eyes to adjust for me to be able to read it. I hadn’t checked the mailbox for quite a while, so I was surprised to find 50+ messages. I glanced through them to see if any of them were important.

Most of the mails were from other cadets congratulating me on the graduation. I think that all of the cadets in my barracks had mailed me and that took up most of my new mails.

Then I noticed a mail from the day before…“Orders.” This mail definitely seemed important, so I opened it.

“A shuttle will be arriving tomorrow afternoon at 18:00 Imperial Standard Time to take you to the SSSD Sovereign. You shall be joining Beth Squadron in Wing III. Again, congratulations on your graduation…”

“Hmm, cool,” I thought, “active duty as of tomorrow. Better lay of the drinking tonight, I don’t want to miss my shuttle the next…”

Realisation hit me! “Today IS tomorrow,” I realised, “I have to go in less than an hour!!!”