She straightened up her jacket, glanced down at herself to make sure she looked decent, then strode out of the office without a backwards glance.  Kurt glared after her, then hastily finished pulling on his uniform and stepped out of the hatch.  One way or another, he was sure, their affair couldn't continue for much longer.  Sooner or later, someone was bound to notice and then ...

He shook his head, tiredly.  If they didn't make it home, it didn't matter.  And it certainly didn't look like they were going to make it home.  But if they did ...

Idiot, he told himself, as he made his way to the briefing room.  Concentrate on the here and now.  The future can take care of itself.

***

Charles hadn't expected the summons to the briefing compartment – or, when he entered, to discover that only the XO and the CAG had also been invited.  Technically, the Marine contingent reported directly to the Captain; he’d been on ships where the Marine CO had refused to even talk formally to the XO.  But with no task for the Marines apart from monitoring the captives – and the humans they’d liberated from the aliens – he hadn't expected to do anything other than keep his Marines busy.

“We have a plan,” the Captain explained.  He outlined the plan, piece by piece.  “We have to take that ship or destroy it without risking ourselves.”

He had the grace to look embarrassed, Charles noted.  Traditionally, the commander of any Royal Navy squadron would ride into danger alongside his subordinates, even if he was often on the most heavily armoured ship in the navy.  But the Captain couldn't abandon his ship and join the Marines as they boarded the alien ship, even if he'd been trained for the job.  The Marines would be going into action alone ... and if the first part of the operation failed, they were all dead.  They’d detonate a nuke inside the alien hull to make sure of it.

But he couldn’t help feeling a thrill at the mere concept of the operation.  The Royal Marines had a long and illustrious history of death-defying stunts, but no one had ever tried to board an alien starship before.  One way or another, they would go down in history.

If the carrier makes it home, he thought.

“I understand,” he said, finally.  His subordinates would love it, if only for the bragging rights when they finally made it home.  The SAS, SBS or SRS claimed most of the bragging rights in Britain, while operations with Western Alliance partners exposed the Royal Marines to bragging from American or European operatives.  But none of them had ever boarded an alien ship.  “We won’t let you down.”