This is book 3 of the "Solar Clipper Trader Tales" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

 

Whoops, what? Depressed, and all weird about his good friends in the ship? What's going on? No answer yet. Doesn't seem to have gone anywhere, that's a relief. Maybe it's supposed to be prelude to him thinking about what he wants to be unless he grows up.

Wow, an actual emergency! Network crash in space, everything shuts down. Swift action and clever improvisation needed to keep everybody alive in the aftermath, too. But nobody, in fact, died.

Also an almost-bad-guy; new crewman wished on them by the company, turns out because he's been malingering after an illness. An environmental tech who doesn't seem to understand his work keeps them alive. Who bumped Ish, incidentally; almost off the ship, but the officers finagled a solution to that, putting him in a new position working with the computers.

Ish has completed his collection of full-share ratings.

And met Pip's aunt and uncle, shipowners, and learned some of his history. His parents probably haven't figured out he's not at the academy getting his third mate's ticket yet.

Ah. Pip's parents have been on to him all along, and agreed he needed the time off before going to the Academy. Ish has just applied to the Academy too; he seems to think there's a question whether he'll be among the 500 they chose from the 15,000 applications each year, but nobody else does. His application includes recommendations from 10 officers (three are required). Three are from captains, one of whom is the daughter of the Commandant of the Academy and widely known as a nearly infallible picker of good officer material.

And by god they're off for the Academy. With Bev and Brill, who are also going. Traveling with Pip's Aunt and Uncle. All as a surprise, which seems a bit extreme for me.