Author's Notes:
Aintin is Irish for Aunt, according to Google. A stóirín means my dear/my little treasure, and is a term of endearment.
"Oh, no. Those look a lot like my tech projects from when I was a kid." She looks closer, "Oh, crap. That computer should never have been donated," she says, as she points at one with a fancy hand designed case she'd made and painted."I put my teenage music collection on that one! And the rest of these shouldn't have been donated either!" Shannon says.
"It's good you at least caught them before they got put on display." Sonja agrees. Shannon nods, as if they had been powered on display, it would have been a much bigger problem, involving media cleanup (especially the non-Elvanian media).
Shannon nods, "Especially given that PR's here. I'm just checking what works and what doesn't."
She takes off her wristcom, and puts it down somewhere nearby, hoping she doesn't lose it. Then she grabs the closest techno project, which is a datapad that appears to be held together by who knows what, has at least one missing screw, and a few wires sorta sticking out. She plugs it in, finding the cord in the neatly bundled pile from memory, and presses the power button. It powers up.
"Can you tell me some about the computers while you're testing them?" Sonja asks.
"Sure. This one's a datapad I built when I was 10. I kinda had to open it up a few times to fix or upgrade it, and kind of had to jury-rig some parts, so that's why it looked like junk." Then, the old datapad reaches the login screen, and Shannon gets distracted before Diana taps her cheek to get her attention.
"There's a lot of computers here. I'd love to look at your datapad, but I think we should try to go through at least some of the other computers."
That gets Shannon's attention enough for her to go along with it, "I just need to print a quick sign to warn people to not raid this room for exhibits until I sort this into what I'm keeping and what's for the museum. Here, do you want to try this one?" She grabs a laptop she'd modded to make the motherboard accept extra RAM and triple boot.
"Oh, one more thing. It's a little finicky. Just be careful, and you'll be fine."
"I did this type of stuff growing up too, I know that's like. Does it have any BIOS errors?"Sonja says, looking like she's having fun with the computers.
"It shouldn't. However around half of the odd numbered RAM slots have a 5 to 10 percent chance each, of not being recognized on boot, though the machine still posts fine, assuming at least one stick's there, and recognized. Just tell it to shut down, find a screwdriver– I think they're over there," she gestures at a tower of toolboxes with things sticking out of them before continuing, "and reseat the sticks in the odd numbered slots, because I had to jury-rig my hacks to make the board accept like 4 times as much RAM as it otherwise could take. Oh, and it'll freeze and then crash, if you don't set the graphics card to a Quantum Platinum 5000 from the bootloader, and it uses a modified Havenite-style implementation of a pre-Disporian shell was also some trial and error to find the power pinouts, because there was no manual for them."
"When did you do this?" Sonja asks curiously. "I did something similar, though with standard MSL, and very few RAM issues, as a teen."
"I think I was 12, maybe barely 13, at best. It was harder than the datapad, that's for sure, and I had to sorta figure out some of that solo. How'd you skip the RAM issues?"
"Wow. I was older than you, when I tried to do things like that kind of modding, and I used a guide off the HoloNet. How'd you wire in the slots?"
"I hand-wired some custom adapters off the PSU, and grabbed some extra slots from a computer that Orla bricked. She somehow got crayon wax and grape juice on the motherboard, for Christ's sake! Luckily, some of the RAM and their slots were okay, so I just figured out my own design."
"Cool. Can I take a peek inside it?"
"Sure."
She goes into the word processing program, types up a quick note reminding people that she still wants these computers, thank you very much, and saves it. She then finds the printer that had been dumped in the pile, boots it up, then prints her sign before taping it up. She then gets back to testing computers with Sonja, until much later, when she finally goes to bed, but she doesn't sleep much because of nightmares.
The Next Day…
Shannon, Mike and Sonja are sitting in a quiet meeting room in Victory Tower, with a tray of snacks being gradually consumed as people are doing datawork. Shannon's wearing her ESDF uniform, and despite the lack of sleep from last night, looks well-rested. She's working on a report about the SLN SDs that she managed to capture when her wristcom pings with an alert to check her email, so she looks down.
She sees an email from Admiral Theisman is what pinged her wristcom (which she only remembered to grab because Sonja reminded her) and opens the email.
Hello there, Shannon! I hope you're doing well. Please take at least a few afternoons off to go see your family on Elvana, as you really could use the time off.
Not surprising, presuming some news of my crazy schedule ever since I got out of the POW camp got back to him, Shannon thinks, before she starts writing a reply.
After she sends it, she reads the email from her Auntie Kay, who invites all of the senior officers in the group to an informal dinner at Oakhampton Palace.
"I just checked my email, and Admiral Theisman is insisting I take at least the afternoon off a few times to go visit my family, and we've all been invited to an informal dinner with my family tonight, at Oakhampton." Shannon says.
"Thanks for the invite! Honestly, milady, you could use the time off, given that you've been overworking yourself." Sonja replies.
"I mean I worked worse shifts in the People's Navy, during noncombat ops–" Shannon says, sorta trying to act like she's fine.
"You shouldn't have to be working that type of crazy shifts outside of emergencies, if at all, milady." Michelle replies.
"I mean, I worked longer than normal shifts a lot when I was forging reports as a tac officer or ops officer. I ended up just forging the sleep reports when we weren't in combat, and all my COs looked the other way, because normally we'd all, in the best case, just have been never promoted again, or something else equally unpleasant. The most likely case is that we'd all have been dead from StateSec, because I was never a very politically correct junior officer," Shannon explains.
Honor walks in, with her datapad in one hand and a mug of hot chocolate in the other.
"It can't be that bad now, can it, milady?" Michelle asks.
"I mean, President Pritchart and Admiral Theisman told me that my career was going to be okay just before I came here, but with her having to throw Beatrice and the canceled peace negotiations, I don't know if she has enough control of the Senate and press to let me get promoted, much less to get a good assignment. I think that, despite what she said, the honest likelihood of either me or Admiral Tourville getting a promotion or a good assignment again… isn't amazing. We won't end up dead from political issues, but, more likely shuffled away into positions where we're no longer promoted, or maybe just have our files put in the 'don't promote' pile when the promotion board figures out who to promote."
"With the Grand Alliance, shouldn't President Pritchart and Admiral Theisman have enough power to control the people who might be trying to interfere, like the press?" Honor asks, trying to figure out if Shannon was just using her political analysis toolkit developed under StateSec, and really actually has a good chance of being promoted at some point.
"I hope so, ma'am. If the Senate is naive enough, by considering dealing with the SLN invasion a big enough victory, and the inquiry board for Beatrice clears me whenever they finish up their report, I stand a chance of being considered promotable by the average promotion board." Shannon replies.
"The Senate being naive enough, milady?" Sonja asks.
"A SLN SD has less than half as many missiles as my favorite pod-towing tools as an ops officer did. And the SLN, as far as we know, does not have pods, or at least not real missile-dense ones, and only half the SDs in this attack even had laser point defense. If the Senate is naive enough, because they've been letting the Navy handle its own operations, they won't realize those two facts. However, a decent number of Senators were former People's Commissioners, some of whom tried to understand military stuff, hopefully to make things easier on us, though, more realistically, not always. And while at least most of the former Commissioners elected were good ones for the Navy, there's probably at least one who'd be willing to team up with their past colleagues to slow down my promotion, with the politically incorrect craziness that was my career under the Committee."
"Havenite politics sounds crazy, and dangerous, milady." Michelle replies, and Shannon silently nods agreement.
"Anyway, at the dinner with my family, politics is not an appropriate conversation topic. The goal is to not traumatize my little cousin Brianna. She's seven, after all.
That afternoon…
Shannon finishes up the last bit of datawork for that day, and tries to tell herself that she's only going to do more datawork if it's very urgent. She swaps her Fleet Admiral uniform for a soft cotton pale golden-themed top with a thin darker yellow cardigan (because it goes well with her hair) and khaki pants, before remembering to grab the plaque that she'd looted, and then tucks it under her arm.
She walks out of her office, to the waiting aircar, Diana walking next to her, and heads to Oakhampton Palace before heading into the private quarters, where she sees her Auntie Kay who's in the middle of a baking project with her little cousin, Brianna. Brianna is Orla's little sister, and looks like a younger version of Orla, except with slightly darker hair, more like Shannon's Aintin Aoibhinn, and if the photos from her family were correct, even better at making messes. She's not as bad as I was (yet), but that's a pretty low bar, Shannon thinks.
"Aintin Kay, I'm back! Admiral Theisman insisted I at least take a few afternoons off…" Shannon explains, while hugging her aunt.
"I missed you, Shannon! And is that a treecat?" says Brianna in her cute little-kid voice, while she's trying to mix the big bowl of cake batter.
"Sorry. I missed you, too, A stóirín. You've grown so much, little one! Last time I saw you you were two, and now you're seven! Time flies! And, yes, that's a treecat." Shannon says, getting down closer to Brianna's level to avoid scaring her. Diana also purrs softly, to reassure Brianna.
"Do you want to wash up and help us make the cake?" Brianna asks.
"I grabbed something special off the SLN flagship for you Auntie, but you look a little busy, so I'll give it to you later. Also, are my parents back from Aria?" Shannon asks.
"That's fine. Your parents are back, and their trip went well. Your mom's in the Palace Gardens, and I'm not sure where your dad is." her aunt replies.
"Sorry, Brianna, I have to go. Let me know when it's time to taste-test the cake, though." Shannon says.
"I'm sorry, but the cake's to go with dinner. Aintin Kay told me that. You're not supposed to eat dessert before dinner!" Brianna replies, in her cute little kid voice.
"That's okay." Shannon replies, before she walks quickly towards the gardens, stashing the plaque out of the way before going to see her mother. Gracelyn is watering one of her roses when she sees Shannon running over in the garden, and drops her watering can. The two run towards each other and hug.
"I'm back, mum!", Shannon says, happy.
"Are you okay, Shannon? We tried to ignore the conspiracy theories from the fringe reporters, but they were saying some really concerning things," her mom replies, sounding concerned.
"I'm fine, if a little tired mum. But that's from handling the aftermath of the SLN's surrender. The RMN didn't try to act like the SERE trainers to Admiral Tourville and me, don't worry. However, there was one small group of personnel who may have been mistreated who were sent to a black site for enhanced interrogation. I don't know the details, but I was never sent there. Thank you for the packages."
"You're welcome. I hope you liked the letter writing campaign." her mom says.
"It was very nice, but some of the letters I got had people ignoring the whole 'I'm not royal' cover story that I was using. I tried to reply to some of them, but as we didn't know how long we'd be held there before being released, I didn't get through too many, and definitely don't have the time now."
"It's okay. We're all glad you're home. I heard you got adopted by a treecat…"
After meeting up with her parents…
Shannon sends a message to everyone invited to the dinner with her family who hadn't been to the party that was a few days before about Elvanian customs, before heading to her room in hopes of finding a surviving computer project to tinker with, as she doesn't remember if any were still there from last time, because the last party was at Cainhorn instead.
When she first walks in, she sees a note on her bed.
Welcome home, Shannon! We donated a lot of your techno projects to the tech museum. We kept a few, but we weren't sure if you'd ever be home, especially as we figured that if Manticore won you wouldn't be coming home for a long time, and we didn't see the GA coming. Then again, nobody really did. Hope we didn't donate anything we shouldn't have.
– Your mom and dad
This explains things. I hope they left the server I was fixing up that was in 20 pieces and boxed up under my bed alone, she thinks. She gets down on her knees by her bed, and pulls out all the boxes of stuff she'd shoved under there last time she was home, to keep them from being tossed in the trash or otherwise disappearing. Diana, to keep from tearing Shannon's sweater, sprawls out on the bed in the warm sunshine.
Several boxes later, she finds the box of server parts, and grabs one of her toolboxes as she begins to put the server back together. She plugs in pieces, letting the relatively simple repair job give her mind something to think about, before her wristcom chimes.
"Hello, we're exploring Elvana's Capital District this afternoon. Do you have any recommendations besides the tech museum that you think we might like? Sorry for calling when you're supposed to be off, but we forgot to ask you earlier." Sonja explains, her blonde hair shining in the sunlight.
"Maybe the naval museum by the Academy, or the basement of Victory Tower? Both have some really cool stuff, but Victory Tower is less 'politically correct', at least according to the 'net." Shannon replies quickly.
Shannon hears someone jokingly whisper from outside the visual pickup "What, Shannon knows what political correctness is?"
"What are you up to?" Sonja asks, curious.
"Fixing up a computer. It's really easy, but I just wanted to do something easy for a bit, to take my mind off work."
She plugs in a few cables, before hooking up the sprawled out mess to a monitor and keyboard. She then turns on the power, after checking that everything's grounded and plugged in. She quickly reads the scrolling bootup messages, and sees that she managed to get everything set up correctly.
Shannon continues, "I just got bootup, and am headed into the BIOS now."
"Cool. Sorry, but I have to go." Sonja replies.
"See you at dinner!" Shannon replies, before getting back to her computer project.
That Evening…
When her wristcom reminder to get ready for dinner goes off, she sorta cleans up her computer project (mostly shoving it back under her bed, where it came from), and quickly fixes her hair before scampering downstairs into the dining room, followed closely by Diana.
She notices that all of the invitees are there, including Orla's parents, before her Auntie grabs the microphone to get everyone's attention.
Her aunt smiles, and says, "Hello, everybody, and welcome. Given how many of our guests are new, what do you think of playing guess the childhood photo, Shannon?", to try to tease Shannon a bit.
Shannon winces at the nightmare that would happen if certain photos found their way into certain hands, before replying, "Please, let's try something else, Auntie Kay. Maybe just introductions, and a hobby?"
Her aunt frowns playfully, and then goes along with it, "Fine. How about names, titles, family and a hobby?"
Shannon replies, "That sounds good. Who wants to go first?"
Orla's mom raises her hand a little bit, "Hello, I'm Princess Saoirse Foraker. My husband is Count Liam, Count of Fier. My children are Orla, and Brianna– Sorry, but where are you Brianna? I like to do photography and filmmaking." She nods to her next oldest sister, as her husband passes on introducing himself normally at social events.
Brianna smiles, double checking the lilly she's tucked in her blonde hair, and says in a tone that, while calm, has a nervous undertone to it, "Here I am. I… I got you some flowers, momma."
"Brianna, what did I tell you about picking flowers here?" she says, slightly scoldingly, while trying not to look too embarrassed.
"That I need to ask Auntie Kay for permission. She said it was okay, after we finished the cake." Saoirse's oldest sister, who happens to be Queen Cadhla, nods in confirmation.
"Okay, Brianna, just next time let me or your dad know first, please. You know that safety is important, especially for a Duchess." she replies, glad that Brianna had at least asked first.
Her sister then introduces herself, "Anyway, I'm Princess Roisin Foraker-Donnelly, and my partner is Countess Aoibhinn Foraker-Donnelly. Our daughter is Eimear. I like to play piano and sing."
The next person to introduce herself is Aoibhinn. "Hello, I'm Countess Aoibhinn Foraker-Donnelly, Countess of Prim, and as my partner said, our daughter's Eimear. I like to sing opera." She has very dark brown hair, unlike most of the rest of the family, who are all various shades of blonde, and wears a dark red dress.
Eimear goes next, saying, slightly self-consciously, "I'm Duchess Eimear Foraker, Duchess of Selenice. As for hobbies, maybe some art projects, or reading…"
Shannon goes next, "I'm Grand Duchess Shannon Foraker, Grand Duchess of Elvana. I'm a tech nerd, who kinda started hacking as a kid, and never stopped. I did not cause a brownout of the capital, contrary to the story my Aintin tells too often. And, no, I don't know anything about what caused it."
Her Aintin looks skeptical, "Yeah, right, Miss Hacker," she teases Shannon.
"Anyway, Orla, you're next, before you go eat all the cookies." Shannon says, trying to end the whole topic of "embarrassing stories from Shannon's childhood".
Orla playfully glares at her cousin, replying, "Quit framing me, Shannon! Anyway, I'm Duchess Orla Foraker, Duchess of Rublik, and my main hobby, at the moment, seems to be painting."
Quite a few introductions (and stories) later, people finally start moving toward dinner, and after dinner and dessert ( which was the very good cake that Brianna and Shannon's Aunt Cadhla had made), a talent show was hosted. While Admiral Bellefeuille had suggested Monopoly as an after-dinner entertainment option, that was quickly, though politely, shot down by the Elvanian royals, and, surprisingly, Countess Gold Peak because of how vicious it had been when (once everyone else understood the varied points of view on the game attempt from the Elvanian side) both royal families had tried to play it at their family game nights.
Shannon's aunt Aoibhinn volunteers to go first, "Who wants to hear a pre-Disporian aria?" Nobody obviously says no, so Aoibhinn whispers something in her wife's ear, likely about which number they should do.
Roisin then gets up and goes over to the piano, and starts playing the piano to go along with Aoibhinn singing the Jewel Song from Faust in perfect French, using the karaoke setup for its impressive sound setup, which impresses people.
Then, Brianna shows everybody the piano piece she's been working on with her Auntie Roisin, and even tries the (simplified) piano version of the first part of an opera accompaniment while her aunt sings along, which impresses everybody, as she's only seven.
After that, Shannon manages to demo some basic hacking stuff, and shows a very old demoscene (though not going to the full depth she normally goes to to avoid scaring her Manticorian colleagues) or to make them suspect at all that she hacked the datapads, given how thin her cover is. Honor looks a little surprised, and Shannon reminds herself to tone it down even more next time to keep Honor from getting suspicious, especially while they're both on Elvana.
To make the Elvanians not feel like they have to do all the entertainment, Michelle tries her hand at karaoke, singing a popular pop number, and not doing too poorly at it. Somewhere in the crowd, Honor smiles fondly in memory of her Naval Academy days with Mike doing much the same thing.
Admiral Bellefeuille also tries her hand with a karaoke number, for the same reasons as Michelle, before her flag captain (in the RHN) does a karaoke number with Shannon.
Eimear and Shannon do great on their duet, especially given their lack of practice. Then, Shannon grabs the plaque from where she'd stashed it earlier, before going to the gardens. "I grabbed this for you, off one of the SLN ships we captured. It's the builder's plaque off SLNS Sara Seager. I figured you'd like the gift, given that I was really busy." Shannon says.
"Thank you, Shannon." she replies, smiling.
Eventually, the party dies down as people leave, and things get put away by the Palace staff.
The Next Day…
When Shannon, who ended up going to bed only somewhat late but still not sleeping well, wakes up in her bedroom in Oakhampton Palace, she quickly checks her wristcom to see if any urgent messages came in overnight. Diana is curled up peacefully sleeping in one of the huge soft chairs in the bedroom, with a bit of a blanket draped over her.
She sees one from Admiral Lockley that she quickly (given that she's not fully awake) opens.
Milady, would you be interested in "inviting" some of the senior captured SLN officers to dinner in the next few days? I was thinking it would be a good counter-intel opportunity, but if you would rather not do it, or have someone else host it given what you've been through, that's okay. I also messaged Lady Gold Peak and Baroness Low Dehli about this, so please reply with something I can pass on to them.
She gets ready for the day by putting on her ESDF uniform, and grabs some coffee while she plots out her reply. It would be a useful counter-intel opportunity, if we can keep the Sollies from causing problems, but I need to be careful to prevent poor "career implications" from stopping me from making Admiral.
She replies to the message while she sips her coffee.
Good morning, Admiral Lockley. It would be a useful counter-intel opportunity. Can you be the diplomat between us and the RMN (mainly Admiral Harrington, as we're still working on actually talking to each other)? I'll help with it.
Maybe as a way to keep the Sollies from causing problems, we arrange to have a couple of us stage an argument that just keeps getting louder. That tactic works better when they don't even understand what we're arguing about, and if we want to stick to non-military items, maybe have Sonja and I stage it, about some random civvie tech items?
She sends the message while eating breakfast, before getting to the rest of her datawork.
Several minutes later, Admiral Lockley receives her Fleet Admiral's message and rewrites it to make it look more professional, before sending it on to Sonja and Mike, who both forward it on to Honor within a few minutes.
Later that morning, Honor opens the forwarded messages from Sonja and Mike. I suspect that, despite Stephanie claiming that she's running it (which she may be, officially), Shannon's in the loop, likely running it herself, and is busy and still somewhat uncomfortable talking to me. She is probably using Admiral Lockley as her go-between. After all, Admiral Lockley sent it to both Sonja and Mike, and it has Shannon's fingerprints all over it, especially on the contingency plan, and if her fingerprints were there, they'd have to be elsewhere as well, Honor thinks.
That sounds like a good idea. I agree with the counter-intel idea, and think the staged argument would be a good idea, if they're both interested. Is Shannon in on this, and just using you as a go-between, by chance? Honor replies.
Admiral Lockley replies soon after she receives Honor's response, with a word that confirms all of Honor's suspicions, Yes.
Should I come, or not? Honor replies, concerned.
She's not been sleeping a ton to begin with, if the late-night emails I keep receiving from her are anything to go by. I know she's been busy, but still… is Admiral Lockley's response.
Maybe if you do go, just make a brief appearance? It should still work to scare the Sollies. Maybe you should arrive at the start, before the food arrives, and when Admiral Foraker shows up a little late just after you leave, claiming "paperwork issues"?
I'll clear it through her, but she'd be friendly enough to invite you otherwise, despite the deluge of late-night emails being sent to me because she can't sleep. She's sending them, in my opinion, from PTSD (she didn't have those nightmares that she's mentioned in her emails to me before being stolen, from what I've heard from some quiet enquiries to some people who served with her in the ESDF, so while she hasn't said anything to me beyond the nightmares, it make sense).
If I propose the idea and say something like "nobody will judge you for doing this' ', she'll more likely than not go along with it. If you "bump into" her, and ask the same thing, I suspect she'd feel like she had to "just deal with it".
After lunch, Shannon and Sonja meet up in one of the conference rooms at the Palace in order to go over contingency plans.
"What I was thinking was that if the Sollies started causing problems by saying things they shouldn't be, or something like that, I will discreetly call my security team in, and we will stage an argument over something that's not military related to buy us time. Maybe Linux vs ApertureOS? Linux is better, by the way." Shannon explains.
Sonja nods, "Sounds good. Off the record, I agree, Linux is better, but it works to just stage an argument."
Shannon's wristcom beeps, and she looks at the caller ID of Admiral Stephanie Lockley, before answering "Hello, Stephanie."
"Hello, milady. I've been talking with Admiral Harrington, and I just thought that if she just appears for the first part and you arrive just after she leaves, it might go better. Less likely to cause midnight emails, given that I've noticed a trend already about when I get those kinds of emails from you."
"I'm a little surprised you figured that out, I thought nobody would notice. Also, this sounds like perfect blackmail mail, because it's not all that many steps removed from 'I shouldn't ever have a command again'. I could see the PubIn newsies twisting it into that in a heartbeat." Shannon replies.
Admiral Lockley sighs before replying, "Nobody will judge you, for trying to take care of yourself, milady, and if they do, they'll be 'dealt with'. Even if they're Havenite politicians or PubIn. Also, the massive number of late night emails and reports being finished at 4:30 am is very noticeable, as normally people only email me between 6:30 am to 8:30, maybe 9 pm at latest, and with those comments of 'Couldn't sleep, just kept seeing the Battle of Manticore in my head, so decided to work on reports instead.', I put the pieces together."
"Are you sure this is a good idea, besides on the 'I need to actually sleep' side?", Shannon asks. If it is, and it doesn't come back to cause issues, not having to try to handle this and interacting with Honor at the same time would be great. But, if not, then, I'll just drink more coffee in the morning, and hope things don't get worse.
"Yes, milady." Stephanie replies, putting all the confidence she can into her voice and hoping that Shannon will eventually be doing better.
"Okay, Stephanie. Also, did you tell anybody else about your suspicions?" Shannon asks.
"I mean, I told Admiral Harrington, milady, after she put the pieces together that I was acting as your go-between on this." Shannon sighs and facepalms.
"You really think this won't end horribly?" she asks again.
"Yes, milady."
Author's Notes:
Who caught the Hunger Games name reference? I read book 1 of the Hunger Games while writing this, and thought I'd add it in.
The traditional way of who takes who's name when an aristocrat gets married is that the higher ranking person keeps their name, though it's not unknown for couples to not change names, or do a hyphenated surname.
Also, Elvanian inheritance of the throne is very complex.
The current order is
- The queen
- Shannon's mom
- Shannon
- And below, I haven't figured it out
Oh, and I also don't post much on this site anymore. There's a whole bunch of other stuff in this universe, as well as other Honorverse stuff, on my Ao3. I'm Jedi_Knight_Leia_Skywalker on Ao3.