Author's Notes: I based a scene in this from OBS, just changing the names, and axing a few lines. I needed something, and it seemed to be the best choice. The song is a traditional British song, Over The Hills and Far Away. This is a repost of an older work on Ao3.
Vice Admiral Shannon Foraker, sitting at her desk in her office on Bolthole, puts on her headphones to play music while she goes over reports.
Here's forty thousand credits on the table
For those who volunteer to come,
To 'list and fight the foe today
Over the Hills and far away…
Shannon still remembered the day she took her oath to the Republic, led by the now disgraced and once thought dead former Admiral Amos Parnell. She thought the Committee would solve everything. She knew now that the Committee had more flaws than untrained Dolist produced superdreadnoughts. I don't regret blowing StateSec up at all. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, especially if it got me back to fleet command…
O'er the hills and o'er the main
Through Tambourin (she remembered hearing about the devastation from the Manties's Operation Cutthroat), Barnett (she remembered the capture of Prince Adrian, and the aftermath of that, years ago, and ranks before, leading to her blowing up two squadrons of State Sec ships) and Solon
"Ma'am, the latest reports from Solon say that Moriarty was a complete success." said her aide, Paulette.
"What happened?" she had asked curiously.
"We engaged Mantie forces led by the Salamander and her girlfriend, and we captured her girlfriend." Despite plenty of evidence to show that Michelle and Honor weren't dating, the nickname had stuck, because of them working together and both being female and of similar ages.
"We captured Michelle Henke!? I guess my next star might be coming sooner than I expected. Remember what this and Adler showed, that Manties aren't unbeatable! That we can win this, or at least make it a very costly victory."
President Pritchart commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away
When duty calls me I must go
To stand and face another foe
But part of me will always stray. Her mind flashed back to her childhood.
Over the hills and far away…
Shannon still remembered her girlhood. While not a Dolist, her family wasn't wealthy either, like the Legislaturalists were.
Her little sister bumping her holo camera off her dresser, and accidentally breaking it, and her discoveries of how to fix it, complete with an accidental destroyal of Eimear's toy dolls, to raid a part of the doll's arm to become a part of the camera…
"Accidentally" hacking stuff because she was bored. The as-yet untraced hacking of her ex's social media accounts because he cheated on her.
If I should fall to rise no more
As many comrades did before
Then ask the fifes and drums to play
Over the hills and far away
After her promotion to Rear Admiral, she had been assigned to Bolthole, instead of being sent to the front, because of her witchy skills as a technical and tactical genius.
She still remembered that day, when as a newly promoted Rear Admiral, she'd officially taken command from the construction crew.
The leader of the construction crew snapped her a salute and the side party came to a pretty good attention for being as under trained as they were. The hanger bay was silent, as she answered his salute.
"Permission to come aboard?" she asked in her clear soprano.
"Permission granted," the leader replied.
"Thank you, Mark." she said, smiling as she looked out over the hanger bay, where the lead Havenite R&D facility would be.
"From Admiral Lester Tourville,Twelfth Fleet, Commanding Officer, Republic of Haven Navy," she read in her crisp, cool voice, "to Rear Admiral Shannon Foraker, Republic of Haven Navy, Thirty-Fifth Day, Fourth Month, Year One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Seventeen. Madam: You are hereby directed and required to proceed aboard The Republic of Haven's Navy Space Station Bolthole, SS-Zero-One, there to take upon yourself the duties and responsibilities of commanding officer in the service of the Republic. Fail not in this charge at your peril. By order of Admiral Thomas Theisman, Chief of Naval Operations and Secretary of War, Republic of Haven Navy.."
She fell silent and refolded her orders without even glancing at the pickup. For generations, those formal phrases had marked the transfer of command aboard the ships and space stations of the (sometimes Peoples) Republic of Haven's Navy. They were brief and stilted, but by the simple act of reading them aloud she had placed her crew under her authority, bound them to obey her, and the government (though especially under the PRH, the government first) upon pain of death. The vast majority of them knew nothing at all about her, and she knew equally little about them, and none of that mattered.
She said formally, "I assume command."
"Rear Admiral Shannon Foraker," he replied with equal formality, "you have command. Welcome to Bolthole, ma'am."
"Thank you." She glanced at her aide. "Make a note in the log, please," she said, and turned back to the pickup and her watching crew. "I won't take up your time with any formal speeches, people. We have too much to do and too little time to do it as it stands, to beat the Manties at their game . Carry on."
O'er the hills and o'er the main
Through Tambourin, Barnett and Solon
President Pritchart commands and we obey
She still remembered receiving her first flag promotion from the hands of none other than the President herself, and she had kept all of her old insignia tucked away in small boxes for when she had to look back to the past, or wanted to run her fingers over those sharp stars one more time.
Over the hills and far away…
Author's Notes: I'm mainly posting on Ao3 nowadays, though I hope to cross-post more, when I find time.