Author's Notes: I've been doing a lot of crazy military related google searching for this story, to get things right. Hope it helps.
Also, Shannon is definitely prepped for hacking! :)
I also finally got a beta reader for the first time. She's the amazing Katari Michelos!
Elvana System, 6 hours after the SLN surrender…
"Now that we've gotten all the Sollies off some of the intact SLN SDs, is it okay if I go inspect the hardware?" Shannon asks her chief bodyguard, hoping he'll say yes.
Sean replies, "On an SD with no Sollies that's intact, alright, fine."
Shannon grabs her new datapad, which she's preloaded with hacking programs already, being a little impatient to go see what Sollie hardware really looks like. She wanted to be able to see for herself how bad the hardware really was compared to the technology of the Star Empire or Haven.
"Diana, I know you want to come with me. If you come with me, you'll have to stick with me, and not touch any buttons or switches unless it's an emergency, and you know what the switch is used for. Understand?" Shannon asks seriously, looking Diana in the eyes.
Diana nods, before typing a statement on her modified datapad, and pressing play.
I understand, Walks Through Mountains. I will be careful. The People are always careful.
"From what I've seen and heard, I'm going to have to disagree with the last sentence." Shannon jokes back.
Fine, Diana types, and gives her human the treecat version of an eye roll.
She quickly messages her aides Abigail and Astrid, to let them know to handle things for her, before Shannon and her bodyguards head to the main boat bay on HMS Victory. They try to not mention it to people, to prevent Shannon being delayed while a bunch of sideboys were rounded up, and to prevent people from arguing over if Shannon should be honored as a member of a reigning foreign royal family or a Fleet Admiral. At least I'm not wearing my RHN uniform, or some ESDF personnel might consider that insulting, because I haven't made full Admiral. Also, given that I've never been super formal, I don't mind skipping the normally ever-present sideboys, Shannon thinks.
Sean looks at the deck officer and puts a finger over his lips, hinting at him to not try to round up sideboys.
With a small smile, Shannon says, "Write the report that we left the ship after we actually leave. As far as the official report goes, we weren't in the boat bay now, and the cameras just 'malfunctioned' when they showed us in the boat bay and leaving the ship."
"Yes, milady." the junior officer replies, trying to hide his skepticism.
Shannon, Diana, and her bodyguards all get into the VIP pinnace, with Sean piloting them to the least damaged empty SLN SD, which is SLNS Sara Seager, named after a female pre-diaspora planetary scientist who studied exoplanets. Shannon, as the senior officer, exits the pinnace first, with Diana on her shoulder, and immediately pulls out her datapad to find the route to the flag bridge. She manages to find her way there, without getting too lost, and opens the door.
Her expression on her light face is skeptical, to say the least, at first glance and doesn't get better. The first thing she notices is the size of the flag deck, which is much bigger than any Manticorian or Havenite flag deck. Her experience as an ops officer, then as a Vice Admiral, working on flag decks, makes her shake her head. These flag decks are way too big, and if the seats are all filled, that's too many people for even a Havenite SD(P) managing donkey pods and Dragonfly, like I did at Bolthole, let alone just 30 missile tubes, and no pods, she thinks.
She walks over to the tac console and powers it on. She watches it boot up, which shows that at least this SLN captain didn't wipe their databases, though it's slower than the systems she's used to. It reminds her of her ops officer days, working at a tac console as Admiral Tourville's ops officer. Only, why do I get the feeling I wouldn't have been impressed then, let alone now? she thought to herself.
She uses her com through a Hermes buoy to contact her flag captain, back on the Victory.
Roger's com beeps while he's on the bridge, and he checks the caller ID. It's Vice Admiral Shannon Foraker, and he picks up quickly, not eager to keep an Admiral waiting. Shannon explains quickly, "Roger, I'm going to be testing the ECM and other features on SLNS Sara Seager. Explain to the fleet that I'm going to be doing this in around five minutes, and would appreciate not having to delay my testing. After all, Admiral Hemphill is arriving in a few days, and I'd like to show her results, if possible."
I heard my new Admiral was a tech nerd, and former ops officer to Admiral Tourville, but I didn't anticipate her rapidness in running captured hardware testing. Also, Admiral Hemphill is arriving!? Oh, no. What terrors does she plan to inflict on us this time, and why doesn't Her Grand Grace sound more worried about Admiral Hemphill's arrival? After all, she is terrifying if you mess up, at least from the rumors I've heard. I've heard that she also doesn't forget past mistakes quickly, so Admiral Foraker better be careful, especially given that she got captured at Manticore. I'd like it if my career doesn't go down with hers, because Admiral Hemphill's angry, he thinks, keeping his face calm despite his internal panic.
"Yes, milady. I'll get the message out." he replies.
"Thank you, Roger." Shannon replies automatically.
Roughly five minutes later, Shannon boots up the EW, noticing it's at the tac console, instead of a separate console like the Republic and the Star Empire use, and flips it through its different modes while several ships are recording, so they don't have to run the EW tests again because someone accidentally deleted the recording. She also tries Halo, and the various jammers and drones, despite none of them being nearly as powerful as any RHN EW, let alone RMN EW. She then plugs her datapad into the com console, running it through an adapter she'd shoved in her pocket, and runs her almost spider-like homemade malware to steal all the classified files onto her datapad.
The malware spreads through the systems, and copies the files onto Shannon's datapad quickly, just like she had coded it to do back at Bolthole..
Shannon then goes to the doorway to the main bridge, which is on the same deck at the other end of the hallway, followed only by Sean. Despite not being used to the high ceilings on the ship, her eye catches on something shiny at the top of the doorway.
She grabs a chair off the main bridge, while saying jokingly, "There's around 32 other undamaged SLN SDs, we can afford to mess this one up a bit and loot the plaque off. ONI won't get too mad at me, anyway, as I'll give them a photo of it." as she stands on the chair, before grabbing the flat-head screwdriver from her pocket, which she normally ended up using as a pry tool, hoping the screws securing the builder's plaque were unscrewable with a flat-head. She smiles as she sees the screws should be removable with her screwdriver. My aunt will love this as a gift, she thinks.
The plaque reads
SLNS Sara Seager
Scientist-class SD, named for pre-diaspora scientist Sara Seager.
Commissioned in 1870 PD at Solarian League Navy Yard Ares at Mars.
Authorized: 1845 PD
Keel Laid: 1855 PD
Launched: 1868 PD
First Commissioned: 1870 PD by Megan Marks, the Jocelyn Bell Professor of Astrophysics at Caltech.
Her first Admiral was Admiral Zoe Griffiths, CO of Naval Station Jupiter, and the Reserve
Shannon tucks each of the four screws away in her uniform's left breast pocket, before tucking the screwdriver back in the pocket where it came from and carefully removing the metal plaque, tucking it under her arm, before heading back to the boat bay. Sean smiles and nods at her, understanding the naval tradition of looting captured ships.
Once Shannon's back on HMS Victory, and she's put her loot away, she sits down at her desk and starts writing the reports. It's good for everyone that I took a bit of a break before starting to write those reports, given that I'm not likely going to get much sleep for the next few days, having to write, edit and rewrite everyone's report, in RHN, RMN,GSN, Grand Alliance and ESDF format for the databases, and writing tech reports for every single piece of Sollie tech. It helps me to have something to hack, Shannon thinks.
"Abigail, Astrid, we need to get the reports written up, in all the needed formats, before Admiral Harrington arrives in a few days. I'll handle the RHN report myself, and editing of the rest personally, but can you two handle finding people to write the rest, and keep the situation under control, especially in the media?" Shannon asks.
"Yes, milady." the two aides say.
Three days later, Shannon's finally gotten all the reports done, fueled mainly by coffee, as she's been working on the reports instead of sleeping.
Timeskip to a few hours after the end of Chapter 20
Shannon is wearing her ESDF uniform, with a light silvery tiara that compliments her uniform in an understated yet elegant manner befitting a royal, at the spaceport. She's waiting for Duchess Harrington, Admiral Hemphill, Admiral Gold Peak, and Commodore Hughes. Commodore Hughes is the senior RHN officer in this second group, and had been apparently sent by Admiral Trenis, with some surprises for Admirals Harrington and Gold Peak. That is, if the message Caroline had given her, which had been written by Admiral Trenis, was correct. Caroline had been Admiral Tourville's flag captain, before being shifted back to Haven for a while, to work at the Octagon, which meant she hadn't been deployed for Beatrice, and had just made flag rank instead. Her security team is standing nearby, keeping a watchful eye , and Diana perches on her shoulder, also watchful. Wow, if I pull ESDF rank, I even outrank Admiral Hemphill, and she's been an Admiral since before I was stolen. Now that I think about it, the only person in this group that I don't outrank is Honor herself, and that's because of her being a Steadholder and a Fleet Admiral in two major star nations vs me only being a Grand Duchess and Fleet Admiral in a semi-minor system defense force, Shannon muses.
The pinnace lands, and the flag officers get out, with Honor (and Nimitz) followed very closely by her security team. Sean, Diana and Shannon look at Honor, then at her chief armsman, Captain Spencer Hawke. Honor looks at Shannon, then at Sean, who moves protectively near Shannon. I sorta forgot about Honor's armsmen, with the craziness of the past few weeks. I hope this doesn't get her angry at me. Oh, wait, I need to explain them, Shannon thinks.
"Shannon, explain your bodyguards?" Honor says, looking puzzled. At least she didn't open with the tiara, Shannon thinks.
"Ma'am, my aunt, our Queen Cadhla, made me end up having them because I'm near the front of the line, like second in line, only behind my mom, for the Elvanian throne. I'm sorry, but I'm legally supposed to have them, and I can't just use the excuses I had to use for a long time, now that my aunt insisted I have them." Honor's chief armsman tries to get her attention.
"I'm… not supposed to be around people with weapons that my bodyguards haven't cleared personally." Honor says, in a way that sounded like her armsmen had taught her she had to say that, not that she really wanted to say that to Shannon.
"I was just about to say that, ma'am, now that I have these guys, the same applies to me. And Sean here doesn't like to trust people easily that he hasn't cleared. He took a few days to get used to the fact that Roger, my flag captain, should be precleared, as an example of how bad it was." Shannon explains, smiling.
Honor replies, "Okay, how about we both just stick to minimal bodyguards in the room with us, when it's just precleared people, Shannon?" Shannon smiles and nods. Spencer looks nervous at the sound of it, while Sean looks acceptive of it only because Shannon forced him into it.
"That sounds good, ma'am. Also, Sean, Honor and her armsmen, as well as the rest of the flag officers here, can be considered precleared on my end, in terms of not needing to put two squads of you guys in the room whenever I have a meeting. You are a little scary, to most people that aren't used to me having bodyguards, you know." Sean looks somewhat nervous about this, before attempting to hide it and go along with it.
"Yes, milady." he says nervously.
Honor says, "Spencer, same applies to you, with clearances." He looks less nervous than Sean at that statement from his protectee.
"Okay, with that out of the way, do you want to go get briefed by Admiral Lockley now, while Commodore Hughes and the ESDF paper-pushers deal with Admiral Trenis's… surprises for you guys, ma'am?" As a Elvanian Fleet Admiral, I should have called her Linda, as I'm senior to her by the Republic SDF to RHN rank conversion charts, but that gets awkward, Shannon thinks.
"That sounds good, milady. Do you, by any chance, know any details about these surprises from her?" Admiral Gold Peak says.
Shannon looks at Mike and says, "We're both royals in line for our polity's throne, but Elvana is tiny. I'm still getting used to being a Fleet Admiral, even in Elvana's SDF, let alone all the miladies from people. I didn't think it would be such a big deal. You and other RMN flag officers can skip the miladies, when we're not at SDF events, but to answer your question, no, I wasn't informed. Admiral Trenis has been known to be a prankster, with an evil streak even bigger than the types of stuff I did before I made flag rank, so just… be careful, unless she has somehow completely reformed recently, which I would have heard about through the grapevine, in the very unlikely chance it had happened." Given that the handful of notes I've read say that "Manticoran aristocats can be sensitive about things like titles…", my "Skip the miladies." The move could go over well, as Admiral Gold Peak will feel more senior when she doesn't have to hear about any other nobles. It could also go over very poorly, if she only respects aristocats who make a point of being aristocats, but that's less likely, as she, according to NavInt's reports, has been friends with Admiral Harrington since before she became a Steadholder. Of course, Duchess Harrington's family was a member of the upper-middle class on Sphinx, so that should have helped matters, Shannon thinks.
"I haven't heard or seen anything about Admiral Trenis reforming, and I was working with her and Admiral Lewis on some reports, soon after I got back to Haven, then again, just recently. She told me to tell you 'Hope shines brightly'." 'Hope shines brightly' was a private code phrase, telling Shannon to be prepared for major surprises (normally pranks) to be dumped on other people.
Shannon remembers the response phrase, and rattles it off confidently, replying with a confirmation that she got the message, "Tell her, 'And, with it, peace.', if you see her before I do."
"I will, ma'am." she replies.
Michelle says to Sonja and Honor, "Wasn't Elvana a multi-system polity?"
Shannon replies, "Yes, we've got three systems, but Elvana's the main system. Fortrose only had colonization started within the past few hundred years, and Tirana's got two habitable planets, Tirana and Aria, and has lots of resource extraction."
A little while later…
Elvana, Victory Tower
Shannon introduces the occupants of the conference room to each other, "This is Fleet Admiral Honor Harrington. Admiral Harrington, this is Admiral Stephanie Lockley, Marquess of Sarande. She runs our version of NavInt, and will be briefing you today, though if you have questions on how this relates to Elvana's royal family, or the RHN, I might end up helping out."
Everyone else takes her hint and introduces themselves.
"I'm Admiral Sonja Hemphill, Baroness Low Delhi." Sonja, despite not normally using her title, mentioned it, because Shannon had mentioned Admiral Lockley's, but used her old last name, because she had never really liked being called Admiral Low Delhi, and everyone had called her Admiral Hemphill, for over thirty years, once she'd made Commodore.
"It's nice to meet you, Admiral Low–." Admiral Lockley notices Sonja's slightly uncomfortable reaction, and corrects herself to, "Admiral Hemphill?", and she catches Sonja's wink and nod, telling her that she got it right.
"Vice Admiral Michelle Henke, Countess Gold Peak." Despite Mike officially, according to RMN protocol, being supposed to be going by Admiral Gold Peak, as she's Countess Gold Peak, she's been Henke for a lot longer, so she introduces herself as Admiral Michelle Henke, with her title second, instead of just saying Vice Admiral Gold Peak. Also, Admiral Hemphill can get away with still going by her birth name, instead of her title. I guess that means I can as well, and I know Honor wouldn't override me on this, Mike thinks.
The most junior officer in the room finally introduces himself, "Captain Peter Hyland, Baron of Elbasan." he introduces himself.
Shannon says, "Just to be clear, everything you hear from here on out is classified Cosmic Black, by the RHN, and Alpha Black by the SDF, until otherwise released. Understood?" Everyone nods. Cosmic Black is one of the higher RHN clearances, and Alpha Black is one of the highest ESDF clearances, which only reinforces the importance of the info Shannon is about to share.
Admiral Lockley says, "You're mainly on the need-to-know list because you're helping us with the SLN invasion, miladies, and he's on the list, because he's going to be leading this briefing and the next briefing, which is the new intel briefing."
"As the Queen's cousin, thank you for trusting us. It helps to be briefed in on things before you need to know them in an emergency, milady." Mike says, and Honor nods at Mike's statement.
Peter says, "Thank you, miladies, for coming. So, a few months back, we had some wormhole survey dispatch boats loaned to us by the RHN. We were training some new techs, and they made a few mistakes with some sensors, trying to figure out how to tweak things. This next image is the dataset they gathered." Stephanie pulls out a printout of a highly pixelated image of the glowing orange ring, the same one she'd shown Shannon. The RMN officers look slightly less confused, as the wheels turn in their brain, as they'd all seen photos similar to that as kids of the Manticore Wormhole Junction.
Stephanie says, "Here's the enhanced edition, miladies. And, yes, it's a wormhole. But, it's not just a bridge–"
Before she can finish her sentence, Sonja interrupts, asking, "It's a junction?" Stephanie nods, as everyone's eyes grow wide, except for the ESDF officers.
Admiral Lockley continues, "The mathematicians say there are several undiscovered termini, given that we've 'only' found two termini. One leads to Tambourin, near Haven. The other leads deep into the heart of the Old League, to Minerva."
"That's amazing, Stephanie." Sonja says.
Sonja had seen Manticore's junction closely for a long time, as a junior officer, before Admiral Harrington was even born, and she knows how much Manticore depends on its junction, and thus knows how much the Elvanian Wormhole Junction will help Elvana, and the rest of the Republic, especially as Minerva is even closer to Old Earth, at 35 light-years out, to Beowulf's 40. Of course, it would also make Elvana more of a target for the Sollies, especially if they know about it, Sonja thinks.
"Did you ever look for wormholes in the past?" Sonja asks.
"Not much since the 1600s, miladies, when we did a brief survey of the ecliptic, because we'd heard about your guys' Junction. This junction is quite a ways above the ecliptic, though, and we're glad to know about it." Peter replies.
"Well, congrats on your new Junction. Does the SLN know about the Minerva terminus?" Honor asks.
Stephanie nods, "We believe so, as we have a picket force there, with wedges and sidewalls up at all times, which rotates every 12 hours, to make sure we still hold the terminus, and we don't dare run our better stealth tech for too long, as we're worried that the SLN would develop countermeasures or somehow be able to copy our ECM." Stephanie says. Honor nods.
"What's the force composition of the picket?" Honor asks.
"We have, at any time, a half squadron of battlecruisers there, as well as some CAs and CLs stationed there, officially on exercises, with wedges and sidewalls up at all times. Not enough to hold off an invasion with a whole Sollie fleet, even the size that hit us a few days back, but enough to make it clear that this is our terminus, thank you very much, not the Sollies'."
"Who else has been briefed in on it?" Honor asks.
"Milady, President Pritchart, CNO Theisman, some Elvanian SDF officers, like Peter, Commodore Monet, who's the new Tambournian system defense CO, replaced following your raid on the system, and a few members of Monet's staff, for sure by now, maybe Admiral Pascaline L'anglais, who's CO of Capital Fleet, and maybe a few of her staff, who'd probably appreciate knowing, like whoever her ops officer is. You are the first group of RMN officers to know about it." Admiral Lockley replies with the sound of someone who knows her job well, by remembering it without having to look at a bunch of notes.
Shannon explains, "They're briefing you on it for system defense purposes, incase the Sollies come back, as well as the fact that we're trying to get some help with things like transit control, when we open the Tambourin terminus, if we do that, while leaving the Minerva terminus fortified."
Stephanie says to Shannon, "Milady, we just discovered this a few hours ago, but it's not an incase. The League is sending a second wave at us, in around a few months, and is going to be sending an even bigger fleet at Haven, and maybe Manticore as well, within 6 months to a year. We were going to be briefing you guys and Eimear and Orla, in 30 minutes, but if you want, milady, we can start earlier."
Had Shannon not been surprised with so many things over the years, from being alive after hacking StateSec, to Apollo, to being returned to the PRH after the Vaubon disaster, her first reaction would have been of surprise. Because of how crazy her past few weeks had been, she instead says, "Sure, we can start sooner, just let me let Orla and Eimear know, as they should be briefed in.", like it's not nearly as major of a briefing. Stephanie nods in understanding, as Shannon starts rapidly typing a message to the two of them on her wrist com's tiny keyboard, her fingers flying.
After she finishes messaging her cousins, she says, "Just messaged them." Within a minute, both of the two cousins have replied that they are on their way. Within a few more minutes (due to the design of the building being designed for things like this), they run into Admiral Lockley's office, both wearing their ESDF uniforms. When they see the RMN officers, both of them (especially Orla) start looking a little nervous, and are attempting to hide it, to varying degrees of success.
"Hello there, Eimear, Orla." Shannon says to the two of them, before introducing them to Admiral Harrington, "Admiral Harrington, meet two of my cousins. This is my cousin Eimear, Duchess Selenice, and this is my cousin Orla, who's Duchess Rublik of the Tirana System."
"Those of us new to Elvana should probably introduce themselves." Honor says to her friend, Michelle, as a hint to have her introduce herself.
Mike takes the hint from Honor and says, "I'm Vice Admiral Michelle Henke, Countess Gold Peak.", before she winks at Admiral Hemphill, due to the woman's legendary lack of social skills.
Sonja takes the hint, which by now she didn't need, after being an Admiral for over 30 years, without glaring at Michelle for winking her an unneeded hint, "I'm Admiral Sonja Hemphill, Baroness Low Delhi."
"It's nice to meet you… ma'am?" Eimear says to Michelle, awkwardly and unsure if she should be miladying Countess Gold Peak, because of her high place in the succession to the Manticorian throne.
Countess Gold Peak nods, and explains quietly to the two cousins, "Eimear, Orla, you should skip the miladies, as first, I only succeeded to my title a few years back, and, second, as you two are both duchesses, and if the foreign office protocol lists haven't changed recently, a duchess is above a countess, even though I'm in line for the throne."
"Sorry about not explaining that stuff to you two, Eimear, Orla. I was kinda rushed, trying to write and edit and rewrite way too many reports. I probably should have, but…" Shannon says.
"Says the woman who, even now, only told Admiral Hemphill about her past, and didn't warn us, or the Foreign Office." Mike starts snarking with Shannon.
"What? I'm supposed to tell the Foreign Office? I didn't tell anyone in the People's Navy until I got my first staff job. Within a few years of that, somehow, at least a few other people knew, because Admiral Tourville told them. And that list included a People's Commissioner." Shannon replies. The RMN officers in the room all try to not look confused at how Shannon's still alive, let alone still in the Navy and a Vice Admiral. Honor and Sonja notice, because of their treecats (and Honor's treecat-like skills) that this is the most relaxed that they'd ever seen Shannon. It is nice seeing her look more like what I suspect normal looks like for her. I know she's going to be nervous around me for a while, so it's nice to have some idea of what 'normal' is for her, they both think.
"How are you still alive, given the stories I've heard about Commissioners? Just, how." Mike asks, falling deeper into her naturally snarky mode that had produced some enemies over the years.
"It's a long story, but the commissioner that was told was Eloise Pritchart. Only then, she was known as 'Commissioner Pritchart'... Or, worse, depending on who you asked." Shannon replies.
"Who told her? Details, Shannon." Mike asks, because she's heard plenty of Navy vs StateSec stories. Oh, no, this is leading into a wedge collision, given that Honor was at Lovat, Shannon thinks.
"Well, she and Javier were a couple, even at the time, although it took me until after StateSec fell to find out. And Javier trusted her, apparently enough to tell her that."
Mike realizes that she shouldn't have gone quite that far in snarking with Shannon, and stops probing Shannon on that.
"Let's just say, this story better not get back to the President. And you know that PRH-era saying, 'The walls have ears.', so be careful." Shannon pauses a second, before continuing, "And if you meet President Pritchart, or anyone else in the Republican civilian government, as well as at least most of the Haven-based brass, don't try to snark with them, Michelle."
"Why are you saying this to me?" Mike asks, joking with Shannon, and trying to look innocent.
"Um, I heard a couple of rumors in the grapevine, from Alenka, who's Admiral Theisman's chief of staff, that if they are true, are… concerning. Basically, though some versions I've heard from other sources have been… substantially different, um, it was something like you tried to snark with both President Prichart, and Admiral Theisman. Don't do that again, because it offended the diplomats, and they now hate you. It also offended PubIn– oops I was supposed to call them PR around you guys, but we last got along, oh, about a century ago, so I don't really care as much about them."
"Do we want to actually get to the briefing soon?" Honor asks Shannon, trying to not make getting to the next briefing take all night.
Shannon and Mike stop snarking with each other, and Sonja says, "Anyway, Stephanie, do you and Peter want to actually start the briefing?", before looking at Shannon, to get her attention.
"So, as for the new attack plans we've discovered in the databanks of the SLN ships, there's several plans we've recovered." Stephanie says, talking to her computer as she tries to pull up her presentation.
She manages to pull it up, and continues, "The next attack these plans show is headed at Elvana in roughly 3 months, and has roughly 400 Vega-class SDs, with a heavy screen. Given that we were able to handle this fleet of 200 without ever coming into SLN missile range or having to fire Her Grand Grace's Project Dragonfly, or even a quarter of the RHN SD(P) pods and she simmed up to 250 Vegas, with every upgrade, plus an 50 percent on ECM and missile range, and the opsforce wasn't able to take, let alone hold the system, regardless of who played ops force, and Shannon's flag lieutenant wasn't the only one playing ops force, I feel confident that we can hold Elvana, assuming we can keep at least some of your new units."
"We aren't going to be able to leave all the ships we brought here to support the Kingdom of Elvana, because your SDF, even before you got the upgrades during the second war, was much better than most of the SDFs in the Republic." Honor says.
"I understand, ma'am." Shannon replies.
"Shannon, could someone give me a more detailed report than, 'The SLN showed up, and we managed to beat them.'?" Honor asks.
"Ma'am, I've been working with Eimear and we've been editing the reports, trying to clean them up, because some people had been writing the reports incorrectly. Luckily, some drafts of the official reports are done."
"Is 'editing' a synonym for rewriting to hide something?" Honor asks, knowing that it's unlikely, but given what she knows Shannon's capable of, she wants to make sure.
"Not this time, except to clean up some people's poor grammar, and lack of details. There were so many reports, so I just rewrote the worst of them, though Eimear and I read through all of them. I'll send them to you later." Shannon replies.
Eimear says, "The next attacks don't have quite as much detail, but the fleets and targets are more major. They're going to, within 6 months to a year, throw major attacks at Manticore and Haven, though likely Haven first, because they think it'll be an easier, they even think easy, target."
Shannon looks confused at why the Sollies think they can easily take Haven. Eimear continues, "This is just another sign of how behind the Sollies are, thinking they can hit Manticore and Haven, and knock them both out."
Shannon nods in agreement, "Easier it may be for them to hit Haven, but we still have enough defenses to take quite a bit of the SLN's active wall, with our fortifications, and Dragonfly, if they struck today, and we'll be getting more reinforcements as time goes on."
"What's Project Dragonfly?" Michelle asks.
"I was going to wait to explain until I could do a full briefing, but I guess that I should reduce the amount of mysteries." The RMN officers all nod, and Shannon continues, "I guess it can be the next briefing, then. It's a missile system of ours that should have better guidance than prior versions, and be better at dealing with EW countermeasures. However, we lose a whole drive by the way we gained the improved guidance and EW resistance."
"What's the RMN design you'd say it compares most closely to?" Michelle asks Shannon.
Shannon replies, not falling into the trap, "I'm going to have to decline to comment on that for now. If I told you, you'd skip the briefing." Mike frowns playfully.
Honor says, "She told me that it wasn't completely FTL, but used some FTL tech." The RMN officers look eager to hear Shannon's briefing, on what they suspect to be the Havenite version of Apollo.
Then Stephanie says, "I was briefed in on it just after Beatrice, but due to Her Grand Grace wanting to wait for the next briefing, I'm not going to help you out." She turns to Shannon and says, "We got version one, around a few days after Beatrice then one point one, around six months later. You didn't see all the tests on one point one, but they came out better than your staff had expected, and they actually fired off a salvo of them at Bolthole in honor of you guys, around a year after Beatrice, and sent us the video."
"If that shows up on the holonet, or is turned into blackmail, I'll be handing it myself, personally." Shannon warns, because while Admiral Theisman may have told her that her career is on track, she remembers how bad things were after the Vaubon disaster, and knows she can't afford any disasters now, if she wants to be able to get postings that don't suck (like avoiding being the senior naval liaison to PubIn, or anything to do with PubIn).
"Don't worry, milady, I was careful on who I showed it to." Stephanie replies.
"Good."
"Do we want to have dinner and deal with Admiral Trenis's surprises before the last briefing?" Honor asks.
Shannon replies, "Sure. At least a few times while you're here, my aunt, the queen wants to invite you to some parties, in the name of being a good host and diplomat, so I'll just tell her tonight won't work for that, so we don't have to leave the party early."
"I'm still trying to get used to your aunt being a queen." Mike says.
"Your cousin's queen of an empire. Why's this so hard?" Shannon snarks at Mike.
"Um, you never said anything, and you're second in line." Mike replies.
"Even back on Haven, it wasn't as badly classified as some stuff."
"Admiral Givens couldn't find any details."
"Really? I viewed some reports that showed how badly your ONI managed to penetrate us, at one point."
"We lost almost all of our contacts, and all of our best contacts, when the Republic reformed, and dropped the People's part from its name. Also, you're second in line for an empire." Mike replies.
"It's not really an empire. One of our systems only had colonization started within the past century and we only have three systems. We can't produce anything above a battleship ourselves, and it's so inefficient to build battleships, that we only made four, and they were fleet flagships, prior to getting gifted a lot of tech and ships from the Republic." Shannon replies.
"Um, it more than meets the standards of being an empire, Your Grand Grace. Especially with your new Junction." Mike replies.
Shannon pauses for a second, "That we are concerned about being invaded through."
Shannon, Honor and Michelle walk out of the conference room together, and take the turbolift to another floor. "So, ma'am, Michelle, Admiral Trenis sent some surprises for you two. It's not my fault if they aren't good surprises, as she's a prankster. Just please don't hate me for them, and don't try to take it out on my career, please."
"Don't worry, Shannon, I'm not going to try to blame you, even if those surprises are somehow explosive." Honor tries to reassure Shannon, who's nervous.
"I won't, either." Mike reassures her.
Now that Shannon's a little less nervous, she comments, "Admiral Trenis is actually friendly if you get to know her, and can make friends with the prankster tech nerd side of her. She's also very protective of the careers of those she considers close friends." The turbolift stops, and they get off and begin walking down a hallway.
"What!? All the things I've seen and heard, besides your stories, is that her nickname's Iceheart, because she's icy cold and has no tact, despite being decent in charge of Intel, and that she should be avoided, and isn't friendly to anyone. How'd you make friends with her?" Mike replies.
Shannon explains, "I ended up becoming friends with her after making Commodore and being sent to go clean up the Disaster-federacy. Her little sister was my intel officer, and a very good intel officer, and I was glad to hear that Navy officers were back in the intel loop, instead of outside it, like they were under StateSec."
"Disaster-federacy? I haven't heard that nickname for the region before." Honor questions, being careful not to push too hard, so she doesn't lose her chance of someday gaining a good working relationship with Shannon.
"Sorry, it was one of the PN, and later RHN nicknames for the Confederacy." Shannon clarifies.
"Anyway, the main flaw in Admiral Trenis's plan is that she forgot to send me a briefing on her surprises. Ma'am, Michelle, I'll be back in 90 minutes for dinner, so just hang out in there, please. Go deal with who or whatever Admiral Trenis planned for you. It or they, is in that conference room." Shannon says, as she walks off, leaving a single bodyguard to make sure the duo go in and stay in there, instead of maybe trying to stick their noses into reports Shannon really doesn't want to rewrite again, or who knows what other terrifyingly dangerous idea.
Honor and Michelle walk into the room, and Mike gasps at seeing her two surviving staff officers from HMS Ajax, Lieutenant Commander John Stackpole and Lieutenant Commander Antonio Braga, among the trio of other people in the room. The other member, the one she doesn't recognize, is a female, wearing the uniform of a captain (J.G.). I understand Shannon's warnings much better now, Mike thinks.
"Who are you, and what happened to you?" Honor asks the mysterious captain (J.G.), who appears to be from Sphinx, like her. Nimitz hops down from Honor's shoulder, and jumps easily onto an arm of the chair, laying a furry paw on Hazel's arm to reassure her, and acting the way he did to make people think he was cute and give him celery.
"I'm Captain Hazel Lyons, milady. I was put on half-pay by the Janacek administration, almost as soon as they took power, joined the merchant marine, and started captaining RMMS Scimitar, and doing runs in the Confederacy. We ended up getting boarded and captured by pirates, who appeared to be former StateSec personnel, around the time the war restarted", Honor could sense that she'd been hurt by them, and doesn't push for details, "and then, apparently, a Havenite force, I don't know for sure how big, was operating there, and they rescued us, and 'dealt with' the StateSec scum."
"Did you find out who was the RHN officer who was in charge?" Honor asks
"The flag officer in charge was a Vice Admiral Foraker, milady, and she ended up treating us well, much better than the StateSec bastards. She ended up making sure we got medical treatment and enough to eat, as well as 'dealing with' the pirates even worse than we'd normally do." No wonder Linda didn't tell Shannon. Knowing her, she'd not want this story to slip, given that she doesn't always want to talk about her past. And given how bad of a job she does at explaining stuff, she'd just try to hide Hazel somewhere, so nobody who didn't already know could put together that she was involved in helping make sure we were treated well, Honor thinks.
Mike's main thoughts are, Oh, no. This is going to be amazing, once Shannon finds out, and tries to hide the details.
"What did she do to the StateSec pirates?"
"She spaced them all and took a holovideo, to show us, in case we wanted to see it, to make sure we knew that the bastards weren't going to hurt us anymore, and as apparently StateSec had done something to get her really mad at it, personally, though she never told us what."
"Have you heard of Vice Admiral Shannon Foraker, who we'd suspected to be the chief Havenite tech nerd for several years now?" Mike asks, as she pulls up a holo of Shannon in her RHN Vice Admiral uniform, before asking, "That looks like her?"
"Yes, milady. Do you know any more info on what happened to her? It also really didn't sound like it was her first deployment to the Confederacy, either." Hazel replies.
"It wasn't her first deployment to the Confederacy, but she, as far as we can tell, went back to their R&D station, Bolthole, then, I don't know if you heard about it, but in late July 1921, the RHN tried to hit Manticore. Shannon went with Admirals Tourville and Chin, and we were able to capture Shannon and Admiral Tourville, though Admiral Chin managed to get away. Now that we're working together, Shannon's actually back on duty here, and just managed to defeat a SLN fleet that showed up." Honor explains, leaving out Shannon's royal past and ESDF rank.
"Did you meet any other RHN flag officers?" Mike asks.
Hazel replies, "Um, milady, we met an Admiral Linda Trenis and an Rear Admiral Victor Lewis, when we got picked up from the POW camp and Admiral Lewis tried to question us for a bit, while Admiral Trenis tried to tell Admiral Lewis to shut up, and try to explain that she hadn't sent a message to the Elvanian government about this, but she hoped it would go okay."
"So, John, Antonio, it's nice to see you again." Mike says to her two former staff officers, who she hadn't seen since once, briefly, in the hospital after getting captured at Solon.
"You too, milady. We heard the RHN hit Manticore around a year back, and someone else hit Manticore again, around 4 months back. How badly did the RHN hit us?", her former ops officer, John, asks.
Honor explains, "They knocked out Home Fleet and Third Fleet, which they might have told you about,", the two of them nod, and Honor continues, "but we managed to destroy or capture all of Second Fleet, which was their main offensive command for most of the war, Hazel, and most of Fifth. The next attack, the one around 4 months ago, was done by the Mesan Alignment, and knocked out all three yards, including the ships in them, and our missile production lines, and hit Grayson as well, wrecking Blackbird, as well as much of Grayson's orbital infrastructure." She paused and looked at Hazel, knowing that as a fellow Sphnixian, she too might have lost family, and it would be inappropriate to dump this next explanation on her friend, "Some of the debris from Vulcan hit Sphinx, Hazel. It damaged Tanners Port and Evans Mountain, among others and destroyed Yawata Crossing and a treecat clan." Honor can feel the pain in Hazel's heart as she explains.
"My family lives in Rochdale and the surrounding area, and my sister got adopted by a treecat. I know at least some of my family survived, because my parents and sister kept writing to me, but they didn't mention the strike at all, and the Havenites mentioned something about a successful strike on Manticore, but didn't give us details." Rochdale was in the potential damage zone, but Honor knew it hadn't been hit as hard as many areas. Honor remembers her family that had died in the strike, and hopes that at least some of Hazel's family survived. She understands Hazel's family's reasoning over not telling Hazel about the strike, but that just means someone else needs to explain it, so Hazel doesn't have to find out from a mention in the holonews.
"Would you like me to help you figure out how the rest of your family did?" Honor asks Hazel, trying to help her.
Hazel nods, and Mike asks the three of them, "Where were you sent?"
Hazel answers first, "I was handed to the Elvanian SDF for a while, by Admiral Foraker, then, after Beatrice, though we weren't told the name of the operation for months, got handed over to the RHN and sent to Haven, then got told to get ready to be picked up, and then ended up in Nouveau Paris for a night, before being briefed by their Admirals Trenis and Lewis and then sent to go with them on Typhoon, to Trevor's Star, then here."
John answers for him and Antonio, "We got sent to Charlie-Five, on Haven, then like she said, got picked up, sent to Nouveau Paris, briefed and sent here."
Author's Notes: Shannon's flag captain is really a lot more concerned then he needs to be about his Admiral meeting Admiral Hemphill, you know.
I headcanon Shannon as not being particularly tall, on at best the short end of normal (not Allison tiny, but not by any non-Asian reasonable standard, tall). Note: I'm not intending to be racist, as I'm Asian-American myself, and tiny. That's why she grabs the chair to reach the plaque.