“The—”

“—daily traffic,” Honor finished for him wryly, and he smiled.

“Yes, Ma’am. No special priorities.”

“Well that’s a relief.”

She took the board and pressed her thumb to the security panel, receipting the traffic, and wondered yet again why the Navy insisted on using up an officer’s time hand-delivering a ship’s routine mail. Webster could have dumped the whole thing to her terminal direct from the bridge with the press of a key, but that wasn’t the way the Navy did things. Perhaps, she thought, hand delivery was supposed to insure captains actually read the stuff.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Webster came back to attention, gave her another smile, and disappeared back through the hatch.

Honor sat for a moment, gazing back and forth between the message board and her terminal while she pondered which boring bit of paperwork to turn her attention to next. The message traffic won out—at least it had come from a source outside Fearless—and she drew the board towards her and keyed it alive.

The first message appeared on the built-in display, and she scanned it idly, then punched for the next. And the next.

It was remarkable what gems of information the Lords of Admiralty in their wisdom deemed it necessary for their captains to know. She couldn’t quite see, for example, why the Acting Senior Officer on Basilisk Station needed to know that BuShips had decreed that henceforth all RMN dreadnoughts should trade in two of their cutters for a sixth pinnace. Perhaps it was simply easier for them to send it to all captains than go to the trouble of looking up the ones who really needed it?

Her lips quirked at the thought, and she worked her way more briskly through the traffic. Some of it was both pertinent and germane to her duties, like the specific addition of force knives to the contraband list for Medusa, and other bits and pieces were moderately amusing, yet most of it was boring in the extreme.

But then she came to the last message, and her eyes opened very wide indeed. She sat bolt upright in her chair, a corner of her eye noting the way Nimitz had risen on his padded perch to mirror her reaction, and read it a second time.

It wasn’t even addressed to her, but her face blossomed into a smile and her eyes began to dance as she read it yet again. It had been copied to her for her “information,” not for any required action, and she began to chuckle aloud as she recalled her earlier suspicions that someone approved of her actions. Whoever that someone was had apparently decided to give her a very broad hint of his or her approval, for there was no other conceivable reason for this to have been sent to Fearless.

It was a routine dispatch from the CO of HMSS Hephaestus to Admiral Lady Lucy Danvers, Third Space Lord. Danvers was the head of BuShips, and Vice Admiral Warner’s dispatch was a “regret to inform you” response to Captain Lord Young’s recent request to BuShips for special refit priority. Admiral Warner’s inspection teams had, it seemed, confirmed Captain Lord Young’s own initial assessment and determined that heavy wear to the Warshawski sail tuners aboard Her Majesty’s heavy cruiser Warlock made their replacement a matter of urgent priority. This necessary overhaul meant, unfortunately, that that vessel’s refit must be extended for a minimum of eight more weeks in order to carry out the required installation and tests. Vice Admiral Warner would, of course, expedite the work in every possible way and remained Admiral Danvers’s obedient servant and etc.