But even though the pressure-cooker urgency of getting the squadron ready for deployment added measurably to Rafe's arduous schedule, he was doing an exemplary job. He'd taken over full responsibility for coordinating with the yard dogs, and he and Chief Archer, her yeoman, were intercepting everything they could, whether specific to Wayfarer or to the squadron as a whole, before it reached her plate. She recognized and appreciated their efforts, but she was ultimately responsible for all of it. The best they could do was to get it so organized and arranged that all she had to do was sign off on the decisions they'd already made, and, frankly, they were proving very, very good at it.

Which wasn't going to save her from the report on her display.

She finished rubbing her eyes, took a sip of cocoa from the mug MacGuiness had left at her elbow, and returned doggedly to her duty. Archer had highlighted the summaries for each section, and it was really more Cardones' job than Honor’s to deal with most of the items. He'd entered his own solutions at most of the decision points, and though one or two weren't quite the answers Honor would have chosen, she made herself consider each dispassionately. So far, they all looked workable, even if she might have done them differently, and some were actually better than her own first reaction would have been. What mattered most, though, was that they were Rafe's decisions to make. She had to sign off on them, but he had a right to do things his way as long as he handed her a ship that was an efficient, functional weapon when she needed it. Under the circumstances, she had no intention of overriding him unless he screwed up in some major way, and the chance of that happening was virtually nonexistent.

She reached the bottom of the endless report at last and sighed again, this time with satisfaction. The entire half-meg document had required only six decisions from her, and that was far better than most captains could have anticipated. She dashed a signature across the scan pad, entered the command to save her own modifications, and dumped the entire document back into Archers queue.

One down, she thought, and punched for the next. A document header appeared, and she groaned. Hydroponics. She hated hydroponic inventories! Of course they were vital, but they always went on and on and on and on. She took another sip of cocoa and cast an envious glance up at Nimitz, snoring gently on his perch above her desk, then gritted her teeth to dive back in.

But her dive was interrupted as the admittance chime sounded. Her eyes, natural and cybernetic alike, lit with pleasure at the thought of a reprieve, however temporary, from nutrients, fertilizers, seed banks, and filtration systems, and she pressed the stud on her desk.

"Yes?"

"A visitor, My Lady," LaFollet’s voice said. "Your Flight Ops officer wants to pay his respects."

"Ah?" Honor rubbed her nose in surprise. Flight Ops was one slot she and Rafe had been unable to fill, and it was one of the more important ones. So if Rafe had picked her visitor for the duty without even speaking to her, the officer in question must have excellent credentials.

"Ask him to come in, Andrew," she said, and rose behind her desk as the hatch slid open. To her surprise, LaFollet didn't precede the newcomer through it. She was quite certain she was safe from assassins aboard Vulcan, yet for Andrew to let anyone into her presence unescorted unless she specifically instructed him to constituted a shocking breach in his professional paranoia.

But then she saw the young lieutenant who stepped through the hatch, and she smiled hugely.

"Lieutenant Tremaine, reporting for duty, Ma'am," Scotty Tremaine said, and braced to attention with Saganami Island precision. A burly, battered looking man in the uniform of a senior chief petty officer followed him and came to attention to his right and a half pace behind him.

"Senior Chief Gunner's Mate Harkness, reporting for duty, Ma'am," the petty officer rumbled, and Honor's smile became a grin.

"If it isn't the dreadful duo!" she chuckled, moving quickly around her desk and reaching out to grasp Tremaine's hand. "Who agreed to let you two aboard my ship?"

"Well, Commander Cardones said he was getting desperate, Ma'am," Tremaine replied with an irrepressible twinkle. "Since he couldn't find any qualified personnel, he figured he'd just have to make do with us."

"What is the Navy coming to?" Honor gave Tremaine's hand a final squeeze and released it to offer her own hand to Harkness in turn. The SCPO with the prizefighter's face looked acutely embarrassed for a moment, then took it in a powerful grip.

"Actually, Ma'am," Tremaine said more seriously, "I was overdue for reassignment from Prince Adrian, anyway. We were in Gryphon at the time, and Captain McKeon was under orders to ship directly out to Sixth Fleet or he'd have come by in person. But when BuPers told him he had to come up with fifteen people, including an officer, for your squadron, he decided he could spare my services. As a matter of fact, he said something about getting me out of his sight and into the hands of someone he knew could 'restrain my impetuosity.'" The lieutenant wrinkled his brow. "I don't have any idea what he meant," he added innocently.

"Of course not," Honor agreed with another smile. Ensign Prescott Tremaine had made his very first cruise out of the Academy with her. In fact, he'd been with her in Basilisk when it all came apart... and again in Yeltsin, she thought, smile fading. He'd been there when she learned what the Masadan butchers had done to the crew of HMS Madrigal, and though they'd never discussed it, and never would, he'd saved her career. Not many junior-grade lieutenants would have had the guts to physically restrain their squadron CO from an act of madness.

"Well," she said, giving herself a mental shake and turning her attention to Harkness. "I see you've managed to keep the extra rocker, Senior Chief."

Harkness blushed, for his had been a checkered career. He was far too good at his job for the Navy to dispense with his services, but he'd been up for chief petty officer over twenty times before he made it and kept it. His encounters with customs officers, and any Marine he met in a bar off-duty, were legendary, but he seemed to have reformed since entering Tremaine's orbit. Honor didn't understand exactly how the make-over had worked, but wherever Tremaine went, Harkness was sure to turn up shortly. He was a good thirty years older than the lieutenant, yet the two of them seemed to constitute a natural pair not even BuPers could break up. Which, she reflected, might be because BuPers recognized what a formidable pair they made.

"Uh, yes, Ma'am, I mean, Milady," Harkness said.

"I'd like to see you go on keeping it," she said a bit repressively. "I don't anticipate any problems with customs," Harkness' blush deepened, "but we will have a full battalion of Marines on board. I'd appreciate your not trying to reduce their numbers if we manage to find someplace for liberty."

"Oh, the Senior Chief doesn't do that anymore, Ma'am," Tremaine assured her. "His wife wouldn't like it."

"His wife?" Honor blinked and looked back at Harkness, and her eyebrows rose as the petty officer turned a truly alarming shade of crimson. "You're married now, Chief?"

"Uh, yes, Milady," Harkness mumbled. "Eight months now."

"Really? Congratulations! Who is she?"

"Sergeant Major Babcock," Tremaine supplied while Harkness positively squirmed, and Honor giggled. She couldn't help it. She hated it when she giggled, because she sounded like an escapee from high school, but she simply couldn't stop herself. Harkness had married Babcock? Impossible! But she saw the confirmation on the senior chief's face and fought her giggles sternly into silence. She had to hold her breath a moment to be certain they were vanquished, and her voice wasn't quite steady when she spoke again.