Fandom: Honor Harrington
Rating: G
Summary: Shannon tries to talk Abigail into learning her tricks of survival. Cue cultural misunderstanding.




“Ma’am, why do you want me to get involved in black marketing?” Abigail asks curiously, trying to get her CO’s crazy implied hints to stop.

Shannon looks casual and replies while smiling, “In the RHN, it’s considered normal for officers to do,” she gets a little nostalgic, despite not missing the Commissioners at all, “I did it for years. Started when I hit the fleet, didn’t stop until I got my first command, in ‘15. Consider it practice for dealing with command-level logistics. You don’t run your own still, you buy product off reliable sources and bribe medical to test it.”

Abigail just looks more confused and asks hesitantly, “Please explain, ma’am?”

“I’m trying to teach you the techniques that I used.” Shannon replies, thinking Abigail will understand.

“Ma’am, it’s 1922, not the first war. I, um, don’t know if I need your full bag of tricks.”

“It’s better that I teach you now, before we get to Haven.” Shannon says. Abigail only hears what Shannon says. She doesn't know the trauma, the repeated deployments into the middle of disaster and the flashbacks.

So, she asks nervously, “Can you please explain why, ma'am?”

“We're going to be meeting President Pritchart. She was a rather ruthless Commissioner. We're also going to be meeting a lot of her colleagues and I want to keep you from getting kidnapped like me.”

Abigail realizes that her CO had been trying to protect her the whole time, “I'm a little hesitant, honestly, ma'am. Those things you did, they aren't as typical for us allied officers. Especially not Grayson women like me.”

“Hey, I'm not a commoner, and I did this for well over a decade, especially as a stolen officer.” Shannon teases.

“I'm willing to learn, ma'am. I can't promise how much I'll implement, but if you think it'll help keep me safe, I'll do it.”
—
“So, how do you get those good prices and profit margins, ma'am?” Abigail clarifies, while she works on a spreadsheet.

“You obtain things cheaply. There's many ways to do it…” Shannon smiles mysteriously while working on her own data work.