"It has been a while," she admitted acting as though she hadn't seen the jibe in the words.

"Of course we are poor west country folk, he doesn't have the wealth and position necessary to buy me my commission, I had to earn that myself," she rejoined with a very slight, and completely deniable emphasis on 'my' commission. The implication was clear enough. Though it wasn't exactly possible to buy ones way up in the RCN, wealth and position certainly accounted for alot.

"As for being transferred sooner, I'm amazed that you couldn't just snap your fingers and have it arranged," she added with a chuckle that all but dripped a good humor that was as bright as it was artificial. She covered a smirk with a sip of the wine. It was too cloying for her taste but she had drunk pure alcohol from the power room cut with water in the past and the experience had lowered her standards for booze considerably. Setting the wine down she tried a little more of the spicy soup, finding it pleasing. A small chime rang and spacers stepped forward and lifted away they soup bowls replacing them with small cups of mint liquor which served to cleanse the palette. Sabatine downed hers at once, as did a dozen other officers for whom wine didn't have enough of a kick.