"That obvious, was I?"

"I have been thinking about it a bit myself, you know," Honor replied. "The ops plan's been finalized, even if everyone hopes we won't have to use it; Alice Truman's running the fleet through the rehearsal exercises; and I'm just about finished up with my briefings from Sir Anthony. So, about four days."

"You're sure you don't want a couple of more days with the fleet yourself?"

"No." Honor shook her head, then smiled. "Actually, I could probably be ready to leave even sooner than that, especially since I'm taking Kew, Selleck, and Tuominen with me. But if it's all the same to you, I'm not going anywhere until after I've celebrated Raoul's and Katherine's first Christmas with Hamish and Emily."

"Of course 'it's all the same' to me." Elizabeth's face softened with a smile of her own, and it was her turn to shake her head. "It's still a bit hard sometimes to remember you're a mother now. But I always figured on your at least having Christmas at home before we sent you off. Are your parents going to be there, too?"

"And Faith and James. Which, by the way, made Lindsey happy, when she found out about it. This would've been the first Christmas she hadn't spent with the twins since they were a year old."

"I'm glad for all of you," Elizabeth said. Then she inhaled deeply. "But getting back to business, and allowing for your schedule, you're sure about how you want to go about this?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say I was sure about it, and I'm not going to pretend I'm anything anyone would be tempted to call an expert at something like this, either. I just think it's the best shot we've got . . . and that we can at least be pretty sure of getting their attention."

"I see." Elizabeth looked at her for several seconds, then snorted. "Well, just remember this little jaunt was your idea in the first place. Mind you, now that I've had time to really think about it, I think it's a good idea. Because whether you were right in the beginning or I was"—her expression sobered once more—"it would be a really, really good idea for us to get at least one forest fire put out. If this entire situation with the League turns out as badly as I am afraid it could, we're not going to need to be dealing with more than one problem at a time."