Aurelian turned toward her. "You are two comments away from having your refit moved behind Astercourt."
Astercourt, who had only entered to deliver a report, looked up. "I do not want her place in the queue."
Rhoswen pointed at her. "See? She respects me."
"No," Astercourt said. "I respect the safety of my work schedule."
Neris smiled faintly.
Even Astra, standing beside Aurelian, looked like she was trying not to smile but failing badly.
The humor did not slow the work.
If anything, it made the days easier to move through.
Aurelian continued privately building upgrade paths through the Destiny System, making sure there were no major problems.
But no one knew that he was cheating his way through the paths; instead, to everyone else, he was simply studying hard, using Eirenne's data, Meridian's engineering work, and captured technologies to create better refit plans.
That was enough for him, and in some sense, it was also mostly true.
