To: Pilot in Command, BAF Thunderer, Bretonia Armed Forces
From: Supreme Judge Logan, Judicial Corps.
Subj: Combats in New London/Dublin of 06/16/13
CC: Admrial Xelon
Sir:
At or about 1900 on this date the Judge forces engaged three Molly destroyers hiding behind planet New London. Two were destroyed and one fled before being engaged. During this engagement we notified BAF. They responded some minutes later with a small task force that you commanded.
We all next went to Dublin and located three more Molly destroyers and a gunboat near Battleship Hood. With your assistance, two more destroyers and a gunboat were destroyed. One fled the engagement zone.
This joint combat group inflicted severe damage to an enemy of Bretonia. In the second half of the engagement, Bretonia and Judicial forces worked well as a coordinated combat team. A total of four Molly destroyers and one Molly gunboat were neutralized.
The “Chivalry” comment made by you did not go unnoticed. Kenelm Henry Digby wrote in his The Broad-Stone of Honour offering the definition: 'Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.'
That is the most modern interpretation of the term. I submit to you that Judicial actions on this day were most Heroic. We are fighting your enemies and thereby keeping your space both peaceful and productive. Disparaging comments have no place here and no basis in fact.
I therefore respectfully request if you or ANY BAF have an issue with the Judges or their conduct, that you please let me know and I will attend to it. I further request that you refrain from further disparaging comments.
Priority: Medium
To: Supreme Judge Logan, Judicial Corps
From: Commodore George Richard Hall
Location: H.M.S. Macduff, Newcastle System
Subject: Reply
George appears with a face weary of frustrating mental work, tired of lower officers' disobedience, arrogance, loitering, worn out of higher officers' abuse of rights, abuse of him, and commonly of both, and at the end, annoyed by a little, brainless (they actually have multiple brains. The explanation of the usage of this word will be provided later) fly, which maybe thought to have a bath in, or a sip of his precious Devonshire cream tea, but more probably just didn't even know that it was specially and only George's tea, that it was tea at all, that it was 69.42°C hot, that it was wet and much softer than any surface it has ever landed on, and that those conditions are near ideal for killing flies. There is little doubt that it even knew it is a fly. Or that it existed at all. Insects are organisms too simple for that. They usually have multiple brains, or ganglions, but none of them are responsible for consciousness. George hated simple beings, and that's why he hated flies, especially if they fell into his precious tea. Despite also considering them relatively simple, he didn't hate the Judges. Not in normal circumstances, what these can hardly be.
"Good day, Mister Logan."
The ironic tone in his voice could be sensed trough whole battleship Macduff.
"I am very pleased to be forced to respond to some third priority messages as this of yours."
Now it has spread to most of the mapped area of Newcastle.
"I hope I can now move to the less unimportant subject, because I hardly have the patience for even that."
He frowns like he wanted the fly to see it. Actually, he was frowning before, but now it has become too intense to be normal.
"Firstly, there is nobody named Xelon in the Armed Forces, let alone in the high command. Nobody was eager to answer your message, so they have decided I should act as the trash bin.
Secondly, we didn't help you, but you have agreed to help us.
Thirdly, nobody named Xelon was leading the Bretonian task force. I did, and my name is George Richard Hall. I don't know what made you think I could have such an unattractive name reserved for some poor bugger killing himself of work in some industrial area of planet Leeds. I don't even know for sure if it's male.
Fourthly, I have made an agreement with those Mollies recently, and not only that they won't be attacking us, but they will be helping us against the Gauls and the Corsairs.
Fifthly..."
He disagrees with the thought that came trough his mind, and agrees with the new one.
"Actually, you might be heroic. It doesn't really concern me. I only care that you do the work well, and you do. Just, please (he accentuates "please"), try to at least gather and settle your information better. We might reply, or even agree with your demands sometimes."
He presses a button on his camera. The focus changes. George starts to look like a travel company owner who's staring at the driver who's crashed one of his buses into another, which has caused a chain collision of all the remaining ones, which were full of people before they caught aflame, including his family, and excluding his mother-in-law. He presses another button, which turns it off. Fortunately, nobody knows what happened after. Well... Nobody alive.