She meets him in it, somewhere between offended, somewhere between blazing fiercely as she bites into it, she looks at him, and she looks only at him with all of the pent-up bravery, fear and devotion and how much is bound up in this moment for her, for all of her people. Looks at him like if he were near him she would grip in her hands. As if her will might be enough.

Because it's not flattery when she speaks, no honeying of words, it is what she sees to be the truth. "None, for I never would have asked another. I need more than brute force. We have done that, we have tried that. Until our wars have slicked our ground with blood it turned to mud." She takes a breath in, slow. "I need a will that does not flinch. For that is what will secure this victory, and give me leave of what I need to do after - expose them to the Galaxy for what they have done so they may never rise again."

She shakes her head. "There could be no one else but you, Admiral." A slip of her own language, her own forms. But honest, as she looks at him, she doesn't see a little man, twisted and weak, not at all. She sees strength and cleverness - and kindness too, for what he had accepted the night before in the quiet between them. "You have given me proof of that, already."