"There have got to be hundreds of people in some of these fleets, any of whom could throw an operation off if they so chose, and all of them belong to a species that produced, for example, Sue. I am not convinced, sir, that the laws governing following lawful orders will hold up any better than the laws governing requisition of written copies, if we find that we have to order some fraction of a fleet into a suicide mission, or if one of us makes a mistake and is heard to say something inopportune by the survivors, or if someone has, as I suggested earlier, a baby on board - those little birth control chips are very effective, but statistically stranger things have happened. If I am not a worse commander because I am fifteen years old, sir - if I and Sue, and not you, are the correct choice for commanding our actual invasion fleet - then I want every resource I can think of to requisition, before I need it so it's there if and when I do, and if you get in my way, sir, then I want you to take responsibility for that choice, obey the law, and write it the fuck down just so you're clear on what you are doing. I have not been just some fifteen-year-old student who should be denied things by default since I was sat down in front of instruments that controlled real ships against live, unfriendly fire."