Admin72

==Chapter 72 - The Administrator==
Tharkad
Tharkad System
Lyran Commonwealth
3150
This time, the Archon didn't try to make Sharon conform to groundsider sympathies, but it may have been because of who the guests were.
What this means, is she didn't demand the Chief of Naval Operations attend a diplomatic reception without a skinsuit under her dress uniform. Considering the guest list, Sharon wasn't entirely sure she couldn't have gotten away with showing up in Marine Assault Armor.
However, the regulations she herself wrote for the LCN made that a decidedly improper use of a half million kroner suit of powered armor. Instead, she simply wore the skinsuit, and an LCN 'Class A' overgarment combination.
This time, with awards from her term in the Coast Guard, and in the 'previous service' position (Left Shoulder) the mission patch from her last Cutter command, the KCGS Evelynn Mosovich.
She watched the attendees carefully. The delegation from the Republic were in full dress uniform, and had made something of a stir by marching a massive, tripod-like super-size battlemech from the DropPort to their Embassy.
"Know what they used to say about big mechs?" Roderick asked her from her shoulder.
Sharon held up her fingers, about one centimeter apart, "Compensation? I remember that was what Grandfather's friends used to say, anyway. Considering my ride is over a million tons of warship, I think it compensates handily for not being born with a Y chromosome."
His sparkling wine did an admirable job of spraying out his nose at her turning his joke and extending it. the General of the Armies wiped his nose with class..and a handkerchief. "Jesus, Sharon, why must you always do that?"
"Being the ugly girl means needing to trade off of my personality." she looked over at him, "Such as I happen to have one. Just like being a toothpick means you have to trade off your nerdish charm."
"Just because I'm not packing a hundred kilos of prison muscle..."
"And tats." she said, "Don't forget my tats."
"You don't have any."
"Like you've ever seen me without a skinsuit."
"I have, remember?"
"Oh, right...caught me...so we get a whole Paladin of the Republic as envoy to complain about our military build up and demand our help dealing with the people they've screwed over."
"Sharon, stop being the Admiral and be a duchess again for a moment." he said, "I know you know how to politic."
"Okay..." she closed her eyes, "Trillian looks at the Republic and sees...i have no idea." she opened her eyes. "Objectively, our best course of action is to tell Stone's people they're on their own and that we don't care."
"Bigger picture, Sharon." he said.
"Bigger picture is, we can keep expanding. The Republic can't, we have enough force to make peace an appealing option and the Republic doesn't. We have a better reputation in trade and just godhammered a Clan without needing a sphere-wide multinational force at our backs. We're stable with the Wolf Empire, and they are not. We haven't spent sixty years covertly destroying anyone else's industries in order to force unequal treaties...and up until tonight, we have not betrayed any of our allies and left them to die. The Duchess in me is asking why in the hell we are letting them come here with their demands and their admonishments when we should be making popcorn and corn chips and salsa to watch them get what's coming to them."
"Fair enough, now the Admiral."
She sipped ca'phe from her glass. "Strategically, the Fortress contains as many shipyards as we've built in the last six years, along with ninety or so capital warships in mothball. For some bizarre reason, Rasalhague still has good relations with them. They just signed a mutual defense pact with the Federated Suns-kind of like how an abuser gets their battered spouse to move back in. The location of the real-estate suggests wars are going to spill over and become our problem. In particularly if they lose or start to lose. The Population density inside the Republic's main prefecture is over ninety billion. Conceptually, they can man a fleet large enough to maul us real good. They've also got advanced technologies we don't officially know about."
"The right strategy is...?"
"Too buy time." Sharon said. "Don't make commitments and buy time."
"Hence, why we're here." he told her.
"Nope, that's why they are here." Sharon countered. "WE are here, because Her Majesty wants us to attend-I could ask any of my senior staff to attend this, but she wants me here. YOU could ask any of yours, but she wants you here."
"Does either half of you understand why?" He asked.
"Show of trust. Show of faith, show of sincerity and show of solidarity." She answered, nodding to a young Kapitan on his first surface tour since reaching rank.
"Precisely." he said.
"I should be getting work done." Sharon stated.
Roderick chuckled, "You mean you want to go sit in null-gee with muscle-stimulators in your suit going full blast, meditating on distant stars."
"And places I'll never be allowed to go." She agreed. 
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