TADJ27

==Chapter 27 - The Adjudicator==
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New Syrtis System
Federated Suns
Late 3159
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The Patrol Force was nicknamed 'The Redneck navy' by the FSN regulars eating breakfast in Naval headquarters.  Technically, it was a reserve formation on the level of a March Militia Brigade. Only Admiral McCoy-Lafayette's actual purview, operating radius, and most importantly operating budget was closer to a coequal force with the FSN Regulars.
Some of the scorn came from her origin, of course-a foreigner brought in by the First Prince to advise on a project being frocked ahead of her slot in both military and social circles. Then 'stealing' funding from more deserving programs like restarting Avalon production or development of the 'Ramming prow' (a project that was dreamed up by some landsman somewhere who read a little too much greek history regarding the battle of Salamis, she was certain) or just siphoning important resources for 'mech production to put washouts, dropouts, convicted criminals and classless spacer-brats in 'toy warships' to look for lost traders and the occasional pirate.
The real ire, naturally, had more to do with how often her 'illegitimate-son agency' was tapped for classified missions by MI-9, MI-6, MIIO and the AFFC's ground forces while the 'Real Navy' lost those missions to toy Warships commanded by a redneck ex-Lyran.
Suffice to say, the only reason she kept that operating budget was because she didn't answer to an Admiral. She answered directly to the office of the Prince's Champion and ultimately to First Prince Julian Davion himself.
Walking into the FSN Headquarters Mess saw a great number of Flag rank officers from the Regulars get up with half their meals unfinished. Suddenly aware that it's Ten AM and they should maybe be getting work done.
Her Omelette was cooked properly this morning. Something that had taken a while to impress on the Stewards, many of whom shared the disdain of the formal Admiralty for the 'scrub boat navy'.  As she sipped her mid-shift coffee and studied reports right at the table, she took a moment to muse what it took to get the respect necessary to not have runny, undercooked eggs and burnt coffee that tasted like drive coolant.
The blessed event that convinced the Headquarters support people to not ****** with her food. Which involved holding Commodore Perkis Jenks-Ramon down on a countertop in the kitchen with his face in a plate of undercooked eggs, fatty, nasty, cold bacon, and half-cooked hashbrowns, using a Halligan bar as a lever, while her aide patiently explained the concept of professional standards to the assembled cooks and servers.
In the Coast Guard, they didn't resort to flogging or public humiliations often for misconduct. The LCN didn't even have it in the rulebooks, but Aneh was a traditionalist. Having the threat of corporal punishment meant not having to resort to it very often.
The Federated Suns Patrol Service has regulations on the dimensions and construction of a flogging whip, and mandatory qualification for all ranks above E-5.
Thus far, nobody's had reason to use them outside of beating on a padded bar in training and for annual quals. There were enough non medieval methods in the rulebook to allow for more civilized alternatives.
The Option, and the possibility that any officer in the Regulars could wind up demoted and sent to the Patrols was quite effective pour encourager les autres.
Well, now that's not precisely true.  One so far, and he took ten lashes for each rank lost.  Ensign Fauntleroy took forty whacks and went from an O-6 commanding a Fox-class Corvette to an O-1 apprentice officer on a cutter.  He passed out before the last ten blows, more from the humiliation than the actual pain.  The First Prince didn't give him the option of resignation or prison.
She'd been on the investigation, and felt some sympathy for the man. Which is why she didn't reject him as unsuited for retraining. Instead suggesting an alternative course to being drummed out of the service for gross negligence- a demotion, a flogging, and a second chance at fifty with no loss to his retirement benefits.
Word in the FSN got around after that; Screwing up or screwing off will gets you a beating, a demotion, and sent to the Patrols to wipe the snot off merchant captain's noses for the next thirty years.
This, too, made Aneh deeply unpopular with the Regular Brass.
Among the critics who matter, however, her force's success rates were too good to ignore.
"Huh...they got her to stay in..." she shook her head at the contact report from MIIO's Liaison office.
A Coast Guard ship was due to enter the Federated Suns, with Clarissa Ngo aboard.
Here I thought they'd never get her back on a boat after her time on the Tranh.
Aneh dug into her breakfast and finished quickly.
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==Note from Author==
The AFFS is a huge organization.  Vast even.
How do you overcome institutional inertia with a huge organization?
Enacting radical changes in the existing AFFC hierachy wasn't going to ever work, because enormous institutions have their established patterns of behavior.  Julian didn't have time to take the next 20 years rebuilding the AFFC from the ground up, so he ripped a page from another book: If you can't reform the existing agency in a timely manner without breaking the budget, you create a new agency that functions roughly how you want the current one to function, and put that agency outside the normal channels so it can build up its own institutional inertia in the direction you want it to go.
The Establishment senses this, thus, Anh McCoy-LaFayette, Countess at large and Admiral of the Patrols, is not well liked by the more conservative Naval factions in the AFFC's navy, aka the FSN.  She, and more importantly her agency, represents undesired change to disrupt their comfortable routine.
Sharon Ngo had the advantage of being given the top job in an underfunded, less respected service with a long record of failures, and an order from the ultimate authority to clean it up, along with having many resources with which to do so. 
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