Admin80

==Chapter 80 - The Administrator==
Celestial Throneroom
Luthien
Luthien System
Draconis Combine
3150
The recording had come as part of a message from the Lyran Commonwealth's Archon. Yori Kurita, Coordinator of Worlds, the Dragon, leader of the Draconis Combine, watched it stoically.
"Because we don't have to be enemies." Sharon Ngo said, her expressionless face highlighting an asian ancestry. "Trillian Steiner desires peaceful relations with the Republic of the Sphere. I don't personally give a shit but, she does and it matters to her."
"She makes it clear she does not wish peace with the Republic but, her lord does...interesting." Yori said quietly. Her advisors were respectfully silent, taking note of her reactions and holding their own tongues until the Coordinator has made her judgement.
"Reactivate your fleet, defend your border, form your alliances, do what you need to do, but we're officially neutral and intent on staying that way. WE are the one state in the Sphere that doesn't want to take what you have for themselves and leave you nothing." said Sharon
Yori's lip twisted into a half smile. "She baits him here-discounting the wealth of the Republic's remaining worlds as unimportant to the Lyrans, and denigrating the potential threat of Stone's fleet."
"And you? what are you getting out of this, besides insulting me?" he asked, the angle showed the increased tension in Paladin Howell's shoulders, the hostility in the room-covered by such a fine veneer of civility felt like the Court of the Dragon for a moment.
"Throwing him off his routine, of course." Yori muttered, "Making him unbalanced...but let's see what her diversion is."
Sharon Ngo remained placid, a feigned passiveness in her posture that was purely feigned. "If you can present a treaty your government will actually honor, and is acceptable to mine? I get to retire. I get to hang it up and go do the fun things I dreamed about while mom was in meetings and Grandfather was pining for the old days, Just me, a cutter, and a big blank map full of unexplored places that I can go, if I'm not chained down securing the safety of a nation. With a proper treaty built on facts? I can give Trillian my resignation and she will take it."
Yori Kurita laughed out loud at this. "She will never retire, she will never be allowed to resign!" she hooted, a few courtiers nervously joined, then relaxed as they realized that the Coordinator's laughter was genuine. The joke was genuine, and genuinely funny in a way only the Court of the Dragon and the Coordinator of Worlds could truly grasp.
Every loyal Samurai, when in such a position, would use such a line-and some were even faithful enough to believe it when they say it...
He scoffed, "Would you really?" Howell was clearly sophisticated in his own, crude way-at least, enough to recognize a pipe-dream when he heard it.
Admiral Ngo blinked at him, and leaned forward, "In a heartbeat. I want to be up there with Kearney, and Pathfinder, and Armstrong-there's a first contact out there, and I want to be the one who makes it. Do you even have the capability of imagining what kind of a change that would bring? Proof of nonhuman, extraterrestrial intelligence? Can you imagine a nobler quest than seeking that out, instead of pounding each other back to the neolithic?"
Yori's expression sobered. Something in Ngo's posture killed the joke. "She's serious, they must have found actual evidence...or something very like evidence. Maybe another threat building in the outer-periphery like the Clans in the fifties?" Even articulating that thought brought a chill to the room. The Combine had been very nearly conquered in Takashi's day by being unready for invaders from the wrong direction. Invaders that after defeat promised to be good allies, only to turn on their hosts, and on the Dragon itself...
"If it is hostile?" he countered, still clearly too untrained to recognize the difference between a diplomatic joke, and a serious statement.
"Well, it's a good idea to be ready, isn't it?" Ngo asked, "Consult your Exarch, Paladin, let him know his offer is unacceptable but we're still willing to deal. bring me something I can endorse to my Archon."
<====The record file ended.====>
"She has good imagery of the Kaga, unless that is the Hiryu." commented Yori.
"It is the Kaga." Her Naval advisor stated, "During shakedown trials flying in the off-axis routes. I hesitate to admit it but, that image was taken without our knowledge by someone not part of the Draconis Combine Admiralty."
Yori hmmed', "Reconaissance flight, Not Davion?"
"Unlikely. We have a fairly good grasp on what the Davions can field, and clearly that was not from a Republic source."
"The Ghost Bear Dominion would have turned it over to Stone first...so the Lyrans have been sending covert flights into Combine space...yet they refuse to join the Archon's cousin Julian in his fight against us." Yori decided. "Speculations on how?"
"Cutters. Very small jump signature, and they used such vessels extensively during the Jihad as forward reconnaissance assets...or they captured some Bug-Eye Surveillance Ships from the Jade Falcons when they put them down." the DCA's senior man said. "We can build similar, but they are...not powerful vessels without thermonuclear weapons as primary armament. Our standard assault dropships can inflict heavier damage and have better sublight maneuvering."
"What would it cost the Dragon to build similar reconnaissance assets?" she asked.
"We would have to delay construction on the next two Kaga class vessels. We have the money but, we do not have the facilities to build both." the Admiral confessed, "The Republic's sabotage...slagged the Dieron yards completely before our forces could take them and the Nova Cats never built a Naval yard capable of producing jump-cores."
"Investigate building more shipyard capacity." Yori ordered. "How many Captured Nova Cat ships can we get operational without delaying or scrapping the Kaga program?"
"Three."
"Prioritize that." she said, "Right behind building new yards deep in our territory."
"What of the Lyran Archon's proposed summit, My Lord?"
"Send our acceptance. Ready the Kaga's battlegroup." Yori said decisively, "The Lyran military does not wish alliance with the Republic, and we can lose nothing by going, while gaining greatly should an opportunity present itself." {Also... I am curious what evidence Sharon Ngo is sitting on of an external threat...} thought Yori 
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