"AH! the famous General Roderick Steiner!" Paladin Howell was an effusive seeming man with more-than-conventionally handsome features compacted onto a muscular (but not too muscular) 'mechwarrior body almost exactly two meters in height-taller than Roderick, but a hair shorter than Sharon.
"Paladin, mister ambassador, how was your trip? Do you like your accomodations?" Sharon spoke before Roderick could respond, saving him from the vigorous hand-shaking.
Howell looked up to meet her eyes. "My, you're a big one, you must be that Chief Admiral we have heard so much about."
"You didn't answer my question." she inclined her head. "what do you think of what we've done with things in your absence, Mister Ambassador?"
Howell met her eyes. "Impressive. You've certainly taken advantage of the lapse in the Naval Treaty enforcements."
"Funny how that works, Mister Ambassador." Roderick caught a quick glance, noting that Sharon's smile could probably cut glass it was so hard and thin. "Industrial accidents in the shipbuilding industries just...lapsed away once your wall went up."
"It must have been quite expensive, Admiral."
"Ruinously, or so I'm told." Sharon lied, "Why, I had to personally cut back on the polished oak and teak wardrooms, and six thousand count sheets to pay for it, and the caviar is simply
inferior. I doubt a single officer in my command even has a proper china tea set to his name, what with the reduced quarters." her eyes glittered. "Still, having everything with clock set back to below the five year check, does make up for those little economies. How's your relics collection?"
"Relics collection?"
"The Republics famed ninety-one ship fleet." Sharon said, "I imagine the clock hours on their reactors must be reaching some phenomenal hours, unless you've been refitting them for the last ten years. Most of those old SLDF and Ex-Comstar boats were pretty old before either of us were born."
"They are, so I'm told, doing rather well, thank you for asking, Admiral." Howell's tone was cold and low.
Roderick interrupted, "Howell...would that be like the Syria Planum Howells, or Clan Snow Raven?"
"Snow Raven." the Ambassador said, "one of the founding bloodlines. my ancestor immigrated to the Republic during formation."
"Setayshun oah Duttyfet?" Sharon blurted.
Howell's expression slipped with a hint of confusion. "What?"
"ah, Dirtyfeet, Roddy, he's yours, and I'm bored again." she sighed dramatically, "I'll be by the punch bowl."
"Don't drink it all, and don't spike it, Sharon. Trillian hates when you do that."
"I know..." she turned to walk away.
"What was that, General?" Howell asked.
"She asked if you were born a spacer, or on a planet." Roderick told him, "In
Belta Lang."
"That's...extinct?" Howell said carefully.
"Not where she's from...I think you disappointed her." Roderick pseudo-confided, "Sharon
hates coming down into 'the well' with the rest of us, she really prefers being on a ship, but Trillian demanded she attend this."
"Where is the Archon?" Howell asked.
"Well, if you can't find her, it's because she's busy." Roderick explained, "Her Majesty is quite a busy woman, especially with needing to address the reassimilation of former Jade Falcon held territory. Works horrendous hours, she might have even forgotten you were going to be here."
"I
must meet with the Archon, General! I have important business that can
not be handled by underlings!" Howell insisted, losing some of that greasy grace in his manner.
"Well, then you'll need to be patient." Roderick said, crossing his arms, "This is her Majesty's capital, not yours, you come as an emissary to see her, she is not come to you as a supplicant, Mister Howell."
"You are bordering on rudeness, General."
"he's not the rude one, I am..." Sharon said returning from a different angle, "...and I'm about to be ruder, Roderick, Her Majesty requires your presence...
Alone."
"My Archon calls, Mister Ambassador." Roderick said, and strode away.
"So...you're an
innawallah...from a
wellwallah parent. I assume the three legged phallus is your ride, and not the Aegis you rode in on?" she asked sweetly.
"The
Auspicium? no. That isn't mine, it belongs to the Republic, and her commander is quite good." he said.
"well good. Nice to see there's still a use for those old classics." Sharon said casually, "We let the Wolves have the two we captured."
"You...gave them away to the
wolves??"
sharon sipped her punch, and nodded, "yup. don't have a use for them, we're building better."
"I saw some of that. Your navy's accomplishments are both impressive, and alarming."
"As long as you're viewing with alarm, I'm comfy." she said smoothly. "if you're alarmed enough, we don't have to fight."
"That fleet out there is a
treaty violation!"
"Yup...but see, the way I see it, and Trillian may counter me as being wrong, but that treaty is with oathbreaking scumbags." Sharon managed to smile down at him, "So, it's null and void. When we needed the Republic's help against the Clans, your bunch were nowhere to be found, so we had to do it ourselves."
"Null and void??" He gaped openly.
"The trade agreements with the Republic, the Comstar contract, and the mutual security agreement underlying the Republic Treaties are all predicated on the republic honoring its end of the deal." Sharon explained it as if to a child. "They're also predicated on the Republic of the Sphere being a stable entity, and on the Republic not conducting hostile actions and interventions against the Lyran Commonwealth. That's three conditions that weren't met, so the treaty is null and void. We're not interested in fighting our way through the Wolves to enforce sanctions, and we're not interested in fighting the Wolves to save you from what Alaric's got cooking." she sipped her drink.
"What do you know about that?" he asked, showing some genuine interest.
"I understand that Alaric Ward is interested in making the Republic part of his Wolf Empire." Sharon said, "By force of arms, of taking Terra from you, being proclaimed ilKhan of the
ilClan, you know, finishing the job they started in 3047."
"They will come for you next!"
"Hence, and Trillian will correct me if I'm wrong on this one too, we're not interested in disarming our forces or entering into economic relations with people who've been ripping us off for decades before we got a break and actually got a look at our own books without Comstar's hand on the 'edit' button. You're staring down the barrel of a Clan Invasion, mister Paladin, they're not coming to sip tea and discuss snowfall, and unless you are
very persuasive with my sovereign, we're not going to lift a finger to intervene-after all, your people knew what Malvina Hazen was, and you didn't lift a finger to help
us."
"Gray Monday-"
"Gray monday was an inside job." Sharon stated, "Sabotage code and a tuned pulse using what had to be the equivalent power generation of a
planetary power grid knocked out the network, the code then propogated and repeated instructions to overload HPG cores. we fixed it, without Comstar's 'helpful' sabotage."
He blinked. "That's..impossible, it must be Blakist cells-"
"Where did they get the juice?" She countered, "It's funny, really-your 'wall' told us a lot about how it works, we don't have the name, but the filename uncovered in the hardcode of the chips said 'Clarion call'. It was from the Republic, no splinter cell could manage it and remain hidden from
everyone, especially not since the propagation rates show it had to come from the Sol system in the initial burst, where it hit, how it hit simultaneously when you account for reporting lag. Your nation blacked out the grid, then you hid behind a wall, sir. You have few friends here, and none in this court."
Howell had begun sweating rather profusely, his expression turning darker as she spoke, and a the words 'a wall' his fist clenched, a vein stood out on his otherwise utterly handsome-even-in-rage features.
The other conversations in the room stopped at the meaty
smack of fist hitting a face, and Sharon Ngo tumbled to the floor, barely catching herself before her head struck a decorative bit of the wall.
"That's one." she said, standing, and cracked her neck with a head-twist.
***
"Boom! and there it goes." Trillian said, watching the monitors. "Feeling better?"
"I can't believe we almost had you in there with him while he was dumping synthetic pheromones." Roderick said, "how's she doing?"
"She's got him angry."
"This was your plan?"
"yeah. make sure the tridee crews and journalists get a really
clear recording, Stephanie." Trillian said, "we're going to knock the last of Devlin Stone's moral high ground right out from under him...if Sharon can keep her temper in check."
****
"That's one." Sharon said, "You can apologize to Her Majesty now, or you can leave, or we can go out to the gardens and settle this in a time-honored civilized manner, because I guarantee if you want to make this augmented, I'm bringing a battleship, and that Aegis won't survive the afternoon
without nukes...which we have, loaded. Did your Exarch give you leave to start a war in his name? because I'm fair certain Alaric won't have objections to having the enemy he's prepping to fight meet the navy we've built-he watched what we did to the Jade Falcons."
she spat blood at his feet.
the Ambassador struggled to master himself. "I...I apologize-"
"not to
me!! Finagle's Balls man, I
want to beat your toothpick ass, Her Majesty is the person you insulted, offering violence in her home, as her guest, to her retainers, for speaking
words. I simply offered to take it outside, where it won't make a mess for the cleaning crews or further disrupt Her Majesty's party."
