Fielding's post-Hydro War career was as storied, but far less exciting. She was the Amalgamated Resource Company's executor within the declining halls of power, representing the will of ARC in the nation's capital. During her tenure, she closely coordinated projects between the government and the Amalgamated Resource Company for more large-scale public works projects to salvage the environment. This brought along ample networking activities. She cultivated her ties carefully, amassing a tidy storehouse of sticks and carrots. Bought senators, rival corpos, blackmailed U.N. reps, industrial assassins. Maximized efficiency by strategically taking out operational risks with a multitude of methods. Operators from other firms deferred to her wide network, and her sober ruthlessness, her ability to write off the fate of entire cities and states based on her balance sheets. Many sought her counsel for their own projects, and she moonlit for millions more. Ultimately Fielding became less devoted to ARC, became renowned as a corporate fixer extraordinaire. Thanks to some special assignments executed during the 2052 presidential campaign trail, a grateful new administration selected her for Under-Secretary of Commerce and Corporate Relations, and she became both the Resource Company's - and all of private industry's- inside man in the American government itself.

It was at this time that the leadership of the U.S. decided that while the bold environmental salvage projects initiated by themselves, and actually implemented by private businesses such as ARC, could have a worthy successor off-planet. Thus, when the United Nations announced an extrasolar colonization project, the federal government jumped headlong into it. Despite its much-reduced presence, with the President-Presbyter of the Christian States insisting that his quasi-nation better represented America at the Security Council, the United States still viewed itself as exceptional and permanent. Thus, Fielding was appointed on this mission to ensure that American ingenuity survived the planet, and the American way of life as well, in preparation for a future unilateral mission to Chiron. A compromise candidate between the remnant government and the titans of industry, Fielding was seen as the truly all-American choice. At the ceremony at the White House Rose Garden, she smiled a rare smile as the president himself spoke of how she had led ARC's charge in "liberating and fixing California." But privately, all she saw was a golden ticket out of this shambling Earth, away from this set of self-satisfied pretentious old men playing at running the world.

Fielding was appointed Comptroller with the rank of Lt. Commander on Unity. Her first duty was the unenviable task of balancing the mission's books. Accompanied by a small staff of United Nations OPPFB bureaucrats and her own core crack team of aides who had accompanied her from ARC's eco-battlegrounds to the Mineta Building, and now to space, she poured over petabytes of records. Her executive experience once again overlooked by a new employer, this time purposefully - the U.N. leadership had no interest in empowering corporate figures, least of all one from a failed state. But she took to her task without complaint, with superb focus. Even in the new world there would be a need for currency, and something as meaningless as checking the mission's receipts was at least a way to establish continuity between Chiron and Earth. Whatever intentions her superiors had, Fielding used it as a chance to get a bird's eye view of all of the players involved in the project. And an excuse to ingratiate herself with the command staff.

The captain himself graced her with his presence, listening patiently to her inquiries on who built what part of the ship, and addressing her observations on inconsistencies she saw. Her meticulous approach was respected by Executive Officer Sheng-Ji Yang as well, who viewed her strategy of maintaining order through financial and social leverage most intriguing. They had cordial conversations in the early voyage, discussing social currency, neomathematics, and counterinsurgency strolling through the hydroponic gardens. On the other hand, General Counsel Lena Ebner sparred with Fielding nearly as often as she prodded the Chief Librarian, saying that having a megacorp exec as the ship's accountant was "Den Bock zum Gärtner machen" - making a goat the gardener, casting shade upon ARC's actual environmental record due to her administration's significant relaxation of EPA regulations. In response, Fielding smiled slightly and stated that the Resource Company had unified her continent more than INTEGRIN ever did, ecologically reclaiming an otherwise wasteland territory larger than all of Middle-Europe.

Psych Chaplain Miriam Godwinson and Fielding regarded each other cooly as representatives of different visions of America. Though never one for politics, Godwinson did at least once describe her homeland as capturing the spirit of their Pilgrim forefathers, while the rest of the Union was a fallen post-David Kingdom of Israel in contrast to her own righteous Kingdom of Judah. To that insult, Fielding simply asked what profit is it for a nation- sorry, a dependent "associated commonwealth"- to keep its soul, when it lacked the economic and industrial fortitude to feed its own people, protect them from acts of God, and combat enemies foreign and domestic? Moral righteousness cannot lead the world without material superiority.

She was in the midst of heavy auditing of contractor activity by the time the crew entered cryosleep for the long passage. As dedicated as she was to her work, Fielding couldn't but help to think that with the prospect of a brand new colonial economy on the horizon, her assignment was destined to become nothing more than a historical curiosity, tucked away in one of Élodie's endless archives or filed in some infinite U.N. filing cabinets. On the other hand, financial statements tended to contain real gold. Through the spreadsheets and budget reports, she constructed a clear picture of all the movers and shakers involved in the construction of the Unity, and who in the mission had the most to win- or lose. As she went into the deep freeze, Suzanne Fielding dreamt of numbers and faces.