Operation Stream Runner

The operation was a failure, and nearly a disaster.

The journey to the Spartan stronghold was a dangerous one. The Unity suffered from extensive structural damage, knock-on effects of the original micrometeorite impact, exacerbated by botched repair attempts and infighting. With such a large group, a riskier route along the exterior of the ship was vetoed. So they took to the corridors, everyone outfitted in full spacesuits. It was an unstable situation to say the least. Fires had broken across some compartments while others were exposed to the vacuum of space. Some areas were covered in StickyFoam deployed by the security team as nonlethal weapons against Spartan insurgents, or encased in Bakelite to entrap the Anarchist marauders. There was even one area flooded with water run off from a smashed hydroponic bay. But Heid's team guarded the team well. They managed to scare off an Anarchist coterie that had stumbled upon them, and managed to intimidate a Spartan patrol with hastily-barked insistence that they were expected by Santiago. Miraculously, they had made their way to Santiago's third headquarters- the Unity's largest mess hall- without any casualties.

Godwinson led the negotiations. In conciliatory tones, she offered the Spartans a general amnesty in exchange for the return of Captain Garland, as well as any other members of the crew that had been captured. At this, Santiago gave a curious expression but refused, insisting on the Spartan Coalition maintaining its independence from the U.N. mission. At the mention of secession Fielding nearly rolled her eyes, an insult that was not unnoticed by the militiamen. Santiago haughtily asked that if the Unity provisional leadership had been so confident in their abilities to repress her cause, why were they prostrating at her lair now and not the other way around- clearly she held the upper hand. Fielding sarcastically replied that the history of the Western Reclamation Campaign showed otherwise. Hutama attempted to deescalate the conversation, reminding them all of their shared national ties back on Earth, which simply resulted in all three negotiators asking him to shut up.

Godwinson simply asked to see the captain to confirm his safety. Santiago refused- but she did permit an open video channel to a chamber showing several crew members bound and under guard by the Spartans. Fielding took note and covertly requested Hutama track the source of the transmission using his comms privileges. This location was relayed back to the bridge as actionable intel.

The rest of the negotiations continued along similar lines. Godwinson, having often dealt with faithless materialists, appealed to Santiago's concern for her men by suggesting that the highest probability of survival would be through pooled efforts and moral clarity, in deference to a higher power. Santiago categorically refused, rejecting any attempts to reintegrate into the mission. Fielding icily suggested that if the Spartans were so certain of their own superiority, they would have no need to abscond with supplies that so clearly belonged to the authority that had brought them to Centauri. Santiago coolly retorted that the strong had no need to listen to the meek. She declared that laws of nature applied even in a biosphere so far from Earth, eliciting unsettling smiles from Heid and his team. Fielding asked if Santiago truly understood that true survival meant not only scraping by as a hunter-gatherer-predator barbarian band, but scaling up to actual civilization. Hutama eventually gave up on mediating between the three, opting instead to relay reports back to the provisional council, passing his headaches back up the chain of command.

Endgame

Feeling the talks breaking down, Godwinson asked Santiago blankly what she wanted from the council. With a cold stare but a softening look, Santiago responded with Clausewitz's dictum: "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means." The Spartans were not warmongers, you see. She glanced here not at Heid but at Fielding. Their policy was survival, and this conflict was meant to further it. If the U.N. was to finally accede to their request of the right of exit and let them go their own way, the Spartan Coalition would agree to a preliminary ceasefire to tend to the wounded and a hostage swap. The emissary she had sent to the command module was still locked in the brig, after all. They would no longer harry the crew, and permit them to continue their own struggle for survival.

Hutama, usually the slick operator, breathed a sigh of relief at peace at hand. Godwinson, too, seemed to have a weight off her shoulders. But Fielding was skeptical. Half a peace was not a full peace. This would be the chance for them to accomplish all of Lal's objectives. She asked to see Captain Garland as a token of good faith. Santiago thrice again denied the negotiators.

The continued stonewalling confused them all. Leaping at the chance, Fielding spun the table and asked if the Coalition's policy included the war crime of executing prisoners. If they could not guarantee the captain's safety, they were truly no better than murderous pirates, and honorless dogs. As Hutama looked on in horror and Godwinson attempted to stop her, Fielding demanded Santiago show evidence that Garland was alive right now, or the negotiations were over.

This bluff backfired. Santiago arose to her full height, bristling. But she held her rage at bay and smiled. Summary executions of POWs was not a policy the Spartans would ever stoop to, and she proved so. Several Spartan rebels marched in with captives in tow. Fielding's composure shook as she realized they were none other but the attempted mutineers she and Hutama had been in contact with. They stood chained with guns at their backs, several held by other would-be mutineers.

The iron will of the Coalition could not be broken by temptation, Santiago told them. These loyal men and women had responsibly reported the craven communiques from the provisional council, and rooted out the weak traitors. But these traitors were treated well in accordance with the laws of war, Santiago promised. They could even be sent to the U.N. they so loved. Barring that, they would be humanely kept alive by the Spartans as future helots to slave away at the colonies.

As the rebel leader spoke, Fielding looked at the sad lot one by one. They stared at the floor balefully, betrayed twice over. The guards were proud, even smug in their victory. Fielding's eyes lingered on one pair, both of whom she had spoken to over quicklink. The prisoner looked defiantly ahead, and the guard impetuously met her gaze, giving a slight nod.

In a flash, the prisoner was pushed forward, colliding with the others ahead. His former guard fired her shredder pistol at the host dais, striking one of Santiago's guards. The colonel herself drew her sidearm and blew the head off of this traitor guard. Her former prisoner rose from the ground, organic restraints fallen, and dove at Santiago. In the scramble, several others began fighting their guards. As two struggled over a gun, a volley of shredder fire was sent flying towards the visiting diplomats.

Fielding immediately pulled her compatriots back. She managed to drag Hutama and herself flat back on the ground, collapsing roughly but safely as the killer darts whizzed above. But Godwinson's seat tipped in midair, and she remained vulnerably upright for dangerous seconds before seat fell forward, not backwards, towards the table. The psych chaplain remained in a daze for a moment before pulled behind cover by Lt. Colonel Heid himself, who shot the guard and his counter-mutinous prisoner both. As she crouched beneath cover, Godwinson marvelled at the wall behind her, strewn with puncture holes from the gunfire, none landing in the area that she had sat in front of. One of Hutama's aides, a future convert to the Believers, would later claim that he had witnessed one of the many miracles bestowed upon the reverend Sister.

A body sailed across the room and landed behind the upturned table. It was the captive who had attacked Santiago earlier, his neck neatly broken. The Spartan leader roared an accusation of treachery, declaring that negotiations were over. When Godwinson shouted in protest of their noninvolvement with this impromptu uprising, her words were returned by more gunfire. The mercenary executive protection team fired back, striking down several Spartans in their retreat from the negotiation room to the reinforced mess hall. A few surviving prisoners crawled for them and defection. Both parties withdrew as Santiago and Fielding launched a volley of curses at each other in Spanish.

As the failed embassy gathered in the hallway, the normally clement Godwinson glared daggers at Fielding's meddling. But the executive was unperturbed, announcing to Heid that with the conclusion of diplomatic talks she was now in charge. Hutama, slightly shaky from his brush with death and grateful towards Fielding for saving his life, agreed. Godwinson could only protest in silence. The motley crew of diplomats, surviving aides, mercenary guards, and former Spartan defectors limped back to the command module.

They arrived to find things in even greater disarray. Fielding's intel held true; triangulating the Spartans' transmission, one of her contacts in the loyalist Security contingent attacked the bulkhead where a Spartan fireteam had been sequestered, rescuing the hostages. While she had expected Lal to be scarcely less furious than Godwinson, the Chief of Surgery merely shook his head and thanked her for rescuing the hostages, before reprimanding her for breaking the chain of command with the unauthorized procedure. Not to mention, the complete failure at securing a ceasefire.

Fielding stated that with peace talks at an end, the only natural decision would be to commit to the counter-mutiny plot against the Spartans, and activate the remaining agents she had cultivated. The argument that followed was interrupted by the dramatic return of Executive Officer Sheng-ji Yang, who asserted that he had escaped in the confusion. He stated that Operation Stream Runner was now defunct thanks to his presence, but thanked the mission for aiding his return. He also reported that he had not encountered Captain Garland among the prisoners- in fact, he had heard errant chatter from his Spartan guards that no one seemed to know where the captain was in the last 36 hours.

As Yang moved to take control of the mission away from the provisional council, Fielding's controversial plan was forgotten. The Executive Officer would later inspire a second coup against Santiago that saw a good number of security specialists and officers defecting to his command.

Chiron

Fielding's remaining role during Planetfall was much diminished. After the final vote to dissolve the mission and go their separate ways, Nwabudike Morgan approached Fielding and complimented her for her work during the crisis. He offered her untold challenges and luxuries alike as a founder of Morgan operations on Chiron, singling out her abilities of command and control. While she was skeptical towards the brash entrepreneur's extravagances, Fielding was glad at the chance to leave the public sector and return to industry. Along with the turncoat Spartans she had liberated, Heid's mercenary contractors, trade-minded Hutama, and her own staff, she became an employee of Morgan Industries.

She approved greatly of the faction's focus on economic development of Planet, and was made a VP of Operations. Fielding's track record at ARC and pro-business policies in the presidential cabinet had prepared her for this role for her entire career. Under her watch, Morgan enterprises boomed across the untouched soil of this new world. She employed her social engineering skills as well, gathering intelligence on competitors and closely monitoring company sentiment in her second role as Director of Human Capital, becoming the faction's spymaster.

As a believer in not leaving jobs unfinished, Fielding resumed her investigations into the old Unity mission accounts as a side project. Perhaps out of historical nostalgia, or maybe on an unsettled feeling at something amiss, she poured over the archived records in her spare time. Despite the confused mess, her persistence uncovered real revelations: back on Earth, CEO Nwabudike Morgan had bribed mission leaders and U.N. bureaucrats left and right. Not only had that led to the installation of his "pharaonic sarcophagus" - the personal cryosleep tube he had stowed away in - but it resulted in kickbacks both for Morgan Industries, looted coffers, shoddy construction quality in various portions of the ship, and even several attributable casualties throughout the mission.

While it's unknown how much Fielding used this potential blackmail fodder, if at all, she eventually broke from Morgan to found her New Columbia faction on the shores of the Straits of Prometheus. Promising to revitalize an old brand on a new planet, she appealed to former United States and Christian States personnel, their descendants, and all others interested in rebuilding the American dream. No longer would they be employees, subjects, or bureaucrats, but citizens of the greatest country from Earth. Free enterprise, industriousness, innovation, all would be welcomed alongside civil liberty and free flow of information. Not to mention free worship of religion, she added begrudgingly to appeal to any potential Lord's Believers looking for a less theocratic society to practice their faith.

Nwabudike Morgan half-approves of the defection, reasoning that a little market competition never hurt anyone, and views New Columbia as a corporate spin-off, to be used for R&D purposes and to employ former subordinates too free-spirited for the Morgan company culture. The other half still engages in the occasional vendetta against Fielding to preserve his holdings- the downside of competing against his former head of intelligence means a lot of his faction's inner workings was left exposed. Among different ingenious strategies targeting Morgan Industries, Fielding is suspected of encouraging the formation of the Data Angels, originally intending to use the rogue hackers as a New Columbian spy ring, but since then deciding to employ Datajack Sinder Roze as a valuable proxy to preoccupy Morgan. The former datatech and probe leader, of course, assiduously laughs off such rumors, regarding Fielding as yet another moneyman and exploiter of the hacking classes. But who knows what happens in the digital Underground, in the shadowy spaces between the datalinks?

Fielding has on occasion contacted her former coworker and collaborator Hutama, who has thus far resisted jumping ship to join her. But he does engage in the occasional contract job, moonlighting for the nascent faction by devising communications strategies and punching up their messaging. For a good price, of course.

Today, New Columbia attempts to capture the spirit of America, an evergreen spirit despite its founder's private skepticism towards it. And if there was anything that working for Morgan taught her, it's how to sell.