Approach Mizuki

Katla decided she would get the foreign relations done first before turning to more domestic matters. As she made her way over the ambassador deftly shed her admirers and turned to greet her.

"Good evening Lady Totsidottir. Or do you prefer Lady Katla?" Mizuki asked.

"Katla is fine for now. And yourself?" She asked, mostly taking the time to size the woman up a bit.

"Mizuki will be just fine. The official title is long and boring." She said with a roll of her eyes. Katla could feel herself warming up to her slightly before remembering that the woman was a diplomat of some sort. "I take it you are here about my entreaty?"

"I am, though I was surprised you wanted to meet with me. Did Jaclyn make a mistake with the paperwork?" Katla asked in a light tone. Messing up the slave notification and registration paperwork was an old joke, they only required the most basic of details and signatures, most of which were filled out automatically by the collars. One almost had to be trying to screw up to get them wrong.

"No, those were done quite properly, as was your attack on Authority space. I was a navy woman myself once and I can say that I was quite impressed by the deception. My superiors were also quite appreciative of your discretion." Mizuki said, her eyes falling to Jaclyn who was still slightly puffed up with indignation about the paperwork remark. It was quite cute.

"Jaclyn, it can't be fun hanging on my coat tails all night. Why not go have some fun?" Katla said, her aide, not being an idiot, knew the real reason and gave a nod.

"Of course Commodore, I have some old friends to catch up with." Jaclyn said, departing with a short bow. As soon as she was gone Mizuki activated a privacy field, something that made Katla a little uncomfortable even with the numerous others already active within the room as nobles worked to hide their schemes. They weren't in a bubble with a foreign nation's representa- oh no wait. There were three in one with the African Ambassador. That made Katla relax a little.

"It would have been rude not to return the courtesy." Katla said after a moment.

"But many would have done it anyway. The fact that you recognized such is why my superiors authorized me to approach you about a certain... opportunity for collaboration."

"Seems like you forgive fairly quickly." Katla noted

Mizuki waved a dismissive hand. "It was just a battle. You know better than most that alliances can shift daily when mutual interest calls for it." Mizuki moved in a little closer smiling conspiratorially. "And I think the Queendom will agree our interests align on this one."

"That's a bit above my station but I'm listening." Katla said cautiously, if it was anything too severe she'd bring it to Naval Intelligence to sort out with their spy games but there was no harm in finding out more.

"What do you know about Praxis?" Mizuki asked

"Not much, wasn't there a battle there about seven or eight months ago?" Katla asked

"That would be Praxis VI. But yes, a commander was elevated beyond her ability and she and her forces are still paying the price." Mizuki informed her, making a motion to invite a nearby server to bring their tray of drinks within the field. The servant was quite pretty, a caramel skinned green eyed girl with a green hair clip. Mizuki took one of the glasses and Katla took another before another gesture sent the girl back out. "Once we're finished get her fast if you want her." Mizuki joked as she saw Katla's eyes linger slightly on the girl's rear. Seeing the Commodore's light confusion she explained. "The green clip, it means the girl is available for more than just serving drinks. Red means off limits, and purple signifies not using protection." Now that Katla was looking for it she could see that each serving girl in sight were wearing those clips.

"Sounds fun," Katla said, "But you were mentioning Praxis?"

"Yes, the system itself rather than its planets. The Colonials control both now as per the battle agreement. The Authority still has interest in that sector of space and Praxis was supposed to become our forward station. Yes yes, I'll get to the point" She said as Katla seemed ready to ask a question. "Two jumps away is the system of Mwaro. It has a Directorate colony of 341 on Mwaro II. The catch is that it was settled twenty years ago."

"Which means you can invade." Katla noted. The population needed to be at least 15,000 to prevent invasion at the 20 year mark unless the planet had a hazardous environment rating. "As nice as it is that you're getting a do-over how does this help the Queendom and why do you need us?"

"We're stretched a bit thin." Mizuki admitted. "That's one of the reasons that base is so important. We need a central operation point to simplify logistics. As for the Queendom, with your new expansion you are also in need of more bases beyond your current holdings. We would give berthing rights and shared mining rights to the sector."

"That sounds like a good deal but why are you asking me instead of someone who can write the orders?" That was the big rub for Katla.

"Because without the backing of a member of the peerage they won't hear us out. And without one in command of ships there's not much chance of it getting done." Mizuki explained.

"Then back to the first question. Why me? There's plenty of other candidates even right here in this room." Katla said with a sweep of her arm at the uniforms in the room.

"Because Council-Admiral Yang specifically requested we overture to you first and one does not ignore even a Council-Admiral except at their own peril." Mizuki said, Katla knew why, Council-Admiral was the lowest rank of the upper echelons of power in the Authority but for someone to reach that far meant they had cultivated powerful allies even further up. Or that they were really really good. The latter of which were unicorns to the former. Either way, not someone you wanted to annoy.

"Sounds interesting. What would we be up against? More importantly why hasn't the Directorate put more work into populating it? It sounds like there's less people there than at planet-fall." A standard starting colony was at least 1000 people. Typically a mixture of the adventurous and the tech savvy willing to rough it out and prepare the place for follow-on colonists.

"They've been suffering a severe bout of poaching. The talent they brought originally didn't stay very long so the facilities were left quite threadbare. They've improved since but there are other colonies that are more attractive and they fell through the gaps." Mizuki shrugged. She could see Katla was considering it. "You don't need to say anything now. I just need an answer by the end of the night."

"You'll have it." Katla said with a nod, the privacy field falling to indicate the conversation was over. Katla moving away and letting a few of those trying to get lucky with more than the hair pinned servers move in. Katla had a feeling that they would get more than they bargained for if they were successful.