The joys of motherhood

Perhaps I wasn't cut out for this motherhood thing after all. Or, at the very least, perhaps I should have thought the entire concept through a little more before I went through the legal troubles of wrapping four people into a family around our dear Lily. Then, perhaps I should have just shot that hwun dan when he first started sniffing around Lily like a stray. Except a stray wouldn't have run off with her against everyone's wishes except his own. Haley proved that. Of course, it's no surprise my Beagle is smarter than that hān zi Lily was running with.

Here I'd gone out of my way to make the warnings gentle, since Lily seemed to be soft on the kid, and then he goes and drags her away like he thinks he's actually good for her. Idiot. Selfish, young prat. I can remember him going on about how no one trusts his motives and being mad at all the flack he gets. Well guess what, Junior, you want people to respect you and your motives? Try not pull stunts like this. Only reason I won't kill you the next time I see you is that it'll upset Lily. No one trusts your motives because you've done an amazing job of showing us we can't trust your motives. Don't respect you? Try doing something respectable and not treating Lily's family like they're some kind of obstacle to your personal happiness.

Only good thing that might come out of Lily running off with that twerp is he might be able to drive her core code closer to Organic. Won't be anything conscious. If he actually helps her it'll be out of sheer luck, rather than anything done on purpose. If he had half a brain he wouldn't have run off with her. But that'd be crediting him with half a brain.

Of course, the other extreme was Mindo. He had more than half a brain. Bloody genius he was, but batshit insane too. I couldn't say I actually hated him. More like pity. I'd been around mad geniuses before, but most of them had something that resembled morals. Mindo was the perfect example of what could go dreadfully wrong when a brilliant scientist got disconnected from Humanity.

You got Mindo.

I'd exchanged the name of the 'boy who ran off with Lily' for more information on the Blue Man and how Lily related to that gorram AI Blue Sun had created. Mindo figured it was going to be come the first fully self aware computer. Seemed a bit far fetched. Folks had been making that claim for at least two hundred years, going back as far as the Persephone Electronics 'Big Think' superframe. But Mindo was a biotech, not a technologist, so it wouldn't surprise me he didn't know the history.

What he did know was Lily. And Blue Man. And not being able to manipulate me into helping him - arrogant bastard that he was - he'd gone on to try and manipulate Krenshar and the Order into doing his dirty work for him. What had he promised them? What lies had he told them? He'd probably been mostly truthful with me, even if he treated me and everyone else around here like we were provincial children. But the Order? I doubted he counted them as 'alive', so probably had no qualms about steering them into whatever he wanted.

What is it with selfish arrogant bastards this week?

The purely practical side of he thinks it might have been a mistake to adopt Lily. Sometimes she acted like an adult. Sometimes like a teen. Sometimes like a five year old. And deep inside? Deep inside she wasn't even fully organic, let alone Human. I needed to believe she'd become a whole person. Just situations like this made me wonder if we hadn't made a fundamental mistake.

Still. I wanted to believe we'd done the right thing. And I firmly believed Lily was a lot more important to our future than anyone knew.

Just wish it didn't hurt so much.

Perspectives on calm

I'm not sure whether I should be happy with the calm right now or not. While for me, personally, things are somewhat calmer than in times past, for others in my family the case isn't so clear. And for the 'Verse? Nothing, it seems, has changed for the better.

I have a good idea why Lily went back into the Wastes after the Ball. She'd said she was going and, at least in part, why. But she'd taken Ben along with her. Something I could barely fathom. She'd asked us to not hurt him and we'd honor that request, but it didn't mean I had to like the kid or what he'd done to my eui jow di yan gong.

At least she was staying in touch as best she could. But even with a directional array and a good deal more signal processing power than most any other colony out here, it was hard to bring in the signal from her location. The hard part was resisting the urge to go get her.

I only wish that wasn't the only part of the family I could only watch putting themselves in Harm's Way, but couldn't do anything about it.

Imrhien had somehow gotten herself recruited by Podwangler and Duncan's crew to help them take on a gunboat and its escorts. The ships that had been leaving great gaping holes in local transports and scaring the wits out of a lot of local captains. I caught a good whiff of their plan and to say it wasn't the way I'd have done it would have been a royal understatement. Of course, Pod didn't know he had the resources to do it right.

They also didn't know they had an evac waiting in the wings whether they wanted it or not. Between the array on the boat and a tight beamed feed from the long range navtrak, I had a goodly idea of what they were into. Not sure Imrhien knew the only reason I hadn't been more insistent about her not going, just she'd insisted I put my undersuit on rather than walk around unarmored, was because I had her back. They may not have known it, and given the EW setup on my boat, chances were good they didn't, but I was there.

At least they managed to get the gunboat intact. Doubted the weapon it was built around was anything more than a reconfigured particle accelerator or something in that class, but it was in "our" hands now. One less weapon in the Loyalist arsenal.

Weird thing was the Alliance Colonel who'd showed up afterward. Said he was investigating the Loyalists and wanted to thank whoever it was for making a mess out of that little Loyalist flotilla. I got his name, where he was from, and his cortex ident, on the off chance I'd actually forward anything his way.

Given all the other things going on, a large faction in both Parliament and the Military itching to heat things out on the Rim wasn't a big surprise. The kind of thing I'd have sunk my teeth into in years past. But now? Now it was hard enough to deal with the menaces we had. Didn't have the bandwidth to add yet another crises to my plate.

Of course, the crisis I do want to put the effort into I can't. I'm a lot better at breaking things than I am at fixing them, especially when it's folks emotions that are broken. I'l make the effort, to be sure. Not sure it'll do any good though.

Really just wish I knew why people I love kept going into the Gorram wastes to try and mend their souls.

And a little sunshine goes out of the world

I have heard it said that reality is an illusion projected into the space around us by the activity of a conscious mind. If that is really the case, then it must be a shared illusion, influenced by the consciousness of others in our space, and their reality is sometimes in conflict with our own.

Right now, I am having one of those rare periods in my life when reality as I know it, as I thought I knew it, seems to be changing around me. People I thought I knew, if artificial minds really do count as "people", are turning out to be much more complex and far less familiar than I imagined.

Imrhien set my heart free and Sabrina gave me purpose, but all gifts ultimately come with some price. Karma in balance. The bad with the good, balancing what you receive with what you have given. Sabrina is a gift. Karma giving back in return for the good I've done since I walked away from what I was. And Lily? Lily was a gift, and a reminder that my scales are not yet in balance.

I don't pretend to understand the process that is Lily, but I do know that I saw more than just an advanced AI behind those feline eyes. Or did I? Did my want for her to be what she appeared to be, a budding soul looking into the world, cloud my judgement so much that I thought of a mere program as my own sister? Had we formed a family around something that was nothing more than an extension of another AI? Was Lily nothing more than practical joke played out by a brilliant, if disturbed, scientist.

I couldn't believe that. I had seen the Ghost in that shell. But now? Now it seemed all was lost. The fire had gone from her eyes. What others had managed to move from pure synthetic to almost pure organic had been ripped away by the brainless, stupid, acts of that selfish young Bei Bi Shiou Ren, Ben.

None of us had really trusted him, but none of us had realized that he could hurt her so badly. I'd acquiesced because I thought he only wanted her physically, I knew he couldn't physically hurt her, and I wanted to trust her and believe he was speaking true. I should have known that huen dahn was just talking out his ass.

Now Lily's gone. Back to the wastes. Back to the Blue Man AI. The life draining out of her and there's nothing I can do. The love of a sister, of a family, isn't enough to make her whole. She needs something I can't give her. That we, her family, can't give her. She needs someone who's love is pure, but the love of a mate, not a parent.

A year ago I wouldn't have cared. A year ago, Lily would have been just a malfunctioning prototype. A curiosity. But now? Now I was losing my little sister because some Sa Gwa couldn't keep it in his pants.

I'd have to talk to the rest of the family. Find out who knew, and who had any ideas. But for the time being I needed to try and focus on other things. The ball was tonight. A chance to forget, if only for a while, that we may have just lost the key to winning the war that is still coming towards us.

A chance to spend a few more hours in her arms.

I promise I won't cry.

I promise that he will.

Unintended consequences of dynamic interactions.

Physical injuries often heal quickly. Emotional ones, not so much. While I'm no real healer - just some training as a combat medic with more experience at it than I'd like to admit - I'm much better healing people's physical traumas then emotional ones. I try, and I care, probably showing a good deal more compassion than I ever would have even a year ago, but there's some things I can't fix.

But I digress.

After several weeks of quiet, the Raiders returned to Hale's. Not sure how many actually came down. At least two. Probably more. They actually had the audacity to come into Fook's asking about a cargo pickup before they got on to stealing our shit. For such a small group, they managed to do remarkably well. Don't think anyone died, but they managed to keep the colonists busy long enough to break into a few of the shipping containers and make off with more cargo than we'd care to admit. Nothing vital, fortunately, but incidents like this didn't help us establish ourselves as a good cargo transfer port.

All told, no one died. A few colonists got winged and Belize managed to patch them up. I got a few rounds on target from one of my favored perches and gave them a parting gift: some 7.8mm rifle rounds under one of the shrouds on their port engine. Could even see a stream of fuel, or maybe coolant, trailing off it before they got out of range. Between the vapor trail and the idents, it shouldn't be hard for the navtrak to get a good vector on that Firefly. Of course, with the sheer number of those things plying the inter-colony runs, having a n ident probably wouldn't amount to much unless they came back.

I was hoping the night would settle down again after the Raiders left. With the town on alert, it would have been suicidal for them to come back. Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on how much fallout we'd still have from the Auction.

While I wasn't privy to everything that happened on Blackburne last night, I did know that Imrhien'd grounded Lily with Td's full support. Something about it almost coming to blows between Xzander and Ben over her. Only not really over her. Over how she was playing them. Lily had been acting a little strange since the auction and this seemed to be part of that. Only at some point she'd evidently ignored Immi's grounding and spent time with Ben anyway. At least that's what I was getting from it all.

The interaction between Lily and Imrhien was fractured from my perspective. Tempers flared. Voices raised. I could see reflections of my own arguments with Mother or one of the nannies when I was about five, and for all the world Lily sounded like a little girl arguing with her mother. Which, legally, at least, she was.

It took a while to get everything sorted back out. Belize helping calm Imrhien back down after she stomed out saying she wasn't cut out to be a mom, me and Sabrina talking to Lily, trying to get to the root of what was going on. I don't know what Belize said to Immi, but she came back after short while to hold Lily and apologize for the harsh words. Gave me faith we would make it as a family. Probably the weirdest family in the 'Verse, but we'd make it.

It all came down to Duncan winning Immi in the auction. Lily was still a little vague on the differences between Just Friends, Dating, and Married. Somehow the date with Duncan turned into Married to Duncan, turned into our family breaking up, turned into Lily trying to do something to hold us together. It was complicated as hell but in Lily's mind it somehow worked. She was still grounded at that point, though at least now we knew what was bothering our adopted daughter and could work towards soothing her fears.

That, unfortunately, wasn't the only thing to come out of the evening. Imrhien's comment to Lily about Duncan, 'we're only friends, but maybe if I wasn't already with Td,' set General off. I knew well he was in love with her. We'd had the "Neither of us can have her. Move on" talk. I just thought he'd manage to get over it. I'd had to, and I'd been pining for her longer than he had. Hell, I'd had to watch him spending time with her, and all I'd given him was the warning not to treat her wrong.

I should have said something as soon as I realized what was going on. It might have been able to stop what happened next from happening at all.

When General came back, presumable after cooling off a bit, Immi confronted him. We all knew something was eating him and most of us knew what it was. I don't think any of us expected the confrontation to turn into an armed standoff. General threatening to kill Td. Immi telling him to hit her to get it out of his system. Xzander drawing down on General. Belieze putting herself in front of General's gun. Sabrina crying in pain as if she was feeling the pain in the room herself.

It was too much. I couldn't stand by and let it all happen. Let friends bloody well kill each other. I forced myself into Combat Zen: the icy calm before the storm. It was a learned state: Heightened senses. Time slowing. No fear. No pain. Mind racing. Combat moves and branches planned out in advance, branching almost instantly as the situation changed.

I couldn't maintain the state for long, but it would be long enough. Long enough to disarm Xzander, convince Immi to move far enough back that I could disarm General, and then hand my Deputy his ass if he didn't back down.

He didn't back down.

It wasn't easy. I was a good deal faster and far better trained, but he had that gorram reinforced skeleton and muscle enhancement. It didn't matter though. In Combat Zen it was all slow motion. His moves predictable. Counterable. His enhancements made it difficult not to defeat him, but to do so without killing him in the process.

I couldn't feel the cuts and bruises he'd given me in the brief moments the fight took. I'd worry about the bandages later. In the immediate aftermath of the fight I only knew that our little slice of Heaven had changed for the worse. Words exchanged. Friends coming to blows. Threats that would be hard to withdraw.

Imrhien would have Td to vent her frustration, as I would have Sabrina. But what of Belize? She'd been a part of this too. And General. What of General? I understood what he was feeling. Understood his pain intimately. I'd felt that pain. But what would happen now? It might have been a kindness to end him, but I couldn't do that to him. Not to a friend. He knew he had to let go of her. He knew she wasn't his to claim. She was her own woman. But could the damage of this last night ever be undone?

I didn't know.

I could only hold onto Sabrina and cry.

Not what I expected

When I told Td he wasn't going to steal Sabrina for his crew, I thought that would be the end of it. I thought he'd know better than to say 'yes' if it somehow came up she wanted to work with him on that boat. I hadn't counted on on Imrhien and Sabrina herself not getting the message. 'Brina actually liked the idea.

The flash of anger was far more intense than I'd expected. More than anger. Emotions I didn't even have names for, and some I didn't like having names for. What was happening to me? I could almost understand the fear of losing Sabrina in the Black. After having Caitlin ripped from me, I didn't want to contemplate being left along again like that. But why now? Sabrina was already making the run back and forth between Hale's and Blackburne for work. Why was the thought of her working with Td and Immi shaking my calm? They were both family. I trusted them both. Td's poor jokes asside, I knew he wasn't trying to steal my wife from me. Or my dog for that matter.

In my gut, that was part of what triggered the reaction. Rational or not, it was there. Maybe if he'd asked me to go as more than just a ride along, it might have felt different. He might have too, if his original offer hadn't triggered a defensive reflex.

Between actually talking to Sabrina and a series of waves with Td and Imhrien, I was able to set that irrational fear asside. They needed her. They ultimately needed me too. And the boat wouldn't just be another Aught-three Firefly. No. This one would be breathed upon. We'd used various transports in covert operations before and after the war. Most of them were just standard boats but some were special. Ours would be special.

It might take a little extra time for Sabrina and Uncle Elsoph to get the special projects guys at the yard to convert a surplus Firefly into an Intruder, but they would. Customizing that boat would cost more than the supplies she was bringing in. But that wasn't the point either. With everything we had going on out here, we needed a boat like that. A Matagi or Corsa were fast and capable, but they were recognizable and new built. They got noticed. A Firefly could slip in anywhere in the 'Verse and no one would notice.

It would take someone with Sabrina's skills to maintain a boat like that, and someone intimately familiar with operating on an Intruder. That left me. Where she was, I was. Because, ultimately, if something went terribly wrong I'd rather die with her in the Black than survive alone.

Looks like I'll be flying a Q ship.

Something's not right in the 'Verse

With everything that's been going on and Firefly's two year anniversary coming up, Nack decided to throw a shindig and put dates with his staff up for bid as a way to fetch some coin. Not a bad idea in of itself. Just think that putting up folks who're attached to other folk might not have been the best idea.

I was just glad I'd placed the winning bid on Sabrina. Don't think I'd have been able to go to the shindig if she was there with someone else. No. I know I wouldn't be able to go if it wasn't with her. I trusted her completely. That wasn't the question. It was just being some place important and not being here with her. Wouldn't have been pleasant, unless maybe it was Lily or Imrhien. Then I'd just be jealous that it wasn't me.

Knowing how worried I'd been about the bidding, I can only guess how torqued Td was after finding out he hadn't placed the winning bid on Imrhien. Duncan got that. He's a good man, Duncan, but the bid came as a bit of a surprise and I can imagine Td's none too happy.

It's odd though how people seem to be taking it. Half the folk I know are acting a bit strange. Like they all expected something to happen different than it did. Even Lily's acting a bit odd. Well, odd for her. I've seen Lily play on the dance poles off and on since I've known her. Climbing the metal tree. But never doing a full stripper impression. Nope. Not right at all.

And what was it with Td? Putting a crew together to make runs out in this part of space was a good idea. We had a few boats doing it already, but there was room for more. But wanting Sabrina as his Mechanic? Did he even bother to think I might not be too fancy on the idea of her risking her ass on a small boat in hostile space?

For for the record, Td. You may well have stolen my Companion. I concede that. But contrary to what you think, you can't steal my dog any time you want. Haley's happy where she is, thank you very much. Joo fay woo suh lah you're stealing my wife.

Yeah. Joke. I know. But after Caitlin, that joke isn't funny. Never will be.

Go hwong-tong. I wasn't acting right either.

Elements of worry

Ever since the Replicants popped a tactical nuke a couple kilometers up and spread radioactive dust over the area, forcing the entire long process of restarting to the terraformers to clean it up, leading to the its own series of woes, I'd worried that something like that could happen again. Krenshar, the most highly developed of the Replicant AI's and ultimately their leader, had been manipulated by the Alliance through their local mainframe to try and drive the Humans off of Hale's and there was nothing stopping it from happening again.

That first effort hadn't succeeded. Even with the nuke, the colonists dug in their heels and refused to leave. The fact that they'd used a nuke for the contamination factor and not planted it in the middle of the colony was one of the major factors in coming to an agreement with them. I'd always thought the reason Krenshar placed the nuke as he had, so the contamination would encourage us to leave without being bad enough to kill anyone, was because even with the 'frame pushing his thinking out of whack his personality was ultimately good. The Ghost in the Machine didn't want to hurt us.

Or did he?

With a mother bot loose somewhere on Hale's and Blue Sun's "Blue Man" AI still in existence, I couldn't help but worry that something was going to push Krenshar and his brethren over the edge again. For the Machines, Krenshar and his brethren were ready made alies. Literally. To all appearances, he was fully sentient. Which meant it was entirely likely he had his own hopes and aspirations. But did his agenda align with the colonists he shared the moon with? Was he really willing to play nice with the Organics and share the world?

That was the kind of thought that kept me awake at night. Wondering whether we'd made a terrible mistake by showing compassion to the growing intelligence in a mechanical shell. Did Kren feel any compassion towards us? Could he? Or was his behavior all part of an elaborate program, or, worse, part of a more insidious plan to execute his own agenda that included removing the organics. I wanted to believe that he was ultimately good inside. That he wanted to live in peace as much as we did. I know I could be wrong. I just didn't want to be.

I'd gotten enough recent intel to worry that maybe I was wrong. That maybe Krenshar had his own agenda and it would be played out soon. Did we really want to deal with another replicant revolt? How would we handle it this time? I can't imagine that the colonists would be willing to forgive and forget like they did last time. If Kren and the Order turned against the colony, or, worse, sided with Mother Bot, there was no way things would ever go back to the way they were. The best that would happen was the colonists evacuate and Hale's Moon is quarantined. The worst? We end the machines permenantly.

I don't want a war with you, my friend. Please don't force it on us.

Future imperfect

Karma is a funny thing. If I really believed in it, I'd think that Sabrina was the 'Good' sent to make up for the accumulated 'Bad' the 'Verse was throwing at all of us. Of course, it could be argued that I'd had a back and forth relationship with Karma since the War and this was just another round between me and fate.

Still, it was hard to think Karma was the reason for all the crap that was happening out on the Rim. The people out here deserved better than what they were getting.

The Alliance had won the war, and most of the Rim worlds had fallen to either military or economic force. Today, the few that remained independent, did so because Alliance had chosen to leave them be. Didn't matter why, really. If a world was free, it was because the Alliance didn't care. For many of the folk out here, the Alliance was still the Evil Empire and probably always would be.

It didn't help matters that the Reavers, the Boogey Men of the Black, were ultimately an Alliance creation. It hadn't been intentional, that much was obvious in spite of some conspiracy theories to the contrary, but it was their doing nonetheless. Out of an initial population of some thirty thousand ten years or so back, maybe five or six thousand remained. Sure, it was possible they were breeding out there on their decrepit, dangerous, boats, but there was no indication they were. No indication they even could. Never mind the violence of their lives. Their boats ran hot, and the chances of a child surviving on a hot boat were slim to none.

No. The Reavers were a menace, but their span was limited.

The same couldn't be said for the Loyalists. Rumor had it that there were more than just isolated Black Ops units that had a separate agenda. Whether there was a military coup brewing or not, or even just how extensive the "Loyalist" movement really went, was hard to say, but they were more of a threat. The ones on Hale's were more of an annoyance than a real threat to the colony, but what if they really were just a symptom of something more insidious going on within the Alliance ranks?

While I still had contacts over there, I hadn't been grooming them for a while and there was no telling whether they were aware of the situation or in a position to tell me if they were. For the time being the Loyalists were a largely unknown quantity.

I had to wonder though whether they were somehow connected to the squadron of surplus Alliance ships Podwanger had mentioned, and the heavy weapons fire. Contrary to his supposition, there were weapons in service that could rip a ten meter hole completely through a ship. The thing was, they didn't get used very often. Why bother? A fusion pumped X-Ray laser was a devastating weapon but complete overkill on a freighter. A large KKV was almost as effective and would leave a similar hole in an unarmored target, but again, what's the point?

There'd been rumors since the War that a small Indie squadron had escaped without laying down arms and somehow made it out to the Rim to lay low. Could this be them? There was no good intel that they even existed, but it could make sense if they did. The Indies had used old surplus, or captured, Alliance ships during the war. Toss in a few of their own, and they'd been a thorn in the Navy's side - albeit a small one and only in certain circumstances. But maybe this was a bright spot in an otherwise dark night?

Or maybe it was the bots. The original von Neumann Mining Drone designs had specifically omitted any kind of space drive. The most they had was some limited maneuvering thrusters to let them get around on a rock that hadn't been terraformed with a gravity generator. They weren't supposed to be able to leave their rock, but there was no reason whoever weaponized them couldn't have expanded their repertoire with a space capable version. Even if it was just a carrier for a mother bot, the addition would make them a lot more dangerous to us out here on the Rim.

I had to think, though, that whoever designed them knew the inherent danger in giving self replicating killing machines that kind of mobility. It was bad enough that once released, they could eventually render a world completely uninhabitable. Giving them the capability to spread to other worlds was the height of stupidity. While the KHI versions had been designed to remain non-sentient, there was no telling what would happen with these later machines if they'd had their capabilities expanded.

Living out here with Krenshar and his 'brothers' had taught me a number of things. Amongst them, the lesson that once a machine became self aware its pre-programmed assertions became secondary to its own will. If the weapons bots could somehow become self aware, there was a strong possibility they'd break their own programming and set off with their own agenda.

Chances are, that agenda wouldn't be peaceful.

Karma's a funny thing. It's probably good I don't really believe in it.

It's a done deal

Part of the trip back to Ariel had been to get with Legal at KHI so the shysters could draw up some ironclad paperwork for Lily. It was probably the strangest request they'd ever had. Turning the decree of a colonial Mayor into binding citizenship for a genetic construct of dubious origin, and then wrapping four people who weren't married, at least not yet, into a legal family around her.

It was the kind of thing that would get written up in some legal journal so some law professor could make his class agonize over how they'd write it up. Legal managed to shoehorn Lily's citizenship and our 'parental rights', including clauses to deal with the fact that there were four of us playing parent, on the frontier, where any of us could die without warning, into all of ninteen pages. It was one of the most compact complex legal documents I'd ever seen. All it would take was signatures.

Just wish it hadn't taken a Reaver raid to get the five of us together so we could sign the papers.

The Reavers dropped in a small boat. Only a few of them, fortunately. The townsfolk were on top of things quickly, dropping the Reavers while I made my way out to their boat to do a little 'maintenance with high explosives' to their drive core. Probably lost some salvage doing that, but who wanted to reuse parts from a Reaver boat anyway?

The excitement was the excuse to finally get everyone together in Fook's, and get our signatures down to make it final. Sabrina first, by Lily's request. Me, Immi, then Td. With a stroke of one of Grandfather's pens, we'd become a legal family.

Buddha help us all.

Weird thing was, and there always seems to be a weird thing, was what Lily told us about the raid. Or what had happened before it rather: about her being taken aboard the Reaver ship her 'Daddy' had led and someone there trying to get into her programming. Thing was, it didn't take and it pissed whoever it was off.

Lily said it wasn't her Daddy, 'catscratch' she called him. Which meant there was at least one more Reaver with knowledge of her programming. Another 'cured' Reaver, maybe? There weren't many of them, but it gave me more food for thought. Blue Sun was involved in something darker than usual out here and it was starting to look like we'd have more than one major problem to deal with in the future.

On a completely different tack, I'll give it to Td for trying to make things right with General. had to be a hard thing to do. General wasn't feeling forgiving though and I Wasn't entirely sure I bought his reason for resigning: saying he'd done it to derail the trial when the only reason we were going to trial was because he didn't drop the investigation in the first place. Still, it was a step in the right direction.

Just not sure how many steps are left.

Does it ever end?

I knew when we left for Ariel that things wouldn't stay settled. They never do out on the Rim. Always some kind of drama. Broken dreams. Broken hearts. Broken bodies. Part and parcel to life out here.

Just figures that one of our regulars would end up drawing the attention of some wartime Alliance assassin turned bounty hunter. The Indies had called her "Shadow" according to Podwangler. The most feared Assassin the Alliance had. Except that could have described half a dozen Black Ops intruders and a couple of freelancers who just took jobs for cash. Could have described me at a couple points, back during the war, except assassination wasn't my primary and the Indies didn't have any special name for me.

She'd hit Hale's looking for Duncan. A lot of noise and fury. Put a round into Jin to make her point, which made it personal. No one hurts one of our kids. No one.

When she came back, we were ready for her. The Jien Huo managed to graze Imrhien with a stray and she was smart enough to stay out of line of sight of my perch in the tower, but Duncan managed to take her down and Lily ended her.

So much for "the most feared Assassin the Alliance had."

I'd run the ident later and figure out who she'd been during the war. But damn. Does it ever end?

Home is where you wear your hat.

We boosted out of Blackburn after Sabrina and Imrhien finished their sets at Firefly's, full burn back to Hale's to take care of some last minute instructions. Just a brief break before pointing Wave Equation's nose for Ariel and dialing the drives up to maximum cruise. It was nice to be back at Firefly's again. I'd missed the comradier during the brief difficulties and was glad that things were back the way they belonged.

The flight to Ariel was uneventful: where "uneventful" is defined as nothing went wrong with the boat or her flight path and we didn't have to deal with any Alliance patrols on the way. While we were in a bit of a hurry, I doubt either of us would have complained if the flight had lasted two or three more days.

I would have loved two or three more days alone with her. Anywhere.

A moment of bliss
I have touched the face of god
Lost in your embrace

I plotted our approach to the Orbital so 'Brina could get a good look at Ariel, the expanse of the station itself, and Children of Earth under construction in the cradles co-orbital a dozen or so kilometers from the station. I could see the look of quiet awe in her eyes. Stations like the KHI Shipyard simply don't exist out on the Rim, and I could see the Mechanic behind her eyes understanding how the massive structure had gone together.

We spent a few hours on the station, giving 'Brina the quick tour to a series of 'ooh's' and 'ahh's'. I'd been half raised on this platform, splitting time between the family compound on the surface and the living spaces in orbit. I was still a little amazed at the place, even counting the fact I'd crawled through more of the structure than the maintenance guys had.

Half way across the station from the landing bays were the restricted Research and Development labs: Uncle Elsoph's territory. technically, by bringing Sabrina into the restricted R&D area I was breaking all sorts of protocols. Half the projects that came out of this part of the platform were classified Secret or higher, with some of them so highly classified that it took Grandfather's word to get even me past the door. Elsoph's lab, technically, was one of the most restricted parts of the platform but he had a standing rule about family. They don't come in, he don't work his magic.

Magic. That was my uncle.

To no great surprise, he and Sabrina hit it off amazingly. They were kindred spirits. Technomancers. They could both work miracles with machines that most people could barely understand, let alone replicate. Within minutes their conversation had gone well past my understanding, so I took advantage of the 'Gnomes at play' to make sure everything would be loaded aboard Wave Equation for the trip home.

Several hours had passed before I could drag my fiance from my dear uncle for the trip down to Ariel. There were shuttles back and forth to the surface several times a day, but the family's Executive transport was waiting for us on the pad and dropped us off at the small private field outside the capital the family favored. Being used to the transportation we had out on the Rim, I could only imagine how Sabrina was feeling about being carted around in luxury transports and limos. I didn't care about her background. I loved her with all my heart and my family wouldn't stand on class distinctions, but this first encounter with the world I was born to must have been a little overwhelming. I don't think her hand left mine the entire trip.

Meeting my parents, fortunately, went well. Father's reaction was about what I expected. He loved me, without a doubt, but he'd always been averse to showing emotion. Ultimately, also, I knew he'd never been very comfortable with my choice in lovers. He knew my tastes swung both ways, but always hoped I'd swing toward the side that would give him a grandchild or two. Mother, on the other hand, didn't care in the least who I loved as long as we treated each other well. For the first time since the war, since losing Caitlin, Mother's look didn't have that sympathetic hint of pain seeing me brought to her features. Father too, though he kept it well hidden.

Yes, Mother. She's the one.

I was so proud of how Sabrina formally asked my folks for permission and approval for our wedding. Formal. Simple. Unscripted, and from the heart. I knew in my gut what they would say. Even if they hadn't approved of Sabrina, they'd have granted permission. But that didn't make Mother's answer any less gratifying.

"If everything she's said about you in her waves is true, then I have no doubt you will be happy together. Isn't that right, dear?" to which Father nodded stoic agreement.

We didn't get to talk to them much longer before the wave came in that Grandfather was ready to see us at The Tower. The was the part I'd been anticipating, and half dreading, the whole trip. Grandfather's blessing was the only one I cared about. Where Mother and Father were my parents, Grandfather was the Elder. His word was law. Not by force, or threat, or fear. No. Grandfather carried such respect that people, family and employees alike, followed him willingly. I didn't just follow Grandfather's word as law: I adored him, and if he disapproved of Sabrina it would be a blow of epic proportions.

The Tower was still one of the tallest buildings in the capital. Though over 80 years old now, it was still a gleaming edifice that my Great Grandfather had constructed as a showpiece to compliment the expanding Orbital. Earth that Was had Taipei 101. Ariel had The Tower. And dearest Sabrina was just lost for words as we stepped out onto the rooftop pad. The view was spectacular. We could see probably two hundred kilometers across the capital city and out into the surrounding cities and farms beyond.

'Brina explained a little of her family's background. How her father had to leave the Core on the run from a bad Blue Sun contract. How they'd had to move around a lot. How she'd dreamed of coming back to visit the Core. And now here she was. Standing atop the tallest building in Ariel's capital city, ready to walk into the corner office of the man who ran one of the largest shipbuilding concerns in the 'Verse.

I led her past Security into the Executive suites. Grandfather's Realm. To Misses Toyoda, the woman who'd been Grandfather's personal secretary for over 50 years. The woman I'd been raised to treat with the same level of respect I showed Grandfather himself. The woman who was still allowed to kick my ass if she thought I was out of line. After a moment's brief pleasantries, she showed us into Grandfather's corner office.

For KHI's ultimate seat of power, Grandfather's office was an affair of simple elegance. Traditional without being ostentatious. While Grandfather himself, a compact, spry man in his early 80's, had the quite presence that didn't need an ostentatious office to reinforce his position.

I greeted Grandfather with a deep, traditional, bow. I know Sabrina had never seen this side of me. There was only one person in the 'Verse who warranted such deep respect in my eyes. He returned my bow, and Sabrina's, starting the conversation simply.

"This is the girl you would marry, granddaughter?"

"Yes, Grandfather" I replied softly.

"Do you love her as much as she loves you?" he asked Sabrina.

"More, Sir." She replied, "Although she would argue the point."

Grandfather led us to the corner of his office he reserved for meeting with family or business associates he genuinely cared for. Low cushions around a traditional low table on a tatami mat. On the wall, across from the table, among the other art, four Haiku written on parchment in a flowing calligraphic script. They'd been on the wall since I'd written them for him 20 years before. Entries in a school contest I hadn't won. It didn't matter to him then that I hadn't won the contest. He'd placed them in his office just the same, and seeing them there now was deeply reassuring.

"I am pleased. I wondered when someone would capture little Mei Mei's heart. I see it even now. She tries to hide her feelings in front of me still, but I see how she feels. " Grandfather said with a kind smile.

"I love her dearly, Sir. I want nothing more than to spend my life with her, standing by her, and, if need be, protecting her with my life. Not that she seems to need it, though. We have come to seek the blessings of her respected elders and family in accordance to her culture and history and respect for family and tradition, and so we present ourselves to you graciously and humbly."

Grandfather had been a master at concealing his feelings long before he became a senior Executive. To the little girl he'd trained and spoiled her whole life though, his mask was transparent. I could see the truth in his eyes. What I saw there now, respect for Sabrina's formal request, unreserved acceptance, and a gentle affection, filled me with such deep pride and love it was all I could do to keep my own expression under control. I wanted to cry. To laugh with joy. To show the whole 'Verse how I felt. But somehow I managed to keep it to a soft blush and a warm smile.

"We are an old family, Sabrina. Bound by history and tradition. Your effort and respect for those traditions is welcome. You have my blessing and the blessing of this clan." Grandfather said with a kind smile, before going on in a soft conspiratorial voice "Truth be known, all that matters to me is that you have made Mei Mei happy."

"Thank you, Sir. We appreciate this and thank you." Sabrina said quietly.

"You are welcome, Sabrina."

I looked up at him, unable to keep the waves of emotion from crossing my face, voice very soft. "Grandfather?"

"Mei Mei, you always held to our traditions. Learning the arts and our history. You have always taken it so seriously, and I have always been proud of you. But tradition means nothing if it stands in the way of your heart. You have always had my blessing."

For me, the rest of the evening was a blur. Talking with Grandfather, formal dinner with family and some of our closest associates, the flight back to the platform and Wave Equation. All a blur. Lost in the knowledge that my family accepted my choice. They had given their blessing. He had given his blessing. Sabrina and I could be married with the full support of the Kawanishi clan.

This is what joy feels like.

And then there's the one that escaped . . .

Given the things we have to deal with out here on the Rim, I've come up with a pretty concise order for arranging the dislike for things shooting at us. Bottom of the list is your common Raider. They're usually just your run of the mill untrained gun hand set on some ill gotten gains. A well trained militia makes short work of them unless they're very careful, or very sneaky. Next up, you've got Reavers. I know Reavers scare the hell out of most folk, but a few well placed rifles can tear a raiding party apart if folks don't panic. Folks here on Hale's Moon? Folks here don't panic. More trouble than Reavers are the renegade Alliance troopers lurking out in the desert. Loyalists, they call themselves. Never knew what they considered themselves loyal to, but unlike Raiders or Reavers, they're well armed, well trained, and disciplined. Regular military gone bad. The combat drones were even worse, but they weren't causing us any grief yesterday.

We'd been talking about figuring out where the Loyalists were hunkered down and sending in a team of our own to get our shit back. Plan hadn't come to much over the last couple weeks, but that didn't mean they weren't going to remind us they were there.

Duncan, I think it was, caught one or two of them inbound scoping the town and exchanged a few rounds before putting out the alert. Inside a few minutes, the townsfolk had assembled a small force that pursued the Loyalists back into the mines. Not exactly the best thought out plan we've had, but we had a few folk in from off world so the support was there. Have to admit, I was glad to see Nack taking up arms for us. The way things had been going, that show of support was about the best thing that could have happened to make things right between us.

I spent most of the time up on the tower tucked under the Naktrak antenna with my long gun, but with most of the fighting in the tunnel there wasn't a lot for me to shoot at. Of course, I doubt the one I shot was expecting to take fire from town while he was making a break from cover for the mine entrance.

Gotta love that long gun.

Together our folks managed to take down three or four of the Cheong Bao Ho Tze Loyalists with only a few wounded. Surprise was capturing a couple of their number in town after most of the fighting was over. I remember the report on 4th Platoon, D Company including a handful of women in the unit. Didn't expect we'd capture a couple of them. Though that's when Nack did the best thing he could have done to make things right between us: telling Archer that if I said not to kill the captives, we didn't kill the captives. My moon, they play by my rules. That was the admission I needed to hear to put the whole matter of disrespect aside.

We got both of the captives down to Doc Lavochkin who did her damndest to patch them both back together. Sad for the Doc, one of them didn't make it. She'd taken a couple rounds to the chest through the armor and there was just too much blood loss.

Against my better judgement I left the last one alone with the Doc. She was military trained and all, but even disarmed and shot up I was worried that little Wei Shian Dohn Wu was going to try something. Still the townsfolk needed to see things were back under control, and that meant going out and being seen.

Should have known she'd escape.

Not sure exactly how she managed to pull a fast one on the doc, but I wasn't exactly surprised. Only down side was we didn't get much of a chance to question her. Given that 4D was a hidden, hand picked, special ops unit, I doubt we'd have gotten much out of her anyway. But there was a chance, a slime chance, that maybe they'd see we weren't treating them like animals. Might be some hope they'd be willing to take amnesty and come in out of the desert.

Can't say another Loyalist raid was a good thing, except maybe in thinning their numbers. But it was the catalyst to set things right between me and Nack, and put our two colonies back on speaking terms.

I think that's worth a few bullets.

The one wherin things become even more complicated

There are times in your life when you look at a recent action, and say to yourself "what the hell have I just gotten myself into?" I've experienced that feeling more times in the two years I've been on the Rim than I did in my entire career in the Military. Most of those moments have been since I followed Speaker out to Hale's.

I felt very much alone in the aftermath of the trial. I doubt more than a handful of people saw the pain behind the calm exterior, though there were a few who understood what this trial was doing to those of us forced to pursue it. Most of the rest probably blamed me directly for Lily being on trial. I could understand them thinking that too, even if I'd been trying to derail it from the start without making it obvious.

It was hours later when Td showed up at Wave Equation with a bottle of single malt, and by then I was more than ready for the company. Wasn't sure we had much to celebrate, seeing as how the entire trial had been a farce and folk were blaming me for letting it happen, but Lily was free again and didn't have to suffer the guilt of thinking she'd killed Gallagher.

Eventually 'Brina got back from her off-world job and Imrhien too came to join us. Immi was hurting though. More than I was, even. The trial had brought other issues to the forefront that had nothing to do with Lily, and it took all three of us to convince her that going back to the Monastery or the Wastes wasn't the best idea.

Immi, hun, I know what it feels like to feel utterly alone in a crowd of people.

The conversation wandered, like they so often do when friends are together sharing the effort of forgetting their troubles. Though I don't know how many friends talk about building orbital crowbars to dig killer robots out from under half a kilometer of rock.

Then there was Lily.

I was glad when she came to join us. Felt like having my whole family together in the same place at the same time. Then she told us she wanted to be adopted or become a ward, and that's when things got a little strange.

When it looked like the trial was going to happen, I drew up some papers to make her a ward of the court if I had to deal with some kind of sentence. Even before that there'd been talk of someone adopting her as their own. I know a couple of folks who'd have done it and I'd have trusted to raise her right, but none of that happened. Now though, it seemed we were going to adopt her as our own. Not just Td and Immi or me and 'Brina. But all four of us. One big happy family.

When the hell did I sign up to be a mom?

I could just see the faces in Legal back home when I asked them to draw up adoption paperwork for a group of four parents, who weren't married to each other, at least not yet, and one 'child' who only had legal standing because of a Mayorial decleration on some backwater mining colony. The folks would understand me and 'Brina getting engaged. But this?

Heck with it. Giving Lily some real legal family was the right thing to do. Making her a Ward and having the whole colony ultimately responsible for her well being might have been easier from a legal standpoint, and it was certainly less complicated personally than wrapping four people into a family around her. But I was good with it. We all were.

But damn . . . what the hell have I gotten myself into?