Taking it to them for once...

It's about time we did something proactive to take the pressure off the colony.

Ever since the Reavers started raiding Hale's more frequently, we knew something had to be up. There was just no reason for them to come our way, not that Reavers really needed a reason for anything they did. But, not wanting to have the colony become a favorite deli for those Gorram hitokuijinshu.

Between navtrak readings and local pilots letting us see their navigation array data, we'd already managed to figure out where the Reavers were nesting. What we hadn't expected was to find an actual installation. Hadn't managed to run the history on the thing, but from the looks of it, someone at some point had taken a mined out rock and turned it into a base. Whether the Reavers had captured it from the previous owners or found it abandoned didn't matter. What mattered was they were using it as a jumping off and docking point, and relieving them of its possession would take a bit of pressure off us and some of the other Rim colonies.

I'd parked out little reecee sat on the fringe of Beetle's Baily with a high gain pointed back our way to monitor their base. Amazing how much mileage we were getting out of a waste bin sized contraption built from spare bits and scrap polymer. Thing was, the little piece of go-sa had done it's job a dozen times over. First helping us find the buried terraformers under Hale's, then with the more than one rescue mission here and over Blackburne, and now with a little station keeping driver on it, spying on the Reavers.

Uncle Elsoph'd be so proud.

Doing it proper, we'd have spent a few weeks getting more intel on their movements, how often they came around, how many were aboard. Gotten some deep scans of the base to see the interior layout so we'd know where to hit them and how hard. Get the door codes. Know where the power couplings were and the base's weak spots. Life support. Gravity. Lighting. Had a team together and equipped. Planned, practiced, ready. Support boats and evac. Good, solid, military precision.

Nope.

None of that.

We had eight volunteers, as heavily armed as we could expect to get, suited up as heavy as any of us could manage. One medic. One boat. And a cobbled together reecee sat handling comms.

Yeah. I know. Crazy. But it was the kind of Op no one would ever attempt on the fly, with, I admit, good reason, but we were hitting a small installation by surprise and we were a good deal more heavily armed than the Reavers were. Add that this time we'd have the element of surprise, there was a good chance we'd give them a wee bit of the terror they'd been showing the Rim colonies for the last 15 odd years.

Final readings on approach showed one of their smaller boats hard docked to the station with it's drives cold and maybe 20 Reavers, total, on the base. Probably meant the rest of them were off on a raid somewhere making some other Colony's life miserable. As far as I could tell, we didn't even need the EW running, masking our approach, since they barely even had a local approach radar running.

The lights were on, but no one was looking at them.

I set us down on one of the docking platforms and let the team disembark. I was tempted to go in myself, but knew it was better for me to hang back with Belize, guarding her doing medical and keeping the Reavers from meddling with our route home.

We managed to take out a few of the Reavers initially when they first popped the airlock, tossing a couple grenades onto the upper level of the installation before cycling it closed and digging deeper into the base. I was tracking comms chatter so we'd know when to expect injured and keeping my guns ready in case any of the Reavers tried to assault the skiff.

Probably didn't need to worry. Only two actually made it to the landing platform and a couple 13mm jacketed rounds were enough to punch lethal holes in their cobbled together EVA suits. Honestly glad the rounds were fatal rather than the suit breaches, since dieing of 'vacuum poisoning' was an especially unpleasant way to end a person's span. Though, to be fair, it'd probably have been fair trade for the Reaver method of raping a person to death, or eating them before they're fully dead.

Once they got the upper level cleared, I soft docked the Skiff with the station so we'd be able to bring any wounded aboard without having to expose them to space. Increased the risk a bit, but there wasn't a lot of entries to cover and I had a good deal of ammo.

Didn't wind up using it though. The team was doing a good job working their way through the installation. Took a few casualties, but the Reavers never managed to concentrate their forces enough to block the retreat for those that needed Bel's tender touch and, by some sort of good fortune, we didn't lose anyone.

Hell, Lily even managed to get her Pony out ok!

Why'd the Reavers have one of her ponies anyway?

It took some time and a fair pile of ammunition, but we pulled it off. Cleared out the base and blew the airlocks when we left. Might have some salvage left up there, but I'm with Lily in that it'd be near impossible to ever get the Reaver taint out of anything we brought back.

Getting back and taking stock, we came out ok. Cleared the base of at least eighteen of them at the cost of five out of eight injured and no dead. Lily had some chemical burns I was able to neutralize with some of the random components Speaker kept behind the bar for no readily apparent reason.

With the atmo vented to space, chances were the Reavers themselves would abandon the place, though there was a chance we'd need to clear it again before we took it out permenantly. Lily wanted that job and, odd as it was, I was willing to let her handle it.

Lily'd made a lot of recovery since she came back to us. After that odd coin Duncan had did it's little reset thing, and she somehow managed to get more or less restored from backup by Krenshar, she was almost her old self. Still seemed to be having trouble coming to grips with Aurora being her daughter, but that was understandable. She still had a gap in her memory, and little Aurora was smack in the middle of it.

Though, it had me pondering just some of her queries came back 'access restricted by AuroraBlue' when she tried to call them up old style. How much of Lily had gotten into Aurora? Maybe more important, how much of Aurora was in Lily?

Where was the little one off too anyway?

Question for another time.

Now, it's a much needed date with a cascade of long dark hair and a bubbling hot tub.

It almost makes me believe in miracles

I don't believe in miracles. While I still follow some of the religious traditions I was raised with, mostly a mix of Buddhist and Shinto with a touch of Pastafarian, I am not a religious woman. I don't believe in miracles. Sheppard might argue the point with me, but I don't follow the Sheppard's faith either.

If I said I really understood what'd happened I'd be lieing. All I knew was that Lily was back. In substance at least. Not sure what's up with her mind though, and her body's reverted to synthetic near as I can tell. But she's back. Call it science. Call it a miracle. What mattered was my little sister was out of the stasis tank and moving under her own power.

I'm still not sure just how I knew to go down to that chamber in the mines Krenshar'd stashed Lily in. Just knew something was happening and I had to be there for it. Krenshar was there already with little Aurora, Lily in the tank, and that swirling ball of light that was supposed to be some kind of projection of Blue.

Blue wanted me to explain to the others there, General, Krenshar, and, later, Reese, what was going on and I did, as best I could. As best I understood it myself. Mindo wanted to play god and, to that end, he'd created Lily, Blue, and later, indirectly, Aurora. Blue, becoming fully sentient, had his own agenda and the advantage of being a good deal smarter than Mindo. That in itself was frightening, since Mindo was brilliant. Twisted to be sure, but brilliant nonetheless.

Blue and Aurora had grown beyond Mindo's plans or ability to control and now Lily's restoration was in their hands. Blue needed Aurora to go on, and that meant the necklace. Only, whether he realized it or not, Blue wouldn't be in control. Aurora was the stronger personality and would ultimately absorb the AI's intellect into herself.

I did what I had to do.

I let them merge.

And now? Now I didn't know what to think. Lily was back, but not her self. Aurora was carrying Blue around inside her somehow. Mindo? Who the hell knew what was up with Mindo. At this point I didn't know whether he was alive or dead and most of me didn't care. If he was dead, I wouldn't have to end him myself. Alive? Well, if he was we'd deal with that in time too.

Just too much going on. I left the Service because I could no longer stand my part in their greater scheme of things. And here, now, it seemed I was caught up in things far, far, bigger in scope than what I was involved with before.

I'd come to the Rim to escape my past. It was a chance to put my karma back into balance. Not that I actually believed the 'Verse kept track, but it was a reason to hang onto at least. And here, now, I had to think I'd been thrown into this position to balance out some of the wrong. To make everything balance again.

At least I wasn't having to face it all alone.

Will they ever go away?

The Loyalists who fled the Sun Tzu months ago must be getting desperate. They'd attacked us off and on for weeks. Usually just petty theft. One or two of them would sneak into town and steal something from one of the townsfolk, but sometimes they got bold. There'd been occassions when they'd sent in half their number to raise hell, then had others dash in during the confusion to make off with a fair bit of supplies.

Yesterday's raid was somewhere in between their sneaky steal shit tactics and their less common, but much bloodier, frontal assault. A small number of them dashing in and out with hit and run tactics, causing a lot of comfusion and mayhem without inflicting a lot of casualties. They didn't even manage to steal much of anything.

Had to hand it to the folks who were here to react through. Belize did her thing taking care of the few wounded, Sabrina stayed in the bar mostly in case they tried to hit us there, while most of the other armed folk in town tried to deal with the attackers.

I had my hands full with Aurora. She's got her mother's fighting instincts and, much as I doubt I'll succeed, I'm going to try and keep that child from ever having to take a life. Life's cheap on the Rim, but that doesn't mean it should ever be taken lightly. If I could save her ever crossing that line I'll have done a good thing.

There's just so much going on with that child. Between her mother, and Mindo, and Blue, and her own unseen purpose, I'm not sure I can entirely keep up. We do have one thing very much in common though. We both miss her mother.

Seems most everyone misses her mother. Been a blessing seeing how folks have pulled together in support of her daughter, but none of them know her purpose. None of us do, really.

I've managed to maintain that protective Zen calm since I heard we'd lost her, but it's been an effort. Only one who's seen me cry over it is 'Brina, and then only when we're alone and I can just bury my face in her hair and lose myself in the comfort of her presence. She usually tells me not to cry and then just holds me until it passes.

I wish I had some idea how this was all going to end. I know how I want it to end, but that may just be wishful thinking. We all know the storm's still coming. Is little Aurora going to make it better, or worse?

Hell. With the ongoing Reaver, Raider, and Loyalist attacks, it'd be a wonder anyone still cares when the storm finally comes. I'd still care though. And I'd still be here trying to do something about it.

As long as I had someone to live for, there'd be a reason to care.

Her name is Aurora

I wasn't there to see my niece come into the world.

I wasn't there to see my little sister die in childbirth.

I've seen a lot of people die over the years and I've been the cause of more than my share of those deaths. But most of the time, it's just a passing. I have mourned every one of those I've seen die, including the ones who died by my hand, but the mourning was out of respect for a life ended, not because I felt a deep personal loss.

This was different.

It happened so quickly, and they said there was no time to track me down. But still, I should have been there. Even though there's nothing I could have done to save her, I should have been there. She needed to know she was loved when she left the world. I know Gallagher was there so she wasn't alone. Someone who loved her was there. But I should have been there.

When Gallagher introduced me to my niece later in the day she'd already grown to a toddler. Whatever freakishly rapid growth metabolism that led to a three day pregnancy hadn't slowed any. In fact, if my back of my hand calculations were right, it had accelerated by an order of magnitude.

Aurora is already talking. Searching for something. She is lovely, but not a normal Human child. No child could have the knowledge or intellect she has. No toddler would call me Mei Mei.

Mindo will come for her I'm sure. In his way, so will Blue. I will be ready. I'm not afraid of little Aurora, but I may be the only one on our little slice of heaven who has even the slightest idea of what she represents and my understanding is tenuous at best. I want to be right. I want Blue to be telling the truth. I want a future for Humanity, the machines, and little Aurora.

Time, as it is said, will tell.

But what will it tell us?

Imrhien's not pregnant: Lily is.

There are some things you just never see coming: The battle for Shadow going nuclear. Royal Oak winning the Osirus cup in '32. The loss of the Johnson MacDuff to catastrophic drive failure. Lily getting pregnant. All things you'd never have bet on in a million years.

But each happened.

We all should have known that Lily's transformation and not merging with Blue wouldn't have been the end of the show. We should have seen there was more coming. With Lily's fixation on mating and having a cub even before she was organic, we should have seen that somehow a new life would be involved.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Again.

I don't pretend to understand the entire chain of events that led to where we are now with Lily. I've got a decent education and a background in technology. Hell, my Masters from Feynman University was in Applied Tech and I've had to stay sharp though my career. But polymorphic synthetics, artificial life, and Artificial Intelligence that thinks it's god? Nope. Not something I pretend to understand. Even running it by some of the smartest heavy brain types I know came back with a cumulative "shouldn't be possible." But it was possible. Lily was proof.

The social side was a little easier to fathom. The motivations of a baka like Ben were easy to understand. He never saw Lily for what she really was. He had his image of her, brought about by an overdose of testosterone and angst, and that was all he could see. It might be easier to forgive him if he wasn't such a self centered teinousha. Anyone who goes on about how everyone assumes he's got nothing but good intentions, then goes on to show everyone that his intentions are anything but, deserves a boot to the head. Honestly. Boot to the head. Not that he'd actually understand. Not that beating the crap out of him would have helped any, except maybe the catharsis of breaking a few of his facial bones.

Next time.

Of course, if he's smart, there won't be a next time. He and his "apprentice," as he called his pet stripper, would both have to tread lightly in our little slice of heaven. But again, I digress.

The first we realized anything was wrong was when Lily started to complain she wasn't feeling well. With Belize and Gallagher off world at the time, I was the nearest thing we had to a doctor available. Not my best skill by a long shot, but I'd have to do. Fortunately, we'd uprated a lot of the medical kit recently and the scanner was enough to let me know Lily was functionally ovulating. Never mind the biology. Lily was, somehow, fertile.

Considering how much she'd been talking about him, I wasn't surprised when Mindo showed up looking for her. Getting the promise out of him to spend his time working on a way for Lily to survive wasn't easy, though seeing him cry was gratifying on a deep, deep, level. Only wish it was because of something I'd done to him, directly, with force.

What I hadn't counted on was him impregnating her, probably with that yarichin as the donor.

I didn't know he'd done it until hours later, and, by then, the cub had already developed to roughly the three month stage. By evening, it was roughly six months and she was exhibiting 'nesting' behavior, which meant we had until maybe mid day tomorrow. Shiny. Just shiny.

Leave it to Blue to throw his own take on things. While I'd managed to lock him out of the boat and my office, with the Sheriff's office and infirmary under way, he still had some kind of implant in Lily (probably Krenshar too, and who knew what portable devices), which meant that where she was, he was.

Still don't want to fight you Blue.

Just want you the hell out of my kit.

By Blue's take, Lily's child, that he claimed as his own, was the key to a peaceful future between Organics and Machines. Would be a great thing, assuming I could believe him. Blue knew I wanted a peaceful end game and it would be far too easy for him to play into that hope. I wanted to believe Blue was telling the truth. I'd thought myself Lily could be the bridge. It wasn't a stretch to think her daughter (as we found out after Gallagher pulled amniotic fluid) would be the one.

But what if I was wrong? What if Blue was bullshitting us and Aurora (Lily's chosen name for her cub) was the key to our undoing? Blue'd accused me of not showing wisdom, that Grandfather would be disappointed. Playing to my emotions, no doubt. But Grandfather understood that Passion sometimes had to override Wisdom. It was part of what made us Human. Lily's survival, Humanity's survival, was a passion.

For the sake of everyone involved, I hoped I was doing the right thing.

We would know soon.

Too soon.

The one wherein the Reavers send lots of hungry kinfolk

I don't like Reavers.

Not that anyone I know of really does like Reavers, but they have a special place in my dislike queue: Just ahead of Alliance Loyalists and just behind people who mistreat animals. I know they're ultimately victims themselves, which is probably why they sit where they are and aren't in the same league as the politicians who approved the project that accidentally created them in the first place. I don't hate the Reavers. I just don't like them.

With the the recent Reaver attacks, I'd set my mind to figuring out just where they were coming from. We'd gotten navtrak signatures and a fair number of captains had willingly forked over their logs when they spotted something, but we hadn't been able to focus the search down enough to know for sure just where they were nesting. Or hiding. Or whatever the hell it was Reavers did when they weren't trying to eat people.

When the navtrak warning went off, indicating something fairly big with the classic Reaver drive signature, I saddled up and boosted out to see if I couldn't track them back to their source. 'Brina would probably be a little annoyed, now that she was back from her latest off-world job, but even with their heated up drives a Reaver boat would have a hard time staying with me if I turned to run. Better, in my favor, their EW was pretty low grade so chances were they'd never even know I was there.

I managed to get my boat onto their exhaust trail where I could bring the sensors up to try and backtrack their flight path. Half an hour later, I had a good lead on what seemed to be a flight of at least half a dozen Reaver boats sitting out near a cluster of rocks known as "Beetle's Baily." They were on the charts as a navigational hazard and the local rock miners had written them off as "Accessible: No Value" thirty years ago. Perfect place for someone to park a small bunch of ships where they wouldn't be easily spotted. Just surprised the Reavers would use a tactic that required that much coherent thought.

The chatter from Hale's cut short my scans before I could get a solid ident on the Reaver boats. The initial navtrak reading had shown one incoming, with a smudge that might have been a second boat - if they were crazy enough to ride in the hot exhaust trail of another Reaver boat. Never actually expected even a Reaver to do something thing that crazy.

Silly me.

I burned back to Hale's as fast as I could and managed to set down safely without drawing the attention of the Reavers already on the ground. They had two boats, both a good deal bigger than the usual shuttle or small transport they usually sent our way. Best guess from visuals and the sensors were that there were over thirty of them on the ground, splitting up to hit us from several different directions. Again, not the usual Reaver 'come in screaming and try to eat anyone that moves" tactics.

There were a fair number of folk scattered through town trying to deal with the Reavers, including a group holed up in Fook's where Belize was tending the wounded and Imrhien was dealing with any Reaver suicidal enough to try and storm the bar. There were so many people fighting, with Reavers coming from so many directions, there weren't a lot of options for me. When in doubt, I did what I've been doing since I came out here to the rim: grabbed the long gun and went for the tower.

I'd never seen this many Reavers on Hale's before. Even the short run to the locked access ladder on the back of the tower wasn't clear, though the three Reavers who attacked me en-route didn't really have time to be surprised that I wasn't afraid before they died.

The Reaver's most fearsome weapon was fear. They were Berserkers. Vicious. Fearless. Feeling no pain. Terrifying in visage and aggression. But they weren't soldiers. A Reaver was just a madman with an axe, or a knife, screaming, bleeding, scaring the hell out of people and relying on that fear to paralyze their opponents. Against a trained martial artist, a Reaver was a practice dummy. An icky, mutilated, unclean practice dummy, to be sure. But a practice dummy just the same.

Three down, who knew how many left to go.

From the tower I had a good view of town and an excellent view of the flats heading out of town and over towards the mines, but there were a lot of areas in town I couldn't get a line of sight into. Between the buildings and the platform, any Reaver that made it into town would have a lot of cover.

With the long gun, I was able to take down several more. Even caught some sporadic return fire from the few Reavers carrying firearms. But most of the action was happening on the ground with the folks who were down low tangling with them directly.

Could hear from the chatter that the medical supplies in Fook's were running low and tried to provide covering fire for Immi when she got it into her fool head that she'd be a good diversion. Bad idea. But at least Bel managed to get to the Infirmary and tend the wounded, who by then was pretty much everyone who'd been fighting.

I was listening to the local chatter and looking for a target when we heard this loud gravely voice yelling out that they had our not cat, and would eat her unless people came out to play. It took a couple moments of scanning around before I spotted the big, especially ragged, Reaver holding the struggling, bloodied, barely conscious Lily.

From the tower, the shot would be difficult, but no one else was in place to do anything about it to set her free. Taking a couple of deep calming breaths I shifted position to line up the shot, letting them out slowly, relaxing, heart rate slowing and focus increasing until the beats sounded like a metronome.

I watched the Reaver throw back his head and scream incoherently and, as he started to bring it forward again, lunging towards Lily's neck, I gently squeezed the long gun's trigger. Half a second later, an 8mm hole appeared in the Reaver's forehead and the back of it's skull erupted in a spatter of blood and brain.

Run, little sister.

From the tower, I saw Lily quickly recover her wits and bolt for cover as I squeezed off a couple more rounds to cover her escape, and from there, providing covering fire where needed. That was, until the drive section on one of the Reaver boats erupted in a ball of flame. Looking through the scope I could see a few of the miners running for cover and the surviving Reavers running, or staggering, towards their remaining boat.

Within a few more minutes, it was over. The Reavers were clawing sky and we were left to pick up the piecves and count the dead. Considering the sheer number of attackers, our loses were better than could have been expected. Nine dead. Fifteen wounded, including Lily, Imrhien, Shalimar, Xerox and Duncan. Probably more that I missed while trying to get a handle on everything that had gone on. The Reavers had lost one transport, at least twenty dead, and an unknown number wounded and escaping.

Altogether not our best showing. Not our worst either.

Just wish I'd been able to do more.

One down. How many more to go?

With the exception of a few Reaver attacks and a small raid the other night, things have been quiet on Hale's Moon. Not perfectly quiet, of course. They never are. But quiet enough. Just wish Sabrina and Imrhien were back from their respective personal missions. This time, at least, Immi was trying to stay in touch so we didn't have another rude surprise in store.

Of course, I suppose Reaver and Raider attacks don't really count as quiet. Especially when a couple of the Raiders tried to mug me - before half a dozen armed people showed up and the whole thing degenerated into a firefight. But compared to some of the things we've faced recently? No. This was quiet.

The thing that really caught my eye was the report from Blackburne that they'd managed to track down one of the Mother bots out in the Wastes and destroy it. Had to hand it to them. I wasn't expecting a frontal assault to succeed like that.

Their description of the Mother wasn't quite what I was expecting, but wasn't outside the parameters of even the original mining machines. Within a given range, they'd configure themselves to best suit the terrain they were deployed in and the available resources. This one was pretty big and deployed on the surface, which was a bit of a surprise, but again not outside what would be expected.

While I was immensely pleased they'd managed to destroy the factory bot, I didn't share their unlimited enthusiasm and relief. The original mining machines were built from an initial Seeder unit that would release a few mining drones to gather resources, then set about constructing the refinery/factory unit. The Mother. Once built, Mother would start turning out more drones to gather materials and from there, build another seeder to go off and find another place to start mining. After that, maybe two percent of Mother's production would go towards building new Seeders to spread the von Neumann Love across whatever rock the machine was on.

Since there was nothing in the report about them recovering the thing's main core, there was no telling whether it had created one or more seeders before they took it out. There wasn't even knowing whether it was coded to make seeders, or whether it was just building war machines. It was good they'd destroyed it. Even better that, unlike the one we knew of on Hale's, it wasn't buried under a couple kilometers of rock. But was it the only one?

I didn't want to burst their happy bubble, but there was the very real possibility that there was another one, or possibly more than one, of those things somewhere on the ground on Blackburne. If there was, the other one almost certainly knew it's sister had been taken out and how which meant defeating the next one would be all that much more difficult.

Sadly, even if they had managed to bag the single Mother bot on Blackburne, our fight against the machines was far from over. There'd been reports of drone attacks from at least half a dozen frontier worlds, with some unusual reports from the trade lanes indicating the Machines may have been build with interplanetary capability. If that really was the case, we'd not only have to find them on the worlds we knew about, but hunt down every possible nest in the entire region. If we missed just one, the Machines would be able to continue replicating, seeding, and growing their forces until they executed whatever long term plan they'd been programmed with. Assuming, of course, they hadn't broken out of their programming and gotten an agenda of their own.

That was something I didn't want to contemplate.

Tactical operations

Deep down, in my heart, I knew it would never be as simple as just flying to Persephone, giving Imrhien's father the bride price, and flying home with her. I knew it wouldn't be so simple. He'd included the Feds in that wave and with them being right there, it was no surprise they showed up on his doorstep with the reward money for Imrhien's paper. Alexandra's. Whatever. Didn't matter what they called her. They had her and we were going to get her back.

Got a wave from Duncan en-route too, saying he was burning core on Raivenn on the way over from his last job. While I appreciated the help and knew Duncan'd be worth his weight in gold in a fight, I didn't see as how it would come to a firefight. If we started shooting up a Fed law enforcement station, we 'd have every Marshal in the area on our tails. I thanked him for the concern and promised to keep him informed on our status, but if it didn't work out to be a simple buy and run I was planning to keep it intimate.

Not surprisingly, the Feds beat us to the draw on picking her up. Having a local presence has its advantages. Of course, it was probably a good thing that I didn't set Wave Equation down in the man's front yard. Wouldn't have been polite anyway. Though hearing him say "Too late. The Feds anted up before you did." didn't help my mood any.

Since she was in Fed custody, we would have to change our tactics. My first thought was to play the Superior Officer card, but ultimately thought better of it. Playing that card would have undesirable consequences and it was something I would much rather hold in reserve. Which left us with a more direct approach.

We had several options for getting her out without playing the Superior Officer card. We could go in, shoot up the place, take Immi and run. Which would work, but would leave dead Feds, our faces all over the security feeds, and paper out on all of is that the Feds would have a powerful need to serve. Not a good option.

Second option was some kind of diversionary tactic. We could send someone, or someones, in to make some noise and then break Imrhien out during the commotion. It was workable, but not very subtle. Also had the problem of them having us on the security feeds and directly linked to Immi's escape. Again, not a good option. Better than shooting up the place, but the risks were higher than they needed to be.

The preferred option would have no casualties on either side, ideally with the Feds never knowing how Imrhien got away form them. That would require planning and a good deal of stealth and the ability to cleanly bypass their security systems. Fortunately, that was something we could do and do well.

It was what I did.

Getting the layout and good surface information on the area around the local Fed station wasn't difficult. Getting a plan together before they decided to move her to the District office would be the hard part. I'd fought beside Sabrina and Belize before, but I'd only done field operations with Td. That was in the distant past though, when he went by a different name and we were both very different people. Still, he knew what we had to do and would be able to help the planning.

I'd do the intrusion alone. Minimal footprint and it was something I was very, very, good at. There were a number of potential entry points that weren't well defended and getting in would be considerably easier than, say, sneaking aboard the Sun Tzu with a staple gun. Also playing into our favor was that the installation was lightly manned. It wasn't like rural Persephone was a major hotbed for Crimes against the Alliance.

While she'd never filled the position before, I asked Sabrina to be Archangel for me. While Td had the experience for it, there was no one's voice I'd rather hear in my headset feeding me tactical information during the Sneak.

That left Belize and Td on the Overwatch and Extraction points. I trusted them both and if we needed a diversion I knew I could count on them to be creative and low risk. The name of the game was minimal impact, zero casualties. We had a number of options there too, since the Fed installation fronted onto an urban street in town and backed onto an alley. The street scene let them get into position to provide overwatch and, even better, gave multiple opportunities to provide a diversion if something came up that wouldn't involve anyone dieing.

The other advantage to having Sabrina along was she was even more creative than I was when it came to rigging kit. There wasn't a lot of surveillance, but it would be nice to be able to take out their comms and security feeds at a critical moment.

With all the basics in place, I moved Wave Equation to a small commercial shuttleport at the edge of down. Once there, it was a simple matter to jack into the local communication net while Bel and Td acquired some transportation for us. Nothing fancy, of course, but it wasn't like we could walk or take the boat into town if we were about to extract someone from a Fed jail cell.

It took another two hours to get set up. I had Belize and Td do the initial recon of the site and place our kit (Buddha bless the inventor of small smokeless incendiary charges), while I gave Sabrina insight into the finer points of being my Angel. Didn't matter she hadn't done it before. This was a good Op for her first time in the control chair.

We had to wait for early evening to do the Op. Too early, we wouldn't have the advantage of natural darkness. To late, any sort of diversion became a good deal more suspicious. Plus, we wanted enough time for the marshal's on shift to be well settled in, but not late enough that the next shift would be coming on line soon.

I had Belize drop me off several blocks from the Fed's station in a small shopping plaza. It gave me a chance to test comms with Sabrina and get a feel for the general area as I worked my way closer to my chosen entry point on the Fed building, while finding a good place to ditch the street clothes I'd put on over my undersuit. I wasn't going with full Thermoptic camoflage here. Not for a small police station. That was just overkill. But my undersuit was matte black with thermal dampers, so in the natural darkness I'd be almost invisible anyway.

It took a few minutes to ditch the street clothes and get into position where I had quick access to the ingress points. I placed the last few pieces of kit on the way in, then contacted Sabrina.

"Archangel. I'm in position. Everything else a go?"

"Have the feeds and everyone's ready. What do you need from me?'

I could detect just a hint of nervousness in Sarbina's voice. In my gut, I figured it was more because she was my lifeline going into harm's way than any doubt about doing a good job.

"Let me know when you're showing a clear shot to the second story storage room. I'll tap their internals from there."

"Ok. You look clear now. Any time you're ready."

I acknowledged with a single tap and set the comm system to burst mode. The sound would get a little choppy, but our RF signature would get washed out by the normal background noise in town. They'd never see us coming.

Getting up to the second story was a matter of sticking to shadow, timing their security camera sweep, and moving quickly down from my perch and up the opposite wall with the climbers. Security on the window consisted of a simply bypassed closure sensor and a set of bars, also easily bypassed with a hot-wire cutter.

"Archangel, I'm in" I told Sabrina as I quickly found the comms jack for the room and socketed in the tap I'd brought for the purpose. A moment later, Sabrina acknowledged the feed and I asked her for Immi's position.

"Got her, Black Cat. Cell 2187, Block A."

I acknowledged and started working my way through the building. Inside their own installation, the Feds weren't especially careful. Not that they were ever especially careful. This was just a local Federal Police installation, not a maximum security block. Still it helped to have Sabrina in their internal feeds, letting me know when their cameras were pointing some other direction and keeping an eye out for wandering Federals.

It took about ten minutes to work my way down to the detention level, clearing our egress route on the way. There was only one guard on duty for the whole block and, apparently, he was more than a little bored paying attention to the single prisoner they had in that section.

Tapping into their internal communications gave us another advantage. We also had control over their internal lighting and HVAC controls.

"Archangel. Block A lights, please."

A moment later, the lights in the entire section went dim, then flickered to Emergency Standby mode. The guard, being fairly typical, called upstairs to see if there was a power problem then, when told no, got up to check on it himself. I'd have two minutes, maybe three, before he got to the block A panel, realized there was nothing actually wrong, and turned the lights back on. It meant I had to move very quickly.

The darkness didn't matter any to my optics. I could see as well in pitch blackness as I could during the day. Making a silent dash through the darkness for Immi's cell, I called for a low impact diversion to distract the Feds upstairs. Td and Belize had a fair number of options and I didn't care which one they decided on, though I hoped it was one that didn't involve anyone getting hurt. Especially either of them.

Imrhien was asleep in the cell. We'd disabled the alarms on the cells, but even the quiet sound of the hot wire slicing through the door lock was enough to wake her up. I was barely a shadow in the darkness. A small, nearly silent, rapidly moving shadow.

"Shhhh. Follow." I said softly, barely above a whisper. "Sea?" she asked, a hint of disbelief in her voice. "Who else? We've got to move though." I said, leading her out the cell door. "Archangel? I have the package. Heading to extraction."

"Gotcha. I'll pull the others. Want me to blow the kit?"

"Hold on the kit. Blow it when they realize we're gone." I replied, quickly leading Imrhien back out through the egress route I'd chosen and cleared. I knew she had questions. Probably starting with what the hell we were doing on Persephone in the first place, followed closely by what the hell I was doing breaking into a secure facility to break her out. But she also knew enough to hold her questions until we were some place a little safer.

Td and Belize must have pulled off their diversion, since the Egress remained clear with only one pause to let the guard who'd checked on the lights get past. We were just a moment from the door I'd chosen to leave through when I heard the alarm go off. Apparently, the guard wasn't as bored as I thought and actually went to check on the cell after getting the lights back on.

Sabrina didn't need to be told to kill the Fed's comm system, bless her heart, and the small charge I had with me was enough to deal with the locked back door. Immi fell naturally into watching our back as I lead us quickly into the back alley.

"Archangel, we're clear. Heading to extraction."

We moved rapidly through the early evening darkness, leading Immi to the place I'd stashed my street clothes and something quickly donned and concealing for her. A few minutes later, we were moving back into an evening crowd in the small shopping plaza, blending in as the few on duty Feds started to spill out of their building to search the nearby area.

By then, Sabrina had started to trigger the destruct charges on the Kit we couldn't easily recover. Working through the thin crowd with Imrhien was easy. She knew how to blend and it was only a matter of minutes before Td and Bel were there with our ride.

Twenty minutes later, it was over. We were back aboard Wave Equation clawing sky. All that remained was keeping an ear to the Cortex to see if anyone associated my boat with the prisoner escape from the Fed facility. That, and finding out what Immi had been doing to get herself caught.

All in all, a clean mission.

Just how I liked them.

The one wherein everyone takes an unplanned field excursion

I really hadn't expected to pick up with no warning and go full boost for Persephone, but when the wave come in from Peter MacLaren, saying he had Alexandra MacLaren, aka our Imrhien, and was going to sell her to the highest bidder between me, Duncan, Td, some guy by the name of Christopher Barnett, and Nack, there really wasn't much else for me to do.

So here we are. Full boost for Perseophone. Me, Td, Belize, Sabrina, and Lily. Focusing on getting Immi back, partially to keep Belize and Lily form arguing, but mostly because that's what we need to be focused on. Wave Equation's a fast boat, and we'll be there soon. Hopefully soon enough so as no one's temper gets bent.

The way I see it, when we arrive there's three options.

First: Imrhien's old man just takes the money and hands her over. Clean and simple. Just a business transaction and I'd explain to Grandfather later why I raided my funds. He gets the understanding that it's over and that'll be that.

First and a half.: He takes the money and tries to double cross us. That'd get messy right quick. How it came out would depend on what happened to Immi.

Second: Barnett buys her, the guy who I gather was originally going to be buying her, and we pay him to get her back. About as easy as the first option, but possibly more expensive. Of course, we could probably convince him it was in his best interest to cooperate.

Third: The Feds get there first. That didn't have a clean and simple extraction. That broke down into Three A, where I, and maybe one other, sneaks in and extracts her without anyone getting hurt. Three B, where I show them my active ID and demand the hand the prisoner over to me as part of a Black Ops initiative that they aren't cleared to know about. Not something I wanted to do. Three C, where it gets less sneaky and might involve people getting hurt.

Th Option Three scenarios all got a lot more complicated if the Feds moved her from a local station to a regional one before we got there.

All we've got now though is the wave from Immi's father, and the return wave asking for terms.

Just had to hope we got there first.

Unexpected outcomes to well planned sequences

Lily's home.

I can't pretend I understand everything that happened over the last couple days and I was there for most of it. But Lily's home. Alive. Alive! Not just intact, but honest and true alive. Living. Breathing. About as organic as I am. Though I need to spend some time with her to find out just how much of her is still left in there.

Not sure I can really sum up everything that happened. At least not and do it justice. Kind of comes down to Blue's plans not working out how he intended. Krenshar doing what was right and, in the process, restoring much of my faith in my mechanical friend. Ben finally doing something helpful. And me and Belize performing surgery to remove some kind of brain extraction frame from Lily's now fully organic skull with more than a bit of help from Duncan.

There is going to be fallout, I know. Blue wasn't gone. He'd managed to get part of Lily's upload and at least some of Ben's genetic pattern. Wasn't sure where he'd turn up again, or in what guise, but I was sure as I knew there'd be more gunfire on Hale's that Blue'd be back.

Not sure what was going to happen with Krenshar and his brethren. I had to hope his personal agenda didn't include killing every organic on Hale's any more. But whatever it was, his not interfacing with Blue certainly changed something. He'd prevented Lily from going through with it at the last moment and, for that, he'd always have my gratitude.

And what about Ben? Lily says that them running off together was as much her idea as his. At least some of the stunts they pulled. It's plain Lily'd be upset if we ran the boy off. Even more upset if we ran him through. But what were we going to do about him? Anyone who starts off venting about how people don't trust his motives, then proceeds to live down to our least expectations isn't someone I want to be sharing air with, let alone have dating my little sister.

Sad thing was I couldn't even give him a boot to the head without upsetting Lily, which was something I wanted to avoid. She'd gone through some serious trauma and was having to deal with growing up awful fast.

Ah well. We had her back. That's what mattered. There'd be consequences to deal with. There always were. But the little girl we'd wrapped a family around had come home and that was fine by me.

Lily and the Blues

I don't like to lose.

I'm also not especially fond of arrogant people, even when they're not really "people" or even organic, either. Like it even less when they're ostensibly the reason I'm going to be losing someone I care about.

Now, how Lily managed to get a projection tank to Gallagher to set up in my office I don't think I want to know. But she did. And it let her talk to me from the 'borrowed' Firefly she and Ben were taking to the wastes.

Lily had a lot to explain, though I was reasonably aware of much of it already. Why, exactly, she was running with that low grade moron, Ben. What she was trying to accomplish with Blue Man, and what Krenshar was really looking to accomplish. I just wished I'd been wrong about more of it. I wished I didn't need to set some things into motion that would . . . clean up the mess, if everything went wrong in the very near future.

"We're going to lose you, aren't we, Lily?"

"Yes, Miss."

I just hoped one of the alternatives would come to pass that didn't involve losing Lily, Krenshar, or the whole gorram colony. My confidence just wasn't real high.

Then Blue Man decided to get in on the conversation.

Blue reminded me a lot of his creator. Arrogant. Brilliant. Batshit insane. Just like Mindo.

I'd already reached a state of mind where Blue couldn't throw me. I'd resigned myself to doing what had to be done if it became necessary. Blue didn't understand I wasn't just the Mayor of a small mining colony. I'd spent years as a professional soldier, and years more training in not just the physical aspects of the Martial Arts, but in the discipline and emotional control as well. I could make difficult, painful, decisions. They wouldn't be without pain. They wouldn't be without consequence. But I could make them.

Perhaps it was good I was finally talking to Blue. I'd always respected intelligence, regardless of its form. I could respect Blue for the mind it was. He was fascinating on multiple levels, but I could also destroy him if I had to. Not out of hate. Not out of fear. But out of an organic instinct to survive.

Blue had his own agenda, set in motion by Mindo's agenda. I just had to hope that some of what he said was just a sentient being trying to play my emotions. That the Ghost I saw in Lily wasn't just an extension of Blue's neural network. That was something I didn't really want to contemplate. The claim that Blue was laced through all of Hale's infrastructure gave me pause, because that was something I'd actively been working on. I'd practically gutted the communications and power stacks in the Town Hall building when we took it back from Blue Sun, but Blue had managed to get into the little commercial laptop I kept on my desk.

I'd actually miss it.

Fortunately, that was something I could deal with. With Sabrina's help we could scrub any remaining vestiges of Blue from the main colony. Or at least from my office. Wave Equation was safe. If she'd been a conventional boat I might have worried, but she wasn't, and Elsoph was every bit as good in his realm of expertise as Mindo was in his. Plus it was my area of expertise as well. My might have to bring in a bulldozer, but we'd be clean.

But that was just a distraction. Lily'd given me a possible solution to Kren's agenda, but that wouldn't stop her from going to Blue in the wastes tomorrow. I couldn't stop that. All I could do was hope she came out of it in one piece. Intact. Whole. Still Lily.

We might well lose her tomorrow and circumstance has had me dealing with most of it alone.

I do good work alone. I just don't like to lose.

The delicate sound of gunfire

I knew the quiet couldn't last. Just couldn't. Not that quiet here was actually all that quiet. For me it usually just meant no one was shooting at me and that, especially around here, was just an unnatural state of affairs.

With 'Brina off doing some work on Blackburne, Td off working on Full Burn, Immi taking care of some business coreward on Persephone, Belize getting her MedEvac boat sorted out, and Genni taking care of most of the Mayoral business, I had a bit of time on my hands.

Probably good that none of the family was around when I suited up, strapped on the Fifties, and headed out into the desert to recon the drones. Folk had been reporting encounters with the gorram things for days, but no one was exactly sure where they were launching from. While I wasn't going with the full Thermoptic rig, conventional sneak in damped armor should let me get in where I needed to without setting off every one of the drones within a kilometer radius.

I didn't really like the desert. Dust. Dirt. Dry. And a few other words that started with D pretty much summed up my feelings on it. Kind of funny then that I was the Mayor of a mining colony on a desert world, but that was beside the point. I was hunting for drones and it didn't take me a godawful lot of time to track down their launch sites.

Found three, with a possible fourth. Two of them were coming up through secondary air shafts that were barely big enough for a man, but those flying combat drones folded up pretty small. Third one was down one of the tertiary access shafts they used to lower down one of the mining sledges about ten years ago. All of them, more or less forgotten but subsequently found by Mother Bot and her younguns.

Hope 'Brina doesn't ask too much about where I got the three new wrecks.

I was still wearing the armor a few hours later when Navtrak caught the distinct profile of a Reaver boat incoming to the colony. It'd been weeks since we'd seen Reavers out this way, but that didn't make them welcome.

They came in two waves in a couple of boats, but the townsfolk and some of our regular visitors were ready for them. Got to the point I got out there myself and tangled with a couple using the Fifties before I could get a charge onto their lander's stabilizer, then make my way up onto the tower with my long gun.

The fight went longer than usual. The Reavers didn't attack all at once. Just ones or twos at a time, getting cagey and ducking in and out of buildings looking for people to hurt. Made it a bear to get a bead on any of them with the long gun, but it didn't take much of a bead. Shot to the head with a .308's more than enough to drop one at 300 meters.

Odd thing was being in position to see one of the Replicants wade into the fray with an axe. Only it wasn't going for the Reavers, it was going for the colonists. Got a few rounds into it before Alison dropped it up close.

Wasn't the sort of thing I expected from one of the Replicants, and Krenshar didn't have an answer for it when things calmed down later. What was even odder was the other one, another stripped down chassis like the first, that came in and gave us a gorram critique of the fight after the fact.

Nearest I could get out of Kren was that he had no explanation. Unfortunately, with the rumors and the hunches, I had a gut feeling this wasn't going to be the first replicant we saw go batso and start hurting folk.

One of those times I really, really, hoped I was wrong.

Just wish Sabrina was home.

Uneasy quiet

While I can't complain any about it being quiet, I've learned out here on the Rim that things just don't stay quiet for too long before something happens to spoil the calm. I'll enjoy it while it lasts, of course, but I'm going to keep a fresh mag in my fifty just in case.

Truth be told, it's not all quiet. Been getting bits and pieces about Lily drifting out our way. Seems Ben's been getting her into even more trouble since they cleared off of Ariel. details are pretty scarce, but there's paper out on them for armed robbery in Paradisio. What they were doing in that hell hole on that particular planet, I'm not going to try and fathom. But at least they're out of the core again.

I promised Lily I wouldn't hurt Ben. That doesn't mean some of the other folk who want to take a cricket bat to him won't. Can't make promises for other folk and I'd be lieing if I said I was inclined to stop them if they did.

All the recent news in this little calm's not bad though. Sabrina's gotten most of the work done to try and upload a virus into the warbots. Not sure it'll work, even if we can find a vector, but she's confident and it gives me hope. I've got a couple crowbars ready just in case, though I've been keeping that hidden lest someone slip and talk about them where it can get back to the potential targets.

Duncan got his hands on a surplus MedEvac boat, fixed it up a bit, and handed it over the Belize. Couldn't have been a more appropriate gift at a better time. With everything that's coming, a dedicated MedEvac boat'll save a lot of lives and I can't think of anyone better suited to running it.

And then there's the rumor that Td proposed to Immi. They've both been out in the Black for a spell, looking for bits for Full Burn before we take her to the yard for the upgrade. Can't say I didn't see it coming. Can't say any of us were surprised. Can't say I'm not just thrilled for them. Makes the family even more complete the way I see it. Just have to wait until they're back in the world to find out if the rumor is true.

All in all, not a bad little quiet spell.

Just not looking forward to the inevitable noises that're coming.