Did you hear the one about the two Reavers, the bottle of gun oil, and the threshing machine?

I decided to not actually accept Gallagher's resignation. I still have it. Tucked in a desk drawer along with a number of other documents I keep around for moments, I know are coming, where I'll ask myself "what were you thinking" and really need to have the answer documented. But that's where it will stay for the foreseeable future.

He's not actually bad as Sheriff. Probably safer for the townsfolk to have him playing lawman than playing doctor, not that he was bad at it. Just had a bedside manner that scared children and a tendency to psychotic breaks - now, fortunately, in the past. It's just that Hale's Moon seems to have a curse on Law Enforcement, and Gallagher's pretty strongly opinionated when it comes to dealing with the Alliance. Not really a good combination from my point of view.

Real reason, though, and not one I'll probably ever let him know, is that Lily wants him here. I don't understand the emotional power that man holds over her, and I probably never will, but it's something powerful. In a case like this, where I could swing either way depending on my mood, I'm willing to give in to my little Mei Mei's request and keep Gallagher on.

Never mind she had me in the courtyard explaining the meaning of that little stone alter I've kept in place, and all the emotions that brought back with it. Fact was I loved Lily strong as I loved anyone. Not in the deep, passionate, way I loved Sabrina. That went the kind of deep you saw in eyes of folk who were In love as well as loving each other. It wasn't the desperate need I'd once felt for Imrhien, lust and hunger and need and knowing it was never going to be. Wasn't the sisterly, familial, love I had for Belize either The 'friends helped you move, while real friends helped you move bodies' sort of way. Lily was something different. I spoke eight languages fluently, and none of them had a word for it.

When I was a little girl, I remember sitting in Mothers lap so she could brush my hair. She had a look in her eyes I finally understand. Same look I get when I brush Lily's hair. It's that kind of love.

Lily wanted Gallagher to stay. In her own way, she loved him probably as strong as I loved her. And going by my own rules, there was no way I wanted to be in the position to be making her cry.

So Gallagher stays.

But keeping our Sheriff hasn't kept the Reavers away. It's like one of those comedic series of events. Saturday have a party. Sunday have Indies and Loyalists clashing in your skies. Monday have a whole slew of Reavers over for dinner.

I try and make light of it, but we lost some colonists this time. Can't make light of that in any context. This was more concentrated and violent than usual, even in light of recent attacks. And one of them was toting some kind of makeshift flamethrower. Not the sort of weapon you want to see in the hands of a Reaver.

Oddly, they do seem to be avoiding me even when I'm out in the open. That Aurora's doing? Or have survivors of previous attacks gotten word back that the little girl with the long knife isn't afraid, and will probably hand you your ass before you're done screaming.

The Reaver attack though, just led on to other revelations. Lily got talking about the mines, and the shiny metal and pretty rocks she'd found down there. Now, I knew there was a fair bit of rare earths, gemstones, precious metals, and what have you in Hale's crust. Weyland Yutani had set up here for a reason after all. It just hadn't been commercially viable. But Lily, it seemed, had found considerably more than we'd been aware of.

Thing was, it was deep. Really deep. "Mother bot and her replicated children" deep. Except Lily had never encountered the warbots down there. But she had encountered Aurora, playing with some sort of large block of ice. Ice? Crystal maybe? I didn't pry. Especially not where Aurora was concerned. But the last time I'd seen Tiny Dragon, she was talking about releasing Blue, and Blue would need a processing core capable of supporting his needs. Was that what she was putting together down there? A compact optical computer? I was probably completely off base with that train of thought. While I wouldn't put it past Aurora to do something like that, it struck me as more likely she'd set Blue loose in a large multi-node cluster. Say, maybe, annexing the engineering computer cores at University on Beaumonde.

Fact was, things were ramping up. Again. What was it Aurora had said about my time coming? There was a lot going on, to be sure. The Reavers had been getting worse. The warbots had been quiet for too long. And now the Indie versus Loyalist conflict had come here as well. Storm clouds gathering on our horizon.

And us without our collective umbrella.