Breakfast of champions

The folks of Hale's Moon are a hardy lot. They've put up with an environment that wasn't especially hospitable, and still isn't, even with the extra moisture in the air. They've worked in hard rock mines, often with mechanicals who sometimes got it into their collective heads to try and kill everyone. They've been attacked by Raiders and Reavers. They've been attacked by the Alliance, who was supposed to be there to protect them from the aforementioned Raiders and Reavers. They've fought self replicating killer robots. And through it all they've managed to act civilized and be caring, friendly, folk.

There were some things though that could rattle even these hardy folk. Like serial killers. Now, finding dead bodies after a firefight wasn't especially surprising to anyone who'd lived on Hale's Moon for more than a few months. It was the nature of life on any of the Rim's smaller colonies. But there was usually a reason for finding a body. Something you could tie the incident to. A Reaver attack or a Raid happened, and you knew you'd find some poor soul who'd caught a bullet or a blade and not made it to the Infirmary in time.

It happened. You moved on.

But this was different. The trail of bodies Gallagher and Cody were trying to deal with kept getting longer and longer. There'd been a lot of supposition about the first few. Maybe Reavers, though more likely body dumps by some outsider. Thing was, none of the victims were locals. They might have been passengers or crew from transient boats, but even that seemed unlikely as no one had been reported missing.

That all changed with the last incident though. If it was in fact an incident. While I was making the run to Ariel, they found the first evidence of a local victim. Sort of. Unlike all the previous cases, this time there was no body. Just a blood spattered apartment that looked like someone'd had an unfortunate encounter with a ripsaw. The girl who lived there was a newcomer and no one seemed to know here whereabouts.

Had the hopped a boat? Was she a victim herself? Was she the one doing it and had gone to ground? No one knew, and the Sheriff's department wasn't coming up with any answers.

It was the kind of thing that got folk spooked.

Reavers and the rest, they knew how to deal with. But this was pushing a whole different set of buttons and the townsfolk were looking for answers. Problem was, I didn't have any. Worse, if this kept up too long, folk might lose faith in Gallagher and Cody and start taking matters into their own hands. Not like a small town like ours had a lot of secrets at that level. At least not that I wasn't keeping myself.

I could give them some more time, but who knew how much. The bodies didn't stop turning up I'd be forced to bring in help from outside to keep folk happy, and that wasn't something I wanted to do.

Teach me to go away for a couple days. . .