A funny thing happened on the way to Londinium

I would say that things were never supposed to get this complicated, but then I would be lieing. I'm in Intel. Things are supposed to be this complicated. It was the nature of our business. I could have retired and driven a desk at KHI headquarters on Ariel, which would have been a different kind of stress but a good deal less complicated. A decision I was comfortable, if sometimes frustrated, with.

It would have been nice to spend some actual time relaxing on Persephone, or Ariel. As it was, the time I got to spend with Friends, Family, and Mate, was all too brief. The situation developing on Hale's Moon meant I barely had time to meet with my contacts and the General before I'd be burning my way back out to Kalidasa.

If nothing else though, I did get to enjoy relating my encounters on Persephone to Sabrina over the course of dinner. She was more upset that she hadn't been there to participate in the ass whuping than she was that I'd put myself in harm's way. Again. But that was the nature of our relationship. Neither of us was especially interested in playing things safe.

My meetings with contacts on Persephone went surprisingly smoothly, as did my face to face meeting with General Taggart. Bright spots in a trip overwhelmed by a series of unfortunate events on Hale's.

As a spook, I'd never been primarily a 'Liveware' specialist. I was more likely to beat information out of a contact than talk it out of them, which was why I'd been a tactical and technical asset rather than a Soft. Taggart'd called me in to his office to give me a better idea of what he expected of my role, kind of defining the line between my doing things myself and calling in dedicated field assets to do the head busting for me. Somehow, I suppose, he figured that a face to face would be better than a secure bridge.

Maybe it was. But the timing could have been better. Not that I could blame him for what happened. It's not like he knew my daughter was going to set a building on fire, or a rock was going to hit the colony. The Martial Law thing he was aware of, but it wasn't in his purview, or mine, to interfere.

The Orbital was a different matter. Since the agreement had been between the Town Elders and KHI, things could change under the Martial Law situation. As an independent commercial facility, the Alliance would leave it pretty much alone. They'd dock as usual, do their usual inspections, and refuel and resupply as normal. They just wouldn't be able to enforce martial law because, technically, the installation wasn't actually owned by the colony. There was just a financial agreement.

That would work to my favor. I'd already set up the communications I needed to move my office up there. If things got too sticky on the surface, I could simply move. It would make my work easier in any case.

But that was all something to deal with during my flight back home.

At full burn.